UFT President Michael Mulgrew told the Delegate Assembly on June 11 that the recent California court ruling against teacher tenure was based on weak and faulty arguments and is going to be appealed.

Nevertheless, the corporate education reformers who are attacking tenure as a way to privatize public education have already announced plans to file similar lawsuits in other states, including New York, he said.

Mulgrew said the reformers’ twisted argument that tenure violates students’ constitutional rights is based on a lie.

“The lie is that public education is failing,” he said. “Public schools are not failing. They are thriving.”

It now falls upon the UFT more than any other union to show that to be true, he said.

“Now that we have a contract that says you have a voice and it’s based upon educational ideals we believe in, we have to show that public education works,” he said.

The UFT knows that the real challenges facing public schools are the high rates of poverty among students and turnover among teachers, he said.

We know what is necessary to retain teachers, he said: “You need to pay them and respect them and support them.”

Mulgrew noted that this school year has had many positive developments.

“Bloomberg is gone,” Mulgrew said. “We have a mayor who thanks us and respects us. We have a chancellor who is a schoolteacher. And, we have a contract.”

He noted that a record number of members, 90,459, cast ballots in the contract vote, with 77 percent approving ratification.

“This contract is more than a straight-up contract,” he said. “It gives you the opportunity to organize at the school level.”

One way that the contract gives members a greater voice is through the creation of professional development committees for each chapter.

Mulgrew reminded delegates of the importance of forming their school-based professional development committees. “It has always been our belief that the best professional development in this city will come from a group of educators in each building,” he said

The contract also calls for the creation of new teacher leadership positions for model, ambassador and master teachers. Mulgrew said that approximately 120 schools will be chosen for these new positions and that the list of schools will be announced as soon as it is available.