American Federation of Teachers

Campaigns

• Tell the White House: Revoke Gateway Pundit's Press Credentials

  In the aftermath of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Broward Country, Florida., students who survived the attack have bravely stood up to demand action for safe schools and safe communities. But now, right-wing blogs are pushing wild conspiracy theories about the students who survived, claiming they are plants, are actors, or are being manipulated by politicians. I know these students. I have worked with these students. These courageous young people survived a horror beyond what any person should have to face, and now they stand with moral courage and strength to call us all to action. It is outrageous enough that outlets like the Gateway Pundit are spreading these lies and driving attacks on these students. But it is even more outrageous that an outlet that peddles lies and conspiracy theories holds a White House press credential and the authority that carries. By giving the Gateway Pundit press credentials, the White House is validating the site and these attacks. President Trump and this administration must make it clear that these attacks are unacceptable by pulling the Gateway Pundit’s credentials and permanently banning the site and its publishers from the White House. These students deserve our praise and our support. Their advocacy in the face of horror and violence is what makes America great. Instead, the Gateway Pundit is driving vicious personal attacks by peddling conspiracy theories. The White House must show that there are consequences for this kind of behavior. Jim Gard has been a math teacher for 36 years. During the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, he shielded his students in his classroom.

  76,624 of 100,000 Signatures

  Created by Jim Gard, Stoneman Math Teacher
• Tell Detroit Public Schools: Our Kids Deserve Better

  For too long, Detroit students and educators have been learning and teaching in deplorable conditions. From serious health and safety hazards such as mold, asbestos and mice infestations, to classrooms with no heat, these unacceptable conditions have been ignored. The floor of the gym at one school has buckled from water damage and is covered in black mold. In at least one school, classrooms even have bullet holes in the walls. Teachers and support staff are expected to teach in overcrowded classrooms without textbooks or support. Students with health issues are suffering due to the lack of school nurses. Educators in Detroit’s public schools come to school every day despite these disgusting conditions and do the best we can to give our students a great education. Enough is enough. Students, parents, educators and the Detroit community are demanding real answers from Gov. Rick Snyder and Emergency Manager Darnell Earley. It’s time to fully fund Detroit’s public schools. Our students deserve nothing less.

  31,826 of 35,000 Signatures

  Created by Detroit Federation of Teachers
• Healthcare Workers Need Protective Equipment Now

  I’m a nurse in Alaska. Nurses and other healthcare professionals are on the frontlines of fighting the COVID-19 outbreak and caring for our patients, but we're running out of personal protective equipment (PPE) in states across the nation. We don’t have the right kind of N95 respirator masks to keep us and you safe. We don’t have enough ventilators to keep the very sickest patients alive. We don’t have the ear or the attention of the president, who make promises and then walks away does nothing. This is scary. Our job is to treat and care for people, and we will not leave our patients behind. If we run out of equipment, healthcare providers and the patients we care for will die. Let's be clear: If we get sick and if people die, it’s because policies that go all the way to the top have failed us. We should have been producing the needed respirators, masks and ventilators long before this. The administration should have taken the outbreak seriously when it started three months ago. And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention keeps lowering the guidelines for healthcare workers to be safe; the CDC just said that we can use bandanas as masks. The CDC is putting my life and the lives of other nurses at risk by telling us to use scarves rather than producing enough masks that will keep us safe. And it’s not just respirators, masks and ventilators we’re running low on. Hospitals are reporting shortages of gowns, gloves and other PPE that we need to keep ourselves safe as we care for the sick. Trump has said he’ll use the Defense Production Act to make masks and tests, after weeks of us pressuring him, but he has not said he’ll use it to ensure there are enough ventilators to keep patients from dying. And he’s still not releasing the stockpile of PPE that he has, which could fill the gap until enough n95 masks are made. Here's what we need right now: • The administration must make the production of N95 respirators and other PPE a top priority. • The President must use the Defense Production Act to make ventilators for patients. • The federal government has a stockpile of personal protective equipment, but has released less than 10 percent of the stockpile: We’re still running low. The federal government must release more of it immediately to keep us safe. • All healthcare workers should have immediate, free access to being tested to ensure that we are safe and not endangering non-infected patients. • The federal government needs to stop watering down guidelines that keep us safe. The minimum standard should be N95 respirators. Telling us to use bandanas puts our lives at risk. Will you please help us by telling the administration that we need this now.

  163,363 of 200,000 Signatures

  Created by AFT Union
• Tell DeVos: Arm Schools with Resources, Not Guns

  I pray that there will never be another school shooting like the one we lived through in Parkland, Fla. Even just earlier this year, it never occurred to me that we’d be in a situation where we might have a secretary of education consider diverting resources that are used to support poor kids in order to flood schools with more guns. However, that’s exactly what we’re up against right now, since the news broke that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is considering a plan that would allow states to use federal funds to purchase guns for teachers. As the New York Times reported, such a move would reverse a long-standing position taken by the federal government that it should not pay to outfit schools with weapons. And it would also undermine efforts by Congress to restrict the use of federal funding for guns. As recently as March, Congress passed a school safety bill that allocated $50 million a year to local school districts but expressly prohibited the use of the money for firearms. The $1 billion student support program, part of the Every Student Succeeds Act, is intended for academic and enrichment opportunities in the country’s poorest schools, and it calls for school districts to use the money toward meeting three goals: providing a well-rounded education, improving school conditions for learning, and improving the use of technology for digital literacy. Instead of after-school programs or counselors, which are critical for creating safe and welcoming schools and addressing the mental health needs of kids, DeVos wants to turn schools into armed fortresses and make kids and educators less safe. Educators, students and parents have made clear that they don’t want more guns in schools; teachers want to teach and students want to learn. Rather than disregard the demands and needs of the people who know what our schools require, the Department of Education should use Title IV funding to: ● Provide a well-rounded education (examples include expanding AP courses and access to such courses, arts education, civics education, more college and career counseling, environmental education, expanding foreign language options, STEM, and social-emotional learning); ● Ensure safe and healthy students (including asthma management, bullying prevention, drug and violence prevention, indoor air quality, safe schools, mental health, and suicide prevention); and ● Provide effective use of technology. Arming teachers is a bad idea. We know that states with the strongest gun laws see less gun violence. And we know that educators, students and parents want a safe, welcoming place for students to learn, with adequate resources to make this a reality. Stand with the education community now. Send a message to Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos that this plan is reckless, dangerous, and will have long-lasting effects on our students and our schools.

  79,955 of 100,000 Signatures

  Created by Anna Fusco, Broward Teachers Union president
• Fox and Facebook: Ask the GOP Candidates Why They Advocate for Profits, not Students

  Fox News and Facebook, in preparation for the Republican presidential debate they are holding Aug. 6, are taking questions for the moderators to ask the candidates. Sign the petition below if you want Fox and Facebook to ask the candidates to discuss their support of for-profit colleges, which leave too many students out in the cold with useless degrees and unsustainable debt, and raise nearly all of their revenue—and make most of their profits—through taxpayer-financed federal student aid.

  13,486 of 15,000 Signatures

  Created by Gerardo Sandoval
• University of Oregon: Graduate employees deserve paid sick leave

  Graduate employees at the University of Oregon have been bargaining for a year. These graduate students, employed by the school as research assistants and teaching fellows, are asking for paid sick leave and parental leave. At a time when Oregon is expanding access to basic workplace fairness like paid sick days, the University of Oregon should be a leader. Instead, it’s fighting to deny graduate employees these basic rights. The graduate employees have been on strike since Tuesday, Dec. 2. Tell the university that you stand with these workers, and demand the university expand paid sick and parental leave to graduate employees.

  16,908 of 20,000 Signatures

  Created by Joe Henry
• We Stand with Our Teachers and Support Staff in Their Fight for Better Volusia County Schools

  Our teachers and support staff work hard every day to ensure our students in Volusia County get a high-quality public education. We ask that you respect Volusia County teachers, support staff and parents by providing a clean learning environment for our children; by investing in sufficient teaching resources; and by ensuring our schools are competitive with surrounding districts in terms of compensation. I am so grateful my child attends a school where the educators care so much about their students’ future. It is clear to me that they love working with my child, and it only seems logical that the county’s school board would be fair and supportive of the work educators do for my family and our community. When I heard that Volusia educators were standing up to address problems in our schools—the lack of learning materials, the insufficient amount of time available to engage students individually, the lack of support staff to do things like keep schools clean—I knew it was my responsibility to join them. I believe both teachers and parents play an important role in educating our children. That is why I have participated in walk-in protests with other parents and educators to show our solidarity and to show the school board and our county that we care about the conditions provided to teach our kids. The school board’s responsibility is to support educators in the teaching of our children and to provide sufficient resources for our schools—and it has the opportunity to address some of these issues during bargaining sessions happening right now. But until the school board does, we will continue marching every morning into our schools. Our school district’s vision statement says, “To make that vision a reality, we should be attracting and keeping hardworking employees by offering better wages, and we should be providing the materials and learning environments all students need to be successful.” To make that vision a reality, we should be attracting and keeping hardworking employees by offering better wages, clean learning environments and the materials all students need to be successful. Please join me today and tell the School Board of Volusia County that you support our teachers and school staff in our fight to improve our schools. This means recruiting and retaining the best while providing full resources and clean schools for our kids. Let’s reclaim Volusia County and provide the best education for all. Sincerely, Joanna Kaney Olivari

  3,930 of 4,000 Signatures

  Created by Joanna Kaney Olivari
• Fully Fund Baltimore's Community Schools

  In Baltimore, 36.5 percent of people live below the poverty line. That’s $23,492 in annual income for a family of four, according to the 2012 Census Bureau American Community Survey. Linda Darling-Hammond, professor of education at Stanford University and architect of Stanford’s School Redesign Network, argues that socioeconomic status usually accounts for 50-60 percent of overall achievement in schools, while individual teachers may account for only about 7-10 percent. Darling-Hammond also points out that factors related to housing, nutrition, violence and gang-related activity, transportation, and a host of other obstacles communities face affect students’ educational experience as well. Community schools work to address some of these obstacles and have proven successful in providing meals, medical services, home visits and academic opportunities that go beyond the classroom. Increasing and expanding funding will help continue the great work started in the 47 existing community schools in the Baltimore City Public Schools district and help provide all Baltimore’s children the opportunity to succeed. Show your support for Baltimore’s community schools. Sign the petition below.

  18 of 100 Signatures

  Created by Asher Huey
• Bring new leadership to Dallas schools

  Our school district has an opportunity to make the fresh start that we need and our students deserve. The news broke recently that Superintendent Mike Miles is resigning his post. As the Trustees begin the search for a replacement, we need them to hear the voices of all stakeholders. We need a superintendent who is committed to working with all stakeholders—parents, teachers and school employees, and members of our community. We need collaboration—not confrontation--to ensure that Dallas has safe, welcoming neighborhood public schools where students are inspired and educators are well-supported. The process for identifying and hiring a new superintendent must include the voices of those stakeholders. I urge you to take a moment to let your voice be heard. Please contact the Trustees and urge them to consider the following three points in the search for a new superintendent to lead our school district forward: 1) The process must be inclusive and transparent. Schools work best when all stakeholders are involved. The Dallas ISD Board should take the time and create space to get input from parents, educators and members of our community. 2) An independent search firm should be engaged. Efforts to identify a new superintendent should be broad and deliberate. 3) A broad-based Stakeholder Advisory Committee should participate in the search and interview finalists with the Trustees. The new superintendent should be someone who can build relationships with the full Dallas community. One good way to lay that foundation is to include an array of stakeholders and constituents in the selection process. At a minimum, the committee should have a place for educators, parents, business leaders, faith leaders and representatives of civic organizations. One model for how this works is already familiar to Dallas ISD; whenever a new principal is hired, a campus-wide committee is involved in the selection and interviewing of candidates. A fresh start for Dallas ISD means giving community stakeholders a seat at the table where our new superintendent is selected.

  376 of 400 Signatures

  Created by Rena Honea
• Reject Betsy DeVos

  My son Jack is a spunky, determined, charismatic six-year-old. He plays baseball, basketball and soccer. He swims and reads and dances. Jack has Down syndrome, but that doesn’t define him. It’s one of the things that makes Jack awesome. And Jack is one of the things that makes his school awesome. Jack attends our local public school—and thanks to an Individualized Education Plan (IEP), Jack is thriving. But Trump’s nominee for education secretary, Betsy DeVos, would put Jack’s education—and the education of millions of other students with special needs—at risk. During her Senate testimony, Ms. DeVos seemed to have no knowledge of the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA), the federal law that ensures students with learning challenges get the support and assistance they need to thrive. Jack’s IEP is specially tailored to his “individual” academic and functional goals. He knows that the books he reads were chosen for his reading level, that his physical therapist helps him keep up with his friends and that his speech therapist supports his behavioral goals by giving him language to function appropriately in his classroom. Our sons—Jack and his big brother Griffin—are able to attend the same wonderful public school, thanks to the extra help Jack receives through IDEA. Jack’s teachers and classmates don’t see squinty eyes, extra chromosomes and noisy footsteps—they see Jack’s strengths and weaknesses, his favorite activities, his charm. And Jack gets to learn and grow with kids of all capabilities and from all backgrounds, too. When we were working to get Jack’s IEP approved, I remember telling my teacher friends that I felt like I was also advocating for our amazing schools. I knew that having Jack there would make our amazing schools even awesomer, and that has come to fruition. That school rallies around our guy and supports him so much, and having that kind of diversity--whether across abilities, economic classes, races, or interests--is so vital to our public schools and our democracy. But if Betsy DeVos—who has called our public schools a “dead end”—is confirmed, public schools will be in grave danger. It’s not just that she doesn’t know or care about the federal laws that provide extra help for kids like Jack. It’s that she doesn’t believe in public education. DeVos wants to make our schools into a marketplace, pushing private school vouchers and for-profit charter schools. Her ideas will result in the defunding of the neighborhood public schools like Jack’s—and as parents select specialized schools, families like ours will be left with a no-win choice. In our neighborhood public school, our kids are exposed to so many different kinds of learners, ethnicities, backgrounds, races, and differences of every kind. That helps them learn tolerance and acceptance, and build the skills to interact with people from all different backgrounds. if people choose schools based on specialties, Jack will end up at a special school for kids with disabilities or as a "leftover" in his public school. Schools will lack the cultural and sociological diversity that emulates the real world. And students at the other schools will have no idea as to how to interact with the disability community. Betsy DeVos doesn’t care about kids like Jack—she can’t even be bothered to learn about the federal laws that make it possible for Jack to thrive in our neighborhood public school. Her vision will hurt all of our kids, and especially kids with special needs. Ashley Meier Barlow, Fort Thomas, Kentucky

  4,855 of 5,000 Signatures

  Created by Ashley Barlow