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We win! No layoffs! (but the war with Bloomberg continues)

Published July 10, 2011 New York , New York CIty Department of Education , NYC Closed
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June, 28  2011

We won. Yesterday four thousand teachers were wondering how they would pay rent or mortgages this summer. And today they know – their jobs are safe.

We won by demonstrating, by phone banking, by winning over the City Council.

We have won a big battle. But the war with the mayor continues. He will come back at seniority next year. And school closings. And collocations. We are still working under an expired contract.

We need to keep pushing. We need to hammer away at the wasteful contracts. We need to mobilize as we have. But we also need to mobilize in a way that draws more of our members into the fight. New Action continues to call for school-level actions, including meetings and pickets, as appropriate. Picketing is not a panacea, but engagement by the entire membership is crucial.

 ATRs

Today’s agreement has a series of complicated-looking provisions that may help ATRs get regularly appointed. It would be fantastic if this works. But we have had contract language and side agreements designed to help ATRs get positions in the past, and the DoE has ignored or violated them (think about 18D!). We will need to watch how our brothers and sisters in the ATRs are treated very closely. If their conditions and positions do not improve, New Action will introduce a resolution (see reverse) for the next Delegate Assembly in October.

 Focus on conditions in the schools

Schools just had their budgets cut again yesterday. While this cut is not huge (average is under 3%) this is the latest in a series of cuts stretching back several years. The cumulative effect of is over 20% for some schools. Schools are bleeding not from a gash, but from a thousand paper cuts. And our children are losing necessary programs.

We will lose through attrition at least 2500 teachers. Again, this is on top of ten thousand more positions already lost in preceding cuts. Despite the CFE case, the DoE is forcing our students into larger classes.

Mayoral Control

Bloomberg’s brinkmanship over layoffs would not have occurred without the legislation that gives him direct control over the schools. It is time to end mayoral control.

Oppose ‘Mandate Relief’ – New Action Exec Board member

Published July 9, 2011 New Action Closed
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Testimony before New York State Regents opposing Proposal #1 mandate relief – to remove School Psychologists from CSEs.

Good evening, my name is Maria Ramos, I have been a School Psychologist for 16 years and before that I was a general education teacher. I am an employee of the NYC Department of Education. I am also an Executive Board Member of the United Federation of Teachers.

When I was 18 years old I volunteered to work at Willowbrook State School –  Some of you may remember the pictures of that school when in 1972 Geraldo Rivera revealed the autrocities of that place — and what I witnessed for my self – the horrendous conditions that children were subjected to —-I had to quit after only two weeks because it literally made me sick and depressed.  It was then I knew that I wanted to be part of the solution – so this would never happen again. As a school psychologist I have blown up into poster size  PL 94-142  of 1975.   I have it on my bulletin board in the parent teacher conference room. It is the guide to Least Restrictive Environment which states that “to the maximum extent appropriate, children with disabilities…are educated with children who are non-disabled”; and that special classes, separate schooling or other removal of children with disabilities from the regular educational environment occurs only when the nature or severity of the disability is such that education in regular classes with the use of supplementary aids and services cannot be achieved satisfactorily.”

It is the school psychologist through the psychological educational evaluations,  observations, clinical interviews working with other staff members and parents, who determines the severity of the disability—and therefore we the school psychologists safeguard children’s rights to be educated in the least restrictive environment.

In conclusion I want to leave you with these words from Stephen Jay Gould in The Mismeasure of Man

“We pass through this world but once. Few tragedies can be more extensive than the stunting of life, few injustices deeper than the denial of an opportunity to strive or even to hope, by a limit imposed from without, but falsely identified as lying within.”

Our role as school psychologists and what we do is intertwined in the very civil rights of our children. And if this mandate relief is passed — I think it puts us on a very dangerous road that can lead back to Willowbrook State School.

Where do we go from here?

Published June 19, 2011 Uncategorized Closed

New Action/UFT…a caucus of the United Federation of Teachers
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                                                                                                June 2011

 Lay-offs  –  Down to the Wire
Where Do We Go From Here?

The media is citing an “obscure” municipal union health care fund that could be used to avert teacher lay offs and prevent fire houses from closing. Whether this happens or not, we just don’t know. Anything short of contract concessions, pension give- backs, or having UFT members pay for their own jobs, would be a welcome solution to this horrific situation. We hope it can work.

BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY:  how does our union position itself so that our members are never put in this untenable situation again?

New Action has been proposing, in this current period (and we have stated it publicly over many years) that the membership MUST be prepared to take any and all reasonable actions. We believe the membership has not been prepared to meet this challenge. Since last December we have been calling for mobilizations and actions at every school. In January, we called for a week of membership meetings at every school followed by schools doing informational picketing against lay offs and budget cuts. Others have called for borough wide membership meetings. New Action has called for activities at every school.  New Action members on the UFT Action Committee have called for this several times this year alone. In April, we urged the Action Committee once again to employ this strategy. In May, we met with President Mulgrew and proposed a concrete date for school wide membership meetings, followed by a week of picketing at schools. At the June meeting of the Action Committee we called for actions to take place at every school on June 21, 2011. Picketing is not a panacea, but engagement by the entire membership is a critical factor.

The demonstrations, rallies, texting and faxing elected officials have been without precedent by our union. UFT members have turned out at borough hall rallies, picketing of enemies of our union, like Marty Golden, marches, and car caravans; we should be proud to have participated in so many events. Yet, the overwhelming number of our members have not been drawn into the fight. Only when the City administration knows that tens of thousands of union members are expressing themselves will we have the clout to produce a contract or prevent lay offs.

Finally, New Action believes it is time to end mayoral control of our schools—a mistake of major proportions. 

United we will win!

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