Randi Weingarten's Spring Conference Address: May 10, 2008
May 13, 2008 12:15 PM
Good afternoon and welcome. I cannot believe that this is my tenth spring conference as president. Where did the time go?
For me, 2008 will always be the Year of my Midlife Crisis. It was the year of my 50th birthday, my 10th anniversary as UFT president and the year our national president, Ed McElroy, announced his retirement.
Then, in the last few weeks, with the economy turning and a budget crisis looming, the DOE stopped singing Kumbaya and reverted to the blame-the-teachers routine. Rather than leading, they took pot shots at the tenure process, ATRs, the union, and virtually any-body or any-thing they could find to blame for the budget cuts.
Thus, my midlife crisis.
Actually, 2008 has been a year with some significant positive changes as well. Usually you don’t see defining moments until they are over, but this time they are staring us in the face.
This year we are finally emerging from the corrosive effects of the 1970s fiscal crisis -- effects that diminished the quality of our schools and eroded the professional status of New York City’s educators.
Today, teacher pay and benefits have rebounded to far more competitive levels, as they were before 1975. New York has once again become an attractive job market for teachers, new and experienced. In the past six years alone, tough bargaining has increased salaries by 43 percent, this month breaking the $100,000 horizon. You deserve it and more. Your job gets harder every day. And that’s a point we will make when we sit down with a new mayor a year-and-a-half from now.
On top of higher salaries, we secured pension equity, regaining a benefit that has seemed irretrievable ever since we lost it in 1973. You know what I’m talking about – the ability to retire at age 55 with full benefits.
In recent years, that goal seemed further away than ever. Employers nationwide were, and still are, diminishing pension benefits, wiping out plans and defaulting on payouts. But we never gave up, and this year we did it!
The schools, too, even with today’s troubling economy, are finally coming out of the chronic underfunding that plagued them for more than 30 years. Today, we’re in the midst of the biggest building program since the fiscal crisis, and the maintenance and repairs that were endlessly deferred through generations of students are finally being done.
The school budget has grown by about 40% since 2002, and the 13-year-long Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit has reaped $5 billion more in the next four years – another seemingly endless fight finally won.
Well, almost. As it turns out, that fight isn’t quite over. Albany delivered big time, but now the city wants to renege on its share, despite the promises made only a year ago. Well, we can’t – and we won’t -- let that happen.
The union, too, working with ACORN, broadened its reach with a historic organizing drive in the face of a shrinking national labor movement. As a result, we have grown to 200,000 members, the largest union local in the country.
And we did it the old-fashioned way! Offering voice to the voiceless, power to the powerless, courage to the fearful and solidarity to those who felt alone. Thirty-thousand family child care providers have elected to join us, and share with teachers the dreams of a middle-class life for themselves and their families. This is the same aspiration that millions of workers before them have achieved through the efforts of their unions.
So, it turns out that 2008 has been quite a significant year. We have made real progress on many of our goals of the last quarter-century – including those I have trumpeted in the last 10 years. Let me spell them out.
- First, for public education to succeed it must be part of the community. It must be seen, not as a business, but as a community value. That is the only way that our citizens and parents will continue to support our public schools as the bedrock of our democracy.
- Second, we must effect continuous and sustainable academic growth for all our students. This is our job, despite the obstacles thrown in our way.
- Third, speaking of obstacles, we must work to overcome them by fighting for the resources, conditions and professional respect you need.
- Fourth, we must achieve economic security for our members, which is key to attracting and retaining the finest educators.
- And fifth, we must work to build and maintain a strong labor movement.
Let me discuss them in reverse order.
A strong labor movement is important for the same reasons we need a free, common, universal public education system. They are the keys, backed by vigorous political action, to eliminate poverty and gain entry to the middle class. That opportunity must be available to all, if America is to continue to fulfill its promise.
We’ve worked hard to organize new members, not just the child care providers, but hospital nurses, administrative law judges, private and charter school educators, and those who provide services at United Cerebral Palsy.
And for us, organizing goes beyond enlisting new groups of members. We’ve made a priority of raising union awareness among our current members as well, shining a spotlight on courageous members who stand up for themselves and their students, and reaching out to new teachers.
Speaking of new teachers, contrary to what some in my generation expected, our young teachers are well aware of the widening gap between rich and poor in America. They get that good public schools and a strong trade union movement will reverse that tide. They are just as outraged as we and our union’s founders were, at the system’s arbitrariness and injustices, and they are deeply committed to being the best teachers they can be to help their kids not just dream their dreams but achieve them.
I’ve already mentioned our progress on the fourth goal, your economic security. Today, UFT members are among the highest paid big-city teachers in the nation, with secure health benefits and retirement income.
The demands of the job are greater than they’ve ever been. So I will never apologize for any economic benefits we negotiate, and I hope you don’t either.
Our third goal is to make sure you have what you need to do the best job you can. It’s simply not enough to say, as the school system often does, “Just do it!” and poof! -- you’re a great teacher. We all need some help, and some experience, before we become great teachers, and we all need appropriate conditions to do our job.
For years we have fought in every venue available for the resources and conditions you need. Whether it was in court to compel the city to maintain its buildings, or at the bargaining table to win basic classroom supplies (and then to add Teachers Choice from the City Council), or in the legislature to require enforceable school discipline codes and protections against bullying. These days we are as likely to be responding to an environmental health and safety crisis or to be helping members hone their professional skills, as we are to be answering a question about pay or health insurance.
Then there’s been the effort closest to my heart. Remember the Aretha Franklin song, R-E-S-P-E-C-T. It’s practically become my theme song. Seriously, we know teacher voice and professional discretion are pivotal to teaching and learning and we champion them in everything we do.
Now we’re getting to what everyone talks about: How do we effect continuous and sustainable student academic growth and social development? For any reform, or model or strategy, to work, it must meet two tests: Is it good for kids? And, will teachers buy in? And they will, if they have voice and if the reforms are rooted in common sense, good practice and fair treatment.
The Chancellor’s District was probably the first comprehensive reform and education improvement effort I negotiated, way back in 1999. For kids it had longer hours, smaller classes, certified teachers. For members it was voluntary, with additional pay, more voice, and access to resources. The result? Everybody thrived, kids and teachers alike, and it was one of the four most successful turnaround districts in the nation, according to the Council of Great City School Districts!
But I must admit, I am particularly pleased when we take one of the administration’s “gotcha” schemes and transform it into something that is fair to members and good for kids. The schoolwide bonus program is one example of that. It took their fixation on individual merit pay, which would have been divisive and destructive of the school community, and made it a voluntary, positive way to both promote collaboration and recognize the achievements of outstanding educators, working together, to help kids.
Our work to upgrade our own profession, addressing head-on the issues of Teacher Quality and Retention, and our unionized charter schools, are two more examples. We took what were essentially anti-union initiatives and demonstrated in a real-world way that you can have innovation and quality through a union contract.
Where do we go next with a real reform agenda? And when I say real reform, I mean reform that helps kids and schools maintain continuous, sustainable improvement. The next reform challenge is to embrace accountability, but make sure it is done in a fair, accurate, meaningful and thoughtful manner. Accountability is a legitimate concern, but what exactly does it mean? Accountability for what, by whom and to what end? Are math and English test scores the be-all and end-all? Are front-line educators the only ones to be held responsible? And what are the consequences? Is it meant to punish or to point the way to improvement?
Sadly, for too many so-called reformers, the purpose of accountability is to fix blame, not to fix schools. As a result, teachers see it as being done to them, not with them.
There is probably no better example of that than the administration’s recent failed attempt to condition tenure on student test scores. Only non-educators could think it’s possible to reduce the complex and nuanced job of teaching to what can be measured once a year, and mid-year at that, on a standardized test.
I’m proud of that victory because, contrary to what some editorial boards believe, we had right, and not just might, on our side. Someday we may look back on this as the moment we began striking the proper balance between teaching and testing, and when we began putting the brakes on the transformation of the public schools into Test Prep Inc.
Lost in this battle, however, was the union’s effort to propose a real accountability system:
- Accountability that recognizes that student, teacher and school success mean much more than producing high scores on tests.
- Accountability that is meant as a guide to improve, not a tool to punish or a weapon of fear.
- Accountability that understands there are some things that are beyond the teacher’s control.
- Accountability that holds everyone responsible for doing their share, including those at the top.
Right now, there’s a ways to go to achieve that. But our alternative to the School Progress Reports that were issued last fall has even the Daily News saying it warrants a careful look.
Well, it’s not quite a Letterman Top Ten, but I’m up to Number One, and the main point I want to make today. Our first goal was to re-establish the connection between public schools and the community, and to ensure that education is seen as a community value.
What do I mean by that, and why is it so important now?
Whether you studied it in an ed course or in American history, you know that our public schools have always been strongly rooted in home, church and community. Those early one-room schoolhouses may not look like schools today, but they established a democratic tradition that is as true today as then: Schools operate under the community’s oversight and are an essential part of the community. You can no sooner take the school out of the community than you can take the community out of the school.
Two seminal events of the last century also spurred the move to align the community and its public schools more closely, and we recently celebrated the anniversary of both. Brown v Board of Education made it clear that the U.S. would settle for nothing less than universal access, and the groundbreaking 1983 report, A Nation At Risk, declared we should accept nothing less than universal attainment.
As teachers, we understand that home and school must go hand in hand if we are ever to reach those twin goals of universal access and universal attainment, something no other nation has ever accomplished.
Our union is firmly committed to these ideals. And just as we are finally emerging from the darkness of the 1970s fiscal crisis, we are also emerging from the darkness of the 1960s divide between educators and communities that opened during the turmoil of Ocean Hill-Brownsville.
At that time, as some of you recall and many of us regret, public school educators, and parents and community members, were alienated from one another. What divided us, ironically, was something we actually shared – anger and frustration about the chronic underfunding of the schools and the system’s failure to meet the needs of all of our children. Rather than provide the resources needed, government pitted parents and teachers against each other.
It took years of hard work to repair relationships and rebuild trust from that rift. But we have made rebuilding community connections a priority because we know that it is key to everything else we want to accomplish.
Today, that divide, for all intents and purposes, has closed. Polls show that parents regard teachers as their most trustworthy source of information and help. Last June, a Peter Hart poll asked New York City public school parents how much they trust various players like the mayor, the chancellor and others to have the right approach to improving schools and making sure students receive a quality education. The top scorers? Teachers, with 78% of parents choosing them, more than double the mayor’s score and triple the chancellor’s. In the Department of Education’s own surveys of public school parents, 90% say they are either satisfied or very satisfied with their children’s teachers.
So we have worked hard to build home and community alliances, and parents have responded. Whether it’s our annual parent conference attended by thousands, our Dial-A-Teacher homework helpline program, our outreach for Open School Week, buses for parents on Albany Lobby Day -- all these represent the union’s commitment to working with parents.
And it goes further. When School Leadership Teams were first established, as our Dewey awardee and then-city-Board-of-Education-president Bill Thompson may recall, it was the UFT who insisted that the PA president be part of the core group. We also insisted that parents on the teams be paid stipends so they could hire child care or pay for transportation and participate fully. And when the DOE failed to give the parent and community members on those teams the training and support they needed, it was the union, with the Urban League and Aspira that filled that need.
Indeed, the work our union has done together with parents and community members on behalf of our children is the work I am most proud of. For almost all of the last decade’s accomplishments – the fight for more resources for schools, and the fights for a fair contract, professional treatment and better conditions for teaching and learning – were made possible by coalitions of parents, community members and educators speaking with one voice.
This is a partnership that benefits us all, but especially the kids. Take the most obvious example: UFT support for the Campaign for Fiscal Equity -- including everything from legal and financial assistance to lobbying, rallying, and even civil disobedience – that support helped win that groundbreaking case and do right by our students.
Then there is New Yorkers for Smaller Classes. With the combined strength of many child advocacy organizations, including the Hispanic Federation, Class Size Matters, and the NAACP, we succeeded in securing a real class size reduction program backed by state law. Face it. The union had made some headway, but working alone, we were unable to move the system substantially in that direction, despite years of trying.
And what about the one that could have been a flashpoint between parents and teachers, but instead became a transformative moment, a model of real education reform?
Parents in District 9 were unhappy with the state of their children’s schools. Rather than blame the teachers, they diagnosed the problem. They saw that teacher turnover in District 9 was quite high, and the many new teachers in their schools needed the help of more experienced colleagues.
So they came to the union to ask what could be done. Together, we worked out a program to reduce attrition and attract experienced teachers to the South Bronx. The Lead Teacher program provided a career ladder to give veteran teachers an opportunity to share their expertise and help newer teachers. Plus, they could earn more money without having to leave the classroom. For newer teachers, it was just the help they needed. And for schools, it provided a new tool for improvement. Sitting together at the bargaining table, those Bronx parents and the UFT negotiated the program’s terms and conditions with the administration.
Still, that is not the end of the story.
Because in the process, Bronx Community Collaborative, which is what that group of District 9 parents evolved into, learned a thing or two about community organizing. As a result, we have joined together in several citywide fights, most recently to safeguard the school budget.
That fight is being spearheaded by a coalition that we have called the Keep the Promises Coalition. Our shared concern about the latest reorganization brought many of us together a year ago. Among us were groups that had been shut out for years, unable to get their concerns addressed, whether those concerns were immigrants who were English language learners, or underfunded middle schools, or special education, or the arts.
In fact, as you may recall, because of that coalition, the UFT last year took the unprecedented step of presenting our Dewey Award, not to an individual, but to 14 community groups! In the absence of a meaningful vehicle for input, these groups gave voice to parents who had been ignored for years.
And now, in the current budget fight, this growing coalition is poised to keep our promise to children, to champion their cause and to fight to protect them when others fail to do so. You proved that in March when you came out to City Hall in the rain by the thousands. And we proved it in the work we did in Albany lobbying state legislators and the governor to keep their promise to our children – which they did by delivering 600 million new dollars to city schools.
Clearly, the more-than-40 groups in the Keep the Promises coalition do not merely talk the talk about how it takes a village, they walk the walk.
You know, that maxim is so broadly accepted now, it is almost cliché.
Except, apparently, among the powers-that-be in New York City.
The Bloomberg/Klein administration, for whatever reasons, has shut the community out. There is a difference between access to a parent coordinator to answer questions about the progress of one’s child, and having real voice in educational policies, whether for one’s own child, the whole school or systemwide.
For example, if a child should be in a Gifted and Talented program, and such programs have been eliminated from the local school, what venue is there for the parent to protest or to work for their restoration? The same with pre-k or access to special education services. It takes a major public relations disaster, like when the bus routes were changed mid-year without first consulting parents, to get the DOE to change an announced policy.
And as far as schools reflecting the priorities and values of the collective community, as is our tradition in the American system of locally run schools, there is simply no channel for that to happen in NYC. How much test prep is the right amount? Are double periods of math and English necessary for all middle-schoolers? What about cell phones: How can we balance the need for parents to be in touch with their children against the need for kids to focus on learning and not on texting their friends during class time? Major decisions affecting parents, children and the community are simply announced via press release. No hearings are held before decisions are made, no opinions are sought.
In fact, what we have in our city, as Diane Ravitch and I wrote in 2004, is public education minus the public. We have all the outward trappings of a traditional public education system – a citywide board of citizens, community councils, even school-based teams – but no decision-maker is answerable to any of them, or anyone else, except on that one election day when an incumbent mayor runs for re-election.
When we first supported the governance change, we believed a mayor who has clear responsibility for the state of the schools would be more likely to make them a priority. And while times were good, our prediction proved correct.
But as we all know, true commitment isn’t really tested until hard choices must be made. In other words, when times are tough, who will really put children first? Without an independent school board, without an independent chancellor, who will stand up and make the case for our public school students? Without a community voice, who will protest if central administrators protect their own, while forcing schools to make painful cuts? Without checks and balances, how will fairness be served?
Those questions and others will be addressed next year when the legislature reconsiders mayoral control. Please, don’t misunderstand me. I am not signaling a position on mayoral control. Like our members, I am waiting for the UFT governance committee to complete its deliberations.
But regardless of what system governs the schools, we will always need a strong, independent advocacy voice. And that’s why the work of the Keep the Promises Coalition is critical, bringing together educators, parents, elected officials and community to be the champions children need.
In the last few years we have depended on an ad hoc network of coalitions to be that voice: one for CFE, one for smaller classes, one for middle schools, one for better school budgets. The enthusiasm and success of these groups testify to how badly they are needed.
What if that voice was institutionalized? What if there were a cohesive umbrella organization to serve as the people’s voice? It could be the voice of all the people who care about their schools – one that welcomes a Brooklyn neighborhood group, a Staten Island PTA, a Manhattan or Queens Community Education Council, or the citywide organizations like CSA, UFT or the Immigration Coalition. It could be a venue for the community to express its needs and priorities, an ongoing check and balance to the unfettered authority of the Dept of Education, a vehicle for bringing together different views, in mutual respect, always looking for what’s best for children.
With that in mind, the UFT and several other members of the Keep the Promises coalition announced yesterday that we will explore creating a permanent coalition, whose mission is to ensure that our city and state make good on the promise that children come first. We are joining with ACORN, the Alliance for Quality Education, the Council of Supervisors and Administrators, the NYC Coalition for Educational Justice, the New York Immigration Coalition and others in a partnership to fulfill this mission.
Why formalize it? Because it takes more than just reacting to a crisis to effect continuous, sustained student growth. You need an ongoing presence, you need research, you need a mailing list. You need to inform and educate the public -- and you need this not just with this administration, but with future ones as well. So our Keep the Promises Coalition would have as its job, Keeping Children First -- not some times, but for all time.
For the union, this permanent coalition is the logical culmination of where we’ve been heading for many years. From Al Shanker’s outreach to bring classroom paraprofessionals into the union after Ocean-Hill Brownsville, to Sandy Feldman’s work with African-American leaders, through the CFE campaign, right up to our Dewey awards last year, we have been working to fulfill the promise of the school-community connection, the parent-teacher bond.
I feel like I’ve come full circle. When I started this job, teachers needed the community back. Now it’s our turn to help the community get its schools back.
The state of our union is strong. There is no lack of battles yet to be fought, goals yet to be reached. But I am confident we will be up to the challenges, and continue to fight like hell on behalf of the kids we serve and the community we need. Thank you all.
