AFT Ohio Federation of Teachers Records

dgolodner — Thu, 06 Nov 2014 10:59:11 -0500

The Ohio Federation of Teachers is a state affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers and represents primary and secondary school teachers, college and university professors, adjuncts, graduate and student workers, and support staff. The AFT established the Ohio State Federation of Teachers as their first experimental state federation in 1933, which was later officially chartered in 1938. Many locals did not affiliate with the state organization until 1968 when the AFT began to require them to do so. It was not until the 1970s that OFT locals gained collective bargaining rights. Throughout its history, OFT has used collective bargaining, strikes, lobbying and testimony on legislation, and other efforts meet its goals. The OFT and its local affiliates have developed ways to assist teachers and improve retention that have been models for other states, particularly the Toledo Plan, Career in Teaching, and Peer Assistance and Review programs. Other issues the OFT addresses are teacher health and retirement benefits, pay, tenure, curriculum, school budget problems, and charter schools

Part I of this collection contains general office files, correspondence, and minutes as well as conference materials. Subjects include the federation's activities with improving membership and public schools, professional and educational programs. There is information dealing with the Ohio politics and communication with Ohio locals.

Part II contains documents related to the union’s activities and initiatives for educator and student rights and improving education systems. In particular, information on programs for peer review and career development are included. Material types include correspondence, reports, minutes, convention and conference proceedings, constitutions, publications, legislation, newsletters, press releases, speech and testimony transcripts, pamphlets, and photographs. Additional subjects include organizing, bargaining, legislation and court cases, and conflicts and collaborations with the National Education Associations Ohio charter, the OEA.

AFT President's Office: Assistant to the President Bella Rosenberg Records

scaloia — Mon, 08 Dec 2014 17:21:06 -0500

Bella Rosenberg served as the assistant to the president of the American Federation of Teachers from 1984-2005, under Albert Shanker and Sandra Feldman. Albert Shanker was president of the AFT from 1974 to 1997. He was one of the first educators to embrace the findings of the report A Nation at Risk which outlined extensive problems in America’s public schools. Shanker and Rosenberg worked closely on various initiatives, many of them in response to the report. This included a peer review program started at the Toledo Federation of Teachers Local 250, a teacher certification program called the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, and in 1988, the concept of charter schools, which later took on a life of its own and became very different from Shanker’s original vision. Beginning in 1970, while Shanker was still president of New York’s United Federation of Teachers, he wrote a weekly column in the Sunday New York Times titled “Where We Stand”. He had to purchase advertising space in order to publish his writing. The weekly column lasted for 26 years. Sandra Feldman became Vice-President of the AFT in 1974, president of the UFT in 1986, and took over presidency of the AFT upon Shanker’s death in 1997. She was also involved in the AFL-CIO and Education International, a worldwide federation of teachers’ unions. During her AFT presidency, she strengthened the union’s relationship with the National Education Association, though a vote to merge with the NEA did not pass. Feldman served as AFT president until 2004.

Rosenberg collaborated with Shanker and Feldman on many projects and initiatives for the AFT. They worked together on articles and speeches, particularly Shanker’s “Where We Stand” column. Rosenberg was a primary force in AFT’s Lessons for Life Campaign in the mid-1990s, which sought to address issues raised in A Nation at Risk. Rosenberg worked on a report released by the AFT in 2004, for which she analyzed data from the 2003 National Assessment of Educational Progress to conclude charter schools were performing worse than traditional public schools. She also gave many of her own speeches and interviews as a representative of the AFT.

The AFT President’s Office: Assistant to the President Bella Rosenberg Records contain correspondence, memos, notes, reports, manuscripts, books, brochures, press releases, surveys, minutes, VHS and audio cassette tapes, and photographic slides documenting the activities of the national office. The collection also contains articles, speeches, and testimonies, including, in some cases, multiple annotated drafts exchanged between Rosenberg and Shanker and Rosenberg and Feldman.

Peer review

AFT Ohio Federation of Teachers Records

AFT President's Office: Assistant to the President Bella Rosenberg Records