SESSION TYPE: Featured Speaker (Panel) SESSION TITLE: AFT Innovation Fund STRAND: Whole School Issues DAY: Saturday TIME: 11:15 - 12:30pm LOCATION: Sutton Parlor Central, 2nd floor

The AFT Innovation Fund is the first union-led, private foundation-supported effort that provides grants to AFT affiliates nationwide to develop bold education innovations in public schools. The initial funding for the initiative comes from the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Ford Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, as well as from the AFT.

More than 125 proposals were submitted for the first grant cycle in 2009; independent reviewers read and scored the top 15 grant applications, and eight were selected in October for funding. Come learn how the rich collaboration between teachers unions and their administrative partners in Philadelphia, San Antonio and the ABC Unified School District in California have unleashed an entrepreneurial spirit to support new school models and enhance teacher effectiveness. AFT President Randi Weingarten has referred to the Fund as “bottom-up reform at its best.”

BIOGRAPHY

Adam Urbanski, Moderator
AFT Innovation Fund Executive Director

A former high school teacher and college professor, Urbanski has been a national leader in education reform. He is currently an AFT Vice President and the President of Rochester (NY) Teachers Association. Urbanski is also the founding director of the Teacher Union Reform Network (TURN), a coalition of progressive AFT and NEA locals. He was a trustee of the National Center for Education and the Economy and a senior associate to the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future.

Superintendent of The School District of Philadelphia, Arlene Ackerman has spent her entire career in urban school districts as a fearless advocate for children and for their right to equal opportunity public education. Born in St. Louis, Ackerman has led controversial school reform movements in San Francisco, Washington D.C., and Seattle. Now in Philadelphia, her five-year strategic plan, Imagine 2014, and the District’s recent teacher contract agreement is drawing national attention.

Jerry Jordan is the president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, an AFT vice president, and Vice Chairman of the AFT Human and Civil Rights Committee. Jordan taught English to speakers of other languages in Philadelphia prior to being elected as an officer of the union.

President of the San Antonio Alliance of Teachers & Support Personnel since 1986, Shelley Potter has taught elementary school in the San Antonio Independent School District for fourteen years. She was the first Local Site Coordinator for the AFT’s ER&D Program in San Antonio and used professional development and professional issues to help build the union. Shelley chaired the AFT Task Force on Union-Sponsored Professional Development in 2001.

President of the ABC (Artesia, Bloomfield and Carmenita) Federation of Teachers in California, Laura K. Rico is also an AFT vice president and member of the AFT Teachers program and policy council. In 2005, Rico was elected to the AFL-CIO executive council. Rico serves as the state senior vice president for the California Federation of Teachers.