PS 15/PAVE at CEC 15: UFT Presentation

Bob Zuckerberg is known as one of the more effective district reps in the UFT. Note here how he must straddle the line based on the fact that the UFT itself has two charter schools in two public schools. Zuckerberg offers support to the PS 15 community but accepts the fact that PAVE will get its extension. "It's a done deal," he said afterward. UFT district reps all over the city have been placed in the position of offering little more than moral support to schools like PS 15.

"This is about PS 15," he says. He is just doing his job. The UFT ideologues make it seem to be about only your school as they hide the fact that this is about a national assault on public schools and should be fought by bringing all the schools together to strategize. Their strategy is to straddle the fence with the goal of one day organizing the charter school teachers into the union. What they are missing, few of them will be staying long enough to make that possible.

If a charter school shows up at your door with DOE support, which does the spade work by exaggerating the space you supposedly don't need and by using all kinds of tactics to red line your school so kids don't get there, start to fight like hell. But you will have to do it by contacting other schools because that is a game the UFT doesn't play.

Thus, schools invaded by charters must do the organizing themselves. The Grassroots Education Movement (GEM), an affiliate of Ed Notes, though brand new, has tried to assist schools in their organizing efforts and a group of GEMers were at this meeting to support PS 15. Check out the GEM blog at: http://grassrootseducationmovement.blogspot.com/

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