Teachers are under attack again. And we need your help to fight back.
Last Monday, former journalist Campbell Brown announced a lawsuit in New York that is going after teachers’ job protections.
That lawsuit, Wright v. New York, is a copycat of Vergara v. California.
Campbell Brown’s organization—ironically named the Partnership for Educational Justice—has hired some of the fanciest PR firms in the country to sell their snake oil, including the firm that ran Mitt Romney’s 2012 online campaign.
We need to make sure our friends, neighbors and allies understand who Campbell Brown is, and who she really represents.
Will you help us spread the word by sharing this story with your friends and networks?
Share the real story on Facebook.
Share the real story on Twitter.
Campbell Brown and her friends want to sell you the same “blame teachers” line we’ve seen from Michelle Rhee and right-wing politicians for years. They’ll tell you tenure means a job for life and that due process makes it impossible to dismiss ineffective teachers. Now, emboldened by a radical ruling in California, they’re spreading this misinformation across the country, starting in New York.
Their claims couldn’t be further from the truth. In New York, teachers are granted tenure—and due process protections—after three years of success in the classroom. Once your boss grants you tenure, due process simply means he or she must produce just cause to discipline or terminate you. Due process gives teachers the protections to speak up for their students, stop cronyism and innovate in the classroom.
At our convention, delegates said enough is enough. We passed a special order of business to fight back so we could move our country forward. We need to stand together now.
It may seem like a small act, but sharing this story is important. Campbell Brown and her friends will spend millions of dollars on slick PR to confuse people and put the blame on teachers and our unions. She’ll say she’s fighting to represent students and parents. We need to make sure our friends hear the truth about who she represents.
Share the real story on Facebook.
Share the real story on Twitter.
We’re going to fight this with everything we’ve got. In New York, the New York State United Teachers and the United Federation of Teachers are already mobilized. We’ll fight alongside them in the courts, on the ground and in the media. But we have to start by making sure people know what’s really going on.
You can make a difference, just by sharing this story and telling your friends what’s happening.
In unity,
Randi Weingarten
AFT President
Karen Magee
NYSUT President
Michael Mulgrew
UFT President
P.S. See how Campbell Brown dodged your questions last week on the Colbert Report here.