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Lois facilitates Teachers Unite discussion among new and veteran UFT chapter leaders

Throughout my work life, as a classroom teacher and union officer, then college professor and researcher, I've believed that teachers need to work with parents as respectful partners and stand up for social justice.

 

I think transforming teachers unions is an essential part of that project. When teachers unions live up to their potential, they plant the seed of democracy in the schools, giving teachers voice. That's one reason the unions are being attacked so viciously in the media.

 

But democracy in schools also means sharing power with parents, community, and students. As a former teacher and parent of a child in the NYC schools, I've seen the inequality of the system and the marginalization of critics. It's easy

Lois (sitting with CTU President Karen Lewis) shouts out Teachers Unite on Democracy Now!

under these conditions for parents to blame teachers - and vice versa - for what are actually the system's failings. That's what occurs in New York City, and it's a dynamic we have to stop. 

 

Teachers Unite, from its inception, has been committed to bringing teachers, students, parents, and community together as allies in fighting for social justice in the schools and in our city.

 

Today more than ever we need to create mutually respectful relations between teachers unions and communities who want quality schools for their children. Many teachers are fearful of speaking out for kids. Others are just starting to realize the extent of the danger facing us. We need to build a social movement that pushes back on reforms that use the rhetoric of equal opportunity to privatize our schools, increase competition for scarce resources, and worsen conditions for the vast majority of students.

 

Teachers Unite embodies my goals for education, and I am proud to have served on its Board of Directors. I think its work is so essential to New York City that I make it the recipient of the royalties from my new book, The Future of Our Schools: Teachers Unions and Social Justice. 

 

We need to work fast and smart to save public education in NYC, and I think Teachers Unite is one of our best hopes to do that.

  

 

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Our members are not only speaking out, they are acting out!

• They help schools organize Restorative Justice Teams.

• They collaborate with youth organizations to change the city's School Discipline Code.

• They produce media and resources that envision a humanistic approach to student discipline.

• They transform their own school cultures and advocate to the DOE and UFT for help with doing so.