Higher ed priorities will reflect political realities
Court gives green light to Texas redistricting
Bilingual education 30 years later
More Florida faculty sign on to union
AFT to hold Super Conference in May
Mich. union blocks unaccountable charter schools

Higher ed priorities will reflect political realities

The next nine months will be a crucial time for labor unions, and indeed the entire country. Now, more than ever before, say AFT's higher education leaders, it is clear that whoever occupies the White House in the next term will have a profound effect on our work lives and our families.

"If we do nothing else this year, we must change the political climate," says Maureen Dinnen, past president of Florida Education Association United and a member of the AFT Higher Education program and policy council.

Dinnen and the 21 other members of the PPC met in New Orleans in January for three days of leadership planning. The PPC, which meets three times a year, spent a day on strategic planning and a half day on organizing matters. It has been involved in building a strategic plan for the past year.

Members of the PPC political action committee heard a report from John Ost, director of AFT political and legislative mobilization, who described the results of surveys and national office planning. Ost noted that 92 percent of our union's higher education members believe the union should be active politically, but 20 percent of those registered did not vote in the last election or did vote but cast their ballots for candidates with an anti-education profile or voting record. Unionwide, members identify their top three political concerns as the economy, education and healthcare. The union's goal is to mobilize members around these issues and to focus resources on getting members, their families and friends to the polls on Election Day.

In fact, the issues higher education members have identified as important to them do have national resonance. Troubles with the economy, with the jobless recovery and with escalating healthcare costs are troubles for AFT members. State budget deficits, cuts to higher education funding and parallel hikes in tuition rob resources from the classroom and endanger the promise of postsecondary education as a way for Americans to achieve economic stability.

"This year really matters. It's not about partisan politics, it's about the issues that affect our lives," says William Scheuerman, PPC chair and president of United University Professions/AFT. "It's the survival of both public education and public services that increasingly is on the line."

In the coming year, the AFT higher education department will focus on disseminating information through news publications, an academic journal, the higher ed Web site (www.aft.org/higher_ed) and the electronic newsletter News from the National. It also will target part-time and full-time faculty and academic staff in campaigns to build membership in organized locals and to bring together the unorganized. It will funnel its political organizing skills into efforts that will make a difference in statehouses and in Washington, D.C. And it will continue to broadcast the message that strong public funding of higher education, coupled with support for tenure, academic freedom and shared governance, is synonymous with high-quality education.

Court gives green light to Texas redistricting

The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to block a Republican redistricting plan in Texas that ultimately could have big implications for effective state government and for the future makeup of Congress.

The high court on Jan. 16 let stand lower court rulings that allowed the Texas Legislature to take the extraordinary step of redrawing congressional boundaries for this year's elections. Congressional redistricting traditionally is done after the 10-year census, but the GOP-controlled state Legislature preempted the process last year and redrew congressional lines to bolster the party's chances of picking up six or more seats in this year's elections. The new boundaries have sparked charges of gerrymandering from Democrats and many minority rights groups, who say the move will weaken their voice in Congress.

Among the opponents of the state redistricting bill was the Texas Federation of Teachers. TFT warned that the blatantly partisan move could weaken the chances of getting Social Security reform and other key legislation through Congress. Beyond that, allowing one party to pursue congressional redistricting whenever it feels it has a political advantage is a high-risk game that weakens state government's ability to do its job, the Texas federation stressed.

"The lack of necessity for doing this was astronomical," TFT communications director Ted Molina Raab said of the redistricting. For months, the partisan redistricting fight threw state government into turmoil - and fed the media with news of redistricting opponents in the Legislature fleeing the state to block the action. The wrangling, special legislative sessions and hearings that went into redistricting sapped time and energy the Legislature could have used to work on education, healthcare and other important issues, TFT said.

The U.S. Supreme Court, while refusing without comment to hear an emergency appeal, may still consider the Texas redistricting issue later this year.

Bilingual education 30 years later

Three decades ago, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Lau v. Nichols, ruled that school districts had an obligation to provide limited English proficient students with an appropriate and accessible education. Although the high court mandated no particular instructional program, it did require school districts to provide bilingual instruction to these students as a means of ensuring equal access to educational opportunities.

Educating English language learners  continues to be a national priority. There are 4.6 million English language learners attending U.S. schools today. The National Association for Bilingual Education (NABE) is a leader in the fight to ensure that these students - and those who teach them - have the resources they need to be successful. Delia Pompa, NABE executive director, addressed the January meeting of the AFT preK-12 teachers program and policy council.

"Our organizations have a number of common interests," Pompa, a former teacher and AFT member, told PPC members. Perhaps foremost, she said, are "the interests of students and their teachers."

Pompa described NABE as a membership and advocacy organization that represents educators and parents of English language learners. Accusations that NABE, which has more than 5,000 members and affiliates in 28 states, "pushes for teaching kids only in their native language" are totally wrong, she said. "Our message is not about any particular approach or program" for educating English language learners.

Pompa pointed out that 40 percent of these students were born in the United States, and about three-quarters of them attend high-poverty schools. About 77 percent speak Spanish, she said.

The growing number of English language learners in our nation's schools "has implications for curriculum, testing and teacher training," stressed Pompa, who said that a NABE survey showed that many teachers "don't feel adequately prepared to work with English language learners."

Pompa also noted that there is "still a huge achievement gap," with 72 percent of English as a second language students scoring below basic in reading.

NABE supported the No Child Left Behind Act, Pompa told the PPC. But her association, like the AFT, believes there are aspects of the law "that need to be modified and fixed," she added.

"We think the implementation is lacking and that more technical assistance and resources have to be put in place in order to help states, school districts and schools meet the letter and the spirit of the law."

More Florida faculty sign on to union

On the heels of a significant union election victory in October at Florida State University, a smaller unit on the campus has voted unanimously for representation by the United Faculty of Florida/AFT/NEA. On Dec. 18, the state Public Employees Relations Commission held a vote at the Florida State University School, one of four developmental research lab schools in the state university system. The commission announced the results on Jan. 6: From 99 faculty members eligible to vote, all 80 ballots cast were for the UFF.

FSU and its lab school are among the system's 11 institutions affected by a reorganization of higher education governance

in the state. As a result of changes proposed by Gov. Jeb Bush and passed by the Legislature to take effect January 2003, the 25-year status of UFF as the statewide bargaining agent was thrown into doubt.

This resulted in the statewide unit being broken down into campus chapters. Each chapter either has had to seek voluntary recognition or hold an election to affirm UFF's position as bargaining representative.

Where prior to 2003, the lab school faculty had been part of the statewide unit, after the reorganization, it was viewed as a separate entity and had to hold its own election.

In October, the FSU faculty voted 736 to 33 to have UFF as its bargaining agent. Jack Fiorito, president of that chapter, hailed the lab school victory, noting that "Lab school faculty have now eclipsed our 22-to-1 victory."

Ten of the 11 institutions in the Florida state university system have now voted or been recognized as UFF affiliates. The last election, at the University of Florida, will take place this spring.

AFT to hold Super Conference in May

It's being called the 2004 AFT Super Conference, and it's slotted for May 13-15 in Philadelphia. Members from all five AFT constituencies are invited to the unprecedented gathering, which will include the Northeast Regional Meeting; the AFT Civil, Human and Women's Rights Conference; seminars hosted by the union's Redesigning Schools To Raise Achievement project, and training developed by the AFT Union Leadership Institute.

The theme, "Our Issues, Our Plan: Driving the Politics of Change," captures the focus of the conference: the upcoming elections and what's at stake.

"As we prepare to elect national, state and local officials, it is essential that we focus on how politics and public policy affect our issues, lives and the work we perform," AFT president Sandra Feldman says.

No matter the constituency or job title, all AFT members are concerned about fairness, quality and professionalism. The conference will feature seminars and workshops designed to provide information on how these concerns can be addressed through political action.

Contact your AFT local for conference registration information.

Mich. union blocks unaccountable charter schools

Debate over charter schools continues to rage in Michigan - months after the Michigan Federation of Teachers & School Related Personnel (MFT&SRP) and the Detroit Federation of Teachers (DFT) thwarted a plan to expand the number of charter schools in the state.

The two AFT affiliates combined forces to fend off a suburban millionaire's $200 million offer to build 15 charter high schools in Detroit - an offer embraced by Republican lawmakers. The demise of the initiative came on the heels of a union rally at the state Capitol in Lansing last fall, which drew 5,000 DFT and Michigan federation members, as well as members of the Graduate Employees Union/AFT at Michigan State University and other public school supporters, community activists and political leaders.

"We went [to Lansing] for our students, for all of our students," says DFT president Janna K. Garrison. "Our dedication to the welfare of Detroit schoolchildren is what motivates everything we do in this union."

According to a survey conducted by the Detroit branch of the NAACP, 57 percent of the city's residents opposed millionaire Bob Thompson's charter school proposal, The Detroit News reported.

In the weeks leading up to the rally, the DFT and the MFT&SRP, lobbied state lawmakers, ran radio ads opposing legislation that would have paved the way for Thompson's charter school plan, and mobilized their supporters.

The unions' efforts, combined with the collapse of a deal between Gov. Jennifer Granholm and Republican legislative leaders, prompted Thompson to withdraw his multimillion-dollar offer to build the schools.

"Our position is that more charter schools means more money pulled from public schools that are making the grade," says MFT&SRP president David Hecker. "We don't want all charter schools to go away, because not all charter schools are bad. We want to contain the number of new charter schools until they work - until they at least come up to the level of the public schools."