Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend is an odd time for the Dept. of Education to publish the new class size numbers.
But a quick look at them suggests why: class sizes rose virtually across the board, for the second year in a row. This occurred despite $150 million in targeted state [...]
If workers keep their mouths shut, their noses clean and stop busting chops and bucking their bosses, they will, if management sees fit, be paid fairly so that, provided they are not ingrates or spendthrifts, they will do just fine being one paycheck ahead of eviction and the need to [...]
Highlights from the Nov. 26 issue of New York Teacher:
At a time when workers’ benefits are eroding and becoming more costly nationwide, the UFT is enhancing the package of benefits offered by its Welfare Fund, UFT President Michael Mulgrew announced at the [...]
As the United Federation of Teachers heads toward our fiftieth anniversary in 2010, we find ourselves facing a challenge greater than any we confronted in the last half-century of our history. Our union has been tempered by many extraordinary struggles over these last five decades, but never have we seen [...]
[Editor's note: miss brave is the pseudonym for a third-year elementary school teacher in Queens in her first year as a classroom teacher. She blogs at miss brave teaches nyc, where this post originally appeared.]
In response to my last post, in which I confessed to jumping up [...]
Do you know a special high school senior in need of a scholarship?
Each year, the Albert Shanker College Scholarship Fund of the UFT proudly gives out nearly $1 million in undergraduate and graduate scholarships to academically excellent and financially eligible students from [...]
In his Nov. 19 Washington Post column, Jay Mathews spotlights the decline of research (term) papers as routine high school assignments and relates the experiences of a diligent history teacher, now retired, whose 3000 word term papers shrank over the years so that she finally ceased assigning them at [...]
[Editor's note: Marie Boo is a school psychologist at PS 45 in Queens.]
“Brace yourself — I have bad news and you’re not going to believe it.”
The phone call came on the eve of Memorial Day last year from our school secretary. I listened in disbelief as she told me that [...]
United Students Against Sweatshops scored a big victory on behalf of 1200 Honduran workers who lost their jobs when Russell Athletic closed their plant in response to organizing efforts. Russell, owned by Fruit of the Loom, agreed to reopen the factory in Choloma, rehire the workers, recognize their [...]
[Editor’s note: Kansan in the Bronx is a second-year teacher in a Bronx middle school.]
There were a lot of things I was anxious about when I came out of the School of Ed. One was the switch from being the graded to being the grader. It was really an odd [...]
The Metro NY Labor Communications Council is sponsoring an “organized conversation” about health care reform tomorrow, Tuesday, Nov. 17, from 6-8 p.m., at the Center for Worker Education (CWE), CUNY, 25 Broadway, 7th floor auditorium.
View the flier here.
Participants include:
Bill Henning, 2nd [...]Everyday heroes are not always unsung. On occasion they actually get the recognition they deserve. If they performed their heroism while on “company time” and their unselfish deed conflicted with company policy and compromised productivity and the “bottom line,” they might not get the approbation from the front office, but [...]
Budget talks in Albany are coming down to the wire.
Governor Paterson reconvened the State Legislature this week for a special session to close a midyear deficit of over $3 billion, and under consideration is a $223 million cut to New York City schools. Legislators [...]
at the Fordham Foundation, and what are they putting in it?
We can think of a lot of ways to describe Kevin Carey’s advocacy of Keynsian economic policies, but Checker Finn’s characterization of “Stalinist” seems to border on the hallucinatory.
[...]
Highlights from the Nov. 12 issue of New York Teacher:
53,000 members’ pension checks were returned quickly after a horrendous $189 million withdrawal, thanks to UFT and city demands.
At the 12th annual UFT Parent Conference on Oct. 31, some 3,000 parents eagerly [...]
When Caroline Hoxby published her report on How New York City’s Charter
Schools Affect Achievement in September, its release was choreographed for maximum political effect. Within a matter of days, the Bloomberg campaign issued a call for the unfettered and unregulated expansion of charter schools across New York, [...]
Last June, Matthew Ladner, Vice President of Research at the far right Goldwater Institute and regular blogger at Jay Greene and the United Cherry Pickers, was madly blogging [see here and here] about the civic ignorance of Oklahoma high school students.
According to Ladner, a survey [...]
On Nov. 1 the UFT paid tribute to its members, both past and present, at the 49th annual Teacher Union Day ceremony at the Waldorf Astoria in Manhattan.
[...][Editor's note: miss brave is the pseudonym for a third-year elementary school teacher in Queens in her first year as a classroom teacher. She blogs at miss brave teaches nyc, where this post originally appeared.]
It’s possible I may be suffering from PWSD: Post-William Stress Disorder.
As I mentioned ever [...]
From the Chicago Alliance of Charter Teachers and Staff (Chicago ACTS):
Teachers and staff at three Civitas charter schools overwhelmingly ratified their first contract today, crediting a collaborative negotiations process for achieving the breakthrough agreement.
The three-year collective bargaining agreement at Civitas’ Ralph Ellison Campus, Northtown Academy and Wrightwood Campus [...]
Health care reform is at a climactic crossroads. Necessity should speak for itself. But sometimes it needs vocal coaches.
Although the crush of medical bills is the prime cause of individual bankruptcy (and the catastrophic collateral damage it does to families) in this country, and despite our nation’s lagging far behind [...]
[Editor's note: Teaching in Brooklyn is a fourth-year teacher at a Brooklyn elementary school.]
After spending my first two years as a first grade teacher working solo in an elementary school classroom of 28 students, I was recently hired at a new school as the general education teacher working with a [...]
UFT President Michael Mulgrew addressed parents at the UFT’s 12th Annual Parent Conference at the New York Hilton Hotel on Oct. 31.
[...][Editor's note: Kansan in the Bronx is a second-year teacher in a Bronx middle school.]
When I was visiting schools I could potentially teach at in the city I observed a couple classes at a well-respected middle school in the West Village. During the visit I observed a teacher scream at' [...]
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is in gridlock. Established to ensure fairness and resolve labor/management disputes in the workplace, it has become just another dysfunctional “political football.” That’s because of a partisan stalemate, hatched by Republican stalwarts, over filling three vacant NLRB seats.
Only two seats are currently occupied, [...]
Highlights from the Oct. 29 issue of New York Teacher:
The DOE’s new on-street parking placards for school staff, which will take effect on Nov. 1, will be given out using a new formula this year.
Teachers and other school staff should be among [...]
An all-out labor mobilization is in effect against Washington, D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s layoff of hundreds of experienced teachers under the pretext of the budget as an immediate cause. These firings are the latest chapter in the chronicles of abuse that have been the standard operating procedure of her [...]
July 1998 marked the end of my two years teaching English and Drama at Tiger Kloof School in South Africa. Earlier that year and with little idea of what to do next, I made a short trip back to the States for some lightening networking, determined to secure a new [...]
The UFT mourns the passing of a great progressive American educator, Ted Sizer. Many of the best New York City public schools have been inspired by and affiliated with the Coalition of Essential Schools founded by Sizer.
From the Coalition’s statement:
Ted’s personal style aligned perfectly with his approach to schools. [...]
Yes, we know teachers are not supposed to use words like “dumb.”
But after we read this Huffington Post piece by Tom Carroll, aficionado of the far right who heads up the New York Charter School Association and graces the editorial pages of the New York Post on a [...]
E.D. Hirsch Jr., who for many years has confounded and scattered his critics by not fitting cozily into any arbitrary educational camp of thought, has published a new book called The Making of Americans. It’s a fine “read” and an even better tonic, [...]
Wage Theft: that’s something we think happens to migrant labor and workers in low-paying service sector jobs. They do the work, but their unscrupulous employers rip them off, refusing to pay them for their labor.
But if you think wage theft won’t come to a school near you, think again. As [...]
[Editor's note: Mr. Music Teacher is a second-year teacher in an elementary school on Staten Island.]
As a new teacher, I am constantly assessing and critiquing my teaching methods. My first year of teaching went really well and I was able to develop new skills and learn from [...]
Education knows no bounds and no boundaries. It cannot be contained in the vacuum of a classroom or confined by defined curriculum. Teaching is a futile enterprise unless it breaks down walls of ignorance, not merely in terms of academic deficiencies but also as reckoned by failure to work for [...]
On September 30, Mayor Bloomberg’s campaign announced a plan to create 100 new charter schools in the city.
This proposal is disturbing. Public school parents who are already bearing the brunt of the expansion are complaining and with good reason. They have partnered with us for years in the fight [...]
Highlights from the Oct. 15 issue of New York Teacher:
Two hundred and sixty new chapter leaders spent the weekend of Oct. 2-4 in Princeton, N.J., being trained by UFT instructors on issues ranging from the grievance procedure to how to organize to [...]
[Editor's note: Kindergarten Correspondent is a third-year teacher in an elementary school in Brooklyn.]
Alex was a crier. From the very first day, he cried. Not just a few tears, sad-to-leave-his-mommy crying, but tear-soaked T-shirts, hold-him-tight-while-his-mom-ran-out-the-door crying. Every morning for the first three weeks of school, he cried. He cried for [...]
[Editor's note: Kansan in the Bronx is a second-year teacher in a Bronx middle school.]
Something that got me through the first year was the ability to rely on veteran teachers to advise me on how to fix the problems I was experiencing. During the two weeks leading up to school [...]
On Oct. 1, UFT President Michael Mulgrew was interviewed on NY1’s “Road to City Hall.”
Part 1
Part 2 after the jump.
Part 2
[...]
[Editor's note: Little Miss Sunshine is the pseudonym of a second-year teacher at an elementary school in Queens.]
The first few weeks of the school year is the most stressful time of year for most teachers. Before the beginning of the school year I tried to prepare [...]
Highlights from the Oct. 1 issue of New York Teacher:
The UFT filed grievances on Sept. 24 involving 6,749 classes citywide that exceeded the contractual limits on class size.
The UFT joined education, labor, parent and community groups at a Sept. [...]
[Teacher Man is the pseudonym of a third-year teacher at an intermediate school in Brooklyn.]
I have just begun my third year of teaching here in New York City, and from a pedagogical standpoint, things are going well. After two years that were more of a learning experience for me than [...]
Caroline Hoxby’s updated report on New York City’s charter schools uses a provocative construct: she finds that Harlem’s charter students are making standardized test score gains that put them on track to substantially close their achievement gap with Scarsdale.
Hoxby, a Hoover Institution fellow and Stanford professor who has [...]
AFT President Randi Weingarten joined other labor leaders in criticizing the Obama administration’s education policies as “Bush III,” reports the Washington Post. “It looks like the only strategies they have are charter schools and measurement,” Weingarten asserted. Jack Jennings, a president of the Center on Education Policy agreed, [...]
[Editor's note: Viajante ambulante is the pseudonym of a second-year ESL teacher in a Queens middle school.]
During my first year of teaching, I took a trip to Cuba and started up a pen pal program between my students and Cuban students. Seeing how interested and curious my students became [...]
This past spring, the UFT helped secure two new subway train cars for the students of Transit Tech High School. The MTA videotaped the delivery of the cars, and is featuring a story on that project as part of its September edition of Transit Transit News Magazine.
Staten Island’s widely-praised PS 22 Chorus, and its director Gregg Breinberg, are enjoying more high-profile attention, this time from VH1.
According to the Staten Island Advance:
Just last week, Breinberg’s fifth-grade chorus received a $30,000 check for PS 22’s new keyboard lab from VH1’s Save the Music Foundation. His choral [...]
Stanford University economist Caroline Hoxby released yesterday an update to her 2007 study of charter schools in New York City.1 In the study, she compares the state examination results of students enrolled in the City’s charter schools (i.e. those students “lotteried-in”) to the results for those students [...]
Today’s New York Times has a profile of UFT President Michael Mulgrew.
And here’s a video from Sept. 17 when Mulgrew appeared on the “PIX11 News at 10” to help weatherman, and former teacher, Mr. G hand out school supplies to needy children.
[...]The American Federation of Teachers in conjunction with the Walter P. Reuther Library of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University seek applicants for The Albert Shanker Fellowship for Research In Education. This research grant provides assistance for advanced graduate students and junior/senior faculty utilizing the American Federation of Teachers [...]
TAMIMENT LIBRARY BOOK TALK
by Nelson Lichtenstein
author of
The Retail Revolution:
How Wal-Mart Created A Brave New World of Business
Wednesday September 23rd, 2009
6:00pm – 8:00pm
Tamiment Library is located in Manhattan on the 10th floor of Bobst Library
70 Washington Square South (Between LaGuardia & University)
For more [...]
There was an ancient time, according to a story often heard in Tweed, when teachers needed due process to protect their academic freedom. This was the era of the Red Scare and the period of McCarthyism, times which are far in our past. Today’s teachers face no such threat and [...]
[Editor's note: miss brave is the pseudonym for a third-year elementary school teacher in Queens in her first year as a classroom teacher. She blogs at miss brave teaches nyc, where these posts originally appeared.]
Tuesday, Sept. 1
The past few mornings, I’ve been awake early, my mind buzzing [...]
Hundreds of UFT members took to the streets for the city’s annual Labor Day parade on Sept. 12. Braving the elements they marched up Fifth avenue wearing T-shirts commemorating the union’s upcoming 50th anniversary.
[...]
The National Journal Online’s new education blog is worth taking a look at, and I swear I’d say that even if I weren’t posting there. What the journal has done is convene a permanent panel of ed experts from across the policy spectrum. Every [...]
President Obama addressed the AFL-CIO Constitutional Convention in Pittsburgh today, Sept. 15.
He spoke about the urgent need for health care reform and reiterated his support for the Employee Free Choice Act.
These are the reforms I’m proposing. These are the reforms labor has been championing. These are the reforms the American [...]
In the World Health Organization’s ranking of health care systems worldwide.
Do you think the Fordham Foundation’s Flypaper blog will devote the next two weeks to a Health Olympics, explaining how our showing behind such powerhouses as San Marino and Malta means economic disaster for the United States?
1 France
2 [...]
The skeptical take of The American Prospect’s Dana Goldstein on the Obama adminstration’s promotion of individual merit pay for educators has led to a widely read exchange on a number of different blogs. Take a look at Matt Yglesias’ two posts, here and here, as well as [...]
Alabanza: In Praise of Local 100
By Martin Espada
for the 43 members of
Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees
Local 100, working at the Windows on the World restaurant,
who lost their lives in the attack on the World Trade Center
Alabanza. Praise the cook with a shaven head
and a tattoo [...]
How much do collaboration, mutual respect, and other aspects of the school environment matter for improving outcomes for middle school kids?
Quite a lot, apparently, and it shows in New York City’s data. Every year, the DOE surveys teachers, secondary students, and parents to find out what the school looks [...]
President Obama delivered a back-to-school message to students in Arlington, Va. yesterday, Sept. 8. The speech was also broadcast live on the Web.
Referencing his own days as a student, Obama stressed the importance of hard work and personal responsibility.
Read the transcript here.
[...]UFT President Michael Mulgrew appeared on Fox’s “Good Day NY” this morning, Sept. 8. He spoke to Rosanna Scotto about swine flu precautions and President Obama’s back-to-school speech to students:
We think the speech is fantastic. Anytime you can have the president engage students and talk about being responsible [...]
A teacher in Grimsby, England was recently suspended and is threatened with termination for “bringing the school into disrepute.” Her offense was that in a private conversation on Facebook she referred to a particular class as “just as bad” as another class on the grade. She said that and [...]
“American politics has often been an arena for angry minds.” So opened a classic 1964 essay of the renowned American historian, Richard Hofstadter, in which he analyzed a style of politics which is remarkably evocative of what has passed for political discourse these last two months. Consider how Hofstadter’s [...]
According to a proposed update of the Texas high school history standards curriculum, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who brought us such programs as social security, does not qualify as a “significant political and social leader in the United States.” Accordingly they have done their duty as they see it and [...]
[Editor’s note: miss brave is the pseudonym for a public school teacher in Queens going into her third year. She blogs at miss brave teaches nyc, where this post originally appeared.]
It always takes me about a month to adjust to the rhythm of the summer. For the first [...]
Highlights from the August issue of New York Teacher:
Scores of new teachers accepted the UFT’s invitation to its 2009 Summer Series, designed to bring teachers in their first three years on the job together and to [...]
[Editor's note: Bronxteach is the pseudonym of an elementary school teacher going into his third year. He blogs at bronxteach.com, where this post first appeared.]
A little more than two years ago I found myself trying to decide between New York City Teaching Fellows and a paralegal position at [...]
[Editor's note: Bronxteach is the pseudonym of an elementary school teacher going into his third year. He blogs at bronxteach.com, where this post first appeared.]
A little more than two years ago I found myself trying to decide between New York City Teaching Fellows and a paralegal position [...]
The mayor has announced that he is expanding his plan for ending social promotion. The problem with that plan isn’t the goal, but rather the means by which to reach it: by relying (can you guess?) on how well the student does on state exams. Over-reliance on test scores [...]
Four high-definition closed circuit television cameras and microphones have been installed in the classrooms of each of hundreds of British schools and the authorities do not deny that they are determined to expand this surveillance on a massive scale.
They claim that the footage, of which the principal is in charge, [...]
When Eva Moskowitz and the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal pile on in an attack on teacher unions, and Eduwonk’s Andy Rotherham, the National Association of Public Charter Schools and the Fordham Foundation’s Flypaper add their blogging imprimaturs, you know that this is [...]
Michael Mulgrew was elected President of the UFT in July 2009, effective August 1. Prior to his current position, Michael was elected Vice President for Career and Technical Education (CTE) High Schools in 2005 and became the union’s Chief Operating Officer in 2008.
A Staten Island native, [...]
In an opinion piece in yesterday’s Daily News, Randi Weingarten outlined the AFT’s priorities for education reform: establishing effective collaboration between educators and policy makers, finding fairer ways to evaluate teachers, and setting up community schools in those districts that would benefit most from them. She also put out [...]
Whitney Tilson, as quoted by Mike Petrilli on the Fordham Foundation’s Flypaper blog:
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard certain reformers denigrate “higher order thinking” and “problem solving” as just more union code words for an anti-accountability agenda.
[...]Learning is all about motivation. Many students will race around a track in sheets of rain and howling wind. In any chosen athletic contest or training they will wring every ounce of energy from their psyche and body. They will not wait to be driven, but will drive themselves almost [...]
The rally planned for Wednesday has been canceled.
From stelladorostrike.com:
Great news! We now have reason to believe that Lance, Inc. has backed out of the deal to buy the Stella D’oro brand from Brynwood Partners!
This is a very important victory, although we cannot claim credit for it. Our efforts to [...]
First Sarah Palin announces that she will be pursuing her political career, post-governorship, on Twitter. Then Eduwonk’s Andy Rotherham announces that he, too, will be joining the Twitterati.
Maybe we just see everything through the eyes of the educator, but isn’t Twitter just a blog with attention deficit disorder?
[...]The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools has made no secret of its antipathy toward teacher unions and teacher voice in charter schools, despite the growing presence of unionized charter schools in the charter school world. In the month since the public announcement of the innovative Green Dot NY–UFT [...]
It is well known that summer Fridays are a notoriously slow news time. Reporters and editors are often pushed to find creative attempts to fill empty pages and air space.
Professional anti-teacher union blogger Michael Antonucci seems to have his own summer doldrums when it comes to dreaming up new attacks [...]
The United Federation of Teachers mourns the passing of one of our own, Frank McCourt.
Before Frank became famous as the Pulitzer Prize winning author of Angela’s Ashes, Tis and Teacher Man, he was a teacher of English in New York City public high schools. For nearly thirty years, he taught [...]
Both white and black students raised their math and reading achievement levels from 1992 to 2007, according to a new federal report, but New York was not among the states that narrowed the achievement gap between the races. In fact, few states narrowed their black-white test gaps in either [...]
No need to do a verbal pirouette. Let’s state it outright without caveats: it is indeed a birthright for all Americans to have quality health care regardless of their station in society and circumstance of life. Anyone opposed to that should hang their heads in shame and not have the [...]
New York City recently released the results for its Learning Environment Surveys, and they tell us something interesting about students and respect. The Department of Education administers the survey annually to parents, teachers, and secondary school students. The 410,000 students who completed the survey were asked to characterize their school [...]
[Editor’s note: miss brave is the pseudonym for a second-year elementary school teacher in Queens. She blogs at miss brave teaches nyc, where this post originally appeared.]
So I’ve been hibernating for a little while, getting used to the idea of being a classroom teacher for the first [...]
Highlights from the latest issue of New York Teacher:
It was standing room only, overflowing with those who had come to say goodbye to and celebrate the leadership of Randi Weingarten, who was stepping down as UFT [...]
That is what the far right-wing Family Research Council asks about Kevin Jennings, founder and former executive director of GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network.
Well, since you asked, absolutely yes.
GLSEN has done admirable work in diversity education, and Jennings has been nominated as the new Assistant [...]
Randi Weingarten appeared on WNYC’s “The Brian Lehrer Show” on Monday morning and spoke about the possible sunset of mayoral control (now a reality), among other topics.
[If the embedded audio player is not working, you can listen to the segment here.]
[...][Editor's note: This "What Matters Most" column appeared in the New York Times on Sunday, June 28.]
Last week, I told New York City educators that I was stepping down from the best job I have ever had, leading the United Federation of Teachers. Last summer, after being elected president of [...]
About a year ago, a task force released a report calling for a Broader, Bolder Approach to education. Broader Bolder’s approach was exactly what its name implied, a fuller and more audacious look at what it would take to raise truly educated children all [...]
[Editor's note: Just Miss is the pseudonym of a second-year teacher in a high school in the Bronx.]
There is dirt under my fingernails. Always. I can’t ever seem to get them clean, no matter how many times I use the pink industrial soap in the faculty bathroom, or the school-issued [...]
On Monday the city learned that its on-time graduation rate rose to 66 percent, its highest level in at least 20 years. By the more stringent state counting method. the city graduated 56.4 percent of its Class of 2008 on time, a 10-year high at least. Either way, it’s pretty [...]
It’s been sympathetically and properly noted that police officers are technically on duty 24/7. That observation should be made with equal soundness about teachers. We, too, may be off the clock but our time is never our own, try as we may to “psych” ourselves into “vacation mode.” That’s the [...]
Today, the nation’s preeminent charter school organization, Green Dot Public Schools, and its largest teacher union local, the United Federation of Teachers, signed an innovative and pioneering collective bargaining agreement for Green Dot’s New York City charter school. The contract was approved [...]
The UFT and New York City have reached a tentative agreement that will secure pension benefits and end the two days of work before Labor Day, while providing needed savings to the City. The actual agreement, which will be submitted to the Delegate Assembly for its approval, can be [...]
[Editor’s note: Ms. Teach4Life is the pseudonym of a tenth-year teacher currently in her first year at a Manhattan middle school.]
At the end of each school year, I take time to reflect on the year and evaluate which components were successful, and which aspects may need to be tweaked. Over [...]
Authoritarian regimes that don’t like democratic elections have a similar antipathy for free, democratic trade unions. Iran has a number of its leading trade unionists in jail, and has arrested a number more in its attempts to stop the protests against the recent stolen election. Amnesty International has begun [...]
Ron Isaac, Marie Boo, miss brave, Leo Casey, W.J. Levay, Edwize Admin, Kansan in the Bronx, Teaching in Brooklyn, Maisie
