President's Perspective

Right makes might

by Randi Weingarten

Jun 7, 2007 11:59 AM

Some years you are ready to pull your hair out. Then, once in awhile, while nothing is perfect, there’s a year like this one.

Looking back at the goals and priorities we set for ourselves in the fall, we made more progress than any of us expected.

Wrapping up a contract ahead of time was a long shot, but we did it — and we did it with gains and, this time, no sacrifices.

On class size, with the city fighting us on every front, we knew any legislative language on class size would be an uphill battle, but given the governor’s promise to settle CFE, we had to try. And though not perfect, for the first time ever, we actually got a K-12 state mandate.

And, while I was determined that the union revamp our school safety operation, including our reporting system, even I was surprised that the actions we took led to the quadrupling of the number of incident reports from members and a new respect from the Police Department and the chancellor on the seriousness of this issue.

And then there was the unexpected challenge of the reorganization plan and a school funding formula with all the disruption they threatened. While we didn’t roll it back entirely, the changes we secured ensured that good schools will not be destabilized. Plus we built a coalition for public education whose solidarity and clout will only grow.

For this, my last column of the school year, let’s review how we got where we are and what lessons we can draw from the year.

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Class size. For as long as I have been president — and long before that — class size has been on the UFT’s front burner. Nevertheless, we would not buy into the false choice of pitting class size against salary. We had made class size a signature issue, but the city had thwarted us at every turn. For example, it used the courts to stop our access to the ballot after we’d collected tens of thousands of signatures on petitions. Then, Gov. Spitzer’s first drafts of legislation to implement the CFE court decision suggested, but did not require, the use of the money for class-size reduction. The battle in the Legislature over the amount, distribution and uses of CFE money was fierce. But parents and educators mobilized in tremendous numbers and with great organization. Every legislator was visited. Faxes flooded their offices. There was not a single crack in our wall of solidarity when confronting elected officials. We made our case over and over — that along with qualified teachers, nothing would boost learning like smaller classes — and in the end that logic carried the day.

Contract. Last November, we achieved an unprecedented early contract with no givebacks and a solid pay increase that will bring top pay for teachers to a milestone $100,000.

After our long and bruising contract battle with the mayor and the chancellor the previous year, we resolved to do things differently, very differently. We opened up our bargaining process internally, even as we began early negotiations with the city last fall outside the media glare.

To be honest, there were more than a few skeptics telling me a 300-member, bipartisan negotiating committee — to give rank-and-file members a greater role while allowing them to see up close what bargaining involves — would be unmanageable. But the committee worked. Now we had 300 connections into schools and invaluable feedback and insights from the field.

At the same time we increased our clout at the bargaining table by uniting in a broad coalition with 16 other unions representing half the city’s work force.

The new strategy paid off with a new contract that protects all our rights and benefits and brings the increase in salaries in six years to a minimum per educator of 43 percent.

Reorganization. In January, the mayor announced another major shakeup of the city school system that posed new and serious threats to stable schools and tenure. The new school financing system, as originally designed, would have penalized schools with stable faculties and encouraged high turnover by holding schools responsible for the actual cost of teachers on their payroll. And Chancellor Klein said he wanted student test scores to be a factor in teacher tenure decisions — something we unequivocally oppose.

Again, we didn’t attempt to fight this battle on our own, but instead, in an alliance that grew directly out of the successful coalition on CFE, class size and other issues, joined forces with parents and others in the community who shared our concerns. We made our case at town hall meetings and one-on-one with community and elected leaders. As support grew, the mayor began to feel the political pressure and agreed to significant changes. While we still have qualms about the restructuring, this “détente” agreement represents a big improvement. Most notably, successful schools will not be destabilized by budget cuts while struggling schools will get more resources. And the chancellor obliged himself to keep tenure standards the same this year. In the future, he’ll have to consult with us and he’ll have to square his reforms with a new state law that says tenure must be based on principal evaluation, peer review and how teachers use data in their instruction — and not on how children perform on standardized tests.

Safety. When Children First began in 2003, safety seemed to fall by the wayside. After several union protests, the mayor issued a mea culpa and committed the school system to refocusing attention on lax enforcement in schools. But then again last school year, we started seeing slippage.

It was time for a new approach.

Part of the answer lay in technology. We replaced a paper system with online reporting that guaranteed a quick response to any member reporting a safety incident or a violation of the student discipline code. Then, to make sure the school got help immediately, we decentralized our newly retrained safety team so we had specialists in every borough office. The response has been tremendous, with more than 10,000 reports coming in this year.

The system also keeps principals on their toes. Some members tell me their principals are now more responsive to discipline issues — especially if they’ve been visited by the union’s safety experts to assess the school’s safety plan and needs. Even as I write this on June 7, hundreds of UFT chapter leaders, many together with their principals, are attending UFT-DOE safety workshops.

Today you can walk into schools that were once out of control and find the halls empty of wandering students in hats and hoodies. Kids know the rules and they know there are swift and sure consequences for breaking them. Staff who had long ago forgotten that schools can be orderly have a new hopefulness. SAVE rooms are operating where that mandate had previously been ignored.

And next year there are already plans for more suspension centers. Safety is an issue that requires constant vigilance, but that vigilance pays off!

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

So, what strategies did these fights have in common? First, an aside is needed here. This is one of those times when I wish we were actually in a room together brainstorming the answers to this question. Sadly, a newspaper is not an interactive medium. However, I hope you will go on our blog at edwize.org or e-mail me at uftpres@uft.org to continue this conversation. I would love to read your ideas, and together we can further strategize for the battles we will surely face next year.

Getting back to the question, here are the common elements that I’ve identified:

First, we always focused on students’ needs. Virtually everything we advocate, including ensuring that our members have economic security, also benefits children.

We built coalitions. We recognize that we share common goals with others, and that a bridge built of a thousand rods of steel and concrete is stronger than a single long span of one or the other. And I am happy to report that our coalitions with parents, education advocates and community leaders grow stronger each day.

We engaged in politics, but always for the right reasons, and we never abuse political power. We need our elected officials and call on them often to help us accomplish our goals, like on class size or whistle-blower protection. But we cannot dictate every decision made by the elected officials whom we support, and it would be wrong to try.

We were willing to stand up and fight even when we knew we’d take heat for it. Perhaps the most difficult decision in this regard was the one to oppose the new student funding formula, because the DOE had cloaked it as “fairness” for poor and minority children. We knew this was smoke and mirrors, but we also knew that we had to fight for all children in all schools. So we stuck to our guns, and in the end our position was vindicated when we were joined by most of the important civil rights and ethnic organizations in the city.

Finally, we had right on our side. It makes my job as a union leader much more rewarding that we are a union with a dual mission, that we care as much about what our students need as we do about what we need. Who can accuse us of self-interest when we fight for things that will make our public schools better learning environments? Who could argue against the need for additional funding, safer schools, smaller classes and stable staffs?

So, when you pack up at the end of June, know that you did good. Please enjoy your summer and your well-deserved break.