AFT-Speeches

This is an excerpt from a speech that Shanker gave that talks about how the freedoms to assemble and unionize in Nicaragua have been suspended.

NEA president Mary Futrell and Al Shanker discuss a wide variety of education topics including the need to focus on elementary schools to ensure that students learn basic skills and are not promoted without gaining literacy; the potential for a merger between NEA and AFT; teacher salaries and teacher recruitment; teacher evaluation and teacher standards; professionalization of teaching; and restructuring the educational system.

These are the remarks of Shanker before the California Legislature on the report of the commission on the teaching profession. This took place at Santa Monica Community College. He talks about how to attract and retain competent teachers. He talks about how the reputation of the field is that the professionals in it are very low caliber. He then makes suggestions on how teaching professionals can turn that opinion around.

In this speech, Shanker is speaking about the pros and cons of reform reports. The pros being higher standards which have brought about improvements to education. The cons being that public education is being controlled by state legislatures and often times they send the wrong message to the public.