Standing together
AFT affiliates are forming coalitions with other concerned groups to speak in one voice on issues ranging from taxes and vouchers to state budget cuts and reading programs

A solid front against vouchers

For voucher proponents, Louisiana offers an almost irresistible target. The combination of a pro-voucher governor, a state with the nation's highest private school enrollment, the influence of the Catholic Church, and a group of state legislators willing to support some sort of voucher legislation means that opponents will face a tremendous battle this year in Baton Rouge.

Voucher bills are nothing new in the Louisiana Legislature, which has considered such proposals and rejected them virtually every year for well over a decade. But both sides agree that last year's Supreme Court decision upholding Cleveland's voucher program has given supporters new momentum. That has led to even greater efforts than in the past, both at the state level and locally in New Orleans--which will be the focus of most voucher proposals--to build strong anti-voucher coalitions.

At the statewide level, the United School Committee includes the Louisiana Federation of Teachers (LFT) and the NEA-affiliated Louisiana Association of Educators, as well as the state board of education and the Louisiana school boards and school superintendents associations. "There may be other issues we don't agree on," says Freddie Whitford, executive director of the state school boards association, "but we agree on this, and we're going to make a concerted effort to defeat vouchers."

The LFT took the lead in bringing the groups together last winter when the federation invited leaders of the various statewide groups to attend a conference on vouchers. Since then, the organizations have been sharing their own information as well as resources from their respective national groups. During the legislative session, coalition members will focus on getting out a unified message about the dangers of vouchers as they lobby elected officials and testify on proposed legislation. The bottom line, as articulated by LFT president Fred Skelton, is a simple one: "It's wrong to take public money and give it to private schools."

While many different voucher proposals are expected to emerge during the legislative session (which runs until late June), the main focus will probably end up on schools in Orleans Parish. Gov. Mike Foster, for example, is pushing a plan that would offer vouchers to low-income parents with children in low-performing schools (the vast majority of which are in New Orleans). Where Foster and some pro-voucher legislators differ with the Catholic Church is on the issue of testing. The governor wants private schools that accept vouchers to give students the state's standardized assessment, while church leaders want the money but not the accountability.

Catholic schools have more than a little at stake in the debate. Close to one-fourth of New Orleans students attend Catholic schools, but those schools have seen declining enrollments in recent years to the point where they have about 8,000 empty seats. At the local level, the AFT-affiliated United Teachers of New Orleans (UTNO) is working with ACORN (a community group), parent groups, other unions and religious leaders like the Rev. Kenneth Thibodeaux of the Asia Baptist Church to educate citizens about vouchers and lobby New Orleans-area legislators. A public school parent himself, Thibodeaux says any proposal that would take money out of the public schools "would be devastating."

UTNO is using its building representatives to make contact with PTA leaders and other parents who are part of various groups opposed to vouchers, says local president Brenda Mitchell.

Missouri coalition's strength is in its diversity

When lawmakers are faced with tough choices between raising revenue or cutting spending, they often try to take the most politically expedient route: cut costs. But in Missouri, where the Legislature is maneuvering around a multibillion shortfall, a movement is under way to cut revenue as well; and the tool to do both is tuition tax credit legislation.

Specifically, the pending legislation would allow individuals and corporations to make $100 to $50,000 contributions to elementary and secondary school scholarship charities and receive an income tax credit of up to 50 percent of the contributed amount.

People for Public Schools, a grassroots coalition of more than two dozen organizations spearheaded by the Missouri Federation of Teachers and School Related Personnel/AFT, is doing its part to ensure that state lawmakers engage in responsible policymaking instead of political expediency by educating, agitating and mobilizing taxpayers across the state against the measure, which they view as a voucher initiative with a different cover.

"Only by joining forces and working together can we turn back the threats and pursue a pro-public education agenda during these difficult budgetary times," says Richard Bates, president of the MFT-SRP.

The coalition's power is extracted from its broad representation of interests. The state's three teachers unions--the AFT, the Missouri National Education Association and the Missouri State Teachers Association--together represent inner-city, suburban and rural school teachers, and administrators. The religious organizations that have joined the coalition predominantly serve inner-city and suburban congregations. And then there are the civil and human rights coalition partners and the Missouri PTA. Together, the coalition connects every city and town within the state.

"You have to be diverse," says Bates. "You have to involve everybody. I think we have done that. When people look at our coalition, they won't be able to say it is one faction."

Although the coalition's primary target is the tuition tax credit legislation that has cleared the Missouri House of Representatives, the coalition also is keeping a watchful eye on a number of school voucher schemes, as well as a proposed change to remove language from the state constitution that expressly prohibits the distribution of state monies to religious organizations.

Sherry Davis, a Springfield mother of four who serves on the National PTA board of directors, says efforts to shortchange public schools during the state's fiscal crisis will carry a long-term price tag. "The more money you take out of public education, the less public education has to offer," Davis says. "Over 90 percent of our children go to public education institutions, and the number keeps rising. Less money [equals] less opportunity, lower achievement and lower college entrance."

Among the biggest challenges, according to coalition leaders, is the inexperienced Legislature where 100 of the 197 lawmakers are new this session. They say legislation instituting tuition tax credits and school voucher schemes have deeper roots than most of the novice Legislature. But they also note that member organizations of People for Public Schools have even deeper roots in their communities, where they have garnered support in the past to defeat school voucher initiatives.

"We really do believe that no child should be left behind," says the Rev. B.T. Rice, first vice president of the Missouri Inter-Faith Alliance, a coalition member. "Any time you have a system that takes away from the public schools, whether it be drawing resources or finances, you are putting a priority on some students over other students. This is not a good thing for the whole of the community."

Allison Johnston, a union building representative at Holliday Montessori in Kansas City, says, "It really does take a village to raise a child," and the coalition's diversity should send a strong message to lawmakers who "are putting politics before the kids."

"These kids have a right to a free and equal education," Johnston says. "They have a right to learn and to move on in society." Supporters of initiatives that undercut the public school system, she says, "are not looking down the road. They are not looking at the fact that this is affecting children--the people who are going to be taking care of us when we retire.

Positive outreach: A coalition key

It was the parents of New York City schoolchildren who took the lead two years ago in beating back a plan to place several public schools under private management. That type of civic involvement in defense of public schools stems in large part from the United Federation of Teachers and its longstanding efforts to build bridges to parents in the school system, observes David Sherman, vice president of the AFT preK-12 local.

Equally important, Sherman says, is that the UFT doesn't limit its outreach efforts to privatization fights and contract disputes. "If you only try to engage them when it's your issues, then it just doesn't work," he explains.

Indeed, the bulk of UFT's parental outreach in recent years has accentuated the positive: from helping parents help their children through the local's acclaimed Dial-A-Teacher program, which receives almost 80,000 homework calls a year, to technology training offered to parents at school-based teacher centers. The union also has gone to bat politically for parents: fighting successfully to win stipends for parents who take the time and energy to serve on school leadership teams.

One of the most remarkable successes in recent years has been UFT's citywide parents conference. Last year, the conference drew almost 3,000 parents to a series of in-depth workshops on topics that range from helping children learn reading to understanding new state academic standards. "Our workshops are really concrete because that's what parents wanted," says Amina Rachman, assistant to the UFT president.

"There was really a clamoring from parents to give them something at the beginning of the school year that could make a difference for their children," Rachman says. "Here it is, early spring, and I'm already getting calls from parents asking when the next conference will take place."

Early fall is a major focus of UFT parental outreach. Over the years, the union has produced and distributed millions of copies of "Welcome to Open School Week," a guide to schools that is available in several languages. It encourages parents to visit schools and meet with teachers and staff. And UFT also offers several topic-specific publications, such as "What Parents Need To Know about NCLB/Title I," and a quarterly newsletter for parents called "The Home Team."

It has become part of the UFT culture, says Rachman. "We've said very clearly to all of our people that you can't just turn to parents when there is a problem. You've got to be there with them all the time."

Rallying around reading

Early reading has provided a community-building bridge for the Cleveland Teachers Union, which last year launched its popular Literacy for the Future Generation project in schools and neighborhoods across the city. At the heart of the project is an effort to convey the joy and excitement of reading to preK-2 students by helping them start personal home libraries and to encourage parents to read to their children for at least 20 minutes a day.

Over the past two years, the CTU has earmarked $100,000 of its own budget for the outreach project. The funds have helped place literacy project posters in local businesses, supported on-site coordinators, helped build classroom libraries for teachers, and purchased and distributed more than 8,000 books for students.

"One of our purposes is just to get kids into books--to become familiar with them and to enjoy them," explains Jan Brundage, who oversees the project for the local. It's hard to overestimate the joy of book ownership and its impact on early readers, she explains.  And CTU members believe "this is money well spent because any child we can get started reading is a step in the right direction."

The program recently has been expanded to include three child care centers housed in the Cleveland public school system. And the original group of 22 Cleveland schools participating in the project has grown in 2002-03 to 35 schools.

Reading is an issue that resonates in Cleveland and builds strong ties among teachers, their union, parents and communities, says CTU staffer Michael Charney. Area businesses have been supportive of the effort, and the local has worked closely with Cleveland book vendors to locate discounted books and titles that will appeal to young readers. The project also dovetails nicely with other CTU initiatives, such as research-based professional development for members on early reading instruction. And the literacy project also helps city residents appreciate the commitment of CTU and its members to school excellence.

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