LAMPHERE FEDERATION OF TEACHERS
MFT & SRP #1614
Newsletter
January 2005
LFT Social--The LFT is sponsoring a social gathering at the United Food and Commericial Workers Hall on Friday, January 14th from 3 p.m.-5 p.m. Make sure that you RSVP to your building representative. We have invited the paraprofessionals and secretaries as our guests. Hope to see all of you there.
Transfer Requests--Any LFT member that is interested in requesting a transfer for the next school year must make that request in writing by February 1st. A transfer is defined as "a relocation of teaching personnel to another building." Contractual language is located on page 20 of the contract. The letter should be sent to the Human Resources Office to Dr. Marsha Pando. Please send me a copy of your transfer letter.
Martin Luther King Walk--Members who would like to honor the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King are invited to attend a walk with community members and labor union members on Martin Luther King Day, January 17th at 10 a.m.. The walk begins at Hope United Methodist Church at 26275 Northwestern Highway and ends at the Southfield Civic Center on Civic Center Drive. A ceremony follows honoring the life and work of Dr. King.
AFT Relief Fund to Help Tsunami Victims-- AFT members and affiliates are invited to support relief efforts for teachers and other education and public sector employees in countries around the Indian Ocean that were devastated by the recent tsunami disaster. As the union extended condolences to teacher and public employee unions in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, India, Malaysia and Burma, it also created a tsunami relief fund through the AFT Educational Foundation (AFTEF) to provide direct humanitarian assistance. The union is working through three organizations--Education International, Public Services International and the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center--to provide support for union colleagues and their families affected by the Dec. 26 natural disaster. Education International, which includes more than 345 organizations (including the AFT) representing 29 million education personnel worldwide, estimates that more than 10,000 teachers alone died or were gravely affected by the disaster. In letters to EI and PSI affiliates in the region, AFT president Edward J. McElroy expressed the union's "deepest condolences to and solidarity with you and your countrymen in the wake of the horrific natural disaster you are enduring." Also, AFT vice president Thomas Y. Hobart Jr. is scheduled to join an EI delegation in mid-January to visit Sri Lanka and the Banda Aceh province of Indonesia. Tax-deductible contributions should be made payable to the AFTEF and sent to the AFT Educational Foundation, 555 New Jersey Ave. N.W., Fourth Floor, Washington, DC 20001. Please write "tsunami relief" on the memo portion of the check.
School Finance In the 'Quality Counts' Spotlight-- School finance is the focus of Education Week's widely watched "Quality Counts" annual survey of school improvement, released this month. "Quality Counts 2005: No Small Change, Targeting Money Toward Student Performance," details a changing landscape in the debate over school finance, with traditional fights over equitable distribution of state resources to school districts giving way to an emphasis on adequate resources to help students achieve at higher levels and a push to make schools, districts and educators accountable for producing gains with the money they receive. The adequate-financing trend is spurred by a series of court decisions in such states as Kansas and New York, where judges have found states in violation of constitutional guarantees of adequate public education for all. And, along with the emphasis on adequate funding, "the push is on to link education spending to academic results," thanks to ambitious student performance goals set by states and the No Child Left Behind Act's mandates for student proficiency in math and reading by 2013-14. Adding pressure to state budgets is the fact that "while Title I appropriations certainly have grown, they have slipped below the more aggressive raises suggested in the law." The final Title I budget for fiscal 2004 fell $6 billion shy of what Congress authorized. "Quality Counts 2005" is posted online at http://www.unionvoice.org/ct/f11KNd11JceD/.
Shanker Institute Board Discusses Education and the Workforce-- The changing nature of the American workplace and its potential effect on trade unions, and the spreading impact of the No Child Left Behind legislation on all facets of education, were the main topics considered as future agenda items at a meeting of the Albert Shanker Institute board of directors in Washington, D.C., last month. The board met to explore future program directions for the Institute, now completing its sixth year of operations. The work and union discussion was kicked off by Lynn Karoly, senior economist at the RAND Corp., who presented research on the economic, demographic and global forces that are shaping a 21st-century workplace and that may necessitate new union forms and services. Board member and University of Michigan professor David K. Cohen also spoke, providing a brief history of Title I, including some serious problems inherent in the recent No Child Left Behind law, which stem from flawed accountability and assessment design and which have begun to affect teacher professional development, curriculum content and the standards movement.
Respectfully submitted,
Judy Schram
LFT President