United Federation of Teachers (Uft) Is the Essay

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United Federation of Teachers (UFT) is the union that represents teachers in the New York City public schools, which is the largest public school system in the United States. The public school system in New York City serves 1.1 million students in more than 1,800 schools; the system pays 75,000 teachers and operates with a budget of about $24 billion[footnoteRef:1] (NYC Department of Education). The task of running 1,800 schools in a city with five boroughs and approximately 8.337 million residents is enormous, and while the UFT works hard to serve the teachers so they may do the most productive and effective job educating the children, the union is frequently involved in contentious interactions with the City's school officials. This paper covers the activities of the union, the ongoing issues between the City's bureaucracy and the union, the successes and challenges that impact the union, and the problem of anti-unionism in New York City. [1: New York City Department of Public Education. "About Us." Retrieved January 1, 2014, from http://schools.nyc.gov. 2013 ]

History and Mission of the United Federation of Teachers

The UFT began fifty three years ago, when there was what the UFT calls "…a patchwork of more than 100 different and often competing organizations"[footnoteRef:2] that teachers could join to support their work and the schools they worked in (UFT). The UFT asserts that its activism over the years has "…strengthened the education profession and New York City Public Schools." Moreover, the UFT explains on its website that it supports legislation and policies that help promote "…educational equity," which entails closing the achievement gap and giving parents and community members a voice in how schools are operated (UFT). [2: United Federation of Teachers. "History and Mission." 2013. Retrieved January 1, 2014, from http://www.uft.org. 2013. ]

In addition to its advocacy and activism, the UFT offers workshops and graduate-level courses to its 30,000 members; the UFT partners with several educational institutions (NYIT, Adelphi, Mt. Saint Vincent and Baruch) to offer masters degrees to UFT members. The courses that the UFT offers at these institutions include Special Education, Literacy and Early Childhood Education, and Teaching English as a Second Language (UFT).

Current Issues Involving the UFT

One of the bones of contention that the UFT has with the City's school leaders and bureaucrats -- and educational bureaucrats at the state level -- over the past few years is the issue of teacher evaluation. The City and the State of New York has attempted to base the evaluations of teachers on test scores, and the UFT has considered this strategy an "assault on professionalism of teaching and on teacher unionism" (UFT). The union is totally opposed to basing the evaluation of teachers on test scores because the issues that are attached to evaluation -- the pay teachers receive and the awarding of tenure or the penalty of dismissal -- are too important to be based simply on the test scores students achieve. Instead of relying on test scores -- and it is well-known that a teacher can "teach to the test" and basically train his or her students to learn the materials that shows up on tests -- the union has demanded that "multiple measures" be embraced when teachers are evaluated.

For example, the union believes that "structured observations and assessments of teaching skills" should be part of the evaluation. Having taken that particular stand on evaluations, the UFT, the State Education Department and the New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) (another union that represents healthcare workers, school bus drivers, university and college faculty members, custodians, classroom teachers, cafeteria workers, nurses and secretaries) came to an agreement in 2010 that serves as an alternative to strictly evaluating a teacher based on the scores of standardized tests his or her students achieve.

The new formula -- which has not been implemented smoothly to date -- is based on a 100-point scale: 60 points are based on peer review by colleagues and on direct observations of teachers in the classroom; 20 points are based on "student growth" and on state exams "where applicable"; and another 20 points on "…other measures of student achievement to be negotiated" between the union and the school district (UFT).

However, that deal has not been fully implemented and it has stirred controversy; indeed, the UFT and the NYSUT appeared at state hearings in New York City in December, 2013, with both unions loudly criticized the State Education Commission for "…failing in their responsibility to implement" the Common Core Standards "correctly"[footnoteRef:3] (Ocasio, 2013).

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The "rollout" of the standards agreed upon in 2010 has "…made it incredibly challenging to move the standards from aspirational to reality" (UFT). [3: Ocasio, Linda. "At Common Core Hearings in New York City -- King fails to sway detractors." United Federation of Teachers. Retrieved January 1, 2014, from http://www.uft.org. 2012. ]

The regents never had a workable plan for a "…smooth transition that included public engagement, a greater investment in funding, professional development and greater transparency"[footnoteRef:4] (Tyler, 2013). The core standards have the support of parents "…and virtually everyone else in the education community," Tyler explains, reporting on the NYSUT's portion of the presentation at the hearings in December. The state Education Department has created a "mess," Tyler explains, and what the state has done amounts to "…smoke and mirrors." [4: Tyler, Tena. "Time to pause to clean up the mess." Timesunion.com. Retrieved January 1, 2014, from http://blog-timesunion.com. 2013. ]

Anti-Unionism and the United Federation of Teachers

There has been a recent trend among American cities -- including New York City -- to produce "reforms" that in reality are "…eroding teacher union gains"[footnoteRef:5]; in fact during his tenure New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg (and other city mayors) was, in 2002, given authorization by the New York State Legislature to take control of the New York City school system (Anderson, 2006, p. 231). What Bloomberg did when he got authorization to seized control of the school system was to hire Joel Klein (an antitrust attorney with no educational experience whatsoever) as chancellor of public schools in New York City. Klein in turn gave a "no-bid contract" to the McKinsey and Company consulting firm (worth $5 million) to "assess the condition of the New York City school system" (Anderson, 233). [5: Anderson, Noel. "Hostile Takeover: Antiunionism and the Neoliberal Politics of Urban School Reform in New York." Working USA: The Journal of Labor and Society, 1089-7011(9), 225-243. 2006. ]

The report from McKinsey and Company -- called "Children First" -- was initially supported by the UFT; but in hindsight Anderson explains that the UFT endorsement of "Children First" was "premature" because the specifics of the initiative were unclear at that time (234). What soon followed -- in classic corporate fashion, Anderson mentions at several points in his narrative -- was a "leadership academy" set up by Bloomberg and Klein (with $30 million in start-up funds).

Led by former General Electric CEO Jack Welch (again, corporate influences put in place to take over the schools by Bloomberg) the "leadership academy" basically was designed to train former corporate executives to "…take over public schools as principals," which of course was not met with welcome hands by the United Federation of Teachers (Anderson, 234). In fact it looked to the UFT like an attempt by Bloomberg to bust the union, or at the very least, to take power away from the union.

In reality Bloomberg's "leadership academy" has been a bust, according to Anderson. The academy has trained about a dozen former corporate managers and executives a year -- "…in corporate-style management techniques" -- and has proven to be "…costly, inefficient, and ineffective at filling the growing principal vacancies in local community schools" (Anderson, 234). Along with his takeover of schools, Bloomberg during his tenure "…targeted three areas" for change within the UFT's two-hundred page contract with the city, which has led to impassioned protests and political tensions in schools and between the union and Bloomberg. The three areas Bloomberg attacked included: a) how teachers are disciplined; b) the absence of a requirement that "…teachers supervise homeroom, lunch, recess and halls"; and c) the "actual size of the contract" (Anderson, 235).

What Bloomberg was really up to in trying to re-negotiate deals that the UFT had negotiated under collective bargaining with other city officials; the union had in its contract that teachers should not have to supervise lunch period, recess and other areas, but Bloomberg wanted to change that by giving more power to principals in the schools and taking away from teachers and hence, the union. The mayor, by giving principals more authority to handle disciplinary actions against teachers was an attempt to push union contracts aside and bully the unions in any way he could, Anderson implies in this paper.

This tactic by Bloomberg "…opened up the floodgates to the indiscriminate and unjustified firing of teachers without monitored discipline proceedings"; moreover, the mayor fired "…a great.....

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