CFT United
CFT United
CFT United, previously named California Teacher, is the union’s flagship magazine that is emailed to all union members. The award-winning magazine contains union news and positions important to members, and covers major issues in each division of the CFT: PreK-12, Classified, Community College, University, and Retired. Browse by date below or by index here.
CFT United is published regularly during the academic year. We welcome unsolicited articles, letters, and story ideas. Please send letters, submissions, or other inquiries to Publications Director Jane Hundertmark.
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Who’s spying on you? Protecting your privacy in the age of servers and social media – 6 Maxims for your digital work life
Protecting your privacy in the age of servers and social
media
By Robert J. Bezemek And David Conway
Almost everyone uses social media. Whether it’s emailing, surfing the web, sending text messages, tweeting or tumblr, we are treating social media as an extension of our personal conversations with family, friends and co-workers. And we do it from every imaginable location — public transit, automobiles, restaurants, parks, sidewalks, the office, and throughout the campuses where we work.
Yes on Prop. 30: Tax the wealthy to raise money for schools and colleges
In the last four years, our schools and colleges have been hit with $20 billion in cuts, have lost 30,000 faculty members, and now have class sizes that are among the largest in the country.
Reflection from the frontlines of the Chicago Teachers Union strike
Unions need strong vision and understanding of all tools available
I THOUGHT I KNEW what I was going to see and do in Chicago. I ended up being amazed and awed, and sometimes moved to tears, by the tremendous strides educators just like us were taking all around me.
The way forward: Greatness by Design
Over the past year CFT was a proud participant in developing the recommendations of Superintendent Tom Torlakson’s Educational Excellence Task Force and we applaud the results of this lengthy process.
No on Prop. 32: Don’t let billionaires take away our voice
California voters appear poised to reject a November ballot measure that would ban political contributions by payroll deduction, according to a new USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll. Forty-four percent of those surveyed said they opposed Proposition 32, which would eliminate the main fundraising tool of unions. Just 36 percent said they supported the measure.
Legislature fails to pass meaningful teacher evaluation bill
Opponents don’t care about validity of test scores, only scapegoating teachers
How could a bill that would have improved the teacher evaluation process die in the California Legislature? Assembly Bill 5, “A Best Practices Teacher Evaluation System,” fell victim to faulty assumptions and reasoning that defies logic. And our schools are poorer for it.
Get union endorsements fast using the Voter eGuide on your phone or computer
Access the Voter eGuide
YOU CAN NOW GET the union’s endorsements online using your mobile phone, tablet, or computer. In your personalized Voter eGuide, you will find positions on candidates and ballot measures based on where you live and are registered to vote.
Brown signs bill to improve reporting for adjuncts
The governor signed CFT-sponsored SB 114. Authored by Sen. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco), this bill helps correct misreporting of part-time faculty work to ensure the right amount of retirement service credit.
Tonkovich teaches and organizes with humor, joy and irony
UC Irvine lecturer and author credits mentors, and Ronald Reagan, for his activism
Q&A with Andrew Tonkovich
Andrew Tonkovich is a lecturer in the English department at UC Irvine and president of UC-AFT Irvine, Local 2226. He edits the literary magazine Santa Monica Review, and hosts Bibliocracy Radio, a weekly books show on KPFK 90.7 FM in Southern California. Recent short stories, essays and reviews of his have appeared in Faultline, The Rattling Wall, OC Weekly and the Los Angeles Review of Books.
New employees to face reduced retirement benefits
Workers not yet hired will take biggest hit under law passed by legislators with no input from public employee unions
A new law passed in the final hours of the legislative session makes sweeping changes to public employee pensions that impose most of the changes on workers not yet hired, creating a two-tier system in the workplace where two groups of workers doing the same work receive different retirement benefits.
Community stands with beloved City College of San Francisco
Report faults school for having too little money and doing too much for students
In early July, more than 300 people packed a San Francisco meeting hall to express their outrage over a letter from the Accrediting Commission for Community & Junior Colleges saying City College of San Francisco must prove its fiscal stability by March 15 to remain accredited.
Chicago strike models winning political strategy for California election victory
By Joshua Pechthalt, CFT President
The Chicago Teachers Union strike gave a shot in the arm to education unions and all of labor. CTU reawoke a labor movement lacking confidence that it could take a militant stand and win.
Skyrocketing student debt clouds lives and futures
Documentary reveals human impact of trillion dollar student loan crisis
Watching Default: The Student Loan Documentary, movie viewers feel the emotion when a borrower chokes up talking about how he can’t ask the woman he loves to marry him because he wouldn’t want her to share the burden of his debt.
Pasadena support staff gain power, respect with AFT
Change from independent union carries many advantages of size and service
Strength in numbers, access to more resources, and professional assistance are just a few of the reasons more than 240 professional classified staff members at Pasadena City College voted AFT their union this spring.
State of the Union: Merged measure calls for the largest single tax increase on the rich in California history
By Joshua Pechthalt, CFT President
We all know the challenge to maintain salaries and benefits and keep our members working has never been more difficult. But in spite of difficulties, our members and local leaders continue to organize and win victories.
Lobby Day: Members bring local reality to legislators in Sacramento
Union brings back Lobby Day to give CFT greater voice in Capitol
Gathering for CFT Lobby Days, members traveled from Southern California, the Central Valley, and the Bay Area to ask their elected officials in Sacramento to do the right thing for public education.
Pajaro Valley community succeeds in banning carcinogenic methyl iodide
Teachers at Ohlone Elementary School were greatly relieved when Arysta LifeScience, a Japanese chemical company, announced on March 20 that it would no longer sell methyl iodide in the United States for use as a pesticide.
Arizona outlaws core Mexican-American Studies program
Tucson High School teacher recounts story of textbook and curricula ban
A few days before she traveled to CFT Convention in San Jose, María C. Federico Brummer received an email at 8 p.m. from the Tucson Unified School District. It contained a list of newly banned books that the district wanted packed by noon the next day. During class, her students watched her comb the cabinets and remove classroom sets of the affected titles.
Lawndale organizes workers in afterschool program
District voluntarily recognizes 90 workers who provide enrichment to district students
More than 90 academic support employees staffing a successful extracurricular program in the Lawndale Elementary School District recently joined the ranks of the AFT, granting them the same workplace rights as unionized classified employees in the Los Angeles County K-8 district.
Labor leads opposition to two-tier fee plan at Santa Monica
Faculty and students defend the working class on International Workers’ Day
It took the pepper-spraying of 30 Santa Monica College student protestors to put the brakes on a two-tier pricing plan that threatens to deny higher education to thousands of students.
Classics lecturer maintains classic ideas about unions
New local president Rundin says union makes lecturer job worth having
Classics lecturer John Rundin feels privileged to pass on to another generation the cultural treasures that were given to him by the previous generation. The teacher of Latin and ancient Greek is one of two recipients of this year’s Award for Excellence in Teaching from the UC Davis Academic Federation.
“I live my job, love what I do, and I love my students,” says Rundin. “It is a great honor.”
Honored academic Axel Borg a driving force at UC Davis
Agricultural sciences librarian excels at organizing information and colleagues
Long-time UC Davis reference librarian Axel Borg wears so many hats that he received the James H. Meyer Distinguished Achievement Award from the Academic Federation last year. Borg has served on three of its committees, including the one which names the Federation president each year.
March in March voices rising anger with increasing cuts
Faculty, students, and staff demand Millionaires Tax at state Capitol rally
Getting on the bus at UC Berkeley on March 5, Desiree Angelo acknowledged how hard it has been to get to her senior year there. “I was a transfer student, a high school dropout, and a low-income student too,” she recalled.
“Because I dropped out, I don’t quality for a lot of financial aid. To afford the fees, which have gone from $5100 to $7100 a semester while I’ve been here, I’ve had to work in the dining hall. The discussion sessions for my classes have been cut, and with 500 students in a class, we really need them. So I’m paying more, getting less, and working like crazy just to stay here.”
Berkeley workers succeed in quest for AFT representation
Operations and support workers reunite with colleagues in Local 6192
For nearly a decade, classified employees in the Berkeley Unified School District were divided between two unions, but when a majority of operations and support workers signed petitions to be represented by the Berkeley Council of Classified Employees, AFT Local 6192, they were reunited. In December the school board agreed to the workers’ decision.