Results tagged “unitedfederationofteachers”

With kids back in the classrooms, parents and teachers have been complaining about overcrowding. According to the UFT, the number of jam-packed classes has increased by 20 percent this year. Many students end up sharing books, while others are made to learn inside converted closets. "It's like on the subway at rush hour," said Erin Flanagan, a P.E. teacher in Flushing, "when the doors open, there's no room. That's what the hallways are like."

The Bloomberg administration is catching some flak for tipping their hand and revealing big raises coming to teachers, both for putting for such a generous offer as payback politics and letting the teachers' union know what was coming their way before negotiations even began. The Post revealed that Labor Commissioner James Hanley admitted that 8 percent pay raises for teachers have already been set aside for the next two years in recent testimony before an arbitration panel. A former Koch official said that letting the cat out of the bag was a no-no, telling the paper, "Every labor leader knows that the money is hidden somewhere in the budget and they don't know how much money. Generally, only the most trusted people in the budget know where the money is squirreled away." Others criticized how high the raises are despite the city's fiscal crisis and low inflation—starting salaries now heading up to just under $50K and veteran teachers able to make up to $108K. Many believe the high offer coming to the United Federation Teachers might be payback for changing positions and supporting mayoral control of schools and city pension reforms.

This fall, teachers will no longer have to arrive two days before students and prepare their classrooms, because the deal the United Federation of Teachers struck with the Bloomberg administration allows them to return on the same day as students, as part of a deal to save $2 billion in pensions. Of course, the principals are upset: PS 321 (Brooklyn) Principal Elizabeth Phillips asked, "Do parents want their children coming into rooms where furniture is stacked up and materials packed away?"while PS 221 (Queens) Principal Sheila Twomey said, "You don’t want to picture what it was like if a child comes to school and there’s nothing up around the room, you’re trying to find your pencil and everybody else around you is disorganized." And principals union president Earl Logan said the before-school's start meetings were helpful to integrate new teachers. UFT outgoing president Randi Weingarten pointed out that requiring teachers to arrive on the Thursday and Friday before Labor Day (school starts on the Tuesday after Labor Day) violated a 2005 labor agreement and said that the new deal could allow Schools Chancellor Joel Klein to simply move the students' start date to be two days later.

Every few years, the issue of public school teachers in rubber rooms gets explored. These are teachers who have been removed from duty—whether they've been rightly or unfairly accused— while their cases are investigated...and all while they are still paid. (Remember the Bronx school bomb scare allegedly caused by a teacher? Well, that teacher was upset that he might be transferred to a rubber room over allegations he punched a student.) Now the Associated Press delves into the bizarro world of the rubber room, the holding pens where teachers are kept.

United Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten is reportedly stepping down from her position next week, according to Daily News sources. Weingarten is also the president of the American Federation of Teachers (the UFT's parent union) and a union source said, "It's hard to maintain a foot in both jobs." Another source said, "Many of us are unhappy that she's not completing her term. We would like to see her negotiate a new contract," referring to how teachers do not have a contract with the city yet, "With all the things she's agreed to, I hope we're getting something for this. She's agreed to back off on mayoral control. She did a complete 180." UFT COO Michael Mulgrew is expected to take Weingarten's place until an election can be held in 2010. And Weingarten also made Page SIx today, "They could be the lesbian power couple of all time: Randi Weingarten, the new president of the 1.4 million-member American Federation of Teachers, is dating Hilary Rosen, former head of the Recording Industry Association of America, who appears on CNN and is Washington, DC, editor-at-large for the Huffington Post."

Randi Weingarten, who has led the United Federation of Teachers, the union that representing over 200,000 people who work in the schools (from teachers to nurses), was elected to lead the national teacher's union, the American Federation of Teachers, yesterday. Weingarten ran unopposed and has made it clear she wants to revoke the No Child Left Behind law, suggesting instead that schools should help the entire family, through a range of social services, to improve students' chances at success.