Archive Page 93

LET’S WORK WITH DE BLASIO TO PUSH OUR PRIORITIES

Published February 27, 2014 Abusive Administrators , Chapter Leaders , New York CIty Department of Education Closed
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(from the New Action leaflet distributed at the February 2014 Delegate Assembly).
For a printable version click: February 2014 Leaflet

LET’S WORK WITH DE BLASIO TO PUSH OUR PRIORITIES

The election of Bill de Blasio and the appointment of Carmen Fariña opens the possibility of correcting 12 years of Bloomberg’s destructive policies. The damage done cannot all be repaired overnight. However, some important advances can begin now. High on the list is negotiating a good contract with retroactive pay. New Action/UFT proposes some additional priorities.

New Action has always acknowledged that there are many collaborative and professional administrators. But unqualified principals, often with no or little teaching experience, are running too many of our schools. A principal can avoid a conversation by saying, “I have to run this past Legal” knowing full well that these Bloomberg appointed lawyers tell principals to deny everything. Those with who never were decent teachers, or with inadequate experience can feel threatened by our members’ knowledge, and treat suggestions as insubordinate. Many become petty dictators. Their orders are sometimes arbitrary, sometimes nonsensical. They don’t discuss issues with members, because they cannot. And some target Chapter Leaders.

IT IS TIME to press this issue with de Blasio and Fariña and modify the behavior of all of these abusive administrators, and long overdue that the Unity leadership demand an end to the harassment of chapter leaders. The leadership has targeted problem principals in schools where the entire chapter is ready to fight back. But this is a drop in the bucket. In most of these schools members are scared, intimidated, not ready to stand up on their own. We must help them at the school, AND bring these cases to the new administration. And we have progress already: Carmen Fariña has announced that all new principals will need to have at least seven years experience.

We can work with Mayor De Blasio and Chancellor Fariña, and at the same time help our membership to become active at the school level to tackle these and other issues.

Who are tests bad for?

Published December 18, 2013 New Action , New York CIty Department of Education , testing Closed
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(from the New Action leaflet distributed at the December 2013 Delegate Assembly).
For a printable version click: December 2013 Leaflet

WHO ARE TESTS BAD FOR?

New Action opposes the Teacher Evaluation System, largely due to rating teachers based on student test scores. But we should object to tests for reasons beyond the bad APPR.

Every extra day of testing squeezes out another day of teaching. Every high stakes test, especially in this era of punitive accountability, leads many schools to increase the number of days of test prep. Each prep day squeezes out another day of real teaching. The test burden on principals has led many to eliminate foreign language and art. Recess is getting short-changed. In many schools, Science and Social Studies get repurposed to ELA and Mathematics prep in non-testing years. This is horrible for kids and schools.

Teachers are more and more forced to teach not “to the test” but “to the tests” in a dizzying flurry of diagnostics, pre-tests, and State tests. Trained professionals are being asked, nay, forced to teach what accountability requires, not what the children need.

And let’s not forget, tests make kids sick. In October of this year, the Delegate Assembly approved the following language as part of a resolution on standardized testing:

“the current intensity of the standardized test taking and test prep affects children emotionally and physically leading to anxiety, frustration, low self-esteem, headaches and other physical ailments.”

Report from UFT 12/16/13 Executive Board – Calling the Question too fast

Published December 17, 2013 New Action , UFT , UFT Executive Board , United Federation of Teachers 3 Comments
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No President’s report. Mulgrew was absent.

Staff Director’s Report (?)

I was late and missed the staff director’s report. LeRoy Barr appeared not to be there. Perhaps Ellie Engler (who was present) gave the report

Questions

I missed the questions

Reports from Districts

There were many reports from districts

Legislative Report –

Paul Egan was absent, and called in to Emil Pietromonaco that there was no legislative report.

Special Orders of Business

1. There were resolutions recommended to the NYSUT Representative Assembly. These were non-controversial (). Mike Shulman added the Mandela resolution from the previous week.

2. New Action brought forth a resolution, calling for a change in the rules of order for the DA. If a question is called before there has been a speaker against, the proposed rule would require the chair to ask for a speaker against before allowing the question to be called. Jonathan Halabi (me) motivated. John Soldini, former HS VP, spoke against, saying that calling a point of order would accomplish the same thing, Kate Martin-Bridge countered, saying that in the last two years at the DA, calling a point of order has not gotten the chair to ask for a speaker opposed, Sterling Roberson rose to warn the body not to be “fooled” by the resolution, Mike Shulman rose to underline that the resolution was clear and that there was no attempt to “fool” anyone, and Richie Mantell finally rose to table the motion, due to unclarity about Roberts Rules, etc. The motion to table passed, unanimously.

New Action Caucus has ten seats on the UFT Executive Board – the only ten seats that do not belong to Unity Caucus.

Ten is not enough to win anything – but it allows our voice to be heard, it allows us to put forward resolutions, and when there is agreement, to put forward resolutions the leadership signs onto. It allows us to offer amendments. It allows us to bring issues to the leadership.

At Exec after Exec, Unity members sit and listen. Some never speak. Most rarely speak. But New Action usually has questions, comments, resolutions, or amendments.

This year we will publish reports – sometimes on the entire Exec Board, sometimes just on New Action’s contribution.

Learn more about

our UFT Caucus

Content Policy

Content of signed articles and comments represents the opinions of their authors. The views expressed in signed articles are not necessarily the views of New Action/UFT.
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