Ed Notes Online: The UFT and Mayoral Control

Saturday, November 11, 2006

The UFT and Mayoral Control - A Slam Dunk

"No Secret Deal in Teacher Pact" proclaimed the headline in the NY Post.

“On the heels of a historic new contract with the city, the head of the teachers union yesterday dismissed speculation that the deal committed her to supporting extending mayoral control of the school system. Saying she has been bombarded with questions from members and outside observers about striking a "secret deal" with Mayor Bloomberg, United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said there was no backroom pact. "There was no secret deal about anything," Weingarten said. "The mayor and I did not have a conversation about mayoral control."

Watch what the UFT does and not what it says. Actions are judged by outcomes and the outcome will be a renewal of mayoral control. The UFT will sit on the sidelines and use none of whatever pull it has to make changes in governance that would give teachers and parents a real say. Oh, of course, the UFT will make noises about tinkering with the process and do whatever PR they think is necessary to molify members who are outraged at the negative impact mayoral control of the schools has had on working conditions - the total refusal to deal with class size, the total and ridgid control of what goes on in the classroom, the total lack of respect for the opinions and experience of teachers, etc. We might even see some bogus committees set up that will still allow principals to subvert them to their ends.

The UFT will make some noises about allying with parents who have been shut out of the process by BloomKlein. But the UFT will continue to turn its back on the corruption that is in many ways so much worse than anything that took place under the old system and will use as their argument "We don't want to go back to THAT! "THAT" means community control.

Yet even under the old system, high schools were centrally mis-managed so much worse than many of the local districts. Would anyone argue that the high schools, and now, the rest of the system, are better managed today after the entire system was put through such an upheaval?

Years ago when Randi Weingarten announced UFT support for mayoral control, I warned about the impact in Education Notes, at Executuve Board meetings and at Delegate Assemblies. I had the benefit of information provided by George Schmidt who had seen the negatives of mayoral control under Mayor Daly and the Joel Klein of Chicago, Paul Valas.

Now Valas is in Philly as CEO of the school system.

Today's Inquirer has a story, "Vallas facing sharp criticism: Three members of the School Reform Commission hound the chief executive over the district's $73 million deficit."
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/living/education/15985129.htm

George sends us a follow-up.

11/11/06
Friends from New York:

I hope that someone will pick up on the story that's unfolding in Philadelphia, which inherited the Big Lie from Chicago in terms of mayoral control and the CEO stuff.

Last week, one top Philadelphia official said: "A year ago Paul Vallas was the toast of the town. Now he's toast." Philadelphia CEO Paul Vallas and his entire corrupt Chicago crew is facing a lot of investigation now that the ecomony has gone into bad times and Vallas doesn't have a blank check to bribe everyone (as he had here, when he -- along with our mayor -- invented the "CEO myth" for the right wing Democrats during the late 1990s).

Anyway, I hope someone can pick up on the daily breaking news about the corruption in Philadelphia and its impact on the union.

Part of that story is that Ted Kersch, of the PFT, had been one of the Vallas cheerleaders (like Randi in New York and the late Tom Reece here in Chicago) and consequently guilty of foisting executive rule on the schools. Now the PFT is taking huge hits (class size increases; double programs; layoffs) because of the corruption. And this is just the beginning.

If nothing else, I hope that this will begin to unravel the lies of "CEO" rule in public education, so that in a few years we can get back to the mopey kinds of democracy that actually work. The CEO myth should have been buried with Enron, World Com, Tyco, Adelphia, and the rest, but in education it got a breath of added life thanks to union leaders in Chicago, New York and Philadelphia who cut deals that were, then and now, unconscionable.

George Schmidt
Editor, Substance
http://www.substancenews.com/

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"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

Saturday, November 11, 2006

The UFT and Mayoral Control - A Slam Dunk

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