Dear Member,

Across the country, public education is under attack. Not only are legislatures slashing budgets, promoting unaccountable systems like schools of innovation, and imposing egregious valuation systems and other mandates, but some states are repressing the collective voice of public education employees, the public sector union. Don't mistake the conflict in Wisconsin as simply one over collective bargaining rights, as important as they are; far more is at stake.

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Don't believe the propaganda in "Waiting for Superman" about education reform. Check out this story on NEAToday. Among other important innovations, teachers in Finland spend nearly half their time outside of the classroom working on professional development, collaborative planning with colleagues, and communicating with parents. That's the kind of accountability to professional standards that results in top student performance.

"In a union election with national significance, Karen Lewis, CORE caucus candidate for President of Chicago Teachers Union, decisively defeated incumbent Marilyn Stewart. As reported at www.substance.net, American Arbitration Association announced early in the morning on June 12 that Lewis got 12,080 votes to Stewart's 8,326. Over her years in power Stewart froze up when Arne Duncan, then head of Chicago Public Schools, pushed school privatizations, turnarounds, obsessive testing, closures and massive teacher layoffs. During this period Karen Lewis and the Caucus of Rank and File Educators organized a strong fight back against these measures. Lewis' victory today represents a major national challenge to now-Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and his policies, today being forced onto every school system in the U.S." Check out Karen's speech. Also, watch this video on the anger in Chicago at Chicago Public Schools budget shenanigans.