Daniel Alicea was joined by two lifelong and beloved UFT union activists and leaders, Bruce Markens and Norm Scott. They guided us through a decade by decade overview of the significant developments within the United Federation of Teachers union and how these impacted public education of NYC schools, from 1980 to 2000. This is part 2 of a three part series entitled: Inside UFT politics and history: How The Nation’s Most Powerful Teachers Union Impacted NYC Public Schools. Part 3 will be broadcast likely in September. Part 1 took us through the 1960s and 1970's. Parts 2 (1980s - 2000) and 3 (2000-2021) will give us a decade by decade overview through the eyes of first-person participants. Bruce Markens, taught in NYC public schools for almost 4 decades. He served as chapter leader and delegate throughout most of his career. He is a former high school teacher at High School for the Humanities in Manhattan. As a life long union activist, Markens worked with various caucuses and also as an independent. During the early 1980's, Bruce organized along with the New Action Caucus that played a pivotal role in bringing an opposition and divergent voice to the Unity caucus controlled UFT. Bruce served as an elected district representative from 1991 to 2000. He participated in the 1962, 1967, 1968 and 1975 strikes. Bruce, along with Lois Weiner, published "Prospects for Change: The UFT After Shanker", in 1990. As a life long union activist, worked with various caucuses during his career, also, and currently as an independent, Norm Scott, has been a dissident voice within the UFT. He has served as an outspoking unionist, chapter leader, and delegate during his 35 year NYC elementary school teaching career and, even now, as a retiree. In 1997, Scott launched an independent publication, Education Notes, a newsletter for NYC teachers which he turned into the EdNotes blog, in 2006. He is a founding member of various UFT caucuses such as, Independent Community of Educators (ICE) and Movement of Rank and File Educators (MORE), to the now defunct, Grassroots Education Movement (GEM).
UFT: 50 Years: https://www.uft.org/files/attachments/uft-50-years-book.pdf
The Teacher Rebellion by David Selden
https://www.amazon.com/Teacher-Rebellion-David-Selden/dp/0882582356
Schools Against Children: The Case for Community Control
https://www.amazon.com/Schools-Against-Children-Community-Control/dp/0853451621
Blackboard Unions by Marjorie Murphy
https://www.amazon.com/Blackboard-Unions-AFT-NEA-1900-1980/dp/0801423651/
City Unions: Managing Discontent in New York City by Mark Meir
https://www.amazon.com/City-Unions-Managing-Discontent-York/dp/0813512298
Tough Liberal: Albert Shanker and the Battles Over Schools, Unions, Race, and Democracy by Richard Kahlenberg
https://www.amazon.com/Tough-Liberal-Democracy-Columbia-Contemporary/dp/0231134975
The Strike That Changed New York: Blacks, Whites, and the Ocean Hill-Brownsville Crisis by Jerald E. Podair
https://www.amazon.com/Strike-That-Changed-York-Hill-Brownsville/dp/0300109407
The Untold History of Charter Schools - By Rachel Cohen