Many of the early leaders were pacifists or socialists and so frequently met with clashes against more right-leaning newspapers and organizations of the time, as red-baiting was fairly common.

In 1968, the UFT went on strike and shut down the school system in May and then again from September to November to protest the decentralization plan that was being put in place to give more neighborhoods community control.

The Ocean Hill-Brownsville crisis is often described as a turning point in the history of unionism and of civil rights, as it created a rift between African-Americans and the Jewish communities, two groups that were previously viewed as allied.

[5] The Movement of Rank and File Educators (MORE) is a relatively new caucus, formed in 2012, whose stated focus is to "[defend] members' rights, [fight] for social justice, and [empower] workers in schools.

"[6][7] In the spring of 2013, UFT election campaign, president Michael Mulgrew (Unity) refused repeated requests to debate his opponent, Julie Cavanagh (MORE).

Bloomberg made student promotion to third, sixth and eighth grade contingent upon performance on standardized tests, which the UFT and the New York Board of Regents have criticized as being flawed.

[11] The UFT strongly supports the reduction of class sizes for all subjects and grade levels in New York City public schools.

The UFT, under the leadership of presidents Weingarten and Mulgrew, has collaborated with tenets of the education reform movement, such as support for value-added modeling for teacher evaluation.

[24][25][26] Before a court hearing on the suit in June 2011, parent groups held a news conference to thank the NAACP for fighting on behalf of all kids and to press for fairness and equity.