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New Action/UFT

February 2015

Resolution on Governor Cuomo’s State of the State Report

Whereas, Governor Cuomo sided with his hedge fund supporters, wealthy corporate sponsors, and friends of bogus education reform, in his January 2015 address and launched an all-out attack on educators and teacher unions throughout New York State, and

Whereas, New York State’s School Chancellor Merryl Tisch not only joined the Cuomo bandwagon but gave a lead to it when she issued a 20-page response to a Dec. 18 request from the Cuomo administration, which asked for a reply before the Governor’s state of the state address the first week of January, and

Whereas, in her response she urged Governor Cuomo and lawmakers to improve education by making it easier to fire “incompetent” teachers, increasing the number of charter schools and giving the state more power to intervene in failing schools, changing the burden of proof in a dismissal case so that a teacher with two consecutive poor ratings is presumed incompetent, extending the time it takes to get tenure to five years, enabling districts to come up with compensation plans that reward excellence(merit pay), and giving the state more power to restructure, and in some cases replace, chronically failing schools, and

Whereas, NYS School Chancellor Tisch’s proposals, in essence, formed the basis of the Governor’s state of state education policy,

Whereas, NYS School’s Chancellor Tisch at the end of 2014 threatened to close 94 struggling schools this spring, and

Whereas, school closings and the Governor’s proposals to address the problems in schools blame teachers for their failure, be it

Resolved, that the UFT support Mayor De Blasio’s refusal to close troubled schools and instead offer them additional pedagogical and other forms of support, and be it further

Resolved, that the UFT denounce Chancellor Tisch’s threats and continue to support these 94 schools and use all means possible to protect the due process rights of UFT members in these schools, and

Resolved, that the UFT will mobilize the membership and encourage chapters to engage in a host of activities to defeat the Governor’s plans including, but not limited to: holding chapter meetings, days of solidarity, communicating with legislators, informational picketing, planning actions with other schools in their district, uniting with parents, etc.

Resolved, that the UFT and NYSUT will use all means possible to mobilize parents, communities, faith based organizations, students, and our allies in labor to fight against the draconian proposals of Governor Andrew Cuomo that will harm public schools.

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new.action.uft@ / Michael (Bklyn) (646) 286-3288 / Jon (Bx) (917) 856-6595 / Greg (SI) (718) 757-4552

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