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E D U C A T I O N

No Child Left Behind: What Would Al Say?
This op-ed by Albert Shanker biographer Rick Kahlenberg argues that the former AFT president would have supported the basic idea of No Child Left Behind but with significant qualifications for instituting meaningful and achievable national standards that would benefit students and teachers. (may require subscription)

How Should Teachers Be Graded?
The Albert Shanker Institute’s Good Schools seminars focus attention on the link between student achievement and teaching quality. This interest is shared by the nation. In a thorough Christian Science Monitor article reviewing initiatives throughout the nation, Stacey Teicher Khadaroo writes that “As the curtain opens on a new school year . . . a noisy debate ensues about how to ensure that public school teachers are well qualified — and receive enough support — to do their jobs.” The debate, fueled by Congress’s expected fall debate on reauthorization of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), including new provisions requiring 100 percent “highly qualified” teachers in key subjects in all schools. But, as researchers at the first Good Schools seminar noted, disturbingly little is known about what constitutes quality teaching and how it is best promoted.

New Reports Keep Focus on Graduation Rates
Several new reports illustrate the complexity of calculating high school dropout and graduation rates, as well the reasons for continued controversy.

§ Education Week, launched an ambitious new online graduation-rate mapping tool, with a claim that “for the first time, comparable, reliable data on graduation rates will be readily available for every school district in the country.” On June 13, however, Education Week carried a letter criticizing the effort, noting that the tool ignores the effect of student transfers, counting a student who transfers to another school and graduates from there as a “dropout” from his original school. ( Free subscription for two articles is required.)

§ On August 8, the Economic Policy Institute released a paper highlighting U.S. Department of Education data showing that in fact high school completion rates have been rising over the past two decades, though at a much slower rate for minorities. “These findings contradict recent claims that high school graduation rates in the United States . . . have been constant or even falling over the last 20 years.”

Expansion in Early Childhood Programs May Enhance Adulthood Chances
A front-page article by Deborah Solomon in the August 9 issue of the Wall Street Journal describes a major expansion in state-funded pre-K programs this year, including in Florida, Oklahoma, and now New York. The author calls the phenomenon, “one of the most significant expansions in public education in the 90 years since World War I, when kindergarten first became standard in American schools.” She also reports on the academic, economic, and social justice arguments fueling this growth in pre-K, noting that approximately 45 percent of all children between the ages of 3 and 4 now attend a pre-K program.

At the same time, new data from a decades-long study of the Chicago Child-Parent Centers (CPC) shows that the benefits of a quality preschool experience can last well into adulthood. University of Minnesota researcher Arthur J. Reynolds reports that, at age 24, children who had participated in the CPC program were more likely to have graduated high school and have attended college, less likely to have been arrested or imprisoned for a serious crime, and less likely to suffer from depression than their peers who did not attend CPC preschools. The study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, followed 1,539 CPC participants and non-participants from ages 3-4 up until the age of 24. The Albert Shanker Institute has been advocating the benefits of quality early childhood programs for many years. The issue is also a high priority of the AFT, especially in addressing the twin challenges of children who come to school way behind their peers and the requirements of No Child Left Behind.

More Challenging Curriculum Standards Urged
Recent attention has also been given to the AFT and Shanker Institute priority of establishing clear, high academic standards for all students, especially in regard to their adequate preparation as informed citizens.

A new analysis of student standards in the state of Oregon confirms the findings of the Shanker Institute’s 2003 review of state history, civics, and social studies standards by the late Paul Gagnon, the state’s standards resemble a “laundry list” of facts and figures that are essentially unteachable in a normal school year. The analysis by the non-profit research center WestEd, notes, for example, that 4th-grade teachers were given a list of 105 reading and writing skills for students to learn, without distinguishing their importance. WestEd urged Oregon to join a new “less is more” curriculum movement whose aim is to define the most important content for students to master.

Similarly, David McCullough, the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and biographer, urged that history standards be strengthened and clarified, telling a gathering of state legislators that students are growing up “historically illiterate” and that “schools need to do a better job of educating American students about significant past events and personalities.” He also advocated giving teachers more respect and better preparation for the classroom, specifically through the adoption of more history course requirements in higher education.

It's Being Done: Education Success in Unexpected Schools
This book by education writer Karin Chenoweth (Harvard Education Press, $26.95), currently journalist-in-residence for the Achievement Alliance, chronicles twelve schools in disadvantaged communities around the country that have overcome all the odds and are achieving at the highest standards. The book is excerpted in the most recent issue of the American Educator (Summer 2007).

China: Teacher Strike
There are reliable internet reports that teachers in Huadu, went on strike on Jan. 1, gathering in front of the local district government building to call for higher wages. According to Chinese websites monitoring the situation, between 700-1,000 teachers appeared on the Huadu Plaza steps at 9 a.m. New Years’ Day, and were surrounded by about 400 "patrol and riot" police. Although there appears to be a media blackout and some websites have stopped posting reports, one statement not being refuted online is that the teachers have remained peaceful, breaking their “silent sit-in” only to sing songs.

Why Teacher Unions Are Good for Teachers and the Public
Noted education historian and Shanker Institute board member Diane Ravitch argues that unions were established to protect teachers from ill-conceived instructional mandates, intolerable conditions, and poor compensation. These roles are as important today as they were 100 years ago.

Carrots and Sticks: New Jersey's Effort To Create a Qualified PK-3 Workforce
This report shows how the state of New Jersey established mandates and incentives to upgrade the qualifications of the early childhood teaching force in the state's poorest school districts.

Standards and Testing, Yes, but What Else?
This year's Public Agenda survey shows general agreement among education stakeholders that standards, testing, and the implementation of No Child Left Behind are “necessary, but not sufficient” reforms for improving education. Much more needs to be done.

Smart Testing: Let's Get It Right
According to a new AFT report on statewide testing, most states have made progress in devel-oping clear grade-by-grade standards, but few have aligned high-stakes math, reading, and science tests with strong content standards, which leads to a distorted picture of how students, schools, and teachers are performing. (Requires Adobe Acrobat.)

L A B O R

Report Finds U.K. Union Membership Stabilized After Dramatic Fall
A report by the EU-funded European Trade Union Institute for Research, Education, and Health and Safety has found that more than one quarter (28 percent) of all employees and more than half (59 percent) of public sector employees in the United Kingdom are union members. The Trades Union Congress (TUC), with sixty-one affiliates, represents all but 500,000 of the UK’s 7.6 million trade unionists. As in the U.S., British trade unions lost membership heavily during the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s — from about 55 percent of the labor force in 1979 to 31 percent in 1996 — largely because of changes in the structure of the workforce. In the U.K., however, the membership slide has eased and, since 2001, the proportion of employees who are union members has remained fairly stable. Not all of the reasons for the improvement are known. British labor leaders believe that public interest in and support for the labor movement’s new workplace learning agenda is one key reason. Another key reason is seen as the increase in the proportion of UK employees in the public sector, where union membership is much higher.

More Than Ever, Workers Say They Want Unions
Ten years ago, the Worker Representation and Participation Survey, a landmark study on union preference among both union and non-union workers, showed that by a large majority workers wanted a greater voice in their workplace through some form of representation and 44 percent of workers overall desired a union. Despite unionization rates in the private sector sinking to 7.4 percent, the WRPS follow-up study ten years later has shown that workers today desire unions and workplace representation even more than 1996. Richard Freeman reports that the survey found that today a full majority of non-union workers would vote union, a large increase, and that overall 58 percent of workers would choose a union at their workplace. In both surveys, 90 percent of union workers would vote for their union if union representation elections were being held.

Look to Trondheim: Alternatives for Public Sector Reform in Europe An interesting article posted on the Transnational Institute, a consortium of scholars and analysts, looks at union and public initiatives to provide an alternative to the privatization of public services in Norway, Spain, Italy, and the U.K. As a result of these cases, the author writes, the privatization movement has been “halted in its tracks.”

Wanted: Factory Workers
This major feature is part of the continuing drumbeat of articles on the skills shortage in the U.S. This one concentrates on the manufacturing sector, which now accounts for only 12% of gross domestic product (down from 28% in 1955) and where, “much has been made of the loss of millions of manufacturing jobs . . . .” but for welders, electricians, machinists, there is high demand and “no end in sight.” Between 1983 and 2002 low-skilled factory jobs increased by 1.2 million; according to a Federal Reserve Bank study cited in the report.” Some universities and technical colleges are reaching into the public schools to find prospective workers they would like to train.

Freelancers of the World, Unite!
The Economist Magazine highlighted the work of Sara Horowitz, founder of the Freelancers Union, which is poised to become, according to the article, the 7th largest union in New York. The Freelancers Union is noteworthy because it does not follow the standard union organization model, which is focused on collective bargaining and often adversarial relationships with employers. Rather, after practicing labor law on behalf of unions, Horowitz concluded that a more innovative approach – and organization model – was required to meet the changing needs of today’s workers. Horowitz “set about rethinking unionism from first principles. What do modern workers need? What gives a union power? She concluded that a union is a means for workers in join together to solve problems.” In order reach this goal, she argues that unions need to be “independent of government, employers and other institutions.” From this start, Horowitz focused on America’s growing contingent of freelance workers. At first called the Portable Benefits Network, today’s Freelancers Union, the organization focused on providing health care, education and advocacy services. Its next project is portable pensions. (Subscription required.)
The Shanker Institute has for several years supported an innovative union models initiative, in cooperation with the New Economy Information Service (NEIS) and, more recently, the AF-CIO Department for Professional Employees (DPE), which has focused on a number of issues in this area.

Serious Players in Learning
Trade unions in the U.K. are engaged in a battle “to expand the minds of workers,” the social and economic importance of which has been recognized the government, which now helps to fund union learning initiatives. Despite the success of these programs, employer resistance lingers.

D E M O C R A C Y

Knowing the Enemy outlines the past and current shortcomings of the U.S. strategy in the "war on terror," and presents new ideas now germinating outside the Administration.

Red Star Over Wal-Mart
Employees of Wal-Mart have established a branch of the Communist Party at its headquarters in Shenzhen, which follows the establishment of similar party organizations in Wal-Mart stores across the country since Aug. In July, the company allowed union branches of the official government-affiliated and sanctioned All-China Federation of Trade Unions in almost all of its stores. There are no independent unions in China and efforts by workers to organize them are ruthlessly suppressed. None of Wal-Mart's stores in the U.S. has a union. The party and labor expansion campaigns were ordered in March by Chinese President Hu Jintao, who also is the 70-million member Communist Party’s general secretary, according to Chinese media.

Anti Americans on the March
The old cliché: “Politics makes strange bedfellows” is proving itself to be truer than ever, according to a recent Wall Street Journal article on the growing relationship between radical Islamists and groups from the extremely secular, Western left. Although mainstream left-of-center groups still avoid Islamists, by and large, the Journal notes the growing closeness of organizations on the hard-line (pro-communist) left to Hezbollah and Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The reason for the rapprochement? Anti-Americanism, pure and simple. At an Islamic festival marked by the usual condemnations of Israel and the U.S., and supported, surprisingly, by London’s left-leaning mayor, Ken Livingston, “Islamist activists and left-wing politicians declared their solidarity. "Muslims and the left must and can come together, because we face the same enemies -- imperialism, colonialism and racism," said Redmond O'Neill, a senior aide to Mr. Livingston.”

Middle East: Focus on Trade

Six years after the ground-breaking U.S.-Jordan Free Trade Agreement included enforceable worker rights provisions, workers in Jordan are still waiting for good news, and workers in other Middle Eastern countries are wary of ongoing trade negotiations.

What China Needs Now: Unions
The U.S. trade gap with China is booming, and steps like revaluing the Chinese currency won't help. What we really need is for Chinese workers to earn more.

China's Uncivil Society
China is currently a social time bomb, slowly ticking. Only the emergence of a genuine, functioning civil society, composed of Chinese workers, peasants, and all other ordinary citizens, can suffice to avert the looming crisis.

A Transatlantic Strategy for Democratic Development in the Middle East
Western governments have struggled to translate bold rhetoric into a plausible strategy to help promote democracy in the Middle East. Here is what such a strategy might look like. (Requires Adobe Acrobat)

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