So I’m coming late to the “party” on the firing of Nichole Byrne Lau from a New York charter school. (More discussion by Leo Casey, AFT’s NCLBlog, Andrew Rotherham, Joe Williams, and Sara Mead.) There are a few aspects here that haven’t been cover…

There’s an old but useful UFT slogan: “Teachers want what children need!”

What parent doesn’t want reduced class sizes for their child? What parent doesn’t want a safe teaching/learning environment for their child?

You can add to the list, but it still boils down to “Teachers want what children need.”

All workers benefit from unionization. There’s no way that my voice (however beautiful my mother may think it is) competes with that of 80,000 New York City teachers facing down Joel Klein’s efforts to Walmartize education. When we work to improve th…

At the Edwize blog: Do charter schools need unions? about charter school teachers in New York being fired for mentioning the ‘U’ word. Fortunately things turned out all right for one teacher, because she was so highly regarded:Nichole applied for……

We English teachers hate that stuff. Especially when we do it ourselves.

I couldn’t agree more. Teachers set an example, and need to think freely, as we want our kids to do. We need to tell the country this story.

It’s time to break and kill the growing trend of US citizens as complacent, overworked, underpaid Fox News viewing estate-tax repeal advocates, horrified over gay marriage and the non-existent flag-burning epedemic.

Speaking up is not, of course, my profession. I am a high school English teacher, and the vast majority of my career has been spent in classrooms with teenagers, texts, and a stripe of chalk across my lower back. My moments of advocacy are pinpoints compared to the time I’ve spent in class. But sometimes things just outside the door get so outrageous, and so threatening, that I feel compelled to emerge from the classroom and speak up for the sake of the children in my care.

And at that point, at any of those moments of emerging on behalf of students, I would, most likely, have lost my job.

And this, I believe, is the problem with charters that are not unionized. Ms. Nichole Byrne Lau may have been passing around salary schedules, but she could just have well have been questioning the denial of services to a child with special needs, or seeking the eradication of a vicious mold growing rampant in a corner of her room. Special Education services, safe buildings – these things cost money just like teachers do. But who would dare to say a word with Nichole Byrne Lau not only fired but slandered as a racist, like a warning in the press.

My point is this: the conditions under which teachers work — their salary, their safety, their pedagogy, and their protection – are the conditions under which children learn.

Untenured teachers are silent teachers, and those are hardly the conditions under which I would want to send my child off to school.

“..liberal arts education that includes language, literature, writing, science, history, mathematics, the arts, technology and explorations in disciplines designed to teach fairness, justice, respect and compassion for themselves and others as well as the skills of critical thinking, communication and research”

“Fairness, justice, respect and compassion..” Nice words but I guess they don’t apply to how CEO Melendez feels he needs to treat teachers in the school.

And “communication,” let’s not forget that. He calls the person a racist and then fails to back up those disgusting allegations, preferring to remain incommunicado.

Research–he doesn’t have to do research he can just fire at will, but thinking critically, according to Mr. Melendez, that’s not firing because it’s at will. (?)

Nice modeling of behavior, Mr. CEO. Mission accomplished.

There’s no doubt all teachers, not to mention all working Americans, benefit from union. This is a great example why.

Don’t let the public forget about this one.

Melendez should be a contender! He probably has done more for the teacher union movement than he can fathom.