INDIANA TEACHERS CLOSE HALF THE SCHOOLS IN STATE TO RALLY WHILE IN NYC IT'S BUSINESS AS USUAL AT UNITY BUT CLASS SIZE MATTERS KEEPS FIGHTING

Indiana is no progressive liberal state. Even there we see the teachers in revolt.

From the Indianapolis Star:
Thousands of teachers and their supporters, clad in red, flooded the area outside the Indiana Statehouse on Tuesday for Red for Ed Action Day.

According to the Indiana State Police, 5,000 people went inside the Statehouse later in the afternoon, but the police didn't have an overall crowd estimate. Roughly 15,000 people were registered to attend the event, which would make it one of the largest statehouse rallies in recent memory.

For reference, state police estimated that 4,500 to 5,000 people attended the Women's March in 2017. And in 2011, they said over 8,000 attended a Right to Work rally.

Chanting “Red for Ed” and carrying signs, crowds formed around each side of the building starting early in the morning. Before 10 a.m. the crowd was shoulder to shoulder on the south lawn, waving signs as a band played and union leaders made remarks.

Organized by Indiana State Teachers Association and other labor groups, speakers called on lawmakers to make changes in public education, especially when it comes to teacher pay, holding districts harmless from poor performances on a new statewide test and for new professional development requirements to be repealed.

More than half of the school districts in the state closed their doors Tuesday for Red for Ed, with some converting the day into either an e-learning day or an employee workday. And teachers attended from all ends of the state, some leaving as early as 5 a.m. to drive to Indianapolis.

Meanwhile back in NYC, instead of demanding proper working conditions for teachers and better learning conditions for students with actions to back these demands up, the UFT's ruling Unity Caucus has volunteered to do the job of educating the kids by ourselves if the DOE can't support us to get it done.

From the latest Unity leaflet:
The Instructional Leadership Framework, or ILF, is a DOE initiative that integrates NYS Standards (“Next Gen”), Culturally Responsive Education, and Advanced Literacy. While we agree with this initiative in concept, we do not agree with the implementation. Our teachers should be exposed to these new standards, as next year our students and our school system will be judged on them.  Writing curriculum, bypassing the PD Committee and creating paperwork for the sake of creating paper and work are our new but old fights. How does this help our members, our students, and our schools?

UNITY/UFT President Mulgrew has made it clear that if the DOE can’t or won’t help our students prepare for the Next Generation Standards, then we must do it alone; if the DOE will allow it to fall on the backs of our members, then we must stand firm and demand the support our schools and teachers need. As ridiculous as it sounds, if our employer cannot do this work, then we must lead the charge to help our school system succeed. We have too many enemies waiting and hoping for us to fail in the ever important role of educating our students.

Same old, same old. It's just like when Mulgrew said the only problem with Common Core was how it was implemented. The UFT is now going to demand the support our schools need but if the DOE messes it up, as the DOE usually does, the teachers and other UFT members will do it alone. I guess the Unity position is educating children in spite of the incompetence and corruption of our employer is fine.*

The UFT can do something. It is nice that we have a new and improved class size reduction process to attempt to get the DOE to keep within our way too large limits but Mulgrew might want to help the parents who have filed an appeal on a lawsuit claiming that the city has violated the law by not lowering class size as the law said they have to since 2007.

From Class Size Matters:
This year’s class size data was released and shows that average class sizes actually increased in Kindergarten and 7th grade this year.

In other  grades, the class size held steady or declined by only insignificant amounts.

We are providing a detailed analysis of class size trends and what should be done to counteract  the sharp increases that have occurred since 2007 at three CEC meetings this week. We will also discuss school overcrowding and the findings of our charter facilities report, including how millions are missing from the matching funds the DOE was supposed to provide public schools co-located with charter schools for facility upgrades, and the $100 million a year the city spends on renting private space for charter schools, including in some cases, where the charter management organization owns the building.




*Please no comments on why this is just another excuse to stop paying union dues. Direct your fire at Mr. Mulgrew, not this dissident but pro-union blog please. I don't need to write the same reasoning on how the problems are the union's leadership, the need for a more activist membership and the UFT's undemocratic structure, not the fact that we are unionized teachers.