Labor History Now Part of Wisconsin Public Education Standards

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2009/12/23/a-lesson-too-long-unlearned/

In this cross-post from the International Labor Communications Association (ILCA), Dick Meister, a San Francisco-based columnist, highlights the successful effort of Wisconsin unionists to make labor history part of the state’s model public education standards and highlights the need for action to ensure similar laws are passed elsewhere.

Despite the importance of unions in our lives, our schools pay only slight attention to their importance—or even to their existence.

Little is done in the classroom to overcome the negative view of organized labor held by many Americans; little done to explain the true nature of organized labor.

There have been many attempts to remedy that situation, none more promising than the steps taken recently in Wisconsin with enactment of a law that makes the teaching of labor history and collective bargaining part of the state¹s model standards for social studies classes in the state¹s public schools.

The law does not mandate the teaching of labor history and collective bargaining, as its sponsors had wanted. But it amounts to just about the same thing by requiring the state superintendent of public instruction to make the subjects part of the state’s educational standards and to provide schools and teachers assistance in teaching labor subjects.

The Wisconsin Labor History Society, the state AFL-CIO and other labor and educational groups worked a dozen years to finally win enactment of the law, the first such state law anywhere. But the History Society fully expects other states to follow Wisconsin’s example.

The importance of including labor history in the classroom was underscored effectively in the latest issue of the American Federation of Teachers journal, American Educator.

FULL story at link.

[rurallib]

1. Indeed a step forward - Who designs the curriculum?

What little labor history now being taught in some area is almost anti-labor.
I have been amazed when talking with some rank and file they regurgitate republican talking points. The whole GM debate last year was a case in point. I don't know how many union members told me GM workers made $70/hour.

[Liberty Belle]

2. We need this in CA, and everywhere.