Newsroom
Meet leaders of the CFT Council of Classified Employees
Paula Phillips is president of the Berkeley Council of Classified Employees. After earning a degree in human resource management and working in the private sector, she came to Berkeley Unified as an administrative assistant to the Personnel Commission. She saw the district grading internal job candidates harder than external applicants and didn’t think it was fair.
Classified who teach college classes preserve fair assignments and pay
The AFT College Staff Guild and the Los Angeles Community College District agreed in January that classified employees who accept adjunct teaching assignments do not need to reduce their classified hours if the assignment is outside regularly scheduled hours.
Congrats to Classified Employee of the Year Rena Pheng
The California Community Colleges Board of Governors recently named Long Beach City College custodian Rena Pheng a Classified Employee of the Year. The honor caught Pheng by surprise.
“I’m not crazy about interviews and all this attention,” she said. “I never imagined receiving this award, especially since I do what I do because I love Long Beach City College, our students and staff — not for recognition.”
CFT brings voice to 10th Annual Trinational Coalition in Mexico City
Peter Brown is representing CFT at the 10th Annual Trinational Coalition to Defend Public Education now underway in Mexico City. Brown teaches at Laney College in Oakland and is a member of the Peralta Federation of Teachers.
Pechthalt honored by UCLA Labor Center
CFT President Joshua Pechthalt was honored Thursday, May 23, 2013, by the UCLA Center for Labor Research and Education, at the Center’s annual banquet, for his work to help pass Proposition 30 in November 2012.
Berkeley local unions fight for fair contract, cooking and gardening program
The faculty and classified AFT local unions in the Berkeley Unified School District rallied on May 8 before a district board meeting. With state funding to the district on the rise, educators say the district can provide more for its employees, especially since it is holding $7.9 million in its ending fund balance.
The workers are also trying to save the successful cooking and gardening program threatened by cuts to the federal program, Network for Healthy Californians.
Celebrate the role of classified staff during Classified School Employee Week!
May 19-25 is our week!
Classified staff keep California schools and colleges working. From making sure the buses are on time and running safely to helping college students obtain financial aid so they can stay in college, the work of classified members makes a difference every day.
Classified work in dozens of job roles ranging from clerical, maintenance and operations, food service, and computer services to classroom aides. Each classified worker helps the workplace run a little better and contributes to the quality of education for our students.
Adult educators build awareness, support to save schools
United street action and online communities making a difference
Adult education has been on the ropes, yet it continues to come back swinging to defend programs that are vital to many California communities.
Massive Open Online Classes threaten quality of education
Low-cost educational alternative likely to widen digital divide
MASSIVE OPEN ONLINE CLASSES have been hailed by officials at the companies that run them (the three biggest are edX, Udacity and Coursera) as a way to provide access to classes at elite universities to everyone, but critics say that MOOCs — free online course with potentially thousands of students, many of them outside the United States — would undermine education quality, increase the digital divide and cost teachers their jobs.
Federal cuts threaten cooking and gardening classes
Berkeley community rallies to save famous kids’ grow-it-yourself program
Facing a massive loss of federal funds, Berkeley Unified officials may yank an innovative gardening and cooking program up by the roots. The slash and burn tactics are drawing widespread community fire.
For about 15 years, the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture has taught low-income families about nutrition through school programs like the Network for a Healthy California. Congress, however, has revised its funding formula and California, which used to receive nearly a third of all USDA money, will lose about 40 percent of its grant. The funding for direct-to-kids programs like the NHC will be shifted to local health agencies to run publicity campaigns.
Why does Union City, New Jersey, matter in California?
David Kirp says lessons learned in this Latino community offer a narrative of hope
Editor’s note: In his new book, Improbable Scholars: The Rebirth of a Great American School System and a Strategy for American Education, UC Berkeley Professor David Kirp chronicles how a poor urban district transports Latino immigrant children into the education mainstream. In Kirp’s words…
Researcher Berliner describes how the education “crisis” is manufactured
David Berliner began criticizing the school reform industrial complex when he co-authored The Manufactured Crisis 17 years ago. He brought his case, strengthened by new statistical evidence, to delegates at the CFT Convention.