New York TeacherJune 5, 2014
Volume LV, Number 12
Cover Stories
Members ratify historic 9-year contract
UFT members overwhelmingly ratified a groundbreaking nine-year contract with the Department of Education on June 3. The contract passed with more than 77 percent of the 90,459 votes, which were counted by the independent American Arbitration Association.
Teachers approved their contract by a vote of 75 percent to 25 percent. The contracts for paraprofessionals, secretaries, guidance counselors, occupational and physical therapists and most of the union’s other DOE job titles were approved by even wider margins. [See chart at right.]
The ratification vote sets in motion a series of changes to take effect in September that are designed to improve education and strengthen members’ professional voice in school-level decisions.
“I am proud of our membership and thrilled with this outcome,” said UFT President Michael Mulgrew. “The UFT and all other city workers were badly served by the previous mayor. We are entering a new chapter in our school system…
UFT wins lesson-plan grievance
In a resounding win for teacher professionalism and teacher voice, an arbitrator has ruled that “lesson plans are for the personal use of the teacher” and that principals may not “mandate specific elements of lesson plans.”
Learning in 3D
Learning in a 4th-grade class and an 8th-grade math class in two Bensonhurst schools has been transformed by 3D computers.
Latest News
Illinois sets lower bar for black, Latino and low-income students
As part of a dramatic new approach to judging public schools, Illinois has introduced lower standards for black, Latino and low-income students — a move that has troubled civil rights advocates and some local educators.
Obama: Public schools must enroll all kids, regardless of immigration status
Comprehensive immigration reform may be stalled in Congress, but the Obama administration strengthened regulations protecting immigrant children.
Global fast-food strikes
Thousands of fast-food workers in 150 American cities and another 80 cities in 32 countries hit the streets on May 15, walking off the job to demand a $15 per hour wage and the right to form a union without retaliation.
Community activists challenge school closures
Community activists filed three federal civil rights complaints on May 13 challenging school closures in Newark, New Orleans and Chicago that they say disproportionately affect African-American students.
More in News Stories
Feature Stories
Making up for injustices
PS 30 in East Harlem does not have the shiny frills of Success Academy, which is co-located in its building, but it has strengthened its community with the help of the UFT community learning schools grant, new partners and programs like reading nights.
Olympian effort
Members of the Science Olympiad team at JHS 194 in Whitestone, which took home a 2nd-place trophy in this year’s citywide competition, go in depth and research a topic all year.
Member Spotlight
What I Do
What I Do: Jessica Dickson, associate ed officer
Jessica Dickson is an associate education officer for special education who works out of a DOE office building in Long Island City.
Around the UFT
Paraprofessional memorialized at IS 24, Staten Island
The school community at IS 24 on Staten Island came together on May 9 to show their love and appreciation for Teresa Castellano, a paraprofessional who died this past fall.
UFT Veterans Committee at Memorial Day ceremony
UFT Veterans Committee members again paid tribute to America’s veterans by participating in the annual Memorial Day wreath-laying ceremony at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial at Water Street in lower Manhattan on May 21.
UFT District 26 Scholarship Dinner Dance
In what UFT District 26 Representative Mary Vaccaro described as “the best event ever,” 320 guests gathered to honor educators in the Queens district on May 22 at The Inn in New Hyde Park.
UFT/AFT Teacher Leaders Program
Teachers participating in a yearlong UFT/AFT Teacher Leaders Program, facilitated by the UFT Teacher Center, presented their research findings on key education issues at a culminating event at union headquarters on May 17.
Multicultural Festival at PS 126, Queens
They didn’t have 80 days, so the students and staff at IS 126 in Astoria went around the world in an evening.
You Should Know
Secure Your Future
If you retire this year, the date matters
This year, the date a person retires takes on new importance. In light of the new contract, members have to make a decision whether to retire on or before June 30, 2014 or later.
Opinions
President's Perspective
Much is riding on our success
We now have a new contract — ratified and certified — that will allow us to transform education in New York City by placing parents and educators back in the driver’s seat in our city’s public schools.
VPerspective
Exploring the possibilities of consortium schools
The schools in the New York Performance Standards Consortium are raising academic standards while endowing students with a lifelong love of learning, all without relentless test prep. Now that is exciting.
Opinion
Safer for patients and nurses
We take for granted that nurses and other health care workers routinely lift patients. They move patients from beds to wheelchairs, from stationary beds to wheeled hospital gurneys, from lying prone on a bed to sitting up.
Opinion
The last public school
New Orleans' Recovery School District has just closed its last five public schools, making it the nation's first all-charter district. The city shows that unfettered growth of charter schools can lead to unequal acess and a loss of public oversight.
Editorial Cartoons
Teaching Resources
Research shows
Elementary school students often ‘off-task’
Elementary school students spend as much as 29 percent of their time “off-task” during the school day. The researchers found that the amount of time varies depending on the type of instructional activity in which students are engaged.
Teacher to Teacher
Blogging can improve students’ writing
With our society’s increasing reliance on technology, writing and publishing have become immediate and public. Students no longer have to write only for an audience of one.
Building Your Career
Building Your Career
Nine rays of sunshine
My unique group of 3rd-grade self-contained students published their own class book.
New Teacher Profiles
Figuring out what works
Karen Lew, a second-year social studies teacher at IS 125 in Woodside, has created a hands-on curriculum that meets the needs of her self-contained classes.
Retired Teachers News
Rising to the challenge — Part I
Blood bath. Wipe out. Catastrophe. Tea Party redux.
Political pundits are using these terms to predict the defeat of progressive forces in the November congressional elections in which the entire House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate are being contested.
Why the grim forecast? The odds seem to be against progressives. Many of our progressive incumbents with strong re-election prospects are retiring. The Tea Party, after its multistate sweep of 2010, gerrymandered election districts so heavily that it will be almost impossible to overcome the voting consequences of their redistricting.
A May Pew Research survey shows Republicans lead Democrats 47 percent to 43 percent as America’s choice of who should control Congress. That…