Testimony of Michael Mulgrew, UFT president, submitted before the New York City Council Committee on Education

My name is Michael Mulgrew, and I am the president of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT). On behalf of the union’s 210,000 members, I would like to thank Education Chair Eric Dinowitz and all the members of the City Council’s Committee on Education for holding today’s public hearing on the New York City preliminary budget for fiscal year 2027. I would also like to thank Speaker Julie Menin for her strong leadership these past few months.

RESPECT for Paraprofessionals

Respecting, recruiting and retaining paraprofessionals in New York City is paramount. Paraprofessionals are the backbone of our public schools. Yet the city cannot hire or retain them due to the unfair practice of pattern bargaining — applying the same percentage-based wage increase to all municipal titles, regardless of salary. Due to the city’s overreliance on this practice, paraprofessionals now make just below $33,000 per year. Despite the UFT’s best efforts to increase their salaries, many paraprofessionals cannot afford to live in the city they serve, creating the need for Int. 0692-2026, which would provide an annual $10,000 to full-time paraprofessionals and a pro-rated amount to substitute paraprofessionals.

To be clear, the city’s adherence to pattern bargaining is entirely voluntary. There is no law that requires the city to give all titles the same raise. In fact, the city has deviated from this pattern in extreme circumstances, such as the nursing shortage of the 1980s, when it gave city nurses above-pattern raises to ensure city hospitals were properly staffed. We are facing a similar moment of crisis today with our paraprofessionals. There are thousands of paraprofessional vacancies throughout the five boroughs, and each vacancy represents one or more students who are not receiving their legally mandated special education services. This cannot continue. 

Not only is it a moral failure to leave our most vulnerable students without the services they need, but it is also costing the city billions. Next year, the city is on track to spend $1.5 billion on Carter cases from parents seeking money to send their child to private special education programs because the public schools couldn’t meet their child’s needs. It’s time to pass Int. 0692-2026 and pay paraprofessionals directly, instead of paying for their absence.

Class Size

The UFT commends Mayor Mamdani for fully funding class size reduction in the preliminary budget for fiscal year 2027. As we enter the final phases of class size reduction, we know we will need to build new seats to ensure the remaining 20 percent of schools comply with the law. We hope to work with this new administration to do what has not been done up until now: determine where the new seats are needed and develop a clear, accurate, funded plan to get them built. To accomplish this, the administration will need to be direct with the School Construction Authority that its posture of hoping the law’s requirements will somehow vanish is no longer acceptable. Additionally, various dioceses throughout the city have announced the closures of schools in the next two years. There must be conversations about how we can utilize these school buildings to help us reach full compliance.

Child Care

All New York City families deserve affordable, safe care for their children. However, child care has become increasingly expensive and difficult to find. In response to this, the UFT created NYC Childcare Navigator to connect our members to affordable child care. Based on the overwhelming positive feedback from our members, we decided to expand our reach, and we are proud to now offer this valuable resource to all residents of the five boroughs. We ask that the City Council embrace the NYC Childcare Navigator as a frontline tool for families and providers to navigate eligibility and placement for existing and new child care capacity.

Additionally, the UFT applauds Mayor Mamdani and Gov. Hochul’s investment in universal child care. We will need to grow and support our early childhood education workforce in order to make 3-K truly universal and rollout 2-K. To do this, the city must pay providers in a timely manner without delays, so they are not forced to provide services without income. The city must also include independent, non-network affiliated and home-based providers in this child care expansion. The UFT currently represents 8,000 home-based child care providers, who make it possible to offer families care in their very own neighborhoods. They also provide culturally responsive care and nontraditional hours of care, which is crucial for parents who work hours other than 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Finally, as we scale up our universal child care services, we must ensure that our youngest learners receive the appropriate special education services.

Fund UFT Programs

For years the UFT’s programs have ensured that education funding goes directly into the classroom and improves educational outcomes for students and working conditions for teachers. This year we submitted discretionary-funding applications for six programs that we ask the City Council to support.  We greatly appreciate the Council’s past support for these programs and have seen a dramatic increase in demand for each of them in recent years. Because of that, we are requesting a proportionate adjustment in allocations to support these activities.

UFT Teacher Center
The UFT Teacher Center promotes teacher excellence and academic achievement for all students through professional development tailored to each school’s unique needs. Last school year, Teacher Centers delivered over 126,000 hours of transformative professional development to over 341,000 educators, principals and parents. Additionally, 99% of participating educators reported that the Teacher Center’s professional learning sessions improved their practice. 

Thanks to the support we received from the City Council and the City Council Speaker’s Initiative in 2025-26, we were able to open 11 new Teacher Centers, for a total of 197 sites — a 60% increase from 2020-21. The funding also enabled our 203 site coaches, who are embedded in schools across the city, to provide support in three critical areas:

1. Ensuring that educators are prepared to support students in literacy development using the science of reading and the new curricula used in the NYC Reads/Reading for All initiative. 
2. Ensuring that educators are prepared to provide the social and emotional support their students need to address the trauma they have experienced in these unprecedented times, including students who are new arrivals to our city. 
3. Ensuring that all students receive support equitably through providing professional learning that prepares educators to reach all students, including students with disabilities and multilingual learners.

Additionally, the UFT Teacher Center is committed to expanding our work with the Provider Professional Education Program and United Network for Early Childhood Education, which aim to grow the early childhood workforce for both teachers and home-based child care providers alike. This work is particularly important right now as we work to expand universal 3-K and create the 2-K program in New York City.

For 2026–27, we are requesting a grant of $6.5 million from the City Council Speaker’s Initiative and $4.12 million from the City Council’s discretionary funds to sustain and expand Teacher Center programming. This funding will allow us to retain and bring on additional central team staff who work with multiple schools, open new Teacher Centers in areas without any sites and continue to offer Teacher Center supports to schools across the city.

United Community Schools (UCS)
United Community Schools is a teacher-inspired and educator-led nonprofit with proven results that serves close to 20,000 families.Within each school there is a community school director who leverages outside relationships to bring the necessary resources directly to students and families. Our community schools provide food for families and offer mental health, physical health, dental and vision services within school buildings. In 2025 support from the City Council helped UCS schools feed over 71,000 families and provide over 48,000 health and wellness exams, screenings and check-ins. 

As a result of these robust supports, we see test scores go up, attendance improve and student engagement increase at our UCS schools. We found that 46.3% of UCS students met ELA standards compared to 36.2% of the comparison group, showcasing a 10.2 percentage point advantage for middle and elementary school students. We also saw that high school students at UCS schools accumulated roughly one more credit than similarly situated non-community school students. Teachers too feel the impact of working in a UCS school, and we often hear our UCS teachers say they feel more supported, secure and engaged in their work. 

This year we ask that the City Council provide UCS with $5 million to sustain our 32 community schools and expand the services we offer to communities. This funding will be used to build a dedicated UCS mental health team that will work in close collaboration with school principals, administrators and health practitioners to deliver coordinated, high-quality mental health and wellness services. It will allow six community school directors and three community school associates to oversee academic enrichment programs, attendance improvement activities, STEM/STEAM courses, family engagement workshops, community forums, vision and dental clinics and coat and toy drives at each of their school sites. Funding from the City Council will also enable us to provide UCS educators and staff with targeted technical assistance and instructional support to ensure they are well equipped to meet students’ needs.

Positive Learning Collaborative (PLC) and Member Assistance Program (MAP)
The PLC program is one of our most effective tools for bringing equity to New York City public schools. This model weaves together social-emotional supports, restorative practices, culturally responsive pedagogy, mindfulness and healing-centered practices to support school communities and ensure every child has the social, emotional and academic skills needed to succeed in the classroom and life. 

Recently, the PLC has collaborated with the MAP program to further expand the UFT’s capacity to meet the needs of educators and school communities around social emotional support, mental health support and professional development opportunities. Our MAP careline has received over 30,000 calls since 2022, with a recent increase in calls relating to bias and hate crimes, as well as immigration crackdowns and fear of deportation of our students. Since the fall, MAP has also served over 300 schools that have requested crisis counseling from our team of trained clinicians because their school community has been impacted by suicide, grief and immigration fear (especially around ICE) that affected the school community. 

Since 2019, MAP has also offered the Let’s Talk About It all-day program to thousands of middle school students from around the NYC area, with a focus on the Bronx in the 2023–24 school year and Queens in the 2024–25 and 2025–26 school years.  Since 2018, MAP has also offered thousands of hours of professional learning opportunities and credits to educators and counselors. 

To sustain and continue to expand all this programming, the UFT is requesting $1.9 million for the 2026–27 school year from the City Council.

Progressive Redesign Opportunity Schools for Excellence (PROSE)
PROSE amplifies the voices of educators by enabling them to propose school-level innovations that bolster student excellence. These innovations may include how teachers are hired and evaluated and how students are programmed throughout the day. Many of the over 280 PROSE schools that currently exist have a strong emphasis on project-based learning. The program includes most of the consortium high schools in the city, which have a state waiver allowing them to replace state Regents exams with project-based assessments, as well as other schools that focus on this kind of curriculum and assessment. PROSE also includes most of the Internationals Network of high schools, which are focused on serving students who are new arrivals to our city. We propose to use $300,000 in City Council funds to support schools in continuing these efforts, to expand the program to more school communities around the city, and to facilitate the sharing of best practices between schools around these innovations in the 2026–27 school year.

BRAVE Hotline
Bullying continues to pose a significant challenge in our schools, deeply affecting students’ mental health, academic potential and overall well-being. That is why the UFT created BRAVE (Building Respect, Acceptance and Voice through Education), which raises awareness about bullying prevention, digital safety, conflict resolution and restorative practices through interactive workshops, school-based presentations and community outreach. We also have a BRAVE hotline that students, their families and educators can call, chat or text for help 24 hours a day, seven days a week. As our schools face evolving challenges, such as the rise of cyberbullying and the increasing diversity of student needs, it is imperative that BRAVE continues to adapt and expand its critical services. We are requesting a grant of $300,000 from the City Council this fiscal year to fund program coordination, consultant-led workshops, outreach materials and community engagement efforts. This support will ensure that BRAVE can expand its reach, maintain high-quality programming, and continue serving schools and families with timely, relevant and impactful anti-bullying education.

Dial-A-Teacher
Dial-A-Teacher operates Mondays through Thursdays from 4 to 7 p.m., offering free homework help to students and parents in nine languages, including Spanish, Mandarin and Bengali. Last year, the program received over 35,000 calls. Dial-A-Teacher is respectfully requesting $325,000 in City Council funding for fiscal year 2027 to allow us to expand access to these supports by increasing the number of teachers available to answer calls, continuing with technological upgrades and providing staff development that will enhance our ability to serve students in the modern educational arena.

Support Citywide Initiatives

I would also like to advocate for citywide programs that are vital for our students and educators. We need to continue to baseline Teacher’s Choice, and I also ask the Council to support arts in education and Commonpoint.

1. Teacher’s Choice – Thank you for your continued support of the Teacher’s Choice program. It is a key initiative to ensure teachers and other school staff are reimbursed for the school supplies and materials they purchase for their classrooms and for many of their students in need. We ask that you continue to provide $20 million in baseline funding for Teacher’s Choice in fiscal year 2027.
2. Arts in Education – The arts introduce our students to new ways of thinking and expressing themselves. That is why we ask that the City Council support Broadway Bridges, the Broadway League program that provides $10 tickets for 10th grade students to see Broadway shows, aiming for every student to attend a show before graduation. This program also celebrates educators by hosting special events for them to experience the theatre. We also ask the Council increases funding for arts education in city schools and cultural centers such as museums and music halls.
3. Commonpoint – Commonpoint is a social services organization that supports the diverse needs of New Yorkers of all ages, abilities and backgrounds. The organization offers a variety of supports for youths and families, ranging from sports programs and summer camps to job training and college access assistance. We ask that you support Commonpoint’s programs in the fiscal year 2027 budget.

Thank you for holding today’s hearing and for working with us to support and fully fund public education in New York City. I look forward to our continued collaboration.