Minnesota training program continues to win praise,
spread success
Union activists advocate for quality professional development

Four years ago, Education Minnesota made a small bit of history when it received the first state grant for professional development ever given to a teachers union. That was the beginning of the merged AFT-NEA state federation’s Teachers as Learners and Leaders, or TALL, project. This past summer, as a sign of the program’s success, it received another unique honor for a union—an award from the Minnesota Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development as the best professional development program for educators in the state.

“That’s really quite amazing,” Marcia Averbook, Education Minnesota’s professional issues director, says of the award.

The idea behind TALL, Averbook explains, is to train teachers and local leaders about what good professional development looks like, along with the skills in leadership and change they will need to make it happen in their districts. The training is not specific to any content area. By law, each school district in Minnesota has to set aside 2 percent of its budget for staff development and also have a staff development committee on which teachers are the majority. That structure provides a prime opportunity for the union activists to begin implementing what they have learned and focusing on the specific needs of their districts and school sites.

The content of the Education Minnesota training for what it calls “professional development activists,” now in well over half of the state’s school districts, comes from the AFT’s Educational Research and Dissemination (ER&D) program as well as other materials on effective professional development. The original state grant that started TALL has since ended, so the program is now funded by a combination of sources, including both national teachers unions and the state federation.

Aside from the boost it has given to professional development around the state, especially in smaller districts, TALL has produced unforeseen benefits. In some districts, new labor-management partnerships centered on professional development have improved cooperation and generally been more productive, Averbook notes.

On the individual level, she adds, participation in TALL has spurred new union activism among many members. “They liked professional development and that was their niche, but many of them really weren’t interested in politics,” Averbook says. “They’ve come to realize the impact of the legislative process and policy on their teaching. They see that things that affect them and their jobs get enacted through elected leaders.”

Florida defends class-size law
Senate rejects efforts to weaken constitutional amendment

Affiliates across Florida recorded a key legislative victory this year when lawmakers rejected efforts to weaken a state constitutional amendment on class size.

Floridians passed a landmark state constitutional amendment in 2002 that gradually reduces the average number of students in each classroom each year until class-size caps approved by Floridians are reached in 2010-11.

Citing cost concerns, Gov. Jeb Bush had proposed halting the gradual implementation at the district-level averages, without offering any assurances that classes would have a firm maximum number of students. The governor sought to get the change placed on the ballot in 2006, a move that would require a three-fifths vote of the state Senate. In the end, however, the governor failed to win even a simple majority of senators.

Gov. Bush’s proposal “didn’t remain true to the spirit of the voters’ intent when they passed the class-size amendment in 2002,” says Andy Ford, an AFT vice president and president of the Florida Education Association, a joint affiliate of the AFT and the NEA.

The Legislature adjourned earlier this year without placing the governor’s proposal to alter the state Constitution’s provisions on class size on the 2006 ballot. Bush had attempted to sweeten the deal by setting a minimum teacher salary of $35,000 and offering all other teachers a $2,000 raise, Ford observes. Lowering the number of students in each classroom and making sure educators are adequately compensated are both essential components of a high-quality education. “But they shouldn’t be tied together as an either/or proposition” in a state where more than $10 billion in tax breaks were handed out last year, Ford points out. “By marrying these two elements, [the governor] ended up muddying the waters on two issues that are of vital importance.”

The Legislature also rejected Gov. Bush’s efforts to offer private school vouchers for students who failed state reading tests for three straight years. That could have meant adding more than 170,000 students to one of the state’s three voucher programs.

Twenty-five years of Solidarity
American labor movement supported Polish trade union

Twenty-five years ago, a group of shipyard workers launched a strike that united Poland and eventually toppled the Communist government. Solidarnosc (Solidarity), the independent trade union that was born during the strike, grew into a national movement.

Led by Lech Walesa, an electrician who had been fired for his labor activism at the shipyard, Solidarity advanced a series of demands that included such fundamental workplace issues as the right to join independent unions and to seek an increase in the minimum wage. But the union also tackled broader issues such as putting an end to government censorship and pressing for union representation on the self-governing committees of state-owned enterprises.

After seven years of protests and strikes by Solidarity, the Polish government agreed to elections. Solidarity won in a landslide, inspiring people across Eastern Europe to bring down their own Communist regimes.

During the years of government repression following the imposition of martial law in December 1981, the Solidarity movement survived—thanks in part to the support of the American labor movement. The AFL-CIO, then headed by Lane Kirkland, was one of the few institutions in the world that believed Solidarity could prevail.

“Both the American labor movement and the AFT played a special role in supporting the Polish workers’ struggle for freedom,” AFT secretary-treasurer Nat LaCour says. “That struggle taught us important lessons about the relationship between freedom of association, democracy and international labor solidarity.”

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the strike at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk, Poland, which led to the birth of Solidarity.

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