Free Republic

West Virginia teachers will continue to strike into Wednesday, although Republican Gov. Jim Justice has vowed since January he will not sign into law an education bill allowing charter schools and education savings accounts in the state. The New York Times, however, reported the teachers’ strike led to an immediate “victory” when the West Virginia House of Delegates voted Tuesday to table the bill. Similarly, the Associated Press reported union leaders were celebrating the decision of the West Virginia House of Delegates to kill the education bill that led to the strike: The House just voted on a motion made...

High school teachers in west suburban Hinsdale have taken a step closer to a possible strike, amid stalled contract talks with Hinsdale Township High School District 86. On Tuesday, the Hinsdale High School Teachers Association filed a strike notice with the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board. That starts a 28-day countdown until teachers can actually walk off the job. District 86 Board President Dr. Richard Skoda said, “I am especially saddened by this because last night the Board unanimously announced in public that we were seriously weighing the Union’s proposal, which we received at 10 p.m. Sunday night, and sought...

Four years of up-to-the-limit property tax increases for Chicago homeowners and businesses. Closing scores of under-enrolled and underperforming schools. Thousands of layoffs of teachers and other school staff. More cuts to the central office. That’s what could await the Chicago Public Schools, thanks to the tentative agreement between teachers and the district that is expected to put an end to the five-day teachers strike. Civic Federation President Laurence Msall said the 16 percent pay raise included in the tentative agreement will almost certainly trigger massive layoffs and scores of school closings. Every 1 percent pay raise carries a $20 million...

Neither Jay Carney nor Romney mentioned Rahm in their respective statements on the strike (Carney punted on the matter altogether, not surprisingly), but Ryan knows a political opportunity when he sees one. In a standoff between two of Obama’s biggest cronies, his former chief of staff and the unions that bankroll him, The One’s going to strain mightily to remain scrupulously neutral. Romney/Ryan’s task: Make that neutrality as uncomfortable as possible. The only surprise, says National Journal, is that it took the campaign this long to twist the knife. “If you turned on the TV this morning or sometime today,...

Republican vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan spoke out against the Chicago Teachers Union strike on Monday, saying he stands behind Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel's opposition to the demonstration. "Mayor Emanuel is right today in saying that this teacher's union strike is unnecessary and wrong," Ryan said in Portland, Ore., according to a pool report transcript. "We know that Rahm is not going to support our campaign, but on this issue and this day we stand with Mayor Rahm Emanuel." More than 26,000 education professionals in the Chicago area did not attend work on Monday over a contract negotiation dispute with the...

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney on Monday said Chicago teachers are turning their backs on thousands of students and that President Barack Obama is rooting for the striking educators. Obama's top spokesman said the president has not taken sides but is urging both the teachers and the city to settle quickly. Chicago's mayor, Obama ally Rahm Emanuel, called Romney's statement "lip service"... .....Romney released a statement that promised to "side with the parents and students depending on public schools to give them the skills to succeed." He said he was "disappointed" with Chicago teachers, who walked off the job in...

Iran: Arrests of peaceful demonstrators and activists continue Source: Amnesty International 4/21/07 Amnesty International is calling on the Iranian authorities to release immediately and unconditionally all those detained in connection with recent peaceful demonstrations by teachers, students and others, to halt all trial proceedings that could result in the imprisonment of prisoners of conscience and to cease harassment of those campaigning to uphold human rights, including trade union and political rights. The organization is concerned that such protestors have been increasingly targeted since Minister of Intelligence Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejeie publicly accused the womens' movement and student campaigners of being...

When a professor at Slippery Rock chose to parody The Vagina Monologues with handbills for the fictitious play that incorporated the name of the male organ, fliers for the event were torn down by female members of the faculty, incensed at the use of academic freedom to satirize their favorite play, a professor from the Pennsylvania school told disbelieving state assemblymen. Professor Alan Levy also said students have complained to him that the education teachers said if there were a teacher strike and any of the students crossed picket lines, the teachers would see to it that they never got...

A Snohomish County Superior Court judge this morning ordered striking Marysville teachers back to work on Wednesday. Judge Linda Krese ruled that the strike, now in its state-record 49th day, is illegal. She told teachers to return to school and work under the terms of their previous contract until they can hammer out a new one with the school district. "Even with teachers back to work this contract needs to get settled," Krese said. "It's time for all the adults to grow up and look at their obligations to these children." The 650-member Marysville Education Association voted to strike Sept....

Making school at home Parents become the teachers in makeshift classes By Julie Muhlstein Herald Columnist It's time for a switch, Margaret Larsen tells the second-graders. "Put your brains in gear for math. How do you write the number eight hundred and twelve?" she asks, pointing to a poster tacked up in a Marysville basement. "Read the words, then write the number down. Write the number in expanded notation." She leans over one little girl in the class of 11 to explain. "If you have 224, you write 200 plus 20 plus four," Larsen says. Upstairs in the dining room,...

Dist. 50, union carry on debate By C. L. Waller Daily Herald Staff Writer Talks were held behind closed doors for more than four hours Tuesday in Hinsdale as members of the Woodland Elementary District 50 school board and union members tried bringing a weeklong strike to an end. The federal mediator asked negotiating teams for the union and board to hold the sixth session with her at the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service office in Hinsdale to better focus on negotiations away from the Gurnee-area district. Salary is the key issue dividing the two sides. The Woodland Council, with...