Highlights from the March 4 issue of New York Teacher:

Tensions were high as parents, students, teachers and community members from PS 30 and Eva Moskowitz’s Harlem Success Academy 2 faced off at a public hearing on Feb. 22 over Department of Education plans to site the charter school in PS 30’s building.

Former city councilwoman and now charter founder and operator Eva Moskowitz has a relationship with Chancellor Joel Klein that any school leader would envy. It goes way beyond Klein appearing at her school functions when requested; it goes beyond her successfully enlisting his support for $1 million in funding from the Eli Broad Foundation.

At the Feb. 24 Panel for Educational Policy public hearing, Harlem Success Academy 2 got the green light to move into PS 30 in Harlem. Fifteen additional schools, including 12 other charter schools, also got the go-ahead to move into or expand within existing district school buildings. More »

Highlights from the Feb. 18 issue of New York Teacher:

During the toughest budget time lawmakers and taxpayers have seen in decades, the UFT’s message at the union’s annual kickoff legislative meeting in Albany, held on Feb. 2, was consistent: Keep the cuts away from kids.

While the city and state still struggle to deal with an economy in crisis, UFT President Michael Mulgrew insisted that lawmakers and city officials work together on a budget agreement that “protects the classroom at all times,” he said in testimony before Assembly and Senate committee meetings on Feb. 2 in Albany.

Calling Chancellor Joel Klein’s move to use student test scores in tenure decisions “another example of mismanagement,” UFT President Michael Mulgrew said it underscored the need for a teacher evaluation system that teachers can trust. More »

Highlights from the Feb. 4 issue of New York Teacher:

The UFT, joined by community and education advocates and city and state elected officials, filed a lawsuit on Feb. 1 charging that city school officials “studiously ignored” key provisions of the school governance law in its campaign to close 19 New York City schools. The suit asks the court to re-do the PEP vote that “unlawfully rubber-stamped” the closings.

Nearly 3,000 outraged parents, students, community leaders and educators packed the Brooklyn Technical HS auditorium on Jan. 26, where they urged the Panel for Educational Policy to reject the Department of Education’s proposal to close 19 schools.

Chanting “instruction not destruction” and “keep schools open,” more than 1,500 students, parents, educators and community advocates rallied against school closings outside Brooklyn Technical HS on Jan. 26. More »

Highlights from the Jan. 11 issue of New York Teacher:

After two years of sharply rising class sizes in the city’s public schools — despite hundreds of millions of dollars in state funding to reduce them — the UFT filed a lawsuit against the Department of Education and Chancellor Joel Klein on Jan. 5 to finally force them to comply with class-size reduction mandates.

Surrounded by city and state elected officials, and citing a new UFT report showing that New York City’s charter schools fail to serve the city’s neediest students, UFT President Michael Mulgrew used a Jan. 3 press conference to call for changes in the state charter school law.

Thousands of teachers, students, parents and community and political leaders are crowding public hearings for each of the 20 schools earmarked for closure by the DOE to demand that the threatened schools be fixed, not shut down. Hundreds of stakeholders are pulling no punches in their comments, charging the DOE with inequity, mismanagement and inconsistent standards in making closing decisions. More »

Highlights from the Dec. 17 issue of New York Teacher:

UFT President Michael Mulgrew sent an e-mail to members accusing the mayor and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein of promoting “fake reforms, simplistic ‘solutions’ and sheer fantasy.”

The city packed more students into its classrooms for the second year in a row, a new Department of Education report confirmed, giving students less individual time and making teachers’ jobs more difficult.

Teachers, students, parents and communities reeling from Department of Education-announced school closings are fighting back and building well-organized campaigns to save their schools. UFT President Michael Mulgrew offered the union’s full support as schools reach out to political leaders and plan meetings to bring these stories to the communities.

Despite a relentless focus on test performance since Mayor Bloomberg took over the school system, New York City failed to score any significant gains in either 4th- or 8th-grade math in the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress, the gold standard national achievement test. More »

Highlights from the Nov. 26 issue of New York Teacher:

At a time when workers’ benefits are eroding and becoming more costly nationwide, the UFT is enhancing the package of benefits offered by its Welfare Fund, UFT President Michael Mulgrew announced at the Nov. 18 Delegate Assembly.

With state midyear budget cuts up in the air as Gov. David Paterson and state lawmakers remained locked in disagreement, the outlook for school budgets remains murky.

To visit Elizabeth Josephson’s classroom at Island Academy, you go through the same routine, and checkpoints as someone visiting an inmate at Riker’s. She left teaching at college and private school to reach out to these students.

UFT delegates at their Nov. 18 meeting overwhelmingly approved a resolution that authorizes the union leadership to seek the intervention of the state’s Public Employment Relations Board if necessary. More »

Highlights from the Nov. 12 issue of New York Teacher:

53,000 members’ pension checks were returned quickly after a horrendous $189 million withdrawal, thanks to UFT and city demands.

At the 12th annual UFT Parent Conference on Oct. 31, some 3,000 parents eagerly soaked up information and ideas about how to help their children in school — and signed up in record numbers to advocate in the political arena for adequate education funding.

A sense of history, continuity and pride pervaded the UFT’s Teacher Union Day as more than 1,200 union activists gathered to honor their colleagues and leaders.

When it comes to special education, it seems principals are making excuses again. As of Nov. 9, 705 complaints were logged on the UFT online special education complaint form. More »

Highlights from the Oct. 29 issue of New York Teacher:

The DOE’s new on-street parking placards for school staff, which will take effect on Nov. 1, will be given out using a new formula this year.

Teachers and other school staff should be among the groups given preference for
the swine flu vaccine if they want it, UFT President Michael Mulgrew said.

With the Nov. 3 election just days away, UFTers are coming out in force to support their union’s endorsed candidates.

Physical education teacher and swimming instructor Bill Payret has been working to make sure kids — and adults — in the Bronx learn how to swim.

From clothing to cupcakes, schools throughout the city went pink throughout the month of October to support a good cause: breast cancer awareness. More »

Highlights from the Oct. 15 issue of New York Teacher:

Two hundred and sixty new chapter leaders spent the weekend of Oct. 2-4 in Princeton, N.J., being trained by UFT instructors on issues ranging from the grievance procedure to how to organize to increase teacher voice.

The UFT’s two endorsed candidates for citywide office, John Liu for city comptroller and Bill de Blasio for public advocate, easily defeated their opponents in the Democratic Party primary runoff election where the organization and enthusiasm of UFT members made a huge impact.

Forty-eight thousand retired and Tier I and II in-service UFT members will soon receive lump-sum payments now that the state Supreme Court has signed off on the $160 million settlement of the UFT’s recent pension lawsuit. More »

Highlights from the Oct. 1 issue of New York Teacher:

The UFT filed grievances on Sept. 24 involving 6,749 classes citywide that exceeded the contractual limits on class size.

The UFT joined education, labor, parent and community groups at a Sept. 23 rally on the City Hall steps to try to head off midyear cuts to schools.

Key UFT-endorsed candidates came out on top in this year’s Democratic Party Primary election, and it was UFT members who made the difference.

Educators and parents worked too hard to improve the new school governance law to now see it delayed or not properly implemented, the UFT testified at a City Council Education Committee hearing.

Teachers in the Absent Teacher Reserve pool attended job fairs across the city in September in hopes of filling one of the 1,100 vacancies still open as the school year moves into its second month.

The first Delegate Assembly of the new term was the biggest in years, with hundreds of new chapter leaders and delegates attending and the overflow crowd watching the proceedings from closed-circuit monitors outside the union hall.

Work spearheaded by the UFT two years ago culminated with the creation of four new “demonstration site” schools that aim to model innovative practices in career and technical education.

UFT’s Dial-A-Teacher program has helped kids and parents get help with homework for nearly three decades.

Can it be that the time has come for the voice of the classroom teacher to be heard in the land?

Highlights from the August issue of New York Teacher:

Scores of new teachers accepted the UFT’s invitation to its 2009 Summer Series, designed to bring teachers in their first three years on the job together and to introduce them to the city’s local treasures, in this case the four borough botanical gardens.

[Browse other new teacher articles here.]

From the beginning, Michael Mulgrew wanted to work with at-risk kids, and at a very young age he embraced his mother’s most important piece of advice: Wherever you are, whatever you do, always help others. More »

Highlights from the latest issue of New York Teacher:

It was standing room only, overflowing with those who had come to say goodbye to and celebrate the leadership of Randi Weingarten, who was stepping down as UFT president.

Negotiations between the UFT and the city over pensions resulted in a big win — since approved by the June 24 Delegate Assembly — that preserves the union’s age 55 retirement plan and restores the traditional post-Labor Day school start for members.

The UFT and the Green Dot New York Charter School signed an agreement that UFT President Randi Weingarten said “is based on a very basic premise: Teacher professionalism is the surest path to sustained student achievement.” More »

Highlights from the latest issue of New York Teacher:

There’s a $315 million hole in the new school year’s budget, and the City Council is in a position to fill it.

A tentative agreement between the Municipal Labor Committee and the city on employee health plans saves $200 million while maintaining core health coverage and holding the line on premiums for city workers.

A high school astronomy teacher created a planetarium 30 years ago that continues to beam light on science education for his students today. More »

Highlights from the latest issue of New York Teacher:

UFT President Randi Weingarten delivered a serious message to help prevent the spread of influenza-like illness and squelch panic at a press conference held outside IS 227 in East Elmhurst, Queens — a school hard hit by flu.

In the face of looming budget cuts and after months of UFT advocacy, the DOE agreed to a hiring freeze and greater efforts to place members who are in the Absent Teacher Reserve pool.

The red-carpet treatment wasn’t just a dream for the staff of PS 300 in the Bronx. More »

Highlights from the latest issue of New York Teacher:

There are some who feel that charter schools and teacher unions don’t go together — but not the folks at Amber Charter School in East Harlem, who have been successfully combining the two for years, exemplifying their school theme, “Together, we can.”

Not many mothers on Staten Island — or in any borough, at that — can boast of a son who can cook kangaroo to perfection or whip up a mean piranha soup not to die for.

Think of American Idol for poetry: that’s one of the many ways that New York City public schools celebrated National Poetry Month throughout April. More »