Academic freedom is a fundamental concept that exists to ensure that institutions of higher education function for the public good and that colleges are constructed on the foundations of genuine trust. For over a century, members of The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) have been agile guardians, careful stewards, and erudite…

In November 2022, Florida governor Ronald DeSantis, won reelection by a decisive margin and the Republican party gained supermajorities in both houses of the state legislature. During the governor's first term and after reelection, the Florida House and Senate passed legislation and the DeSantis administration took executive actions that further…

Collective bargaining and faculty governance are sometimes perceived to be in conflict. Faculty members will debate about whether a specific issue--for example, program consolidations or early college/dual enrollment (where high school students earn college credits taking high school classes taught by high school teachers)--falls under governance…

Value-added models (VAMs) are becoming an important tool in improving teacher evaluation. VAMs' premise is that they can statistically isolate a teacher's effect on a student's test score. In other words, we can attribute a student's growth to a particular teacher, and VAMs' proponents contend that they should be used to make a host of personnel…

Besieged by state proposals to eviscerate collective bargaining, eliminate teacher tenure, and make it harder to collect dues, teachers' unions are fighting back. Lawsuits supported by local union affiliates have for now blocked anti-union legislation in Alabama and Wisconsin. E-mail "blasts," phone banks, and rallies are also among the…

Creating smart, coherent education policy is painstaking work; there are technical, budgetary, and political challenges at almost every turn. But it is some of the most important work that state leaders can undertake. As Ohioans prepared to elect a new governor in late 2018, we at the Fordham Institute began rolling out a set of policy proposals…

Efforts by state legislators to curtail collective bargaining or destroy public-sector unions, abolish tenure, and decrease funding for education are spreading throughout the country. This author states that the scapegoating and vilification of unions and teachers, however, are not new. The current attacks have historical parallels, when cries of…

Teachers' unions are under unprecedented bipartisan attack. The drumbeat is relentless, from governors in Wisconsin and Ohio to the film directors of "Waiting for 'Superman'" and "The Lottery"; from new lobbying groups like Michelle Rhee's StudentsFirst and Wall Street's Democrats for Education Reform to political columnists such as Jonathan Alter…

When the Cleveland, Ohio, school board had to make radical cuts in its budget last spring, it was forced to eliminate 540 teaching jobs. There wasn't a whole lot of mystery about "which" teachers among Cleveland's 3,500-member teaching force would be the ones to lose their jobs. The state's hard-and-fast seniority rule--last hired, first…

At the request of the United Way of Greater Los Angeles, the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) undertook this analysis of the teacher policies in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). A coalition of civil rights groups were also involved in this project, including Parent Organization Network, Families in Schools, Alliance for a…

"The Still Divided Academy" is a wonderful examination of the academic community that shows their inner workings by addressing a broad range of issues including: academic politics, tenure, perceived and real political imbalance, academic freedom, and diversity. Administrators, professors, and students have very different priorities, values, and…

At a time when, nationally, community colleges are increasing their reliance on contingent faculty, and nonacademics are increasingly attacking the tenure system, some community colleges--like Bronx Community College, City University of New York--continue to follow the traditions of shared governance. The collective bargaining unit at CUNY that…

The American Association of University Professors' Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure reports on AAUP's priorities, imposition of censure, removal of censure, reports and authorization of subcommittees, institutional mergers and acquisitions, and judicially compelled disclosure. (MLW)

Conventional wisdom has it that teacher unions are singularly concerned with enhancing the compensation packages of those whom they represent. Issues central to educational quality, from better teacher preparation to more rigorous professional evaluation, play second fiddle to the primary union focus on wages and benefits, according to…

Opponents of collective bargaining for faculty charge that unions will destroy faculty governance by abolishing faculty senates, dictating institutional policy, and eliminating peer review in favor of automatic tenure and promotion. The history of collective bargaining at the City University of New York shows this has not happened. (MLW)