WHEREAS:

Student success in America’s schools is a top priority for AFSCME members, their families, their communities and the nation as a whole, but too many children, particularly those in low-income communities and communities of color, do not receive an education that prepares them to lead productive and secure lives; and

WHEREAS:
Previous reform ideas that were highly touted by proponents, such as charter schools and the so-called “65 Percent Solution,” have been shown to be ineffective at raising student performance; and

WHEREAS:
The federal government is offering states and school districts an unprecedented amount of new money for K-12 education reform programs; and

WHEREAS:
Many of the reforms promoted by the U.S. Department of Education and currently favored by influential private foundations have not been shown to improve student performance, but instead take an unnecessarily punitive approach toward school employees, such as allowing districts to engage in mass removals of both instructional and non-instructional personnel at low-performing schools but leave untouched the privatized contractors operating in the schools; and

WHEREAS:
Private foundations are playing an increasingly aggressive and undemocratic role in setting educational policy, for example by directly funding state education agencies and imposing policy conditions on the money, or by subsidizing the salaries of school administrators who carry out their preferred policies; and

WHEREAS:
Alternative models of education improvement exist which have been successful, including boosting early childhood education, offering before- and after-school programs and extending health care and nutrition services on school campuses.
 
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED:
That AFSCME supports efforts to improve education and student achievement that constructively engage all employees in the schools as partners; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED:
That AFSCME opposes school interventions that cannot show a track record of success but, nevertheless, punish school employees.  AFSCME opposes any intervention that treats privatized contractors more favorably than school employees; and

BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED:
That AFSCME opposes the federal government and state and local jurisdictions granting private foundations or other private entities an exclusive position in setting public education policy through their ability to privately fund public personnel or agencies.
 
 
SUBMITTED BY: 
Joseph P. Rugola, Executive Director and Delegate
OAPSE/AFSCME Local 4
Ohio