Archive Page 113

Teacher Evaluation and Binding Arbitration – No Way to Go!

Published March 5, 2013 New York CIty Department of Education , Teacher Evaluation , tenure , test scores Closed

(from the New Action leaflet distributed at the February 2013 UFT Delegate Assembly).
For a printable version click: NA/UFT 02/2013 leaflet

“Cuomo told Bloomberg and the United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew that if they can’t hammer out an agreement for an evaluation system by Feb. 22, he’d submit an amendment to his new budget plan giving the state Education Department authority to impose its own evaluation system on New York City educators.” (New York Post 2/4/13) The article further states that, “Last week, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a strong teachers-union ally, and the leaders of the Senate made clear that they’re ready to back Cuomo in imposing a settlement on the city.”

UFT President Michael Mulgrew welcomed Governor Cuomo’s involvement. According to the New York Times (1/30/13) President Mulgrew is quoted as saying, “…while we would prefer a negotiated settlement, it’s good to know that should talks fail again, people who actually understand education will be part of the decision making process. ” “Parents need to know that, thanks to the governor and the legislative leaders, there will be no further  risk of the loss of state money for our schools.”

This is disastrous on a number of accounts. Firstly, binding arbitration on the teacher evaluation system is a disgrace. Our union should never agree to have the state intercede and impose a settlement on our working conditions. Secondly, if the UFT leadership believed it was impossible to negotiate with Bloomberg (and that is all too evident) they should never have agreed to push for Race to the Top. We might as well have asked for the State to impose an evaluation system. Thirdly, the Race to the Top monies (750 million) will be used to implement a teacher evaluation system (ie. money for consultants, validators, test design, and coming up with systems to evaluate teachers, etc.) WHAT A SCAM! And to tell the public education is losing hundreds of millions!

New Action opposes binding arbitration. PERIOD! We oppose any new evaluation system that uses test scores (up to 40%) to rate teachers. Perhaps it’s too late to avoid this trap but members should know when they’re being sold a bill of goods.

Let’s Not Even Think about a Quinn Endorsement for Mayor

Published March 3, 2013 New York , NYC , UFT , United Federation of Teachers Closed
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(from the New Action leaflet distributed at the February 2013 UFT Delegate Assembly).
For a printable version click: NA/UFT 02/2013 leaflet

Bill DiBlasio, John Liu, and Bill Thompson may each be worthy of our consideration, but not Christine Quinn. The current City Council Speaker has acted as a sort of Bloomberg Mini-Me, spending the last six years greasing the skids for billionaire mayor. We should remove her from consideration for the United Federation of Teachers endorsement in the Democratic primary.

New Action challenges mayoral control

Published February 3, 2013 New Action , UFT , United Federation of Teachers 1 Comment
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On Tuesday, January 22, New Action Co-chair Jonathan Halabi presented a resolution at the UFT Executive Board meeting calling on our union to get behind a bill to take absolute control over the PEP away from the Mayor Bloomberg. The bill introduced by Velmanette Montgomery and David Weprin would have severely reduced the number of appointees to half of the current level, effectively taking away the mayor’s power to close schools in the city. Halabi pointed out that the PEP has been a rubber stamp for the Mayor, and that this bill would potentially provide instant relief. In the meantime, our committee on school governance should continue to meet and work towards it recommendations.

While New Action/UFT has opposed mayoral control from the start and has recently initiated a petition drive against mayoral control, we considered this bill an important first step to that end. Three speakers on the UFT Executive Board rose to speak against supporting this important piece of legislation. They argued that the UFT has a committee on school governance and this proposal would second guess the committee’s work, that it wouldn’t give all the stakeholders a chance to weigh in, etc.

New Action speakers argued that we should not wait for the results of a committee report when we have a concrete bill that would make for a more democratic process if passed now.

The caucus-line vote was overwhelmingly against supporting the Montgomery/Weprin bill with only five New Action members present voting in support, as all of the Unity caucus members voted no. It is all the more surprising that at a publicized press conference called by Montgomery and Weprin the announcement said UFT representatives would be present.

New Action secured 2,200 signatures to end mayoral control on petitions this past spring. New Action is committed to work for an end to all vestiges of mayoral control—control which would never have come about without UFT support.

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