Archives For May 2012

“Our working conditions are our students’ learning conditions.”

Greetings Movement of Rank and File Educators!

IMPORTANT:

***Save the date for MORE’s end of year celebration on Saturday June 16. ***

Read the MORE statement on the recent Michael Mulgrew story in the news here on the MORE website.

Congratulations to those who have already won their delegate and chapter leader elections! Best of luck to those who are still running. Please contact us if you need  information on how to run an election, compose campaign literature or assistance on any other issues that are coming up. The next meeting of chapter leaders and delegates will be on Thursday, May 31 at 4:30 PM. See details listed in Upcoming MORE Events below.

Open call for MORE branding proposals! See the Spread the Word section for more details.

Sign onto the open letter written to Chancellor Walcott and the DOE requesting permission to not be required to participate in the June field tests. Continue Reading…

MORE is committed to democratic, activist unionism and accountable leadership. Our members have devoted years to challenging  the Unity leadership’s pattern of  bargaining away our rights and calling each give-back a victory, while at the same time we do the daily work of teaching and advocating for our students and their parents. We have also opposed the undemocratic functioning of the Unity leadership which has marginalized opposition voices, discouraged membership activism, and has used its absolute control of the union machinery to foster a patronage system that rewards cronyism instead of competence.

At the same time we will not join with the New York Post in its crusade against teacher unionism because it is a campaign not just against Michael Mulgrew but against all New York City educators. Continue Reading…

Movement Of Rank & File Educators

is committed to building a union that EDUCATES, AGITATES and MOBILIZES its membership. Under the name of Education Reform, the High Stakes Movement is destroying public education and attempting to bust the teachers union. Join us in a discussion of the origins and effects of High Stakes Testing and Evaluation.

EDUCATE!Join us in reading selected chapters from Au’s, Unequal By Design and Ravitch’s, Death and Life of American’s Great American School System (see details on the back)

AGITATE!How are high stakes tests racists? How do standardized tests push out students of color and actively segregate schools? How has our union leadership failed to respond to the issues of high stakes testing and evaluation?

MOBILIZE! Develop materials for distribution around the truth behind the origins and effects of high stakes testing for students and evaluation for teachers and schools. Continue Reading…

Please sign the letter supporting the boycott of Pearson’s field testing!

PDF version coming soon to distribute to your coworkers to sign…

Weekly Update #7 – 05.15.12

Greetings Movement of Rank and File Educators!

Tomorrow, help grow MORE by coming to the UFT delegate assembly and distributing our leaflet about the failure of the UFT leadership to organize to stop the school closings and their complicity in the test-based evaluation schemes.

There will also be an important resolution on the floor about supporting a demonstration against the impending closing of the 24 turnaround schools – please raise it if you have speaking rights. The text is below as well.

Thank you everyone for coming out to our membership meeting last Saturday. We decided on a number important action plans – see notes below for details.

If you haven’t already, please take a second to join MORE and check out our new website, morecaucusnyc.org, where you can sign up to distribute our leaflet in your school and to other schools within your school building.

Save the date for an end of year meeting/celebration on June 16. Location TBA.

Continue Reading…

Zero for Two

May 15, 2012 — 1 Comment

Please help us distribute this leaflet in your school (click here to let us know where you can get it out) and at the upcoming UFT Delegate Assembly on May 16th at 52 Broadway, 4pm.

0 for 2

The Mulgrew/Unity leadership is batting .000 this year. It has failed to protect us against school closings and a new teacher evaluation process that will tie our job security to our students’ standardized test scores.

Continue Reading…

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Weekly Update #6 – 05.07.12

Greetings Movement of Rank and File Educators!

All out for our membership meeting on Saturday, May 12 at Noon at the CUNY Graduate Center – Room 5414 (New Location! 365 5th Ave @ 34th St, 6 to 33rd, B/D/F/M/N/R to Herald Square). Also, there is an important demonstration against teacher harassment on Tuesday, and a discussion of our election efforts on Friday (see below). Save the date for an end of year meeting/celebration on June 16.

Continue Reading…

M.O.R.E – Movement of Rank and File Educators

Weekly Update #5 – 04.29.12


Greetings Movement of Rank and File Educators!

This is an important week of actions and committee meetings!

Tomorrow, please join Occupy the DOE for the educators’ contingent at the May Day protest. On Saturday, there will be a very important Peoples’ Assembly to help build for a People’s Board of Education.

Please consider joining one of MORE’s committees which are meeting over the next two weeks: Chapter Leader/Delegate Networking Event (Th, 5/3), Action (Th, 5/3), Education (Tues, 5/8), Elections (Fri, 5/11) – see below for details.


Thank you everyone for coming to our membership meeting last Saturday, April 21st.  Although the democratic process was messy and long, we agreed to found the Movement of Rank and File Educators, approved a mission statement, decided to run in the 2013 UFT elections and take on a number of action campaigns!

The full mission statement, and meeting notes are below (please reply with any corrections).  

Here is how to join MORE:

1. Agree with Mission Statement (see below)

2. Fill out membership form

3. Pay $10


By joining MORE you get full voter rights and a chance to direct the future of the caucus in an open and democratic manner.

When can you join? Come to any of the meetings below or attend the May 12 membership meeting. MORE’s website is coming soon with an online membership form.

To join the SOTU discussion group and receive additional emails, click here or reply to this email.

Meetings are organized by an open planning committee, which would love to have your input and voice.  Click here to join and get details on the planning committee.

1) Tuesday, May 1 – 4pm – Join an Educators Contingent on May Day! Occupy the DOE will gather at 4pm in front of the main entrance to Washington Irving HS at 40 Irving Place between 16th & 17th St. (4/5/6/N/R to Union Square).

2) Saturday, May 5 – 8:30am to 5pm – Coalition for Public Education citywide people’s assembly on organizing against mayoral control and for a people’s board of education. Click here for flyer.

3) Tuesday, May 8 at 4pm –  Demonstration against political harassment of teachers at Clara Barton High School 901 (Classon Ave. 2/3/4/5 to Franklin, S to Botanic, Q/B to Prospect), for bringing students to the AFLCIO “One Nation” Rally in Washington in 2010.  

4) Saturday, May 12 at 12pm - Our  May membership meeting.  Location TBA.

Upcoming Committee Meetings:

Chapter Leader / Delegate Candidate Networking Group:

Thursday, May 3rd, 4:45 PM

Grey Dog Cafe (242 W 16th St betw. 7th & 8th – 1/2/3 to 14th)


Action

Thursday, May 3rd, 5 PM

Skylight Diner (34th St. at 9th Ave., SW corner – 1/2/3/A/C/E to 34th St.)

Education:

Tuesday, May 8th, 5pm

Old Town Bar & Restaurant (14th Street/Union Square – 4/5/6/N/Q/R/L)

45 E. 18th Street

New York, NY 10003


Elections:

Friday, May 11th, 4 PM

Skylight Diner (34th St. at 9th Ave., SW corner – 1/2/3/A/C/E to 34th St.)





MISSION STATEMENT (as adopted April 21, 2012)

A – Who we are and why we are forming
1. We are members of the UFT and members of school communities and their allies.
2. We insist on receiving professional dignity and respect, and we insist on a strong, democratic union emerging from an educated and active rank and file. We oppose the lack of democracy and one-party state that has governed our union for half a century. It has conceded to our adversaries’ agendas and has collaborated with their attacks on us, leading to the terrible situation we find ourselves in.
3. We insist on a better educational environment for ourselves and for the students whose lives we touch.  Because of this resolve, we have established the MORE Caucus, which will educate, organize and mobilize the UFT membership.

B – For an improved contract
4. It is time to end the UFT’s concession to the language and assumptions of the so-called reformers and the wave of concessions and givebacks that result from conceding these assumptions.  We must be prepared to take collective action, if necessary, in defense of our interests, and to achieve a decent contract.
5. We seek a contract with retroactive pay, that is not obtained by selling off what few protections remain. We insist on defending tenure, due process rights, pensions, and an immediate end to the arbitrary denial of tenure to probationary teachers. We oppose any teacher evaluations based on standardized tests.

C – For quality curricula
6. We stand for a union that recognizes that teacher working conditions are student learning conditions and that, after parents, teachers are best situated to understand the needs of young people.
7. We insist that high stakes tests no longer deprive New York City’s children of exposure to foreign language, science, social studies and the arts.  We insist that curricula taught in our schools be mindful and respectful of the needs and backgrounds of our students, that they nurture in them the potential for active, reflective citizenship, and is committed to racial and gender equity, democracy and economic justice.  

D – Our communities, our schools
8. We reject the corporate takeover of the public schools, and the wave of school closures in the city, which have particularly affected poor communities with high proportions of people of color.  We insist on a moratorium on the opening of new charter schools.  We seek to end the cuts to education which have led to increasing class sizes as well as inadequate social, health, guidance personnel and services.
9. The schools should be the people’s schools.  We stand for democratic governance and popular control of our school system that fully reflects the needs, aspirations and diversity of those who make up its parent and student body. Mayoral control, which is inherently undemocratic, must be abolished , and be replaced by an elected people’s board of education which represents the interests of teachers, students, parents, and community.

Notes of the April 21 MORE meeting

From Peter L. and Rosie F.

Attendance: At least 51.

Name:

First vote: MORE 20, NewFT 7, Abstain 10

Second vote: to adopt MORE now, and decide on slogans/mottos at the next meeting: Many for, 1 against, 1 abstaining

Points of Unity (Mission) Amendments:

Changing Point 1: “We are members of the UFT and members of school communities and their allies.” Passed unanimously.

Adding to point 5: “We oppose any teacher evaluations based on standardized tests.” Passed 28 for, few against.

Changing ‘equity’ in point 7 to ‘equality’: 36 against, a few for, 1 against.

Changing point 9: From “The schools are…” to “The schools should be…”: Passed unanimously

The end of point 9 was changed to: “Mayoral control, which is inherently undemocratic, must be abolished , and be replaced by a an elected people’s board of education which represents the interests of teachers, students, parents, and community.”

Elections
The small group discussions are summarized by the chart papers below

Motion to table the decision about elections to the next meeting failed with 3 for, many against and 3 abstaining.

Motion to run 2013 elections passed 39 for, 1 against and 3 abstaining.

Actions:
Voted Yes to endorse and approve the following Actions/Events
  • May 8th Rally in front of Clara Barton High School in Brooklyn in support of teachers being targeted for taking their students to a protest.
  • People’s Board of Education event on May 5th