Category Archives: Uncategorized

The Chronicle of Higher Education: Standing of American Workers Will Decline Unless Minority Education Becomes a Priority, Report Says

The education and income levels of American workers will decline over the next 15 years if states do not do more to improve the number of college graduates from minority groups, according to a report scheduled to be released today by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education.

The report, “As America Becomes More Diverse: The Impact of State Higher Education Inequality,” examines the projected demographic trends of the work force and the current gap in educational attainment between white and minority workers.

The decline in educational attainment could put the United States at a competitive disadvantage, and public policy must focus on making education more accessible for all groups, and on better preparing students for college, said Patrick M. Callan, the center’s president.

“There are serious consequences to not educating this population,” such as the outsourcing of high-end jobs, he said.

The proportion of minority workers is expected to reach 37 percent by 2020 — double the level of 1980. Meanwhile, white workers are expected to drop to 63 percent of the work force. The report attributes the demographic shift to the coming retirement of the baby boomers and the increasing number of minority young people.

But members of minority groups are less likely to earn college degrees, and if the current educational gap continues, the proportion of the work force with a college education, or even a high-school diploma, would decrease, the report says. The proportion of the work force with less than a high-school diploma would rise to 18.5 percent from 16.1 percent in 2000, and the proportion with a bachelor’s degree would fall to 16.4 percent from 17.1 percent.

That trend would be seen in nearly all states, the report says, with the largest increases in the proportion of uneducated workers occurring in Nevada, followed by California, Arizona, Texas, Colorado, and Illinois.

However, if states can close the educational gap so that minority students earn bachelor’s degrees at the same rate as white students, the United States could see the proportion of workers with the degree increase to 20 percent in 2020, the report says.

The drop in the share of the work force with college degrees would also lead to a 2-percent fall in personal per-capita income, from $21,591 in 2000 to $21,196 in 2020, in constant dollars. During the previous 20-year period, that figure grew by 41 percent.

Closing the gap depends on access to higher education, the report concludes, and states must focus on the affordability of higher education at a time when tuition continues to rise but the amount of need-based financial aid is not keeping up. States must also work to ensure that students in elementary and secondary schools are well prepared for college because disparities in early education leave many black and Hispanic students unprepared for college, the report says.

“Education is the most effective intervention available for improving our social and economic future,” the report says. “And given the changing nature of our economy, a high-school education is not enough. Addressing race/ethnic inequalities in higher education will require persistent and meaningful efforts by states to provide postsecondary access and opportunity to steadily growing numbers of undereducated and underrepresented minorities.”

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Donga – Seoul, South Korea: Should professors’ union be legalized?

The existing Teachers’ Union Act has an equitability issue because teachers who are not covered by the Primary and Secondary Education Act are excluded. “We should allow university professors to form a labor union to make it possible for them as workers to improve their working conditions and enhance their economic and social status,” said lawmaker Rep. Lee to explain the rationale for amending the Teachers Union

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Burlington Free Press: National teachers union shoot for $40,000 base pay

The new Colchester teachers contract means starting pay for teachers in the district will jump from $30,506 to $34,575.

The new sum — though hard-fought by the union — remains significantly below the National Education Association’s goal of $40,000 base pay for all public school teachers across the nation. Only a few Vermont schools approach the union’s goal, and many are a good $12,000 below it.

Still, leaders of the Vermont-NEA and local union chapters across the state are working to improve pay for new teachers on the grounds that it is critical to attracting high-quality employees to schools.

Boston Globe: Union wants base pay of $40,000, Vt. short of that

Vermont has a long way to go if it wants to meet the new goal of the National Education Association: annual base pay for starting teachers of $40,000 nationwide.

The teachers’ union argues that improving base pay is the key to attracting top college graduates into the classroom, and that base pay as low as $28,000 in some Vermont schools has hampered recruitment.

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Baton Rouge Advocate: Crisis could alter higher education
Louisiana’s college system could emerge dramatically changed as higher education officials consider once taboo options to cope with the most severe post-hurricanes budget cuts in the state. Melding institutions, keeping closed some storm-ravaged campuses and axing programs and faculty positions “are all on the table,” Higher Education Commissioner Joseph Savoie told a panel of legislators Monday.

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UGA provost turns up heat over “day off”

Some University of Georgia students might have gotten an extra day in the sun last week, but it’s the university’s administrators who are burning over faculty decisions to cancel classes the day before fall break.

UGA Provost Arnett Mace sent out a firm edict this week to university deans to canvass their faculty and see how many called off Wednesday classes in anticipation of the two-day break and the annual Georgia-Florida football game in Jacksonville last weekend.

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Faculty revolt at Indiana U

Faculty members at Indiana University’s flagship campus say they need a chancellor. Adam Herbert is finding out how little patience they have left as he approaches a third straight year without selecting a permanent Bloomington campus chancellor — a powerful position that carries with it the responsibilities of senior vice president of academic affairs for all Indiana University campuses. “Incompetent,” “overwhelmed” and “indecisive” were all words used by various professors and students to describe Herbert in interviews Thursday.

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The Times-Picayune: Dillard University lays off 202 workers

Dillard University laid off 202 of its staff and faculty this week, nearly 59 percent of its employees, saying those reductions could be temporary but for now are essential to keeping the school running.

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Inside Higher Ed: Layoffs at Xavier

Xavier announcement

Xavier University of Louisiana announced on its Web site Friday that it would lay off employees, cancel numerous programs, limit graduate study to online offerings, and suspend conference play for its sports teams until fall 2006. The Times-Picayune reported that the historically black, Roman Catholic university in New Orleans would lay off a total of 318 staff members and 89 faculty members, which represents nearly three-fifths of its staff and more than a third of the faculty.

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Inside Higher Ed: Judge orders raises for U of Washington faculty

If you tell faculty members that they can expect a raise, you’d better mean it.

That was the message that a state judge, Mary I. Yu, had for the University of Washington Tuesday, when she ruled that the university had an obligation to provide faculty members who received good reviews a raise of at least 2 percent in 2002-3. The university could owe its faculty members $12 million or more when the 2 percent is factored into the base pay for faculty members who received subsequent raises.

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Global BC:
Teacher rallies planned across BC
Rallies were scheduled in 16 communities across B.C. Tuesday to support striking teachers.

Vancouver Sun:
Teachers’ strike impasse; Who’s going to blink
Students across B.C. will not be in class today and could remain out of school for the foreseeable future as the union representing striking public school teachers continues to lock horns with the province in an increasingly bitter labour dispute.

The Globe & Mail:
BC teachers stay out despite court order
British Columbia public school teachers remained off the job Tuesday despite a weekend court ruling that found the striking workers in contempt for not abiding by an order to go back to work.

The Tyee:
IS JINNY SIMS GOING TO JAIL? What the courts have said about leaders of ‘illegal strikes.’ By David Schreck

WHY I’M A PARENT WHO SUPPORTS THE TEACHERS’ STRIKE; It’s a ‘teaching moment’ for all of us. By Gabriel Yiu

MAIR: UNTANGLE LIBS AND BCTF; Change a losing game. Try compulsive arbitration.

Vancouver Sun

Teachers’ strike impasse
Who is going to blink?

Darah Hansen
Vancouver Sun

October 11, 2005

Students across B.C. will not be in class today and could remain out of school for the foreseeable future as the union representing striking public school teachers continues to lock horns with the province in an increasingly bitter labour dispute.

Labour Minister Mike de Jong took a hard line Monday, saying he will not meet with members of the teachers’ union while its members remain off the job, in contravention of a ruling by the B.C. Supreme Court Sunday that found striking teachers in contempt of a Labour Relations Board order.

“The next step is for the union to rethink its position, stop breaking the law and go back to work,” de Jong said in a telephone conference with media representatives.

De Jong said the provincial government has done what it can to bring a resolution to the current labour dispute with teachers, from legislating a contract to end stalemated negotiations, hiring a mediator to come up with a workable bargaining structure for future teacher-government talks, and creating an education forum where issues such as class size and composition can be discussed.

There are no new plans to offer any solutions to end the dispute, de Jong said, adding the matter is now between the teachers and the courts.

“It’s not really about the government any more. It’s about the law,” de Jong said. “There has been an [LRB] order made, there’s been a contempt order made. And so this really does become, for the union and for the union’s membership, about obeying or continuing to disregard the Supreme Court of British Columbia.

“I’ve said this in the past: It’s a hell of an example for teachers to be presenting for students or our children. Madam Justice [Brenda Brown] herself said [in Sunday’s ruling that] in a society built around the principle of the rule of law, you don’t get to pick and choose, because if that’s how we’re going to run this thing, then we are one step away from anarchy,” de Jong said.

In response, Jinny Sims, president of the B.C. Teachers’ Federation, called de Jong’s statements “perplexing.”

“As late as yesterday afternoon, I had a cordial conversation with him and we once again invited him to a table and we are still waiting for a response. And again, this government has decided to respond through a press conference,” Sims said.

But de Jong told reporters Monday the telephone conversation did nothing but allow both sides to reiterate their opposing positions.

Contrary to the minister’s statement, Sims said, teachers feel it is the government’s responsibility to try to settle the dispute.

“Our protest is against the government,” Sims said. “They are the ones who set the mandate for [the B.C. Public School Employers’ Association], they are the ones who stripped our contract in 2002. They are the ones who took away our bargaining rights. They are the ones who imposed the essential services legislation. And they are the ones who have now introduced Bill 12, imposing through the legislation an agreement that further attacks our rights as working people and does nothing to address our students’ learning conditions. And now they are pretending they have no responsibility.

“Our dispute right now, the reason our teachers are out, is to protest an unjust law. It’s a political protest against the action of this government,” she said.

Because of these reasons, Sims said, it’s important the two sides sit down and hammer out some solutions.

Teachers have stated they will continue to defy Sunday’s B.C. Supreme Court order and continue to picket outside schools until the province agrees to sit down and negotiate a mutually agreeable contract that addresses their concerns over class size, class composition and wages.

Teachers and their employers, the BCPSEA, are scheduled to meet today as the Labour Relations Board hears an appeal of an Oct. 6 order that declared the teachers’ strike to be illegal under essential services legislation.

The only other meetings scheduled between the disputing parties is on Thursday when a B.C. Supreme Court judge will rule on the level of penalties to be levied against the union following the contempt ruling Sunday. The union is expected to be hit with stiff fines for every day its members continue to defy the law.

According to figures provided by the BCPSEA, teachers are currently earning $50 a day while walking the picket line, costing the union approximately $2 million a day in strike pay.

Various labour rallies in support of the teachers are planned to take place later today across the province. In Vancouver, the rally will be held at 5:30 p.m. at Canada Place. In Victoria, a rally is scheduled at 5 p.m. at the Greater Victoria school board office.

dahansen@png.canwest.com

© The Vancouver Sun 2005
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B.C. teachers stay out despite court order
By TERRY WEBER
Tuesday, October 11, 2005 Posted at 1:52 PM EDT
Globe and Mail Update

British Columbia public school teachers remained off the job Tuesday despite a weekend court ruling that found the striking workers in contempt for not abiding by an order to go back to work.

Classes have been cancelled in British Columbia since Friday, when teachers walked out to protest against legislation that would have forced them to accept a two-year contract that they say offers no pay increase and few improvements in working conditions.

The province’s 42,000 teachers have said they will stay off the job until their concerns are addressed. The B.C. Teachers Federation is expected to go back before the provincial labour board, asking it to reconsider an order labelling the job action an illegal strike.

That decision was upheld in a weekend B.C. Supreme Court decision, which found the union and its members were in contempt of court for not returning to work.

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B.C. Supreme Court Justice Nancy Brown, who delivered the contempt order, is to rule Thursday on what penalties the union will face for defying the decision. Last year, the B.C. Hospital Employees’ Union was fined $150,000 a day after being found in contempt when members picketed hospitals in the province.

The union has been told to produce its financial statements at the hearing.

B.C. Labour Minister Mike de Jong, meanwhile, called on striking teachers to abide by the order and said the province will not negotiate with the union as long as it continues to defy the ruling.

“There has been an order made,” he said. “There has been a contempt order made.

“So this really does become, for the union and for the union’s membership, a question of obeying or continuing to disregard the Supreme Court of British Columbia.”

B.C. Teachers’ Federation president Jinny Sims, however, blamed the standoff on the province.

“This is the government that has created this crisis and has forced the teachers of the province to take part in civil disobedience against an unjust law and now they don’t just get to sit on the sidelines and watch,” Ms. Sims said.

“This is not the time to make those kind of grandiose statements. This is the time to get to a table and to find solutions.”

Public school teachers in British Columbia have been without a contract since June, 2004.

The government says other public-sector workers have accepted contracts with no wage increases.

The teachers have argued that, while they want a fair wage increase, their big issue is getting negotiations on class size back into their collective agreement.

Teachers lost the ability to negotiate class size and composition in 2002 when the government imposed its last settlement.

In some communities, students were preparing to join their teachers on the picket lines.

In Tappen, a group of Carlin Elementary School students were making signs and preparing to take apples to their teachers.

“They hope that if kids at other schools do the same thing for their teachers, it will send a message to the government that education is important,” Mae Wandinger, president of the school’s parent council, said in an email.

With reports from Canadian Press

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CALL FOR PAPERS

“The Academy at Work”
Thought & Action, the NEA Journal of Higher Education
Deadline for submissions: March 1, 2006

A myriad of questions surround the academy as a workplace in the early years of the 21st Century. Work for almost all Americans has changed for the worse over the past decades-low-paying service jobs have replaced good paying manufacturing jobs as the mainstay of the economy; fewer and
fewer employers provide health and pension benefits-and our campuses are not immune. The traditional full-time, tenured professorship as an employment category has been in steep decline for decades, while lower paying academic staff positions and the campus contingent workforce
grow. Full-time, tenure-line faculty members now represent only one-third of the academic workforce. Pay for full-time faculty and staff is stagnant, while pay for contingent educators is woefully inadequate.

Employer-paid pensions and health insurance are under attack everywhere, and accountability measures proposed by many legislatures are little more than transparent attempts to weaken the autonomy professors have traditionally had in their work. But issues of pay, benefits, and job
security-the traditional purvey of higher education unions-while crucially important to the quality of life of those who work in higher education are only part of the picture.

Equally important are questions involving academic work itself. How we teach and whom we teach can no longer be taken for granted. Legislators, pundits, and the media question the effectiveness of college teaching in general. Forces outside the academy propose performance standards for
the college classroom. Within the academy itself, proponents of new approaches to teaching question the efficacy of traditional teaching strategies. Politicians and college administrators increasingly
challenge the tradition of faculty control of the curriculum.

Are we losing control? For the 2006 Thought & Action we are looking for manuscripts to address issues of academic work, in the belief that higher education faculty and staff should define the academy, rather than to allow new definitions to be imposed from outside.

Authors should send submissions to the address below. Guidelines are available at www.nea.org/.
For more information contact:

Con Lehane, Editor
Phone: 202-822-7214
NEA Higher Education Publications
Fax: 202-822-7206
1201 16th Street NW
E-mail: clehane@nea.org
Washington D.C. 20036-3290

__________________________________

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Inside Higher Ed: New approach to tenure

At many institutions, tenure has historically been determined by publishing and teaching records, with “service” a distant and poorly defined third criterion.

With the idea of “public scholarship” — a broad term that encompasses any number of ways faculty members may work with and in various communities — gaining more attention, many scholars believe that tenure systems need revision. A large-scale effort to do that was announced Friday by Imagining America, a consortium of colleges that encourage faculty members to be active members of their local and national communities.

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Miami Herald: Teachers union settles lawsuit

The United Teachers of Dade has reached a settlement worth about $1 million to resolve its lawsuit against ailing former union boss, Pat Tornillo, convicted in 2003 of pilfering its coffers.

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Vancouver Sun: Teachers’ ruling to be challenged
Employers’ association seeks to appeal right to post political material

Neal Hall
Vancouver Sun

September 30, 2005

The B.C. Public School Employers’ Association announced Thursday that it plans to appeal an earlier court ruling that upheld the constitutional right of B.C. teachers to post union political material in public areas of schools and hand out union brochures.

The BCPSEA plans to file material Monday in the Supreme Court of Canada seeking leave to appeal a B.C. Court of Appeal ruling last Aug. 3.

In a 2-1 ruling, the B.C. Appeal Court upheld the arbitration award of Don Munroe on the freedom of speech for teachers. It also upheld the right of teachers to discuss their union’s political position with parents during parent-teacher conferences.

The B.C. Teachers’ Federation takes the position that the employers’ association is seeking leave to appeal to try to silence the voices of teachers instead of discussing the issues of class size, class composition and staffing levels.

BCPSEA says it does not takes issue with a teachers’ right to become involved in political debate, but takes the position that political campaigning should be kept out of the classroom, out of parent-teacher meetings and not be done during working hours.

It may take months before the Supreme Court of Canada decides whether to allow the appeal. The court only hears cases that have national importance.

The BCPSEA said in a prepared statement: “We believe that the issue of a public employee’s right to express their political views during working hours is one of national significance.”

The issue first arose from the BCTF’s job action plan during collective bargaining in 2002, when “report cards” were distributed at parent-teacher interviews, comparing class size and the number of teachers employed before and after the legislation of the current collective agreement.

Teachers also posted notices at schools on public bulletins boards with such titles as Our Children’s Education is Threatened and What’s at Stake for B.C. Students.

nhall@png.canwest.com

© The Vancouver Sun 2005

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NEW Sweat-Free Campus Campaign!

United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) – an international network of student-labor activists — has developed a new plan for colleges and universities to require licensees such as Nike, Reebok, Adidas, Champion to exclusively produce collegiate apparel at “sweat-free” factories. USAS defines “sweat-free” as those factories in which workers’ right to organize is respected, and workers earn a living wage. On September 28th, students at 40 major colleges and universities will be demanding that their schools accept responsibility for the improvement of wages and working conditions for the garment workers who produce their college-logo t-shirts, sweatshirts, and caps.

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New York Times: Storms stretch safety net for black colleges

After Hurricane Katrina hit, there was six feet of water in the library at Xavier University. There is a beached boat on a campus made that much soggier by the wind and rain from Hurricane Rita. There is a waterlogged chapel, floors as slimy and slippery as river moss, with chairs and Bibles and plants strewn willy-nilly and a statue of the Virgin Mary perched on a pedestal overlooking it all.

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New York Times: American University chieft investigated over spending

In the next few weeks, the board of American University will decide the future of its longtime leader, Benjamin Ladner, who has become the latest college president to be investigated over the nature of his spending.

Dr. Ladner, who earned $663,000 for the 2004-5 academic year, was suspended last month while investigators hired by the university began to examine recent financial records. Documents from the investigation obtained by The New York Times suggest that over the last three years he and his wife, Nancy, spent nearly $600,000 on airline tickets, hotels, limousines, food, a chef, a social secretary and household items – expenditures that were charged to American, but that lawyers for the university say have no apparent or documented business purpose.

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Inside Higher Ed: More flexibility on tenure, if you ask

Research universities increasingly offer flexibility on the tenure track to help academics balance their professional and family obligations, according to a survey released Thursday by the American Council on Education

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Inside Higher Ed: New politics of race at Berkeley

When Fred Chang, a senior and president of Pi Alpha Phi, came to the University of California at Berkeley five years ago, he saw not one, but two Asian American fraternities — Pi Alpha Phi and Lambda Phi Epsilon — representing the only two nationally recognized Asian American fraternities in the nation. “You don’t see many schools with both,” Chang said. Only a handful of colleges in the nation outside of California have both.

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Inside Higher Ed: Women need not apply?

Does the president of Newman University have a problem promoting women?

Some faculty members and administrators say he does, and their claims received new backing when the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued the university on Wednesday, charging it with discrimination against a former dean. In July, the university settled another discrimination case by a female administrator who had won backing from the EEOC, which tends to have a very high standard for getting involved in bias suits against universities.

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