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Topics in the News:
evaluation
Mayor Bloomberg’s surprise move to close down 33 “persistently lowest-achieving” schools has swept up schools that are already making substantial progress. It would also close schools that are confronting problems not of their own making. All but a handful were in a federally funded school improvement program that was in its first of three years.
In an intense Delegate Assembly on Jan. 18, UFT President Michael Mulgrew explained to delegates the competing visions of teacher evaluation held by the UFT and the city Department of Education that have resulted in the union being in Mayor Bloomberg’s direct line of fire.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo promised more money for city schools next year in his budget address on Jan. 17, a welcome reversal after three years of budget cuts. But he made the offer conditional: Local school districts, including the city Department of Education, will forfeit the funds if they do not agree with their unions on new teacher evaluation systems.
In response to pressure from Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the Department of Education has resumed talks with the UFT on the issue of teacher evaluations in 33 restart and transformation schools, nearly a month after the city walked away from the negotiating table. UFT President Mulgrew said the union hopes the governor's assistance "will lead to an evaluation system that helps teachers get better throughout their career, offers help and a process to remove teachers who are not successful in the difficult job of teaching, and is done fairly."
The following open letter from UFT President Michael Mulgrew to New York City parents ran as a full-page ad in the New York Daily News on Jan. 24.
“The mayor seems to be lost in his own fantasy world of education, the one where reality doesn’t apply,” declared UFT President Michael Mulgrew in response to the mayor’s State of the City speech on Jan. 12, in which, among other proposals, he threatened to fire half the staffs in 33 schools receiving federal School Improvement Grant support.
The UFT on Jan. 13 asked the state’s Public Employment Relations Board to order mediation to bring negotiations on a teacher evaluation system for 33 restart and transformation schools back on track, after the city walked out of the talks during the Christmas break week.
Some 150 UFT members, school principals and network leaders from New Visions schools attended a two-day conference at union headquarters over the Jan. 8 weekend where staff from the Danielson Group, an education consulting firm, offered workshops on the Danielson Framework for Teaching. The training session was part of a broader effort by the union to clear up the misunderstandings about the framework that have been perpetrated by the DOE in schools and earlier presentations.
There is but one conclusion that can be drawn from the Department of Education’s last-minute walkout from negotiations over a teacher evaluation system for 33 schools placed in the transformation and restart models: It was always Tweed’s intention to refuse to enter into an agreement.
Mayor Bloomberg is playing shameful political games with our school communities. Today the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) filed legal papers with the state Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) to declare impasse and charged the Department of Education with walking away from negotiations that would have brought additional funding and support to dozens of New York City schools.
UFT President Michael Mulgrew on Jan. 13 announced that the union has filed an impasse petition with the state’s Public Employment Relations Board (PERB). If PERB finds that an impasse exists, it will appoint a mediator and force the city to participate in attempts to reach a new agreement on the teacher evaluation process.
Letter to the New York Daily News from UFT member Michael Friedman.
Mayor Bloomberg in his State of the City address on Jan. 12 proposed merit pay for teachers, vowed to step up efforts to remove ineffective teachers, blamed the union for the breakdown of negotiations over a teacher evaluation system in 33 restart and transformation schools and announced that he would open 50 new charter schools in the next two years. UFT President Michael Mulgrew said, "The mayor seems to be lost in his own fantasy world of education, the one where reality doesn't apply."
Letter to the New York Daily News from UFT retiree Vincent Gaglione.
The following open letter from UFT President Michael Mulgrew to New York City parents ran as a full-page ad in the New York Daily News on Jan. 9.
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.
The DOE and the UFT failed to reach an agreement on a teacher evaluation system for 33 “persistently lowest achieving” schools by the Dec. 31 deadline set by the New York State Education Department. The impasse means the city could lose out on $60 million in federal funding. UFT President Mulgrew said, "Teachers look forward to the opportunity to improve their practice. If the DOE’s major focus is on penalizing its employees for their perceived shortcomings, rather than to devise a process that will help all teachers improve, it is doing a disservice to the schools and the children they serve."
The UFT and the Department of Education have been in intensive negotiations for the past two months over the details of a new teacher evaluation system for schools designated for the “restart” and “transformation” federal intervention models only. With a Dec. 31 deadline looming for finalizing an agreement, both sides are meeting in subcommittees and going back and forth on key issues.
UFT President Michael Mulgrew opened the Nov. 9 Delegate Assembly with some good news: in Ohio the previous day, voters turned back by a 61-39 percent margin an attempt to prevent public-sector workers from being able to bargain collectively. He noted that 25 UFT retirees and staffers had been on the ground in Ohio, knocking on doors and making phone calls to talk about the issue and get out the vote.
The UFT will go directly to the state’s highest court in an effort to prevent the public release of the city Department of Education’s Teacher Data Reports, a move made necessary when the union’s efforts to keep the widely discredited reports private were not successful before the lower courts.
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