• Reflections on Belonging While in Pursuit of Accomplished Teaching

    Our guest author, Yewande Lewis-Fokum, is a lecturer at The West Indies University in Jamaica and is also involved in teacher training and professional development at both the elementary and high school levels

    As a visiting scholar at the Center for Research on Expanding Educational Opportunity (CREEO) at UC Berkeley for the month of May 2024, I was privileged to engage in rich conversations about teacher development with Drs. Travis Bristol and Jacquelyn Ollison, leading advocates for equity and justice in classroom practice. I also had the time, space, and library resources to write, research, and offer insight on the National Board Certification support CREEO offers.

    National Board Certification, is "the most respected professional certification available in education designed to develop, retain, and recognize accomplished teachers and to generate ongoing improvement in schools nationwide.” It is a voluntary system, managed by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, where teachers document attainment of “high and rigorous standards for what accomplished teachers should know and be able to do.”

  • Diversity Makes America Great

    Our guest author is Stanley Litow, a professor at Columbia University; author of Breaking Barriers: How P-TECH Schools Create a Pathway From High School to College to Career and The Challenge for Business and Society: From Risk to Reward; a columnist at Barron's; a Trustee at the State University of New York (SUNY); and a member of the Shanker Institute Board of Directors.

    As someone who spent my career in government, business and education, I have become increasingly alarmed at the constant attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion work.

    Diversity finally became a U.S. priority over half a century ago, thanks to Martin Luther King, Jr. and other leaders in the Civil Rights movement when ending race discrimination was made a high U.S. priority. But interest and concern peaked again, after George Floyd's murder, when every sector of the economy pledged to address the critical disadvantages faced by people of color. Floyd's death was at the hands of the police, but his death exposed a problem that was much larger. While some improvements had been made, people of color were clearly under steep structural challenges, far beyond policing. The problem was apparent, in schools, colleges, and all sectors of the economy. In many high schools, data showed screened admission criteria to college prep classes were widespread, depriving many students of color fair access to school programs, like Advanced Placement courses. Data also showed colleges and universities used admissions screening to access their most competitive programs. Data made clear that faculty at all levels were under-represented so far too frequently students of color could not experience teachers or faculty of color, let alone in educational leadership. 

  • The Vital Importance of Academic Freedom in Education and Democracy

    Speech by Randi Weingarten, President AFT and ASI before the CAUT and Education International Academic Freedom Conference 2025: Knowledge and Power: The International Struggle for Academic Freedom, February 8, 2025, Calgary, Alberta

    Thank you for inviting me to speak to you about academic freedom and democracy at a moment when both are imperiled throughout much of the world. I have worn a few hats in my working life—lawyer, high school civics teacher and now, union president. But I am not steeped in the academic world the way you are. You are not going to get from me erudite ruminations about the academy. What you’ll get from me is my thinking on what we need to do to make sure that your academic work is protected. 

  • What Will 2025 Mean for Labor?

    Our guest author is  Joseph A. McCartin, a professor of history and executive director of the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. He is also a member of the Albert Shanker Institute’s board of directors.   

    Only weeks into 2025 it appears as though this year will be one like no other in recent memory.  Not only has power changed hands in Washington, bringing to office an administration that seems more determined than any in U.S. history to upend the status quo, this transition is taking place in a world in which democratic governments in many countries are struggling to deal with powerful ethno-nationalist populist challenges, AI is emerging as a potentially disruptive force in many workplaces, and our post-pandemic economic recovery seems to be slowing.

    To predict how this year will unfold, though, seems impossible at this point – especially for a historian, for we are far better at explaining how we’ve reached this point than what is likely to come next. Nonetheless, there is one thing that anyone who has studied labor history can already say with confidence: 2025 is shaping to be one of the most consequential years that U.S. workers and their movement have ever faced.