While pouring through piles of paperwork to prepare my tax returns, I noticed that the amount in income tax I paid is far more than this report says billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg might pay. I fumed over the government’s inability to make decisions that will keep us from falling into one fiscal ditch after another. [...]

The first week of school shouldn’t be about tests. But it is, thanks to the way many districts are implementing  new requirements for Annual Professional Performance Review (APPR), testified some at the Capital Region stop of NYSUT’s Listening Tour last night. Occupational therapist Tammy Boire spoke out to give teachers some solutions to the growing [...]

View photos at Flickr.com/nysut Before making it to your table, apples, beans and other fruits and vegetables were growing from the earth, nourished by sun and rain, and picked and harvested by farmworkers in fields and orchards.  The milk on your cereal came from cows that were cleaned and milked by workers on dairy farms. [...]

All week, Haitian worker Telemarque Pierre is traveling the state with the New York State Labor-Religion Coalition to ask New Yorkers to get the state government to agree to purchase only sweatfree goods for all of its apparel. His authority on the subject is hard won: he works in a factory where in order to earn [...]

When I was assigned to write about National School Counseling Week (Feb. 4-8), naturally I thought of John Fitzpatrick. He changed my life. “Mr. Fitz” was the counselor at Tupper Lake High School.  I had hung out with his daughters, and had even been to their house for fondue. (The first time it was the [...]

If it’s Tuesday in Albany, you know something is going on. During legislative sessions, Tuesdays are packed with people at the Legislative Office Building and the Capitol eager to speak with their representatives. This Tuesday (tomorrow), there will be also be a statewide rally to raise New York’s minimum wage. It starts at noon. It’s [...]

A panel of professionals from education, mental health, law enforcement, journalism and activism provided practical suggestions for improving school safety in a discussion on “Keeping our children safe from gun violence in our schools.”

Two of my sisters teach second grade. My thoughts and prayers are with them today — and every teacher — as they face  classrooms full of students who will likely be scared, angry, curious, sad, confused.  My sisters’ students learned over the weekend what we all have learned — that 20 children their age died [...]

“When the girl returned, some hours later, she carried a tray, with a cup of fragrant tea steaming on it; and a plate piled up with very hot buttered toast, cut thick, very brown on both sides, with the butter running through the holes in great golden drops, like honey from the honeycomb. The smell [...]

Supporters of an increase in the state’s minimum wage are rallying and praying on the issue this afternoon at the New York State Senate in downtown Albany. The current minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. When I was at the grocery store last week, a loaf of bread cost me $3.99. My jar of peanut [...]