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Tag Archives: teachers’ unions
School Reform and Bureaucracy: The Washington State Charter Battle
Summary: A lawsuit challenging Washington’s new charter school law on constitutional grounds may be embarrassingly in the end a defense of a dysfunctional status quo. I believe in teachers. Not the Type A’s that reformers would like to attract from … Continue reading
School Reform: The Education of a Reformer
Summary: In an echo of assertions in recent posts that school district leaders need to listen deeply into the ranks in their effort to reform failing schools, we take a look at the current arrival point of the career of … Continue reading
Posted in School Bureaucracy, School Reform, Schools and Politics
Tagged administrative style, communication in schools, empowering teachers, flat oranizations, Michelle Rhee, relationships in schools, school leadership, school reform, StudentsFirst, superintendent style, teachers' unions
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Schools and Politics: Charters Schools and Teachers’ Unions
Summary: Last week, as part of a discussion of charter schools, I cited the Harlem’s Children Zone as an umbrella project that has changed the “context” of associated schools, and thereby the expectations of students and the realities from which … Continue reading
Schools and Politics: Teacher Evaluation Reform
Summary: Top down federal or state mandates have a role, but may also suppress professionalism on the local level. The latter, not good. About the time I wrote my last post urging union and administration alike to find common ground … Continue reading
Schools and Politics: Bargained Success in the New Haven Schools
Summary: A reflection on Nicholas Kristof’s recent column “Uniting to Oust Failing Teachers”. He leaves out a critical element. In his column, “Uniting to Oust Failing Teachers”, as published in the Seattle Times February 18, 2012, the peripatetic Nicholas Kristof … Continue reading
Schools and Bureaucracy and Some Politics: Empower Your People; Chrysler Does — Part D
Summary: Referring back to last week’s post, a plan to provide study time in our school served as a promising example of the incremental changes needed to further reform in schools. The story is here continued. On what seemed to … Continue reading
School Bureaucracy: Teacher Rumblings
Many of my stories of bureaucracy have involved my own experience as a counselor, together with my history as a teacher, though I have ample reason for believing my emotional experience of a school bureaucracy is not unique. Recent rumblings … Continue reading
School Bureaucracy: A Comparison of Superintendent Styles
I recommend to you an article in the recent June Atlantic magazine written by Joel Klein, former Chancellor of the New York City Public Schools, about his efforts to reform the school system (“Scenes From the Class Struggle”). Mr. Klein … Continue reading
Schools and Politics: A Fall Strike Pondered
Summary: What are the issues involved in the Tacoma, Washington, teachers’ strike? Greetings those reading here. School has started, or has in most places, the most notable exception being communities where teachers have gone on strike. Tacoma, Washington, is one … Continue reading
Schools and Politics: Let Us Now Praise on Labor Day
Summary: Around Labor Day, a salute to teachers and their fellow travelers, and a review of the nature of teachers unions, professional or labor, within the current political context. Though past Labor Day, I am belatedly inspired to echo the … Continue reading
Posted in School Bureaucracy, Schools and Politics
Tagged teachers' unions, teaching, teaching culture
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