Teachers--Michigan

Dearborn Federation of Teachers Local 681 Records

drice — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 16:22:20 -0400

Part of the national American Federation of Teachers and statewide Michigan Federation of Teachers, the Dearborn Federation of Teachers, was chartered on February 28, 1945. Twenty years later, in1965, Michigan passed the Public Employee Relations Act; a law making organization and collective bargaining legal for public employees. Members of the union serve at four high schools, seven middle schools, 21 elementary schools, a community college and one early learning center within the city of Dearborn and Dearborn Heights.

The collection consists of materials related to the organization and activities of the Dearborn Federation of Teachers. The bulk of the collection is comprised of DFT subject files. The files cover topics such as the 1967 strike, the decline in enrollment that lead to surplus teacher layoffs, implementation of peer-review, the increase in the Arabic speaking population, and the schools’ efforts to increase bilingual education. The Organization Files series includes board and general meetings, contracts, elections, bargaining and negotiations, and some national conventions. The Fordson High series consists of materials from the high school, collected by John Fowler, reflecting his role in the school, DFT and in the Social Studies department, and includes the activities of students and other teachers.

Michigan Federation of Teachers Records

dgolodner — Mon, 24 Jun 2013 14:23:35 -0400

Parts 1 and 2 consist of correspondence, minutes, and reports. Subjects include Administrative Board meetings; American Federation of Teachers; conventions; Detroit Federation of Teachers; Executive Council meetings; Haven Hill conferences; legislative lobbying activities; membership campaigns; metropolitan teachers' institutes; Michigan AFL-CIO Council; Michigan Constitutional Convention (1961); teachers' salary and fringe benefits surveys; treasurer reports; White House Conference on Children and Youth (1960). Correspondents include Detroit city officials, Michigan congressmen and state officials, and national congressmen and officials including John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. Most of the letters are answers to invitations for speaking engagements.
Part III deals mostly with the efforts to organize teachers during the 1960s and 1970s and dealing with the strikes that accompany labor disputes which is represented in the series Locals. There is ample amount of information about the American Federation of Teachers growth and inner workings during the 1960s and 1970s in the convention files; within these files there are not only basic convention materials but also notes from committee work and flyers from various factions within the AFT. MFT was a part of policy in education finances, assessments of teachers and teacher centers and is reflected in files dealing with the department of education and the like. Part III covers a broad range of topics with specific details on education reform in the 1970s, collective bargaining issues for teachers, political structures in Michigan and various issues on civil rights in Michigan, particularly the bussing of students. Series five contains photographs and audio recordings.

Helen Bowers Papers

dgolodner — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 11:56:31 -0400

Helen Marie Newman Bowers was born in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin on May 16, 1908. After graduating from Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, she began teaching art in Detroit, Michigan in 1933 and quickly got involved with the Detroit Federation of Teachers (DFT), Local 231. She left the teaching profession in 1958 to become the executive secretary of the DFT. Together with DFT President Mary Ellen Riordan, Detroit teachers won collective bargaining in 1964. Helen Bowers won duty-free lunch hours for elementary teachers, and conceived of “demonstration picketing” before schools opened in the morning to raise awareness to the community about why teachers were demanding collective bargaining. Ms. Bowers served on the Executive Board and became editor of the DFT newspaper, The Detroit Teacher.

The papers of Helen Bowers reflect her work with the DFT and education reform initiatives. This involves pre-collective bargaining rights in dealing with academic freedom, civil liberties as well as a living wage for teachers. Communism files contain a thorough documentation of the Maki Case trial from clippings from the three Detroit newspapers. The collection also contains very useful information about how the union gained power after collective bargaining was won. Their influence in education issues is seen in issues about accountability, decentralization and student rights.

Lamphere Federation of Teachers Local 1614 Records

dgolodner — Tue, 03 May 2011 15:10:44 -0400

Lamphere Federation of Teachers, Local 1614 was chartered by the American Federation of Teachers on July 27, 1965. The local slowly grew to be the sole collective bargaining union for the district’s teachers. In 1973 the union went on strike against the district. Later that year the school board filed a lawsuit against the union seeking damages for refusing to bargain in good faith. By 1977 the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that a union could not be sued for damages.
The collection has materials of communications and board meeting minutes that document the growth and concerns of the local over the years. The legal documents of the lawsuit filed against the union gives a perfect example of the issues in the 1970s about how school districts fought teacher unions to hold onto their power.

Wayne Regional Educational Services Agency Records

srafferty — Fri, 14 Sep 2018 11:31:44 -0400

Wayne Regional Educational Service Agency (RESA), an organization originally known as Wayne Intermediate School District, provides services to the 33 school districts within Wayne County with the aims of improving student achievement, staff development, purchasing, and administrative services.

The Wayne RESA Records collection contains mostly historic material on Wayne County public schools including manuals, school directories, and financial and statistical information. Some early 1900s letters and meeting notes, and monthly reports are also present. The material in this collection created in the second half of the 20th century pertains primarily to Wayne Intermediate School District, its reorganization in the 1960s, work on a Dearborn Heights study, and a 25th anniversary scrapbook from the 1986.

Wayne University College of Education Teacher Placement Records

cwesterman — Fri, 15 Nov 2013 14:14:24 -0500

The Detroit Normal Training School was founded in 1881 by the Detroit Board of Education in order to train teachers for Detroit's public schools. The Normal School was renamed the Detroit Teachers College in 1920; in 1933, the Detroit Teachers College became the College of Education of the newly formed Wayne University.

These records of the Wayne University College of Education contain teacher placement information from the years 1919-1940. They include Detroit Board of Education placements and assignments, placements of graduates not from the College of Education, cumulative lists, and placement statistics from those years. Additionally, the records contain information on graduates’ placement in the teaching fields, and other statistics regarding their activities before graduating.

(31269) David Selden, Mary Ellen Riordan

jhelpap — Mon, 27 Jan 2014 10:54:53 -0500

AFT President David Selden and Detroit Federation of Teachers President Mary Ellen Riordan speaking to a Channel 7 news reporter in Detroit.

(31274) David Selden, Mary Ellen Riordan and Sid Harris

jhelpap — Mon, 27 Jan 2014 11:39:32 -0500

AFT president David Selden sits between Detroit Federation of Teachers president Mary Ellen Riordan and United Federation of Teachers assistant secretary Sid Harris at a meeting.

(34032) Mary Ellen Riordan, Antonia Kolar, Detroit Federation of Teachers, Detroit, Michigan, 1960

scaloia — Wed, 10 Feb 2016 15:24:26 -0500

Detroit, Michigan, circa 1960. Antonia Kolar presents Mary Ellen Riordan with a briefcase, the tag on which reads “Mary Ellen ‘The people’s choice’ from ‘The gang’” most likely in celebration of Riordan’s election to the presidency of the Detroit Federation of Teachers.

(34033) Mary Ellen Riordan, Detroit Federation of Teachers, Detroit, Michigan, 1960s

scaloia — Wed, 10 Feb 2016 15:19:59 -0500

Detroit, Michigan. Mary Ellen Riordan, president of AFT local 231 Detroit Federation of Teachers, smiles and holds up two fingers, with a crowd of people standing behind her.