Archive for May, 2015



Eliminate Abusive Administrators

Eliminate Abusive Administrators

Experience and research show that ONLY collaborative relationships in a school foster a healthy work environment, benefitting staff and students. Unfortunately many Leadership Academy principals hired by Bloomberg and Klein are not collaborative. They were hired to get rid of veteran teachers, U-rate staff members, deny tenure, harass chapter leaders and ignore the contract. This is unacceptable!

Chancellor Farina proclaimed that collaboration is one of the first orders of her administration. The word has not filtered down to principals. The number of incompetent principals in the system, according to Fariña, is over 300. Many are the same principals who are abusive of our members, other staff, or students. In an October 2014 leaflet, New Action highlighted two such principals. In late March New Action demonstrated against principal Namita Dwarka of William Bryant HS. But there are many more cases.

Campaigns against these abusers are needed. Can you imagine conditions so bad that your colleagues are too scared to complain? These are schools where the union should be going in, where the leadership should be addressing the problem principal directly with the Chancellor.

Tell our leaders, restore the PINI  (Principals in Need of Improvement), a campaign initiated by New Action and instituted by our union. We must stand by our beleaguered members.

And if you are in a school with an abuser: Contact your District Rep. Contact New Action. Read “A Primer on School Change” (UFT website). Read “14 Ways to Get Rid of an Abusive Administrator” (New Action website).

note:
For years the UFT ran a Principals in Need of Improvement program
Unity abandoned this campaign last year

 

In Support of Opt Out

In New York State our children are being inundated with Common Core exams that determine their teachers’ ratings (even gym, art and music teachers!) and narrow the entire school year to a rigid “teach to the test” agenda.  We stand in solidarity with parents who want to opt their children out of this needless overtesting. We call for an end to the discredited practice of tying teacher ratings to high-stakes tests that serve no purpose for students.  The “test and punish” agenda of the Cuomo administration is very good for testing companies like Pearson and extremely bad for all the real stakeholders in education: teachers, parents and students.

We applaud the statement by NYSUT President Karen Magee supporting Opt Out. New Action/UFT supports the opt out movement, and we recognize the hard work of the NYC parents and educators who are spreading the word.  In just one case, the Brooklyn New School, 84% of parents chose to opt their children out.  It is time for our union leadership to get on board.

Unfairly Discontinued Probationers

Probation is a training period. Principals, APs and mentors work with beginning teachers. But during the probationary period, teachers can be discontinued at any time. Under Bloomberg weak, abusive, or incompetent principals used probationers as scapegoats. They did not try to help these teachers. And in many cases these abusive administrators unfairly terminated new teachers.

Probationers who have been discontinued have the right to be rehired, either in another district or under another license. But the DoE has effectively blocked principals who want to hire them. September 2, 2014 New Action organized a press conference for discontinued probationers who had been offered positions by other principals, but who the networks or the department blocked.

This school year New Action/UFT members have been meeting with discontinued probationers, UFT officials, and representatives of Chancellor Farina to discuss the issue. We are cautiously optimistic that principals will once again be allowed to hire previously discontinued probationers. But this is not enough.

New Action/UFT has been in the forefront of the fight against abusive and often corrupt administrators. Where a principal has shown questionable judgment, it is in our mutual interest to challenge that judgment. We support the Chancellor’s vision for collaborative schools for NYC students. But the school system the Chancellor envisions cannot happen as long as hundreds of capricious, arbitrary administrators lead schools.


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