BTU

Members of the Baltimore Teachers Union head to the polls today to elect a president and other officers, one day after an appeals court rejected a former BTU president's attempt to stop the election.Former president Irene B. Dandridge, who claims she was improperly excluded as a candidate, said she isn't giving up her fight to reclaim the job she held for 17 years, despite yesterday's ruling."We do have some options," Dandridge said. "One is to go to the international union [American Federation of Teachers]

Baltimore Teachers Union members head to the polls today to elect a president and other officers, one day after an appeals court rejected a former BTU president's attempt to stop the election.Former president Irene B. Dandridge, who claims she was improperly excluded as a candidate, said she isn't giving up her fight to reclaim the job she held for 17 years, despite yesterday's ruling."We do have some options," Dandridge said. "One is to go to the international union [American Federation of Teachers]

An attempt to make peace within the fractious Baltimore Teachers Union has set the stage for the BTU's former president to challenge the union's power structure that once embraced her.The peacemaking effort came in the form of a letter that BTU President Marietta A. English sent Feb. 2 to Irene B. Dandridge, agreeing to accept Dandridge's check for union dues covering October through January.In court filings, Dandridge maintains that the acceptance of the check reinstated her as a member of the BTU and makes her eligible to run Tuesday against English and four other candidates for the union's top position.

I am concerned that your Sept. 4 editorial, ''Progress depends on teachers,'' fails to represent fairly the Baltimore Teachers Union position and its role in the school reform efforts taking place in the city.During the last legislative session, our efforts were focused only on fixing the bill so that employees' rights to bargain collectively and their accrued benefits were not impaired. The BTU has consistently supported the reforms -- both in funding and management -- specified in the school legislation.

Members of the Baltimore Teachers Union ousted their longtime president last night after 17 years at the helm, choosing instead a challenger who had accused the incumbent of financial mismanagement in the city's largest municipal union.Marcia Brown assumes the leadership of the BTU's teacher chapter today under union rules. Former President Irene B. Dandridge promised to help Brown through a transition period and the "rough times ahead.""The first concern for all of us is what will be good for the teachers of Baltimore City," Brown told Dandridge moments after Dandridge conceded.

Two days before the Baltimore Teachers Union election, candidates for president outlined their philosophies on radio, traded barbs and papered city schools with campaign letters.Incumbent President Irene B. Dandridge and challenger Marcia Brown, 52, the BTU's executive vice president, distributed letters to teachers citywide. Both debated with a third candidate, teacher Adolph McDonald, 59, yesterday in the studio of WEAA-FM radio at Morgan State University."You can choose to vote for experienced leadership or vote for amateurs," Dandridge, 61, wrote in her letter to teachers and reiterated during the evening broadcast.

Challengers battling the leadership of the Baltimore Teachers Union yesterday chided the group's two presidents for a "lavish" benefits package that includes $200,000 annuity premiums being paid by the union even as it is running a deficit.Marcia Brown, who is running in union elections next week against longtime BTU President Irene B. Dandridge, said that the annuities -- coupled with compensation that tops $99,000 for each woman -- are inappropriate benefits for a union representing modestly paid teachers and other school employees.

On the eve of its most fiercely contested election in years, the Baltimore Teachers Union has arrived at a crossroads.The city's teachers must choose Thursday from among three candidates for president, including the incumbent of 17 years.Unlike many past sedate campaigns, this one has been marked by angry denunciations after disclosures that the BTU's longtime leaders benefited from interest-free salary advances and lucrative compensation without the knowledge of most members.Meanwhile, many of the BTU's 5,600 teachers feel that their jobs are threatened by dwindling city resources, school violence, state school reform and declining enrollment.

LOOK, CHILDREN. See the teachers. See the teachers be selfish. See them ignore the rules. See the teachers make a mockery of the democratic election they held to choose a new president of their union.It is outrageous for board members of the Baltimore Teachers Union who remain loyal to ousted BTU President Irene B. Dandridge to attempt to undercut the authority of her elected successor. The BTU membership has spoken. It does not want Ms. Dandridge, whose tenure was tainted by disclosures in The Sun that she and other top BTU officials were paid far more than their members, received large interest-free salary advances from the deficit-ridden union and hired relatives as full-time employees.

Top officials of the Baltimore Teachers Union have hired two of their children as full-time employees on the small staffs of the two labor groups they control, prompting charges of nepotism ++ from opponents in an election to be held next week."

"The Horror of a Fairy Tale" was the title of the essay Janna Chevon Thompson submitted in January when she applied for the Baltimore Teachers Union's Extreme Classroom/Library Makeover contest. She wrote about how she'd realized her dream of teaching arts in an urban setting with her job at Southside Academy in Cherry Hill. But in addition to "discouraged students, lack of funding [and] lack of support," she was constantly frustrated by "an uninhabitable learning environment." When it's hot, there is no air conditioning.

Refreshing candor from the new leader Watching Steve Kroft's post-election interview with President-elect Barack Obama, I was braced for the wearisome bluster, swagger and hot-air rhetoric that have come with every (so-called) presidential figure in recent memory ("'60 Minutes' scores with Obama interview," Nov. 20). But they didn't come. Instead, we saw a future commander in chief deliver his thoughts with unprecedented calm, clarity, composure and, finally, straight talk. It was a thrilling moment, but not in the standard sense: not because of Mr. Obama's victory but because of the excitement I felt as I watched our president-elect answer questions in a cool-headed and sincere manner.

The Baltimore Teachers Union, long a bit player in city school affairs, suddenly is in a lead role, thrust there by thousands of members who delivered a message yesterday: We're fed up. Nearly three-quarters of the BTU's member teachers voted at the Convention Center to reject the city's proposal that they accept a 3.5 percent pay cut to help ease a school budget crisis. After the votes were counted in early evening, about two dozen teachers stood in a circle in front of the building, held hands and sang "We Shall Overcome" and its education version, "We Will Teach the Children."

Thousands of angry Baltimore schoolteachers and aides voted overwhelmingly to reject a 3.5 percent cut in salaries yesterday - a decision that could trigger even deeper pay cuts across the city school system or possible mass layoffs to ease a financial crisis that has been simmering for months. Nearly three-quarters of the more than 5,200 Baltimore Teachers Union members who cast ballots at the Baltimore Convention Center voted against a proposal that would have helped the system meet its budget goals this school year and still pay down part of a crushing $58 million cumulative deficit.

Maryland ranks 10th in the nation in energy efficiency, with 267 million Btu consumed per person in 1997. Alaskans use the most energy per capita: 1,145 Btu. One Btu, or British thermal unit, is the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of one pound of water by one degree Fahrenheit. It's equal to about 252 calories. State........Consumption .....Rank ................(million Btu) Hawaii...............201............1 New York...........226............2 Rhode Island.....

The American Federation of Teachers has ordered the Baltimore Teachers Union to throw out results of its May election for teacher chapter president and hold new balloting, exacerbating tensions within the fractured group. After investigating a challenge to the two-vote victory of Sharon Blake over Marietta A. English, the AFT concluded that local union members should be given a "fresh opportunity to express their preferences in a rerun that is free from material irregularities." Other officers in the teacher chapter - several of whose contests were decided by fewer than 20 votes - also would have to run again in the new election.

THE BALTIMORE Teachers Union never met a school reform effort that it liked. BTU leaders railed against the state's overhaul of city schools in 1997. Too drastic, they shouted. They screamed bloody murder when school officials suggested assessing teachers by looking at how their students performed. Too risky, they warned. Now they're belly-aching (and suing) over plans to let a private education company run three dysfunctional city schools. They're actually claiming the state has no power to decide who runs the schools -- an argument roundly rejected by Baltimore City Circuit Judge Stuart Berger.

AT LEAST the Baltimore Teachers Union is consistent. Consistently against change and innovation, that is. Consistently blocking progress and yammering about how the status quo works just fine. Witness the union's decision last week to sue the State Board of Education over a contract to privatize three awful city schools. Is it grumbling about whether Edison Schools Inc. can make lowly Gilmor, Furman L. Templeton and Montebello elementaries better? No. The BTU's beef is about teacher angst over Edison's standards.

Members of the Baltimore Teachers Union head to the polls today to elect a president and other officers, one day after an appeals court rejected a former BTU president's attempt to stop the election.Former president Irene B. Dandridge, who claims she was improperly excluded as a candidate, said she isn't giving up her fight to reclaim the job she held for 17 years, despite yesterday's ruling."We do have some options," Dandridge said. "One is to go to the international union [American Federation of Teachers]

Baltimore Teachers Union members head to the polls today to elect a president and other officers, one day after an appeals court rejected a former BTU president's attempt to stop the election.Former president Irene B. Dandridge, who claims she was improperly excluded as a candidate, said she isn't giving up her fight to reclaim the job she held for 17 years, despite yesterday's ruling."We do have some options," Dandridge said. "One is to go to the international union [American Federation of Teachers]