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Mission Statement

Mission Statement

Teachers Unite is building a movement of public school teachers who play a critical role in working for racial, gender and economic justice. We work to: a) build a base of teachers with the leadership skills to effectively organize within their union in the interest of educators, students and parents, b) support the development of local educational justice campaigns with the insight of teachers committed to democracy and dignity for all NYC communities, and c) strengthen relationships between teachers, community organizers, and the low-income communities most effected by inequity.

 

Vision

Teachers Unite seeks to redefine public education by rebuilding the relationship between teachers, students, families and communities as partners in the struggle for social and educational justice. Our vision is to transform the popular understanding of what it means to be an educator so that those who choose to teach are committed to pedagogical innovation, community organizing and strengthening public education. Together with families and communities, educators will design an exceptional education system that will reflect the character of every neighborhood, each of which will have the power to examine and articulate its needs and formulate responses to its particular schools’ context. Teachers Unite sets its sights on a democratic and just society, with an education system that embodies principles of equity and empowerment.

 

Issues

  • Racial and Economic Injustice: The popular idea that public education offers opportunities for the urban poor masks the reality that there is a severe scarcity of meaningful, secure, well-paid jobs available due to unregulated corporate capitalism on the global scale, inadequate wage laws, weakened labor unions and an increased reliance on contingent workers. The inequity of schools based on de facto segregation and unjust funding policies is well documented. What is rarely addressed is the fact that urban public school teachers are working with youth whose civil rights are under threat because of their nationality, race, religion, sexuality and gender—their urban students’ families are split-up by deportation, victimized by police profiling, impaired physically by environmental degradation and evicted by gentrification. From the issues that impact the school system to those that affect the classroom, educational injustice starts with the uneven playing field built by social and economic injustice. These realities are obstacles to educators who want to build a positive culture of learning where students can thrive and have access to real opportunity. There is a natural link between teachers’ workplace conditions—the decline in professionalism, the scarcity of resources, and the heavily policed facilities—and the living conditions of the low-income and immigrant communities, and communities of color they serve.

  • Privatization of Public Education: While teachers in New York City public schools are unionized, the work being outsourced is the role of a democratic government meant to serve the people. Whether it’s school buses, student assessment or professional development for teachers, Mayor Bloomberg’s administration has pushed hard for private corporations to takeover the role of the public school system. Nearly half of New York City's teachers quit in their first five years or leave to teach outside the city (source: UFT). “Idealists”, those who highly value “service to society” relative to other motivations to teach, are more likely to leave the profession because the conditions that limit how they serve children frustrate them (Miech and Elder 1996). This pivotal moment in re-defining the teaching profession falls against the backdrop of severe disengagement from the UFT. 74,000 active teachers are members but less than 25% voted in the 2007 election for union president (Education Notes); they are detached from the powerful organization that exists both to win their demands and to influence policy that impacts schools, families and children. In their recent analysis of the global fight for public schools, Mary Compton and Lois Weiner write: “Teachers are in a war being fought over the future of education, and though at times it might seem as though we are losing the war without firing a shot, we have a potentially powerful weapon in our hands—our solidarity” (The Global Assault on Teachers, Teaching, and Teacher Unions). On the local, national and international levels, the trend toward privatization moves to crush education systems in the name of “reform”. The major obstacle to uprooting public education wholesale—identified by those who seek to do so, ranging from major U.S. city superintendents to World Bank economists—is powerful organizations of educators.

  • Community Dis-empowerment: Despite the efforts of teachers throughout public education’s history, teaching is increasingly defined as anything other than partnering with communities in their struggles for self-determination and justice. During the 1968 United Federation of Teachers (UFT) strike (the infamous response to experimental community control districts—Ocean Hill-Brownsville being the most notable), The New York Times described the power battles surrounding public education as the “day-to-day warfare between the school establishment, which now clearly consists of a coalition of the union and The Board of Education, and the community forces”. This tension has worsened in the past 40 years as teachers are systematically hired from outside the communities they teach in, and are generally thought of as part of the institution low-income families of color have no access to democratically govern. Contributing to this disconnect, high poverty urban districts are far more likely to have novice teachers whose attrition rate is higher, while the student achievement associated with this trend is low (Celine Coggins, Education Week, 4/9/08).

    Students suffer because our education system has no expectation that teachers will or should be grounded in the communities in which they work. In fact, the current trend in alternative teacher preparation (i.e. Teach for America, NYC Teaching Fellows) encourages a cultural disconnect; talented new teachers leave the profession after few years because they are seeking challenges and growth opportunities, but “the job they desire—a hybrid of teaching and leadership—does not exist” (Coggins). Educational justice must be part of the struggle for social justice. Teachers are working in a school system where the majority of teachers are white and the majority of students are Black and Latino/a; the skills and information emphasized by mainstream curriculum reflect our racist society, and; low-income and working class parents are often treated with hostility, derision or indifference. These divisive realities are just some of the major obstacles to teachers who want to build a positive culture of learning where their students can thrive.

  • Cops in Schools: In New York City public schools that serve low-income students of color, discipline and safety polices are often distorted to create hostile environments and exclude students from the classroom through excessive suspensions and unjustified arrests. Police and safety agents patrol hallways and apply criminalizing tactics to non-criminal behavior, including handcuffing students for shouting in hallways and arresting students for altercations that were once dealt with by school staff. Teachers Unite, in partnership with NESRI (National Economic and Social Rights Initiative), documented teacher opinions about these issues. We collected survey responses from over 300 teachers, and conducted four focus groups. From our findings it is clear teachers overwhelmingly agree that, rather than establishing disciplinary systems that simply react to misbehavior and conflict by punishing or criminalizing students, what is of more importance is creating an underlying culture and condition needed to build a sense of community. In focus groups and surveys, teachers called for collaboration and communication among all stakeholders in a school to establish a clear plan for discipline that includes conflict resolution, more guidance counselors and social workers, and classroom management. On October 22nd, 2008 we released the report – Teachers Talk: Human Rights, Discipline and Helping Kids Learn – which will be instrumental in meeting the following objectives:

    • Build support for concrete policy reform in the City Council and Department of Education;

    • Increase public awareness and understanding of the impact of current discipline and safety policies on the right to education and dignity in schools.

    The Student Safety Coalition is spearheaded by the NYCLU and includes Teachers Unite, NESRI, Urban Youth Collaborative, Make the Road New York, and many other organizations. The coalition has worked with city council successfully to introduce the Student Safety Act to improve oversight of school safety agents, and produced research on successful alternative school safety models. Teachers Unite staff and members have spoken at press conferences to raise awareness about the legislation, as well as participated in lobbying visits with key city council members to secure their support for the act.