Kati Haycock is a straight-shooter. The president of the respected Education Trust, Haycock is known in education circles and beyond for her objectivity and seriousness when it comes to what’s happening in America’s schools. Her positions do not always align with NYSUT’s. That’s why her recent post on the HuffPost’s blog, headlined “Slowing Down to [...]

AFT President Randi Weingarten today joined the chorus of education leaders who have been pressing New York state to make the new Common Core standards and assessments work before making them count. In an address to the Association for a Better New York, Weingarten called for a moratorium on attaching high-stakes decisions for students and [...]

Joe Karb and Ben Higgins are active members of the Springville Faculty Association who were inspired by NYSUT President Dick Iannuzzi’s rallying cry at the union’s Representative Assembly to be in Albany on June 8 to Fight for the Future of Public Education. But Joe and Ben want to make sure they’re not alone on [...]

As the mother of two children and the wife of a NYSUT member, blogger Alana Reynolds has some thoughts about testing. For more on the state’s obsession with testing and to take action, visit testing.nysut.org. My oldest kid is in second grade and, as the school year winds down, we’ve started talking about next year.  Recently, [...]

Amanda Magee, of Queensbury in Warren County, is the mother of three daughters who — like the vast majority of New York parents — is concerned about the state’s heavy reliance on testing and its impact on children. She writes a blog called “The Wink” but she wrote this for us. Take a stand against [...]

Michelle Doorey teaches English, creative writing and more at Ausable Valley High School. She is also the mother of a third-grader and a blogger, writing as “TeacherMomNY.” Michelle joined NYSUT officers Dick Iannuzzi and Maria Neira several weeks ago for a “Tell It Like It Is” town hall meeting in Lake Placid, where several hundred [...]

Well, maybe not a page-turner. This is a digital blog, after all. But the message here is that NYSUT and its affiliates — both local and national — are putting a special focus on books and their importance to the students with whom their members work. First, April is School Library Month and the week [...]

Organized labor is vulnerable and not adequately meeting the needs of working people, according to AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. But, Trumka added, this just might be the right time to innovate and explore new ways to organize the future workforce. Trumka spoke at the recent Conference on New Models of Worker Representation in Chicago, where [...]

NYSUT’s two national affiliates — the AFT and NEA — have teamed with other national unions to sponsor a television ad aimed at the legacies of members of Congress who have disappointed working people. The message, dubbed “Remembered,” began running this week and targets Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Rep. Gary Miller and Jeff Denham [...]

Bullying has become a major social justice issue, one that NYSUT and its national affiliates have put their weight behind. Now, several of the cable networks have come on board. Tonight,  ”The Bully Effect: An Anderson Cooper Special” — a production of CNN in partnership with the Cartoon Network — premieres, chronicling the journeys of a [...]