NEW YORK CITY
Teachers' union protests overcrowded classes
By G. Dunkel
New York
AFT Local 2 of the United Federation of
Teachers, the union that represents about 80,000 teachers and
school personnel in New York City, has begun filing over 9,000
grievances about overcrowded classrooms. It says overcrowding
is causing chaos for more than 300,000 students.
The new school administration for the city replied that the
union's statement was "just P.R.," but it did not dispute the
union's figures.
Last year, the UFT filed only 25 grievances about
overcrowding.
Schools Chancellor Joel Klein and billionaire Mayor Michael
Bloomberg tried to shift the blame to the Bush administration's
"No Child Left Behind" Act, which allows parents to move their
children from schools deemed to be failing to schools where
test results are better. They also say that Gov. George Pataki
has shortchanged the city's schools.
They may be right about Pataki. He lost a court case over
the issue of the state underfunding New York City schools, and
is now trying to avoid having to pay up by appealing the
decision and appointing a commission.
Klein and Bloomberg found enough money to buy 8 million
books for classroom libraries. But they couldn't find the staff
to count the number of transfer requests and estimate changes
in school population.
They didn't even manage to get new teachers hired onto the
payroll during the summer. On Sept. 16, 5,000 new teachers had
to get "emergency" paychecks because the paperwork is still not
done. A significant number of additional teachers will need to
be hired to fix the grievances the UFT is filing.
Reprinted from the Sept. 25, 2003, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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