Archives For April 2013

tenuredteacherhearingsfundchart In November of 2007, the Department of Education formed a new group, the Teacher Performance Unit (TPU); a team of five lawyers and consultants who were tasked with the job removing teachers that the department identified as ‘bad’. At that time, Dan Wesier, the chief labor relations officer for the DOE was quoted as saying that the TPU would “…ensure we have the capacity to seek the removal of all ineffective tenured teachers..”. He also said that the new team would “… also allow us to seek discipline where appropriate in a wider range of cases than before..”.

Former UFT president Randi Weingarten responded to the formation of this group by asserting that the DOE was .. relying on an unnecessarily punitive and counterproductive management style that is intended to create a climate of fear, rather than collaboration, in our city schools.”  She lead a candlelight vigil on the 27th of that month to protest the group’s forming.

Six years, and a brutal recession, have passed since this policy initiative was launched.  During this time, the ranks of lawyers who work for the TPU, and it’s sister group, the Administrative Trials Unit (ATU) have swelled, while many of us who teach in New York City’s classrooms have witnessed the numerous attempts to fire our colleagues, many for reasons that we can only be described as frivolous and petty .  The Movement of Rank and File Educators believes that it is time to begin examining how many teachers have lost or have been forced from their jobs by the department since this policy began.

This, to be clear, is no easy task. Anyone who knows anything about  the process of firing teachers in New York knows that much of that process is kept secret. Some of this secretiveness is by statute. The state law that governs the process, 3020-a, guarantees an accused teacher his or her confidentiality throughout the entire process (unless he or she chooses to have its proceedings made public). And some of this secrecy is because the DOE and the union have both agreed to keep the actual numbers -the specific amount of people who have been put through this process- secret. The resulting fact is that there is no data that tells people how many tenured teachers lost their job in New York City in any given year. As a consequence, no one  actually knows how many teachers the city has fired, or even how many it has tried to fire since the formation of what Weingarten termed the ‘Gotcha Squad’.  There are guesses and  nuggets and tidbits of information that has surfaced from time to time. But there is no real hard number that anyone can point to. This number could be ten or it could be ten thousand and none of us would know. The first step in finding out is to examine exactly how much money was spent since these years in the pursuit of firing teachers. 

It is, of course, is impossible to track every dollar that has been spent pursuing 3020-a charges of tenured teachers.  The school district who decides to fire a teacher pays much of this expense. It is responsible for any investigation related or leading to its decision to begin a 3020-a proceeding. It must also provide a venue where the hearing can occur, a place where that teacher will report to work while he or she is suspended and don’t forget  the salary of a replacement teacher during the time of the suspension. Most importantly, the district must pay the fees of the lawyer(s) who will try the case. The state teacher union (NYSUT) is, when a member so decides, responsible for the fees representing the teacher during his or her defense. It is simply not possible for us to account for all of the money has been spent.


But it is possible to track the amount of money spent on hearing officers. Those are the arbitrators who are tasked with presiding over a 3020-a case and ultimately decide whether or not a teacher should be fired. In New York State, nearly every teacher who faces 3020-a dismissal charges has a hearing officer assigned to their case and, as it so happens, every hearing officer submits their fees to the same New York Sate Education Department office;  the Tenured Teacher Hearing Unit. This unit

“… manages aspects of the statutory process, including receipt of charges, maintenance of case files and case information, and facilitation of the assignment and payment of hearing officers/arbitrators and court reporters.”

Referring to this unit, New York’s Deputy Commissioner of NYSED, Theresa Salvo described the state’s role in the disciplinary process like this (here):

“. The [Education] Department’s role in the tenured teacher disciplinary process is primarily ministerial.The Department has little or no ability to control costs associated with the Tenured Teacher Hearing (TTH) process.” (emphasis added)”

This unit also manages a  fund called the Tenured Teacher Hearings Fund. This is actual account out of which hearing officers and court reporters are paid. This account has an annual budget of approximately $3 Million. Its monthly expenditures are reported on their own line in the NYSED State Education Department Monthly Fiscal Report.


So tracking how much money is spent on trying to fire teachers isn’t so difficult after all: We must simply examine how much money is spent on the fees for hearing officers in any given year from the state’s Tenured Teacher Hearings Fund.  If NYSED was compelled to spend more from this fund than usual, then we know that school districts in New York tried to fire more teachers than usual.

 In New York State, the fiscal year ends on March 31. So, in any given year, any money that the state has spent through this date (called “actual expenditures”), and in NYSED’s case, any money that is earmarked to be spent through the rest of the school year (called “projected expenditures”) is reflected in the monthly fiscal report for March of that year.

Below is the total amount of money that was spent by the Tenured Teacher Hearing Fund between the years of 2005 and 2013 as presented in the Monthly Fiscal Reports for March (the end of the fiscal cycle) of each year. (As you may find the documents a bit dense, I suggest searching for the term “Tenured Teacher Hearings” in each of them.)

Year

Original
Budget

Actual
Money Spent

$2.1m $2.1m
2006 $3.3m $3.3m
2007 $3.3m $3.3m
2008 $3.3m $3.3m
2009 $2.8m $4.2m
2010 $3.1m $6.0m
2011 $3.6m $10.1m
2012 $3.6m $12.6m
2013 $3.6m

861,851

It isn’t difficult to see that, beginning FY 2008/2009, and continuing through FY ’11/’12, there was a significant increase in spending from this fund on fees for 3020-a hearing officers. The only conclusion that can be drawn is that during, and just before, this period of time, hearing officers -who’s only job is hear the 3020-a hearings of teachers who were in the process of being fired by their district- were presiding over a great many 3020-a cases -many more than usual. So much, in fact, that the fund ran in deficit. During these years, more money was spent on fees for hearings officers and court reporters than NYSED or the state legislature had anticipated.

You’ll also note an increase in spending from this fund just two years after the formation of the ‘gotcha squad’ of at least $2 million each year. In 2007, with New York City’s Rubber Rooms still open, it took approximately that long to bring a teacher to trial.  While some of this money is, indeed, carry over debt from previous year, an examination of the budget reports will show you that new money -at times at an alarming rate- was spent from this fund during the subsequent four years.

Just another look at the line graph depicting expenditures from this fund.

We now know that more teachers experienced the 3020-a termination process during these years than ever had before. While we hesitate to guess the amount of teachers, we anticipate that this number must be staggering. That money, however, reflects 3020-a hearings from all across the state, not only here in New York City.  In order to show that the lion’s share of this money was spent firing city teachers, it’s important to separate New York City’s expenditures from the Tenured Teacher Hearings Fund from the rest of the state’s 694 school districts. Fortunately, there is a way to do that.

In May of 2011, NYSUT’s Andrew Pallotta offered testimony to the New York State Senate about the process of disciplining teachers. During those remarks, he made it a point to draw a stark dividing line between New York City’s 3020-a experiences and the rest of New York State. Time and again he reminds the committee that, when talking about 3020-a, there is a difference between New York City and the rest of the state. He starts off here

 “There are over 120,000 tenured teachers in New York State, not including those working in New York City.”

And then reminds the committee here (twice)

“During the 2005-06 through 2009-10 school years, our office handled an average of 104 new cases annually outside New York City.  In other words, fewer than one 3020-a case is filed for every seven school districts per year outside New York City.

And again here

 “We have studied the results in the 351 cases handled by NYSUT attorneys brought outside of the City of New York, which began and ended in the last 5 ½ years. In about 35% of the cases, the teacher resigned soon after charges were filed.”

And when he addresses New York City’s 3020-a statistics, he specifically mentions that remarks pertain to (only) the city:

In New York City, despite a number of attempts to improve the disciplinary system in the last ten years, the UFT felt that this system was not working for our members or the DOE.

This difference between the city and the rest of the state when discussing the 3020-a process is no coincidence. Thanks to the 2005 UFT contract, the actual process for terminating teachers in New York City is much more different than it is in the rest of the state (see here).

Let’s take another quick look Vice President Pallotta’s testimony about the 3020-a statistics outside of New York City:

“During the 2005-06 through 2009-10 school years, our office handled an average of 104 new cases annually outside New York City.  In other words, fewer than one 3020-a case is filed for every seven school districts per year outside New York City.

The number he sites reflects only those teachers who were charged, who chose the free legal defense from NYSUT (a great number of teachers opt to hire their own private defense attorney) and who’s charges were not settled before the hearing concluded. Anecdotaly , we know that the overwhelming majority of charges  filed end up in settlement. A settlement is an agreement entered into between the department and the teacher who has been charged whereby the teacher agrees to some type of penalty. In the past, this penalty has included a letter to file, a course (that the teacher must pay for) and in many settled cases, a monetary fine that is deducted from the teacher’s pay over a series of months. The numbers Mr. Pallota cites represent the smallest fraction of teachers who have been charge: Those who were charged, were not offered (or didn’t accept) a settlement and did not opt for private attorney representation, instead choosing the services that NYSUT offers. However,  using this number, which we have no reason to doubt, we are able to estimate that approximately 208 teachers outsideof New York City experienced this process through it’s entirety (with NYSUT representation) between September of 2009 June of 2010.

Vice President Pallatto accounts for this same period of time, and the same percentage of teachers who experienced the full process and opted for a NYSUT attorney, when revealing how many teachers within New York City:

Over the 2009-10 and 2010-11 school years, a period which covers both the backlogged and the newly filed cases, we have completed 561 cases.

That’s 561 cases (counting the backlogged cases that lead to the famous April, 2010 agreement to end the rubber rooms and speed up the process) that were handled by NYSUT attorneys within New York City. We can now see that, according to NYSUT, 353 more teachers cases were handled by NYSUT inside New York City during the same period of time.

There are 120,000 tenured teachers across the rest of New York State, where 208 cases were settled during this time. In New York City, it is generally understood that approximately half of that amount, 60,000, enjoy the same protections. Yet it seems the amount of city teachers who have faced termination charges double. In fact, using these numbers, it becomes clear that city teachers during  were at least 4.6 times more likely to face 3020-a charges than were teachers from across the rest of the state.

We can now see that between the years of 2009 and 2012 New York City spent the lion’s share of $32.8 million in state funds, running the state into a $19.7 million deficit in the process, to dutifully try to fire more than four times the amount of teachers as anywhere else in the state. Only two possible conclusions can be drawn from this realization: Either an astoundingly high amount of teachers here in the city are bad, or our employer, the city’s Department of Education, has zealously pursued a course to fire as many teachers as it can.

We  believe the latter: That, instead of spending badly needed money on children and on schools during the depths of the recession,  the department engaged in a zealous attempt to fire as many teachers as possible and used the state’s money -more than $19 million of which it did not have- to prosecute those attempts. We also believe this policy continues to today.

Former president Weingarten’s  prediction was correct; the DOE has created a climate of fear and intimidation in our schools.  This climate of fear has had an adverse effect on the working conditions of our colleagues and must end.  We must establish an open environment of collaboration if we expect our teachers to excel. In addition, the department must  direct as much money as possible to the actual classroom -to actual students-  instead of using it in an attempt to fire teachers (at a rate at almost five times as frequent as other districts throughout the state) if they expect their schools -our schools- to be successful.

The Unity caucus has won the 2013 UFT elections. The Movement of Rank and File Educators (MORE) congratulates them on their victory, and looks forward to working alongside our union brothers and sisters to defend and improve our union and our schools.

The election totals, however, tell an important story about the state of our union. MORE members and supporters should be extremely proud of our results, but all UFT members have cause for concern.

MORE INCREASED THE OPPOSITION VOTE IN EVERY DIVISION

MORE members and supporters can be proud of the fact that MORE increased the opposition vote (previously ICE/TJC) in every division. Meanwhile votes for UNITY and New Action declined in every division. Compare this year’s results with those of the last election (see chart at the bottom). Most significantly, MORE ran neck-and-neck with Unity in the High Schools — with an elementary school teacher as our presidential candidate! We got 40% of the vote there, while Unity got 45%. We still have a long way to go, but MORE’s growth is the result of all the hard work of our members and supporters who carried petitions, distributed leaflets, and promoted MORE’s message far and wide — THANK YOU!
75% OF UFT MEMBERS DID NOT PARTICIPATE — WHY?
The majority of UFT members did not bother to participate in these elections. Out of 173,407 ballots mailed, only 43,138 were returned. When 75% of the membership doesn’t think voting is worth their time, that’s a serious problem. We can’t read the minds of those roughly 130,000 non-voting members, but we can imagine that frustration, demoralization, and basic alienation from the union at the chapter level must be ingredients in the explanation. While public education is facing an historic crisis, our union has thus far failed to involve the majority of members in a struggle to defend our rights and to improve our schools.
The participation results, listed by division, are shameful:
                               Mailed  ballots           Returned ballots
High School:      19,040                          3,808
Middle School:   10,807                          1,879
Elementary:         34,163                          7,331
Functional:         51,040                          7,704
Retirees:              58,357                          22,462
Retirees contributed the majority (52%) of the ballots. Among UFT members who are still on the job, only 18% voted. When the active membership is less engaged in the life of the union than those who have stopped working (and, in many cases, live in other states!), that is cause for serious concern.
HOW CAN WE BUILD A STRONGER UFT?
MORE wants to invite UFT members — whether they voted for us or not — to join us in the struggles ahead. We’re going to have to organize fights against cookie-cutter evaluation rubrics (such as Danielson), against the plan to tie teacher evaluation to high stakes standardized test scores, and in defense of basic protections such as tenure.
In this election, most UFT members did not vote for any group. But everywhere we go, we find educators and other school-based workers are responding to MORE’s basic message: we don’t have to lie down and accept the logic of corporate education reform. We can and will stand up and fight back!
Join MORE at our next city-wide membership meeting:
Saturday, May 11
12 to 3pm
224 West 29th Street, 14th Floor
CHART: VOTING SHIFTS FROM 2010 TO 2013
slate votes only * remainders are split ballots
Elementary Division
                                    2013                                                        2010
MORE                       1,140                                                 703 for ICE/TJC
New Action              534                                                    978
Unity                          5,111                                                7,761
Middle School Division
MORE                       398                                                  248 for ICE/TJC
New Action             161                                                     421
Unity                        1,185                                                 1,981
High School Division
MORE                       1,430                                              1,369 for ICE/TJC
New Action             452                                                  774
Unity                         1,592                                              2,595
Functional Division (non-teachers)
MORE                       951                                                 708 for ICE/TJC
New Action             754                                                  1,175
Unity                         5,167                                              7,337
Retiree Division
MORE                       1,490                                             1,037 for ICE/TJC
New Action              1,880                                            2,234
Unity                          18,155                                          20,744

STATEMENT FROM THE MOVEMENT OF RANK AND FILE EDUCATORS IN SOLIDARITY WITH CHANGE THE STAKES & TIME OUT FROM TESTING
We, the Movement of Rank and File Educators (The Social Justice Caucus of the United Federation of Teachers) stand in solidarity with the parents, students and community members of Change The Stakes and Time Out From Testing. We are united in the fight against the rampant misuse of standardized testing that is destroying the education of our students.  The mounting testing regime that is being forced into the schools must be stopped. We, the educators, teachers, and support staff of the New York City’s  public schools  strive to provide authentic teaching, learning, and assessment. Our students are more than test scores and profits!

Please Join CTS and TOFT at a rally today at 4:00pm-5:30pm in front of NYC Department of Education’s Headquarters (Tweed) 52 Chambers St NYC

https://www.facebook.com/events/121996241329636/

The UFT election results will be announced Thursday, April 25. After the ballots are counted, the Movement of Rank and File Educators (MORE) will continue to support and strengthen our union. If we do not win this vote, we will work with the elected UFT leadership when they stand up and fight for educators, students, and parents. We will also continue to challenge the UFT leadership when they don’t. Unfortunately, the corporate education “reform movement” isn’t going away anytime soon. Educators, parents and students who want to defend and improve public education have many battles ahead of us, and MORE intends to be in this fight every step of the way.

MORE had two goals in this election campaign: To build a grassroots movement of educators and school-based workers and to replace the current UFT leadership. Whether or not we succeed in the latter goal, we are confident that we made important strides toward the former. Thanks to those of you who wore our buttons and T-shirts, distributed leaflets, signed petitions, forwarded emails, and promoted us to your colleagues, we have made a bigger splash in this election than we thought possible. Our growing presence on social media is just one indicator: we have more than 700 followers on Twitter, almost 1,000 “likes” on Facebook, nearly 2,000 followers on our blog, and our first election commercial has over 3,000 views. We have distributed our election literature in thousands of schools across all five boroughs. We take these as signs that the Movement of Rank and File Educators is a thriving pro-education group that is ready to lead the battle to save our public schools.

This election gave us the opportunity to meet and collaborate with like-minded educators and activists who believe in building a stronger union from the bottom up. One MORE chapter leader explained that handing out our leaflets led to “developing stronger relationships with the other chapter leaders and UFT members in the building. It will be easier to work together now.” We heard from members who said that talking to their colleagues about our movement created “more discussion among our staff about educational issues and the direction of our union.” One person even shared that there were many members in her school who “were not even aware that there was a UFT election and there were choices other than the current leadership.” until they connected with MORE. Many of our members do not have a history of being involved in union activities or of advocating for public education in larger forums. This election has provided valuable lessons for all of us in how to educate and organize our colleagues to fight for the kind of schools our children deserve and the kind of union that we deserve.

MORE also ran in this election because we wanted to ensure democracy within our union. In order for any organization to properly serve it’s members there must be room for discussion with the dissenting point of view.  When we agree with the current leadership, we will proudly stand up and support our leaders. There will be times we have a different vision for a more organized and mobilized membership. In our view, a strong union is one that is member-driven as opposed to the current top-down system. We will continue to press our leadership to recognize the importance of rank and file voice in any decision that affects our working conditions and our students’ learning conditions. Our entrance in this election ensured the presence of democracy within our union and allowed our members to have a choice in this election

For these reasons, the election has already been a victory for MORE. We are proud to have appeared on the ballot of one the largest educator’s unions in America. It is truly an honor to even have the opportunity to represent our UFT brothers and sisters.

MORE will continue to work with our fellow UFT members, parents, student groups, and communities to stop school closings, charter school co-locations, the misuse of standardized tests and the attack on our union rights. You can fully expect that we will continue to hold social events, forums, rally’s, general meetings, have a newly elected steering committee, continue to be a strong presence on social media, offer full support for UFT members being harassed by administrators, demand excessed educators get placed in permanent positions, fight for the services our children need, and the great education our students deserve!

RALLY 042613 4 pm


Whether or not your children took the state tests, please join a rally in front of Tweed on FRIDAY 4/26 at 4pm to protest the ways that high-stakes testing is robbing our children of a decent education!
  BRING THE KIDS!

RALLY 


CLEANING UP the MESS of HIGH STAKES TESTING and 

Putting Back the ‘PUBLIC’ in Public Education


Our children are NOT a test score!


WHEN:  Friday, April 26 at 4 pm*


WHERE:  TWEED NYC Department of Education

52 Chambers Street (4, 5, 6 to Brooklyn Bridge.  N, R to City Hall.  J to Chambers Street)


WHO:  Families, Teachers, Children and Supporters of Educational Justice


WHY:  Because private schools already said “NO!” to high stakes testing!

Because WE demand 180 days of learning!

Because schools should foster a love for life long learning.

Because positive relationships between schools and families are at the core of learning.


BRING SIGNS with YOUR VISION and DEMANDS for the SCHOOLS 

we want OUR CHILDREN to be in.  

Bring Mops, Brooms, Scrub brushes, 

Buckets and cleaning supplies to Mop UP the MESS!  

Bring #2 Pencils for us to transform them into a new vision of Public Education


JOIN Change The Stakes (www.changethestakes.organd Time Out From Testing (www.timeoutfromtesting.org)

*Rain Date:  Tuesday, April 30 @ 4 pm

Like this on facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/events/121996241329636/?notif_t=plan_edited

The measuring stick of any new political leadership is the first 100 days. Although we don’t expect to unseat the established power of a caucus that has been entrenched for over 50 years, we do have a plan should it happen. The establishment caucuses that supports Michael Mulgrew have become too complacent. They only attempt to negotiate back room deals and lobby politicians who long ago sold their souls to the highest bidders. Mulgrew and  Unity officers, supported by New Action, have been out of the classroom for so many years that they have become totally cut off from the concerns of the rank and file. In fact the current leadership has been a co-signer to the many of the wrong-headed policies that has harmed much of what we love in our craft. Has Mulgrew been observed with cookie-cutter rubrics “Danielson” or been forced to institute unproven untested Common Core Standards on his students? We all know the answer is no. While the current leadership hides behind the doors of 52 broadway, our members must fend for themselves each and every day. Some are denied tenure, others U rated without legitimate reasons, yet others have their schools closed down. In all these cases the union that should be front and center defending us , but it does not have a strategy to respond. Years without a contract and the continued destruction of our job conditions continues to progress without any answers. The greatest detriment to all of us being successful educators is that the people making the decisions on our behalf, from the mayor, to our union, to the “educational” corporations, are not in the classroom.

When MORE is in leadership of our union we will stay in constant contact with our members, students, and their families. We will open up NY Teacher, Edwize, and our social media outlets for all discussion, including those that may be critical of our strategies . As union leaders we need to know every issue our members are facing in their schools so that we can address them properly. MORE will  make daily visits to our chapters as part of the course of our work, in addition we will meet with parents and student groups on a regular basis. Any new educational policy or “reform” must be piloted and we will sit with all the participants to gather real feedback and demand revisions as needed.

The MORE strategy is simple: first and foremost those leading the union and writing educational policy must be real experienced classroom teachers and school based staff who face the rigors of our profession each and every day. We fully understand the issues facing our children and their educators.  The MORE slate is ready to lead now. Our candidates have had many years as chapter leaders, delegates, and union organizers. Some have fought off charter co-locations, others have organized with parents, students, and community groups to fight budget cuts, while many of our candidates have led battles against harassing principals. Our candidates have organized their own schools in defense of teachers and filed successful  grievances that have forced UFT to defend our own. We are ready now to mobilize our 80,000 members to fight for the working conditions our membership deserves and the learning conditions our student’s need. MORE will not sign on the dotted line when asked to sell out our members or even worse our students. Evaluations, learning standards, and assessments must be positive vehicles for real reform not an excuse to fill the pockets of corporate exploiters.

When we lead the UFT we will bring democracy to our entire membership, the highest-ranking body of our union. The members who pay dues each week must have a voice in any decision that dramatically changes our schools; evaluation schemes, curriculum, and mayoral control must be presented to the entire membership for a vote. Any union leadership must be responsive to the members it represents, not the other way around as it currently is.

Within our first 100 days we will turn our union into one that is robust and active, with our top officers visiting each and every school chapter to meet with our members and listen to their concerns. We will organize the chapter and show them how to fight back and offer all the necessary support, financial and organizational. Delegate assemblies will cease to be top-down, leader-driven propaganda meetings. We will bring back the union hall spirit that long drove successful labor movements where delegates lead the conversation and strategy making. Democracy means district and borough representatives will be elected through a democratic process as was the tradition in our union for many years to ensure accountability.

A MORE leadership will immediately reach out to community groups and advocates for racial, social, and economic justice and plan together how we can best reform our education system with our children as the highest priorities not profits. We will work with parent associations, school leadership teams, and students’ groups to ensure public education has equality of opportunity and condition. The Governor has been campaigning  around the state  explaining his belief in wrap-around services for public schools in low-income areas. The MORE leadership of UFT will demand he implements this now, beginning September 2013. We will also tell the Governor and all city/state lawmakers that now is the time for a moratorium on all school closings. We will take to the streets in the spirit of our Chicago brethren until these demands are met.

The ATR issue must be dealt with immediately, how can new educators be hired each year while experienced teachers and guidance counselors continue to be sent from school to school each week to fill in as substitutes? Theses excessed educators must be placed immediately and before any new hires. This will allow our children to have experienced educators in their schools and possibly even help to reduce class-sizes around the city. We will call for a moratorium on new hiring until every excessed educator is placed and refuse to negotiate with the city/state on any educational policy until this demand is met.

MORE will turn the UFT into an outspoken leader of student’s rights, exposing the corruption of political educational policies that turn our children into nothing more than data and profits. We will reaffirm our core belief that public education is the hallmark of any thriving democracy; therefore we will no longer allow our schools to be closed and privatized into charter schools. MORE will work to ensure that our union is at the forefront of all local and national labor issues. The UFT needs to put all its weight behind halting the destruction of unions and fighting for better working conditions for all of society, including a living wage for all. Within our first 100 days we will expose all the conditions that have allowed the so-called “school to prison” pipeline and publish a full report on our findings and suggestions for a remedy.

When our students and their families are hurting, we are all hurting. The UFT must work harder to make life better for all. This union will no longer be dormant when we are leading, the UFT will cease to be a signatory to our own demise. Instead we will lead a union that is organized and mobilized to stand up and fight for a great urban public education system.

MORE TShirt Logo
*Election VICTORY Party*
THE DAY OF THE COUNT, THURSDAY, APRIL 25TH 
Come out and celebrate a MOVEMENT in the making!  UFT Election Ballots will be in and counted.  We have known from the beginning that running in the UFT election is about building something bigger, a MOVEMENT ready to defend Public Education!  We’ve learned lessons, built new alliances, drastically grown our membership and spread the word far and wide about a different vision of our union.
 
Now it’s time to celebrate!
Please join us for some fun.  
We ALL deserve it.
 

WHEN: THURSDAY 4/25, 5-8PM                   

 WHERE:  O’REILLY’S Bar (Upstairs)

21 W. 35TH St. btwn 5th and 6th Ave NYC

 

 Please RSVP to [email protected] 

or Facebook so we can reserve the proper space

Jullie Cavanagh Speech at “The Schools New York’s Children Deserve” from Grassroots Education Movement on Vimeo.

Sunday April 14th 2013

In this UFT election there is finally an ALTERNATIVE to the union leadership (UNITY) that has dominated UFT politics for decades. Finally there is an opening to begin to fight for what our students, parents, and we as teachers deserve, a union that fights for the schools our children deserve!

A Unity Chapter Leader, the caucus of current President Michael Mulgrew,  sent an email out to the UFT members at his school. Our own Fred Arcoleo answered by making a case for MORE and explaining why we are running against the current leadership as a positive alternative.

The lines in bold were sent by the Unity chapter leader, the follow-up for each is MORE’s  response to each point by Mr. Arcoleo:

In the Last Three Years  a lot of UFT Victories were achieved because of Michael Mulgrew

Fighting endlessly for a Fair Contract with no give backs and without giving up the Contract we have to get a new Contract (Taylor Law allows us work under an expired contract until we get a new Contract)

UNITY allowed our contract to expire in 2009 without ANY mobilization of the membership and have allowed us to work without a new contract for FOUR YEARS! They have refused countless times to mobilize the membership to fight for a new contract, claiming they couldn’t work with Bloomberg, but it was UNITY who 1) REFUSED to criticize Bloomberg when he CHANGED THE LAW to run for a third term and REFUSED to endorse his opponent William Thompson in the 2009 election (that Bloomberg didn’t win by much). Furthermore, UNITY REFUSES to publicly attack the Taylor Law. It is the Taylor Law that expressly forbids job actions (or even threats of job actions). If UNITY would have led a campaign against the Taylor Law, in effect since 1967, all these years—especially in light of a 2011 decision by the International Labor Organization (ILO) that says the Taylor Law violates international labor law—we then could threaten labor actions like strikes when under attack, like the Chicago teachers did. Their strike won them numerous improvements for teachers and students and served notice that the teachers were a force to be reckoned with.

Ask yourself this: Have we ever been mobilized to fight for a new contract? Have we ever even been asked what we would want in a new contract? Think of it this way: our working conditions and wages have not improved since at least 2006 when the last contract was approved. Most of us weren’t even teaching then! And in that same time, our budget has been cut almost 20%. That is the contract situation.

Preserving the Collective Bargaining Agreement by working strategically to fight DOE using Legal means and winning those battles

Again, UNITY Caucus routinely defends the Taylor Law, a law that has made virtually all job actions illegal. They claim that the Taylor Law protects our (expired) contract, but in practice, it has led time and time again to NYC public employees working FOR YEARS without a new contract.

Consider this startling fact: there are NO public employees working under a contract right now in NYC—that’s 152 bargaining units and 300,000 workers!!!

 Listen to The Wall Street Journal: “The lack of contracts presents Mr. Bloomberg’s successor with a set of thorny problems: Roughly 300,000 public workers and their labor leaders seeking raises and benefit sweeteners, as the city faces an estimated $4 billion budget deficit in 2014…. The major Democratic hopefuls have all said they would make deals only in the city’s best interest.”

Where to you think that will realistically leave us? By not mobilizing UFT members BEFORE our contract expired to FIGHT collectively—85,000 strong—for what we need, UNITY has betrayed us, built dangerous illusions, and fattened us up for slaughter with the new mayor.

Chicago CORE teachers, on the other hand, built strong, active chapters that educated and involved their members in decision-making. It was exciting! They did not rely primarily on legal means, but on the strength of the masses of teachers, mobilizing in the streets, and in the end, refusing to work until (some of) their and their students’ needs were met. They have a contract now, and defeated Mayor Emanuel on many of his most stubborn plans, by FIGHTING BACK for the good of our students we love so much and our careers.

Worked endlessly for a fair State Mandated Evaluation, and refused to settle one that would worsen our working conditions

UNITY has REFUSED to oppose the new evaluation system that will make it much easier to fire teachers and will effectively end tenure protections. The new system is the opposite of fair: it will allow administrators to rate teachers from a complex list in 4 domains, 22 categories, and 76 elements, making it far easier than before to point to alleged “deficiencies” in teachers who make too much money, or who they don’t like, or who challenge educational policies or conditions. The DOE plan to conduct 10 unannounced observations a year will make it impossible to have thoughtful pre- and post-observation conferences (as UNITY claims). Furthermore, teachers who don’t follow this litany of qualities will now be able to be fired much more easily. The founder of this rubric herself, Charlotte Danielson, has denounced the plan as UNFAIR (!) and contrary to her intentions in developing it. She recognizes that her instructional aid is being transformed into an instrument for the wielding of power.

UNITY’s opportunistic appeal to and defense of Governor Cuomo over Bloomberg is just Republican/Democratic party politics: it was Democrat Cuomo who took away the $250 million in funds from NYC schools this past January, punishing NYC students and teachers for the DOE’s failing to make a deal. Cuomo and Bloomberg’s aims are much more similar than different. UNITY would have us choose the lesser of two evils.

By signing onto this evaluation plan, UNITY is actually playing into the DOE’s plans to drastically increase teachers’ workloads, pressure teachers to enforce a more narrow, lock-step curriculum, and force out thousands of experienced (i.e., higher-paid) teachers, as well as teachers who speak up about deplorable conditions in the schools. All without doing a single thing to IMPROVE CONDITIONS that would make learning and teaching easier. Who is criticizing them for this? Not UNITY. They’re making a deal and going along with the plan.

The new evaluation system will ABSOLUTELY worsen teacher working conditions in NYC. Tying teacher evaluation to student test scores will create much more stress for our students and as well as ourselves; divide teachers against students and pit teachers against each other; and essentially blame students and teachers for the inadequate education system both parties are forced to endure. Not to mention the fact that it’s scientifically unsound on its face. This kind of draconian pedagogy will not lead to improved learning.

Bloomberg himself has said he wants to use the new evaluation system to get rid of half the teaching force. How could that be fair? How could that not worsen conditions for the rest of us?

Won the PERB Case ensuring that Danielson is not included in Teachers files until an agreement is reached regarding the Evaluation

By making such a big deal now about the Danielson rubric not being used in formal evaluations “yet,” UNITY is distracting us from the fact that they have been instrumental in ALLOWING the framework to become the standard measurement tool in NYC by refusing to oppose it in the first place. It’s insulting to our intelligence, not to mention demoralizing, when we know that the day an agreement is reached (with UNITY’s blessing), Danielson will be the standard tool. Principals are already training us in its implementation!

In fact, instead of denouncing it, UNITY has organized its own UFT TRAININGS in the Danielson framework (!), sealing its legitimization. Again, Danielson herself has said on multiple occasions that the DOE is distorting the reasons she created the rubric in the first place and does not support it.

Passed a Resolution to end Mayoral Dictatorship

UNITY has consistently FAILED to oppose Mayoral Control, going back to when it was first proposed in 2002. (I was one of the many chapter leaders and delegates who fought UNITY to oppose it.) The UFT could have denounced it and mobilized its full 185,000 membership to expose its dictatorial nature then. UNITY could have united teachers with the thousands of parents and others who also actively opposed Mayoral Control, which wiped out whatever voice parents had in their children’s education. Instead, UNITY ALLOWED Bloomberg to impose it without any fight whatsoever. Since then, UNITY has over and over REFUSED to oppose it or lead any campaign against it.

Notice the nuance: they call it Mayoral “Dictatorship.” JUST LAST MONTH UNITY released a major governance report that explicitly SUPPORTS Mayoral Control, arguing only for a few minor adjustments that give no direct voice to over a million parents, teachers, or students. Lastly, you can’t oppose major government policies with a resolution! You need to educate the members and mobilize them to take action in their/our interest, and mobilize the public to understand the important issues at stake.

MORE, on the other hand, unequivocally opposes Mayoral Control as inherently dictatorial and anti-student and is fighting RIGHT NOW in many public forums and inside parent groups to mobilize people to condemn it (we have been active organizers at Bloomberg’s rubber stamp Panel for Educational Policy [PEP] hearings, while UNITY has been NOWHERE TO BE FOUND). We fight for a united movement of teachers, parents, and students to have a direct voice in making decisions about education.

Won Arbitration stopping the DOE from shutting down 24 schools in 2012

UNITY has consistently FAILED TO MOBILIZE its membership to oppose rampant and frankly racist school closings, most taking place in the poorest neighborhoods with the largest percentages of Black and Latino students (some of the City’s best school buildings then taken over or co-located with middle class students and charter schools). Again, UNITY is ALMOST NEVER at the PEP hearings, leaving teachers, parents, and students from closing schools to fend for themselves. MORE, on the other hand, has been active in the Occupy the DOE movement and a consistent presence at PEP hearings, denouncing these draconian anti-student, anti-community attacks. We are (see above) absolutely opposed to Mayoral Control, advocating a direct voice for parents, teachers, and students in their education.

Stopped the city from Laying off Teachers

Though it’s true that NYC currently has no layoffs, thousands of ATRs wallow in limbo without permanent positions because UNITY refuses to make a cause célèbre out of the DOE’s deliberate attempts to isolate these mostly more experienced (and higher paid) teachers. One look at them and you can see they are disproportionately older (a discrimination suit BEGGING for action, but UNITY will not touch it) with a disproportionate percentage of them black and latino.

Thousands of these ATRs have essentially been forced out of their career or have become so cynical they have lost interest in the profession they dedicated their lives to.

Saved ATR’s from layoffs

UNITY CREATED THE ATR CRISIS by negotiating an end to seniority transfers in 2005. It used to be that more senior teachers were guaranteed positions when they were excessed from their schools. Now, when a veteran teacher is excessed, they are dumped into an ATR pool and must try to find a job on their own. Because they earn a higher salary, principals are choosing cheaper teachers and reducing the most experienced to function as day-to-day subs. Many of them languish for years before they quit or are (for now) lucky enough to be able to retire.

In addition, UNITY agreed last year in a side agreement never discussed with the membership that ATRs now rotate to a DIFFERENT SCHOOL EVERY WEEK, virtually ensuring that they can’t prove themselves with a particular school and earn a permanent position, as sometimes happened in the past. Uprooted and marginalized, ATRs are more disillusioned and bitter than ever.

Won the SESSIS Arbitration which will result is paying Special Education Teachers back for money owed due to SESSIS

UNITY has ALLOWED SESSIS to create mountains of more paperwork and stress, primarily for guidance counselors and special education teachers, with NO pay increase or added staff. Instead of sounding the alarm and FIGHTING for added staff or a contract that guarantees rights for teachers and counselors (like Chicago CORE teachers did), UNITY merely went to court to get back pay for teachers and counselors who have ALREADY sacrificed hours and hours of extra time and stress to conform to these new regulations.

Who is exposing this attack on teachers and counselors? Who is fighting for the needs of students? It’s always less money and more work, and UNITY REFUSING to fight back. As usual too, it’ll be students who suffer most.This court case is actually allowing principals to pressure counselors and teachers into working overtime to complete their work or face sanctions and letters in the file for not doing their jobs!

MORE wants to take the lead of the Chicago CORE teachers, who actually fought for and won a SIGNIFICANT INCREASE in guidance counselors and support staff (as well as a significant raise and many other concessions that are improving the lives of students and teachers).

Restored Teachers Choice

Ridiculous! For years teachers received $250 a year for teachers’ choice. Then, because UNITY FAILED to win a contract for its members that included teachers’ choice, the DOE canceled it altogether. This year we got only $45. To call this a victory is to turn reality upside down and insult the intelligence of our members. Our members spend hundreds and in some cases thousands of dollars. Many educators, especially those in Elementary schools, are routinely evaluated on their class room environment and bulletin boards, thus they feel mandated to spend this type of money. Teachers have had to make up for budget short falls due to years of budget cuts, by bringing in; markers, pens, pencils, copy paper, posters, tissues, books, calculators, staples, toilet paper, just to name a few. Let’s remember this is on top of NO Contract!

Shut Down the Rubber Room

There continue to be rubber rooms scattered throughout the city where hundreds of teachers wallow for months and years, not allowed to return to teaching and often held without charges or any way to defend their reputations. UNITY allows this to continue while opportunistically and traitorously claiming victory.

Please see the story of MORE’s Francesco Portelos which proves that rubber rooms are still open http://protectportelos.org

The new evaluation process WILL perhaps eliminate rubber rooms, but with a bitter irony: it will be much easier—for the first time in many years—to fire teachers altogether.

Para’s (sic) no longer have to clock in when they arrive to work

Working conditions for paraprofessionals have consistently deteriorated over the years due to our lack of a contract. Paras have suffered disproportionately from working without a new contract because their salaries and benefits were lower to begin with. The fact that non-UFT paras’ hours are being cut across the City this year has meant an increased workload for educational paras, without a peep from UNITY.

Passed a Resolution to support ATR’s in low needed (sic) areas to get certified in high needed areas so they can get back into the classroom

As noted above, UNITY has allowed thousands of ATRs to roam the city week by week, functioning as day-to-day substitutes. Many have thus become bitter, cynical, and isolated from their colleagues, giving up on a lifelong vocation of helping young people. Since the DOE has been targeting more experienced teachers (which, again, would make a POWERFUL CAMPAIGN AGAINST AGE DISCRIMINATION), many are counting the days until retirement. This plays beautifully into the DOE’s plans to get rid of more experienced teachers.

MORE wants to fight to reinstate all ATRs in permanent positions, expand the teaching pool citywide, and expose Bloomberg’s campaign against experienced teachers. We additionally want to force the City to hire more black and latino teachers, whose numbers have been dwindling for the last ten years for many reasons.

I will only mention one of the countless other attacks UNITY has either acquiesced to or even orchestrated: the major cut in pensions (you could call it Tier “IV½”) for new teachers UNITY agreed to in 2009—again, without any member input whatsoever—in return for two school days off in September that UNITY had themselves negotiated away in 2006 (how’s that for turning defeat into “victory”?). That further opened the door for Tier VI in 2012 for the newest teachers, which is even worse! Observe:

“Tier (“IV½”) Teacher”…………………………….“Tier VI Teacher”

34 year service……………………………………… 34 year service

Age Retires 57………………………………………. Age Retires 57

Final 3-year FAS $100,000……………… Final 5 year FAS $100,000

Pension = $66,000………………………………. Pension = $38,430

(http://chaz11.blogspot.com/2012/03/newbie-teacher-and-tier-vi-why-teaching.html . See also http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/2012/04/april-fool-no-joke-tier-4-pension-last.html for a comparison between Tier IV and Tier VI. It’ll open your eyes, whether you’re new or a veteran.)

That’s what I mean by steady erosion of conditions. And I’ll bet many of you didn’t even know this. That’s because UNITY doesn’t advertise these “victories.”

A QUICK SUMMARY OF MORE:

MORE represents an alternative to a passive UFT membership.

MORE represents an end to “let’s make a deal” politics that deceptively label defeats as “victories.” There is no substitute for educating and mobilizing teachers to fight for what we need. In fact, it’s exciting to take some control of our destinies for once!

MORE represents activating UFT members.

MORE represents educating UFT members about the issues that are threatening teachers and students.

MORE represents fighting for what we need as teachers, students, and parents.

A teachers’ union should not be about “let’s make a deal.” It should be about fighting for what we need, for ourselves, and mostly for our students, who are suffering the most in any of these attacks.

 

union membership

Wednesday May 22 Post DA Happy Hour and Contract Committee Meeting

11 trinity Place NYC- Financial District 6:30 (try to arrive early)

MORE formed a contract committee to develop statements and strategies about what kind of contract the UFT should fight for and how it should try to win a good contract. The contract committee will meet on Wednesday May 22 at 6:30 PM at the Blarney Stone, 11 Trinity Place (off Rector). There will be a Delegate Assembly that day which will end at 6 PM and the Blarney Stone is easy walking distance from UFT headquarters. 

Tuesday May 28th OT/PT Meeting 

4pm on May 28th at the CUNY Grad center Room 5409: 365 5th avenue (at 34th St. in Manhattan)

 Let’s keep the momentum going, and spread the word. In unity there is strength!
 RSVP to [email protected] When you come to the meeting, bring ID to show at the desk.
MORE is meeting directly with PTs and OTs to discuss ways that our organization may be able to help educate other UFT members about our situation and help our cause.
 MORE has arranged a time to meet with PTs and OTs:
4pm on May 28th at the CUNY Grad center Room 5409: 365 5th avenue (at 34th St. in Manhattan) and we encourage you to attend.

Wednesday June 12 Fair Contract For All Rally at City Hall NYC 4-6pm

https://www.facebook.com/events/123585811176249/

Let’s show this mayor and the next one that we are ready to take to the streets for a fair contract. For over four years UFT has been without a contract, meanwhile pensions for new members have eroded, an evaluation system that will take learning time away from our students will be imposed on us, and hundreds of schools have been closed while educators are excessed. The time is now to have OUR voices heard. join with the UFT and municipal union workers from around NYC to protest in front of city hall. All city unions are without a contract, we were asked to sacrifice, we did, now give our city workers the wages we deserve.

MORE will be there, will you? Look for us in our red MORE shirts and follow us on Twitter.com/morecaucusnyc for live updates

 

MORE will host our 2nd annual Summer Series featuring forums, special guests, and discussion on public education and union issues. Topics and presenters to be announced soon! Save the dates:

Local 138  at 138 Ludlow St (between Rivington St & Stanton St)  NYC

Happy Hour Specials

Thursdays 4-7pm

July 11

July 25

August  8

August 22