This report builds on work of the Delphi Project on the Changing Faculty and Student Success, initiated in 2012, that has documented changes in the academic profession and its implications for higher education. While the Delphi Project has aimed to address specific issues--for example, by conducting and disseminating research on how faculty…

For more than four years, the AFT has guided the efforts of a public-private partnership to bring much-needed resources and services to McDowell County, West Virginia, a geographically isolated area in the heart of Appalachia. Known as Reconnecting McDowell, the initiative has also encouraged a renewed emphasis on improving education by focusing…

With more than half of all higher education institutions in the United States located in or near urban areas, higher education institutions are particularly vulnerable to challenges faced today by cities, such as underperforming public schools, poverty, crime, economic disinvestment and residential abandonment in areas that surround their campuses…

Education policy ambitions or presumptions in most countries are being accused of turning schools into social factories to supply humanpower to produce commodities. This is apparent bureaucratic education policy imposition on school-actors which promotes class division and conflict in sharing resources. Using the Marxist-critical-lenses, this…

The unionization of instructional workers is a central feature of U.S. higher education, with more than a quarter of those teaching college classes covered by collectively bargained contracts. Though dated, the best existing numbers indicate that more than 430,000 faculty members, graduate students, and related personnel are in bargaining units;…

This article examines the effect of union membership on civic and political participation in the late 20th century in the United States. We discuss why and how unions seek to mobilize their members and where mobilization is channeled. We argue that union membership affects electoral and collective action outcomes and will be larger for low…

Sweden has experienced increasing educational inequity levels within its highly decentralized school system. With a reduced capacity to bargain collectively, the two Swedish teacher trade unions, the Swedish Teachers' Union (Lärarförbundet) and the National Union of Teachers in Sweden (Lärarnas Riksförbund), have sought to extend their role in…

In 1973 the national conference of the National Union of Students (NUS) voted to campaign for gay rights, making NUS the first national organisation in the UK to make such a public commitment. Using archive material, this article outlines how NUS came to this decision, and the initial challenges it faced in taking up this work. It explains that…

Increasing global pressure to enhance teacher quality has led to increasing numbers of new ITE programmes, yet there is a dearth of policy studies interrogating exactly how both macro and micro-policy processes combine to shape the development of these programmes. This article examines one particular new programme--the MSc Transformative Learning…

The original vision of a charter school called for heavy doses of professional teacher contribution throughout all aspects of curriculum and administration. Unfortunately, that is not how charter schools have evolved. Until now. The Minnesota Guild of Public Charter Schools is the first union-sponsored entity created for the sole purpose of…

This chapter addresses ways college union professionals can establish partnerships and strategies for establishing fundraising and philanthropy initiatives within their organizations.

Education's political landscape has shifted dramatically over the past year. To the consternation of most school-district officials, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos used the bully pulpit to promote charter schools, vouchers, and tax credits for private-school scholarships. To the distress of teachers unions, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down…

The South African people have a history of resistance to domination, injustice and inequality. It is therefore surprising that there has been an increase in social inequality, since the start of political democracy in 1994. Recently, the five teachers' unions refused to administer the Annual National Assessments. This action indicates some…

What happens when forces attempting to privatize education create and produce a Hollywood film with an education reform plot line? This essay explores "Won't Back Down" through cultural studies and progressive education lenses in an effort to unveil misrepresentations of education and education reform. Drawing on scholarship in these…

In 1988, education reformer and American Federation of Teachers president Albert Shanker proposed a new kind of public school--"charter schools"--which would allow teachers to experiment with innovative approaches to educating students. Publicly funded but independently managed, these schools would be given a charter to try their fresh…