Feeling the Heat, AFT's Reform Resolve Wavers
Anti-union attacks frustrate AFT
Can a teachers’ union successfully be both a hardball-playing defender of its rights and a collaborative force for the common good?
It is both a question of philosophy and, increasingly, one of policy direction for the American Federation of Teachers, whose biennial convention here showed delegates grappling with the tension between the two approaches to unionism.
Though the AFT has, in recent years, been viewed as the less militant of the two national teachers’ unions, its delegates spoke forcefully against attacks on unions that have been couched in the guise of education reform, took a stand against the high-stakes use of standardized testing, and passed a “solidarity pledge” on behalf of local affiliates it asserts have been subject...
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