The CFT campaign to Fund our Future
By Jeffery M. Freitas, CFT President
In 2011, the CFT worked with community partners to lead the charge for a Millionaires Tax that eventually turned into Prop 30 and was then extended by Prop 55. Those funds helped stop the bleeding in K-14 education following the recession and drastic funding cuts of the mid-2000s.
Now, however, there are pressures throughout our school districts and community colleges that are preventing CFT members from getting the pay, benefits, program funding, and staffing levels our schools, colleges, and communities desperately need.
CalPERS bails out of private prisons
Drops $12 million investment in GEO Group and CoreCivic
The California Public Employees’ Retirement System, CalPERS, recently rattled the cages of the for-profit prison industry by divesting nearly $10 million of stock in the country’s two biggest private jailers.
The August sell-off came on the heels of the California State Teachers Retirement System, CalSTRS, dropping its $12 million investment in GEO Group and CoreCivic (formerly known as the Corrections Corporation of America).
Grassroots effort leads to historic charter school reform
On Thursday, October 3, Governor Gavin Newsom signed AB 1505, a historic charter school reform bill that is essential to ensuring charter schools are accountable to local communities and all California students. The new law follows months of incredible organizing and weeks of intense negotiations, during which CFT leaders, members, and staff have stood with fellow educators, school workers, parents, and students to push for reform.
CFT takes bold next step in opposition to statewide online community college
Union to sue CalBright for violations of Education Code
Duplicating existing programs. Diverting taxpayer resources. Recruiting students from other districts. Not meeting critical deadlines. Lack of input from faculty stakeholders. Lack of transparency.
These are some of the reasons leaders from the CFT’s Community College Council strongly oppose the state’s new all online community college, now doing business as “Calbright,” which they say was created to fill a need that doesn’t exist.
Spotlight on transportation services
Jobs returned when contracting out fails, drivers get more training
A recent video that went viral on social media showed a bus driver being attacked by angry parents in St. Louis. Bernard Benson knows how parents can lose their tempers. He has been driving school buses in the San Joaquin Valley for six years.
“A detour makes a driver late and parents get mad because of the delay. It happens all the time. It goes with the territory,” he said, adding, “Most of the time we’re looked at like the good guys because we get kids to and from school.”
State of the Union Speech 2018
Delivered by President Joshua Pechthalt on March 24, 2018
This past year has been at times demoralizing, frightening, offensive and challenging. Yet through it all shines a ray of hope that something may be changing. In spite of all the administration’s bombastic rhetoric, or because of it, there seems to be broad opposition to Trump’s policies and growing clamor for something different.
School Choice: A Tale of Two Countries
Norway and Sweden take divergent paths
By Jeffery M. Freitas, CFT Secretary Treasurer
In October I accompanied AFT President Randi Weingarten and several fellow AFT union leaders on a fact-finding trip to Sweden and Norway. The purpose of the trip was to examine firsthand the approaches taken by the countries to inform our own approach to public education.
At first glance, Sweden and Norway seem nearly identical. Both countries have low levels of income inequality. They fund their schools well and it shows. They both have high rates of union membership and participation. And they both have a relatively high rate of electoral participation.
Delegates march for immigrant rights
DACA students, educators speak out at ICE building, state Capitol
Friday, Cesar Chavez Day, the first day of the CFT Convention, Art Pulaski of the California Labor Federation promised the delegates that he will make sure other unions — the plumbers, carpenters, and building trades — back up the CFT in their fight against charter schools and privatization. Then he got them fired up for the march in support of immigrant rights.
CFT Convention prepares us for tough challenges facing the union
By Joshua Pechthalt, CFT President
The CFT completed its 75th Convention and Jeff Freitas and I were honored to be re-elected by delegates to lead this great, progressive union. A new Executive Council was also elected, a diverse group of local leaders that will help guide this organization in the difficult period ahead.
Rally to stop DeVos confirmation draws hundreds
As the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee of the U.S. Senate voted to advance the nomination of Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education to the full Senate along party lines this morning, hundreds of Bay Area parents, teachers, and students came together at a noon rally and press conference in front of the Federal Building in Oakland to denounce her nomination.
CFT boycotts Staples to save postal worker jobs
Union asks members not to purchase supplies at low-wage retailer
The CFT is boycotting office supply retailer Staples at the request of the American Postal Workers Union, which is opposing a no-bid sweetheart deal between the U.S. Postal Service and the giant office supply retailer to operate postal counters in Staples stores. An estimated one-third of Staples’ revenues come from the sale of school supplies, many purchased by teachers and other school employees for classrooms.
A Tale of Hope and Caution: How three Latin American nations are defending public education
By Joshua Pechthalt, CFT President
As part of AFT’s ongoing effort to build alliances with educators and trade unionists around the world, President Randi Weingarten led an AFT delegation in May to meet education union leaders and other unionists in Brazil, Argentina and Chile. I joined them as we looked at their multi-year effort to defend and expand public education, and to develop a response to attacks.
AFT aims to ‘reclaim the promise of public education’
Remarks of AFT President Randi Weingarten at TEACH 2013
Introduction: The year that was
This year, there were many reminders of the role that educators play in the lives of America’s children.
It’s What Matters Today
In American education and in Finnish education
Diane Ravitch and Pasi Sahlberg spoke at events hosted by United Educators of San Francisco and co-sponsored by CFT and CTA