LA Confidential

Well, I got back from LA on the red eye this morning and it was quite a stimulating few days meeting teacher activists from around the nation. And so many young ones. Lots to report on.

I'm not sure exactly what I can say about our meetings in case some of the issues and people present require some anonymity (you know, with that old AFT machine looking to kill militancy and resistance), so I will hold off on details until I check and will put out whatever I can throughout the week. Maybe some individual city views and then an overall conference view. NYC was represented by myself (GEM, ICE), Sally Lee (Teachers Unite) and Megan Behrent (ISO, TJC, GEM).

Candi was Dandy
Candi just posted at the Washington Teacher a brief note about being in LA. Though it was the first time we met in person, I felt I knew her forever through the blogging world. She was even more impressive in person with her knowledge and perspective on the DC situation. She has some news about the DC contract talks, which we got some updates on in LA. I'll leave it to her to keep us up to date on what I am sure will be an NYC modeled sellout, with DC teachers about to face market-based, ATR hell.


In the meantime, without much computer access in LA, lots of stuff accumulated on this end. So expect the ed Notes output over the next few days to be fast and furious. If you are a feedblitz subscriber and don't care for lots of emails, try the digest which you can receive once a day or even less frequently.

While I was there, NYC teacher Arthur Goldstein put out a fabulous piece comparing PS 123 and Harlem Success at Gotham Schools (PS 123 & Harlem Success Academy: More Equal than Others). A must read article that should get national attention, but will probably be suppressed because of the implications it raises about separate and unequal. Don't you wish we had a union that would tell so this kind of reporting? Not as long as they pushed their own two charter schools into public school buildings.