Word: unioned
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...some much advertised union reforms remain cosmetic. Leaders of both unions have embraced "peer review" of teachers, where a new teacher's performance is judged for an entire year by a "consultant teacher." Peer review also seeks to identify and weed out veteran teachers who aren't performing. Feldman calls it "the best kind of teacher evaluation out there," but others call it a sham, designed to give unions even more control over personnel decisions. A handful of districts, taking their cue from the national union leaders, have successfully instituted peer review. But more often, local unions have ignored...
...unions are taking notice. At their national meeting in New Orleans this month, delegates for the 2.3 million members of the N.E.A. turned back a proposed merger with the A.F.T., which would have created the nation's largest union. But most observers think the threats to the unions' power make the drive to combine forces irreversible. And so while they concentrate for now on the tactical move of simply growing bigger, both organizations are also trying to project a new, more cooperative image. Moved in part by a Democratic President's enthusiasm for reforms like charter schools and tougher teacher...
...unions are dismissive of alternative certification for people who want to teach--liberal arts graduates or people from other industries--without having to acquire teaching degrees. Advocates of alternative certification like Silber push it as a way to increase the number and quality of interested teachers. But while 100,000 teachers have been licensed through alternative programs, union leaders remain cool to the idea: "If John Silber wants to take a job in any school in America, I'll help him get his alternative certification. But this is not how to attract better teachers," says Feldman...
...Union leaders, education experts and even some politicians agree on one thing: teachers' salaries need a big boost to attract and retain high-achieving candidates. (On average, first-year teachers make $25,000 a year.) In response to his state's teacher-testing debacle, Massachusetts senate president Thomas Birmingham last week proposed spending $100 million toward giving top college graduates a $20,000 bonus to lure them into teaching. Senator Kerry too called for "raising teacher salaries and paying [them] like professionals." Given the scope of the teaching crisis and the priority voters make of education, politicians of both parties...
...LIAISON DANGEREUSE] This Confederate major general had been frustrating Union troops in Tennessee while dallying with the wife of a doctor...