Results tagged “unitedfederation”

Mayor Bloomberg's announcement that he would reduce the number of parking permits for civil servants by 20% has annoyed yet another group. Joining police officers, fire fighters, and other emergency workers are teachers.

Mayor Bloomberg and United Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten announced a new plan rewarding teachers whose schools improve student achievement. Two hundred high-needs schools will be eligible for the program, and if the schools improve, then the bonuses will be distributed through a committee to the teachers.

The Reverend Al Sharpton announced the "shopping for justice" protest march he's been talking about since the shooting of Sean Bell, Joseph Guzman, and Trent Benefield by the police.

"Many will be shopping for trinkets and toys. We will be shopping for justice and making a moral appeal to this city and this nation. The fact that we are going on probably the most visible street in the world tomorrow, you don't have to talk to be heard. You just got to show up."

The Department of Education will start to close five struggling high schools beginning next September. The schools are Urban Peace Academy and School for the Physical City in Manhattan and Samuel J. Tilden, South Shore, and the embattled Lafayette in Brooklyn. The DOE attributed the closings to, as the Daily News put it, "dismal graduation rates, consistently low test scores and lackluster demand."

It took the city and teachers' union three years to agree on their last contract - with the teachers working for two years without one. So, for the next negotiation, it looks like things have gone a lot more swimmingly, as the city and teachers union have tentatively agreed on a new deal. The new contract has wages increase 2% during the first year and 5% during the second, with minimum salaries rising to $45,530 in October 2008 when the new contract would take effect. Maximum salaries would increase from $93,416 to $100,049.

Public schools have a terrible records with their students and bathrooms. If it's not inadequate bathroom supplies like toilet paper in the stalls, it's making students clean up other kids' poo. Oh, yes. WNBC reported that two six year olds at a Bronx charter school were punished by the principal for misbehaving, their penance being to clean up a mess another student made in a bathroom. The children's parents claim that their sons had to clean feces and are accusing the United Federation of Teachers - who run the school - of poor governance. UTF President Randi Weingarten tried to defuse the situation slightly, saying, "We think what happened is there were papers strewn in the boys bathroom. Some people think there was something under the paper, some people think there wasn't. But the bottom line is this: Kids should not be cleaning up in a bathroom."

reached a labor agreement with the United Federation of Teachers, after three years of stalled contract talks. In the four year deal, teachers get a 15% raise (plus teachers in difficult schools can get a $10,000 bonus) but will have to work more hours, may not be able to transfer to different schools based on seniority, and lose some other privileges. The deal is retroactive from 2003, so teachers may be getting some bonuses. The NY Times had described the deal as a draw for both the city and the teacher's union, while mayoral candidate Fernando Ferrer semi-snarked, "Well, thank goodness for election years." (Gothamist imagines the Mayor's campaign as wanting to snark back, "Well, you didn't even go to public schools in the city, so hush.") The Mayor said the plan was "good for the city's 1.1 million school children" - NYC is the largest public school system in the country - but some teachers told the Daily News the deal was terrible: "Soon we'll be working overnight and on weekends. It's not about the three days or 10 minutes, it's about giving up the rights our past teachers worked for."

Sources say at the Mayor and teachers' union have come to a contract agreement! Could it be? Could the possibility of going into an election without settling the teachers' union contract have finally forced the Mayor to agree to a contract? Or did the United Federation of Teachers realize they had to deal now, or else have the Bloomberg administration spin them into a dizzied frenzy, though in our non-expert opinion, Gothamist thinks many people would side with the teachers, versus the Mayor. It'll be interesting to learn what the contracts are now, given today's NY Post story about how veteran teachers seem to transfer out of low-performing schools to go to "better" ones.