morecaucusnyc

Solidarity with Legal Services Staff Association

morecaucusnyc — Mon, 20 May 2013 00:04:19 +0000

Raun J. Rasmussen, Executive Director

Joseph S. Genova, Chair, Board of Directors

Legal Services NYC

Dear Mr. Rasmussen:

The Movement of Rank and File Educators (MORE), the Social Justice

Caucus of the United Federation of Teachers, stands with the members

of Legal Services Staff Association (LSSA), our brothers and sisters

of UAW Local 2320, who were forced to strike on May 15th for the first

time in nearly 20 years. We urge the management of Legal Services NYC

to immediately negotiate a fair contract with its staff, so they can

return to the work they hold dear of providing critical legal

protections to New York’s low-income families, many of whom are our

fellow school workers, students and their families.

We stand with the LSSA as colleagues in providing vital services to

New York’s working families. Just as we fight for our members’

professional dignity and respect, we support the LSSNY workers’ stand

for dignity and respect. Just as we insist on a better educational

environment for ourselves and for the students whose lives we touch,

we want to ensure the LSSA have the resources and support they need

to continue to be the best advocates possible.

We support the strikers’ fight for their rights to family sustaining

wages and benefits. The current offer demands significant,

financially unnecessary cuts to health care coverage and retirement

benefits, and freezes salaries at current levels, despite a steadily

rising cost of living in New York.

MORE strongly urges you to avoid a prolonged strike by offering your

staff a contract that reflects the value they bring to your

organization and to the ongoing fight to protect New York’s most

vulnerable workers. We stand in solidarity with our union brothers and sisters in

their struggle.

A Call For Fair Discipline: MORE Supports Christine Rubino

morecaucusnyc — Tue, 14 May 2013 09:29:53 +0000

We have, in the past, noted how New York City has moved to fired almost five times the amount of teachers that the rest of New York State has combined. In addition, we have highlighted how the city has spent the majority of $32.8 million (of state money) on hearing officer fees alone to do so. For too long have we seen our colleagues removed from their duties, shamed in the press, abused in the workplace and silenced by a process that serves only to keep them silent. Today, we share the story of one of those teachers and declare our support of her reinstatement to full duties as soon as possible.

Last March, the case of Christine Rubino was argued in front of the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court. The judges’ unanimous decision, released just last week, revealed what real educators had been saying all along: A teacher with a spotless service record for fifteen years should not be fired for making one inappropriate comment on her Facebook account.

Christine Rubino had been fired (and humiliated in the press) after making one single dumb remark on Facebook several years ago. She sued to get her job back in the NYS Supreme Court and she won. The judge sent Rubino’s case back to the original hearing officer for a more lenient decision. The hearing officer then issued her a two-year suspension without pay. She appealed that suspension, because she felt it was too harsh (so do we) in front of the same judge who had overturned her original termination. She lost that appeal.

The department however, appealed the original decision reversing her termination to the New York State Appellate Court. The argument made by the department was that the judge, the one who had ruled in Rubino’s favor the first time (the one who had sent the case back to the hearing officer), but ruled against her the second time had erred with her first decision and that Rubino should, in fact, be fired. The justices did not agree.

Anyone who’s familiar with Christine Rubino’s case understands it for what it is: A classic story of an employer playing the blame and shame game for keeps and an employee, also playing for keeps, who just won’t give up. Wherever you are in this scenario, whatever side you’re on, you have to admit that the case of Christine Rubino is at once breathtaking, captivating and terrifying to behold.

For us, it is unacceptable.

A large part of the attack on teachers is that too much of our lives, both in and out of the classroom, is held to a level of scrutiny that is intolerable. This scrutiny has but one goal in mind: To create a climate of fear and intimidation among New York City’s teachers. And teachers’ lives are destroyed as this goal is pursued. The toxic environment results from this fear fear creates is just what these people want and it leads good, proven teachers like Ms. Rubino, to be fired.

Not only teachers, but all workers should have the right to privacy outside of their jobs. This privacy was not afforded to Christine Rubino. If it had been, she would not have been investigated in the first place. All workers should have the right to due process that is fair and appropriate to the accusation or act. While New York State’s termination process for educators, called 3020-a, provides a due process path, it leaves many infractions undefined, allowing our district, New York City, to pervert the process into a game which serves to publicly humiliate any teacher who, even once, steps the least bit out of line. Teaches, and all workers, deserve a disciplinary process that is fair and provides for support and development of employees rather than immediately turning to the harshest of penalties that can be dealt.

Let us be clear: What she said was a poor choice and a lapse in judgment. But she never had once had an incident of unprofessional conduct before this act in fifteen years of teaching. This one isolated incident does not identify Ms. Rubino as a teacher. Her fifteen years teaching countless students, however, does. That is why the Movement of Rank of File Educators is standing firmly behind her and will be alongside of her through the conclusion of this ordeal.

Regardless of what side of this fence you’re on you should know that it didn’t have to be as complex or as involved or as strange or complicated a story as it wound up being. This one act, written by a woman who had never been in trouble her whole career, generated no less than one formal disciplinary hearing, two hearing officer decisions, two Supreme Court decisions, one Appellate Court decision (possibly another), and very probably, one decision from the highest court in New York State: The Court of Appeals. Department lawyers have made their career on Rubino’s case. Judges and hearing officers have been able to book long vacations with the money they’ve earned hearing and deciding her professional fate. At one time, newspaper reporters and editors considered her’s the ‘go to’ story during a slow news week and many interested parties have spent many a difficult hour wondering where the proper precedent of her case, sure to effect teachers across the entire state, should be set.

All for one comment, made on one day in June.

Pundits take note: This is how the nation’s largest school district treats its good teachers. It humiliates them in the press. It moves to fire them, then fights tooth and nail to make sure they stay fired.

But also note that they will no longer be facing this shame and abuse alone.

We urge the department to accept the decision of the court and let Ms. Rubino go back to work. Ms. Rubino has won her case at the appellate level with a unanimous opinion and the Court of Appeals is extremely unlikely to even agree to hear a department appeal, much less overturn the decision. Any further action by the department would be a waste of time, energy and our taxpayer money -money that could be spent teaching children. Efforts to keep her fired should be dropped and she return to her to the classroom where she belongs.

We further call upon our brothers and sisters who lead the union to step up to the plate and work out a final resolution with the department -one that includes Ms. Rubino’s return to duty next month, at the conclusion of her suspension . We are not concerned with arguments as to whether leadership is weak or unwilling to protect teachers like Rubino. In fact, given the current political climate, we certainly know that it is no small task. But when we hear of the stories of other teachers, like Francesco Portelos, and Harris Lirtzman, we conclude that there is a need strengthen, not weaken, collective bargaining protections for teachers in general, and for Ms. Rubino in particular, so that one inappropriate comment, made from home, (after a fifteen year spotless record of public service) does not immediately lead to termination.

MORE at NYC Troublemakers School, Saturday, May 18

morecaucusnyc — Mon, 13 May 2013 22:33:55 +0000

Our friends at Labor Notes are having the premier union conference and workshops in NYC this Saturday.
Labor Notes is an organization that is dedicated to rank-and-file members, local union leaders, and labor activists who know the labor movement is worth fighting for. They encourage connections between workers in different unions, workers centers, communities, industries, and countries to strengthen the movement—from the bottom up. MORE’s own Julie Cavanagh will be in attendance and making a brief speech, as well as many other members of MORE. We encourage you to register for this great chance to learn union and community organizing from experienced activists.

Register Today: New York City Troublemakers School, May 18

Join us for a day of skill-building workshops, education, and strategydiscussions to put some movement back in the labor movement.

Click here for details and registration (just $25, with lunch included.)

With Cablevision technician Lawrence Hendrickson on CWA’s struggle for a first contract, intensive care nurse Julie Semente on her union’s effort to stop the closure of Brooklyn’s Long Island College Hospital, and Chicago Teachers Union member Nate Rasmussen on their strike last fall and the continuing effort to rescue public education in Chicago.

Also with Josh Freeman on Lessons from New York Labor History; Dave Newman of NYCOSH on an Organizing Approach to Health and Safety; Labor law expert Robert Schwartz on Just Cause: How to Win Discipline Cases; and a discussion of After Bloomberg: A Union Agenda for New York City.

Plus workshops and panels on:

Beating Apathy

Dealing with Difficult Supervisors

Secrets of a Successful Organizer

Roots of the Public Sector Budget Crisis

Raising Wages for Low-Wage Workers

Labor-Community Alliances Done Right

Using Direct Action to Get Results

When: Saturday, May 18, 9 a.m. – 4 p.m.

Where: The High School for Health Professions and Human Services, 345 E 15th St, Manhattan (between 1st and 2nd Aves.)

For more info or to register, click here.

Questions? Suggestions? Need child care? Contact Samantha Winslow,718-284-4144, samantha@labornotes.org.

What Is a Troublemaker’s School?

Wondering what a Troublemakers School is? They just had one in Portland, Oregon, and here’s a report.

Graphical Analysis of the UFT Election Results

morecaucusnyc — Mon, 06 May 2013 10:00:05 +0000

Here are a few graphs to illustrate some of the key results of the UFT elections:

Historical Turnout in UFT Elections

First, turnout was historically low, at 20% of the classroom membership of the union. Interestingly, retiree turnout was also down – it seems to have tracked at almost exactly 20 percent higher than classroom teacher turnout over the last 15 years.

Voting Electorate by Division

Secondly, this was the first election where retirees comprised the majority of the electorate. This is partly due to an increase in retirees as a proportion of union members, as we have lost thousands of active teachers to attrition over the last few years. However, it is mostly because retiree votes used to be capped at 18,000 but that cap has now been lifted to 23,000.

However, despite these countervailing winds, the MORE caucus came out with impressive gains in every division, increasing their percent of the total vote by as much as 12% as compared with the ICE/TJC opposition caucus in the 2010 election. This means that while Unity and New Action were both losing voters as turnout declines, the number of voters for an alternative to the leadership increased, both in absolute numbers and as a proportion of the total.

For a more detailed look, see these links for votal totals over time from different divisions, and vote percentages over time for different divisions. Finally, feel free to check our work and do your own analysis: the full excel spreadsheet can be accessed here.

Please note that this data does not reflect final counts from non-slate votes and voided ballots; therefore, percentages may be a bit off from final calculations. We are still awaiting a full accounting from the UFT Election Committee for these numbers.

*Turnout numbers for individual divisions were not available for 2001, so these numbers are an average of the 1999 and 2004 turnouts.

**Retiree numbers reflect the 18,000 vote cap for the 2004, and 2007, and 2010 elections. Actual retiree votes counted proportionally to reduce the total to 18,000. For example, in the 2010 elections, each retiree vote was worth 0.72 active member votes.

General Meeting 5/11

morecaucusnyc — Sun, 05 May 2013 13:53:56 +0000

The Election Is Over, The Movement Has Just Begun!

MORE’s last general meeting of the school year.

Saturday, May 11th 12:00-3:00pm

224 West 29th st 14th fl. NYC (btwn 7th & 8th ave)

Please join us as we continue the important work of building MORE. We will begin voting for our new elected leadership and analyze the post UFT election data. We will decide what issues to focus on and develop strategies for fighting for a contract, better working conditions and improved learning conditions.
Join one of our working groups at the meeting to help during the summer.

Facebook Link here

Uptown Manhattan/Bronx ACR/ATR mtg, Wed., 5/1

morecaucusnyc — Wed, 01 May 2013 08:44:33 +0000

Please share with ACRs/ATRs:

ACR/ATR meeting: Wednesday May 1, 5:00 pm, IHOP, Uptown Manhattan (open to all ACRs/ATRs, regardless of where based)

The IHOP at 2294 Adam Clayton Powell Jr Blvd,

Harlem. –Between the 135th St. C, D and the 135th St. 2, 3 trains; a few blocks south of 138th Street, which leads to the Madison Ave. Bridge into the Bronx. Primo Spot search for parking:

http://primospot.com/spots/ search

Please RSVP to saferatr@gmail.com

We have important issues in the coming weeks and months.

Budget Analysis: The Shocking Amount of Money New York City Has Spent to Fire Our Colleagues

morecaucusnyc — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 10:04:28 +0000

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
2005	$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.

2013 UFT Election Results and Analysis

morecaucusnyc — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 13:23:17 +0000

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

Solidarity with Change the Stakes and Time Out From Testing

morecaucusnyc — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 12:27:31 +0000

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/

UFT ELECTIONS: A VICTORY FOR MORE

morecaucusnyc — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 23:31:17 +0000

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!