By: Kyle DeAngelis and Kate Connors

Amidst all the typical excitement and anxiety that come with starting a new school year, UFT chapter leaders and delegates had an item of unusual importance on their back-to-school checklists. At the end of August, it was announced that the UFT, in partnership with the Municipal Labor Committee (MLC), had reached an agreement with the City of New York, EmblemHealth and UnitedHealthcare to launch a new healthcare plan for in-service city workers and pre-Medicare retirees. The new plan, called the NYC Employees PPO Plan (or the NYCE PPO plan which, in what can only be described as a stroke of marketing genius, is pronounced the “nice plan”) will replace our current GHI-CBP plan starting on January 1, 2026.

On September 17th, Kyle DeAngelis, one of the authors of this piece, delivered this open letter to Randi Weingarten at an event at UFT headquarters, along with a copy of Karen Hao’s new book, Empire of AI. 

A year ago, after the first phase of curriculum mandates, test scores across the city were down. Now, with all elementary schools using one of three mandated reading curricula, city leaders are claiming test scores have shot up. What changed? Our breakdown of the DOE's desperate push to make curriculum mandates work, and what we should do about it.