Randi Weingarten

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Randi Weingarten : biography

December 18, 1957 –

UFT Presidency

Weingarten has won re-election by consistently wide margins since her appointment in 1998. The local union’s constitution required her to run for the UFT presidency within a year of her appointment. She received 74 percent of the vote against two opponents in 1999, and served the final two years of Feldman’s term. She ran in 2001 for a full term and was re-elected. She won her third full three-year term with more than 88 percent of the vote, despite having two opposition candidates. On March 30, 2007, Weingarten won re-election to a fourth term as UFT President, garnering 87 percent of the vote.

During her tenure as UFT president, Weingarten has pushed for higher salaries and improved training for teachers, often agreeing to longer work days and more tutoring time in order to win better pay. Between 2002 and 2007, salaries for New York City teachers rose 42 percent.Herszenhorn, "Teachers May Give Ground On Grievances", The New York Times, November 14, 2003; Arenson, "Money Sought for Pilot Project To Improve Teacher Training", The New York Times, February 24, 2001.Herszenhorn, "City in Tentative Deal With Teachers’ Union", The New York Times, November 7, 2006. Weingarten has also endorsed merit pay for city teachers, and in 2007 negotiated a controversial contract which paid teachers bonuses if their students’ test scores rose.Dillon, "Long Reviled, Merit Pay Gains Among Teachers", The New York Times, June 18, 2007; Gootman, "Teachers Agree To Bonus Pay Tied to Scores", The New York Times, October 18, 2007.

Weingarten is outspoken on issues of education reform and school choice, especially when it concerns the hiring, retention, and evaluation of teachers.Stossel, "John Stossel’s ‘Stupid in America’", ABC News, January 13, 2006; Stossel, "The Teachers Unions Are Mad at Me", ABC News, March 8, 2006. She has not opposed school reform efforts in New York City, although she has challenged them when they threaten the rights and economic benefits of her members.Goodnough, "Teachers’ Chief Is Outsider in Schools Shake-Up", The New York Times, February 1, 2003; Goodnough, "Teachers’ Union President Turns Against Schools Plan", The New York Times, May 11, 2003. She is a vigorous opponent of standardized testing being the be all and end all of schooling, private school tuition tax credits, and increased funding for charter schools at the expense of public schools.Herszenhorn, "Klein Says Privatizing Not Planned For Schools", The New York Times, January 12, 2007. She has attacked vouchers in the strongest terms, arguing they do little to improve education. However, she cautiously supported Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s plan to use city funds for a pilot voucher program, once Giuliani agreed not to fund the program out of the city school budget.Steinberg, "Advocates of School Vouchers Heartened by Ruling", The New York Times, June 13, 1998; Hartocollis, "Officials See Little Chance For Vouchers", The New York Times, April 26, 1999; Hartocollis, "Tentative Deal Would Delay Voucher Plan", The New York Times, June 4, 1999. She has, however, opposed school privatization.Goodnough, "Plan to Privatize 5 Schools Brings Confusion on All Sides", The New York Times, December 22, 2000; Wyatt and Goodnough, "As Bid to Privatize Schools Ends, Supporters Second-Guess Effort", The New York Times, March 31, 2001.

Unlike some education union leaders, Weingarten has not opposed charter schools on principle. Rather, she has argued charter schools are worthwhile experiments in public education so long as worker rights are protected. Weingarten voiced reservations over but did not oppose New York City’s charter school program, preferring to negotiate workplace due process protections and better salaries for charter school teachers. Weingarten has also advocated the unionization of charter schools, and attempted to organize some of them in the city.Gootman, "Firing of 2 Teachers Involved in Labor Organizing Roils a Charter School", The New York Times, June 28, 2006; Barnes, "Pay Issue Snarls City Charter School Talks", The New York Times, April 27, 1999; Gootman, "Lines Are Drawn In Fight to Add Charter Schools", The New York Times, January 9, 2006. Weingarten’s support for charter schools led the UFT to found its own publicly funded charter school in the summer of 2007.Herszenhorn, "Let Us Run Charter School, Teachers’ Union Head Says", The New York Times, October 30, 2003; Herszenhorn, "School Run By Union? SUNY Board Delays Vote", The New York Times, May 24, 2005; Medina, "Union to Help Charter Firm Start School In the Bronx", The New York Times, June 28, 2007.