Hot off the press: 2004 NBPTS guide

AFT-NEA publication provides advice on board certification

The latest version of a joint AFT-NEA guide for teachers pursuing National Board certification is now available. A Candidate's Guide to National Board Certification 2004 includes practical advice on the certification process, from deciding if you should begin the process to assistance on retaking the assessment if necessary.

As an indication of how well established the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) has become, the booklet includes a section for the pioneering first group of teachers—certified in 1995—who will soon need to renew their 10-year certification. Today, more than 32,000 teachers are board-certified, including more than 8,000 who were certified last year.

Drawing on the expertise of board-certified teachers from both national unions, the publication is designed to complement NBPTS's own materials. It also includes an important opening section that summarizes what's new with the NBPTS process since publication of the last candidate's guide.

The 62-page guide can be downloaded free of charge from www.aft.org/pubs-reports/downloads/teachers/
nbpts04.pdf, or it can be ordered through the AFT order department (item #39-0182). Copies are $5 each or $3 each for five or more, which includes shipping and handling. Send prepaid order to AFT Order Department, 555 New Jersey Ave. N.W., Washington, DC 20001.

The AFT and the NBPTS also have produced a brochure on National Board certification that includes basic information, such as what the process is, how candidates apply, costs and much more. The brochure is available at www.aft.org/pubs-reports/downloads/teachers/journey.pdf.

Retired teachers still at work, focusing on parent involvement

Retired teachers Judy Byrne and Eve Gordon may not be in the classroom anymore, but they continue to promote education, and today their subjects are parents.

The former teachers, both members of the Newburgh (N.Y.) Teachers' Association, have spent the last decade working with their local union and state federation, the New York State United Teachers, on initiatives to educate parents about the vital role they play in their children's education.

"It's kind of a passion with us, and we don't want it to stop," says Byrne.

What the two don't want to stop is building on their local union's parent initiatives, which are based on the AFT's education research and dissemination (ER&D) program. Their local's efforts over the years have increased awareness within the school district and the community, which is what keeps the two women busy in their retirement.

Now principals are hiring Byrne and Gordon to conduct workshops for parents on topics ranging from early literacy to study skills. The school district also has met with the pair to discuss a districtwide parent involvement program.

"Every teacher works with parents, but you need more than that," says Byrne. There needs to be an organized effort to really work with parents outside the classroom. Parents need to understand the language of schools. They need to understand what standards mean. They need to understand simply how they can help at home, Byrne explains. "Parents care. We have to give them the tools to get out there and help their kids."

Adds Gordon: "Until everyone is doing the most they can, including parents, the picture isn't going to change that much. Parents who really know how to help their children—nine times out of 10, those are the children who are going to do well."

Florida court flunks voucher program

FEA hails ruling as triumph for public

Public education recorded a key legal victory this summer when a Florida appeals court shot down a state school voucher program as a violation of Florida's constitutional guarantee of church-state separation.

The 2-1 ruling, handed down in August by the 1st District Court of Appeals, affirms a lower court decision and scuttles a 5-year-old voucher program considered to be the centerpiece education policy of Gov. Jeb Bush. The voucher program allows students in public schools that receive failing grades from the state for two consecutive years to attend private schools, including religious schools, at taxpayers' expense. The governor's administration is expected to continue the voucher program while the latest decision is appealed to the Florida Supreme Court.

"This decision is a triumph for public schools and Florida's taxpayers," says Andy Ford, an AFT vice president and president of the Florida Education Association, a joint affiliate of the AFT and NEA. The FEA spearheaded a coalition of parents, education and civic groups that launched a challenge to the voucher law the day after it was enacted, and Ford believes this latest decision will send a strong message to both the governor and the Legislature. "This ruling should go a long way toward stopping the financial abuses by some of the schools that have been accepting vouchers.

"We know there will be attempts in the next legislative session to once again expand these unconstitutional vouchers, and we call for a moratorium on voucher expansion until the Florida Supreme Court makes its final ruling on vouchers," Ford says.

The appeals court ruling was widely watched in the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding the voucher program in Cleveland, Ohio.

In Florida, the district court found that the voucher program violates the state constitution's "no-aid" provision, which mandates that no revenue of the state shall ever be taken from the public treasury "directly or indirectly" in aid of any religious institution.

Preparing Americans for jobs in the global economy

Report calls for an investment in training programs, partnerships

If the United States wants to help Americans keep the jobs they have—and prepare for new ones—the country must invest an initial $3 billion in workforce skills and training programs. That's the chief conclusion of a recent report from the Task Force on Workforce Development, a project sponsored by the Albert Shanker Institute and the New Economy Information Service.

Learning Partnerships: Strengthening American Jobs in the Global Economy is the result of a yearlong, in-depth study by labor, business and policy leaders. In response to the challenge posed by rapid technological change and globalization, the task force proposes "bottom-up partnerships" that bring together government, educators, labor and employers for a national campaign similar to the historic undertakings that modernized American agriculture and built the nation's public education system.

"Labor must now consider its traditional role in training and credentialing workers as one of the major missions of the modern labor movement," says Morton Bahr, president of the Communications Workers of America/AFL-CIO and co-chair of the task force.

As a first step in this national effort, the group urges adding $3 billion to the Workforce Investment Act, an increase aimed at enabling incumbent workers to retrain for changing jobs and emerging industries. The report also calls on educators—especially those in community colleges—to become more closely involved with the learning needs of the workplace.

Learning Partnerships also proposes an initiative modeled after the successful "learning representatives" program now under way in Great Britain. Learning representatives focus exclusively on training and education.

Named in honor of the late AFT president, the Albert Shanker Institute is a nonprofit organization dedicated to generating ideas, fostering exchanges, and promoting constructive policy proposals in three areas—children's education, unions as advocates for quality, and freedom of association in the public life of democracies. The New Economy Information Service provides information and encourages dialogue on the impact that globalization and technological change have on democracy here and abroad.

Learning Partnerships is available online at www.ashankerinst.org/labor.html.

AFT opposes using teachers to perform medical tasks

Policy statement reaffirms role of school nurses in diabetes treatment

The AFT is calling for school nurses—not other school personnel—to have responsibility for administering care to diabetic children in the school setting. A resolution, approved in July by AFT convention delegates, states that training nonmedical school employees is an "inappropriate alternative to hiring the necessary number of school nurses to care for students with medical needs." Training employees who are not nurses to inject insulin and/or glucagon or to administer oral diabetes medicine is "clearly in violation of state nurse practice acts in several states."

The AFT resolution was prompted in part by state legislative initiatives that would require each school with one or more diabetic students to train three school employees to assume responsibility for assessing, diagnosing and treating these students. The training would require the employees, who are not nurses, to perform complex and, in some cases, potentially dangerous tasks, the AFT says.

The activities the "trained diabetes personnel" would be performing are legally defined as the practice of nursing in some states, says the union. In those states, such legislation would create a special exemption in the law. The recommended training, a four- to eight-hour workshop with refreshers once a year, is not sufficient to justify such an exemption, says the AFT.

Several states already have rejected this legislation—most notably, Rhode Island, which has defeated it twice. Others have passed laws with a modification, i.e., not allowing the injection of insulin. Other states have passed the legislation in its entirety.

The AFT position does not prohibit any school employee from helping a student with diabetes. Where the law permits nurses to delegate certain nursing tasks to nonmedical personnel, the AFT supports the training of volunteer teachers and support staff to perform the tasks—but only if the selection, training, mentoring and ongoing supervision of the volunteers is done by the school nurse and as long as it does not require the volunteers to make an assessment of a student's condition.

The AFT strongly supports training teachers and other school personnel to recognize the special needs of children with diabetes and respond appropriately. Many of the state legislative proposals, however, do not require ongoing supervision of the "trained diabetes personnel" by a registered nurse. And although the legislation protects school districts and employees from liability for civil damages, it does not exempt the district or employees from charges of negligence.