Tag Archives: advocate

The negotiations surrounding the teachers union contract have broken down. Now the situation appears to be getting quite tense in the Boulder Valley School District. Last week I expressed my hopes that the teachers choose to act like professionals, rather than rehash last spring’s “sick out” or even worse. This Daily Camera report (complete with video) from Tuesday’s Boulder Valley School Board meeting indicates the growing possibility that my hopes may not be met: Union officials said they don’t know what value fact-finding would provide, and they’d rather go through the budget to find the money needed to move toward professional pay. Regardless of how negotiations move forward, King has said schools won’t be interrupted. The teachers’ union has said taking some sort of “job action,” such as a strike, is a possibility but they hope to avoid it. [emphases added] Four items to consider:

The teachers unions have a delicate dance to do when it comes to public charter schools. In the not-too-distant past, when charters were a new idea and still very small in number, outright opposition to nip them in the bud. Charter schools are largely non-unionized (with exceptions) and provide competition from within the public education system. But over the years has come a gradual evolution. In many states the unions have grudgingly accepted charters as part of the landscape, while working quietly to limit their successful expansion. Then along have come a Democrat president and secretary of education who advocate more charter-friendly policies. Union officials aren’t about to give in to the more radical anti-charter elements of their membership, but they decided they had to do something to make a statement and quell the growing tide of charter school opportunity and innovation. As explained by Nelson Smith of the National Association of Public Charter Schools (NAPCS), the just-ended big to-do known as the NEA Representative Assembly provided the perfect opportunity to do precisely that: