If you can’t beat ‘em, get ‘em to join. That may be the thinking over at the American Federation of Teachers.
Long the vocal opponents of the charter school movement, the teachers’ union AFT Local 420 will announce Tuesday that they are embracing one such school: the Construction Careers Center high school, whose teachers will be joining the union as part of an agreement quietly reached last month.
AFT Local 420 will represent the roughly 30 teachers and aides working at Construction Careers, whose charter is sponsored by St. Louis Public Schools.
The Construction Careers Center, located at 1224 Grattan, just east of Lafayette Square and west of Soulard, was established as the first charter high school in the country focused on preparing students for jobs in the construction industry and has an 88 percent employment rate for its graduates. Teachers at the school make an average annual salary of around $42,000.
May 6th, 2008 at 8:09 am
This is a great example of Local 420 doing their job. They should get off their **** and organize these other schools instead of standing in the way of educational opportunities for St. Louis children.
May 6th, 2008 at 8:31 am
I hope that 420 stops organizing. I think that Local 420 is one of the main problems with the public schools in St. Louis. I sincerely hope that these new members of Local 420 continue their good work even though they have joined the union.
May 6th, 2008 at 10:24 am
Where were these selective renegades when the schools were closing. The community didn’t hear a word in opposition. Understandably their focus is and always has primarily been the interests of its members. How can these same ones who demonize charters, then look to organize their members? It’s convenient for the interest of their MEMBERS, and not the children. It’s becoming common knowledge that 420 is long the paper tiger.
May 6th, 2008 at 10:40 am
Craig, you must not be paying any attention at all. 420 has always been a vocal opponent of school closings and all the recent destruction the city politicians have inflicted on SLPS.
420 is not in any way supporting independent charter schools by doing this. This charter is sponsored by the SLPS, so it really isn’t much different than the teachers they already represent. This school has been around a while. It is not like the recent crop of sub-par charter schools that are luring families in with glitz and sparkle that quickly fade once the kids get there. This story and headline are badly written in that they give a completely false impression that 420 is taking on unionizing teachers from independent, for-profit charters.
May 6th, 2008 at 11:29 am
Who represents the teachers at 4700 goodfellow when they negotiate their salaries with The state board of education in Jefferson City? What is their average salary?
May 6th, 2008 at 11:42 am
Kjoe,
The average teacher salary at Confluence Academy is $41,000/year. Salary info can be found at http://www.dese.mo.gov.
May 6th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
We must rise up and revolt against the damage that has been done to SLPS under the direction of that damn Slay! He wants gentrification with ethnic elimination of St. Louis city and its schools!
May 6th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
“If you can’t beat em, get em to join”.
I think we CAN beat them…..and it has the possibility to be quite easy.
May 7th, 2008 at 11:39 am
Thanks Katherine. I kind of roamed all over that site—and found something from 6 months ago that I begged and begged and begged for. The daily attendance in st. louis schools seems to have been steady at 94 percent over the entire school year for the last three years–it was 94.2 three or four years ago. The media was fond of jumping up and down about the 72 percent or the 75 percent on the first day of school, and never following up about the other 175 or whatever days.
I should have said 4300 goodfellow—I was looking for information on the Can academies charter school—which is sponsored by the people who took your power away last June 15th. It took about 20 minutes before I found anything—and it is mostly zeroes because they are in their first year. When I clicked the link to teacher information it came up file not available.
May 7th, 2008 at 5:33 pm
I did notice that the name of the superintendent of the Can academy on Goodfellow, seemed to have the same name as the former superintendent of Houston Can, at 2301 main street in Houston texas. http://www.texanscan.org/academies_main.asp
The school went from unranked to “2″ on a scale of 10 on great schools of texas. There is a lot more detailed information on that school than there is on the one dese is running here.
Perhaps the sab could save some time and money on the superintendent search and just have one of the state board members call Texas and tell them to send someone up here to replace Dr. Bourisaw. What good is a state takeover—if they don’t take over.
May 8th, 2008 at 1:56 am
correction on what I said about slps attendance. The figures are confusing. The 94 was the state wide average.
evidently, they measure the attendance from January to December, so in a year like 2006-2007, the one in which Bourisaw replaced Williams in July, the 2006 figures include half a year under Williams and half a year with Bourisaw.
2007 includes the last 6 months under the elected board, and the months after June with the sab. Bourisaw was the superintendent for all of 2007.
The attendance figures for the last five years are……. 2003–89.10…..2004- 89.40…..2005 big dip to 81.50…….. 2006–80.30……2007 big improvement to 88.60.
regarding the Texas can school in Houston—they did seem to have less money spent per pupil, larger class sizes, and significantly younger teachers compared to other Texas schools. Whether that pattern is being repeated with dese outsourcing the job to the can academy in st. louis—well—there is not much information available.