At the heart of this contract is the belief that if you want to achieve something significant, you have to empower the people who do the work.

New York State has begun to undo the legacy of lost instruction and parental anger brought about by the testing craze championed by the school “reform” movement. But it still has a ways to go to create a genuine culture of support for the schools and teachers that our children need.


We have a lot of work ahead of us to ensure the UFT remains a formidable force, but we have reason to be optimistic. 

That’s the power of the union — nothing less than a fully engaged membership taking on an important issue and not giving up.

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.

By now you should have received your union membership card in the mail — a first for the UFT. And you should have received an email invitation from me to download the UFT app — another first.

We’re living through an amazing moment. It’s clear that our elected officials in Washington, D.C., have abdicated their responsibility when it comes to gun violence, but students are taking the lead to advocate for their own safety amid this epidemic.

Kim’s story of what happened to teachers in Wisconsin after the Republican governor gutted collective bargaining rights for public employees is a wake-up call to anyone thinking “it can’t happen here.”

The anti-union propaganda machine is already preparing ads for the post-Janus world urging workers to “give yourself a raise” and stop paying dues. We need to educate members to see through this ploy — you can’t get something for nothing.

We often talk about how the union provides concrete value— the many rights and benefits that we enjoy as UFT members. But you also belong to a community of public school educators and other professionals who are motivated to help others and whose good deeds ripple far beyond the classroom.