Archives For October 2013

stopclosings-logo

The Movement of Rank and File Educators stands in solidarity with parents, teachers, and students defending their schools against charter co-locations and closures!

We are the Social Justice Caucus of the UFT-New York City’s teachers’ union. We are a positive alternative to the current union leadership.

Stand with public school parents, students and teachers!

Once again, we are attending Panel for Educational Policy (PEP) hearings to Say No to the displacement of public schools by charter schools. Again, we will tell the PEP not to be a rubber stamp for the Mayor and instead, listen to what parents, teachers, administrators and students say. Will the PEP continue to build Mayor Bloomberg’s legacy of dismantling public education, which has seen record overcrowding and a narrowing of curriculum to a test prep focus?

Will the PEP approve decisions to expand or impose new co-locations at 23 sites, thereby significantly impacting students’ learning conditions and teachers’ working conditions?

Or will the PEP SCARE US and do the right thing?
VOTE NO ON ALL CO-LOCATIONS

WHAT CO-LOCATION MEANS:
*Public schools with limited financial support, forced to compete against charter schools with ample funds for the newest resources
*Overcrowding as schools deal with fewer rooms
*Competition between schools for access to the school’s libraries, gyms and cafeterias
*Parents pitted against parents in the same neighborhoods due to inequitable funding between charters and the district public schools
*Increased importance of high-stakes tests to determine the future of students and teachers
*Excessing of quality staff into the ATR pool of rotating UFT members, as fewer rooms mean fewer classroom teachers, librarians or guidance counselors

*Separate and Unequal Schooling for our students!

MORE stands opposed to the proliferation of charter schools crowding out district schools for teachers, rooms and other resources.

MORE stands for equitable funding and more resources to the schools that need them the most.

Stop School Closings Everywhere!

"It's NOT lack of curriculum or PR Reverse is rotten to the core! There's no right way to judge teachers on test scores"

Too Little, Too Late, Mike!

MORE Fall Events

October 27, 2013 — Leave a comment
the funeral

Stand up to school closings- join us at “The Funeral” to bury the Bloomberg years and his failed educational policies!

Stand up to school closings- join us at “The Funeral” to bury the Bloomberg years and his failed educational policies!

Facebook event here

10/30 5:30pm 883 Classon Ave Brooklyn

DTOE-Nov-14-Flyer2

Don’t Tread on Educators- hosted by Francesco Portelos

How to fight for your rights as an educator ! There will be no sign in sheet and you can attend anonymously. Francesco will share what he has learned from being in the trenches, but the conversation will not be one sided.

Web link here

Shirley Chisholm Day Karen Lewis 2

Not a MORE event, but hosted by our sisters/brothers of PSC (CUNY educators) a union local of the NYSUT/AFT.

Barbara Bowen- President of the PSC and Karen Lewis -President of CTU are both from reform, progressive caucuses that were formerly in opposition.

Solidarity, Community, and the Struggle for our Public Schools

11/19 4:00pm Brooklyn College Student center

More Info here

nov general meeting

Our last general meeting of 2013.

Discuss, debate and take action against high stakes testing, common core, and learn how the next mayor will impact public education in NYC.

11/16 224 West 29th St (btwn 7th + 8th ave) Midtown NYC 14th fl. 12-3pm

Facebook event here

Also Join us at our happy hour on 11/1

Are you…

Nervous about the implementation of a new teacher evaluation system?

Outraged that teachers are evaluated on tests for subjects they don’t even teach?

Eager to organize resistance to the new teacher evaluation system?

The MORE Chapter Organizing Committee invites everyone to our city-wide Happy Hour:

The MORE Chapter Organizing Committee will be meeting to share reports about how the new teacher evaluation system is being implemented and plan resistance to this unfair and fraudulent method of evaluating teachers. Come sign and share our petition calling for a moratorium on the new teacher evaluation system and brainstorm strategies for building your union chapter through this campaign. Students and teachers are more than test scores! Teaching can not be reduced to a rubric! Sign up to distribute the new MORE newsletter! Get involved and join the movement!

Friday, November 1st 5pm
Ginger Man
11 E 36th St
B/D/F/M to Herald Sqare
6 to 33rd

https://www.facebook.com/events/514426688653657/

"0% autonomy, 100% accountability welcome to teaching in the 21st century"

But surely, that has no effect on teacher morale, right, Chancellor Walcott?

90% of families at Castlebridge Elementary School in Washington Heights have opted out of K-2 exams imposed by the new eval system.  Because the school does not have a third grade the state has mandated that students take a “performance assessment” in order to determine growth scores for teachers. The bubble test, produced by private contractor “Discovery Education,” would have been given only in English to a dual language population.

“I was irate. I was very angry,”  Vera Moore, mother of second-grader Yvene Mackey, 7, and kindergartner Zalyair Mackey, 5. told the Daily News, “This school teaches to the child not to the test.”

test20n-2-web

Sign a petition in support of them

Read more from the Daily NewsReal News Network, and Diane Ravitch.

Below we republish a letter by parent Don Lash expressing his frustration to elected officials about the situation:
Dear Assemblymember Nolan and Senator Flanagan:

I am contacting you because I am the parent of a first grade student who is expected to take a multiple choice standardized test as a result of a policy directive from the New York State Education Department (NYSED) that students from Kindergarten to 2nd grade be tested using an exam mandated by NYSED. The test is not intended to reveal any information that would be used to improve instruction to my child, but would be used solely to evaluate her teachers.  

Continue Reading…

NYS Allies for Public Education, a state-wide coalition representing over 40 organizations, continues to call for Commissioner John King’s resignation despite newly scheduled “small forums”.  The canceling of last week’s series of PTA Town Hall meetings is only one indicator of King’s inability to give all stakeholders a public avenue to voice their concerns. Only after fierce pressure and calls for his resignation from parents did Commissioner King agree to schedule these “small forums”, and NYSAPE is concerned that the revised format will not give parents adequate opportunity to express their concerns.

John King’s recent behavior is part of a continuing pattern of disregard for the voices of parents, teachers, principals, superintendents and other concerned citizens. Commissioner King has demonstrated time and again that despite the serious concerns raised by parents and educators, he plans to adhere to a hasty plan of action that harms children.

Continue Reading…

"don't be scared to resign, commisioner king: there's a juicy job chilling for Pearson waiting for you"

Selling Out New York’s Children Is Bound To Be Lucrative

Super Shibe is a Union Doge

October 20, 2013 — 1 Comment
" wow union so rank n file MORE lol@unitee best caucus wow such justice boo Mulgroo ready 4 tha DA"

Super Shibe is a Union Doge

There they go again.

The newspapers are filling their pages with stories about “bad teachers”. The mayor is on the airwaves complaining about the UFT and City Hall is suing the Union.

Sound familiar?

It’s all part of this mayoral administration’s continued push to transform the profession of teaching into an ‘at-will’ job, so that it can fire as many of us as it would like.

They would all like everyone to believe (including our new soon-to be mayor) that this system is just filled-to-the-brim with bad teachers who are harming kids and holding back our students from achieving true success.

As their hope goes, if they can just convince New Yorkers that this is actually true -if they could somehow get the voting public to focus and concentrate only on the 1.9% of city teachers who have faced termination hearings- then maybe, just maybe, they would be able to institute sweeping reforms that would affect all city teachers -including the other 98.1% who have not faced hearings- and end an important right for city teachers. That is the right to be fired through the impartial ruling of an independent hearing officer, rather than by the whims of an education department whose headquarters has been bereft of actual educators for well over a decade.

It’s the same tired old song playing all over again. They drag a few of our colleagues out on the pages of the newspapers and offer no facts (other than the facts which the administration wishes the newspapers to print) about their actual “infractions”. They hold these people up as an example of our “terrible” job protections and hope that the public begins disliking their teachers as much as they dislike their politicians.

If some semblance of public concern grows over this issue, they’ll march themselves up to Albany and ask the legislature to change the law that has, for many decades now, dictated how teachers are fired. The NYS Senate may well vote yes (because the Mayor has donated millions to the campaigns coffers of the Republicans who control that house) and they will all complain when the Assembly votes no.

We at MORE have heard this song before and we are aware that it’s just a little too “out of tune” to be truthful – we know just where the sour notes are coming from. We’d like you to consider a few facts as you read the salacious newspaper articles over the next few weeks and do what you can do to make sure that concerned people in your building are aware of them too:

Continue Reading…

Too Little, Too Late

October 16, 2013 — 3 Comments
"Too Late, Mike. NYC educators trust MORE"

but, it’s just the way the city is implementing the plan, right?