This article reports on the rise of nonunion advocacy groups for teachers which has enabled them to cut their teeth on policy issues that affect the profession. The teachers' unions remain the most visible, powerful, and probably the most important advocates for teachers. But over the past few years, a number of new efforts have sprung up…

Backers of the common-core academic standards have worked for years to secure the support of a diverse collection of elected officials, academic scholars, and school employees. Now they're ramping up efforts to court a different and potentially critically important audience: parents. A number of national organizations are churning out written and…

Besieged by state proposals to eviscerate collective bargaining, eliminate teacher tenure, and make it harder to collect dues, teachers' unions are fighting back. Lawsuits supported by local union affiliates have for now blocked anti-union legislation in Alabama and Wisconsin. E-mail "blasts," phone banks, and rallies are also among the…

National Education Association (NEA) officials announced last week that they would put a "policy statement" before the union's governing body for approval that, among other changes, would open the door to the use of "valid, reliable, high-quality standardized tests" of student learning, in combination with multiple other measures, for evaluating…

The author reports on how cash-strapped school districts turn to outside groups for help in paying for staff and academic essentials, prompting frustration from some. In states and school districts still struggling to recover from recession-induced funding cuts, parent and community groups are feeling the pressure to raise money for instructional…

Leaders of the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) charter schools are optimistic that they can reach a long-term agreement with the Baltimore (Maryland) Teachers Union in a nationally watched dispute over teacher pay for an extended school day, reducing the likelihood that the charter network will carry out its threat to close its two schools in…

Massive protests have been the norm in Wisconsin, since Gov. Scott Walker unveiled a plan to strip many collective bargaining rights from teachers and most other public employees. GOP elected officials are pursuing similar measures in Ohio and other states. But in the DeForest district, like some others around the state, collective bargaining,…

Wrapping up a two-day conference in Denver designed to improve labor-management relations in school districts, sponsors and participants vowed to work at reforms that will be beneficial to teachers, students, and officials. Teams made up of a local superintendent, a school board representative, and the teachers' union leader descended on the Mile…

As policymakers and education advocates await details on how the Obama administration plans to move forward with its recently unveiled blueprint for reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the chances of an ESEA renewal this year remain tough to gauge. Although the principles underlying the blueprint have drawn praise in many…

The president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), Randi Weingarten, is putting the sensitive issue of due process on the education reform table, with a pledge to work with districts to streamline the often-cumbersome procedures for dismissing teachers who fail to improve their performance after receiving help and support. She has also…

Teachers' unions in at least two states are threatening to withhold endorsements of their states' Race to the Top applications, which could jeopardize the states' chances of winning the coveted federal dollars. In a letter printed as an advertisement in the Tallahassee Democrat, Florida Education Association President Andy J. Ford discouraged…

An increase in teacher hiring in recent years has led some observers to posit a link to the waves of pink slips districts are now sending across the U.S. Between the 1999-2000 and the 2007-08 school years, the teacher force increased at more than double the rate of K-12 student enrollments. Hiring teachers to reduce class sizes remains a…

Teachers' unions around the country have shifted into high gear in the countdown to the presidential election next week, and nowhere is the fervor more evident than in the battleground states. In Florida, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin, affiliates of the National Education Association and the…

An agreement announced last week allowing local National Education Association unions to affiliate with the AFL-CIO signals that the NEA is willing to tighten ranks with the rest of the American labor movement in the face of formidable economic and political changes. Once, leaders of the 2.8 million-member teachers' union may have believe they had…

The three-story building that was once the United Teachers of New Orleans' office is dark and deserted, the first floor damaged by Hurricane Katrina's floodwaters. The union membership, which numbered 4,700 before the storm, is now down to 300. Of the 25 schools that are now open in New Orleans, only five are regular public schools. The rest are…