Highlights from the latest issue of New York Teacher:

UFTers were out in force on June 16, joining thousands of parents, community members and fellow city workers at City Hall to fight for the critical services that New Yorkers depend on. “If we don’t make education a priority, we are lost,” said Alice O’Neil, chapter leader of Food and Finance HS, who came to stand up for her school and her students.

With no state budget and Albany leaders passing emergency spending bills that keep the state government running, the mayor has cut school budgets for next year on the assumption that the deepest cuts to education being contemplated in Albany will come to pass. Meanwhile, teachers across the city are wondering what’s left to cut at their schools.

The UFT took the fight to prevent budget cuts to City Hall on June 7. “Letting these cuts go forward,” UFT President Michael Mulgrew told the City Council finance committee regarding the city’s plan to shrink school spending by up to 7 percent in many schools, “means turning our backs on children in ways not seen since 1976.” More »

Highlights from the June 3 issue of New York Teacher:

UFTers have been out in force all month, with mass leafletting and high-profile rallies across the five boroughs, to raise public awareness about the state Senate’s preliminary budget that would cut city public schools by $500 million.

The state Legislature on May 28 passed legislation that addresses most of the UFT’s key concerns about charter schools, including limiting the number in New York City and the role of profiteers in charter operations, even as the legislation raised the statewide cap.

Who paid for the recent mass mailing of the glossy flier attacking the UFT? In two words: hedge funds. In the corner of the back page of the flier is the note “Paid for by Education Reform Now” and a Manhattan return address. More »

Highlights from the May 20 issue of New York Teacher:

“The most dangerous thing this union faces today is the budget crisis,” UFT President Michael Mulgrew told delegates at their May 12 meeting as he discussed a new campaign, “For Our Kids,” to stop massive cutbacks.

Just one week before threatening to eliminate more than 6,400 teaching positions through layoffs and attrition to save money, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Chancellor Joel Klein named four new deputy chancellors, each of whom will make more money than most city commissioners.

“Blame Albany” was Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s mantra on May 6 as he unveiled his proposed executive budget, which calls for eliminating 6,400 teaching jobs — 4,400 through layoffs and the rest through attrition — to make up for a $1.3 billion shortfall in state aid to the city. More »

Highlights from the May 6 issue of New York Teacher:

The controversial Temporary Reassignment Centers, dubbed rubber rooms, will close on June 30 thanks to an intensive effort by the UFT and the city. At a press conference on April 15, UFT President Michael Mulgrew, Mayor Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein announced an agreement that will see the rooms closed for good. “The rubber rooms are a symptom of a disciplinary process that has not worked for anyone — not the kids, not the schools, and not the teachers,” Mulgrew said.

At an April 22 state legislative hearing in lower Manhattan to examine the business practices and record of the charter school industry in New York, UFT President Michael Mulgrew testified that charter schools, like other public schools which take public money, need to be transparent and accountable.

The scene outside 250 Broadway — opposite City Hall — on April 22 was a testament to the dream of 18th-century New York free speech pioneers John Peter Zenger and Francis Makemie, as opposing sides on the charter school debate took to the sidewalks and handed out their pamphlets just blocks from Thomas Paine Park. More »

Highlights from the April 1 issue of New York Teacher:

In a stinging rebuke of the Department of Education, a state judge on March 26 declared the Panel for Educational Policy’s votes to close 19 schools “null and void,” ruling that the DOE violated new state governance law provisions created to provide meaningful community input in decisions involving the closing or phasing out of schools.

It was an occasion that comes only once in a lifetime. More than 2,500 members of the UFT “family” gathered at the New York Hilton on March 25 to celebrate the golden jubilee of the union that each in some way had helped build into the strong and vibrant institution that it is today.

UFT members are jamming the fax machines, phone lines and mailboxes of Albany legislators in a massive campaign to save city schools from the devastation that as much as $600 million in proposed budget cuts would have on classrooms. More »

Highlights from the March 18 issue of New York Teacher:

“I want to put a human face on the consequences of the planned austerity measures; the disaster of charging kids for MetroCards, the impact cuts will have on schools and families,” said Guy De Baere, a lab specialist at LaGuardia HS in Manhattan. “Each year we’re asked to do more with less — much less.” It was his first lobbying trip as a teacher, but not his first as a parent. This time, he joined more than 1,200 UFT colleagues and supporters in Albany on the union’s March 9 Lobby Day to tell state legislators what his award-winning high school needs.

At Manhattan’s Murry Bergtraum HS, in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge, more than 200 teachers, students, and union and community leaders assembled to call on the state Legislature to reject the governor’s proposed $1.4 billion in school aid cuts statewide — as much as $600 million in cuts to New York City — as an attack on educational quality and a precursor to mass layoffs.

The federal education law that, for better or worse, has dominated the lives of America’s educators for the past eight years is set for another controversial and troubling renewal. More »

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 »