UUP Cobleskill Chapter

Chapter Election Results 2015

http://uupinfo.org/communications/2015releases/150305.php

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxDZCL6Ax1w&list=UU4f3vj05fNZOCaKhWkV1WAg&feature=player_detailpage

UUP’s call for a legislative investigation into the state’s deeply flawed teacher certification process is heading to the Board of Regents, as support grows for the union’s protest against the disastrous rollout of high-stakes exams for student teachers.

“Today, UUP calls for an investigation of the State Education Department requirements that have been established for teacher education students,” UUP President Fred Kowal said during a March 5 news conference in the Legislative Office Building in Albany. “We must protect the programs that will teach, mentor and guide the next generation of learners.

“This is failure by design,” he continued. “Frankly put, New York State teacher preparation students have been set up to fail by the State Education Department and Governor Cuomo.”

Kowal was joined by a broad-based and large group of supporters – including a member of the New York State Board of Regents, Kathleen Cashin; NYSUT Executive Vice President Catalina Fortino; public and private college faculty, college students and recent graduates and parents.

Cashin, above, said that she intends to carry concerns to the full Board of Regents at its next meeting, to reinforce longstanding public criticisms of the new certification exams.

“The evaluation methods need to be valid and reliable,” said Cashin, who added that it’s wrong to silence the voice of teacher preparation faculty who are being affected by new state policies they had no say in creating.

Last spring, the Regents—in response to an outcry by NYSUT, UUP, the Professional Staff Congress/CUNY, teacher preparation students, faculty and parents—passed an emergency resolution to provide partial relief to graduating seniors in teacher preparation programs in 2014 and again this year. Those students are allowed to substitute a previous exam for a new performance assessment, the educative Teacher Performance Assessment, or edTPA.

That emergency regulation failed to provide the protections that UUP, NYSUT and the PSC sought, and problems with the other two new exams also quickly became apparent. Since then, they have pressed SED and the Regents for a more far-reaching action on the entire teacher certification process. The unions contend that the new exams are based on unproven assumptions and that Pearson Inc. – the international educational testing corporation that administers all four teacher certification exams—has been unresponsive to constructive criticism.

Cashin will ask the Regents to consider at least temporarily removing the edTPA as a mandatory initial certification requirement and allowing teacher prep programs at public and private colleges statewide to lower the so-called “cut score” that determines a passing grade on the exams.

She will recommend that the edTPA be introduced through a pilot program—that would not require them for students already enrolled in teacher preparation programs before the tests were introduced—or that it be used as a “formative” exam for evaluating a student teacher’s skills without the high-stakes, make-or-break conditions imposed on graduating seniors in the last two years.

UUP will also reach out to the state Assembly and Senate standing committees on higher education to examine the new testing mandates, which SED botched in its rush to impose them in 2014 and this year, said UUP VP of Academics Jamie Dangler.

Joining Kowal and Cashin were NYSUT Vice President Catalina Fortino, above, who oversees higher education policy for the union. Fortino said the governor’s Executive Budget “clearly does not support public higher education” and that the governor and the State Education Department “are shattering the dreams of future teachers.”

Two students also spoke at the press conference: Bobby Fatone, a 2014 SUNY Brockport graduate who studied to become a physical education teacher but has been unable to pass one of the certification exams because many of the questions are based on the assumption that he teaches in a traditional classroom setting; and Katherine Knapp, a student teacher at SUNY New Paltz.

Knapp said she and her fellow student teachers have found that the edTPA process has taken over their entire student teaching experience and has left little time to plan lessons or review feedback from supervising teachers and professors.

UUP member Julie Gorlewski, who serves on the UUP Task Force on Teacher Education, cited a list of problems with the new certification exams, including the exclusion of experienced practitioners from the process and Pearson’s highly questionable test scoring practices. Gorlewski, an English teacher by training, said Pearson offered her a position as a scorer of student teachers specializing in teaching mathematics, even though Gorlewski is not certified to teach math.

Private college faculty have also struggled with the new certification exams. Alexandra Miletta, an education professor at Mercy College, which has campuses in Manhattan and the Hudson Valley, said that with the new certification exams, “the degree to which we are setting up our own institutions for failure is unprecedented … the testing industry is expanding exponentially.”

Westchester County parent Tom Pinto, whose son faced the edTPA at SUNY Brockport last year, said that SED has repeatedly delivered what he considers misleading or inaccurate statements about the certification exams. SED was so late in providing the first preparation materials for the exams that neither faculty nor students knew what they faced.

“Given the evidence, it’s inconceivable that SED could claim that everything is fine with the new tests,” Pinto said.

In addition to the call for an investigation and an expanded “safety net” or grace period for 2014 and 2015 graduates facing the new exams, UUP wants experienced education professionals to have a say in content changes to the assessments and an examination of the many reported problems with their computer-based format.

The union is also asking the Legislature to reject budget proposals by the governor which would bash teacher preparation programs—including deregistration and suspension of programs based on certification exam scores of students and changes to tenure for new teachers.

UUP will continue pressing for the investigation, in meetings with lawmakers during the budget session. Although the governor has threatened not to sign a budget that does not include his punitive proposals—including those affecting teacher preparation programs, UUP is urging lawmakers not to pass a budget that contains these proposals.

The new issue of The Echo is online!

Read about UUP’s new TV/print ad campaign, the union’s fight for more state funding for SUNY and its advocacy campaign to protect teacher prep programs and SUNY’s successful opportunity programs in the new issue of The Echo, UUP’s online membership magazine.
Read it here–
http://uupinfo.org/flipbook/EchoVol1Issue3/index.html#/0–or go to UUP’s website at http://www.uupinfo.org and click on The Echo icon on the left side of the page.

In solidarity,

Mike

Michael Lisi
Communications Director
United University Professions

Leadership – Education – Action – Development Institute was created for you!

The LEAD Institute has been a great success so far and the good news is we are just getting started. Please let all of your members know about this program so they can learn about the benefits of being in a union. You can learn about promotions, job protections, continuing and permanent appointment, the grievance process and much more.

To register visit the UUP website and click on Links on the top toolbar then click on LEAD Institute. The courses are free, are less than an hour long and you can decide when and where you want to access it.

If you have questions or comments please email jmarino@uupmail.org.

John J. Marino
NYSUT Regional Staff Director

Dear Cobleskill Colleagues,

On March 12th at 6:00 PM a local forum on public education is taking place. It is in our backyard and is being held at the Best Western in Cobleskill. This NYSUT public forum on education is important to public education in our region and state.

We would like to “pack the room” as we are expecting Assemblyman Lopez and Senator Seward to be in attendance. The goal of the forum is to pressure legislators and/or Cuomo to change the funding/budget plan put forth that has continued to take away money from public schools. Please consider attending to support public education.

Thanks, and I hope to see you there.
Sincerely,
Bill Tusang

In the most important day of the year for public higher education in New York, UUP members turned out in force for Higher Education Advocacy Day to push back against an unprecedented threat: A governor who wants to hijack public higher education funding and the democratic process and public debate that help set that funding in the first place.

“Andrew Cuomo has attacked all of public higher education,” said UUP President Fred Kowal, as higher education leaders and members prepared for a day of meetings with lawmakers Feb. 26 in Albany. “I don’t like to use marshal terms, but we are in a war – a war against the work that we do. We defend the good and the right. The times we face and the challenges we face demand that we be bold.”

UUP leaders spent the day telling lawmakers that this year’s advocacy is not just about asking for deserved funds to be restored to SUNY; it’s about pointing out that the governor – as stated in the new UUP television and print ad campaign –is just plain wrong.

View the ad!

UUP found a receptive audience throughout the Legislative Office Building. Senator Kenneth Lavalle—a Long Island Republican, a Senate Education Committee member and a longtime public education supporter—was so eager to talk to hear what UUP had to say that he invited newly elected Membership Development Officer Arty Shertzer to talk with him about the union’s concerns in the only time that Lavalle had on a day packed with budget discussions—as he walked from his office to the elevator in the LOB.

Other members found effective ways to illustrate how the governor’s proposals for performance-based funding would often overlook the meaning of a college education: as a time to prepare for a career, but to also get a broad-based education that will stand a student in good stead no matter what direction that student’s life takes.

“I was a physics major undergrad, but I went to medical school, so I wouldn’t ‘count,’” Gregory Threatte of SUNY Upstate Medical Center explained during a meeting with Cathy Fahey, chief of staff to Assembly Member Pat Fahy (D-Albany).

All UUP officers joined with members and students for a packed schedule Thursday that included a news conference with Kowal; encouraging remarks by Secretary Eileen Landy to some 300 students, many of whom were on their first advocacy effort; and an afternoon schedule of meetings between students and lawmakers, which the students conducted in small groups without the guidance of faculty or staff.

Over and over, those students did what UUP members urged them to do: tell their stories, with sincerity and a simple eloquence that clearly reached their audiences.

“I already have an excessive amount of debt – almost $30,000 in loans,” SUNY Purchase junior and Educational Opportunity Program student Bria Murray told Chris Brennan, chief of staff to Assemblyman Kenneth Zebrowski (D-Rockland.) She told him why the Legislature should restore the $1.3 million the governor would cut from this proven academic support program for low-income students.

“We EOP students have the highest graduation rate in the whole college,” Murray said. “To cut money from this program seems counterintuitive – it’s killing a program that works.”

UUP will continue a relentless campaign to highlight what’s wrong with the governor’s budget proposal.Said Kowal, “At some point, the governor must wake up and realize the damage he is doing to this state.”

Dear Colleagues:

UUP is having its annual joint Chapter Presidents Retreat and New Union and Labor Activists Workshops (formerly know as the New Leaders Workshops) on March 20-22, 2015 at the Otesaga in Cooperstown, NY. The workshops/retreat will begin at 5:00 PM on Friday, March 20th and will conclude on Sunday, March 22nd at 1:00 PM.

We need your help to find new members who would benefit from the workshops. This year we are redoubling our efforts to recruit members who have not attended the workshops in the past and want to become involved or those who might be interested in additional activist training.

In Solidarity,
Fred

Dear Colleagues,

We are done playing nice.

That’s why the cover of the latest issue of The Voice has a one-word title: Wrong.

In his Executive Budget, Gov. Cuomo seems to be pulling out the stops to undermine SUNY and the good work that our hard-working, dedicated members do to provide an accessible, quality education to New York’s students and the life-saving health care they provide at SUNY’s public hospitals.

The governor’s so-called “Opportunity Agenda” is an opportunity only for profiteers and corporations who would benefit from schemes that would have SUNY become little more than a trade school with a ready supply of trained workers.

Simply put, SUNY is under attack.

Our teacher preparation programs are at risk of being shut down. A miniscule 1 percent increase for SUNY is tied to a skewed proposed performance-based funding system would pit campuses against each other to fight for what little aid the state is offering to SUNY.

Once again, the governor has proposed to cut the subsidy to SUNY’s state-run hospitals, this time by more than 20 percent. He also wants to privatize the hospitals. To boot, he’s budgeted $700 million for a new Brooklyn hospital, but there are no restrictions on how or where it’s built or who does the work. There’s just one man who will control how that money is spent—the governor.

His student debt repayment plan does nothing to help more than 2.8 million New Yorkers struggling to pay more than $70 billion in debt. And to add insult to injury, there are bonuses for college presidents who attract new businesses to campus through START-UP NY.

We’ve had enough. And we’ve got a better plan, which you can read about in this issue of The Voice.

Please tell your members to read The Voice, which is available on the UUP website, at http://www.uupinfo.org. It should be in their mailboxes shortly.

And please urge your members to join us for HSC advocacy day on Feb. 25 and Student/Faculty Joint Higher Education Advocacy Day on Feb. 26. Both events are in Albany.

Click here to sign up for HSC advocacy day: http://goo.gl/yTkFMr

Click here to sign up for Student/Faculty Joint Higher Education Advocacy Day:
http://goo.gl/Qdqbrw

Call UUP Legislation at 1-800-342-4206 to get involved and for more information. We need your help to inform and press legislators to reject the governor’s plan and adopt the real opportunity agenda supported by UUP and its coalition partners.

In Solidarity,
Fred

DSCR 2014