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Friday, April 12, 2013

Highlights from the April 11 issue of New York Teacher: | Edwize

New York Teacher | Edwize:


New York Teacher

Highlights from the April 11 issue of New York Teacher:
New York Teacher, April 11, 2013State budget a major victory for schools
City schools are set to receive $319.5 million in new state funding for the coming school year, part of a statewide 4.9 percent increase in education aid that is the largest since the 2007 recession. The final budget, approved by state lawmakers on March 29, also extends the millionaire’s tax another three years.
Trailer park school
The field next to Richmond Hill HS in Queens doesn’t have a baseball diamond or soccer goal posts. Instead, it is cluttered with 22 trailers in which approximately 600 students from the overcrowded school have class. The existence of the trailers, which the DOE has been promising for years to replace with an annex, is just one of the many examples of the DOE’s neglect at Richmond Hill.
‘Bot stuff!
In the main competition of the New York City First Science and Technology Celebration this year, school teams had six weeks to design, build and program robots to remotely maneuver around an enclosed field, playing ultimate Frisbee and climbing a jungle gym.
The economics of good preschool
Every year, politicians’ promises to invest in early education seem to bloom like daffodils, then fade. Can a hard look at costs vs. benefits help us break this cycle?
Governance Task Force recommendations approved
The UFT delegates voted overwhelmingly on March 20 to support the 60-member UFT Task Force on School Governance’s recommendations to scale back mayoral control of the school system. “We are telling the city what parents already know: what we have doesn’t work,” UFT President Michael Mulgrew said.
Combining learning, fun to help shape students
Nearly 500 teachers, paraprofessionals, parents and child care providers attended the UFT’s sixth annual Early Childhood Education Conference on March 16, entitled “Today We Shape Tomorrow.”
SESIS payments on the way!
Thanks to the UFT’s victory in arbitration, more than 31,000 members should be receiving back pay in April for the Special Education Student Information System work that they did after work hours between September 2011 and Dec. 31, 2012.
Forum message: Labor-community bond crucial
Unions today must organize whole communities, said the presidents of the UFT and the Chicago Teachers Union at a packed forum on union and community partnerships on March 15.