Arthur Goldstein is a veteran teacher of ESL and chapter chair at Francis Lewis High School in Queens, New York City. Goldstein is a rebel who regularly crosses swords with the city bureaucracy and his union as well. The United Federation of Teachers just signed a new contract with the DOE and the City of New York.
Goldstein explains here why he supports the contract.
I have opposed several UFT contracts. The 2005 contract created the Absent Teacher Reserve, which dropped many of my brothers and sisters into a limbo from which there frequently seems no escape. The last one made us wait until 2020 to get money FDNY and NYPD had back in 2010. Our new tentative contract is not perfect, but also has some significant gains.
On the Contract Committee, we sat and listened while big shots from the DOE told us they were not remotely interested in improving class sizes for NYC’s 1.1 million schoolchildren. I told them what it was like to teach a class of 50 plus. I told them when teachers had oversized classes, their remedy was often to give us one day off from tutoring. Where we needed help, though, was right there in the classroom. I told them the best we could do was use that period to seek therapy to deal with our 50 kids. Via new streamlined processes, this contract should at least shorten the time kids and teachers spend in oversized classes. A similar process has proven very effective with excessive paperwork.
A significant win for teachers is fewer observations. Members have been complaining to me about the frequency of observations ever since the new law came into effect. We all feel the Sword of Damocles hanging above our heads. I don’t really know why I do, because I’m fortunate enough to have a supervisor who’s Not Insane. I think, though, if we want to maintain her ability to stay Not Insane, we have to stop making her write up 200 observations a year.
Of course, this will not resolve the issue of crazy supervisors, something city teachers have been grappling with for decades. While the city plans to institute a screening process for teachers (and we’ll see what that entails) future negotiations need to focus on the issue of self-serving, self-important, foaming-at-the-mouth leaders, likely as not brainwashed by Joel Klein’s toxic Leadership Academy. This contract, at least, will create more work for supervisors who use their positions to exercise personal vendettas.
People who can’t hack teaching don’t want to be responsible for 34 kids at a time. They rise up and become the worst supervisors. They may be lazy, and they may be angry that they have to actually do observations these days rather than simply declaring teachers unsatisfactory. In fact, one principal got caught falsifying observations so as to avoid the effort altogether. Supervisors like that will now have to do additional observations if they rate teachers poorly. They may now think twice now that it can cut into their Me Time. Also, we’ve got new language to deal with supervisory retaliation.
Our new agreement gives long needed due process to paraprofessionals. I’ve seen three paraprofessionals summarily suspended by principals. One of them was able to recoup lost pay via a grievance I helped her file. Another said goodbye to me, and ten days later had a stroke. I received a call in my classroom saying one of her relatives needed to know whether or not to place her in an ambulance, since her health insurance had been discontinued. I was at a rare loss for words. The secretary on the other end of the phone wasn’t, and told the relative yes, of course, put her in the ambulance, The paraprofessional died later that day.
To me, it’s remarkable that paraprofessionals, who spend all day helping the neediest of our students, are not considered pedagogues and therefore ineligible to win tenure. Our new agreement will grant them due process rights they sorely need. No longer will principals be able to suspend them without pay indefinitely based on allegations. There will be rules for when they can be suspended, there will be time limits, and there will be a process, rather than, “Hey you, get lost, and don’t come back until I feel like having you back.” Paraprofessionals deserve more than what we’ve won for them, but this, at long last, is a start.
I’ve read arguments that we should strike, like we’ve seen in red states. We are very different from teachers in red states, who’ve been under “right to work” forever, and for whom collective bargaining may be prohibited. We aren’t making 30K a year and getting food stamps to make ends meet. We haven’t gone a decade without a raise. We aren’t paying an extra 5K more each year for health insurance. In fact, unlike much NY State, we aren’t paying health premiums at all. With our last two contracts, and with no health premiums, our pay is approaching that of some Long Island districts (without the doctorate some of them need), something I’ve not seen in my three plus decades as a teacher.
I’ve read a lot of critiques about the money. We extended our contract last year to enable parental leave for UFT members. The same critics who complained about how that diluted raises from the last contract are now attaching it to this one, making it look like the contract begins months before it actually does. That’s disingenuous. (Now don’t get me wrong, I’m fond of money, and I’d like to have more. I’m writing this on a MacBook that’s partially held together with Scotch Tape.)
I can’t argue with people who say these raises don’t keep up with inflation, because they’re right about that. I know very well, though, that we are getting the pattern established by DC37. I also know exactly how we beat the pattern, which we did in 2005. We do that via givebacks. I’ve already mentioned the ATR. 2005 also brought us extended time. We could agree to more extra time, higher class sizes, or more extra classes, and the city would probably pay us for that. I can assure you that every person I know who opposes this contract would be up in arms about them, as would I. Right now we can’t afford to give back anything.
Concessions about the ATR were the worst thing about the 2014 contract. Thankfully, they expired and were not renewed. The second worst thing, as I recall, was having to wait ten years for money we’d earned. We could’ve had an on-time contract if only leadership agreed to sell out the ATR. UFT hung tough and refused. I don’t like waiting for money, but agreeing to allow ATR members to lose their jobs after a certain amount of time would’ve been a disaster. Any crazy principal could target any activist teacher, and we could’ve been fired at will.
I’d very much have liked to see class size reduced. I’d still like to see class size reduced, and I will work toward that. I also have no idea why we support mayoral control. (I don’t even know why de Blasio wants it, now that the state has hobbled his ability to stop Eva, forcing him to pay her rent.)
Nonetheless, this contract represents significant improvements for us. Chapter leaders, all of whom are sick of the grueling grievance procedure, will now have alternate means to quickly resolve issues involving class size, safety, curriculum, PD, supplies, and workload. Those of us who represented high schools on the UFT Executive Board pushed for fewer observations as per state law, and we were able to work with leadership to achieve it. Those of us on the UFT Contract Committee agreed that we wanted to improve the lot of 30,000 paraprofessionals, and we were able to move in that direction.
I support this contract, and I will encourage my colleagues to do so as well. This is the best contract we’ve seen in decades. It will pass by an overwhelming margin.
It would be wise and considerate to appreciate and support a contract that is best for all titles represented by the UFT. Have you ever worked alongside a therapist or a nurse? Maybe you do not appreciate or support them since this contract does not. Please be careful with your support of such a lopsided contract.
I have to disagree. Although I’m only in my 3rd year as chapter leader, I can see right through the power dynamic at play in the UFT. Any perceived victory is a call for celebration at DAs, and that’s exactly what I saw on Friday. I sent my members an e-mail over the weekend for why I recommend a no vote. This is from that e-mail:
1) The “raises” (2%, 2.5%, 3%) do not keep up with inflation or the cost of living. If we approve we will basically be taking a pay cut.
2) The contract does nothing to reduce class size. There is a mechanism that might speed fixing class size violations, but it does nothing to shrink our current class sizes.
3) Nothing has been done for full family leave. Paid parental leave was a good win, but it doesn’t go far enough. Teachers often need to take time off to take care of sick family members, they deserve the right to do that without sacrificing pay.
4) While the due process rights for paras provided for in this contract are good, we are doing all of our paras a great disservice if that’s where we stop. They are grossly underpaid and often taken advantage of by administrators. They deserve significantly higher pay raises that meet a basic living wage.
5) Functional chapters (OTs, PTs, psychologists, speech therapists, nurses, etc) did not get much this contract. OT/PTs are paid significantly less than teachers, counselors, and speech therapists, but their responsibilities are comparable. They deserve better than this contract.
6) I want more information about the Bronx Collaborative Schools Model. I am completely on board with giving schools more resources that need them, especially in areas of city with high rates of poverty. But I want to make sure the program is set up to succeed by utilizing strategies that have proven successful in the past (like wraparound services).
7) I’m not happy with pre-employment screening. While it maybe true that the DOE can screen new employees, why did they bring it to the UFT for the negotiations? I can’t believe there was nothing the UFT could do about this.
As a technical matter, why should the UFT have anything to say, one way or the other, about how the DOE makes hiring decisions? The union represents union members. Applicants are not union members.
Educators are professionals who care about the profession. A screener is a way to try to standardize and control the characteristics of a pedagogue. Were all the effective teachers you had in your lifetime the same? I am sure you had highly organized teachers and messy teachers, reserved teachers and gregarious teachers. Anxious teachers and laid back teachers. The UFT exists to support the teaching PROFESSION.
I get your point, but I don’t think it’s true as a technical matter. The UFT, like all unions, exists to advance the interests of its members. If I were a teacher and UFT member, and the union was acting in a way that was not in my interest but which the union judged was in the best interest of the “profession,” I would be outraged, and justifiably so.
1.Paraprofessionals still make a low wage compared to the work that they do. In experience, more and more paras are being kept at “sub para” status instead of being offered permanent positions. The sub paras are often afraid to speak up about safety issues because they are afraid they won’t be offered permanent positions. At one of the schools where I work, the hardest student behaviorally is assigned to a sub para. This same para was also told to move books that were placed in my workspace (a glorified closet). I told her that I can’t tell her what to do that but if she gets injured on the job I can bet she has few protections. The principal ended up having a school aide move the books. The permanent paras where I work today did not seem overjoyed by the “gains” they will get in this contract
2. I am very cynical after reading The Tyranny of Metrics, but I am highly against prescreening teachers with a yet to be named psychological screener. An article in Chalkbeat mentions it will be similar to what police have to take before being hired. Instead of addressing systemic racism, poverty, lack of equitable funding, lack of support and supplies, a screener will be used to determine what exactly? What if the screener tries to discern if someone will be vocal about injustice or unfair working conditions. Again, from the Tyranny of Metrics, I can imagine that there will be money to be made selling the screener to the DOE and also classes/materials people how to game the screener.
https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/ny/2018/10/11/new-york-city-teachers-will-be-screened-for-suitability-under-new-union-contract/
3. I am an occupational therapist so of course my biggest concern is the lack of pay parity. In 2016 we were forced to give over our NPI insurance billing numbers. This past year Speech therapists were given $5000 plus up to 40 hours of per session to complete SESIS(online Special education system) at home. Speech therapists are pedagogues so they make teacher pay. Our jobs are very similar fun the school but at 20 years pay they make $30,000 more than OTs and PTs. They are in the TRS pension system and we are in BERS. If you do the math, the extra money they make can amount to $1,000,000 more than us in retirement. Occupational therapy is an entry level Master’s, moving to Entry level Doctorate in 2022. PT’s are already entry level Doctorate. Yet we get less than $2000 Master’s differential while teachers get $7000 plus an option of Master’s plus 30 differential.
In the potential contract, they added that OTs and Its can take an unpaid year off work to further their education and return to prior post. Who in their right mind would take an unpaid sabbatical to get extra education when there is no pay differential? Also, when the union gave us a survey about out top priorities for a contract, this was not even an option. Where did this idea come from?
OTs and PTs also do not qualify for the Family Medical Leave Act unless (by my calculation) they work the whole school year, D75 summer school, and don’t take more than six sick days a year. One reason for this is because we only get an 30 minute unpaid lunch while every other professional in the building gets a 50 minute paid lunch.
4.There has not been much transparency with the true cost of healthcare givebacks. This blog spells it out better than I can.
http://iceuftblog.blogspot.com
In a post-Janus world, does this contract send a message of a strong union or a capitulating one?
Hi, this contract is not fair to all. I am a DOE Occupational Therapist and as in previous contracts our best interests have not been considered. We seek parity with speech therapists who in servicing children in the same manner make substantially more than us. The UFT has marginalized us by comparing our salaries to union hospital employees despite completely different job descriptions. Hopefully you rethink your stance and give us the OT/PT functional chapter consideration.
You’re a UFT member?
Yes we are.
Thanks.
Melissa Williams eloquently stated what I am feeling as well. Although paras will have some “wins” with this contract, they still have a long way to go in terms of being appropriately compensated for all the work they do. There are some paras in my building (especially those who are formula paras in pre-k and 12:1:1 classrooms) who do just as much work as the teachers while getting paid 1/4 of what the teacher is making.
I am also an occupational therapist and my biggest concern is gaining parity with speech therapists. We have essentially the same job functions and licensure requirements as speech therapists and yet we receive a
significantly lower salary than our speech therapy peers. Besides that, we have an unpaid 30 minute lunch while they have a paid 50 minute lunch. They have the option to take on extra treatment sessions and make additional “per session” money during the day. Inaclinate where there are more and more children receiving therapeutic services, allowing OTs and PTs to pick up additional work during the day would both alleviate a need to outsource these treatment sessions to outside contact agencies and allow therapists the opportunity to make more money during the work day. Many therapists are leaving their Board of Ed day job and going to a secondary job to make the money they require to support their families. It boggles my mind that therapists are willing to work extra, the city has the need for therapists to service these children and yet the city is outsourcing this work to outside contract agencies. Wouldn’t it be a great first step to allow Board of Ed OTs and PTs to service these children?! Additionally, occupational therapists are forced to perform our own evaluations while PTs and speech therapists have evaluation teams that are sent out to perform evaluations. Most OTs do not have the time to do these evaluations which take anywhere from 3-4 hours. When we are servicing a full caseload, we are pretty much told to figure it out and evaluate these children. We do not receive any extra compensation for doing the evaluations and we are not paid anything additional to get them done. Why are OTs the only discipline forced to do their own evaluations? Why can’t the Board of Ed either make an OT evaluation team just as PT and speech has or pay OTs extra per session money to do the extra work we are doing on our peeps and unpaid lunch periods. There are just so many steps the Board of Ed can take to begin to close the gap in the unequal and unfair treatment of therapists and many of the steps would not cost the city a penny.
Occupational therapists representing on this thread. Have to say my kids have had great experiences with OT in NYC schools. I’m very ignorant about their pay and benefits and working conditions.
Dear Mayor Bill de Blasio, Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza, and UFT President Michael Mulgrew,
The Department of Education and the United Federation of Teachers have reached a tentative contract agreement. While this agreement contains important rights and benefits for teachers and paraprofessionals, it neglects the needs of a vital group of professionals.
We are school-based occupational and physical therapists. We provide necessary services to support students with disabilities as mandated by their IEPs, so they can access a free and appropriate public education alongside their peers.
We are highly trained, with Master’s degree education or even higher. Our clinical skills are comparable to speech-language pathologists, school psychologists, or social workers. Like our professional colleagues, we work with students in groups as well as individually. Like our pedagogical coworkers, we consult and collaborate with teachers to problem-solve strategies to help the most challenging students succeed. Like other functional chapters of the UFT, our services earn significant income for the DOE through Medicaid reimbursement every day.
And yet, unlike our colleagues, we are undervalued and underpaid for our hard work.
We demand a fair contract that respects our rights and provides parity in salary and benefits.
We demand parity in salary. A $500 increase in longevity is paltry compared to the $30,000 more in annual salary for our colleagues with the same level of education.
We demand equal opportunities for per-session reimbursement in order to meet the needs of our students and our schools. As dedicated professionals, we come early and work late or prepare our work at home – yet with no recognition and reimbursement.
We demand recognition of the income that our billable services provide for the DOE – and commensurate payments for our services, like the speech therapists.
We demand protections for our jobs and our professional licenses.
We demand equal rights and benefits. We work the full 10-month school year – yet because we are classified as administrative employees and not as pedagogues, we are denied eligibility for Family and Medical Leave Act.
We demand equal respect for our needs – for a fair workload including a 50-minute paid lunch period, and the ability to take religious observance days.
We demand a fair contract that recognizes our contributions to our city’s most needy students.
For Lamaar, the child with cerebral palsy who is learning adaptive techniques to hold a pencil and improve his handwriting for class assignments – because of his occupational therapist.
For Ibrahim, the boy with orthopedic impairments who is improving his strength and balance so he won’t fall in the stairwell or hallway this year – because of his physical therapist.
For Maria, the teenager with autism who is learning to self-regulate when the sensory environment of the noisy cafeteria, or her vocational job placement, gets too overwhelming – because of her occupational therapist.
And for us. We are the occupational and physical therapists of the NYC DOE.
This contract is terrible for occupational and physical therapists. The city makes millions of dollars off of our licenses billing for Medicaid and we have the lowest pay rate, no prep periods, half an hour lunch as opposed to every single one of our colleagues, monpay parity to our speech counterparts, have a much lower cap salary then our counterparts… shame on you for endorsing such a contract that leaves those who work with the special needs population out in the cold!!!! They made so many promises and none of them came to fruition… we are the step children of the Uft!!! We pay the same dues as everyone else and get nothingnin return!!! Most of us have to work extra jobs just to make ends meet. Shame!!’
I just want to say thanks to all the folks above who have registered comments. I’ve never found the UFT a particularly useful organization (I’m a teacher in my 16th year of service in New York City, but I am soon to depart) other than extending itself a hearty round of congratulations on the most meager of achievements. I wouldn’t stop paying my dues–I am a Mark, but not a Janus–but I’m never shy about calling UFT employees on their dubious competence.
That said, I still have my Teamsters withdrawal card. That was a union, when I was a member in the early 1980s, that got things done.
This contract was negotiated completely out of the public’s eye and as is always the case under undemocratic mayoral control, families and taxpayers got the short and sharp end of the stick.
No reduction in class size caps, which have been frozen in place for 40+ years and which the UFT loves to complain about and scapegoat at literally every other time and place—except, weirdly, when they are at a bargaining table and can do something about it! Leonie Haimson’s blog goes into much greater detail on this point: https://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2018/10/another-disappointing-uft-contract-when.html
No guaranteed recess for elementary school children, which frequently doesn’t happen in NYC not because of testing or NCLB or Bill Gates or the Koch brothers, but because of absurd work rules that treat a kindergarten teacher exactly the same as an AP Calculus teacher, and which limits teachers to working with children to about 4 1/2 hours inside of a 6 1/3 hour school day—makes sense (maybe it isn’t enough prep time) when you’ve got five sections and 175 students, but not so much sense when you’ve got 20 kindergartners.
At a time when the DOE is making a good-faith effort to reduce suspensions and the disparate and racist impact of disciplinary measures, the contract establishes a new dean position for high schools to “strengthen school tone and to ensure student discipline and safety.” This position can be created solely at the principal’s discretion, with no approval or buy-in from parents or students.
Nothing at all in the contract promotes improving representation and diversity in the teaching ranks. Somehow, in 2018, 60% of the teaching force is white in a system that is 15% white (if you think this doesn’t have something to do with the creation of a dean to “strengthen school tone,” you need to get out more!).
Nothing meaningful to address the tragicomic absurdity that is the Absent Teacher Reserve.
Nothing done to restore small class size extended-day tutoring for the most vulnerable and most likely to be held back students. This was eliminated during the 2014-2019 contract in lieu of weekly professional development and parent engagement sessions that are a total joke; this next contract demands that principals can’t assign other tasks to teachers during these blocks.
A reduction in formal principal observations, including those for struggling teachers
Going all-in on an unproven hard-to-staff differential scheme that was not shared with parents or taxpayers, the so-called “Bronx Plan”
Expanding the types of master’s courses and work-experience credits that teachers can use to get into higher salary lanes, with no evidence or discussion whether these underwater basket-weaving type courses have any positive impact on the student experience.
I’m sure there are other disasters in it but I’ve only got so much time and energy. The takeaway, as always, is that mayoral control is an ongoing nuclear meltdown, and that the best interests of students, parents, and taxpayers will get short shrift as long as it exists.
That’s why I oppose mayoral control in its current form, as established by Michael Bloomberg.
The DOE is autocratically run by one person.
That is wrong.
No accountability.
That’s the way billionaires like it.
We wouldn’t have so many charters if the board actually represented the public.
way past time to expose mayoral control as untenable
Your reference to this contract being negotiated “out of the public eye” is a red herring and disingenuous.
What contract, public or private sector, is negotiated in public?
As for how the interests of the public, students and parents were served, that can be argued, but they are not parties to the agreement, and by implication were represented by the Mayor.
Update: the OT, PT and Nurse Chapter just learned that we are the only functional chapter who voted NO on our contract. We will need the support of all stakeholders as we advocate for parity.