The Autumn 2004 bulletin is now online at
http://socialistteachers.tripod.com/autu2004.htm
including
An interview with Mark Serwotka,
South African Teachers Strike,
No to Teaching on the Cheap
Labour's Five Year Plan
(To avoid confusion - Socialist Party Teachers have no connection with New Labour!)
and Winning a Fighting Leadership.

A lot of work has gone into this bulletin and as many teachers as possible
should read it.

(Apologies for the pesky adverts on tripod - I use Mozilla which minimises them...you don't have to use Internet Explorer if it makes you unhappy)

What does the Socialist Teachers Alliance think about the Tomlinson Report?

As you may be aware the NUT has "cautiously welcomed" the Tomlinson report.

It has been clear for some time that anything which will reduce the stress on pupils (which equals stress on teachers!) in relation to exams would be welcome and the Tomlinson report has the potential to do that.

I also think we need to know a lot more about the detail of implementation before we can welcome it.

Is it possible that the NUT and the "Socialist Teachers Alliance" are seperate entities? I think we should be told.

The NUT is a trade union as the name implies.
The STA, CDFU are pressure groups within the NUT.
The STA has not met to discuss the Tomlinson report but I have received a press release from the NUT.
In general I expect there will be more agreement in the NUT on the Tomlinson Report than there is in the Labour Government.
The idea of a shake-up of the entire education system (we seem to get one of those every two years) does not fill most teachers with enthusiasm so the idea that the proposals will be phased in over a period of time must be reassuring. The writer Frank Herbert suggested there should be a department of government called a "bureau of sabotage" to make sure the politicians cannot implement their will until they have had a chance to reconsider!

NUT - National Union of Teachers in the UK
STA Socialist Teachers Alliance
CDFU Campaign for a a Democratic and Fighting Union
Socialist Party teachers have sought closer co-operation between these two groups and the sort of program outlined in the bulletin
http://socialistteachers.tripod.com/autu2004.htm

I think it is unfortunate if the NUT/Socialist Teachers base their response of the viewpoint that it will reduce the work of teachers. This is why parents are so concerned about the motives of the NUT. It would be nice to see them arguing in favour of things for educational reasons. In fact, my reading of the report is that it will increase teacher work (especially in the field of assessment).

Please join the debate on the Tomlinson Report. You can then say what you want to see from the reforms. I would be interested in a socialist interpretation of the need for educational reform. Karl Marx was of course very interested in the subject of education and had a lot to say about state schooling.

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=1957

I don't. I would be delighted if the NUT and the other semi unions which inhabit the teaching profession would take teacher workload more seriously and highlight it at every opportunity.

I am within sight of completing what is at a conservative estimate about a 65 hour week. (I believe the Miners campaigned successfully for the ten hour day some time ago - when's my bloody turn?).

If this does not change in the near future like many others I will leave the profession.

The NUT is right to be concerned about the impact of ill conceived social policy on conditions for its members.

Of course it should and a very bad job it has done as well. But surely it should have a view on issues such as assessment. It does the teaching profession no help at all for the union to give the impression that the only thing it cares about is the pay and conditions of its members.

The Spring Bulletin of the Socialist Party Teachers is online at
http://socialistteachers.tripod.com/spri2005.htm

It focusses on the unholy trinity of pay, pensions and workload but also has articles on a range of subjects.

Apparently people who use Internet Explorer are plagued with pop-ups when they view our website so I will investigate ways of removing them. Meanwhile using Firefox means that I don't get to see them

The Conference bulletin of the Socialist Party teachers can be previewed at
http://socialistteachers.org.uk/sptbulleti...ference2005.doc

The draft bulletin contains articles on:

The pension debate
Fighting Racism and the BNP
Conran's Academy Plans defeated
RIG cutting teachers' pay
Tackling Disruptive Behaviour
Why the NUT needs a political fund
Sickness Policies
Iraq
Making New Labour listen to us
France 10 March strike
Sri Lanka
Turning the tide against remodelling

Even if you are not going to the NUT conference, these are issues of concern and it is free to download and print out.
http://socialistteachers.org.uk has no pop-up ads either.

Here in Australia, where we have only one national union for all education workers from K-12 including management, the union's emphasis has always been on educational issues as well as salaries and conditions. In fact, we market ourselves as a professional and industrial organisation, rather than a "trade union". Teachers seem to connect with this and as a result we have had many wins on educational issues as well as industrial.

At the moment we too are fighting the battle of assessment and reporting - not on the basis of workload, but in the sense that teachers have not had sufficient time, PD or practice to move to the new system demanded by our DoE by the end of this year. Supporting teachers in this way is good for them and ultimately good for the union.
However, our re-elected federal govt is determined to turn back the clock industrially in the next couple of years and move us as close as they can to the US model of individual contracts, banning right of entry, cutting awards etc. It's going to be a long and nasty fight but our membership is strong and active and I hope, ready for the fight.

Bob Sulatycki's pamphlet on New Labour and Education is available to download for free from http://socialistteachers.org.uk/EducationPamphlet.doc

In the pamphlet Bob gives detail on how New Labour Education strategy meets the needs of big business whilst failing pupils and staff
"According to the OECD (representing the ‘first world’ countries), government spending on education under New Labour remains well below the average for developed countries. The pupil-teacher ratio lags behind all other OECD countries except for the Czech republic, Mexico, Korea and Turkey.
Despite all the claims about increased spending in schools, the average UK state school primary class now has 26.8 pupils, compared to an OECD average of just 22.1. Of the major developed countries, only Korea and Japan have bigger classes in both primary and secondary schools.
Last year, English primary schools lost 800 teachers who were not replaced and class sizes increased. Thousands more infants (5-7 year-olds) are being taught in classes over 30.
"Overall funding has not increased under New Labour. Two years into a Labour government, spending on education fello just 4.5% of GDP, the lowest proportion for forty years. Spending has risen slightly since then, but the extra money hasn't made a difference in most schools.
"This additional funding has been used in pet projects such as the misnamed 'Excellence in Cities' scheme. Some of this spending also goes on inflated salaries for some head teachers and extra money for a few specialist schools. And they have spent £22 million on management consultants over the past five years. In addition OFSTED costs £200 million a year."

Jean is right to stress the importance of having an education policy rather than regarding ourselves as "simply a trade union". We don't want to suggest that everybody (politicians, merchant bankers, perhaps insane evangelical fundamentalists) can have an opinion on education but not teachers.

Having a single union is something teachers have sought for a long time. Unfortunately two teachers' unions in the UK have extraordinarily signed up to support pay cuts for teachers under government remodelling reforms. This makes discussions on unity tricky.

Non UK members need to know that this is a highly biased statement from Derek
In my opinion it is the fault of all the teacher unions in the UK that we lack unity. The hierarchies, structures and careers that depend on the status quo are apparently too powerful for anything to be done about it.

Mmmm...it probably works better here than it ever could in the UK because of our federal system. Each state/territory is a branch of the national union and as such the President/Gen Sec/officers in the states are more important in their own state than the officers in the federal office, whose job is really to facilitate and coordinate, so there are eight opportunities for being a big cog in the wheel of unionism, if you follow what I mean, as well as being at federal level. I don't suppose that could work in the UK in the same way.
We also have all of management, most TAs and some admin in our union and that makes a heck of a difference. Membership in schools is 94% and the non-unionised are almost entirely small fraction part-timers and a few of the temps.
However, as i said before, our federal government is out to destoy us this year when they get control of the Senate in July. We will be out on the streets very shortly!!

http://socialistteachers.org.uk/PublicationTLR.pdf

New newsletter from Lewisham NUT on TLR.

The government are cutting your pay.
Should they be allowed to get away with it?

NUT reps cannot be excluded from discussions on TLR. If your head (like some in West Sussex) sets up a secret committee to discuss TLR, get their reasons in writing, and publicise them as widely as possible.

The Socialist Party Teachers' bulletin is available online
here
There is an Open Office/Word version and an HTML version.

Articles include:
Academies
Asian earthquake
Behaviour
Building a strong workplace-based union
Bullying
Class_size
Campaign for a New Workers Party
Faith schools
Free_market reforms
Iraq
Pensions
Play
TLRs
Young Teachers

I have put Ken Smith's report on conference online.

However we need more comments especially on the bullying issue and the motions passed by conference. If anybody wants to comment.

If anyone wants to post reactions to John Illingworth's speech we would welcome that too.


Conference Report

http://www.aeutas.org.au/

It's interesting but not surprising, that bullying is equally an issue here. I just made a speech to our State Union Council which is at the above link. This caused great media reaction and I ended up on the front page of our local papers. Now there is much angst and soul searching about who bullies who and why. But in our case I believe the top of our DoE has been allowed to become what is already being referred to as a "command and control" culture and that like the military, that culture is passed down the line and becomes the acceptable style of behaviour. Getting rid of it and replacing the culture is now the big item we face. With a new Minister for Education, it's a good opportunity to try.

http://www.themercury.news.com.au/common/s...255E921,00.html

Here's the link to the above story.

Very interesting point. I have never considered that the culture being developed in schools is comparable to the military. But of course you are right and over the last few years "that like the military, that culture is passed down the line and becomes the acceptable style of behaviour."

Mr Bartlett's statements certainly seem to be addressing the issue but I am reminded of Stalin's speeches denouncing bureaucracy and oppression. It depends what actually happens in the schools.

I think the important consequence of the debate at our conference was that West Sussex delegates were able to discuss a particular example of bullying and I imagine other divisions were similarly prompted to hold such discussions at conference after a very good debate.

We have also [put online the leaflet distributed by supporters of Eileen and Natara Hunter
here

I was privileged to meet Eileen and Natara at the conference. As the leaflet explains Eileen and her daughter were disciplined for standing up to bullying senior management at their school. We could do with more reps like her.

http://socialistteachers.org.uk/bulletin2007.htm

You can read the bulletin online.

Articles on

Slavery: the truth
Supply Teaching
Workload
Academies
Testing
Young Teachers
Performance Pay
Defending Reps
Professional Unity
SEN and Privatisation
Early Years
Building Schools for the Future
Political Fund
Classroom Observations
Pupil Behaviour
Salaries
Fringe Meeting
National Action

Read before you judge!

Martin Powell-Davies' article in this week's Socialist


Union leaders out of touch with teachers' discontent

The conference demonstrated just how many different attacks teachers and education face under New Labour. Workload, teacher stress, the public-sector pay freeze, performance-related pay, management monitoring of staff, academies and privatisation were some of the issues under discussion.


The key debates centred on the need for the union to take national strike action. An emergency motion from the union's executive, calling for a ballot for a national one-day strike against Gordon Brown's 2% pay target for teachers was unanimously agreed. Conference also agreed to encourage members to support the civil service union, PCS strike action on 1 May.

However, it was proposals from Socialist Party teachers that the NUT also pursue the PCS' strategy of taking national action over a range of different issues that sparked the fiercest discussion.

Delegates applauded speeches from Robin Pye and Martin Powell-Davies pointing out the limits of only taking school-based action against workload and performance pay. Despite the lack of support from the main left groupings within the union, delegates responded by defeating an executive amendment deleting their call for national strike action to defeat new government performance-management regulations.

It was only when a succession of leading executive speakers were brought to the rostrum that the main motion was also defeated on a card vote. Ian Murch called on delegates to take a "reality check", warning that the NUT hadn't taken national action for over 20 years.

These debates exposed the union leadership's pessimism and how out of touch they are with the discontent within staffrooms. NUT members now have the opportunity to build united national strike action against the pay freeze, but the need for the NUT to have the same fighting leadership as a union like the PCS has never been clearer.