Ed Notes Online: Why Won't Unity/UFT/AFT Leaders Fight Back? See Puerto Rico and Wisconsin

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Why Won't Unity/UFT/AFT Leaders Fight Back? See Puerto Rico and Wisconsin

A union can't mount a rigorous battle unless it is a democratic union.

NOTE: Come and meet Puerto Rico Teacher union (FMPR) President Rafael Feliciano when he will be in NYC in about a week to 10 days - look for more info at ed notes

ACLU-PR Director Ramirez anti-police-UPR-terror event in NYC

I am constantly asked why Randi Weingarten and Michael Mulgrew - or MulGarten - won't put up a fierce battle to stop closing schools and the invasion of the charters in order to defend teachers and public education. Recent events give us some insight into the power of government over unions and how they treat "good (cooperative)" and "bad" (fightback) unions.

In Wisconsin we are seeing an attempt to totally scuttle unions whether good or bad by removing collective bargaining rights, forcing a union election every year and taking away dues checkoff. Less drastic but certainly moving in that direction is what we see here in NYC with a massive attack on the basic protections teachers have with tenure and last in first out.

As we've been reporing, instead of a rigorous defense of LIFO (Why Won't Mulgrew Defend LIFO?), MulGarten has punted, talking about how we should tax Wall Street. Now this is certainly a move in an interesting direction for the union, which has always avoided attacking the bastions of the rich because, as staunch supporters of capitalism, they wanted to keep class warfare off the table. I remember writing about it the spring of 2008 (months before the big crash) when on the day the UFT held a rally at City Hall begging for a few hundred million in the restoration of ed funds, Bear Sterns - just a few blocks away - was being bailed out with billions.

Not one mention was made of the connection between the funneling of massive monies into private hands and the ed deform movement that purposely talks about "teacehr quality" as the key while disparaging solutions like class size reduction that might actually make a difference. (From the first time I heard Randi Weingarten sign on to this TQ idea I told her she was leading us down a slippery slope that has turned into a free fall.)

In order to fightback a union requires an informed membership and a democratic structure that makes everyone feel they have a real stake and say in union policy. But opening up to other voices is dangerous for a union leadership like Unity Caucus because it could ultimately threaten their control. So they make the choice to cooperate with the powers that be - to be known as a "good" union - rather than stand and fight.

A union can't mount a rigorous battle unless it is a democratic union.

Now, as you will read below, the governor of Puerto Rico, fed up with a union that has fought him - successfully - at every turn, has taken the drastic step of firing every leader of the FMPR which would make them ineligible to run the union. This act is even worse than what is happening in Wisconsin, disenfranchising 40,000 teachers in PR.

This after failing to undermine them by removing dues checkoff, running a bogus group from SEIU against them and other tactics. I should report that the FMPR removed itself from the AFT in 2003 (just search this blog for FMPR or Puerto Rico to get a weatlh of articles) because they were paying enormous dues to a national union that wouldn't fight for the workers.

Here's the gory story:

Entire Leadership of Puerto Rican Teachers Federation (FMPR) Fired from their Teaching Positions

Puerto Rican Education Secretary Jesús Rivera Sánchez dismissed the 11 members of the executive committee of the Puerto Rican Teachers Federation (FMPR) [unaffiliated with US teaching federations] from their teaching posts and blocking them from exercising their profession in public and private systems.

The teaching licenses of the FMPR leadership were permanently revoked.

The union's president, Rafael Feliciano, together with the ten other dismissed leaders, characterized the measure as repressive and unprecedented, with the goal of destroying the union leadership and intimidating the teachers from struggling against the current administration's plans to privatize the schools and liquidate the teachers' retirement fund.

The struggle against privatization, against labor rights violations, the right to union, the right to strike, freedom of speech and assembly in Puerto Rico needs your solidarity. The FMPR is an independent democratic social justice justice union that has defied their version of the repressive Taylor Law (Law 45) and have had successful strikes and continuously organizes walk-outs with parents, students and communities against the horrible school conditions. We can not allow colonial Governor Fortuño to destroy the FMPR with fascistic repressive & union-busting measures that serve to escalate the privatization of public education (Kindergarten to University) and all public services.

Spread the word. Angel Gonzalez
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Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

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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

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Why Won't Unity/UFT/AFT Leaders Fight Back? See Puerto Rico and Wisconsin

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