No one riles me more than UFT shill Peter Goodman who blogs at Ed in the Apple. This post is getting credit for being perceptive. What a crock. I left a comment. Head over there and join me.
As usual, Peter, you leave the entire culpability of the UFT/Unity Caucus leadership, of which you have been an integral part of for decades, totally out of the picture.
In May 2001 the day Randi Weingarten came out in favor of mayoral control, I put out out a special edition of Education Notes that pointed to the disaster of the Chicago mayoral control experiment and put a copy in front of every UFT executive board member, you included.
You and the UFT continued to support mayoral control and when ICE urged the UFT task force on mayoral control to adopt our minority report last year calling for an end to mayoral control I seem to remember you speaking against it at the Delegate Assembly. If the UFT had put its muscle behind that proposal we might have seen a different result at the PEP - in fact the PEP wouldn't have existed at all.
You guys pushed the 2005 contract that allowed them freedom to close schools without worrying about seniority rights without which they would be so able to close so many schools.
When 350 students, teachers and parents went to Bloomberg's house on Jan. 21 the UFT was again absent.
When Klein would make his claims about civil rights at every PEP meeting, the UFT was absent and indeed not once challenged him.
I was the only speaker Tues. night to raise the contradiction between Klein's claims and the reality of what was happening at the meeting and ICE/GEM speaker Lisa North talked about Chicago. Glad you were listening.
16 comments:
The UFT is in bed with the BloomKlein. I wonder if Unity people have any brains to react to the magnitud of the problem.
get over yourself norm...
when you were asked to actually take an active role in the UFT you relented...
your fight is an easy one, far away from any of the action...
a true monday morning quarterback...
I have been to some of your pathetic meetings...
10-15 people who whine about Unity...
change your diaper, I think you are wet
Oh sure. You guys really offer people a voice. Like when there were a lousy 6 non-unity EB members on the board from ICE-TJC you made sure to have the phony nac members endorsed and elected.
Jealous? I think so. Although, I am not sure you would know what to do with a seat on the board.
Maybe it is because you don't meet the standard. Or maybe its because you wouldn't know how to work within a framework of a union---you work with people and you don't always get your way. You infantile tantrums would not be tolerated in any workplace. Stick with your rogue band of malcontents, and cry in the shadows. You all need medication and a hug from your mother.
Who's really doing the crying here? You're the one who can't stay away from this infantile band of malcontents. Really, who is more pathetic? Meanwhile you guys are using just about every position we have taken over the years and are going to people and crying about why they work with GEM. Leo Casey channeling Fiorillo is about the best idea you've got.
Al Shanker (for all of his limitations, which you so aptly pointed out in your piece in "New Politics", which is unavailable online, but the overly emotional, obnoxious retort by "New Politics" editor / UFT newspaper reporter Michael Hirsch is available ... hmmm) must be spinning in his grave.
We are witnessing the extermination of a profession.
The Unity leadership has no viable strategy to oppose the closure (and ballooning ATR ranks) disaster. The Unity leadership does not recognize that even their own interests of pulling in scores of thousands of members' dues for their swanky offices and big staff salaries will be eviscerated in the course of the charterization juggernaut with the hiring of non-union teachers. Klein's mission will be complete, unless UFT members elect James Eterno to replace Michael "hot air" Mulgrew.
Norm please weigh in on James Eterno. Does he have what it takes to turn this union around? And how will he do it?
How would you handle what is going on, Norm? Would you stand in front of the mayor's house? The idea that you think the UFT isn't doing everything it can to get us out of this jam is ridiculous.
Even more ridiculous is the idea of this evil paranormal entity called Unity that reads from a blueprint. There isn't some secret code word to get into that party. It is open to all and all opinions are welcomed (as I have many and an invitation was extended). The problem here is that Norm and his folks have trouble when people don't take to their ideas and any action that the UFT takes that they agree with they claim it was stolen. This is why they insanely call themselves "the opposition." It tells you everything from the get go.
I am not a part of any of these "parties" but I am about to be a founder of the "golden eagles." Oh no, I have to think of another name--that was the club I started when I was six. Grow up Norm!
I think that Michael Mulgrew is the person we need for this fight. What I saw at the PEP inspired me!
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"Anonymous" at 2:43 PM, January 30said to Norm:
".... maybe it's because you wouldn't know how to work within a framework of a union---you work with people and you don't always get your way. Your infantile tantrums would not be tolerated in any workplace".
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First, Mr/Ms "Anonymous" your smug remarks might carry some credibility if you had the backbone to identify yourself instead of hiding in the Shadows behind the veil of anonymity.
Apparently you lack sufficient confidence in your ideas to back up your remarks with your name.
Do you perchance lack the courage of your convictions, Sir ?
For your information during Norm's long teaching career he was never such a coward or patsy as to state:
"My Union right or wrong."
How many Americans, both young and old have died on foreign fields in foreign lands due to just that type of simplistic, mindless thinking.
He always defended the UFT when they talked sense and spoke up when he disagreed with ideas he believed were NOT in the interests of dues paying Teacher UFT Members.
Norm spent his entire 35 year Teaching career working in the most socio-economically deprived neighborhoods in NYC. He left his mark. Can you say the same for yourself?
Norm was speaking up and writing under his own name when most of his weak kneed anonymous critics were still soiling their underwear.
As for having the temerity to apply the term "infantile" to a person with the track record of Norm, when it comes to empowering the lives of inner city children, that remark speaks volumes and tells so much about this fearful "anonymous" individual that further comment is unnecessary.
I wonder Sir, if you would have the guts to state above your own name, how infantile it is that the NYC Dept of Education is attempting to terminate a "Teacher of the Year", they do not like, claiming as his crime that he brought a plant to his school without DOE "permission".
And how infantile is it, (as well as most vicious and illegal), that for decades the Union has turned a blind eye as the DOE has used its Medical Bureau at 65 Court Street in Brooklyn, to Railroad knowingly innocent Teachers out of their job who were perfectly healthy, both physically and mentally.
Of course you would not have the guts to ruffle anyone's feathers, likely not the DOE nor the UFT.
Apparently, you can "talk the talk" but would never be willing to prove you possess the courage of your convictions by putting your name where your mouth is.
Who are YOU a shill for ? Or haven't you yet discovered the answer to that question ?
How tedious it is to read the scribbles of those who are the first to pass judgment on doers and achievers while they themselves hide behind the pitiful cloak of anonymity when they feel so inclined to crawl out from under their clammy rocks to put down other human beings.
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As David said, "No guts no glory." Your remarks and your hiding behind anonymity - I can understand classroom teachers doing that due to the awful conditions Unity caucus ahs left them working under- but for hacks like you, you are gutless. But that pretty much describes the way Unity has folded under the BloomKlein assault.
Anonymous said...
"Jealous? I think so. Although, I am not sure you would know what to do with a seat on the board.
Maybe it is because you don't meet the standard. Or maybe its because you wouldn't know how to work within a ..."
To this Anonymous-- What standard are you talking about? The UFT doesn't have any standards. They sit and drink coffee while schools are being closed and students and teachers are being displaced. Where is the ACTION from the UFT? Why do we (teachers) pay dues if do not have the proper representation?
easy to say from where you are sitting my brother or sister---from the sidelines!!
It doesn't matter who you are and as you say you represent the ghost of Shanker, Weingarten, Feldman, and Mulgrew - all those who have led us down the path to ruin. That you have no spine to openly state who you are shows more about you and your ilk than anything: no balls.
What your snide anon. comments indicate is a lack of character, personal integrity and a high degree of intellectual dishonesty - perfect indicators of the people and the point of view you represent.
What is valuable to us about the fact that you take your "valuable" time to stop by here (along with the other over 3000 visitors who read this drivel a week) at this infantile playpen is to reveal a certain state of thinking within the machine that helps shape some of the responses we will have to your road to perfidy over time. So keep 'em coming.
Oh yeah, and I have a 14 year record of ed notes positions and resos at the DA over time: opposition to high stakes testing, defense of chapter leaders, small class size negotiated in the contract, opposing any vestige of mayoral control, opposing merit pay and the uft charter school, opposing closing schools from day 1,etc. All positions disparaged and opposed by you. Exactly which of us has been on the right side of history?
I have never met Norm or David but I am a 23 year Vet and former UFT Chapter Chair who spent one year as an ATR and is no longer in thata unfortunate situation. Just the fact that you, obviously a Unity supporter would write such childish garbage without a name makes it easier to vote for ICE and more determined that my colleagues do the same. I know many. By the way, I am identifying myself.
Vega is the real name, schmuck. And that person emailed me to give me all the details. You're not only gutless, but you're stupid too. And since you have revealed just enough information over time in your little comments (you seem to know so much detail and are at all events it seems to be a rank and filer) my sources have pretty much identified you and you're one of the people I have the least respect for. At least there are some Unity people with integrity. You're not one of them and your colleagues in Unity don't think too much of you either. A perfect example of why the Ex Bd is so useless. Talk about infantile.
Keep writing. You get ICE more supporters with every comment.
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