Testimony of UFT Vice President for Academic High Schools Janella Hinds before the New York City Council Committee on Civil Service and Labor
Good afternoon. My name is Janella Hinds and I am the Vice President for Academic High Schools at the United Federation of Teachers. I also serve as the Secretary-Treasurer of the New York City Central Labor Council.
I want to thank Chairman Miller and the entire Committee for the opportunity to present testimony today on behalf of our President Michael Mulgrew and our 200,000 members. As you may know, the UFT is also a member of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the New York State United Teachers (NYSUT), the AFL-CIO and the New York City Central Labor Council (CLC).
We are incredibly proud of our members and their invaluable contributions to this city. Their dedication and commitment to making a difference in the lives of children is helping to strengthen our schools and communities every single day.
Likewise, we are also proud of our partnership with the City Council, and we value your support and advocacy. Our work would not be possible without your leadership and hard work on behalf of our schools and communities.
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New York City is fortunate to have the Joseph S. Murphy Institute for Worker Education and Labor Studies. We strongly support its work, as well as the Council’s efforts to formally establish the Murphy Institute as the City University of New York School of Labor and Urban Studies. Our union is deeply committed to furthering labor studies, worker education programs and other professional learning.
According to the Murphy Institute’s most recent “State of the Unions” report, “educational services” make up a significant portion of union membership. But across the country, the attacks on our union brothers and sisters and the overall decline of organized labor has taken a toll on working families and the middle class. That unfortunate reality makes the work of the Murphy Institute all the more vital to the health of our city’s economy.
In the spirit of the Murphy Institute and our representation of educators, we want to use our testimony today as a teachable moment to expand on the “State of the Unions” report and provide the Council with additional perspective about the UFT.
The United Federation of Teachers officially formed on March 16, 1960 — but in reality, the idea of a union for teachers began many years before. More than 100 years ago, there were men like Henry Linville, a Jamaica High School biology teacher, and John Dewey, the first member of the AFT, who spoke out for teachers’ rights at a time when they were practically nonexistent.
Back then, the idea that educators could have rights in the workplace was a foreign concept. Teachers had no say over school policies or curriculum. There were no benefits or pensions. There was no such thing as due process. Pay inequality between men and women was enormous. If you can imagine, women actually hid their pregnancies because having a child meant losing their jobs. At one point, only single women were allowed to teach. What little professional support existed came in the form of more than 100 loosely organized groups around the city—none of which had the ability to secure workplace rights for its members.
By the late 1950s, the stage was set for something radical. When the UFT was formed, our founders won the right to collectively bargain and established the union as a political and educational workforce.
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Since its inception 56 years ago, the UFT has always been progressive and forward-thinking. Our mission — to lift all boats — has never wavered, and neither has our resolve.
The work of an educator is centered around the idea that each and every school should be a place where our members want to work and parents want to send their children. That is why we fight for crucial issues like smaller class sizes; better funding; adequate supplies and instructional materials; improved health and safety regulations; a greater voice for parents in the decisions that affect their children; competitive salaries and benefits; and support and respect for our members and the work they do. Perhaps most important of all, we advocate for social and civil rights, because we know that every New Yorker deserves a safe and equitable work environment and an affordable place to live, free of discrimination and harassment.
We have become something far greater than just a teachers’ union. We also represent a diverse body of professionals within our schools, including guidance counselors, psychologists, social workers, physical and occupational therapists, paraprofessionals and secretaries. We also represent other titles such as nurses, administrative law judges, family child care providers, audiologists and supervisors of school security.
We work hard every day to move our professions forward. Our nationally renowned Teacher Centers provide high-quality training and mentoring to thousands of teachers each year. We are constantly looking for ways to support our members and to strengthen our school communities and improve the educational outcomes for our students through our Community Learning Schools, PROSE Schools and the Positive Learning Collaborative (PLC). Our award-winning “Dial-a-Teacher” program averages nearly 1,000 calls a day from students and parents looking for homework help. Our Albert Shanker Scholarship Fund awards a million dollars to deserving students every year. Our BRAVE program provides students and educators with anti-bullying resources, including an anonymous hotline. Community programs such as “FirstBook,” which has distributed more than 250,000 free books to NYC children and classrooms, are benefiting tens of thousands of families each year. We also are working hard to empower parents through our parent workshops. All of these resources speak to issues that affect the working-class communities that are a big part of the Murphy Institute’s focus.
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It has been a terrific start to the school year. We hope each of you will have a chance to visit the schools in your district. Our members have a lot on their minds this year, beginning with the constant need for more funding.
As a union, our work this year will focus in large part on getting the state to finally fulfill the promise of the CFE lawsuit. The Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE) case was decided a decade ago, but while we’ve made strides to secure that critical funding for our schools, we are still fighting for New York City’s fair share. That amount now stands at $1.6 billion. Just imagine what would be possible if our schools had that funding.
After 10 years, there should be no more excuses. Revenues continue to grow, and our suburban counterparts were already made whole in the state budget agreed to in the spring, so there will be less of a demand on scarce resources.
Not only do our schools desperately need this funding, but we also must ensure that once it is secured, it is used in a meaningful way and properly benefits our classrooms. That means lowering class sizes and providing more direct services such as mental health programs and guidance counselors to students. Our schools also need additional staff to serve the growing numbers of English Language Learners and special education students. Additional school aid would also help pay for much-needed capital and technological improvements.
We all want to make a difference in the lives of children, and making a real commitment to CFE and reducing class size is the way to do it. We will be working closely with advocates and community groups in the months ahead to make that case, and we hope each of you will partner with us in these efforts.
As part of our work, we also will vigorously fight any proposed education tax credit package that diverts public funds away from public schools. These proposals always disproportionately benefit the wealthy at the expense of working people and our classrooms. We would welcome your help and support if and when these issues arise.
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When you visit schools, you will see that educators are also talking a lot about suspensions and restorative justice. The Council has been a leader when it comes to supporting restorative justice programs, and we thank you for that support.
Educators know all too well that more work must be done to reduce the number of school incidents and suspensions. Restorative justice programs that teach tolerance and understanding are a vital part of that important work. The UFT is immensely proud of its Positive Learning Collaborative (PLC) program, which uses intensive teacher training to help schools reduce discipline issues and bullying, as well as giving educators the ability to deescalate potentially hazardous situations. The PLC is particularly focused on restorative practices in elementary schools, where we can build a foundation early in a child’s life. The goal of the program is to create a safe environment for both students and teachers, and keep kids in school.
Programs such as the PLC can play a huge role in helping to reduce the number of suspensions in a school, particularly among our youngest students. SAVE (Safe Schools Against Violence in Education) rooms and Pupil Personnel Teams (PPTs) are also a big part of the equation, as are full-time personnel who are trained in crisis intervention. Equally important are clinical interventions for children with severe emotional or mental health needs.
As you visit schools, please talk to the teachers and administrators. It will become apparent that many schools do not have these resources at their disposal. That means when a discipline crisis arises, it too often leads to a suspension, for lack of a better option. The reality is that we will never eliminate suspensions if the Department of Education doesn’t give schools the tools to deal with the underlying disciplinary problems.
With schools clamoring for these types of resources, we see a huge potential for growth with the PLC, and we will be working hard to secure the additional funding needed and bring this program to more schools.
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We all know teachers who spend their own money on classroom supplies, and when you visit schools, you’ll see that firsthand. The average teacher is spending at least $500 a year out of pocket. It’s an unfortunate fact of life in a system that still struggles for school funding each year, but thanks to this committee and the entire City Council, teachers are able to offset those personal costs by nearly $150 this year. On behalf of our members, I want to again thank you for that incredible support.
In the spring, we surveyed our teachers to learn more about how they spend that money, and the results were wide-ranging. UFT members weren’t just buying pencils, markers and paper; they were also buying things like computer software, printer cartridges, and even shoes, coats and food for their most vulnerable students. Your support helps make that possible.
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There is perhaps no better way to strengthen a school community than by making it a Community Learning School (CLS) and integrating targeted, sustainable community-based programs and services into the school’s programming. By building strong partnerships with non-profits, local businesses and other organizations, CLS schools have been able to provide children and their families with dozens of new programs that connect them directly to resources in the neighborhoods where they live and learn.
This important initiative has been made possible in large part thanks to support from the City Council, which has consistently recognized the value of our Community Learning Schools.
The CLS initiative has successfully taken root in more than two dozen schools since 2012, and we continue to see encouraging results. Just last week, we released data that illustrates how schools that have been in the CLS program the longest have seen substantial decreases in Level 1 scores, and equally substantial growth in Levels 3 and 4.
As the year progresses, we will once again be proudly showcasing our CLS schools, and we look forward to sharing those great stories with you and having you visit our CLS schools to witness their success stories.
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As you know, home-based family child care serves tens of thousands of children, making it a critical component of New York City’s subsidized child care system. Not only are participating children better prepared for school, but these programs also allow hard-working, low-income families, predominantly people of color, to hold jobs outside the home.
Strengthening early child care options and expanding access for families seeking educationally sound, subsidized care is smart policy for our city’s future. We know that investing now in our city’s children and families will reap long-term economic and social benefits.
We remain concerned about the possibility of losing child care slots, and we are also very worried about how providers and families will be affected by the unfunded mandates within the newly reauthorized federal Child Care and Development Block Grant program.
We are grateful for your leadership on child care issues, and we again look to you to help mitigate the burden of unfunded mandates and support our calls for more federal and state funding to ease the heavy burdens on providers. We also hope the Council will continue to advocate for a parent’s right to high-quality child care options.
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We are proud to be part of the labor movement that is supported and promoted by the Murphy Institute, and proud of its ability to provide a collective and powerful voice on behalf of workers. Likewise, we are proud of our work with the Council, and we deeply appreciate your commitment to our students and school communities. The UFT looks forward to working with all of you in the months ahead to make this a better city for all our children.