Harrison union's Karen Magee is new NYSUT president

Karen Magee, the longtime head of the Harrison teachers union, has been elected president of the New York State United Teachers, the often powerful, 600,000-member statewide union.

She unseated Richard Iannuzzi, who served since 2005 and led NYSUT through a tumultuous period of educational change in New York.

"It feels wonderful and empowering," Magee said Sunday. "My ultimate goal is to make sure teachers are respected again as professionals and that NYSUT is respected again as the great labor organization it is."

Some 3,000 delegates representing 1,200 local unions voted Saturday at New York State United Teachers' 42nd annual "representative assembly" at the New York Hilton Midtown in Manhattan. The results were announced Sunday.

Magee, 54, a lifelong resident of West Harrison, was elected to a three-year term, which began at the conclusion of the assembly. She is NYSUT's first female president and its third president overall, following Iannuzzi and Tom Hobart, who served for 33 years.

Magee led a breakaway ticket that included Iannuzi's second-in-command, Executive Vice President Andy Pallotta, who will serve in the same role with Magee. Pallotta's split with Iannuzzi spilled into public view in January when Iannuzzi criticized Pallotta for buying too many seats for a fundraiser for Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

The challengers' "Revive NYSUT" slate engaged in a heated campaign with Iannuzzi's "Stronger Together" backers, with each side accusing the other of dirty tactics. Magee was dismissed by some bloggers and social media as the hand-picked candidate of Mike Mulgrew, president of New York City's United Federation of Teachers, which is part of NYSUT.

But Magee laughed off the notion that she is anyone's puppet, insisting that her ticket was compelled to oppose Iannuzzi's weak response to the state's controversial education reforms, particularly a much-disliked teacher evaluation system.

"We will engage the rank and file and hit the ground running," she said. "We are going to become strong again, one of the most powerful labor organizations in New York state."

Magee has been president of the Harrison Association of Teachers for 11 years, and is one of the most high-profile labor leaders in the Lower Hudson Valley. She's on the boards of NYSUT and the New York State Teachers' Retirement System, one of the country's largest pension systems. She previously served for a decade as an officer for the regional arm of the AFL-CIO.

She started her career as an elementary school teacher in Harrison about 30 years ago. She has three children, ages 24, 22 and 16.

Magee started her presidency Sunday by meeting with NYSUT's board and overseeing a transition meeting. She'll meet with the union's regional directors Monday and set up a transition team. She will also get to a transition plan for the Harrison union.

"We're full of energy and ready to roll," she said.

Iannuzzi faced a tough road once the UFT, which controls about 40 percent of all voting delegates, threw its support to Magee's slate in January. Magee also got the support of other delegate-heavy locals, including the unions for SUNY and CUNY professors and the teacher unions in Yonkers, Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse.

A self-described "militant," Magee has been harshly critical of New York's education reforms and Iannuzzi's response to them. She wants to see New York throw out its new teacher- and principal-evaluation system, which she calls beyond repair. Magee says she wants to convince Cuomo that the system is inaccurate. The governor, oddly enough, said for the first time Tuesday that the system needs to be reviewed because it may be unfair to use student test scores to calculate some teachers' grades.

NYSUT supported the evaluation system early on, although Iannuzzi became increasingly critical of the state for rushing the system into place. In January, NYSUT's board declared "no confidence" in state Education Commissioner John King and called for his removal.

Delegates approved the no-confidence position on Saturday. They also withdrew NYSUT's support for the Common Core Standards as they have been implemented in New York and supported the rights of parents to not have their children take high-stakes tests.

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