Press

Teachers Unite and NESRI Briefs Supporters at the Black Male Donor Collective

It may have only been the second official day of summer, but on June 21st, in a conference room at the BMDC’s New York Office, school was back in session. The lesson of the day: effective education reform and the importance of teacher insight and partnership. With presentations and testimonials from Cathy Albisa and Liz Sullivan of the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative, Sally Lee of Teachers Unite, and New York City public school teachers Daniel Jerome (Banana Kelly High School) and Bonnie Massey (Morris High School Campus), the afternoon was spent casting an in-classroom, teacher perspective on the realities of zero-tolerance school discipline policies and the most effective alternatives.

School-to-Prison Pipeline Training

Breaking the School-to-Prison Pipeline: Bringing Restorative Justice to Our Schools was a three-day summer training organized by Teachers Unite for New York City educators, youth organizers, advocates, and others seeking strategies for rethinking school discipline.

Participants discussed the history of schools in the United States, from Puritanical views of children as evil to the genocidal boarding schools for Native American youth, the Reagan-era introduction of zero tolerance, and the history of indigenous and black resistance against an education system that is often a model of social injustice.

Check out the mention of Your Schools, Your Voice , our 2012 report on the impact of mayoral control on community participation in schools, in this Epoch Times article reporting on Bloomberg's centralization of schools:

Mayor Has Too Much Power Over NYC School System, Say Critics 

Push for reform coincides with 2013 city elections and the promise of a new mayor.

Teacher Group Looks Past 2013 to Mayoral Control's Sunset Date

"Most education policy wonks in the city are focused on 2013, when New Yorkers will elect a replacement for Mayor Michael Bloomberg. But in a new report, a teacher advocacy group suggests that 2015 might be more important."

Click here for rest of article.

Click here for a copy of Your Schools, Your Voice: The Impact of Mayoral Control on Community Particiaption in Schools

On October 14, Dignity in Schools Campaign-NY held a teach-in to discuss the problem of pushout and solutions for positive school discipline.  

1. Opening Panel – School Discipline in NYC and Positive Solutions

Educators Push Back Against Obama’s "Business Model" for School Reforms

Winds of change in US teacher unions
Lois Weiner February 18, 2010

Though you wouldn’t know it from the mass media, which focuses its attention on the way teacher unions impede “educational innovation,” (e.g., standardized testing’s stranglehold; privatization; cuts in funding), we are witnessing a growing swell of reform in teacher unions. Transformation of both national teacher unions is absolutely essential to turn back the neoliberal program that the Obama administration is pushing.

http://labornotes.org/node/2472

Teacher Reformers Prepare for Battle over Public Education

— Paul Abowd

Published 5/13/09 in Edutopia

by Evantheia Schibsted

A recent report found that educators believe that the secret to effective discipline is proactively building relationships, not reacting punitively to student misbehavior. In surveys with 300 New York City public school teachers that included an open-ended question about the largest threat to school safety, the most common response was a lack of cohesive culture and positive relationships between staff and students. (Download a PDF of the report, "Teachers Talk: School Culture, Safety and Human Rights.")