UFT Delegate Assembly Resolution: Support School Closing Demonstration on January 27, 2011

I'm heading off to hand this out at the Delegate Assembly and then off to the PEP meeting to greet Cathie Black, who when told there was a PEP tonight and never having attended one in all these years and probably being totally unaware of what the PEP was, must be all excited at what she thinks will be a pep rally. "Will there be cheerleaders," she probably asked? Look for the entire press corps to be out in force tonight.

Look for updates through the evening sent from my Blackberry.

In this reso we throw the UFT's own words from their own reso back at them.

WHEREAS the NYC DOE policy of mass school closings has had a massively negative impact on the entire educational community that goes far beyond a particular closing school, affecting entire boroughs and beyond; and

WHEREAS  only by building a grassroots movement “together with local communities, students, parents, educational advocates and others" to oppose school closings can we gain a reversal in this disastrous policy; and

WHEREAS fighting school closings will require organizing the threatened schools into a unified and potent force through mass demonstrations and other measures;

WHEREAS the UFT Resolution on the Proposed school closings passed at the December 15 Delegate Assembly condemned the NYC DOE policy of mass school closings "as a policy that is not educational in design or implementation, but a reckless and destructive means of pursuing a political and ideological agenda for remaking NYC public education. Rather than providing the needed supports and resources it had promised the 19 schools slated for closure last year, the NYC DOE has systematically undermined these schools, deliberately under-enrolling them, slashing their budgets, excessing large numbers of their best staff and flooding them with over-the-counter students"; and

WHEREAS the Dec.15 UFT resolution RESOLVED "that together with local communities, students, parents, educational advocates and others, the UFT will build a grass roots movement of opposition to mass school closures, giving voice to the outrage that all of these civic organizations and citizens feel over this reckless and destructive policy of the NYC DOE;" and

WHEREAS in the said resolution the UFT vowed to fight school closings with demonstrations and other measures; and

WHEREAS The Grassroots Education Movement (GEM-NYC), the Green Party, New York Collective of Radical Educators (NYCORE), Concerned Advocates for Public Education (CAPE), Class Size Matters, Teachers for a Just Contract (TJC), and the Independent Community of Educators (ICE) are calling for a citywide rally on January 27, 2010 at the Tweed Courthouse; be it therefore

RESOLVED that the UFT endorse the January 27th citywide rally against school closings and encourage and mobilize its members to participate.

Contact gemnyc@gmail.com

Labor donated