Friday June 24: Students, Parents to Walk Out of Historic East Harlem School Demanding Removal of Principal

Community to Demand accountability from District 4 Superintendent

It was a pleasure hanging out with the parents and teachers of Central Park East 1 last night at dinner after the PEP meeting. The Farina assault on this school and the UFT turning its back says it all about what is going on. I will be putting up the videos of their comments, including charges of racism. The District 4 Supt looks to be another criminal supervisor put in power by Farina.

For Immediate Release:

Contact:
Kenya Dilday:

Kaliris Salas Ramirez:

Jennifer Roesch:  

 

More information at www.savecpe1.org

Students, Parents to Walk Out of Historic East Harlem School Demanding Removal of Principal

Community to Demand accountability from District 4 Superintendent

EAST HARLEM—Students will walk out of Central Park East 1 Friday morning to join a protest march calling for an end to the year-long attack on the school’s storied, progressive culture, its long-term teachers, children and families.

The children, from pre-k through fifth grade, will join their families and supporters in a march to the office of District 4 Superintendent Alexandra Estrella. The walk out and march is being organized to directly address Estrella for her role in decimating a school that pioneered progressive education in the city.

In the summer of 2015, Estrella appointed Monika Garg as the principal of CPE1. Garg quickly lost the trust of the majority of CPE1 families by antagonizing long-time teachers; submitting young children to interrogations without informing their parents; advocating for a new version of “separate but equal” by stating that CPE1’s progressive education doesn’t work for students of color or poor children; and bypassing the school’s democratic structures and even the Chancellor’s regulations to push an agenda of changing the historic school.

Garg has been supported by Estrella even as 70% of the parents at CPE1 have called for the principal’s removal. As CPE1 parents take action to demand Garg be removed from CPE1, Estrella has mounted her own campaign against CPE1 families, spreading lies about parent leaders and purposely misinforming the District 4 Community Education Council about the “SAVE CPE1” movement.

Previous public actions by the CPE1 community demanding Garg’s removal include multiple appearances at the Panel on Educational Policy and a 300-person rally at DOE Headquarters last month.

Who: Students and parents from CPE 1

What: Protest to demand removal of school’s principal.

Excellent visuals include young children with protest signs,crowd chanting and marching, delegation delivering petition to Superintendent Estrella.

When: Friday, June 24, 2016; Start time 8:30AM

Where: Starts at 106th Street between Madison and Park,march moves to 120th Street between Lexington and 3rd Avenue.

The website, savecpe1.org, offers an extensive timeline detailing the pattern of administrative mistreatment over time. It also provides testimonials from families about what a Central Park East 1 education has meant for them and their children. It explains Central Park East 1’s unique curriculum and pedagogy as well as its success - as measured by the Department of Education’s own metrics.

###

A Pre-PEP Primer: Who Ya Gonna Call?

Jia Lee:

Jia with fans

I bore witness, at yet another Panel for Educational Policy where the Chancellor and other members, appointed by the mayor, pretended to hear the voices of community members, as they lined up to speak, with incredible courage and conviction. I had to leave midway only to hear later that chaos ensued when the PEP ignored or gave lip service to its constituents. The PEP is not a democratic space. Nothing has changed. I see you Aixa Rodriguez Kathy Cole Alexandra Alves Jen Roesch Lydia Ann Norm Scott Jane Maisel Julie Neusner ‪#‎SaveCPE1‬ ‪#‎justiceforMary‬ ‪#‎PS233‬ 

I returned late last night from the monthly Panel for Education (PEP) meeting which lasted past 9 with my head pounding from Farina's constantly reminding everyone how she never breaks a promise. What a pathetic crew most of the PEPs are -- but not all - kudos to Brooklyn PEP Eric Adams appointee Fred Baptiste.

There is too much to digest though I did enjoy digesting the post-PEP meal at a Vietnamese restaurant with the great crew of parents and teachers from Central Park East 1 - hanging with them makes going to the PEP worth it --- they told Farina they will be back to every PEP until principal Monika Garg, who trained under the racist principal of Pan American HS who is under federal charges, is gone.

But let me not get too far ahead of myself --- the video is processing and best to let you see for yourself when it is done.

In the meantime let me tell you about my day yesterday BEFORE I went to the PEP.

It was a big construction day at the Rockaway Theatre Company as we began major construction for the set of La Cage Aux Folles. In the midst of all that I received 3 phone calls from teachers - phone calls that pumped me up to go to the PEP even though I had to leave Rockaway on a beautiful day.

A MORE member called to talk about what she might do after getting discontinued by a vicious and vindictive principal - and I suggested she come down to the PEP and tell them about it to their faces. She did and she waited all night to talk and she was great. I will put up her video and tell her story in a separate post. She is leaving anyway after getting a scholarship to law school in California - I hope she comes back here in 3 years and makes the DOE lives miserable - we sure could use a young movement lawyer. She is an avid social justice advocate.

Another MORE member called - a chapter leader who beat a Unity slug in the election who happened to be the principal favorite - so our gal has faced onslaughts from both directions. It has not been a fun first year as chapter leader. She came down to the PEP yesterday too but the meeting lasted so long she couldn't stay to talk.

Finally, I received a call from a high school chapter leader who is under assault by a new principal, as is the rest of his staff. He is a MORE supporter who I met when I was stuffing mail boxes -- he even helped me. The UFT district and borough reps are less than useless -- I won't get into details. I also suggested he come to the PEP and he met me there and sat through the entire meeting - his first PEP - and couldn't believe what he was seeing. He also made a great statement.

Jia Lee and I met some teachers from a another school with a vindictive principal. They were also MORE fans and voted for us. There is an epidemic of vindictive power-hungry principals.

Addressing this issue must be a major focus for MORE though I don't know exactly what more MORE could do - other than putting pressure on the UFT- which as usual was absent from the PEP.

Here area few PEP pics.

Army in Mexico Attacks Teachers Protesting Ed Deform - 8 Dead

If the day ever comes that things get so bad for educators in this country and we no longer have a sell-out Unity Caucus leadership licking at the boots of the deformers (wish I were a cartoonist), the Bush/Obama/Clinton/Cuomo/Trump et al admins would send the national guard after teachers too.

Dear Norman,
During the past few days, extreme violence has been used against teachers in Oaxaca, Mexico who were protesting governmental education "reforms." This has resulted in the deaths of at least eight people. The Network for Public Education joins with those condemning this violence and calls for a dialogue to resolve the underlying issues. We support the statement issued by the Civil Society of Oaxaca demanding that the government do the following:

• End the wrongful and disproportionate use of force and repression against the teachers who make use of their legitimate right to free expression and free protest.

• Establish a round table for dialogue with the teachers of Oaxaca.

• Provide medical attention for all persons injured as a result of the violent acts of the State.

• Stop the criminalization of the teachers by cancelling arrest warrants against members of the teachers' union of Oaxaca. Immediately release all teachers who have been arrested in an arbitrary and illegal way.

• Punish all persons responsible for arbitrary detentions, torture and other violations of Human Rights against members of the teachers' union of Oaxaca.

Please personalize the statement above and send it to:

US Ambassador to Mexico, Roberta S. Jacobson
Paseo de la Reforma 305
Colonia Cuauhtemoc

06500 Mexico, D.F.

Or call or fax Ms. Jacobsen at:
Phone: ( 01-55 ) 5080-2000
Fax: ( 01-55 ) 5080-2005

In addition to the above, contact the Mexican Consulate at:

1250 23rd St. NW - Washington DC, 20037
Tel: (202) 736-1000 * Fax: (202) 234-4498
E-mail:consulwas@sre.gob.mx

Thanks for all that you do. Share this link:

http://networkforpubliceducation.org/2016/06/6569/
Carol Burris
Executive Director
The Network for Public Education

Jeff Bryant: How Long Can Big Money Keep Democrats In The Charter School Camp?

How did the charter school industry get mixed up with big oil to gets its way in Democratic Party contests?... Jeff Bryant

Will the Bernie revolt in the Democratic party extend to those Dems being backed by charter money?

Clearly there are enough voters in the Democratic Party base who feel this way to convince some of their party’s candidates and current officials to challenge the wide leeway the charter school industry wants. So maybe more Democratic candidates who’ve tapped charter school money will have some explaining to do... Jeff Bryant

Jeff examines the California primary voting patterns for clues. It is our job to begin to hold Dems supported by charter money accountable.

How Long Can Big Money Keep Democrats In The Charter School Camp?

Published on

Saturday, June 18, 2016

by

Education Opportunity Network

by

Jeff Bryant

How Long Can Big Money Keep Democrats In The Charter School Camp?

Silent Unity Caucus Members, Deserving Scorn, Want Perks But No Accountability

Careful not to show how you really feel.. Attacking the entire Unity caucus is really a show of how unhinged More is becoming at the seams.... Unity Caucus slug commenting on Ed Notes post: Unity-UFT Caucus Members MUST Be Called to Account - In their own schools

I and other bloggers have been posting about that Unity Caucus leaflet attacking MORE for supporting opt out.

• Unity Caucus Attack on Opt Out and MORE - It's Ran...
• Unity-UFT Attack on MORE and Opt-Out Ghost written...

You see, Unity Caucus people want immunity from having to face consequences for their support for their leadership's disastrous decision making on issues such as mayoral control or opt out or common core or supporting a crippling evaluation committee or being silent on abusive principals or ---- fill in the blanks.

Another Unity slug excused their post DA meeting with this:

The meeting after DA was for new convention delegates. While they are UNITY caucus members, the meeting is a UFT meeting, not a caucus meeting.

Causing Michael Fiorillo to comment: Oh, I get it: L'etat c'est moi...

Michael is right - the members of Unity Caucus think they are the UFT. Right. Maybe the caucus meeting to tell them all how to vote will take place another time.

As to my call for Unity Caucus enablers of bad policy to be attacked as being a sign that MORE is becoming unhinged --- well I don't view myself as representing MORE policy. In fact if more people in MORE listened to me, there would not be tame little district rep meetings or Delegate Assemblies or even upcoming executive board meetings. I would declare war on Unity. But I and some other ICEers in MORE, who have a lot of experience with the Unity machine are in a minority.

As an elder statesman in MORE, I have realized the the newer MOREs must go through years of frustration at dealing with Unity leaders who often play word games to misdirect the members from their real policies. Right now many MORE people think they can work with Unity to create change in the union. They are dreaming. I think they should go for the jugular and treat Unity people politically the way Vichy-like collaborators should be treated.

Hey, I like many Unity people too but we have to separate the work some of them do for the union - which can be good work -- and their political support for the bad policies of the caucus. Make each and every Unity caucus member defend mayoral control - and if they tell you they don't agree with the leadership tell them they are full of bullshit until they have the guts to stand up publicly and say so,

I'll leave the final comment to the gutsy Roseanne McCosh, one of the few Unity Caucus member who would not take the bullshit anymore

Anonymous: You're confusing unhinged with unbound. Unbound to Mulgrew/Randi and every other sell out piece of shit in a union leadership position who is promoting Cuomo's agenda. I guess since Cuomo's cronies are busy readying for prison or an indictment someone has to pick up the slack and do the governor's dirty work for him. Andrew Cuomo thanks you and Mulgrew and Randi for your service and commitment to the destruction of public schools and teachers. Roseanne McCosh

Unity-UFT Caucus Members MUST Be Called to Account - In their own schools

MORE urged students to opt out of the state exams as a means of protecting the professional autonomy of educators and fighting against a corporate education system. ... Unity-UFT Caucus leaflet, June 2016

Arthur has a follow-up post today on the Unity Caucus attack against MORE for, as Leonie Haimson put it:

How dare MORE fight for professional autonomy and against a corporate driven agenda! Who do you think you are?
NYC Educator: UFT Unity and Corporate Values

See my previous posts on this issue:

• Unity Caucus Attack on Opt Out and MORE - It's Ran...
• Unity-UFT Attack on MORE and Opt-Out Ghost written...

I've heard people say that they like people they know in Unity -- yet these are the very people who empower the Unity Caucus leadership to take stands antithetical to the interests of UFT members.

By now the entire opt out community is condemning the leaflet but the focus has been Mulgrew when in fact it should be the Randi-Mulgrew enablers who make up Unity Caucus.

Unity Caucus is not just an entity divorced from the 800 people who are going to the AFT convention to vote the way they are told to. Right after the DA the other day, Unity held a meeting - I saw some luscious food platters some people had -- to tell them how to vote.

I like some Unity people too. But isn't it time to hold each and every one of them accountable for the positions of the caucus they choose to join? I told a union official recently that not all of them are slugs -- I view only the nasty ones that way. They seem to feel insulted when I refer to them as slugs. Well, maybe someone can come up with a better word for what I estimate to be around 1500 Unity Caucus members, many retirees, many still based in schools, who sign on to a caucus that says it is wrong for MORE to fight against corporate deform and professional autonomy.
I wrote the other day:

If you know people in Unity Caucus show them the leaflet and ask them to pledge allegiance to what it says - and if they won't, ask them to make a public statement denouncing it -- and watch them cower in fear - all 800 of them - or more. That makes them a slug in  my book.

If you are a MORE or an independent chapter leader and attend the monthly district rep chapter leader meetings, which are often packed with Unity acolytes, isn't it time to stand up and say,

I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore.

And for my friends in Unity - isn't it time for you to get some legs on your slug body and stand up and join us.

Unity Caucus Attack on Opt Out and MORE - It's Randi Not Mulgrew, Stupid

If you know people in Unity Caucus show them the leaflet and ask them to pledge allegiance to what it says - and if they won't, ask them to make a public statement denouncing it -- and watch them cower in fear - all 800 of them - or more. That makes them a slug in  my book.

By now Ed Notes readers should know about the Unity-UFT leaflet handed out at Wednesday's DA - if you don't, read this first:

Unity-UFT Attack on MORE and Opt-Out Ghost written by Cuomo, John King, Bill Gates

The social media reactions like this from opt out leader Jeannette Deuterman, let Randi off the hook.

Oh Michael, Michael, Michael. Now you went and did it. You stayed in the closet for four long years, pretending that you were respectful of the work of 250,000 parents and educators to save your profession and protect public schools. Out of fear of your regime beginning to crumble, you have decided to come out and proclaim in all your glory that you despise the opt out movement and all it represents. Let me be the first to let out a sigh of relief that the pretense is over. Now you can come at us with fists flying in typical Mulgrew fashion. Thank you for being you.

~Jeanette Brunelle Deutermann, Opt-out parent activist

... is that the focus is on Mulgrew, not Randi Weingarten who is the brains behind the outfit. Mulgrew is just her spear carrier and if he leaves as UFT president -- if Hillary - whose views on opt out totally match Randi's -- whatever slug replaces him will be no different.

Frankly, I prefer Mulgrew's approach -- he can't manage to be slick like Randi. Randi is much more dangerous.

If slick Randi were in charge, heads would roll for putting out that Unity leaflet attacking MORE and by association the parents and teachers who support opt out. But Mulgrew doesn't pay attention to the fineries of misleading people by talking out of 12 sides of her mouth, often at the same time.

Looking forward to going to the AFT convention with Arthur Goldstein and other MOREs, Gloria Brandman, Lisa North and Jia Lee in July where we can track the movements of the Unity slugs.

Jia's comment:

I was at the UFT Delegate Assembly where this leaflet was handed out. That first quote is from an interview I did for NBC's investigative report on the opt out gag order teachers face. Wow, this statement is more about eliciting fear and compliance for horrific policies that have caused irrevocable "reckless" & "feckless" harm on our profession, students and schools. The opt out/refusals have been the ONLY reason our state and federal govt have backed away from test based evals. This statement right here is very revealing of how out of touch our union leadership is. It means our work must continue because they haven't heard their members and communities at all.

Arthur's piece today:

Opt-out Answers UFT Unity

 

Unity-UFT Attack on MORE and Opt-Out Ghost written by Cuomo, John King, Bill Gates

MORE urged students to opt out of the state exams as a means of protecting the professional autonomy of educators and fighting against a corporate education system. ... Unity-UFT Caucus leaflet, June 2016

Guilty, proudly guilty as charged. Someone has to protect the professional autonomy of educators and fight against the corporate education system. Unity certainly isn't. In fact, they consistently prove time and again, they aid and abet and are allies of the corporate ed deformers. Any of the people mentioned in the headline could have written that leaflet since we've seen the same threats against teachers and parents almost word for word.

They are, in fact, attacking MORE as though we invented opt-out, and as though we are the sole participants. Can you imagine how much power they've attributed to us right there? Of course they ignore people like Leonie Haimson, Carol Burris, Jeanette Deutermann, Diane Ravitch and Beth Dimino, among many others.... NYCEducator

Does anyone doubt the fact that it was the 225,000 opt outers that got Cuomo to back down? Unity thinks it was really Mulgrew bluster or back door negotiating tactics.

Unity'-UFT has teemed up with the ed deform gang to try to kill opt out.

I actually laughed out loud when I looked at the Unity Caucus leaflet at yesterday's Delegate Assembly that attacked MORE and the opt out movement, terming us "reckless and feckless" - a Walt Whitman they are not. "This is a gift from Unity to us," I told our MORE colleagues "and will come back to haunt them."

Maybe Mulgrew can threaten to punch parents who opt out in the face at the AFT convention in a few weeks and the 800 Unity slugs where there can rise up and cheer his words. The big joke is the "threat" of losing money for schools whose parents opt out in big numbers.

The biggest joke of all is the phrase at the bottom of the leaflet. We know that there is no courage or vision but there is certainly persistence - persistence in supporting the ed deformers by hook or crook.

Bloggers James Eterno

UNITY'S BIZARRE DA LEAFLET

and Arthur Goldstein expose that farce.

 UFT Unity Fears Us

They say these "reward schools" will now lose as much as $75,000 in reward money. Whenever I see "as much as" I'm always skeptical. There's certainly something unsaid. And brilliant blogger Jersey Jazzman has already considered that, along with much more.

Last year, 143 city schools were selected as Reward Schools, according to the state, but only eight of them met the eligibility requirements...

That leaves them with a six percent shot at being eligible for "as much as" $75,000. And if you're thinking, which I can only assume the target audience of Unity faithful is not, you know that when someone uses a phrase like "as much as," you must always question what, exactly "as little as" is, because it could be zero, for all we know.  And in case you it isn't wholly apparent, being "eligible" for something, well, that doesn't mean you get it either. How do you become part of this lucky 6% that may or may not get you as much as $75,000? According to Jazzman, and please read his full column.

Afterburn
Outrage burns on social media.
Beth Dimino:

That moment when Michael Mulgrew and the rest of ‪#‎UNITY‬ dissolve in a puddle of bile attacking NYC's most dedicated student, educator, and parent activists for resisting high stakes testing, and double down on the attempt to silence and intimidate the opt out movement. Your true constituents in the ed. deformer community salute you! ‪#‎OPTOUTNYC‬ ‪#‎REFUSETHETEST‬

Defend the UFT Contract, Build Chapters, Stand Up Against Abusive Supervisors - MORE Summer Series Begins July 6

With the UFT/Unity deficient, Who Ya Gonna Call? MORE's Annual Summer Series:  Wednesdays: July 6, August 3 and August 31st

The DOE has given principals a blueprint on how to remove senior and troublesome staff and they can call DOE legal for advise.

The Unity/UFT leadership has no plan and has left our membership defenseless. The other day at the theater a teacher in our show - a very happy teacher by the way whose admin loves her - told me

there is some upset in her school because a few teachers have become targets - teachers others in the school respect. She knows that the admin can turn on her on a dime or if another principal comes in with his or her own favorites, she can end up on the doodoo list too. This is the sword of Damocles people work under.

See: Pissed Off Incompetence - Thirty two year old APs who know nothing about teaching and everything about harassing those who do and incompetent Principals who appoint and support them...

One of the roles MORE must play, even with limited resources, is assuming the role the UFT leadership has vacated. Though I must say there are sketchy reports that in our assuming this role, the leadership may be feeling pressure to be more supportive -- sketchy depending on the district. If we get the leadership to do a better job that is not a bad thing but MORE will continue to push.

This summer we will escalate with 3 sessions on the fundamentals - and I hope we can continue into the fall.

MORE's Annual Summer Series! Open to UFT Chapter Leaders and All Members.

Wednesdays: July 6, August 3 and August 31st
3:00-6:00pm Happy Hour Drink Specials

Veteran Chapter Leaders Will Lead Workshops On:

Learning The Contract, Coordinating School-wide Grievances, Dealing with Difficult Supervisors, Communicating with Your Staff, Building New Leadership, Intro to the UFT Structure, The Delegate Assembly: How it Works, Fighting Charters and Privatization, Building Power with Parents and Students, How to Organize an Opt Out Campaign in Your School

After burn: Is there a  better chapter leader than Kevin Prosen? The perfect combo of social justice and hard core unionism
Kevin Prosen became chapter leader of his middle school 4 years ago. It took guts because his principal was a noted abuser. I remember we had a meeting of new chapter leaders after he was elected and he said openly he knew nothing. Within a year he was already becoming an expert and has continued to grow to the point where he can lead workshops.

Kevin is also a hard core social justice advocate and an organizer and his views have enabled him to understand how to gain support in his school. Kevin did amazing work in the election, gathering over 80 signatures on petitions in his school and has worked with people in neighboring schools.

We try to tell people that fighting an abusive supervisor is not an individual battle but takes organizing skills.

After Kevin's first year as CL his principal announced her retirement.

Fifty Attend #MORE16 Wrap-up Meeting: Ovation for Ending Fair Student Funding

Dear Fellow MORE Members:

While we welcome a variety of gifts and insights, there is a need for prioritization. This is where we need an overarching analysis of what has hit teachers and other workers, namely neoliberalism, the purposeful destabilization of workers and workplaces in favor of ever cheaper labor. In the case of teachers, this translates into the attack on veteran teachers in favor of cheaper replacements.

TOP PRIORITY--JOB SECURITY: stopping the high turnover of teachers through Discontinuances, Bad Reviews (by whatever method) and Tenure Delays.We must end Fair Student Funding, where teacher salaries no longer come out of a common pot, but each school is a cost center. Fair Student Funding policy favors the cheapest teachers against the high paid veterans, forcing many tenured veterans into endless ATR and Provisional status. An insecure, migrant teacher is alienated from school community and is thereby hamstrung from being politically engaged.

Job Quality Issues are also important; lengthening of work week, paperwork increase, the high states tests are very important. However, a teacher must first have a job at all, before being able to focus on everything else. 

In sum, job stability has been fundamentally undermined. It must be squarely fought.

In solidarity, an attendee at the MORE meeting

Don't let good ideas fall into a black hole.

At the final MORE meeting of the school year, a retired teacher made a passionate statement about how the root of so much evil which has led to higher salaried teachers being pit against younger teachers has been the fair student funding formula when it relates to how teachers are paid out of school budgets instead of centrally and that it was incumbent for MORE address that issue.  He received a big ovation from the nearly 50 people present as he pointed out that the UFT/Unity caucus with access to the de Blasio/Farinia admin has not even brought the subject up. He pointed out it was incumbent for the MORE/NA high school exec bd reps to put this issue on the table ASAP. By the end of the meeting there were so many things for them to address.

I arrived 15 minutes early and the room was empty so I figured we might have 20 people at most. When meeting organizers Julie Cavanagh (with an almost 4 year old Jack in tow) and Peter Lamphere arrived a few minutes later, we began putting chairs around the tables. Within 20 minutes we were inundated by so many people we had to pull back into a giant circle that just kept growing as people arrived.

We spent an hour doing UFT election analysis where we heard the good, the bad and the ugly - I did the bad and ugly parts as I don't want people to dislocate their shoulders from excessive patting themselves on the back by focusing only on the positive. MORE needs to do a lot more organizing before it can be more than a glimmer of a threat to Unity.

Then we got into some meat of a discussion about the relationships between social justice unionism and what is termed bread and butter unionism - the idea that a union can't only be about fundamental service and defense of the contract - which of course the UFT/Unity doesn't even do well, if at all. So some fusion of the SJ and service concepts -- in fact the very idea of a union is social justice -- but a broader view of SJ is not just a moral issue but also a fundamental way of supporting the delivery of the service.

MORE's slogan that working conditions are student learning conditions and the converse - that learning conditions affect working conditions - is not a theoretical concept. As one person after another talked about abusive working conditions and abusive principals I pointed out that if there are hundreds of schools with toxic working conditions then those schools also have toxic learning conditions. There is the fusion of SJ issues. MORE can't just talk about student justice and people on the other side of the fence can''t just talk about teacher justice because the way to go after an abusive principal effectively is with a fusion because we know full well that the DOE and public will ignore teachers complaining but might listen when students, parents garner some political support and get press coverage.

The fair student funding formula helps create toxic working conditions which creates toxic learning conditions. The funding formula is not fair in any way.

There were suggestions that MORE and New Action use their exec bd seats to aggressively confront the leadership on its passivity when it comes to toxic work environments and that it put some serious pressure on Farina.

For people in the schools who don't go to Exec Bd meetings there are some thoughts of encouraging rank and file people (such as readers of the blogs) to attend some of the meetings during the year when some of these issues might come up. The EB can't just be a place where resolutions are brought up, debated, turned down ore watered down by Unity and then disappear into a black hole. MORE has to choose a few issues rather than throw everything up against the wall and see what sticks. Organizationally, one person needs to take charge and manage the campaign.

The problem often is that a great idea is floated and then disappears. It takes people power to form and execute a plan. There are people in MORE who teach in international schools with lots of immigrants. Some of them have teamed up with people in NYCORE to move on a plan. That is their passion and interest.

Back to fair student funding - if people want to get serious they need to form a FSF committee to plan a campaign. Otherwise a great idea falls into a black hole and never emerges again.

Dems Heads Up Asses and Soon to be in Deep Doodoo

The maddening thing about the Democrats is that they refuse to see how easy they could have it. If the party threw its weight behind a truly populist platform, if it stood behind unions and prosecuted Wall Street criminals and stopped taking giant gobs of cash from every crooked transnational bank and job-exporting manufacturer in the world, they would win every election season in a landslide....

If they had any brains, Beltway Dems and their clucky sycophants like Capeheart would not be celebrating this week. They ought to be horrified to their marrow that the all-powerful Democratic Party ended up having to dig in for a furious rally to stave off a quirky Vermont socialist almost completely lacking big-dollar donors or institutional support. ....Matt Tiabbi in Rolling Stone, Democrats Will Learn All the Wrong Lessons From Brush With Bernie

Will the Democratic Party survive the 2016 election as the Clintons, with Bernie supposedly out of the way, triangulate to the right? Well, of course it will "survive" but what will it look like? Will the left continue to accept the repeated "lesser of 2 evils" argument going back through Romney, McCain, Bush 2, Dole, Bush 1? 25 years of seeing the triangulating Party move right as it abandoned so many hints of progressive policy - in essence abandoning FDR's New Deal which brought them to power in a serious way for the first since the Civil War. Power based on holding the racist south which was lost when LBJ pushed through the Civil Rights Act in 1965.

Bernie brought the left revolt into focus and there is hope that that revolt will continue to percolate up from the bottom at the local level. But that is a long slog and there will be pressure to just go ahead and from a new party or turn the Green Party into a serious challenger.

In the rules of palace intrigue, Sanders only made sense as a kind of self-centered huckster who made a failed play for power. And the narrative will be that with him out of the picture, the crisis is over. No person, no problem. This inability to grasp that the problem is bigger than Bernie Sanders is a huge red flag.... "The Democrats should be worried they're next,"...  But they're not worried. Behind the palace walls, nobody ever is.

 And so I believe the Democrats, win or lose the election are in for as big a revolt as the Republicans and we may see a new political landscape begin to emerge over the next 5 years.

As I pointed out in my Wave column (On UFT and Other Elections - Time to Think About 2019 and 2020?), the 2020 election is already looking interesting. Republicans like Paul Ryan can only hope for a bad Trump loss - can you imagine how many candidates there will be to challenge Hillary?

A weak link for the Dems is on education policy which has Republican support and Randi Weingarten's leading the band right into the mouth of extinction. We know about the disaster of the AFT/NYSUT/UFT as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Democratic Party. I bet 20% or more of UFTers vote Trump instead of Hillary.

Taibbi nails some interesting points on what the Dems will be facing. http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/democrats-will-learn-all-the-wrong-lessons-from-brush-with-bernie-20160609

Years ago, over many beers in a D.C. bar, a congressional aide colorfully described the House of Representatives, where he worked.

It's "435 heads up 435 asses," he said.

I thought of that person yesterday, while reading the analyses of Hillary Clinton's victories Tuesday night. The arrival of the first female presidential nominee was undoubtedly a huge moment in American history and something even the supporters of Bernie Sanders should recognize as significant and to be celebrated. But the Washington media's assessment of how we got there was convoluted and self-deceiving.

This was no ordinary primary race, not a contest between warring factions within the party establishment, á la Obama-Clinton in '08 or even Gore-Bradley in '00. This was a barely quelled revolt that ought to have sent shock waves up and down the party, especially since the Vote of No Confidence overwhelmingly came from the next generation of voters. Yet editorialists mostly drew the opposite conclusion.

The classic example was James Hohmann's piece in the Washington Post, titled, "Primary wins show Hillary Clinton needs the left less than pro-Sanders liberals think."

Hohmann's thesis was that the "scope and scale" of Clinton's wins Tuesday night meant mainstream Democrats could now safely return to their traditional We won, screw you posture of "minor concessions" toward the "liberal base."

Hohmann focused on the fact that with Bernie out of the way, Hillary now had a path to victory that would involve focusing on Trump's negatives. Such a strategy won't require much if any acquiescence toward the huge masses of Democratic voters who just tried to derail her candidacy. And not only is the primary scare over, but Clinton and the centrist Democrats in general are in better shape than ever.

"Big picture," Hohmann wrote, "Clinton is running a much better and more organized campaign than she did in 2008."

Then there was Jonathan Capehart, also of the Post, whose "This is how Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump are the same person" piece describes Sanders as a "stubborn outsider" who "shares the same DNA" as Donald Trump. Capeheart snootily seethes that both men will ultimately pay a karmic price for not knowing their places.

"In the battle of the outsider egos storming the political establishment, Trump succeeded where Sanders failed," he wrote. "But the chaos unleashed by Trump's victory could spell doom for the GOP all over the ballot in November. Pardon me while I dab that single tear trickling down my cheek."

If they had any brains, Beltway Dems and their clucky sycophants like Capeheart would not be celebrating this week. They ought to be horrified to their marrow that the all-powerful Democratic Party ended up having to dig in for a furious rally to stave off a quirky Vermont socialist almost completely lacking big-dollar donors or institutional support.

They should be freaked out, cowed and relieved, like the Golden State Warriors would be if they needed a big fourth quarter to pull out a win against Valdosta State.

But to read the papers in the last two days is to imagine that we didn't just spend a year witnessing the growth of a massive grassroots movement fueled by loathing of the party establishment, with some correspondingly severe numerical contractions in the turnout department (though she won, for instance, Clinton received 30 percent fewer votes in California this year versus 2008, and 13 percent fewer in New Jersey).

The twin insurgencies of Trump and Sanders this year were equally a blistering referendum on Beltway politics. But the major-party leaders and the media mouthpieces they hang out with can't see this, because of what that friend of mine talked about over a decade ago: Washington culture is too far up its own backside to see much of anything at all.

In D.C., a kind of incestuous myopia very quickly becomes part of many political jobs. Congressional aides in particular work ridiculous hours for terrible pay and hang out almost exclusively with each other. About the only recreations they can afford are booze, shop-talk, and complaining about constituents, who in many offices are considered earth's lowest form of life, somewhere between lichens and nematodes.

It's somewhat understandable. In congressional offices in particular, people universally dread picking up the phone, because it's mostly only a certain kind of cable-addicted person with too much spare time who calls a politician's office.

"Have you ever called your congressman? No, because you have a job!" laughs Paul Thacker, a former Senate aide currently working on a book about life on the Hill. Thacker recounts tales of staffers rushing to turn on Fox News once the phones start ringing, because "the people" are usually only triggered to call Washington by some moronic TV news scare campaign.

In another case, Thacker remembers being in the office of the senator of a far-Northern state, watching an aide impatiently conduct half of a constituent phone call. "He was like, 'Uh huh, yes, I understand.' Then he'd pause and say, 'Yes, sir,' again. This went on for like five minutes," recounts Thacker.

Finally, the aide firmly hung up the phone, reared back and pointed accusingly at the receiver. "And you are from fucking Missouri!" he shouted. "Why are you calling me?"

These stories are funny, but they also point to a problem. Since The People is an annoying beast, young pols quickly learn to be focused entirely on each other and on their careers. They get turned on by the narrative of Beltway politics as a cool power game, and before long are way too often reaching for Game of Thrones metaphors to describe their jobs. Eventually, the only action that matters is inside the palace.

Voter concerns rapidly take a back seat to the daily grind of the job. The ideal piece of legislation in almost every case is a Frankensteinian policy concoction that allows the sponsoring pol to keep as many big-money donors in the fold as possible without offending actual human voters to the point of a ballot revolt.

This dynamic is rarely explained to the public, but voters on both sides of the aisle have lately begun guessing at the truth, and spent most of the last year letting the parties know it in the primaries. People are sick of being thought of as faraway annoyances who only get whatever policy scraps are left over after pols have finished servicing the donors they hang out with at Redskins games.

Democratic voters tried to express these frustrations through the Sanders campaign, but the party leaders have been and probably will continue to be too dense to listen. Instead, they'll convince themselves that, as Hohmann's Post article put it, Hillary's latest victories mean any "pressure" they might have felt to change has now been "ameliorated."

The maddening thing about the Democrats is that they refuse to see how easy they could have it. If the party threw its weight behind a truly populist platform, if it stood behind unions and prosecuted Wall Street criminals and stopped taking giant gobs of cash from every crooked transnational bank and job-exporting manufacturer in the world, they would win every election season in a landslide.

This is especially the case now that the Republican Party has collapsed under the weight of its own nativist lunacy. It's exactly the moment when the Democrats should feel free to become a real party of ordinary working people.

But they won't do that, because they don't see what just happened this year as a message rising up from millions of voters.

Politicians are so used to viewing the electorate as a giant thing to be manipulated that no matter what happens at the ballot, they usually can only focus on the Washington-based characters they perceive to be pulling the strings. Through this lens, the uprising among Democratic voters this year wasn't an organic expression of mass disgust, but wholly the fault of Bernie Sanders, who within the Beltway is viewed as an oddball amateur and radical who jumped the line.

Nobody saw his campaign as an honest effort to restore power to voters, because nobody in the capital even knows what that is. In the rules of palace intrigue, Sanders only made sense as a kind of self-centered huckster who made a failed play for power. And the narrative will be that with him out of the picture, the crisis is over. No person, no problem.

This inability to grasp that the problem is bigger than Bernie Sanders is a huge red flag. As Thacker puts it, the theme of this election year was widespread anger toward both parties, and both the Trump craziness and the near-miss with Sanders should have served as a warning. "The Democrats should be worried they're next," he says.

But they're not worried. Behind the palace walls, nobody ever is.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/democrats-will-learn-all-the-wrong-lessons-from-brush-with-bernie-20160609#ixzz4BBRHL81O
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook

DOE and UFT Did Nothing as MORE Protested Racist Principal Minerva Zanca in 2013, Current CPE Principal Monika Garg was AP at Pan-American HS

The high number of toxic work sites in the DOE calls for a super fund cleanup. As reported in the NY Times Preet Bharara may have only just started the ball rolling.

RBE is on the case:

The UFT has done nothing to protect its members against the egregious assaults being waged by the de Blasio/Farina DOE because they've been brought in by the mayor to co-manage the system.....the truth is, this same kind of thing is happening across the city to other teachers, based perhaps not on blatant racism, but on other criteria that have nothing to do with teaching effectiveness. Sometimes it's based on more subtle racism, sometimes it's based on ageism, sometimes it's based on cronyism, sometimes it's based on "Well, we have to throw somebody under the bus because that's what the DOE wants - who should that be this time?"... Perdido Street School, Note To Preet Bharara: Discrimination And Retaliation Is The Official Policy Of The NYCDOE

RBE has a great piece out today on this remarkable story in the NY Times about the feds suing the DOE over 3 black teachers targeted by the principal at Pan American HS 3 years ago. The Times article is a must read:

The federal government accused the New York City Department of Education in a lawsuit on Thursday of engaging in a pattern and practice of discrimination against the three black teachers who worked at the Pan American International High School in Queens.

The lawsuit, filed by the office of Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, made it clear that the government believed that the school’s principal, Minerva Zanca, had targeted the three teachers with the goal of having them removed from their jobs.

MORE's Peter Lamphere was chapter leader at the time. Peter called a demo and rally at the school and a petition, as reported by Ed Notes in July 2013.

I know there are some readers out there who think racism in the DOE is dead - that only older teachers are targets.

An interesting point is that Monika Garg, the current principal inserted by Farina to kill the progressive ed program by attacking senior teachers and creating racial divisions at Central Park East, the Debbie Meier school, was the Assistant Principal at Pan American at the time working under Minerva Zanca. While Garg was silent, another Assistant Principal refused to get into a witch hunt for these teachers and paid a price:

Ms. Zanca once told the school’s assistant principal, Anthony Riccardo, that one of the black teachers “looked like a gorilla in a sweater,” and that she could never have “nappy hair” like another of the teachers, the lawsuit said. The lawsuit also claims that Ms. Zanca retaliated against Mr. Riccardo for his complaints about her treatment of the black teachers. Once, when he refused to give an unsatisfactory rating to a lesson by one of the teachers, Ms. Zanca yelled at Mr. Riccardo, accusing him of “sabotaging her plan,” and calling school security to have him removed from the building, the lawsuit says.

The high number of toxic work sites in the DOE calls for a super fund cleanup. Preet may have only just started the ball rolling. Why can't we claim that the Fair School Funding formula inherently discriminates against higher salaried teachers?

Here are the Ed Notes reports from July 2013 where it was clear that both the DOE and the UFT ignored pleas from the teachers at the school, just as they are now ignoring complaints from Central Park East about Monika Garg.

Ed Notes: July 1, 2013

MEDIA ALERT: Queens Teachers Warned DOE Officials of Abusive Principal Minerva Zanca, Demand Action

Why should the DOE and press worry about a trifling item like racism by a principal? If a principal murdered a teacher and was found holding a bloody knife Walcott and Queens HS Supt Juan Mendez, who like Walcott has always been such full of bullshit, would cover for the principal.

These are not the first reports of difficulty with the new principal. In early June the faculty wrote a formal letter to Superintendent Juan Méndez requesting support in what they described as “an abusive environment and culture of fear in the school.” [tinyurl.com/QnsTchrLetter].
Teachers say that they are “often punished, humiliated or belittled in front of their colleagues when a simple conversation would have sufficed.”
 
The letter, also addressed to Children First Network Cyndi Kerr and Internationals Network Leader Claire Sylvan (two administrators who support the school’s functioning), was approved by consensus after a number of union chapter meetings.

Juan Mendez is still in charge of Queens High Schools. At what point is he held accountable? I wrote in 2013:

Hmmmm, what will Tweedies do? Back the principal of course. Tweed does support racist apartheid doesn't it? Nelson Mandela would get a U rating and Walcott would bring him up on 3020a charges.

I quoted a news article that reported how teacher pleas were ignored:

“We have received no response from our request to DOE officials for intervention to help address the toxic environment,” said Peter Lamphere, the local UFT representative. “Our students and their parents deserve better than to be left stranded while their school community is dismantled by an abusive administrator.” At least 15 of 38 staff in the seven-year-old school have left or are planning to transfer this coming school year, many due to the hostile and threatening environment created by Ms. Zanca.

I noted that:

MORE's Peter Lamphere is the chapter leader. This was the school the UFT found for Peter when they parachuted him out of Bronx HS of Science where the vicious Valerie Reidy, now retiring - Valerie Reidy, Ding Dong - U rated him twice for - well -- being chapter leader. Yes, that is the UFT response. Go after our chapter leaders and rather than fight this basic attack on the union, we will get the guy out of your hair.

Pan American was the "safe" school the UFT found for him after he was attacked by Reidy over doing his job as chapter leader, one of which he is still fighting.

All kinds of discrimination and discriminators is alive and well at the Farina DOE, with UFT complicity.

My old school about 12 years ago had a principal who discriminated against black teachers - older white teachers too - and maybe even some non-Dominican Hispanics. That former principal was appointed by Farina as a district superintendent and so-called retired Minerva Zanca seems to still have some kind of gig at the DOE.

The Daily News also has a piece today.

After Burn: Ed Notes reports from July 2013

http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/2013/06/please-sign-petition-to-fire-principal.html

From Peter Lamphere who is chapter leader at this school. Let's see now, a principal gives teachers U ratings because they are black.

Please consider signing this petition support these teachers who have been victims of racist harassment and asking for the DOE to comply with its own anti-discrimination policy.
http://www.change.org/petitions/nyc-chancellor-dennis-walcott-city-councilwoman-julissa-ferreras-help-us-terminate-principal-minerva-zanca-of-pan-american-international-high-school

If you have media contacts, please share this story with them - we are trying to build up pressure on DOE. Check out the TV interview and press release below.

TV interview with New York teachers who say principal called them “big lipped,” “nappy haired,” and “gorillas”: http://tinyurl.com/q3k3g2a

Ed Notes Online: ...

Jul 1, 2013 ... MEDIA ALERT: Queens Teachers Warned DOE Officials of Abusive Principal Minerva Zanca, Demand Action. Why should the DOE and press ...

ednotesonline.blogspot.com

Ed Notes Online: Please sign petition to fire principal who called ... Jun 28, 2013 ... These two teachers, as well as tenured Theatre teacher Lisa-Erika James, have filed a discrimination claim against Principal Minerva Zanca ... ednotesonline.blogspot.com

Ed Notes Online: Monday July 8th Noon Picket demanding an ... Jul 7, 2013 ... Local Councilmember Julissa Ferreras says "The allegations brought against Ms. Zanca are very serious and concern me deeply. ednotesonline.blogspot.com

On UFT and Other Elections - Time to Think About 2019 and 2020?

I wrote my upcoming column for The Wave on Tuesday, June 7, morning before the primaries -- we had celebrated our 45th anniversary the night before and I may have still been feeling the effects of a cocktail, beer and the champagne on the house from Park Avenue Summer. We are a house divided - my wife supports Hillary and maybe my anniversary present will be some movement on my part as a Bernie supporter, though not as avid as some of my friends. My sense is that Bernie is not an organizer and that after it all is over there will need to be people who can either reform the Democratic Party (doubtful) or build an effective alternative. The time to start is NOW.

Let's assume that it is Hillary vs Donald (though I can see alternative scenarios for both -- like I still believe that somehow Paul Ryan will end up being the Republican candidate.) What next? If Trump wins - then who can predict what might happen with either party?

But let's look at a Hillary victory? The very same people telling the Bernie people to cool it will be telling them the same thing for the next 4 years as they look for the 2020 re-election campaign against possibly even a worse candidate than Trump - I consider Ryan or Cruz worse in the long run. So get on the bandwagon once again even though nothing has changed -- except maybe the entire nation has been charter schooled to death.

The time to think about 2020 is now. Make Hillary a one-term candidate with a  decent alternative. Primary her once again even if she is president.

My feelings are that there is a point where Bernie people need to think more long-term than this summer and fall. I know there is a meeting in Chicago coming up -- but my sense of history is that there will be so many different points of view that there can be no clear outcome. One of the good signs is that many Bernie people are going to get involved in their local politics - a tea party from the left -- and we will hopefully see the center right Democrats primaried.

Friday, June 10, 2016

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School Scope: UFT Elections: MORE Won (Something)

By Norm Scott

I am free…The triennial UFT election season ended a few weeks ago and freedom tastes of reality – the reality of not winning the entire election but a small slice of the UFT Executive Board. The MORE caucus I work with challenged Michael Mulgrew’s Unity Caucus and we actually won something – the 7 high school executive board seats. And our presidential candidate, Jia Lee, received almost 11,000 votes to Mulgrew’s 38,000, but we managed to make a dent – a small dent - by cutting his victory margin to 75%. Let’s see now – at this rate we might see victory when by the time I am 100. This was my 5^th election cycle since 2004.

I hear there is another election going on. I’ve been a Bernie supporter. He is not a socialist in the Cuba or Soviet Union mode but in the social democratic tradition of the Scandinavian countries. His politics pretty much line up with mine, though he doesn’t have much to say about education and has not taken a clear position on the disruption of public education by the ed deformers. I don’t hate Hillary or consider her any more distrustful or untruthful than most politicians – have you checked out Governor Cuomo lately? My problem with Hillary has been her politics. She and Bill moved the Democratic Party to the right and Obama has not varied much from their policies. This is especially true about education where they pretty much match the Republicans step for step. In a sea of criticism directed at Obama and the Clintons you will hear few words of criticism of them on educational issues.

That other guy running for the other party is appalling and I don’t get how people see him as a savior of this nation – unless they think we need a lying scam artist to run this country. Since so many think Hillary is just that why not her – she is a woman, not a womanizer. Bernie supporters may have to live with Hillary as the lesser of two evils but must start organizing some alternative to the Democratic Party in time for the 2020 election when lesser of two evils should no longer be acceptable.

Trump is an embodiment of the Know Nothing Party of the 1850s. Is bringing back slavery on the agenda yet? Would you be shocked? Republicans too are shooting at 2020 and many are positioning themselves for a run. They may feel they have to jump on the Trump bandwagon in order to stay viable for a run at Hillary in 2020. Some are ambitious and would be happy to see Trump go down. Paul Ryan, who will have an easier time as House leader with Hillary than with Trump as president, is the embodiment of that attitude. Make Hillary a one term president. Ryan might as well be anointed the day after the election and save the party the trouble of primaries. The best thing that can happen to the Republican Party is a Hillary win and a big loss for Trump – as long as the down-ticket doesn’t get hurt too badly. Remove the Trump cancer and re-establish order though there is still a chance there might be a split in the party at some point.

Unless something goes wrong for Hillary in terms of an indictment – there will be a bigger post election war in the Democratic Party than in the Republican Party as the Bernies take the Occupy movement deep into the Party. (There is already a meeting taking place in Chicago after the convention). Or pressures for a 3^rd party will grow and leave the Dems and maybe the moderate wing of the Republicans to come together. We might even end up with 4 parties.

I love a good – or a bad - party.

On Phil

I’ve had my disagreements with Phil Goldfeder on education policy over his support for charters and a tax credit for people who send their kids to private schools but it is sad to see that he is leaving as our State Assemblyman. No more chasing around or fund-raising. He’s a guy who takes his job seriously which put him all over the place and with a young and growing family he made a choice. There seem to be a hell of a lot of crooked politicians who find ways to milk money by using their political influence. Honest politicians like Phil Goldfeder must go into the private sector to make a good living. I’m guessing he will be back one day as his kids get older. You don’t do the kind of job Phil did without having politics in your blood.

Don’t forget to catch up with the RTC production of Follies over the June 10 and June 17^th weekends.

Norm blogs at ednotesonline.org.

UFT Election Analysis at MORE June 9 General Meeting - Add Your Input

Make sure you fill out the survey (click here)  and if you can not make this meeting, but have thoughts to share please feel free to respond to this email more@morecaucusnyc.org... Jia Lee 

This Saturday starting at noon, attendees at the MORE monthly meeting (open to all) will chew over the numbers and the campaign and look for ways to move forward. See how we did in meeting the goals set. The only 2 MORE presidential candidates in history, Julie Cavanagh and Jia Lee, will help lead discussions. There are various visions for MORE moving forward and there will be some fascinating, and at times heated, discussions. And the MORE summer series will be up for discussion.

If you had any experiences regarding the election you want to share take the survey. This is an attempt to be more scientific rather than fly by the seats of our pants as a way going forward. Hey, maybe the entire election venture is not worth the effort and MORE should be an uncaucus. Or if MORE wants to contend for power what level of organizing must it do and what strategies are needed to be followed?

We Need Your Feedback on UFT Elections and MORE

June 7, 2016 — Leave a comment

Dear Colleagues, Friends and Fellow MORE/UFT Members,

First of all, THANK YOU for inspiring so much hope in this UFT election. It’s been one of the most intense and amazing experiences, and I’m incredibly proud to stand with so many principled folks.

Please take a moment to fill out the survey so we can get your feedback on the election and how to move forward.

Join us this Saturday at CUNY Graduate Center 12-3pm 365 5th Ave at 34th st. -Midtown NYC

 

After the 2013 election, we did a similar reflection and analysis of the numbers and then set some goals. It’s really empowering to see we’ve met a number of the goals we set!

• Increase Weekly Update membership from 507 to 3000 by Fall 2016
• Increase dues paying/voting members from 100 to 300 by Fall 2016
• Increase focus on school and district (geographically based) organizing.
• By Fall 2016, Increase # of Chapter Leaders and Delegates connected to MORE from 80 to 200
• Hold trainings for Chapter Leaders/Delegate elections, contract, and general election in each borough by Fall 2014 (CL/delegate and contract) and Fall 2015 (city-wide elections)
• Have at least 1 contact in 50% of schools by 2016
• Complete internal mapping project by fall 2014, having database running and operational. Use strategically to target outreach, for distribution and tasking/1:1 organizing
• Run a well organized  campaign and democratically chosen slate in 2016
• Increase voter turnout in city-wide UFT elections from 18% to 35%
• Win High School Executive Board seats in 2016 and increase total votes in all other categories.

It’s time to think about what our goals, including some of the same above, we could set for the upcoming year for ourselves.

 

If you would like, please check out our Platform 2016 to get a sense of the scope of our vision and values.

Make sure you fill out the survey (click here)  and if you can not make this meeting, but have thoughts to share please feel free to respond to this email more@morecaucusnyc.org

Looking forward to hearing from you!

In Solidarity,

Jia Lee
UFT Chapter Leader – The Earth School

 

After Burn

After the meeting Arthur Goldstein and I will be heading back to Rockaway where he is meeting his family who will be attending the Sat Nite performance of Follies where I get to display my vast acting talent as one of a large group of party goers hanging out on stage for the entire act 1.
 

Breaking: MORE Will Not Save the World - But There's Plenty of Other Stuff to Do

IMPORTANT REMINDER: reserve your tickets now to Leonie Haimson's Skinny award dinner this Thursday night, June 9 at 6:30 PM at Il Bastardo/Bocca Di Bacco 191 7th Ave (21st St).--- see AfterBurn below

I'm taking a few minutes out of our 3-day 45th Anniversary celebration ----- we staggered home after a great dinner at Park Avenue Summer.

I have very modest goals for what MORE can realistically accomplish. I do not see us running the UFT in the near future. Nor do I foresee MORE having much more than a minor impact on changing UFT policy in the near future. So what's the point of doing all this work you might say? Call me a Debbie Downer.

My feelings are that a group like MORE must exist in the UFT - as a place to provide services and support the Unity Caucus leadership is not able or willing to provide - ie, effective chapter leader support instead of having union officials dictate their agenda.

MORE must also exist as a safe place for like-minded people to go - to share ideas, to talk about both the big and small things, to be in the same space with others who want to debate ideas, read books together - like MORE is doing this summer.

MORE cannot just be a debating society or book club. Nor can it solely provide services and support.

It must also continue to contend with Unity on all UFT playing fields.

Yet to do this kind of work takes dedicated people who are mostly full-time teachers, often with families. To accomplish an ambitious agenda MORE needs man and woman power to do the organizing work. And there are not a lot of people who are willing to do this work. Division of labor does work - where some people take on a small sliver of the work and stick with it.

Janice Manning is handling the organizing of the summer book reading. And there is quite a list of choices -- we are voting on it right now. The list is a mix of social justice and hard core union. Janice is serving her 2nd term on MORE steering. I had the chance to get to know Janice one evening when we were the only 2 people to show up to a study group. What an interesting lady with an interesting life - she has lived all over the country and abroad too. Getting to meet and know people like Janice is one of the great perks of being in MORE.

I may offer to host the Marjorie Murphy "Blackboard Unions" group if there is interest. Though I must put "The Art of War" on my list.

I also offered to do the MORE July 6 summer series event on the history of UFT opposition caucuses and how the lessons we've learned can be a guide going forward.

While you might not have time to engage in MORE on a regular basis you might find some of these other activities of interest. If you are around this summer you might enjoy taking part in some of these events.

Here are the suggested list of books that are being voted on by MORE members.

Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Why Labor Organizing Should Be a Civil Right

Rules for Radicals

The Teacher Wars

Reds at the Blackboard

Solidarity Unionism: Rebuilding the Labor Movement from Below

The Art of War

Uncivil Rights

Blackboard Unions

The New Jim Crow

Are Prisons Obsolete?

Justice, Justice School Politics and the Eclipse of Liberalism

What's Race Got to Do with It?

Police in the Hallways: Discipline in an Urban High School

The Strike that Changed New York

Reviving the Strike

Strike Back

After Burn
Also don't forget this Thursday night's Skinny Awards dinner:

Please reserve your tickets now to our Skinny award dinner this Thursday night, June 9 at 6:30 PM at Il Bastardo/Bocca Di Bacco 191 7th Ave (21st St).

We will be honoring investigative reporter Juan Gonzalez, who is retiring from the Daily News after 30 years. Juan has uncovered some of the biggest scandals in the innermost workings of our city and our schools, saving taxpayers literally hundreds of millions of dollars in the process, and always standing up for the rights of workers, students and the marginalized.

We will also be giving an award to Robert Powell who recently resigned from the Panel for Educational Policy, after being the only PEP member to vote against a hugely inflated contract for a computer internet company originally slated at $1.1 billion and later cancelled by City Hall.

The Skinny award dinner is always one of the most fun evenings of the year, allowing us to join together to celebrate the work of so many of our heroes and allies in the fight to support our public schools. Attendees will include historian/advocate Diane Ravitch, new Board of Regents member Luis Reyes, and a surprise special guest.

Please join us, but if you cannot, please consider making a donation to Class Size Matters to support our work going forward.

thanks,

Leonie Haimson
Executive Director
Class Size Matters
124 Waverly Pl.
New York, NY 10011 212-529-3539