EXPANDING TURN SATELLITES
Tom Alves, TURN Co-Director
talves@sjta.org
[Insert Pic of Tom – from your photo library]
More than a decade ago, Adam Urbanski, Helen Bernstein, and a group of progressive union leaders, founded the Teacher Union Reform Network (TURN). Their vision was of an independent union-led effort to strengthen the nation’s teacher unions’ capacity to promote reforms that would lead to better learning and higher achievement for our nation’s children.
Today, TURN is a nationwide network of more than 50 AFT and NEA locals, which convenes three times a year to share new ideas and practices, further the cause of progressive unionism, develop and build capacity for innovation, and help develop the next generation of union leaders.
The challenge now is to spread the goals and ideals of TURN and make them accessible to substantially more local unions, school districts, and communities through regional networks and to share and disseminate their growing successes. As a result, TURN is asking for a planning grant from the Ford Foundation to develop regional TURN networks. To accomplish this, TURN has teamed up with Ellen Meyers, co-founder of Teachers Network, an international non-profit that supports the professionalization of teachers through the creation of teacher networks, and founder of the Teachers Network Leadership Institute. Once the planning grant is accepted, Ellen will lead an advisory team to develop an implementation grant proposal with TURN for a major national initiative to strengthen and expand existing networks and create several new regional networks.
The TURN advisory committee, created for this project and comprised of TURN’s co-directors and other local leaders who are members of TURN, will participate throughout the project, providing input, ideas, and feedback. Tom Alves, co-director of TURN, will chair the advisory committee. A research and writing consultant will round out the team and will be responsible for assisting with drafting the implementation proposal to the Ford Foundation.