Detroit Federation of Teachers President Keith Johnson, who has guided the 4,000-member union through bitter contract negotiations and Michigan’s transition to a right-to-work state, will announce today that he is stepping down, Rochelle Riley reports in the Free Press.
Johnson has served in leadership for the union for 21 years.
“It would be easy for me to run again, possibly win, and then coast,” he told Riley. “I can’t do it like that. I can’t cheat my members like that. I can’t cheat myself like that. So if I can’t do it the way I’ve always done it, it’s time to step aside and let the next phase of leadership come in.”
That leadership, in his eyes, looks like Edna Reaves, the executive vice president of the union, a woman Johnson has been grooming to succeed him.
