All posts tagged: teachers

“Civic Action Requires More Than Textbooks”: Chicago To Subsidize May Day Protests By Teachers

“Civic Action Requires More Than Textbooks”: Chicago To Subsidize May Day Protests By Teachers

Published by Jenni Sidey

Authored by Jonathan Turley, The Chicago Public Schools are facing a major truancy problem…among teachers. The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) was up in arms over suggestions that classes should be held on May 1 when teachers wanted to be out protesting. Called International Workers’ Day, May Day is a global day of protest for socialist, communist, and unionist groups. The CTU was upset when parents objected that canceling a day of class for teachers to join a political protest was a burden for working parents. These teachers believe that they are teaching something far more important through their activism. In defending the demand for publicly subsidized protests, CTU Vice President Jackson Potter explained that “teaching our students what civic action looks like requires more than textbooks.” While that does not help with the dismal proficiency scores of actual students, it is vital to training students as political foot soldiers. The CTU and the National Education Association recently collaborated on a “curriculum build” to bring “social justice into the classroom” ahead of May Day. Dave Stieber, a history …

Teachers’ pensions delays ‘unacceptable’, says minister

Teachers’ pensions delays ‘unacceptable’, says minister

Published by skeptic

Delays in the administration of teachers’ pensions are “unacceptable”, the schools minister has said, as a union called on the government to “step in”. Problems with the Teachers’ Pension Scheme (TPS) have received renewed national attention after MPs heard about similar issues with civil service pensions. Both are run by the outsourcing giant Capita. Tens of thousands of retired teachers are still waiting for statements telling them how much they could be owed following public sector pension reforms in the 2010s. The McCloud remedy came after a 2018 court judgment ruled “transitional protection” reforms three years earlier had treated younger workers unfairly. Freedom of information requests have revealed tens of thousands of retired teachers are still awaiting remediable service statements (RSS), telling them how much they are owed and asking them to choose between a legacy scheme or a reformed option. ‘Complex change’ Speaking to Schools Week on Wednesday, schools minister Georgia Gould said the McCloud judgment “was a massive, big, complex change, and there are delays in complex cases. It’s unacceptable for teachers.” “I …

Secondary teacher job adverts hit a historic low – report

Secondary teacher job adverts hit a historic low – report

Published by skeptic

The teacher labour market has “contracted”, with the number of secondary school job adverts down by around a third compared to last year, a new report suggests. The latest annual recruitment and retention report from Teacher Tapp and SchoolDash shows secondary teacher vacancies have hit the lowest level in the nine-year period data is available. The study, which draws on job advert monitoring as well as daily polls of a pool of more than 10,000 teachers, shows secondary school teacher job adverts are down 32 per cent compared to last year, and 46 per cent on 2018-19. ‘Contraction’ in secondary labour market The report suggests schools are anticipating falling pupils rolls, while a weak wider labour market appears to be suppressing teacher turnover. Teacher Tapp co-founder Becky Allen said: “Schools know their intakes are shrinking, so they’re not replacing staff who leave, and with fewer opportunities elsewhere, fewer teachers are leaving in the first place. “The result is that staffing problems have gone underground: fewer advertised vacancies, but more classes covered by non-specialists and more teachers …

Chicago Teachers Want No School on May Day, Testing the City’s Mayor and School Leaders

Chicago Teachers Want No School on May Day, Testing the City’s Mayor and School Leaders

Published by Sam Flores

CHICAGO (AP) — A tangled political fight over whether Chicago’s public schools will hold classes on May Day is coming down to the wire, confusing tens of thousands of students and parents. The influential teachers union, an ally of Mayor Brandon Johnson, wants educators to participate in protests in the nation’s third-largest city on May 1, coinciding with workers’ rights rallies worldwide. But the newly named leader of Chicago Public Schools has rejected the pitch to cancel classes. The standoff has created uncertainty for the families of more than 315,000 students. Here is what to know about Chicago’s battle over having school on May Day. Teachers union wants day off to boost May Day rallies May Day demonstrations are typically robust in union-friendly Chicago. The roots of the day, also celebrated as International Workers Day, go back over a century to a turbulent and pivotal time in labor history. This year U.S. labor groups are planning for a boycott of work, shopping and school to fight the Trump administration’s agenda. In some places, including North …

‘Stretched’ teacher training providers struggle for mentors

‘Stretched’ teacher training providers struggle for mentors

Published by skeptic

Teacher workload, staffing shortages and competing priorities are stretching schools’ capacity to provide mentors for trainee teachers, a survey has found. In the latest member survey by the National Association of School-based Teacher Trainers (NASBTT), almost half of the 65 providers polled described their organisation’s capacity to provide mentors for trainee teachers as “just sufficient but stretched”. Asked if existing mentors had enough time to fulfil mentoring responsibilities effectively, 68 per cent said this was true to a limited or very limited extent. Trainers said teacher workload, staffing shortages and competing priorities were the top barriers to mentor capacity. Meanwhile 57 per cent of respondents said securing placements for trainees was “worse” than in previous years. Providers said it was hardest to find placements in secondaries, particularly for languages, art and design, computing, science, maths, business, PE, and performing arts. NASBTT CEO Emma Hollis described mentoring as “a cornerstone of effective teacher training”. Emma Hollis She added: “If we are serious about ensuring every trainee receives high-quality support, we need to encourage schools to prioritise …

Yemen’s teachers pushed to the brink as salaries collapse | Education News

Yemen’s teachers pushed to the brink as salaries collapse | Education News

Published by Sam Flores

Mukalla, Yemen – Mohammed Salem heads out every morning for his job as a teacher at a government-run school. But once his shift is finished at that school, he then goes to a private school, where he also teaches. After a brief stop home for lunch, Mohammed is off to his third job, in a hotel, where he works the rest of the day. “If I had any spare time for a fourth job, I would take it,” Mohammed, a teacher with 31 years of experience, said. He spoke to Al Jazeera outside his flat in a large housing complex in the eastern suburbs of Yemen’s southeastern port city of Mukalla. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list He has been forced into taking on the extra jobs because of Yemen’s dire economic situation, and specifically the Yemeni riyal’s slide against the US dollar in recent years. “I return home at night completely burned out,” he said. “Teachers are devastated and have no time to take care of their students. During classes, they are …

Stop censoring books, teachers warn school libraries | UK News

Stop censoring books, teachers warn school libraries | UK News

Published by Sam Flores

Teachers have called for an end to censorship in school libraries, with their union warning it “should ring alarm bells for all of us”. The warning at the National Education Union (NEU) conference in Brighton comes following claims a Salford school ordered dozens of classic titles be removed from shelves. Index on Censorship reported in March that George Orwell’s 1984 and Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series were among the more than 130 books targeted at the Lowry Academy in Greater Manchester. It said the librarian had been “threatened with disciplinary action” and resigned. The school denied books had been banned and had instead been moved into “age-appropriate categories”. “Following concerns that a number of books within the library were neither age nor content-appropriate, an audit was conducted,” said a statement. “Following this, books have been placed into age-appropriate categories and returned to the shelves. A very small number of books were deemed inappropriate even for older children due to their content and have been removed.” More from Sky News:Resident doctors to strikeWhat’s behind disorder in cities? …

Learning from autistic teachers could change schools for the better

Learning from autistic teachers could change schools for the better

Published by skeptic

As a researcher in autism and education and a former secondary school teacher, it took me a while to realise that autistic school staff were rarely included in conversations about inclusion and diversity in schools. With colleagues, I started the Autistic School Staff Project in 2019, focusing on the experiences, needs and aptitudes of autistic teachers and other education staff. Our findings show that autistic school staff can experience significant sensory issues in school. These can be from bright, flickering lights, odours from the canteen, and crowding in corridors or during meetings. The greatest impact of all comes from noise: shouting from children and staff during break times, the clang of the school bell and the roar of traffic when windows are open in the summer. Interestingly, it’s not only a question of volume levels. Whispering from children and humming from technology can also be highly distracting and contribute to feelings of fatigue and overload. Autistic teachers also told us that the ways neurotypical colleagues communicated and interacted with them could be disorientating and exclusionary. …

6,500 teachers aim will require a broader talent pipeline

6,500 teachers aim will require a broader talent pipeline

Published by skeptic

Schools are missing out on a vast pool of untapped talent by thinking rigidly about where teachers come from, says Leyla Palmer The long-awaited schools white paper presents the sector with lots of opportunities. Education secretary Bridget Phillipson references this as a “once in a generation chance for change”. However, when it comes to the government’s bold pledge of 6,500 additional teachers, simply turning up the dial on traditional recruitment campaigns will not fill our classrooms. If we are to genuinely deliver on the “attract” pillar of the government’s plan, the sector must completely dismantle the traditional barriers to entry. We cannot rely solely on the conventional university pipeline. We must fundamentally rethink where our future teachers might come from and meet them where they are. Magic of teaching The solution to the recruitment crisis sits at the very desks in our classrooms. We need a “full circle” philosophy. We should not be waiting until young people are in their final year of university to pitch teaching as a career. The mission must start earlier. …

Why MAGA fears human teachers

Why MAGA fears human teachers

Published by Sam Flores

One thing Donald Trump‘s White House knows how to do is put on a spectacle so unsettling it is sure to grab attention. So it was last week when Melania Trump walked the red-carpeted hallway, dressed all in an all-white suit — accompanied by a white humanoid robot. The image, reminiscent of a wedding, quickly went viral, driven by jokes about how the First Lady had finally met someone with her own emotional caliber and how Figure 03, as it is called, was a step up from her husband. But as odd as the images were, what Melania Trump was selling was even worse: a GOP proposal to replace human teachers with robots. “Imagine a humanoid educator named ‘Plato,’” she told attendees. “Access to the classical studies is now instantaneous: literature, science, art, philosophy, mathematics and history.” Welcome to the latest front in the Republican war on schools.  For decades, the GOP has been leading an assault on public education. In the 1980s and 1990s, the gripe was “stick to reading, writing and ‘rithmetic,” which …