Vote on their Elementary and Secondary Education Act reauthorization bill

Friday, the U.S. House delayed a final vote on their Elementary and Secondary Education Act reauthorization bill, and it’s unclear when it will be rescheduled.

However, the Senate is moving full steam ahead and we’ve always expected this to be the key fight. So, I’m emailing you with this incredibly important request, it only comes around every 13 years or so…

Help me tell the Senate to get a new ESEA right for our students.

It’s not too late to make a difference on this. The real action is in the Senate, and it’s so important. From resources to testing, it affects every angle of student learning.

Will you please take a moment to call your Senator now? Call 1-866-331-7233 and enter your ZIP code to get connected.

Can’t call right now? That’s ok — you can email your Senator here. Even if they’ve already heard from you, they need to hear from you again. I need you now to make sure the Senate gets this right.

Tell your Senator to support our proposed solution. It’s very simple really: they must give YOU the tools to lead in your own districts.

How?

By creating a dashboard that would identify the opportunity and resource gaps that currently exist, and give us what we need to make sure that every single student, regardless of ZIP code, has a fair shot.

Our students deserve more. High stakes standardized tests have eroded their learning time, while doing nothing to shed light on the achievement gaps between schools.

You can’t see any of that in a test score.

Please join me in calling the Senate. Call 1-866-331-7233 this week. Tell them to pass a bill that advances opportunity for all students, ensures more time for students to learn, and empowers us as educators to lead. And then, send them an email while you’re at it too. Click here to send an email now.

Thank you for standing with me during this historic moment.

- Lily

Lily Eskelsen García

P.S. If your colleagues don’t know about this, we would appreciate your help spreading the word. Please click here to tell them now.

Published weekly by the National Education Association. To subscribe: www.nea.org/lac.

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MTA Statewide Educator Survey about Time on Testing

The 2014 MTA Annual Meeting New Business Item 1 requires that MTA work with Mass Partners for Public Schools to determine how much time students and educators spend on testing and test preparation.

Please click on this link to complete this confidential survey. The survey opens on March 2, 2015.

The purpose is to determine how much time teachers, paraprofessionals and school-based administrators spend on the preparation for and administration of state, district, school and classroom assessments and how much time students spend taking tests.

The surveys should take less than 10 minutes to complete.

Thank you

MTA Website Survry

February 26, 2015



To:                   MTA Local Presidents

                        MTA Board of Directors

                        MTA Staff



From:               Barbara Madeloni, President



Subject:            MTA Website Survey





Greetings,



This is just a quick note to let you know that visitors to www.massteacher.org will have the ability to take a brief survey designed to help guide us as we work toward the development of a new MTA website over the coming months.



The survey will be live tomorrow.



Please visit the website and take the survey when you have a chance, and urge your members to do the same.



Thank you.

MTA Involvement

Greetings,

Become a delegate to the MTA Annual Meeting! Now is the time to become a local delegate to MTA's Annual Meeting on May 8 and 9 at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston. The Annual Meeting is where MTA members debate, set policy and mark the course for where we are headed as a union. If you want to play an important role in making MTA policy and budget decisions, please inform your local or chapter president right away that you are nominating yourself. Each local affiliate has different deadlines and election rules. If there are more candidates than seats, an election will be held. But in many cases, no election is necessary. This is union democracy at its best - be a part of it. With luck, the snow will be gone by the time the meeting is held.

The ESEA fight is heating up. Some in Congress are pushing for changes that could make the ESEA (also known as No Child Left Behind) even worse, while others are trying to curb the ESEA's excessive testing requirements. Those of us in the latter camp need to have the loudest voices. Sign a petition here, and e-mail your U.S. senators and representative here. It only takes a minute, and if every NEA member sent an e-mail, Congress would be flooded with millions of messages from informed and active educators - a force to be reckoned with.

The MTA is moving to Quincy. Discussions about selling the MTA's Beacon Hill headquarters had been held for years before the Board of Directors voted last June to sell the building at 20 Ashburton Place and look for rental space. MTA Executive Director-Treasurer Ann Clarke explains that the new office space at 2 Heritage Drive in Quincy will "improve the functionality of our workspace and provide accessibility for more MTA members for meetings and training." The move will be completed by December. The new headquarters is accessible to the T, and there is ample free parking. Our Government Relations Division will continue to work from downtown Boston.

Summer Conference is also moving - to UMass Amherst! The MTA Summer Conference has been held at Williams College in the Berkshires for many years, but the college informed us in December that it has decided to stop renting out summer space for our type of event. We are fortunate to have a great alternative on a public university campus. We will hold the conference at UMass Amherst from Aug. 2 to 6. There will be workshops and organizing and union power trainings, as well as speakers, debates on critical issues, get-togethers, the chance to relax in Amherst's coffee shops and restaurants, and more. Come strengthen union solidarity, develop your skills and have some fun. Look for more information in the Spring edition of MTA Today and on our website, www.massteacher.org.

The minimum wage is going up, but not necessarily for public employees. The good news is that the minimum wage has risen, thanks to the work of dedicated activists - including many MTA members. The minimum wage rose to $9 an hour on Jan. 1. It will rise to $10 an hour on Jan. 1, 2016, and $11 an hour on Jan. 1, 2017. The bad news is that state law exempts public employers from having to pay their employees the minimum wage, so some of our members make less. That's true even though the law describes any wage below the minimum as "oppressive and unreasonable." Click here for an MTA Legal Services Division Memorandum. The MTA continues this fight through legislation calling for a living wage for all state employees, but we realize we must extend the battle to members who work for municipalities. Our hope is that this legislation will set the bar higher and provide leverage for members to demand that their wages reach that bar. This is an organizing opportunity for locals. Your field representative can support you in organizing a campaign involving members and the community.

Citizens for Public Schools is cosponsoring an event titled "The Health of Democracy: Privatizing Education" at 3 p.m. on Sunday, March 8, at First Parish Cambridge (Unitarian Universalist), 3 Church St., Cambridge. Featured speakers are Julian Vasquez Heilig of California State University, Sacramento, and Suzie McGlone, a public school teacher in Boston. The event is free and open to the public.

In solidarity, and in anticipation of many great things ahead,

Barbara

What: First Friday Monthly BEA Social

When: Friday,  March 6th - After School (3:00)

Where: John Brewer's Tavern
                  39 Main Street, Waltham

Why: Opportunity to connect with Belmont colleagues. 

January Member Involvement

Student Scholarship - Donate toward the school scholarship.   We hope to continue the tradition of a high quality public education by supporting a future teacher and the person who influenced that decision.  Applicant will be asked to recognize a BPS employee who has been an exemplary educator. Our goal is a $5 donation per member by the end of February.  Building reps will be collecting your donations over the next month.

Foundation for Belmont Education - attend or donate an auction item to the FBE Dinner March 21st 6:30-11:00 pm Belmont Hill School.

Run for town office (charting/meeting) - Belmont residents consider running for Town Meeting or elected office.  Nomination papers can be picked up from the Town Clerk and need to be returned by February 17th. 

Support improved class size and budget - The Superintendent will be presenting the 2015/16 budget to the school committee on February 3. The BEA would like to have greater presence at the meeting and would like to have members sign up to attend from 7:00-9:00.

BAG THE JUNK’S NATIONAL SCHOOLS CONTEST: “THE SMART SNACKS ROUNDUP”

Calling Everyone Involved in Schools!

Enter NOW for a chance to win:

ABOUT:  Since the new USDA Smart Snacks regulations went into effect on July 1, 2014, fruit, vegetables and whole grains have been added to public school menus across the nation. Bag the Junk’s National Schools Contest, “The Smart Snacks Roundup” was created for educators, food service and other support professionals, students, parents, and school administrators to share their successes and challenges with providing healthy options in vending machines, cafeteria à la carte, school stores, and fundraisers.

Contest participants must submit a creative photo, video or narrative describing how their school has implemented Smart Snacks. Bag the Junk’s National Contest, “Smart Snacks Roundup” is designed to create an online forum where schools can share their “best practices” for implementing the new regulations.  Support for this contest was provided by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the National Education Association Health Information Network.

ELIGIBILITY:  Bag the Junk’s National Schools Contest, “The Smart Snacks Roundup,” is open to anyone associated with K–12 public schools in the United States, including teachers, students*, parents, administrators, support staff, and other K-12 professionals. Employees of NEA HIN, and its parent, affiliates, subsidiaries, advertising, and promotion agencies involved in this Contest, and their immediate family members and/or those living in the same household of each, are not eligible to enter.

*Students must have a school employee sponsor for their submissions.

CREATIVE GUIDELINES: Each person may submit up to 5 entries.
Photo: Create an original photo, 300 dpi JPEG in high-resolution format.
Video: Create an original video, 2 minutes or less in high-resolution format.
Narrative: Create an original narrative, less than 300 words.

PRIZES:
Grand-Prize: Winning schools will be selected to star in the National Bag the Junk at School Video Shoot and receive a $300 nutrition grant.
2nd Place: $200 nutrition grant
3rd Place: $100 nutrition grant

Honorable Mentions: In addition to the winners, 10 schools will be selected as “Honorable Mention” winners and featured on Bag the Junk’s website.

Notification of Winners: The Grand-Prize, second, third, and 10 Honorable Mention winners will be notified by Wednesday, March 25, 2015.

DEADLINE: Friday, March 6, 2015

RULES: Click Here

ENTRY FORM: Click Here

IMAGE RELEASE FORM: Click Here (All entries must include a signed image release form. If students already have a current and applicable image release form on file, participants may submit that with their completed entry form instead of the contest’s image release form.)