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Op-eds & Letters to the Editor
This section archives columns, opinion pieces, and letters written by UFT members and officers and published in various newspapers and websites.
Letters to the editor |
January 13, 2012
Letter to the New York Daily News from UFT member Michael Friedman.
Letters to the editor |
January 11, 2012
Letter to the New York Daily News from UFT retiree Vincent Gaglione.
Letters to the editor |
January 11, 2012
Letter to the New York Daily News from UFT member Guy Nevirs.
Op-Eds |
January 8, 2012
Despite numerous negotiating sessions, the UFT has been unable to reach an agreement with the Department of Education (DOE) on key points of a new teacher evaluation system. We are seeking an agreement that meets the spirit of the teacher evaluation legislation in two important ways.
Op-Eds |
October 26, 2011
Pity the poor millionaires. Hedge fund magnate John Paulson — who reportedly made $5 billion personally last year — reacted recently to Occupy Wall Street protesters by talking about how much the top 1% of New York City families pay in income taxes. What he didn't talk about was how the same 1% made nearly half (44%) of all the income in the city, or that when all state and local taxes are taken into account, the richest taxpayers in fact pay a lower percentage of their total income in taxes than do people in the middle.
Letters to the editor |
October 17, 2011
Letter to the New York Daily News from UFT Treasurer Mel Aaronson.
Op-Eds |
August 25, 2011
This Saturday, thousands of New York City teachers will be in Washington, D.C., with the parents, community groups and clergy with whom we work so closely, our friends in the civil rights movement, elected leaders from the City Council and state Legislature and tens of thousands of others from across the nation for a historic march for jobs and justice on the eve of the unveiling of the new Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial. Editor's Note: This event was later canceled due to Hurricane Irene.
Op-Eds |
September 1, 2010
The instructional strategy of the New York City public school system — prepping children for a now-discredited series of state tests — has failed. Particularly now that the state has won nearly $700 million in new federal funds in the Race to the Top competition, we need to be honest about that failure, so we can finally focus on strategies that will make a difference for our kids.
Op-Eds |
May 19, 2010
Mayor Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein have made layoffs — currently estimated at more than 4,000 teachers — the centerpiece of their attempt to balance the city's budget. But even as we work with legislators in Albany to find resources that would limit the damage to schools caused by the state's very serious budget problems, Bloomberg and Klein are choosing to ignore a time-tested, effective method for saving hundreds of millions of dollars while still keeping class sizes reasonable: a retirement incentive.
Op-Eds |
April 16, 2010
Rubber rooms, where New York City teachers can sit for years while being investigated or while going through a hearing process, don't work for anyone. They don't work for schools, students or teachers.
Op-Eds |
January 18, 2010
As New York finalizes its application for the federal Race to the Top program, a proposal to end the cap on the number of charter schools has been promoted as key to our success in getting these new federal funds. But promoters of this proposal are ignoring two other critical issues: The small role that charter schools play in the Race to the Top application, and the fact that city charters are not serving a representative sample of our neediest students.
Op-Eds |
December 20, 2009
UFT President Michael Mulgrew, in an op-ed piece published in the Daily News on Dec. 20, said it was time for the DOE to help, rather than close, struggling schools. "The truth is," he wrote, "that the students in these schools are poised to become the latest victims of a failed educational strategy — one that ignores the possibility of strengthening schools, closes them on the basis of mysterious and ever-changing criteria and shuffles thousands of our neediest students from one struggling institution to another."
Op-Eds |
June 29, 2009
The New York State Senate's failure to act on the issue of school governance in New York City is cause for great concern for parents, students and those of us at the UFT.
Letters to the editor |
June 8, 2009
The Post's zeal to attack the United Federation of Teachers at every turn apparently resulted in your use of old math-test scores in comparing how our charter school compares with others in New York City.
Letters to the editor |
April 21, 2009
We at the United Federation of Teachers are proud of our advocacy on behalf of children and the educators who teach them, and we won't apologize for lobbying for a safety net for those New Yorkers most vulnerable to budget cuts.
Op-Eds |
March 28, 2009
Amid the current economic uncertainty, myths are circulating about the pension programs and health insurance for municipal workers Municipal Labor Coalition Chairperson and Uniformed Sanitationmen’s Association President Harry Nespoli and MLC Co-Chair and UFT President Randi Weingarten wrote in the Daily News on March 28, “These myths not only misrepresent the problems, they stand in the way of finding realistic solutions.”
Letters to the editor |
March 20, 2009
We at the UFT are very proud of the landmark school-wide bonus program that we developed in conjunction with the Department of Education.
Letters to the editor |
March 19, 2009
The United Federation of Teachers (UFT) supports preserving the school governance law giving New York City's mayor control of the schools with modifications that improve and strengthen, not weaken the structure.
Letters to the editor |
February 23, 2009
Is The Post so virulently anti-union that it views any attempt by teachers to have a say in the running of their schools as a threat to academic quality?
Op-Eds |
February 16, 2009
Rebuilding our economy for the long haul — not just to meet today's needs — requires investing in education. President Obama rightly has called for immediate investments to build the classrooms, laboratories and libraries our children require to meet 21st-century challenges and to increase funding for crucial educational programs. But to address the challenges and seize the opportunities of this new century, we must do even more. There are many areas in education around which we need to build consensus. A good place to start would be revisiting the issue of national standards. Abundant evidence suggests that common, rigorous standards lead to more students reaching higher levels of achievement.
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