Daily Kos Labor digest: Teachers face firing for speaking out for their students [View all]

[eridani]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/24/1308984/-Daily-Kos-Labor-digest-Teachers-face-firing-for-speaking-out-for-their-students

In February, Agustin Morales spoke out against "data walls" on which students' test scores were publicly displayed at a school committee meeting in Holyoke, Massachusetts, where Morales is a teacher:

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In May, he was elected president of his union local. In June, his contract was not renewed. Fellow teachers and parents of his students have spoken out in support of Morales, and close to 2,000 people have signed a petition urging the school committee to investigate what looks a lot like the retaliatory firing of an activist—an activist who happens to be one of the few Puerto Rican teachers in an overwhelmingly Puerto Rican school district.

In New Jersey, another local union president is threatened with firing after he protested against a surveillance system his school district had installed to monitor teachers and students. That teacher, Mike Mignone, is suspended pending a hearing; if he didn't have tenure, he might have just been let go as abruptly as Agustin Morales. Mignone, too, has significant community support.