What are you looking for?

Front Lines Blog

  1. Home
  3. Newsroom
  5. Front Lines Blog

It may not be perfect, but Illinois needs SB1

Late this spring, I was walking into our district’s administrative offices for meetings. As I made it up to the business office, I ran into the administrator tasked with trying to make sense of what is going on financially in this state right now in order to develop a budget…

In the era of “alternative facts”: Let’s lead

As everyone knows, those who don’t know the past are doomed to repeat it. As we face wave after wave of attacks on our organization, it’s more important than ever that people understand what got us here. The roots for the formation of the Illinois Education Association were planted during…

Don’t mourn, organize!

I will never forget the first time my school was attacked by a well-organized sleeper cell of grizzly bears. For months, the local park rangers warned us that there was chatter through multiple sites on the dark web and through social media. There was no doubt that action was imminent.…

The myth of “color blindness”

I can tell you the exact moment I realized my behavior was racially biased. I grew up in a predominantly white suburb of Chicago. I had some friends of color but, for the most part I was surrounded almost exclusively by white culture. “Politically correct” became the huge buzzword when…

Tired of attacks on education? Sound off at the voting booth

I was derelict in my duties to write last year.  It wasn’t by choice though. While at the NEA Representative Assembly this year I was out to dinner with some friends.  They were ribbing me about not having written much last year.  I shot back with, “It’s my subtle protest…