A Union of Professionals
In A Union of Professionals, Julia Koppich and I show how teaching could be organized around professional rather than industrial principles. The book was published in 1993 by Teacher’s College Press. It is out of print, but copies are available on Amazon, and I have a few mint-condition copies. The following summary is not taken directly […]
Teacher Work and Teacher Unions
This site, named Mindworkers, is witness to my central belief that teachers think for a living, and ought to be organized as professional workers with expansive rights and responsibilities rather than industrial workers. This theme is most completely developed in United Mind Workers: Unions and Teaching in the Knowledge Society. Although it was published by […]
United Mind Workers: Unions and Teaching in the Knowledge Society
United Mind Workers was published by Jossey-Bass in 2008 and is still available at Amazon and other booksellers. CHAPTER ONE Organizing the Other Half of Teaching Book ideas are born in odd places. After a gestation period that would frustrate an elephant, this one revealed its true form in an elevator. A National Education Association […]
Peer Review Redux
The idea of peer review for teachers, that I wrote about in United Mindworkers, and A Union of Professionals in the 1990s has now come alive again. See this recent Huffington Post piece. First there is a new book by Jennifer Goldstein, published by Teachers College Press. It describes the work of the PAR panels […]
Firing Bad Teachers, Just Try
The sound you hear is the lid being pried off Pandora’s Box. Jason Song’s Los Angeles Times investigation of efforts to dismiss teachers in California makes public what practicing educators have known for decades: that it is almost impossible to fire a tenured public school faculty member for teaching badly. Song’s articles are the most viewed on the Times web site […]
'On California' at EdWeek.org
I have concluded my opinion blog on the Golden State's politics and education policies at EdWeek.org. An archive of the 281 posts can be reached by clicking HERE
Learning 2.0
Learning 2.0 is the next full scale version of public education, one that builds on the capacity of the Internet age.
The five elements of Learning 2.0 are explained by clicking HERE:
- Mixing acquisition of knowledge and practice, head and hands.
- An individual education plan for everyone.
- Understanding that students are the real workers in the education system.
- Unbundle teaching, testing, and mentoring.
- Add collaboration and solving tough, ambiguous problems to the list of basic skills.
Recent Posts
- Give Us 25 Minutes; You’ll Get Better 24 Hours
- New Stories on How California Flipped 7 U.S. House Seats from Red to Blue
- Old at the Beach
- A 4th of July Salute to a Courageous Judge: Remembering Paul Egly
- It’s More Than Resistance to Trump
- ‘Dreamers’ Find Allies Among Their Teachers
- How To Make the Next LAUSD Superintendent Successful
- Go, Visit the Whitney Plantation
- Nomadland: Exploring America’s Mobile Army of Older Workers
- Here’s The Peace Dividend In Los Angeles Charter School Wars
Recent Projects
About
Charles Taylor Kerchner is an Emeritus Professor and Senior Research Fellow at Claremont Graduate University. My daily musings appear in the blog. The archives of my EdWeek blog are available via link under the 'On California' head. Some of my photography can be seen by clicking on 'Gallery.' And numerous links to academic work and other research and commentary can be found by clicking on 'Projects.'
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Blogs I Read
- Arts & Letters Daily
- California Watch, reporting from the Center for Investigative Journalism
- Conditions of Education from PACE
- District Dossier
- Ed Source Today
- Joanne Jacobs–Linking and Thinking
- L.A. School Report
- Politics K-12: Michele McNeil and Alyson Klein
- Rough & Tumble: Today's California Politics News
- Teacher Beat: Stephen Sawchuk
- The Hechinger Report
- The Quick and the Ed–Education Sector
- This Week in Education: Alexandar Russo