VOL. 32, NO. 3 | JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2013 Newtown in our thoughts 1 To tweet or not to tweet? 3 Tuition waiver victory 4 Economic ecology 15 Myths about online courses 16 RAISING THE BAR Ensuring that beginning teachers are ready to teach from day one PAGE 8 Michigan hijacking Obamacare twist Superstorm Sandy Election recap Gov. and lame-duck Overzealous employers Essential AFT members As the dust settles, legislators ram through hit adjuncts with rise to the demands of a role for shared right-to-work law PAGE 4 workload cuts PAGE 5 a disaster PAGE 6 responsibility PAGE 10 CUT YOUR LOSSES NOW IS YOUR TIME TO START FRESH + Credit and Budget Counseling Certified credit counselors are available 24 hours a day to help members with confidential financial guidance, free consumer credit counseling services and discounted debt-management assistance. If you have financial problems, counseling is available to help you become debt-free, learn new money-management skills and save for the future. for more information about this and other savings: aft.org/members AFT + is your advocate. For information on all AFT + programs, call 800-238-1133, ext. 8643, or e-mail [email protected]. The AFT has an expense reimbursement and/or endorsement arrangement for marketing this program. For more information, please contact AFT Financial Services at 800-238-1133, ext. 4493; send an e-mail to [email protected]; or visit www.aft.org/benefits/disclosure. WHERE WE STAND Raising the threshold for teachers and their preparation programs RANDI WEINGARTEN, AFT President MOST RESPECTED PROFESSIONS, such as include a demonstration of practical teaching enforcing the teaching profession’s standards. law, medicine, engineering and accounting, ability as well as a rigorous exam of subject The National Board for Professional Teaching have seen a need to include formal training and pedagogical knowledge. Fundamentally, Standards could lead in establishing common and establish a high standard—a bar—for that assessment should be connected to a professional standards, aligning teacher- entry into their ranks. Teachers should be no program offering an in-depth and integrated preparation with those standards, and ensur- exception. We should set and enforce our own clinical experience that enables new teachers ing that candidates meet them. entry standards, just as those professions do. to take full responsibility when they enter their We know most teachers are incredibly To help teachers and teacher educators own classrooms. dedicated, talented professionals. But be- meet this challenge, the AFT’s Teacher Prepa- The universal threshold we’re proposing cause the quality of pre-service teacher prepa- ration Task Force has developed a proposal would replace the hodgepodge of state licen- ration and alternative certification programs that could mark an unprecedented leap in sure tests that now exists. This threshold varies so widely, many new teachers are learn- elevating the quality of the teaching profes- would be for all teachers no matter where they ing things on the job that they should know sion. This issue of AFT On Campus lays out the work or how they enter the field—through the before they are in charge of a classroom. details (see page 8). traditional route or through alternative routes. Kids only get one chance at their educa- Our proposal is about raising the overall We do not suggest that all teacher prepara- tion. As always, we want to make sure we’re quality of teacher preparation, not just about tion programs and certification processes making the most of it. giving another test. As we’re raising the stan- should be identical or standardized. We need dards for students through the Common Core flexibility and diversity within our schools of State Standards, we should do the same for education, because programs are designed to Tragedy and courage teachers. train teachers from different backgrounds in Newtown The tests that states now give prospective and experiences for different settings, chal- AT PRESS TIME, word came of the killing of teachers for certification and licensure vary lenges and opportunities. Also, it is important 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School in enormously. Too often, those tests are not to note that neither better alignment of the Newtown, Conn. “The entire AFT community is rigorous enough, and more often, new teach- teacher preparation process nor a universal shaken to its core by this massacre of young ers tell us they are not relevant to being pre- threshold for beginning teachers precludes children and the school employees who care pared to enter the classroom. programs from being tailored to meet the for and nurture them,” AFT president Randi An April 2012 Hart Research Associates particular needs of a community or state. Weingarten said on Dec. 14. There were extraordi- survey of 500 new K-12 public school teachers This is what Finland did as a first step to nary acts of courage by school employees to lock found that one in three reported feeling un- upgrading its teaching profession and transi- down the building and protect children. prepared on their first day, especially in the tioning to a high-status, well-paid profession. AFT officers, with AFT Connecticut, have areas of classroom discipline, time manage- In fact, every leading country, especially reached out to our affiliates there—the Newtown Federation of Education Personnel, Newtown ment and lesson preparation. Teachers said those whose students are outperforming Federation of Teachers, and Newtown Federation the top problem in their training program was ours, supports teacher candidates from the of Custodians and Maintenance—pledging to do that it failed to prepare them for the chal- moment they enter their teacher training everything possible to support our teachers and lenges of teaching in the “real world.” program. staff, and the community grappling with this As part of the overall effort to raise the The United States needs to do the same. tragedy. In the days and months ahead we will quality of teacher preparation, we are propos- Practicing teachers in K-12 and higher educa- share (at www.aft.org) how those in the AFT ing a rigorous, universal assessment. It should tion should own responsibility for setting and community can extend the circle of support. RANDI WEINGARTEN ROGER S. GLASS JENNIFER CHANG AFT ON CAMPUS (ISSN POSTMASTER: Send address AFT ON CAMPUS is mailed President Editor Production Manager 1064-1971, USPS 008-636) is changes to AFT On Campus, to all AFT higher education LORRETTA JOHNSON published five times a year in 555 New Jersey Ave. N.W., members as a benefit of MICHELLE FURMAN Secretary-Treasurer BARBARA McKENNA Sept./Oct., Nov./Dec., Jan./Feb., Washington, DC 20001-2079. membership. Subscriptions PAMELA WOLFE FRANCINE LAWRENCE Managing Editor March/April and May/June represent $2.50 of annual Graphic Designers MEMBERS: To change your Executive Vice President ADRIENNE COLES by the American Federation dues. Nonmember address or subscription, notify DANIEL GURSKY SHARON WRIGHT of Teachers, 555 New Jersey subscription price is $12/year. KRIS HAVENS your local union treasurer ANNETTE LICITRA Production Specialist Ave. N.W., Washington, DC Communications Director VIRGINIA MYERS 20001-2079. or visit www.aft.org/ Although advertisements MIKE ROSE SHARON FRANCOUR Phone: 202-879-4400 members. are screened as carefully as © 2013 AMERICAN FederatION possible, acceptance of an Contributing Editors Production Coordinator www.aft.org Letters to the editor may be OF TEACHERS, AFL-CIO advertisement does not imply sent to the address above or LAURA BAKER Shawnitra Hawkins Periodicals postage paid AFT endorsement of the ALICIA NICK to [email protected]. Cover Photo: JANE FELLER at Washington, D.C., and product or service. Production Staff HILL STREET STUDIOS Copy Editors additional mailing offices. CAMPUS CLIPS Murky MOOCs Massive open online courses’ credit- worthiness to be assessed by education group IN THE HIGHER ED BLOGOSPHERE, there is professors Daphne LLAN I M c a debate under way about massive open online Koller and Andrew Ng, M courses: Are MOOCs a meteor that will trans- and the University Pro- H ENNET form higher education in ways distance educa- fessional and Continu- K tion has not? ing Education Associa- In November, the American Council on tion. Coursera works with more than 30 The agenda for the CEA project includes: Education announced a wide-ranging re- colleges and universities nationwide to offer ■ Exploring new academic and financial mod- search and evaluation initiative to examine the noncredit-bearing online courses at no cost to els inspired by “the disruptive potential of academic potential of MOOCs. Among the outside students. As Coursera has taken off, MOOCs.” questions ACE and the funder, the Bill & Me- other universities have formed partnerships ■ Evaluating select Coursera courses for col- linda Gates Foundation, want to answer is: Can and rushed to offer MOOCs of their own. lege credit. these courses—and the students who take Faculty are not universally thrilled. At San ■ Examining effective approaches, pedagogies them—be assessed for credit? Diego City College, for example, the Academic and practices that lead to student success, as For decades, ACE’s College Credit Recom- Senate passed a resolution calling MOOCs “a well as the applicability of college credit rec- mendation Service has been in the business of radical change in our pedagogy” and demand- ommendations for MOOCs to college degree assessing learning done outside accredited ing a primary role for faculty in determining completion programs. institutions for college credit. These outside the use of MOOCs districtwide. The advent of MOOCs has raised many learning sites include workplaces and the “It’s pretty clear that this is an open door to questions about cost, access and quality in military. a kind of teacherless classroom,” says SDCC higher education. Through shared governance Now, ACE is partnering with the organiza- English professor Jim Miller, a member of the or curriculum committees, says Miller, faculty tions Coursera, founded in 2011 by Stanford AFT Guild.