With the U.S. Supreme Court possibly days away from issuing a ruling in the Janus v. AFSCME case, UFT President Michael Mulgrew urged chapter leaders and delegates at the May 16 Delegate Assembly to make sure members in their chapters understand what is at stake for them in the case.
The organizations behind the lawsuit are trying, he said, to deprive workers of their ability to come together and have a voice in the political process and at the bargaining table.
“Once our members have the facts, they will make good decisions,” Mulgrew said.
Observers expect the Supreme Court to rule against unions and give government workers across all states the option of declining to pay union fees even though they benefit from that union‘s contract negotiations and services.
Mulgrew said the goal of the right-wing groups funding the case is to weaken unions economically and, as a result, politically so…
PS 15 in Manhattan is one of a growing number of schools that are dedicating spaces for students to design, build, experiment and explore.
UFT President Michael Mulgrew on April 30 slammed the city’s reluctance to extend paid parental leave to UFT members as “clear gender bias.”
New York City Council members attending the UFT’s May 3 legislative breakfast heard why it’s important to continue supporting five of the UFT’s signature programs: Teacher’s Choice, the Community Learning Schools Initiative, the Positive Learning Collaborative, the BRAVE anti-bullying program and the Dial-a-Teacher homework helpline.
The Illinois state Board of Education on May 16 assumed far-reaching authority over special education in Chicago’s public schools.
U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos denounced state constitutional amendments preventing public funds from being spent on private religious schools in a May 16 speech to the Alfred E. Smith Foundation in New York City. These amendments are on the books in 37 states, including New York and DeVos’ home state of Michigan.
North Carolina experienced the largest organized political action by teachers in the state’s history on May 16 as tens of thousands of teachers walked off the job to rally in the state capital for higher wages and education funding. The event shut down public schools for more than 1 million students.
U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos denounced state constitutional amendments preventing public funds from being spent on private religious schools in a May 16 speech to the Alfred E. Smith Foundation in New York City. These amendments are on the books in 37 states, including New York and DeVos’ home state of Michigan.
Nearly 4,000 8th-graders and high school seniors will be decked out for end-of-year celebrations thanks to eight UFT prom events held throughout the city in April and May. [[nid:107106; float: left; styleName:article_x_half_auto]][[nid:107115; float: left; styleName:article_x_half_auto]]
“It’s awesome,” said Jasmine Dickson, a science teacher who accompanied students from MS 224 in Mott Haven to the prom event at the UFT’s Bronx borough office on May 4. “Some kids were apprehensive. They didn’t think they’d find something here, but they did.”
[[nid:107112; float: right; …
Jon Favreau says his four years at Bronx HS of Science are indelible for him. "Only now can I appreciate what a great life experience it was," he says. "I got a good working knowledge of many different cultures and as I travel or meet people throughout my life, I can draw upon that."
Visitors to the UFT’s Queens borough office in April were greeted by a curious sight: an artist with a tray full of oil paints standing before an easel in the 5th-floor waiting room.
There was no chapter leader at PS 64 in the East Village when teacher Farrah Alexander returned from maternity leave in September so she stepped up to the plate. “I know that complaining is not productive and that we should be working together, especially in a negotiating year and with so many anti-union threats facing us,” she said. “So I slowly raised my hand.”
There’s a new mural outside 751M in the East Village that staff members say captures the diversity, individuality and love of the nearly 60 students who created it.
Twenty-six members of the UFT Family Child Care Providers Chapter were recognized at the chapter's fifth annual Provider Appreciation Awards on May 1. While it was their night to be recognized, the award winners said their true rewards come from doing their jobs every day.
What’s the fastest way to have 40,000 books disappear? Bring them to a UFT First Book event, of course.
UFT members joined fellow unionized workers and immigrants to stand together as Partners in Power, the theme of the 2018 May Day rally in Washington Square Park.
“Be the change you wish to see in the world.” Anthony Harmon, the UFT director of parent and community outreach, reminded about 300 middle schoolers and their teachers and counselors of that famous quote by Mahatma Gandhi as they prepared to head for workshops during the UFT’s anti-bullying conference, “In the Middle,” on May 10.
Here are some of the rules that govern these per-session activities for teachers, school psychologists and social workers and paraprofessionals.
Mental illness is a health condition that changes a person’s thinking, feelings or behavior and causes that person distress and difficulty in functioning. It is a prevalent health condition that is treatable, even when chronic.
See our list of current opportunities for educators to receive funds and recognition for their hard work and dedication.
The UFT mailed a new membership card with a member ID number to every UFT member in May. The UFT app for members only is now available for download, too.
The Teachers’ Retirement System (TRS) and the Board of Education Retirement System (BERS) have designed their TDA programs so you have choices in how to handle your money when you retire. Here are some things to consider about these three alternatives as you ponder what works best for you.
At the HERstory brunch in March at union headquarters, UFT members were able to relax while receiving massages and feel pampered while having their nails manicured and their makeup applied, all by career and technical education students from Queens Vocational HS in Long Island City. Those 25 cosmetology students were demonstrating how the CTE process works, applying the skills they mastered in school in a real-world setting.
Albany is finally devising a teacher evaluation system that does not hinge on how their students — or, in many cases, how students in their school whom they don’t even teach — perform on high-stakes state tests.
Words matter. When Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza uses the word “segregation,” he’s tackling head-on a critical issue in New York City public schools.
Students who are taken to see a live theater production derive educational benefits that are not gotten from seeing a story told on film, according to new research in the journal Educational Researcher.
I started to research metacognition in young children because I wanted my students to be aware of their own learning and thinking and take ownership over their own successes.
We integrated the first languages of English language learners in our 7th-grade literacy unit on poetry in both integrated co-teaching and general education classes.
Your students are dealing with challenges and complex emotions outside the classroom that can affect their learning. IIf you can think of these issues as opportunities to help your students build resilience, you can begin to establish a classroom environment that supports your students’ social and emotional needs as well as their academic ones.
Since many of us still live in an academic-year mindset, I thought this column should round out the semester.
There is a current superhero craze in movies, on TV, in comics and funny pages as we mark the 80th anniversary of “Superman.” It’s a genre that offers a theatrical “deus ex machina” rescue of those in trouble. But absent a superhero, we still can have a positive view of our day-to-day lives.
It’s easy to allow all the bad news of our national nightmare to get us down. We need healthful options as personal tonics. For example, since the November 2016 onset of our national nightmare, I no longer subject myself to hourly political blather, believing good or bad news will find its way to me when it’s time to take positive action.
The question is: How do we achieve social good when the national odds seem so stacked against us?
One answer is local grassroots activism —…
