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United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew runs the largest teachers union local in the country, representing the teachers of New York City. Like many teachers union affiliates nationwide, the UFT has been sparring with policymakers over issues such as merit pay, school closures, and charter schools, which pose a threat to union strength and which union leaders argue harm public education. Even as some national experts predict that teacher union power is waning, the UFT has won victories and its political influence remains strong. The Hechinger Report and GothamSchools spoke with Mulgrew at the union’s headquarters near Wall Street in downtown Manhattan about the biggest challenges facing the union and what the future looks like for the UFT.

What was the biggest challenge you thought the union was facing when you started this job? (more…)

It’s a familiar scene:

United Federation of Teachers president Michael Mulgrew taking the podium on the steps of City Hall to decry school closures or toxic school buildings while parents and activists from grassroots groups like New York Communities for Change are waving signs behind him.

Or crowding into offices in Albany to lobby legislators to vote their way on the budget.

Or marching against larger societal problems like income inequality during the Occupy Wall Street protests.

Teachers unions are not only generous to their members and politicians, they also give to outside groups whose political views and activities mesh with their own. Last year, the United Federation of Teachers gave $1.4 million in grants and contributions to groups including Planned Parenthood, the anti-standardized testing group Fairtest, and the Brooklyn Children’s Museum. New York State United Teachers gave nearly $760,000 to the American Cancer Society, Empire State Pride Agenda, and the New York Immigration Coalition, among others.

Some of the biggest beneficiaries are two grassroots organizing groups who receive hundreds of thousands a year from the unions and who often show up arm-and-arm with the state and city unions at protests, Lobby Day, and other political events: New York Communities for Change and the Alliance for Quality Education. (more…)

The public face of the New York City teachers union is often that of a political heavyweight engaging in battle with opponents like the mayor and charter school supporters. For many teachers, the union is often something more personal and classroom-focused.

The face of the United Federation of Teachers and its state affiliate, New York State United Teachers, is that of a training organization for many teachers who take courses with the unions and get in-person help in the classroom.

The unions also dispense basic benefits like health and dental insurance along with perks like discounts on movies and theater tickets, group trips to events such as the Philadelphia Flower Show, and legal help when teachers have problems at work or, to a limited degree, if they’re accused of a crime. (NYSUT, which provides both for teachers around the state and members of the UFT, spends about $85 million annually on legal services, which covers the salaries of about 260 union staff members who deal with legal issues.) (more…)

For decades, the United Federation of Teachers, the largest teachers union local in the nation, held the city in its sway. The UFT’s powerful get-out-the-vote efforts influenced mayoral elections. Its political power kept Albany legislators on a tight leash. And the city’s education policies sometimes mirrored the union’s agenda.

But in recent years, that power has been under threat, both locally and nationally.

Across the country, local teachers unions have been fending off attacks against basic labor rights, such as laws that repeal collective bargaining, and trying to defeat or water down scores of state-level bills that would tie teacher evaluations to student test scores, establish merit pay, or abolish tenure.

And in New York City, a billionaire mayor with no need for union dollars or endorsement has reshaped the city school system and picked fights with the union over its top priorities, including teacher tenure and job protections based on seniority.

Continuity and change

Together, the attacks have cut into the formidable might the UFT has wielded since it began representing all city teachers in 1962. (more…)

In Washington, D.C., officials shortened a new teacher evaluation checklist after complaints from teachers and principals that it was too long and time-consuming.

In Memphis, Tenn., after a year of piloting new evaluations and a summer of training, some principals and teachers remained confused and overwhelmed.

In Louisiana, one expert warned of lawsuits as the state began to roll out a truncated observation system without first testing it.

But in New Haven, Conn., union officials and reformers alike have praised a collaborative effort to help teachers improve under the city’s new rating system.

As New York City officials and union leaders wrangle over the design of new teacher evaluations due to roll out citywide next year, the experiences of other states and districts offer both inspiration and lessons about what not to do. (more…)

New York City’s controversial school turnaround proposals represent a tiny piece of a sweeping effort, funded by the U.S. Department of Education, to overhaul the country’s lowest-performing schools. In the last of three articles about the reform effort produced by Education Week, The Hechinger Report, and the Education Writers Association, Sarah Garland looks at the  national impact of a federal requirement — tougher teacher evaluations — that has tripped up School Improvement Grants in New York. GothamSchools was one of four news organizations to contribute to the reporting.

Elliott Elementary in Lincoln, Neb., struck off on its own last year when it became the only school in the city to win money through the federal School Improvement Grant program. Winning wasn’t something to be proud of, though: It meant the school qualified as one of the worst in the nation. About a third of fifth-graders at Elliott were proficient on state reading tests when the reforms began, compared to 80 percent in Lincoln as a whole.

Winning also meant a lot of work for teachers and administrators. One of the biggest tasks was overhauling the way teachers at the school are evaluated. Elliott was the only school in the city making the change, which meant it had to come up with a new way of rating teachers mostly on its own.

“The challenge was connecting it to student achievement,” said Jadi Miller, named the principal at Elliott after a longtime principal was ousted to comply with the grant’s mandate of new leadership. “That was certainly very new for us.”

In the Obama administration’s new push to turn around the bottom 5 percent of schools nationwide, the vast majority of districts chose the reform option that seemed the least invasive: Instead of closing schools or firing at least half of the teaching staff, schools could undergo less aggressive interventions, such as overhauling how teacher performance is measured and rewarding teachers who do well.

But the teacher-evaluation requirement has turned out to be a major stumbling block for many schools in the SIG program. (more…)

New York City schools erupted in controversy last week when the school district released its “value-added” teacher scores to the public after a yearlong battle with the local teachers union. The city cautioned that the scores had large margins of error, and many education leaders around the country believe that publishing teachers’ names alongside their ratings is a bad idea.

Still, a growing number of states are now using evaluation systems based on students’ standardized test-scores in decisions about teacher tenure, dismissal, and compensation. So how does the city’s formula stack up to methods used elsewhere?

The Hechinger Report has spent the past 14 months reporting on teacher-effectiveness reforms around the country and has examined value-added models in several states. New York City’s formula, which was designed by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has elements that make it more accurate than other models in some respects, but it also has elements that experts say might increase errors — a major concern for teachers whose job security is tied to their value-added ratings.

“There’s a lot of debate about what the best model is,” said Douglas Harris, an expert on value-added modeling at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who was not involved in the design of New York’s statistical formula. The city used the formula from 2007 to 2010 before discontinuing it, in part because New York State announced plans to incorporate a different formula into its teacher evaluation system. (more…)

New York City’s Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) is at risk of losing a $190 million grant, after the federal government included it on a list of 132 substandard Head Start agencies across the country this week.

Head Start is the half-century-old federal preschool program for low-income children. ACS, among the oldest and largest Head Start agencies in the country, did not meet the “quality thresholds” set by the federal Office of Head Start, according to a list made public Tuesday by the Administration for Children & Families, which oversees the program.

Educators and advocates said the announcement could mean major upheaval for ACS, which serves 120,000 children and families in New York City and oversees contracts for 250 Head Start centers.

“It would have a huge impact,” said Nina Piros, director of early childhood programs for University Settlement, which runs two Head Start centers on the Lower East Side under a contract with ACS. “If ACS does lose its grant, then delegate agencies will be out of business, to put it mildly,” she added, referring to the centers that contract with ACS.

“There’s a lot of jaws that dropped,” said Steven Antonelli, administrative director of the Head Start program at the Bank Street College of Education. (more…)