“It’s time to admit that public education operates like a planned economy, a bureaucratic system in which everybody’s role is spelled out in advance and there are few incentives for innovation and productivity. It’s no surprise that our school system doesn’t improve: It more resembles the communist economy than our own market economy.” – Albert Shanker, former AFT president, The Wall Street Journal, October 2,1989
The American Federation of Teachers falls under the AFL-CIO umbrella, a coalition of industrial unions.
The AFT has its roots in a number of urban teachers’ unions from the early 1900s.
AFT affiliates are primarily located in larger cities, such as New York City, Detroit, Chicago, Washington, DC, New Orleans, and Los Angeles.
The AFT has about 1.2 million members – most of them school employees. The union has also organized health care personnel as well as day care workers, with the assistance of ACORN.
The union’s most famous president arguably has been Albert Shanker, who has his roots in New York City’s United Federation of Teachers. While Shanker is credited with being reform-minded, his reforms always were couched in the belief that they would not harm his organization. See Suffocating Charter Schools for more history.
Like Shanker, the AFT’s current president, Randi Weingarten, also has her roots in the UFT. Weingarten is equally militant and as politically savvy.
Like other national union leaders, Weingarten has been smoothly discussing reform, with little actually getting accomplished.
Consider a Wall Street Journal editorial, upon the news of Weingarten’s “promotion”:
Weingarten has been active across the country support her union’s endorsed candidates, including stumping for Barack Obama and Senate candidate Al Franken. To the right, she is pictured with Franken and Tom Dooher, president of Educate Minnesota, the state’s teachers’ union.
Weingarten will likely take the AFT in a continued militantly liberal direction and use the union for political purposes.
source: EAGF
The American Federation of Teachers falls under the AFL-CIO umbrella, a coalition of industrial unions.
The AFT has its roots in a number of urban teachers’ unions from the early 1900s.
AFT affiliates are primarily located in larger cities, such as New York City, Detroit, Chicago, Washington, DC, New Orleans, and Los Angeles.
The AFT has about 1.2 million members – most of them school employees. The union has also organized health care personnel as well as day care workers, with the assistance of ACORN.
The union’s most famous president arguably has been Albert Shanker, who has his roots in New York City’s United Federation of Teachers. While Shanker is credited with being reform-minded, his reforms always were couched in the belief that they would not harm his organization. See Suffocating Charter Schools for more history.
Like Shanker, the AFT’s current president, Randi Weingarten, also has her roots in the UFT. Weingarten is equally militant and as politically savvy.
Like other national union leaders, Weingarten has been smoothly discussing reform, with little actually getting accomplished.
Consider a Wall Street Journal editorial, upon the news of Weingarten’s “promotion”:
In her weekly “What Matters Most” newspaper column, Randi Weingarten recently bid the Big Apple farewell. Ms. Weingarten has been elevated to president of the national American Federation of Teachers from head of its New York City affiliate, and she had some notable parting words: “One of the most rewarding (and exhausting) things about working in public education in New York City is that it is the best laboratory in the world for trying new things.“Well, it could be, if it weren’t for Ms. Weingarten’s union. Since taking over in 1998, she has done everything she could to block significant reforms to New York’s public schools. Take her opposition to charter schools. She resisted raising the state cap on charters from 100 unless the union could organize them. (She lost and the cap now is 200.)Ms. Weingarten was also against merit pay for individual teachers. She supported a law that bars school districts from linking teacher tenure to student test scores. In return for even the mildest pension reforms, Ms. Weingarten recently won a concession that teachers no longer need to work on the two days before the start of the school year.
Weingarten has been active across the country support her union’s endorsed candidates, including stumping for Barack Obama and Senate candidate Al Franken. To the right, she is pictured with Franken and Tom Dooher, president of Educate Minnesota, the state’s teachers’ union.
Weingarten will likely take the AFT in a continued militantly liberal direction and use the union for political purposes.
source: EAGF
