Chatham County Association of Educators Unite! Organize! Empower!

Let Vice-President Tori Mazur know by Friday if you’re interested in attending:

Dear Association Leader,

You are invited to attend a special forum entitled, “Building Collaborative Partnerships to Improve Teacher Effectiveness”, sponsored by The Mid-Atlantic/Southeast Region of the Teacher Union Reform Network  (MASE TURN) on February 18-19, 2012 in Raleigh, North Carolina. This forum will provide opportunities for us to examine policies, programs and practices that influence teaching effectiveness.  In addition, we will consider the roles our unions, districts and states play in ensuring teaching quality in our public schools.

Local union leaders are strongly encouraged to invite representatives from their states, districts and communities to join their teams for this two-day forum.    Participants will have opportunities to learn about and consider the impact of Race To The Top on issues of teacher effectiveness, specifically on teacher evaluation. Participating teams will be asked to identify an area of focus related to improving teacher effectiveness in which they can begin to collaboratively address.  Time will be provided for participants to interact with one another and for teams to begin to consider their work together.

Featured speakers include:

• Jo Anderson, Senior Policy Analyst, US Department of Education and former Executive Director of the Illinois Education Association
• Dr. Patrick Dolan, Education Consultant and author of Restructuring Our Schools: A Primer for Systemic Change
• Princess Moss, NEA Executive Committee and Immediate Past President of the Virginia Education Association.

Due to a generous grant from The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, MASE TURN will assume the cost of housing for a limited number of district teams participating in this forum. Breakfast will be provided for those staying at our designated hotel and lunch will be provided for all registrants. Additionally, MASE will provide a limited number of scholarships to assist local teams who need financial assistance in order to attend this forum.

About TURN:

MASE TURN is one of five TURN regions affiliated with the national Teacher Union Reform Network.

The Teacher Union Reform Network (TURN) is a network of AFT and NEA locals. TURN is an independent, local union-led effort to strengthen the nation’s teachers unions’ capacity to promote reforms that will ultimately lead to better learning and higher achievement for all America’s children. The primary goal of TURN is to promote new union practices and structures that can take the lead in building and sustaining effective schools for all students. Teacher union leaders and their district and state partners are welcome at TURN conferences.

MASE TURN represents states in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast including: Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia

MASE TURN strives to assist union locals in becoming leading drivers to improve teaching and learning policies and programs by:

• Building labor-management collaborative teams to address issues impacting teaching and learning.
• Identifying an area of focus that impacts teaching and learning for Regional TURN participants to address.
• Sharing and communicating the learning from the work addressed in the TURN regions.

For more information about MASE TURN and other TURN regions, please log onto www.turnexchange.net

Sincerely,

Rick Baumgartner, MASE Co Director, randgbaum@verizon.net

David Schutten, MASE Co Director, presode@aol.com