American Federation of Teachers brings nurses’ union onboard

One of the largest labor unions in the U.S. will get a bit larger on Thursday, when the 1.5-million strong American Federation of Teachers enters into a new affiliation with the National Federation of Nurses union, the Huffington Post reports. Both unions billed the affiliation as mutually beneficial: The AFT expands its ranks in the growing health care sector, while the nurses’ union, which has 34,000 registered nurses in four states, hitches itself to a national federation with heavy clout both in the workplace and in politics. Leaders from both unions described the affiliation as a natural fit, given the professional commonalities between teaching and nursing. Just as the AFT has been battling school boards over issues like classroom size, they said, so too have nurses been fighting hospitals and health care companies over staffing levels and nurse-to-patient ratios…

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Politicians, business leaders ask high schoolers to consider community college

Four-year colleges are often seen as the natural next step for high school students, but business leaders and politicians want teens to consider another option: community college, U.S. News reports. An associate degree from a two-year technical program may be the quickest route for recent high school graduates to enter a stable, lucrative career field. It may also be the only way to keep up with workforce demands, said President Obama.

“Jobs requiring at least an associate degree are projected to grow twice as fast as jobs requiring no college experience,” the president said at a 2010 summit of community college leaders. “We will not fill those jobs–or keep those jobs on our shores–without the training offered by community colleges.”

An estimated 600,000 jobs, largely in manufacturing, currently sit unfilled because of a lack of qualified workers, Jay Timmons, president and CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers, noted last week in written testimony to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce……Read More

Slain Newtown educators to be honored with Presidential medals by White House

Presidential medals will be awarded posthumously to the six people who died protecting children at Sandy Hook Elementary School, officials said Tuesday, the Associated Press reports. The principal, school psychologist and four teachers who were killed in the Dec. 14 massacre will be among the recipients of the 2012 Presidential Citizens Medal, according to a White House official. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the honorees have not been officially announced. The staff members slain inside the Newtown, Conn. school have been credited with protecting the students when a gunman attacked the building. Some rushed toward the gunman while others used their bodies to shielded children from gunfire…

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NBA Star: Athletes must step up and fight for fair education in their hometowns

By the time you finish this sentence, another student in America will have dropped out of high school, TakePart.com reports. Every day, nearly 7,000 high school students across the country give up on the dream of a diploma, and by extension, a shot at a better life. A staggering number of these students are African-American and Latino, and come from low-income families. Students drop out of school for a host of reasons, from family and social challenges, to poor instruction. Whatever the reason, one thing is clear: Students in our nation’s most economically deprived areas need help. No high school diploma means kids will have very limited opportunities for employment, forcing many of them into a life of crime or poverty—or both…

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Seven elements for effective community-school partnerships

Partnerships for learning require that all partners involved understand and stick to strategies that encourage collaboration.

The phrase “It takes a village” is at the heart of a school reform movement called partnerships for learning, which aims to integrate community resources with local schools to educate the “whole child.” Now, a new report reveals the keys to successful community-school partnerships.

According to the Harvard Family Research Project report, “Partnerships for Learning: Community Support for Youth Success,” data collected from a community schools initiative called Elev8 show what successful partnerships for learning look like—and the effects these can have on learning.

Many educators are shifting away from the “traditional education model in which schools focus primarily on providing youth with a solid foundation in academics,” explains the report. “Instead, they are moving toward a more comprehensive approach that supports youths’ physical, social, and emotional needs in addition to their academic achievement.”…Read More

Kids send Obama letters of advice for second term

As President Barack Obama is publicly inaugurated for a second time Monday, thousands of K-5 students across the country are sending handwritten letters to the president offering advice on his second term, the Huffington Post reports. The letter-writing campaign is part of the “Mail to the Chief” program, launched in 2008 by handwriting curriculum Handwriting Without Tears. The program seeks to garner student interest in government and cultivate an appreciation for written communication. More than 35,000 students sent the newly elected president letters of ideas, advice and well wishes in 2008. This year’s letters will arrive at the White House in time for the official Jan. 20 inauguration and National Handwriting Day Jan. 23. The “Mail to the Chief” initiative continues as schools in states from North Carolina to Indiana drop cursive from required curricula. In its stead, some schools are requiring keyboard proficiency…

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Martin Luther King: ‘Intelligence is not enough’

Martin Luther King Jr., was prescient on a lot of things, including education. Here are some things he wrote decades ago that sound contemporary, the Washington Post reports. Here’s an excerpt from “The Purpose of Education,” a piece he wrote in the February 1947 edition of the Morehouse College student newspaper, the Maroon Tiger:

…As I engage in the so-called “bull sessions” around and about the school, I too often find that most college men have a misconception of the purpose of education. Most of the “brethren” think that education should equip them with the proper instruments of exploitation so that they can forever trample over the masses. Still others think that education should furnish them with noble ends rather than means to an end…

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Will zombies keep a Philadelphia school from closing its doors?

Despite their zombie makeup, there was nothing lifeless about the members of the Philadelphia Student Union on Wednesday, TakePart.com reports. PSU members, dressed as zombies, gathered in front of the Philadelphia Public School District (PPS) building to protest the district’s plan to close 37 public schools. The students executed a flash mob dance to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” in protest of the potential school closures. Their zombie attire, and signs reading “RIP Philly’s Schools,” symbolized their ‘dead’ futures without the education of Philadelphia public schools. The zombie students are not the only ones up in arms about the school closure proposal. When Philadelphia Superintendent William Hiite announced his plan to shut several public schools in December, the backlash from parents, kids, and teachers was immediate. To date, Hiite plans to close 21 elementary schools, five middle schools and 11 high schools…

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New York City bus driver strike to affect 150,000 kids

As New York City school bus drivers head toward a strike, slated for Wednesday morning, the national president of the drivers’ union accused Mayor Michael Bloomberg of trying to gut standards for workers in public services, comparing the mayor to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R), who controversially rolled back collective bargaining rights for public employees in that state, the Huffington Post reports.

“This is the New York equivalent of Scott Walker’s attempts to strip workers in public services of their wages and benefits,” Larry Hanley, president of the 190,000-member Amalgamated Transit Union, told The Huffington Post. “That’s what it’s intended to do. It is an assault on the foundation of decent wages and decent health care and decent retirement standards.”

Bloomberg, in turn, has accused the union of “abandoning” the city’s students. “With its regrettable decision to strike, the union is abandoning 152,000 students and their families who rely on school bus service each day,” Bloomberg said in a Monday statement. The mayor’s office didn’t immediately respond to Hanley’s comments Tuesday……Read More

Watch: Karen Lewis says ‘Off with their heads,’ stirs right-wing ire

Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis is no stranger to her outspokenness landing her in the headlines — but many conservatives are particularly miffed by a comment she made during a labor event last month, the Huffington Post reports. In the clip, recorded Dec. 2 during her keynote address of the Illinois Labor History Society’s Union Hall of Honor dinner and posted on YouTube Monday, Lewis noted that an earlier generation of labor leaders resolved their differences with the rich with a very straightforward mantra: “Off with their heads.”

“Do not think for a minute that the wealthy are ever going to allow you to legislate their riches away from them,” Lewis told the audience at the event. “However, we are in a moment where the wealth disparity in this country is very reminiscent of the robber baron ages. The labor leaders of that time, though, were ready to kill. They were. They were just — off with their heads. They were seriously talking about that.”

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Mississippi debate over school reform evokes broader racial divide

Mississippi lawmaker Kenneth Wayne Jones, a Democrat, briefly became a political pariah last winter when he voted in favor of a proposal to expand charter schools in his state, says the Hechinger Report. He was the only African-American state senator to support the bill, which most members of Mississippi’s legislative Black Caucus disavowed. Jones liked the idea of expanded school options for families, but he also understood his colleagues’ mistrust. This winter, charter supporters will make their fifth attempt in five years to bring charters to Mississippi, one of a dwindling number of states without a real charter school law. (The state has an existing law so restrictive that no charters have opened.) But the deep-rooted skepticism of the state’s black leadership remains one of the biggest obstacles to bipartisan support for charters in Mississippi and throughout the South, where powerful white Democrats are a disappearing breed. It also speaks to broader mistrust among black officials nationwide—particularly those who came of age before or during the civil rights movement—toward contemporary school reform efforts they believe are being imposed by outsiders on low-income, minority communities…

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High school educators resolve to do better in the New Year

Educators across the country are wrapping up their winter breaks and returning to school with a fresh list of New Year’s resolutions. For high school teachers and administrators, 2013 will be about improving their craft and helping students meet their goals, U.S. News reports.

“My main resolution is to continue to show my students a positive learning environment while fostering the nurturing relationships I have with them,” Jenny Michael, a language arts and ACT prep teacher at Seckman High School in Missouri, said via E-mail. “My students show me something new every day and it is one of the best parts of my job, which encourages me to continue educating.”

But to truly succeed, sometimes students need to fail. Mark Westlake, a physics teacher at Saint Thomas Academy in Minnesota, plans to give his students more room to fail in the year ahead……Read More