Teachers Demonstrate Against the Inaction of the UFT 10/17/07
Teachers will demonstrate in front of UFT headquarters to protest the union’s five year silence in defending teachers against abusive treatment at the hands of the Bloomberg-Klein administration.
When teachers’ rights are abused, students’ rights to a good education are abused. Very competent tenured teachers have been turned into substitute teachers- ATRs- while the City hires thousands of new teachers. Very competent teachers are targeted for harassment and unfairly U-rated because:
--they exercised their contractual right to transfer into a school or,
--they criticize an educational program or,
--they question irregularities they see- marking of exams, attendance taking, lack of compliance with IEPs, changing of IEPs without parental notification or consent etc. or,
--they demand much of their students ,i.e. “hard markers”, or,
--they have reached a certain seniority and therefore salary or,
--whatever other educationally invalid reason the inexperienced and business-model trained principals and assistant principals feel is necessary to 'break the teacher's will'.
Where was/is the UFT?
Where was the union outcry about ,or at least serious and public questioning of, the ATR debacle?
Where were the chapter leaders and the district reps when teachers were/are targeted for harassment?
Where was Randi before the newspapers made the Reassignment Centers (Rubber Rooms) the sexy issue of the moment?
Where was/is the expression of UFT outrage at that mockery of justice known as the DOE Appeals Court?
WHERE WAS THE UNION VOICE NOT TWO WEEKS AGO, BUT TWO YEARS AGO, THREE YEARS AGO, AND BACK TO THE BEGINNING OF BLOOMBERG-KLEIN TIME?
This is why TAG is marching knowing full well that Bloomberg-Klein is our enemy, but wondering who and where are our friends?
