If you’re interested in finding out more about the National Board Certification process, the AFT has a resource for you. “A Candidate’s Guide to National Board Certification, 2006-2007” is intended to increase understanding of the board certification process and help AFT members and others navigate the process’s rigorous requirements.

A joint project of the AFT and the National Education Association, the guide is a complement to the materials provided by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) and is designed to provide practical advice, strategies and suggestions.

This year’s guide has been expanded to include information about “Take One!”—NBPTS’s standards-based professional development opportunity—as well as fees and payment options. Additionally, advanced candidates, renewal candidates and guidance counselors will find sections devoted to their unique situations.

Visit www.aft.org/pubs-reports/downloads/teachers/nbpts.pdf if you are interested in viewing the guide or ordering copies.

There are currently more than 40,000 National Board Certified teachers.

The initiative will be carried out by three labor-backed investment and financial service organizations—the AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust, the AFL-CIO Building Investment Trust and the AFL-CIO Investment Trust Corporation.

“Labor is in solidarity with the citizens of New Orleans,” AFL-CIO president John Sweeney said at a New Orleans press conference, where he was flanked by New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin and a broad contingent of local labor, civic, religious, financial and academic leaders. “We are here to do our part to rebuild and reunite this great city.”

Key components of the program include $250 million in financing for building or renovating 5,000 to 10,000 housing units, with special emphasis given to affordable housing, workforce housing and special needs housing; $100 million in commercial and economic development; $100 million in investment in healthcare facilities and hospital construction; and $250 million to promote home ownership. The housing and commercial development programs are expected to leverage an additional $300 million from other public and private sources.

With nearly 46 million Americans uninsured—3.8 million of them children—the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s “Covering Kids & Families” Back-to-School Campaign is an effort worth supporting. The campaign seeks to help get children enrolled in Medicaid or the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). In most states, families earning up to $40,000 a year are eligible to receive this healthcare coverage for free or at low cost. The programs cover doctor visits, hospitalizations, prescriptions and much more.

A recent report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation says that more employees are forgoing health insurance offered by their employers, which means the number of uninsured Americans will continue to increase, says Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, president of the foundation. “As costs go up, fewer individuals and families have insurance and fewer businesses can afford to provide coverage for their employees.”

Twenty-five states experienced a significant decrease in the percentage of private-sector employees who accepted their employers’ offer of health insurance, says the report.

As a national supporter of the foundation’s “Covering Kids & Families” initiative, the AFT joined nearly 200 other organizations this August to launch the back-to-school campaign, now in its seventh year. To get children signed up in the new school year or for more information, call 877/KIDS-NOW.

The report, “Participation in Sports and Civic Engagement,” offers a detailed look at the role sports plays in the civic development of 18- to 25-year-olds. The data show that young people who participated in sports activities during their high school years were more likely to have:

■ volunteered (32 percent vs. 21 percent),

■ registered to vote (58 percent vs. 40 percent),

■ voted (44 percent vs. 33 percent, in the 2000 elections), and

■ followed news closely (41 percent vs. 26 percent).

“We considered that people who choose to participate in sports may also tend to choose to participate in politics and civic affairs, and sports may not be the reason for their civic engagement,” says Mark Lopez, research director at CIRCLE and the study’s lead author. “However, the relationship between sports and civic engagement remains even when we statistically control for other factors like gender, race/ethnicity, income, other high school activities, region and educational attainment. That result suggests that sports have positive civic effects for many young people.”

The number of students involved in high school sports has steadily increased over the past 16 years, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations. In the 2004-05 school year, approximately
7 million high school students participated in athletic programs, up from
5.3 million in 1990. In 2002, about 42 percent of youth 18-25 had participated in organized sports during high school.