That June 8 rally in Albany is still a few weeks off, so if you need to exercise your voice before then please join the Downstate Coalition of Faith and Labor Community Leaders Thursday. There will be a 3 p.m. press conference in support of the Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, followed by a 4:15 [...]

New York state lawmakers said passing a tax cap in 2011 was a huge achievement. Their goal was to rein in local property taxes. “They touted the Massachusetts tax cap law,” Alan Adcock, deputy superintendent for Massapequa schools, reminded a sold-out forum of more than 1,000 participants for Public Education at the Crossroads, sponsored by [...]

Congrats to the Long Island locals which worked so hard on putting together a whole week of activities. I’m driving south to attend tonight’s “Public Education at a Crossroads” event. All tickets to the event sold out weeks ago. If you are one of the more than 1,100 attending, look for me if you have [...]

There are only three weeks to go before voters will cast their ballots on their school budgets in all districts except Buffalo, New York City, Rochester, Syracuse and Yonkers. The next issue of NYSUT United features an article reporting that most school budgets increase class sizes, cut programs and close buildings so they can stay [...]

Please be patient with us over the next few days. Most of NYSUT’s website is locked down as we prepare for a brand-spanking-new design, to be unveiled Wednesday. Wednesday is May 1, which holds great meaning for gardeners and unionists. We’ve been working toward this for a long time. It started more than a year [...]

I am hopeful you’ve been lucky enough to avoid a trip to an acute care facility or a nursing home recently. Or maybe, like me, you’ve gone to visit someone who is on the mend. I have seen wonderful nurses stretched to the limit. Public health is so important and it’s clear legislation is needed in [...]

According to U.S. News and World Report, New York high schools are among the best in the nation. Here’s a link to how our state’s schools are doing. Congrats to California, which had 94 schools win a gold medal out of 1,799 eligible high schools. While New York was second with 65 gold medal schools, [...]

Just when you think it can’t get any worse, well it does. Click here for a link to the Niagara Gazette article from yesterday that some on the school board in that community may cut kindergarten to fill the budget gap. What’s not in that article is that, for the past four years, the school [...]

Hundreds and, possibly, thousands of your NYSUT brothers and sisters are lobbying their lawmakers in their home district offices. Above are photos from a group of southern tier activists who met with Assemblyman Chris Friend, R-Big Flats yesterday. Bonnie Strope teaches second grade in Odessa-Montour schools. She spoke against high-stakes standardized tests for students in kindergarten, [...]

Savanna Kucerak teaches English in the Homer schools. Because she loves literature as much as she loves teaching and inspired by William Butler Yeats “The Second Coming,” she offered a poem to the “Tell It Like it Is” listening tour in Owego tonight. I am a teacher, and I am tired Tired of coming home every [...]