Tweed Assault Continues: Another List of School Closings

Stories are floating around about an as yet unannounced list of schools slated for closure – Persistently Lowest-Achieving (PLA) schools. We have learned from a reliable source that Brooklyn Automotive and MS 126 in Williamsburg/Greenpoint are on the list.

These could be as many as 60 schools in addition to the current list of 25 plus the announced closing of the 33 SIG schools on June 30 and their reopening on July 1 with at least 50% teacher turnover. Thus we may be talking about over a hundred reorganizations with tremendous teacher relocations and a massive influx of ATR next year that could cost a hundred million dollars --- which clearly negates some of the money they claim they are losing.

But we know this is all a shell game though how they will figure out how get ATRs who are subbing into the evaluation based on test scores into the mix is a mystery. But they must have a plan to get around any union resistance. Or, the plan is to get the union to bargain away more of the ATR protections like they did last June. The creation of the ATRs in the 2005 contract was a partial victory for Tweed. The rest will be the ability to fire them within a year if they don't get a job, as was done in Chicago years ago.

As a matter of fact, I would attribute the loss of the union to the opposition in Chicago to this situation. And the UFT/Unity leadership certainly saw what happened there. Is that why there is a constitutional amendment being voted on at the DA tomorrow that will further cement the control of Unity and make it absolutely impossible for an opposition to win an election? (I will go into the details in future posts.) Is this a prep to protect the leadership if/when they sell out?

For those of you who think an opposition can win with a better campaign or better candidates or a better platform I will tell you this much.

Even before the constitutional change tomorrow (which requires a 2/3 vote - expect Unity to call out the troops), if the opposition were to win an overwhelming majority of votes in the elementary and middle and high schools they would win a maximum of 22 seats on the UFT Executive Board out of 89. That is today. In the future it will be worse. The opposition in Myanmar/Berma has a better chance.