New Action – UFT

Last week, New Action Caucus released the results of the 2026 Annual School Survey for all five boroughs, focusing entirely on data pertaining to administrators – specifically principals. An endeavor as massive as this was a large undertaking, making it easy to get lost in a sea of statistics. So, upon completion of our project, we wanted to help further unpack some thoughts and things we discovered…

1. The 2026 School Survey results were released to the public (that unfortunately includes all UFT titles and other school staff) on Tuesday, August 11, four days after our open transfer period came to an end, even though superintendents and principals were granted access to the results in early June. This is a serious issue that we must fight against. The date of release, in addition to being a tremendous disservice to us, is disrespectful to educators throughout New York City. The results are available more than two months before we are given a chance to look at them. There is no rational explanation as to why we should have to wait on a survey release that can have a large impact on our careers, while many of us weigh the option of switching schools.

2. The DOE and UFT absolutely must do something about schools who repeatedly report low scores, specifically in Teacher-Principal Trust and Instructional Leadership. To be fair, the vast majority of schools fall within a reasonable range when compared to the City average. However, there are still a notable number of schools that consistently perform at the bottom of the barrel. One thing New Action/UFT strongly urges the UFT to do is reinstate the PINI (Principals in Need of Improvement) program, which the UFT scrapped over a decade ago. Spotlighting administrators with a history of mismanagement, retaliation, and disrespect, and programmatically dedicating union energy to affected chapters, may cause some abusive administrators to think before they act. At the very least, UFT members would be given the information and support they need to properly make choices concerning their future.

There also exists a resolution that hasn’t yet been voted on by the Delegate Assembly, that calls for the DOE to respond to low survey scores, implement improvement plans, and enforce ethical administration of our school surveys. Passing that resolution would be a strong start, but the UFT has a responsibility to prioritize chapters suffering from poor survey results, as well. If schools are constantly well below average, there needs to be a dedicated effort to aid those chapters. District Representatives (DRs) and chapter organizers/action teams can be asked to visit schools and help provide solutions and additional help. Whether that entails maintaining an increased presence in struggling schools, communicating more often with school leadership and chapters, or organizing and educating distressed chapters as to their rights, there needs to be actionable next steps that we can pursue for chapters in need of assistance.

3. There were nearly 1600 schools represented in the 2026 School Survey. Below is the share of Teacher-Principal Trust ratings by percentage:

20-29%: 4 schools

30-39%: 12 schools

40-49%: 34 schools

50-59%: 47 schools

60-69%: 85 schools

70-79%: 186 schools

80-89%: 397 schools

90-99%: 728 schools

100%: 99 schools

As you can see, a little more than half the schools are above average. Another 37% rate in the 70-89% range, and while low scores in the low 70s leave a lot to be desired, they’re not so dire that all hope is lost. That leaves approximately 10% of schools that scored in the 20-69% range, which is woefully below average.

4. Only 50 schools in all of NYC scored less than 50% in Teacher-Principal Trust. Of those 50, just 19 scored lower than 50% in both 2025 and 2026. These are the types of schools that deserve further attention from the DOE and the UFT, because there is no excuse for Teacher-Principal Trust scores to be at half the average of other NYC schools over consecutive years. Without making definitive declarations about leadership at those schools, they should at the very least be looked into.

5. Teacher Influence scores rank way behind Instructional Leadership and Teacher-Principal Trust. The average Teacher Influence rating was 67% compared to 89% for Instructional Leadership and 87% for Teacher-Principal Trust. Many schools recorded very low Teacher Influence scores but still maintained impressive Instructional Leadership and Teacher-Principal Trust scores, which is why Teacher Influence was not factored in nearly as much as the other two categories. Conversely, if Instructional Leadership or Teacher-Principal Trust came in significantly below standard, it almost always led to low scores in all areas, making those categories more accurate indicators.

6. Instructional Leadership was made up of eight questions – four were just about the principal while the other four pertained to the principal AND assistant principal(s) as a cohesive unit. These blended questions often give members difficulty because you may feel a specific administrator is doing a good job and another… not so much. Teacher-Principal Trust is a lot more straightforward.

7. It should be noted that these surveys can be flawed in many ways and these results are not an exact science. People may lie on their surveys. Some may feel pressured to say good (or bad) things. Some schools have very few responses, so huge increases/decreases may be the result of just a small handful of teachers. The survey also doesn’t differentiate assistant principals, treating all APs as a monolith, impossible to parse one from the other. Other schools may have a new principal. To this point, we took a small sampling of 15 schools with drastic declines in Teacher-Principal Trust and found that about half (eight) of them had a change of leadership. Unfortunately, time and logistics were not on our side, so we couldn’t track principal movement in every school. For these reasons, the results should not serve as a be-all and end-all deciding factor when determining the effectiveness of school leadership, but this anonymous survey is the closest thing we have to an accurate representation. Everything else is anecdotal and proven to be infinitely more flawed than the annual school survey.

We hope these findings have been somewhat enlightening when breaking down the data at our disposal. Here’s wishing your school perfect scores on next year’s survey.