United Federation of Teachers/Flickr

State Assembly Member Jonathan Bing (D-UES, E. Midtown) may face a primary challenge this fall from Gregg Lundahl, a high school government teacher from Manhattan’s East Side. The potential challenge is the result of Bing’s recent introduction of a bill that would give principals the power to choose–on the basis of “merit” instead of seniority–which teachers would be terminated in the event of layoffs. The provisions of the bill were supported by Chancellor Joel Klein and the city’s Department of Education.

The United Federation of Teachers has actively fought the legislature’s attempts to alter the seniority rules. In April the presidents of the UFT and the New York State AFL-CIO wrote to labor leaders across the state asking them to withhold all financial and political support from Bing and Bronx State Senator Ruben Diaz Sr., who co-sponsored the bill.

UFT President Michael Mulgrew asserted “We want our members to understand that we protect everyone. This is nothing but an attempt to split younger members from older ones, and parents from teachers.”

The UFT has yet to formally endorse Lundahl, but has made nothing but supportive comments about him. In addition to his teaching duties, Lundahl has been an active union member for years.

The Democratic nominee will face Republican Paul Niehaus, a Manhattan attorney in this fall’s election.

Well, it’s taken a bit longer than planned, but AllWaysNY is back!

Randi Weingarten, head of New York City’s United Federation of Teachers, was elected president of the American Federation of Teachers yesterday. She was elevated by the delegates at the national teachers’ union convention in Chicago in an uncontested race. Weingarten stated that she will continue in her role as head of the city union even as she assumes her new national post in Washington.

As head of the 200,000-member UFT for the past ten years, Weingarten negotiated a 43% pay increase for city educators and in 2007 led an organizing campaign for the AFT among New York City-based home child care workers that brought 28,000 new workers into the union fold.

With the national election just around the corner and the city’s finances sliding into the toilet, only time will tell if Weingarten can keep up her fight now that it’s on two fronts.

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The on-again, off-again plans for a new northern rail line for commuters on Staten Island were dealt a blow as the federal funding necessary to conduct a feasibility study failed to make the cut in Washington this week. Senator Schumer had requested $4 million, but the funds were not approved by the appropriations committee in the Senate.

The study would be first step in ressurecting the now-abandoned rail line along Staten Island’s northern section, and create a five-mile commuter link from Arlington in the west to the St. George Ferry Terminal in the east. The cost for the project would hover around $300-$400 million, and would significantly cut cross-island travel times and could get as many as 7,500 cars off the already congested Staten Island road network.

ABC/Flickr

As Albany considers whether to reauthorize mayoral control of New York City’s public schools, various stakeholders in the city’s education system are set to weigh in on the mayor’s progress and the prospects for the future. A new report by Independent Commission on Public Education, a reform coalition of public school parents, educators, advocates, and academics, highlights ways to increase community involvement in education and includes a bold proposal to create lobbying unions for city parents and students.

Highlighted by the Sun, the idea would help “counter the power of the city teachers union and business leaders in shaping school policy,” and would “use taxpayer dollars to create two new unions complete with their own budgets and lobbyists, one for public school parents and one for public school students.” In developing the proposal, iCOPE drew upon the results of student focus groups and surveys about the problems in the educational system. The student gripes were consolidated into a “Problem Tree,” which is quite possibly the scariest flowchart of all time.

Publicly-funded parent/student unions will probably be a hard sell in New York with city officials and the UFT–the city teachers’ union–but it has gotten off the ground in some places. Los Angeles is one of the few American cities to have an official parents union, which was created in 2006 and is operated as a 501(c)(3) non-profit.

It’s going to take some time for the Democratic party to heal the rift that had developed between Clinton and Obama supporters, even as Clinton has formally announced the cessation of her presidential campaign.

This was evidenced yesterday at an “unity” rally by local Democratic officials on the steps of City Hall. Tensions flared as State Sen. Bill Perkins (D-Manhattan) answered a reporter’s question about why some Clinton supporters were not present for the event and then Congresswoman Yvette Clarke (D-Brooklyn) interrupted. Perkins responded with “Don’t tell me to behave. I was talking to him,” and the ensuing exchange captured by the Observer’s Azi Paybarah was hardly an example of party unity. City Council Members Mathieu Eugene, Letitia James, and John Liu ended up having to intervene to keep the two apart.

manuelaoprea/Flickr

Today Mayor Bloomberg reacted to a call for Federal inspections of city construction sites that utilize cranes and other construction sites the government might deem hazardous. The call to get the Feds involved originated in a letter from Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney (who represents much of Manhattan’s East Side in addition to Western Queens) to the head of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). In the letter, Representative Maloney highlighted the recent spike in construction-related accidents in New York City and seemingly lax city oversight–self-certification, anyone?–and asked that OSHA “conduct a complete investigation of all construction sites in New York City that are using cranes and any others that you deem appropriate.”

Bloomberg reacted today at a press conference, “I appreciate the intent, but it’s tough enough within the city to do an investigation and to make progress in terms of making this city safer and growing…we’ll spend our time on investigating a tragic accident which we’ll find out where we could have prevented.” The Mayor also noted that the Congress has got enough on its plate as far as health care, taxes, and the world situation to be prying into the city’s business.

The Mayor’s argument that another layer of bureaucracy in the investigations would slow things down and needlessly duplicate efforts seems to ring true–the only problem is that the city’s own bureaucracy, namely the Department of Buildings, has shown itself to be incapable of carrying out its most basic mission of making sure New Yorkers have safely and securely-built roofs over their heads.

The current boundaries of New York City school districts

As overcrowding at the city’s schools reaches unbearable levels and newly hip neighborhoods fill with strollers and nannies, the city’s Department of Education and its head, Chancellor Joel Klein, are considering new options to alleviate the crunch. Since new school construction is so gosh darned expensive and fraught with red tape, the DOE is considering another option–changing the boundaries of the city’s school districts to try and even out the load.

Let the battle begin! Parents, many of whom forked over thousands more than they would have normally paid for residences specifically within the city’s best school districts are furious. One example is in the district that includes the coveted P.S. 321 in Park Slope, where a local Community Education Council official was quoted about considering the redistricting plan that would move many children to another local elementary school:

“I imagine that I would be hung in effigy and/or drawn and quartered by the population of Park Slope for considering this…But I think it’s something that has to be considered.”

Another area of redistricting would include Districts 2 and 3 in Manhattan’s Upper East Side/Midtown, where many students would be moved to a less crowed school on (gasp!) Roosevelt Island or the building that houses a city school for the deaf on East 23rd Street.

The DOE is just floating this idea right now to gauge reaction–so nothing is final yet–and special overcrowding committees will be set up within local districts to try and provide a forum for communities to discuss the idea. Something tells us that free coffee and cookies will not be effective in calming parents’ fears or anger at these upcoming meetings.