Re: AFT official speaks out...

[George Sheridan <learn@jps.net>]

Dear Kris:

I am the NEA.

I am a full-time teacher (with a combination first/second grade this year). 
I am president of my local union, and have been for enough years that one 
of my most important tasks is to develop new leaders to take my place. I am 
one of about one thousand teachers who hold some kind of statewide 
leadership position in the California Teachers Association, an affiliate of 
the NEA. And I have been a delegate to the last several Representative 
Assemblies of the NEA, where the union annually sets its policy, and where 
I have successfully introduced resolutions, new business items, and 
amendments to the legislative program dealing with assessment and 
particularly with high stakes testing.

I'm a little tired right now because I've just returned from a weekend away 
from home at CTA's State Council, where we debated policy and took 
positions on legislation affecting everything from student safety to career 
and technical education. I apologize for not remembering where you work and 
what you do. Do you teach in a state with collective bargaining? Teachers 
in my district have prep periods because of a union contract, and without 
the contract our superintendent would take them away immediately. Under 
California's class size reduction program, primary classes are limited to 
20 students. That's a lot bigger than it should be, but without CTA that 
law would have been changed last year to allow at least four more students 
in each class. Teachers who allow students to read Huckleberry Finn and 
Harry Potter are protected by the union from firing. We could make a list a 
hundred items long, but it is no exaggeration to say that every right 
teachers have came either through collective bargaining or through the 
union's legislative action.

Of course a union has to be accountable to its members. No other 
large-scale institution in America, including our government at the state 
and federal levels, is nearly as democratic as the union to which I belong.

I am the NEA, and so are 2.7 million other teachers and school employees.

At 04:08 AM 3/28/2004 -0500, Kristina Pelletier wrote:
> I am not wanting to bash teacher unions like the AFT and NEA, but I am 
> having a
> hard time figuring out how they are working for teachers. It seems like they
> are using teachers for their organizational purposes. Why is the AFT 
> interested
> in "accountability and raising standards for students and teachers alike"? 
> When
> did it become the unions role to work on reform that will hold teachers
> accountable to the system? I'm probably not making much sense. My point is,
> teachers should be holding the union accountable, and not the other way
> around.
>
> I would like to understand how ANY teachers union has improved the 
> professional
> conditions for educators. If anyone has an example, I would love to here it.
> Kris

George Sheridan
Northside School
Cool, California 95614