Relying upon a bogus interpretation of federal law and regulations, the state of Georgia has begun to deny seasonal workers the unemployment insurance (UI) benefits they have received for 16 years during their off seasons. Thousands of workers are affected—contract school bus drivers, bus monitors, longtime crossing guards, cafeteria cooks, janitors, landscapers and teachers in private religious schools. 

Last night, under growing pressure, Change.org confirmed it is cutting ties with StudentsFirst and Stand for Children.

Teachers helping teachers—that’s what the AFT is all about and that’s the goal of the union’s brand-new website. Share My Lesson, launched yesterday, is slated to become the nation’s largest online community for U.S. teachers to collaborate and share teaching resources and innovative ideas, according to AFT.

Nicole Aro is the AFL-CIO Digital Strategies deputy director.

My mother is a high school teacher. Growing up, the joy that she took in her students learning each day was inspiring (and still is!). She spent thousands of dollars of her own money on classroom and after school activities, countless days and weeks over the summer poring over classics so she could better educate her seniors on their Advanced Placement (AP) work and endless nights and weekends creating her own supplemental material when the textbooks just weren’t engaging enough (think sketch comedies using characters from The Iliad and The Odyssey).

Inspired largely by my mom, when I got to college in Chicago, I promptly signed up to be a part-time teaching assistant in the Chicago Public School system.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka put Mitt Romney's recent statements on public employees into perspective Sunday. Speaking on CBS's "Face the Nation," Trumka said:

Mitt Romney says he wants fewer teachers—that means larger classrooms. He says he wants fewer firefighters—that means less safety. I mean, rich people will probably still have good protection; working-class people won’t. He wants fewer police officers—that means we’re in danger.

Today is Teacher Appreciation Day and A.J. Kelinheksel tweets:

Today I'm thinking about Mrs. Blas-Murphy. She always took my opinions seriously. I realize now how hard that must have been.

You can thank a teacher today by tweeting your thoughts with the hashtag #thankateacher and retweet to @AFTunion.

Donna Gratehouse, who blogs at Democratic Diva and elsewhere on all things Arizona, sends us this.

Arizona’s teachers have been under attack for years from right-wing ideologues intent on dismantling public education as we know it. Arizona ranks lowest in the nation in per-pupil spending and highest in number of students per teacher. This year the state legislature is targeting teachers along with other public-sector worker with “Wisconsin on steroids” union-stripping bills, but there are several other bills specifically aimed at teachers and public education on the docket.

This is a cross-post from Working America’s Main Street blog.

Working America members, teachers and unemployed Pennsylvanians on both sides of the state delivered more than 1,000 handwritten postcards to Gov. Tom Corbett’s regional offices in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. We wanted Corbett to know the drastic, widespread and ultimately disastrous results of the budget cuts he enacted last year. We wanted him to make good on the rhetoric used in his first year, which called for “shared sacrifice.”

Why shouldn’t teachers be paid more? Because the Bible says it would be wrong, according to an Alabama Republican state legislator.

AFL-CIO communications staffer Nora Frederickson sends us this report.

Workers in New Hampshire took over the floor of the New Hampshire House chamber yesterday to testify against a spate of anti-collective bargaining bills debated in the House Labor Committee. The hearings were relocated to the people’s chamber after the hearing rooms were flooded past their capacity by more than 600 firefighters, state workers, truck drivers, teachers and community members protesting the most recent anti-worker onslaughts in the Granite State.