CyberPlayGround Blog

Diane Ravitch: A Union of Professionals – Why Teacher Unions Are Good for Teachers and the Public
They Protect Teachers’ Rights, Support Teacher Professionalism, and Check Administrative Power
We live in an era when leaders in business and the media demand that schools function like businesses in a free market economy, competing for students and staff. Many such voices say that such corporate-style school reform is stymied by the teacher unions, which stand in the way of leaders who want unchecked power to assign, reward, punish, or remove their employees. Some academics blame the unions when student achievement remains stagnant. If scores are low, the critics say it must be because of the teachers’ contract, not because the district has a weak curriculum or lacks resources or has mediocre leadership. If some teachers are incompetent, it must be because of the contract, not because the district has a flawed, bureaucratic hiring process or has failed to evaluate new teachers before awarding them tenure. These critics want to scrap the contract, throw away teachers’ legal protections, and bring teacher unions to their collective knees.
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A survey released this week by the Pew Research Center’s Internet and Life Project shed light on the social side of the Internet. The results offered insight into the differences between the connected and the disconnected, revealing that Internet users are more likely to be active participants, with some 80 percent of Internet users participating in groups, compared with 56 percent of non-Internet users.
Continue reading “The role of the Internet as a platform for collective action grows – O'Reilly Radar”