Ed Notes Online: Join the June 4th Movement

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Join the June 4th Movement

The June 4th movement began at one school in Sunset Park when the teachers, who had been holding lunch-time meetings to discuss some of the crucial issues we are facing in education, decided to do something about the proposed budget cuts by holding an informational picket for parents and community members on Friday June 4th.

At another school in the Midwood section, after the chapter leader received one of those pro-charter/anti union ads she decided she'd had enough. She went to school and called a meeting where the teachers decided to do in information picket every Wednesday. When they heard about the June 4th date they decided to join in.

Other schools around the city began to pick up the refrain. Calls began to come in from schools wanting to join. (See below for list of schools I know about so far - email me if you are joining.)

The idea was that each school can shape their message the way they want. While some focus on budget cuts, others are looking at the teacher evaluation system or kindergarten testing.

NYCORE sponsored a picnic/sign making event in Prospect Park this past Saturday. About 40 people showed up - teachers, parents, students, young kids. We brought laptops. Some worked on a leaflet to hand out on the 4th. Others wrote up a petition and a press release. No matter how much frustration, taking action, even if small seemed to energize people. That schools are joining together instead of doing something in isolation seemed to multiply the energy and excitement.

The June 4th Toolkit
Out of all this has come a toolkit schools can use with a press release, petition, a June 4th leaflet that you can modify for your school conditions, etc. Some will be posted online or email me.

Giving Pink Slips to Tweedies, June 4 at 4:30
One activist came up with the idea of going to Tweed and handing out pink slips to the bloated bureaucratic bureaucrats as they come out. The plan is to gather at Tweed after school on June 4 at around 4:30 and hand out these pink slips. Some are talking about going back every week.

This is pretty ironic since the UFT is supposedly urging people to join the AFT "Pink hearts, not pink slips" campaign on June 4th. Think it a coincidence to try to pacify members to counteract a more militant grassroots movement?

Now don't get me wrong, these are not many schools, but the movement is starting at the school level and there is talk of doing it again on June 11th. No one shot deals like a certain 800 pound gorilla we all know. That gorilla has targeted June 16th for a mass rally (which we are all supporting) but has not done much organizing around yet. Like we don't know where it is but we expect to be out there in force on that date - hope they are holding it at Yankee Stadium.

So if it is too late to get on board for the 4th, think about the 11th.

The movement will continue. The GEM meeting on June 22 will focus on assisting schools in their organizing efforts to fight the budget cuts and layoffs. Check the GEM blog and back here for details.

A Message From Sam
This was sent out by Sam Coleman from PS 24 where the June 4th movement got started:

PINK SLIPS ARE COMING OUT THIS WEEK FOR TEACHERS! THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE!

More and more schools are taking actions this Friday, June 4th at their schools. Attached you will find a petition, fliers, a form letter (stickers coming soon) that you can use at your school to protest the budget cuts (translations coming soon too). There are fliers in English and Spanish both to mobilize people to come to a protest at your school on the 4th (in word format and that have have spots to fill in your school's info, very easy) and some to give out on the day of. Feel free to change whatever you need to.

This mobilization needs to involve all members of our school communities. Parents, students and staff.

Even if your school is not ready for a picket, get teachers and parents to sign petitions, give out stickers. . . and then join us at Tweed at 4:30 this Friday for a protest where we will be GIVING PINK SLIPS BACK TO TWEED!

These actions will continue next week as well, so if you are not ready for this Friday, but think you can mobilize for the 11th please get started now!

Also, start mobilizing your staff and families for the UFT rally on June 16th. We need to show our union that we can mobilize.

Where the people lead. . . .the leaders will follow.

This is our chance to begin a true grassroots movement for educational justice. We cannot wait for our union or the politicians. We need to make this happen ourselves.

Email: sam@nycore.org for questions or to let us know you are on board for the 4th.

These actions are being supported by: NYCoRE (www.nycore.org), GEM (http://grassrootsed ucationmovement. blogspot. com/) and CPE-CEP (http://forpubliced.blogspot.com/)

LIST OF SCHOOLS SO FAR -Email Normsco@gmail.com to have your school added

PS 24K, PS 15K, PS 30M, Prospect Heights International High School, PS 123M, PS 193K, PS 41M, PS 84K, The Brooklyn New School, Banana Kelly, PS 3K, PS 202K, Fredrick Douglass Academy 5, Benjamin Banneker High School, East Flatbush Community Research School, PS 307K

No comments:

"A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

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

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

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

History of the UFT Pre-Weingarten Years

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

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

This chapter looks interesting:

Class struggles: The UFT story, part 3

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

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

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

Effective Union Organizing

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

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

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

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

You Don't Have A Choice - Join the Revolt

Ex-Harlem Success Teacher Comments on Eva the Diva

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

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

Davis Guggenheim Compared to Riefenstahl

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

Timothy Tyson
Professor of African American Studies and History
Duke University

How Teaching Experience Makes a Difference

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

Full article with charts here.

Weingarten/Gates Foundation announce drone-driven teacher evaluation

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

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

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

More at Substance

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

On standardized testing in our schools

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

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

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

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

The US Is Facing a Weimar Moment

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

Chicago View of Unity/UFT on Charters

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

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

Jen Johnson, CTU, Local 1 in Substance

Ed Notes Greatest Hits: HSA Rally and Founding of GEM

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

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

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

Ed Notes Extended

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Join the June 4th Movement

No comments: