This article describes how the Chicago schools system has been bedeviled by the social conditions faced by the city's inhabitants, and now by attempts to use privatization and school closures as the "solution" to those problems. The article describes how teachers in the Chicago Teachers' Union combined with community members to challenge…

Although the influence of the school music teacher in a student's decision to pursue an undergraduate music education degree is well documented, little is known about the contribution that state music education associations (MEAs) may make toward a student's decision to major in a music-related field. Data do suggest that students' opinions about…

Chicago has long been one of the national epicenters for public school reform. In many ways the reform efforts of the past decade in the Windy City have served as the blueprint for the current focus of federal education priorities. In particular, federal policy for school turnaround and transformation takes clear cues from the efforts that current…

The academic achievement of children is a national concern. Thus, PTA focuses not only on individual schools, but also on the communities they serve. One of the innovative approaches to community involvement in education is the community PTA. Community PTAs are not tied to a single school, but instead offer membership and involvement to various…

This quantitative study investigated reasons that school principals recommend non-renewal of probationary teachers' contracts. Principals in the Southeast and Midwest completed an emailed survey. The ordinal nature of the data gathered dictated that comparisons be made between groups using the Mann Whitney U. The study investigated the barriers…

"Education Matters" is the monthly newsletter of the Association of American Educators (AAE), an organization dedicated to advancing the American teaching profession through personal growth, professional development, teacher advocacy and protection. This issue of the newsletter includes: (1) Does Demography Dictate Destiny? The Radical…

Parent involvement is widely acknowledged as a central component in both overall school success and the academic success of individual children. Recognizing this, the federal No Child Left Behind Act mandates that states, districts and schools make extraordinary efforts to enhance effective parent involvement. Now, more than six years after the…

The mission of this article is to introduce just a few of the organizations that are expanding the teaching artist field by addressing the artistic, educational, and business needs of today's TA head on. For some organizations, supporting TAs is a facet of what they do; for others, it is all they do. Staying true to their creative nature, each…

When the state legislators of Illinois mandated a full-scale statewide assessment program in reading/language arts, the Illinois Association of Teachers of English (IATE) made its stand clear: that tests for Illinois students must be created, designed, and executed by Illinois English/language arts educators, and that a writing sample was an…

This article reports on a study of Illinois school board presidents' perspectives on teacher tenure. It begins with an historical overview of the development of teacher tenure from its roots in the 1880s civil service legislation through the establishment of teacher tenure in the United States to an examination of current teacher tenure laws and…

The author's superintendency has been like a good marriage. Both she and the school community feel blessed to have had a true partnership built on mutually held beliefs and convictions, and to have had an opportunity to dream and make their dreams come true. Like most marriages, however, it has been a tremendous amount of work as they have…

This publication presents data gathered in a survey of the impact of collective bargaining on Illinois school districts. In September 1974, the Illinois Association of School Boards mailed a three-part questionnaire to the superintendent of each of its 932 member school districts. Completed questionnaires were returned by 739 districts,…

School boards must recognize that bargaining with unionized teachers is becoming inevitable. Attempts to postpone formal negotiation usually result in giving away more by accident than would have been the case in the formal situation. While it is true that formal bargaining involves an adversary relationship between school boards and teachers,…

One of the highest priorities of American Federation of Teachers (AFT) Higher Education over the past several years has been the shift away from a corps of full-time, tenure-track faculty to a contingent instructional workforce in American colleges and universities. This document focuses on one aspect of that shift: full-time faculty who are not…

Individual members of state legislatures wield the greatest influence in state level policy formation. This was one of the findings of a study that identified the power and influence context of state-level policymaking. Data were gathered from six states (Arizona, California, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Illinois) using an instrument…