Gotham Gazette

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Michael Mulgrew

Michael Mulgrew

  • ‘Stop Wasting Our Time’: Michael Mulgrew on UFT Contract Negotiations, Charter Schools & More

    UFT President Mike Mulgrew hugs Mayor Adams (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


    The United Federation of Teachers (UFT), the union representing the majority of educators in New York City’s public schools, has been bargaining with the city for a new contract since October of last year. Now, the union is expected to be next in line for an agreement after District Council 37 (DC37), the city’s largest municipal worker union,...

  • Max Politics Podcast: UFT President Mike Mulgrew on Contract Negotiations, Charter Schools, & More

    UFT President Michael Mulgrew (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)


    February 28, 2023 - Max Politics Podcast: UFT President Mike Mulgrew on Contract Negotiations, Charter Schools, & More

    Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), joined the show to discuss his union's contract negotiations with the city, the governor's charter school expansion proposal, and more.

    Listen to the conversation and let us know what you think, on Twitter @TweetBenMax. You can listen to the show through the

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  • Max Politics Podcast: Teachers Union President Michael Mulgrew on Pandemic Schooling, Class Sizes, & Mayor-Elect Adams

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    UFT President Michael Mulgrew (photo: @UFT)


    December 7, 2021 - Max Politics Podcast: Teachers Union President Michael Mulgrew on Pandemic Schooling, Class Sizes, & Mayor-Elect Adams

    New York City teachers union president Michael Mulgrew joined the show to discuss where things stand in city schools amid another pandemic school year, vaccine mandates and covid testing, learning loss and other classroom themes, the UFT's relationship with Mayor-elect Eric Adams, and more.

    Listen to the

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  • New Federal Aid Can’t Diminish New York State’s Responsibility to Our Children

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    Gov. Cuomo visits a school (photo: governor's office)


    Thanks to the election of the Biden-Harris ticket and a newly Democratic U.S. Congress, New York can expect much more favorable treatment in any new federal pandemic relief program than it would have received from the Trump administration or Republican Congress.

    But however much New York gets from the federal government in the coming months, it won’t be enough for our public school children if the state uses that federal aid to replace rather than add to the state’s own funding of our

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  • Max & Murphy Podcast: Teachers Union President Michael Mulgrew on Reopening New York City Schools

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    UFT President Michael Mulgrew with Mayor de Blasio (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)


    July 8, 2020 - Max & Murphy Podcast: Teachers Union President Michael Mulgrew on Reopening New York City Schools

    Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), joined the show to discuss the planning for reopening New York City schools in September and the various educational, health, and other measures that will need to be in place. He reacted to how Mayor Bill de Blasio has handled schools amid the coronavirus pandemic and the

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  • Children Lose in Faulty Charter School Accounting

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    A charter school rally (photo: @SuccessAcademy)


    Questions: How do you turn a 25 percent graduation rate into a misleading claim of 100 percent success? When does a school’s 30 percent proficiency rate on an 8th grade reading test translate into the assertion that nearly half of the students passed?

    Answer: when charter schools do their own accounting, and authorizers allow them to paper over the fact that huge percentages of the children who start in charter schools get driven or eased out.

    Charters claim that they serve the same children

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  • Charter Schools Can't Suspend Their Way to Success

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    Michael Mulgrew, the author (photo: UFT)


    Children who miss 20 or more days of school in New York City have lost so much instruction time that they are classified as chronically absent, which studies have linked to lower test scores and higher dropout rates.

    So it is hard to see the educational purpose behind Success Academy's suspending a special-needs 7-year-old for 45 days, even if some form of alternative instruction was provided. This one recent example is part of a much larger pattern, both for Success Academy and the larger charter school sector

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  • Charters: Flush With Cash, Yet Still Trying to Pull Funds from Neighborhood Public Schools

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    (photo: UFT)


    Even as they are pleading poverty to the Legislature in Albany, charter schools across New York State are sitting on nearly half a billion dollars in cash and unrestricted assets.

    An investigation by the state teachers union has shown that New York City charter schools alone have at least $323 million in unrestricted net assets, most of it in cash. When you add in charters in the rest of New York State, the sector as a whole has unrestricted assets of more than $450 million.

    Those are resources that can be used to pay for academic

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  • Labor Leaders Declare State of Unions Strong, At Least in New York

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    Mayor de Blasio at a UFT conference (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)


    Four of New York's top labor leaders assembled recently to give a state of their unions, and to assess the broader union climate in New York and elsewhere.

    Each sounding like a determined boxer in the middle rounds of a grueling fight, they decried attacks on unions across the country, but indicated that they are pleased with the strength of the labor movement in New York. They credited intra- and inter-union solidarity for much

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