A LOOK BACK AT FRIDAY FROM JULY 12, 2014

CONVENTION 2014

AFT PRESIDENT Randi Weingarten kicked off the AFT national convention in Los Angeles on Friday with a bold plan to reclaim the promise of America, one that can help create economic and educational opportunity for all because it not only fights back but also “fights forward.”

This work is vital, and the stakes couldn’t be higher, Weingarten told more than 3,500 delegates in a keynote address that cast the current environment as a time of well-funded, well-coordinated attacks against working people, unions, public education and public services. These efforts are designed to destroy rather than to build. Their goal is to starve public institutions, demonize workers and unions, and peddle private alternatives—while marginalizing anyone who opposes them.

Through this turbulence, however, the union continues to stand tall and add mem-bers. “Despite the toughest environment unions have ever faced, I’m proud to an-nounce that our ranks have grown since we last met,” Weingarten told delegates.

“Today we are larger than ever, a union of 1.6 million members.”

The AFT president stressed how critical this growth is at a time when millions of citi-zens are struggling and finding that the prom-ise of America has devolved into more of an aspiration than a realization. “Our job is to

Fighting back, fighting forwardA BOLD CALL TO RECLAIM THE PROMISE OF AMERICA

■ Freedom School Teacher Mark Levy

■ Student Asean Johnson

■ AFT Human Rights Luncheon

■ Reconnecting McDowell

■ Committee Reports

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inspire, ignite and move millions to reclaim the promise of America,” she told delegates. “Here’s how: connect with community; be solution-driven; engage, empower and elevate our members—and, frankly, be a little badass.”

From ‘test-and-punish’ to ‘support-and-improve’

Weingarten stressed the need to increase edu-cational opportunity and change the narrative when it comes to school accountability. Policy-makers at every level must recognize that “you cannot fire your way to Finland,” said the AFT president, who called out “test-and-punish” systems and school-improvement schemes that are “reducing children to test scores and teachers to algorithms,” especially when it comes to the use of value-added measures.

On the Common Core State Standards, We-ingarten drew heavy applause when she re-marked, “Some of you, myself included, think they hold great promise but that they’ve been implemented terribly. ... The conflation of the standards with testing and the profit motive has got to stop.”

The AFT president reaffirmed her call for a moratorium on the high-stakes consequences for students and educators on Common Core-aligned assessments. She also called out Edu-cation Secretary Arne Duncan and state super-intendents like New York’s John King for

dismissing the concerns of parents and educa-tors about the implementation of the standards.

Also needed, Weingarten said, was greater teacher voice in matters related to the Com-mon Core, and she announced a new AFT In-novation Fund grant for members who want to lead on the standards. These new grants, de-signed to empower members on areas tied to the Common Core, “will be relatively open-ended,” she told delegates. “You tell us what you want to do, how you would do it, and what you’ll do with the results. We will provide the resources to the strongest applications.”

A full-fledged defense of due process

Weingarten told delegates that the union would respond to Vergara, the recent California deci-sion that takes aim at fundamental school em-ployee rights, with a full-fledged defense of due process as a fundamental right. “Educators, healthcare workers and public workers need it” no less than other workers do, she said. “How else do we exercise our professional judgment and prevent going back to patronage systems, where your job depended on who you knew, not what you know?”

There are ways to improve, rather than gut, due process laws that are not working well, Weingarten said. “The bitter irony is throwing out due process will make it harder to attract and keep great teachers.”

The Vergara decision is the wrong prescrip-tion, one based on the belief “that, for kids to win, teachers have to lose. ... So, yes, we will fight it in the courtroom and in the court of public opinion.”

A broader struggle

To create an economy that works for all, We-ingarten outlined policy proposals that the AFT would advocate for. Among them: grow-ing the union movement and reviving collec-tive bargaining, increasing retirement secu-rity, easing the student debt burden, funding universal early childhood education, and se-curing full, equitable funding for all schools. The union also stands behind investments in infrastructure and incentives to revive manu-facturing, said the AFT president, who high-lighted the union’s work to invest member pension funds in infrastructure and create 150,000 jobs.

These goals require member engagement, she emphasized, particularly when it comes to political participation. Elections matter—determining who nominates and confirms Supreme Court justices and whether working

people have elected officials who stand with them or orchestrate attacks on their jobs and livelihoods. “With the full strength of our union, united with community, prepared to call out problems and bring forth solutions, and willing to be a little bit badass—we not only fight forward, we move forward.”

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IN HIS WELCOMING REMARKS to the 83rd AFT convention, Joshua Pechthalt, president of the California Federation of Teachers, talked about the recent Vergara v. California court ruling and how it masked the positive work of CFT members and other educators across the state.

“This ruling, which we are appealing, will do nothing to put a single pencil or book in a child’s hands, and it won’t enhance mentoring or training programs for teachers,” said Pech-thalt, who is also an AFT vice president. “What it will do is create a climate of fear in our schools and incentivize teaching to the test and currying favor with administrators.”

The court’s decision was based on the no-tion that eliminating rights for teachers will benefit students and somehow result in im-proved public education for California’s stu-dents, Pechthalt said. But, if that were the case, he added, “our most anti-union states, with no

protections for teachers, would be models of educational excellence and equity.”

“While much more needs to be done, we are on the right track,” Pechthalt said. The gov-ernor and state superintendent have stood with the CFT and its members, he noted, but “we understand the only thing we can truly rely on is the power of our members to build

strong locals, deepen our ties with our allies in labor and the community, and rebuild the kind of progressive movement in the streets that can demand quality public education and social justice for all Americans.”

The beginning of the opening session also featured a performance by Broadway singer and actress Sally Wilfert.

On the right track to high-quality education, social justice

PROGRESSIVE AMERICA has grown trans-fixed by the transformative social movement in North Carolina known as Moral Mondays. It began on April 29 last year, when a small group of clergy and activists went to the Capitol in Raleigh to protest the tide of con-servative, regressive legislation that deprived North Carolinians of basic rights such as vot-ing, healthcare, reproductive freedom, and most prominently, high-quality, adequately funded education.

Since then, not a Monday has passed without action in Raleigh. Now, an average of 2,500 protesters converge weekly—but, at times, they number in the tens of thousands. What’s more, the movement has brought to-gether a huge coalition of labor, education, racial and social justice, and faith-based orga-nizations, and it has spread to South Carolina, Georgia and other states.

The man behind it all is the Rev. Dr. William Barber, who, on that first Moral Monday, was led away in handcuffs simply for exercising his right to enter a public building. As the opening speaker at the 2014 convention, he shared a powerful message of hope, cooperation and unity that brought delegates to their feet.

“We are in the midst of a moral crisis that demands we have a movement now,” said Barber, minutes after receiving the AFT’s pres-

tigious Bayard Rustin Award. “I’ve seen, and I believe, that deep within our being is a longing for a true moral compass.”

Barber, the child of activists from India-napolis who returned to the South in the dan-gerous years of the 1960s to fight for voting rights, was born two days after the March on Washington, he told delegates. He put his work for justice in the context of that spiritual and historical reality.

“In that moment, the devotees of justice and freedom did not shrink back. ... They marched, they organized, they built coalitions, they rallied young people, they engaged in civil disobedience, they lobbied. They turned

movements of despair into movements of hope. They joined a moral crusade that changed the nation and the world.”

Today is another such moment of moral crisis, he told the AFT activists, and it comes at the hands of a well-funded conservative movement.

“If we don’t address systemic racism and extremism and poverty, it costs us the soul of our nation. Every time we fail to educate a child on the front end of life, it costs us on the back end of life.”

He added, “Somebody must stand up and say, this is an immoral agenda. Not only is this extreme agenda contrary to our greatest faith values, it’s contrary to the promise of America.”

Barber urged educators to not underesti-mate the power of groups coming together to build a new movement:

“That’s why I love your theme ‘Reclaiming the Promise,’ ” he said. “Because we should declare today that this reality is over, and we should make America a fresh promise of our own. That is, we will organize and fight for the soul of our democracy. It’s time. We ain’t gonna let nobody turn us around. We have the power of our togetherness.

“I know it personally that when we get to-gether, we win.”

Rev. Dr. Barber: When we all come together, we winINSPIRATIONAL MINISTER RECEIVES BAYARD RUSTIN AWARD FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

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CFT President Joshua Pechthalt welcomes AFT members to Los Angeles.

Sally Wilfert

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Divisional meetingsAFT TEACHERS AFT HIGHER EDUCATION AFT PSRP

The PSRP divisional meeting celebrated the power of the AFT’s paraprofessionals and school-related personnel when they lift their voices to reclaim the promise of public educa-tion, both across the United States and inter-nationally.

Opening speaker Rosa Pavanelli, general secretary of Public Services International, an-nounced that the global union is creating a new sector for educational support personnel. “These workers are often the first to be af-fected by … privatization of education servic-es,” she said. “Defending public education means we do not defend only teachers but all the workers involved in public education.”

Traveling to PSI’s international conference helped Ruby Newbold, chair of the PSRP pro-gram and policy council, an AFT vice president and president of the Detroit Association of Educational Office Employees, understand the AFT’s connection to PSI. “Listening to their is-sues, I thought I was sitting at my desk in De-troit,” she said, “but I was in Durban, South Africa. Their issues are our issues, and our issues are their issues.”

Closer to home, a panel of six PSRP members shared how their work reclaims the promise of public education here in the United States. The Berkeley (Calif.) Council of Classified Employees launched “Healthy Kids, Healthy Minds” to extend library services in public schools. Local 762 in Delaware invited school board members to read at First Book events and adopted a low-performing school for book giveaways. The Oregon School Employees Association part-nered with the Central American United Stu-dent Association to march for immigration rights and distributed bilingual “We Are the Promise” T-shirts. The Toledo (Ohio) Federation of Teachers offered presentations on bullying and other issues; the Saratoga Adirondack BOCES Employees Association in New York pro-moted volunteering in the community; and the Hillsborough School Employees Federation in Florida fought for—and won—100 new buses for its deteriorating fleet.

Newbold urged all PSRPs to tell their own stories, to show what a difference they make in the lives of public school children. “We need to speak up and speak loudly,” she said. “We’re going to demand respect for the work that we do.”

The unbreakable tie between equity and school excellence dominated much of the discussion at the AFT Teachers divisional meeting.

The event featured presentations from Pasi Sahlberg, a visiting professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and author of Finnish Lessons, and New York University edu-cation professor Pedro Noguera, one of the nation’s leading voices on issues relating to the school achievement gap. Both emphasized the need to move away from myths dominating the reform narrative—and harming students, educators and communities in the process.

Sahlberg led the audience through high-lights of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), the widely followed gauge of student performance in developed nations, to show how they were at odds with three common school “reform” truisms: the power of choice and competition, the benefits of wholesale school-life standardization and the American-style notion of “accountability” as an engine of educational improvement. None of them holds water, PISA reveals.

He described these concepts as “GERMs,” short for the Global Ed Reform Movement that is spreading to school agendas in several devel-oped nations. “The countries with this GERM infection have not been able to show substan-tial growth” in student achievement.

What has been borne out through PISA and through the Finnish experience, however, is the “correlation between equity and excellence,” Sahlberg said. “You have a much bigger issue with equity than you have with quality or stan-dards” in the United States.

Noguera, too, spoke of the need to change the national dialogue on accountability, mak-ing it more than just the people at the top holding the least powerful accountable—a view that has promoted the use of “testing as a weapon, not a tool” in schools. True account-ability must incorporate all the partners re-sponsible for addressing underlying problems in education, such as growing inequality.

“Poverty is not a disability,” Noguera said, “but when poverty is ignored, it can be dis-abling—and we are ignoring the needs of mil-lions of children.”

Unions must work aggressively, decisively and immediately to end the current mindset, Noguera warned. “We’re losing the message of reform. In too many of the urban districts, the only children we are left with are the chil-dren who don’t have options,” and that makes the prospect of losing public education in school systems around the country a clear and present danger.

AFT higher education unionists took a cue from the uplifting words of the Rev. Dr. William Bar-ber (see page 3) and looked at higher educa-tion’s issues through the prism of morality.

“We share the values that Rev. Barber es-poused,” said AFT Higher Education program and policy Chair Sandra Schroeder, who is retir-ing after the convention. “We can feel passion-ately about our issues. These are not just poli-cies, not just numbers. They’re about how people live, and how we grow and die.”

The divisional meeting featured two panels presenting overviews and updates on issues identified as among the most significant for our members: state disinvestment in public higher education and the inequities facing contingent faculty.

Convening in the state whose master plan for higher education served as a national mod-el decades ago, one speaker noted, the idea that college should be free is as sound today as it was in the 1960s. Yet, disastrously, “the deep and unrelenting cuts that states have faced leave us just steps away from turning higher education into a private good,” said Mark Huelsman, a senior policy analyst with Demos.

Huelsman, Huy Ong, an organizer with Jobs with Justice, and the AFT’s Chris Goff talked about the efforts being made to counter that. These include campaigns such as “Higher Ed, Not Debt” and the National Debt-Free Future campaign.

“We want to learn what people are doing in their states and amplify it, tie actions to a national narrative and promote good models,” said Goff.

The second panel, “Ending the Contingent Labor Model in Higher Education,” featured local officers from affiliates that have suc-ceeded in improving the voice and working conditions of nontenure-track faculty. A special guest was Sara Horowitz, founder and execu-tive director of Freelancers Union. On July 11, the AFT and Freelancers Union announced a partnership that will give contingent faculty access to benefits and a broad community of part-time workers.

Other presenters on the panel included So-nya Alvarado, president of the Eastern Michi-gan University Federation of Teachers, and Ron Bramhall, a vice president of the United Aca-demics of the University of Oregon.

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AFT HEALTHCARE AFT PUBLIC EMPLOYEES“Healthcare is viewed as a commodity today, and for many nurses, this is the only system they know. But there was a time when quality of care was what we believed in,” said Candice Owley, president of the Wisconsin Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals and an AFT vice president, during the healthcare divisional meeting. But control over the quality of health-care can be pulled back from corporate hands if we all work together, she said.

The meeting featured remarks by Shannon Brownlee, a writer and essayist best known for her groundbreaking work on overtreatment and the implications for healthcare policy. She told delegates that even though patients have become “customers,” things can be turned around.

Brownlee made her point by sharing a story about her dying father. She described the ex-traordinary measures doctors took to keep him alive before they finally determined he would benefit most from palliative care.

“An awful lot of people didn’t want to know what my father wanted, but the nurses did,” said Brownlee.

The experience embodied everything that is great about medicine and everything that’s bad about it, she said. Overtreatment is en-demic in healthcare, Brownlee pointed out.

“You can’t work in a hospital and remain un-aware of the scope of overuse.”

Overtreatment happens because patients represent revenue to hospitals, said Brownlee.

“The default in healthcare is to do something because we think of death as a failure.”

“Extracting overuse and restoring the healthcare system will require deep structural change. I want you to be involved in how the change occurs,” she told delegates. And as unionized health professionals, “you are al-ready on the path for collective action to bring about change.”

Brownlee suggested that delegates take the time to attend one meeting a year on the topic of overuse. She also encouraged dele-gates to speak up. “Talk to your patients. You are trusted more than physicians. You can also speak up in public by writing op-eds and talk-ing to people.”

Reform holds potential to make healthcare better, said Brownlee. “The work you do will change for the better: You will spend less time filling out paperwork and more time listening to and caring for your patients. This is not just my pie-in-the-sky vision, it’s a vision shared by a lot of people in healthcare.”

The public employee division meeting celebrat-ed the progress made by the division’s affiliates in the past two years and acknowledged the challenges that lie ahead.

Singled out were success stories in places like Connecticut, where public employee unions have negotiated a popular wellness program, and North Dakota, where the AFT-affiliated North Dakota Public Employees As-sociation and the North Dakota Education As-sociation merged to form the state’s largest public employee union.

But also noted was the situation in Illinois, where AFT affiliates and other unions are chal-lenging an effort to roll back pension benefits, as well as the ongoing battle in Wisconsin, where labor continues to fight Gov. Scott Walker’s anti-worker policies.

Susan Kent, president of the New York State Public Employees and an AFT vice president, shared with meeting participants the story of how a coalition of clergy, union members, pa-tients, community leaders and others prevent-ed the privatization of SUNY Downstate Medi-cal Center in Brooklyn, which would have resulted in the loss of vital medical services to some of New York City’s most vulnerable citizens.

In her remarks to the meeting, AFT Execu-tive Vice President Francine Lawrence applaud-ed the public employee leaders and activists for advocating “on behalf of not just our members but those you serve.”

Lawrence criticized the “misguided poli-cies” of those who call for privatization and austerity. “You are the ones with the solutions to improve the delivery of public services,” she told those in attendance.

Public Services International General Secre-tary Rosa Pavanelli said that, across the world, the public sector and public employees are in-creasingly the target of those who want to make a profit at the expense of workers and public services. Their goal is reduced public sec-tor funding, the outsourcing of services, and collective bargaining reform that would weak-en unions.

Public employees must respond to this chal-lenge by showing that “we can ensure quality public services and, at the same time, ensure public sector jobs,” Pavanelli said.

Among those recognized during the meet-ing was Barbara Tavora-Jainchill, president of the United Nations Staff Union, which recently voted to join the AFT.

The history of California workers’

struggles for justice is presented on a

dozen panels, from Native American

labor and the 1934 San Francisco

General Strike to education unions and

the United Farm Workers.

The exhibit is located in the West Lobby.

California Labor History Exhibit

6 #ReclaimIt

CALIFORNIA GOV. Jerry Brown made educa-tion news when his state passed Proposition 30 to increase school funding, and established a Local Control Funding Formula that puts education decisions closer to where the stu-dents are actually being taught—the class-room. And on the convention floor, Brown continued to speak our language: “Your suc-cess is America’s success,” he told the packed convention hall Friday. “It’s the teacher, not Arne Duncan, that’s going to make the differ-ence for the future of our country.”

Brown also denounced overtesting, de-claring that in California, students would not be double-tested as part of the Common Core State Standards rollout. “We’ll adopt the Com-

mon Core,” he said, but “let’s go at it in an in-telligent, careful, step-by-step way.” That means saying “no” to Washington on man-dated testing for every child, every year.

To achieve real learning, educators can’t just “pour stuff into the brain” to prepare for standardized tests handed down from afar; instead, they must “light a fire in each student and share that enthusiasm,” he said. “ ‘Beauty is truth, and truth beauty,’ ” he quoted. “Where was that on the test?”

To ensure that every child gets the oppor-tunity for such high-quality learning, Brown has discarded the old equal-funding para-digm, and instead directs more funding to the neediest districts. “Those who have the biggest

challenge, they need the most money, the most teachers, the most counselors,” he said.

“What’s most im-portant is reclaiming the promise of building the future, not stealing from it.”

TWO LEADERS of international labor organi-zations thanked the AFT for standing with their colleagues around the world in the fight for free unions and such basic rights as safe working conditions, and pledged to continue what has become a global struggle against powerful forces working to undermine public services.

Fred van Leeuwen, the general secretary of Education International, singled out educa-tors in the Middle East, Nigeria, Pakistan and Ukraine for their courage to keep teaching in dangerous war zones. Some have even been murdered while doing their jobs. “These are our frontline soldiers,” he said. “They stand up for the rights of their students, and they refuse to stop teaching and close their schools, but

some of them paid the highest price. Let us not forget them.”

Rosa Pavanelli, the general secretary of Public Services International, said many of the attacks on unions that we face in the United States are, in fact, global and strategically planned. One result, she said, is that “injus-tice, discrimination and poverty have reached unacceptable levels.”

“Let’s get united to reclaim the promise and protect our rights,” she added, echoing the convention theme. “Let’s continue fighting together for justice and solidarity. I’m sure that united together, we will win.”

Gov. Jerry Brown speaks our languageCALIFORNIA’S EDUCATION POLICIES SUPPORT FEWER TESTS, IN-DEPTH LEARNING AND FUNDING FOR NEEDIEST SCHOOLS

California Gov. Jerry Brown is a lifelong advocate of public education. M

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International leaders urge global solidarity

Fred van Leeuwen of Education International and Rosa Pavanelli of Public Services International talked about the importance of global labor solidarity.

Join allies in labor and the community in telling the U.S. Postal Service and the Staples corporation that the U.S. mail is not for sale.

Saturday, July 12, 6:00 p.m. (or at the conclusion of the general session)

Staples Center Plaza

U.S. Mail Is Not

for Sale!

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INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONSPublic Services International (PSI)ROSA PAVANELLIGeneral Secretary

Education International (EI)FRED VAN LEEUWENGeneral Secretary

COMBERTTY RODRIGUEZ GARCIAChief Regional Coordinator Latin America Regional Office

TIMO LINSENMAIERSenior Coordinator Communications Unit

HELENA SCHULZCommunications Officer Communications Unit

ARGENTINACONTUAMARCELO DI STEFANOExecutive Secretary

MARIANO SANTOROAssociate Secretary of Coordination

AUSTRALIAAustralian Education Union (AEU)ANGELO GAVRIELATOSFederal President

BARBADOSBarbados Union of Teachers (BUT)RICHMARK CAVEVice President

National Union of Public Workers (NUPW)JOY-ANN INNISSSpecial Education Teacher

CANADACentrale des syndicats du Quebec (CSQ)ALAIN PELISSIER*Former President

DANIEL B. LAFRENIERESecretary-Treasurer

GERMANY German Education Union (GEW)MARLIS TEPEPresident

MANFRED BRINKMANNInternational Secretary

IRELAND Irish National Teachers’ Organization (INTO)NOEL WARDDeputy General Secretary/General Treasurer

Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI)GERARD P. CRAUGHWELLPast President

JOHN MacGABHANNGeneral Secretary

ISRAEL Israel Teachers Union (ITU)CHLOMO ICHAYDirector General Foundation for Professional Advancement

ZIPI DVIRDeputy General Secretary

Union of Clerical, Administrative and Public Service Employees (UCAPSE)ARNON BAR-DAVID Chairman

GIL BAR-TALHead of Local Authorities Employees Division

JAPAN Japan Teachers’ Union (JTU)RYOSUKE KATO*President

HIROAKI AKAIKEDirector International Affairs Department

TAMAKI TERAZAWADeputy Director International Affairs Department

MEXICO Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (STUNAM)AGUSTIN RODRIGUEZ FUENTESGeneral Secretary

ARNOLDO RODRIGUEZ Legal Department Coordinator

AGUSTIN RODRIGUEZ HERNANDEZDeputy Press Secretary

Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educacion (SNTE)JUAN DIAZ DE LA TORREGeneral Secretary

ALFONSO CEPEDA SALASExecutive Board Member

MARIA ANTONIETA GARCIA LASCURAINCouncil on International Relations

NETHERLANDS Algemene Onderwijsbond (AOb)WALTER DRESSCHER President

POLAND Polish Teachers’ Union (ZNP)SLAWOMIR BRONIARZ* President

SENEGAL Syndicat des Professeurs du Senegal (SYPROS)MARIEME SAKHO DANSOKHO*General Secretary

TRINIDAD AND TOBAGOTrinidad and Tobago Unified Teachers’ Association (T&TUTA)DAVANAND SINANANPresident

LYNSLEY A. DOODHAISecond Vice President

UKRAINE Confederation of Free Trade Unions of UkraineMIKHAILO VOLYNETSPresident

Solidarity Center—UkraineTETIANA SOLODOVNYK Program Coordinator

Trade Union of Education and Science Workers of UkraineGEORGIY TRUKHANOVPresident

UNITED KINGDOMNASUWT—The Teachers’ Union (NASUWT)PATRICK ROACH*Deputy General Secretary

BRIAN COOKSONNational Treasurer

National Union of Teachers (NUT)KEVIN COURTNEYDeputy General Secretary

*EI Board Member

7 #AFT14

AFT welcomes international guestsTRADE UNION LEADERS, SPECIAL GUESTS ATTEND THE CONVENTION

#ReclaimIt

AFT IDOL AND DELEGATE RECEPTIONAFT IDOL AND DELEGATE RECEPTIONAFT IDOL AND DELEGATE RECEPTION