Union launches "BE NICE" campaign against KIPP founders

In its campaign to unionize a KIPP charter school in Brooklyn, the national American Federation of Teachers union has a new target: other teachers in the wide KIPP network. The AFT today reached out to KIPP teachers from San Jose to D.C. to Boston, asking them to join an e-mail campaign to urge the charter network’s co-founders to recognize the union.

The saga began earlier this year, when 15 teachers at the Brooklyn school, called KIPP AMP, told school officials that they want to form a union with the help of the local United Federation of Teachers. They said a union would help them feel more secure in their jobs and have a stronger say in building their school.

KIPP leaders, who have traditionally touted their freedom from teachers unions as a strength, because it allows them to hire and fire as they please, could have recognized the union and worked with it. Instead, they have hedged — and even indicated they might fight back against the teachers or drop their affiliation with the Brooklyn school. A state labor board is now considering the teachers’ petitions. (And the group of teachers, meanwhile, has swelled to 16 from 15.)

The fliers sent today ask KIPP teachers to send e-mail messages to KIPP’s co-founders, Dave Levin and Mike Feinberg, asking them to recognize the union — and offer teachers tips on how they could form a union themselves. Titled “BE NICE,” a riff on the KIPP motto, “Work Hard. Be Nice,” the fliers narrate the story of how Levin and Feinberg founded KIPP 14 years ago. “They put good ideas together with hard work and a relentless drive,” the flier says. “They also worked for supportive administrators who gave Dave and Mike the power they wanted to start a new program.”

The flier goes on:

Today in Brooklyn, a dedicated group of KIPP teachers and parents want the same thing and they’re forming a union and PTA to have a stronger voice. They’re asking for the power to add their own knowledge to the program and to sustain the school’s success.

Full flier is below the jump.
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