As I was eating dinner with my wife yesterday we both saw on the news that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died in Texas at age 79. Later in the evening my Facebook newsfeed blew up with all kinds of responses, from people sharing their support for his family to the unfortunate responses degrading his work on the Supreme Court over the past decades. Wherever you stand on the political spectrum there is no excuse for celebrating the death of a person and so I feel for the family of Justice Scalia, recognizing his long life of creating meaning in the world for himself and his family. 

​Now the country's leadership is at an interesting fork in the political road. President Obama has said he will be appointing a new Justice, despite calls from Republican candidates for President to wait until the inauguration so the next leader can make that decision. In looking at the data, the largest amount of time needed for Senate confirmation of Presidential appointee was 415 days under President Nixon, because "it took President Nixon three months to make a nomination because his first choice declined the offer. Second, the first two nominees were advocates of racial segregation and were rejected by the Senate." It is very likely that President Obama, then, will be able to appoint the next Justice within his time in left in office (~340 days). 

So how does this affect the upcoming court cases, including the Friedrichs case concerning mandatory Union dues?

According to ScotusBlog, it puts the Supreme Court in an awkward place where any court cases that might have been a 5-4 majority in either a liberal or conservative direction are now in a dead heat and may never come into the light. Since Friedrichs was one of these, it is possible that Diane Ravitch is correct when she wrote "because of Justice Scalia’s death, the Friedrichs case could end in a 4-4 deadlock, leaving the current laws unchanged." That being said, it is possible that the Justices will hear other cases in the meantime until a new appointee comes in and then vote with that new Justice. 

Where things were confusing and upsetting before politically now they are even more unclear. The media, I'm sure, will be having a field day over the next few months with the presidential election and the Justice appointment. We shall see the outcome together.

Lots has been happening in Chicago in relation to the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) negotiating a new contract with the city's public school system (CPS).

If you remember back in 2010 Karen Lewis was elected president of the CTU as part of the Caucus of Rank-and-file Educators; she beat back the United Progressive Caucus with 60% of the vote in a run-off election. Two years later the CTU authorized and implemented a strike that won a lot of concessions from CPS. Even though Karens Lewis has had some serious health issues recently, she is still on the forefront with the CTU trying to push back against the new contract offerings from CPS and the mayor, Rahm Emanuel.

Protesting potential layoffs, issues with pension benefits, classroom size, and more, the CTU authorized another strike in December 2015 with 96.5% of voting members in favor (92% of the members actually voted - amazing!). Budget cuts have been threatened and made the news recently when principals found out the specifics of what programs or positions they may have to reduce within their schools.

Last Friday there was an amazing rally in downtown Chicago where 3,000 union members and their supporters shut down traffic for quote some time to make their points. There was amazing news coverage of the event.

​As a member of a related union I support Chicago Teachers in their fight for better working conditions. As is often said, our working conditions are the student's working conditions. Fight back!

Last Wednesday was my first experience with the Delegate's Assembly (DA) of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT). As a new chapter leader I was invited to take part in listening to reports made by the President of the UFT, Michael Mulgrew, then to take part making, debating, and voting on motions put out to the floor. There were at least 500 people at the meeting by my count even though there are enough chapter leaders and delegates (more information on the difference later) for there to be 3000. 

The Delegate Assembly ostensibly starts at 4:15pm, although we really began in earnest around 4:30pm, but does have a firm ending time of 6:00pm, with the option to extend if a majority of voters decided to do so (which rarely, if ever, happens I found out). This DA took a majority of the time to listen to President Mulgrew update the leaders on what is going on in the world of the Union at the city, state, and national levels. While interesting, it is really something that could have been sent over email or in the mail. In my opinion, it was somewhat of a waste of time that could have been spent on others things. In fact, there was an article printed in the UFT newspaper immediately after that I cut out and scanned, saying the same thing that was shared at the DA.

There is one important aspect of the DA that should probably have a majority of time spent in order to endorse our democratic values: motions on the floor. There is a small mention of motions at the end of the article sharing the "wonders" of the DA that two motions were passed, which leaves out a lot of what I saw: some chaos and a lot of undemocratic choices made.

Before the prepared agenda items were voted on (there were around six provided ahead of time and we voted on only one) there was time for floor motions to be made. Many people raised their hands, including Jie Lee of the Movement of Rank-and-file Educators. A person behind her was called on for an interesting motion to add an item to the agenda of next month's meeting and then 10 minutes began of debates on Robert's Rules of Order (it was very reminiscent of debates in the Park Slope Food Coop General Meetings). No more people were called on after that one motion was passed. 

If the UFT wants to be truly democratic in its background, it needs to make sure there is more time for its membership to voice concerns and get things put out onto the floor of the DA. I hope this upcoming election will spur some change.

Yesterday was a big win for the guidance counselors of Philadelphia: despite being fired and re-hired against seniority rules back in 2013, a judge has ruled in favor of an arbitrator, stating that the School District of Philadelphia was in the wrong when it made those decisions 2.5 years ago and must re-hire all its former counselors. 

If you remember back in the summer of 2013 the recently-hired Superintendent Hite made the decision with his team to go against the Philadelphia Federation of Teacher's contract and dismiss all counselors in a budgetary squeeze that ended up shuttering numerous schools and reducing the teaching population immensely. Some were hired back but not in order of seniority and many schools were even left without full-time counselors (explain to me how a roaming counselor works as well as one who is there every day). The counselors started a website/blog that doesn't have an enormous amount of information on it but shares some of the things that are eliminated when you lack a proper counseling department:

I suppose it is a wonderful coincidence that this decision is handed down at the close of National School Counseling week. I want to share my support for counselors everywhere - be they in schools or otherwise - as helpful, trained people to make sure everyone has their emotional needs met.