Teacher’s Work/Teachers Unions SIG Business Meeting: The Changing Context for Public Sector Unions

Scheduled Time: Monday, April 16 – 6:15 – 8:15pm

Building/Room: Vancouver Convention Centre, Second Level – East Room 8&15

Agenda:

Part A

1. Welcome and Apologies
2. Chair’s Report
3. Program Chair’s Report
4. Secretary/Treasurer’s Report
5. Papers/specific matters for discussion
   1. Draft database (Chris)
   2. “Red Estrado” conference, Chile, summer 2012 (Jill)
   3. Draft of SIG award for Ed D/Ph D dissertation (Chris)
   4. SIG @ AERA 2013 – Connecting with local unions in San Francisco? Any other suggestions?
   5. Other Business

Part B

1. Invited speaker: Susan Lambert, President, BCTF: (a) the current education/labour situation in BC; (b) report about the pre-AERA session hosted by the IDEA network and BCTF

1. Invited Panel: The Changing International Context for Public Sector Unions

Teacher union leaders and researchers from Australia, Canada, England and Mexico will discuss how the context for teacher unions has changed in their educational jurisdiction and how teacher unions in each jurisdiction have responded to the changes.

Invited speakers:

• Jeff Garsed, Research Officer, Australian Education Union-Tas Branch
• Myles Ellis, Acting Deputy Secretary General, Canadian Teacher’s Federation
• Howard Stevenson, Professor, University of Lincoln
• Maria de la Luz Arriaga Lemus, Professor, Faculty of Economics, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
• Mary Compton, Past President, National Union of Teachers

Session Chair: Cindy Rottman, University of Manitoba

At the conclusion of the meeting please join us for dinner and a sampling of the local micro-brews!

The Educational Institute of Scotland have recently published ‘The EIS and Leadership in Schools’ which may be of interest to SIG members – download a copy here EIS Leadership Policy document – 2nd Edition March 10.

Sponsor:

SIG-Teacher’s Work/Teachers Unions

Cosponsor:

SIG-Critical Educators for Social Justice

Schedule Information:

Scheduled Time: Sat, Apr 9 – 6:00pm – 8:00pm

Building/Room: United Teachers of New Orleans / 4718 Paris Avenue, Oak Park Shopping Center, New Orleans. LA70122
View “It’s All about the Dollars” in a larger map

Session Participants:

Michael W. Apple (University of Wisconsin – Madison), Kristen L. Buras (Emory University), Larry Carter, Jim Randels, Anthony Hart, Valerie Prier, Wanda Richard, and Katrena Jackson-Ndang, all of United Teachers of New Orleans.

Abstract:

Since 2005 New Orleans’ public education system has been subject to sustained assault and has become the premiere site for urban educational reform in the United States. Hurrricane Katrina created a vacuum for sweeping neo-liberal restructuring of public education. There is no other city with a higher proportion of charter schools or a more comprehensive program of alternative teacher recruitment. The city’s veteran teachers were fired en masse in early 2006, collective bargaining rights have been attacked, and the teachers’ union marginalized; notably, disenfranchised teachers constituted a substantial portion of New Orleans’ black middle class. All of these developments have significant implications for the quality of schooling, and democratic control, of public education, in New Orleans. This session gives voice to those at the frontline of such developments – New Orleans’ veteran teachers. Attendees will hear firsthand accounts of how New Orleans’ public schools have been undermined by privatization and union-busting. Discussants will connect experiences in New Orleans with the broader trajectory of a globalized neo-liberal restructuring of public education.

This event is free and open to all attendees and does not require pre-registration. All are welcome to attend. The event also provides an important opportunity to link our scholarship with our activism and to show solidarity with teacher activists engaged in active struggle for democratic public education and decent conditions for students to learn and teachers to teach. Please come along and show your support.

Note – the venue is a short taxi ride from the main conference locations.  For details of pooled taxi arrangements look out for us on twitter – http://twitter.com/#!/aeratwtusig

Dear SIG member

I am just writing to update colleagues on some exciting developments for the SIG program at New Orleans, 2011.

The SIG has received some excellent submissions for papers and roundtables. These have now been reviewed and I will shortly be putting the program together. Many thanks to all those who submitted and reviewed.

I would like to provide some advance notice of two tremendously exciting developments that SIG members are currently working on for New Orleans 2011.

Jill Pinkney Pastrana, our SIG secretary, is currently working with colleagues in Chile to organise an event for our business meeting. This will involve academics and teacher union activists from Chile discussing education policy in the country, and in particular how aggressive neo-liberalism is decimating public education there. Teacher unionists will describe how the teachers’ unions are resisting these pressures.

Details are still being finalised, but this promises to be an excellent and fascinating session.

Meanwhile Kristen Buras is working with colleagues in the New Orleans teachers’ union (UTNO) and as a consequence the SIG will be sponsoring a major event at the UTNO offices on the Saturday evening of AERA.

Members of UTNO will provide accounts of the radical ‘restructuring’ of education in the city, with Katrina ‘re-construction’ being used as a catalyst to hasten privatisation and attacks on teachers and their working conditions. Kristen and Michael Apple have agreed to be the discussants.

Both events are still being finalised. But I am sure you will agree that these represent excellent opportunities to hear first hand how teacher unions are responding to finding themselves at the sharp end of neo-liberal education policies. I very much hope you will be able to attend AERA, and support these sessions. In due course we will publish full details and any help you can provide in encouraging others to attend would be greatly appreciated.

As details are finalised these will appear on the SIG blog at

Best wishes

Howard

http://aeratwtusig.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/

The AERA 2011 annual meeting will be held in New Orleans – 8th-12th April. The theme is Inciting the Social Imagination: Education Research for the Public Good. 

The call for proposals has now been made -   Call for proposals.

Submissions must be made by 15 July 2010 - using the online submission system.

The SIG is aiming to maintain its excellent profile at next year’s annual meeting.  We are already in discussion with colleagues in New Orleans and we are hopeful of providing first rate opportunities for SIG members to connect with teachers and teacher union activists.

Of course, at the heart of the SIG’s program are the papers, presentations and roundtables provided by members.  Please can I urge you to consider submitting a proposal to the SIG.

SIG members will know that we have a tradition of being very inclusive in our approach – including papers that focus on teacher unions, but also explore a wide range of issues relating to teachers’ experience of work.  The SIG has also got a commitment to exploring issues relating to professional learning and professional development. What unites these concerns is an interest in teaching as work, teachers as workers and schools and colleges as workplaces.

If these are your interests, please consider sharing your work with others through the SIG. Please submit your proposals by 15th July.

Proposers should be aware of the following . . .

1) In addition to the standard criteria for judging proposals provided by AERA, the SIG has added an additional item – ‘Of interest to scholars, teachers and teacher unionists’. This has been added to ensure our program has a broad appeal, and is not driven by elite notions of research. Please be aware of this when submitting your proposal.

2) Recent changes to the structure of the annual meeting introdcued by AERA have reduced the number of paper sessions, and increased the number of roundtables.  At the 2010 meeting this was considered to be quite successful, and the SIG had some excellent roundtable discussions. Colleagues will have a much greater chance of being included in the program if they present their proposal as being suitable as either a paper or a roundtable.  If a proposal is submitted as a paper only, it cannot be rescheduled as a roundtable – and this will make it significantly more difficult to be included.

I very much hope you will consider submitting a proposal, and I look forward to seeing you in New Orleans next year.

Howard Stevenson

SIG Program Chair 2011

This paper presented by Howard Stevenson at UCEA Convention, Anaheim. November 2009.  Check here for full details.