Ed Notes Online: #AFT14 Report

Sunday, July 13, 2014

#AFT14 Report - Tidbits

Sunday, July 13, 2014

Randi just said that there is some jockeying at the mics and she wants to make sure there is at least a 15 minute debate on the common core before someone calls the question -- watch the Unity crowd jockey at the mics at 14 minutes and 30 seconds... common core debate begins at 11:15AM.

But first ---
What better way to spend the day? I'm missing my brother-in-law's b-day celebration at his daughter's home in Pennsylvania - a tea-party home by the way -- and my wife is left to drive there all by herself - stay off the Jersey Turnpike today.

I just congratulated Howie Schoor on his move from Brooklyn to the Bronx UFT borough office to fix up one of the major catastrophes in the UFT organizational structure. He will be replaced by popular Brooklyn special rep Debbie Poulos. The leadership has to pay attention to basic services for members and this may be a sign -- hey, every bad situation they allow to fester only increases the move of people towards an opposition. I don't root for them to be incompetent - and maybe they are learning from Chicago where the old UPC totally fell apart, allowing CORE to get in the door.

What is AFT message on and to deformers?
Mike Honda, Congressman and public school teacher spoke - "like voices in a crowded theater they should - 'bad teachers.' Just show deformers reports on effects of poverty and they will get it." To me this is naive and dangerous and ignores the fact that leading deformers do get it and understand the effects of poverty - they have an agenda and it ain't to redress the effects of poverty -- and not being willing to go there diverts us from the real battle.

Here is the message we need to send to reformers: We will fight you on the beaches.... (video).

-----
Debbie Lynch move to remove Duncan not considered an "in your face" act by CTU folk.

Resolved that the AFT call for the resignation of US Secty of Ed Arne Duncan (as the NEA did) because of his anti-union, anti-teacher, anti-public school agenda.

So there is some speculation on this. That former CTU president Debbie Lynch, making a comeback as an AFT Delegate as a college teacher, surprised people by calling for a special order of business late yesterday, and given that she was in another caucus (PACT) that lost to CORE in 2010 when she ran for CTU President for the 4th time, this was somehow payback to Karen Lewis. A way for Debbie to regain the spotlight. CTU people are telling me that this is in no way true and that CORE/CTU people are supporting Debbie's reso. After all, Chicago has had to bear Arne Duncan for over a dozen years and Debbie was the one during her 3 years as CTU President (01-04) who dealt most directly with Duncan.

-----
AFT and Arne Duncan - Where I agree with Mulgrew
Overheard yesterday during debate on improving conditions for college adjuncts: "Passing this reso will change the lives of thousands of people." Another example of magical thinking. Passing a reso at the AFT convention is pretty meaningless unless followed with action to back it up.

Which leads me to the upcoming debate in a few minutes re: Arne Duncan. When Mark Naison started a "Dump Duncan" campaign - pre-BATS - I didn't take part in it because as long as Obama is president we will get Arne clones - and most likely someone of color to sell ed deform to the communities.

At last night's SJ unionism remarkable discussion, Mulgrew said that he couldn't care less about what the convention does about Arne Duncan because it won't mean a hill of beans (I'm paraphrasing) - and I agree with him except for the behind the scenes reasons. We know that the AFT/UFT don't really want to call for Duncan's resignation because they want their little stool at the Democratic Party table. But Mulgew, whose skills at doing this kind of thing I increasingly appreciate, gets at a germ of truth -- it is a "feel good we are doing something" point and to me a waste of time and energy since it is Obama, not Duncan and even if Duncan left Obama would appoint someone as bad. I was in a minority last night in conversations with our friends (shout-out to Robert D. Skeels of Schools Matter who I've known online for years and met for first time last night). They seem to think the political battle is a good organizing tool.
-------

OK - so much more to report but common core debate beginning and I'm going to open another blog post for that -- interesting that Randi just said that there is some jockeying at the mics and she wants to make sure there is at least a 15 minute debate on the common core before someone calls the question -- watch the Unity crowd jockey at the mics at 14 minutes and 30 seconds.

No comments:

"A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

What media call "philanthropy" for the public schools are actually seed monies to establish a private "market" in publicly-financed education - an enterprise worth trillions if successfully penetrated by corporate America. Cory Booker, one of the "New Black Leaders" financed by the filthy rich, is key to creating a "nationwide corporate-managed schools network paid for by public funds but run by private managers.

"Ed Reformers" want to cash in on public education and to control its content and outcome, not improve it. Provide great education? Baby boomers had as close as this country has ever gotten to it when we were growing up. The Ed Reform Movement has no interest in seeing such a well-educated, democratically astute population ever again.

http://blackagendareport.com/content/cory-booker-clear-and-present-threat-public-education

History of the UFT Pre-Weingarten Years

This award-winning series of articles by Jack Schierenbeck originally appeared in the New York Teacher in 1996 and 1997.

Naturally, from a certain point of view. But, despite certain biases, Schierenbeck, a great guy, was one of the best NY Teacher reporters so this is worth reading. Jack suffered a debilitating stroke many years ago (I used to get secret donations to ed notes from him through a 3rd source.)

This chapter looks interesting:

Class struggles: The UFT story, part 3

“The schism in the union over radical politics [is] a major reason for stalling the growth of a teacher union for decades.” Revolutionary politics and ideology take center stage, as the original Teachers Union becomes a battlefield, pitting leftist against leftist and splitting the union.

Clarence Taylor's "Reds at the Blackboard" focused on the old Teachers Union which disbanded in 1964 after suffering from anti-left attacks.

Of course for another view, check out the review at New Politics of the Kahlenberg Bio on Shanker by Vera Pavone and me: Albert Shanker: Ruthless Neocon

Effective Union Organizing

A video series put together by Jason Mann from the British Columbia Federation of Teachers about social media and how to use it for effective union organizing.

The first series was called New Media For Union Activists Roadmap and it's still available on-line at:
http://www.newmediabootcamp.ca/welcome/
I watched some of them and need to rewatch as they are loaded with information.

The second series started last week and it's called "Online Campaigning for Union Activists"

You can sign up for this free series at :
http://act.bcfed.ca/online-campaigning-for-union-activists/

You Don't Have A Choice - Join the Revolt

Ex-Harlem Success Teacher Comments on Eva the Diva

Ex-HSA Teacher has left a new comment on your post "Fear and Loathing at Evil's Harlem Success Empire ...":

I am a former Harlem Success teacher. Not many people who work/worked for her like her very much. I once made the comment that she is very nice when I first was hired. Two of her closest colleague responded immediately almost in unison, "Eve is not nice!" Over time I realized that there was a lot of political games going on. Another colleague once said to me that he was tired of "being part of a political campaign." Sending out 15,000 applications for only 400 seats in a school is reprehensible. The money that paid for those mass mailings could have paid the yearly salary of another teacher not to mention the heartache of all those parents who applied but did not get a spot. She does good work trying to give disadvantaged students a quality public school education but at a great cost to staff AND the school's educational budget! school budget.

Davis Guggenheim Compared to Riefenstahl

“Waiting for Superman" is the second most intellectually dishonest piece of documentary work I have seen. It is surpassed only by Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will," the pro-Hitler propaganda classic, in that regard. Uses personal narratives of adorable children to create narrative suspense that overrides public policy discussion with pure emotion in unscrupulous attack on teachers and their unions, among others

Timothy Tyson
Professor of African American Studies and History
Duke University

How Teaching Experience Makes a Difference

Even as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Michelle Rhee and others around the nation are arguing for experienced teachers to be laid off regardless of seniority, every single study shows teaching experience matters. In fact, the only two observable factors that have been found consistently to lead to higher student achievement are class size and teacher experience, so that it’s ironic that these same individuals are trying to undermine both.
- Leonie Haimson on Parents Across America web site

Full article with charts here.

Weingarten/Gates Foundation announce drone-driven teacher evaluation

According to a press release issued by the Gates Foundation, the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, these three have entered a ground-breaking partnership to evaluate teachers utilizing the drone technology that has revolutionized warfare in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. A bird-size device floats up to 400 feet above a classroom and instantly beams live video of teachers in action to agents at desks at Teacher Quality Inspection Stations established by the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

When asked if the drones were authorized to drop bombs on teachers who exhibit inadequacy, Chester E. Finn, Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, replied, "Don't be ridiculous. Gates money puts other methods at our disposal."

Randi Weingarten, president of the 1.5-million-member American Federation of Teachers said the powerful union has signed on to the drone project...

More at Substance

The Real Reason Behind Push for Standardized Tests: It's All About the Adults

On standardized testing in our schools

A must read article about the standardized test industry.
Written by an insider who has worked as a test scorer, the article outlines a multinational industry based on an army of temporary workers paid by the piece at $0.30 to $0.70 per test, translated in the need to grade 40 tests per hour to make a $12 salary. The article goes on to show how the companies gauge the grading "results" based on the need to ensure new contracts to continue profiting off of our youth. The original article is from Monthly Review. Here it is on Schools Matter blog.

http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2010/12/on-growing-use-of-corporate-test.html

Parallels between America today and Germany in the 1920's and early 30's

"Resentment and obstruction are all the right wing in America have to peddle. Their policies are utterly discredited. Their ideology - even by its own standards - is a sham. They are so bereft of leaders, their de facto leader is a former drug addicted, thrice-divorced radio talk show host. That is literally the best they can muster. But they have built a national franchise inciting the downwardly mobile to blame the government, not the right, for their problems, exactly as Hitler did in the 1920s."

The US Is Facing a Weimar Moment

Published on Sunday, March 15, 2009 by CommonDreams.org

Chicago View of Unity/UFT on Charters

After many meetings and debates, the Chicago delegation succeeded in working with the New York United Federation of Teachers, Local 2 (UFT) to push the AFT to take stronger stands on charter school accountability and school closings — though many delegates from Chicago would have liked the language to have been even stronger.

Generally speaking, the New York delegation represented organizing charters as the best model for handling their role in reshaping unions, despite the fact that according to many reports few charter schools in New York have been organized as is the case in Chicago. This logic is the same touted by the Progressive Caucus of the AFT. The few that have been organized are a part of the UFT local though they have separate contracts negotiated with the help of UFT. The Chicago delegation reflection the mindset that allowing new charters to continue to proliferate while attempting to organize existing charters is an end game in which public schools and the union lose.

Jen Johnson, CTU, Local 1 in Substance

Ed Notes Greatest Hits: HSA Rally and Founding of GEM

SEE MY VIDEO ON HARLEM SUCCESS RALLY 2009:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEp7rg_L5JI

Angel Gonzalez and I attended that rally and used the footage to promote our conference on Mar. 28, 2009, which is where the concept of a group like GEM emerged. Until then we had basically been a committee of ICE working with the NYCORE high stakes testing group. The actions of Eva and crew helped spawn GEM. Mommie Dearest!!

I have more video somewhere. I was hoping to get Leni Riefenstahl to edit it but she died. We would have called it "Triumph of the Hedge Fund Operators."

Ed Notes Extended

Sunday, July 13, 2014

#AFT14 Report - Tidbits

No comments: