Many often identified the Catholic Church with the cause of labor and worker's rights in the United States. However that was not the common situation encountered by laborers throughout most of the nineteenth century. The proclamation of the social encyclicals: Pope Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum (1891) and Pope Pius XI's Quadragesimo Anno (1931)…

A recent survey of 41 different state boards of education revealed that officials from 28 states indicate that they are experiencing teacher shortages. The shortages in some states are significant. While the teacher shortage in many states is tied to different factors, one frequently cited reason for leaving the teaching profession is low pay.…

This article examines the legal and political significance of teacher unionization in rural and suburban school districts between 1960 and 1975. While most historians focus on the growth of unions in urban areas, strikes in outlying districts played a determinative role in the development of public sector labor law, particularly in the arbitration…

As school closures are increasingly used as a remedy to budget woes and a solution to failing schools in many cities, debates are intensifying about their effect on student performance and well-being, on district finances, and on communities and the processes districts use to choose which schools will be shuttered. Student and parent groups in…

This article presents the author's views about the school district deconstruction in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He discusses his 30-year experience as a principal and central office administrator with the School District of Philadelphia and his involvement in the efforts to lead urban school reform in the country. He also describes the reform…

In this classroom simulation, students travel back in time to 1945, when racism was institutionalized in many states through segregation. Though students cannot literally travel back to the Jim Crow era, teachers can create a situation that brings home the point of injustice and the choices individuals are faced with in such situations. Suddenly,…

Uses tables to present data on teacher strikes in Pennsylvania since the passage of Act 195 in 1970. Includes data on the number of employees affected by strikes, the average number of employee strike days, the number of students affected by strikes, and the number of idle employee-days caused by strikes. (IRT)

Discusses judicial interpretations of Pennsylvania's Public Employee Relations Act which created the right of public school teachers to strike. (JF)

Discusses the experience of the Philadelphia School Board with the Public Employee Relations Act which permits public school teacher strikes. (JF)

One of the drafters of the Public Employee Relations Act discusses Pennsylvania's experience with the new right to strike clause in the Act. (EA)

Discusses some of the reasoning behind instigation of the Pennsylvania Public Employee Relations Act which permits public school teacher strikes. (JF)

Investigates the bargaining effects of the decisions made by school boards in Pennsylvania whether to reschedule teacher strike days to qualify for state aid. Hypothesizes that strikes are more likely to occur in districts where teachers expect strike days to be rescheduled. (JOW)

Once as familiar in the back-to-school ritual as falling leaves, teacher strikes seem headed for a winter freeze. According to the nation's largest teacher's union, about 15 of the National Education Association's (NEA) 14,000 local affiliates have gone on strike since the start of this school year. In Pennsylvania--a traditional union…

Examines the impact of private labor rulings on Pennsylvania's public employee laws, public sector strikes and their implications, and Pennsylvania's public employee laws and the right to strike. Available from Duquesne Law Review, 901 Rockwell Hall, 600 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15219; sc $3.50. (Author/IRT)