Will the UFT/Unity Leadership Cave to Pressure on Evals While Claiming Victory to Members?

UPDATED: Monday Jan. 16, 9AM - expanded section in green

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If the UFT won't allow these debates to take place within the official halls like the Exec Bd and the DA, people will look for forums outside the official UFT to engage in these debates.

The ad above has a lot to do with what is to come below.


This week at the UFT Delegate Assembly, in the midst of teacher evaluation crisis, the Unity leadership will call for a constitutional amendment that will increase the voting power of retirees in union elections and expand the executive board to further dilute the influence of classroom teachers. If you don't make the connection between these two events, you are seriously missing what the UFT/Unity Caucus leadership is all about: give ground  to ed deform -- as slowly as possible -- while selling "victory" (it could have been much worse) and tightening up the almost 60-year one party control of the UFT and AFT to keep internal critical voices at a minimum.

A drastic escalation in attacks on a union that has been cooperative in the past
With a full court press by the Obama, Cuomo and Bloomberg administrations to force the UFT into an agreement on teacher evaluations, is the end of resistance coming?

The report in the Daily News that Duncan/Obama are threatening to withhold $1 billion in money (New York State faces losing $1 billion in federal education funds over teacher evaluation issue: Figure is $300 million more than previously thought) if the UFT doesn't cave in, the pressure will be intense, especially with the politicians and the media placing the blame on the union.

Senior members of U.S. Education Secretary Arnie Duncan’s office warned Gov. Cuomo’s team Friday that New York would lose the staggering sum — at least $300 million more than previously thought — if the state made no progress on a system to grade teachers, a source with direct knowledge of the discussions said.
“They will take the money away,” the source added.
A Cuomo administration official said the governor has vowed to protect the money. “(He ) will do everything he can to see that this money is not taken away from us,” he said, declining to elaborate further.
The endangered money includes $700 million in federal Race to the Top money. Now the feds have tacked on $100 million in School Improvement Grants and nearly $200 million in teacher incentive funds.

The UFT supported closing of schools until recently

There is no question all the forces have plotted this removal of funds (which can be restored on a whim) as a way to pressure the UFT to say "give". Will they agree to basically end tenure and seniority protections? Tough territory to go and even weathered UFT critics find it hard to believe they will go there without a fight. But what kind of fight is the UFT capable of engaging in with a non-involved membership (and I claim a lot of this non-involvement can be laid at the feet of the one-party system that disengages the membership).

There is no question the UFT will fight this in court. But what is the backup plan if they lose? The court may be able to delay the move to close these schools June 30 and reopen them the next day but by getting rid of at least half the teachers. This may force the deadlines the DOE needs (6 months) into default and in fact may be the major strategy. But what beyond that?

Ed Notes has been saying from the very beginning a decade ago that the policy of closing schools  under Bloomberg is about removing teachers for political and economic reasons and the latest ploy of closing a school one day and reopening the next but leaving everything in place but getting rid of at least half the teachers lays The Plan out in the open.

The UFT supported closing schools until they were hit with the 19 at one shot two years ago. Remember Randi Weingarten's "Lafayette High School should be closed" while it was clear to all Principal Academy hack/incompetent Jolanta Rohloff was sent in as a closer? It was clear that John Dewey HS would be destabilized as part of the Domino Effect that was experienced in the Bronx years before. And so that has come to pass as Dewey is not now on the list of 33 schools.

All along the way, instead of informing the members of the dangers of this policy --- the leadership had the Chicago example --- they tried to distract the members and give the impression they had everything under control. At no point have they admitted that by agreeing to the Open Market System and an end to many seniority protections in the 2005 contract which they continue to defend (though now very quietly) they opened the door to a massive closing of the schools. The UFT may have figured that Bloomberg wouldn't want to take the hit of paying for ATRs while Bloomberg saw that as a long-term investment in destroying the backbone of the union. Neither the UFT nor Bloomberg seemed to care about the fact that many senior ATRs would just give up and retire.

What strategy now for the UFT?
Some people see the latest Bloomberg ploy as a desperate attempt to save his education legacy before it is too late. Some see it as a negotiation ploy. Others see it as a hard and fast policy from which he will not waiver.

Whatever the motivation, the end result will be some loss for the UFT. Maybe not the whole ball of wax but certainly a move in that direction, with further attacks and further givebacks to come-- maybe after the next UFT election in March 2013.

Under any circumstances, the key issue for the leadership is how to save face and present the final outcome as a victory. The key issue for Bloomberg/Cuomo etc. is to what extent they will be willing to allow the union some face-saving measures -- they also want teachers under control and not rebelling against a leadership they have worked with. Don't think that both parties are not scared to death of another Chicago, so look for Cuomo to play a role in this aspect.

Unity Caucus has successfully held off the internal wolves
The other day I tweeted that since ed deformers are pushing the line that the most vital factor is an effective teacher along with the totally contradictory line that online learning is the future of effective education, why not fire every teacher in the nation and find the 2 most effective teachers to teach 50,000,000 kids on line?

The follow-up tweet is that the AFT/UFT calls this a victory - "they only wanted one teacher and we won this one by getting 2, a 100% increase in the number of teachers."


I know even many of the major critics of the UFT leadership have given Mulgrew credit for standing firm so far (though it was interesting to see an article in I think the Times mention that Mulgrew is not as politically adroit as Weingarten was -- the major reason a lot more people - internal and external - like him better). Of course I see it differently. Mulgrew's response has been more along the lines "we are willing to deal but WalBloom walked out and left us at the table - we are willing to go to mediation" (which splits the baby and gives WalBloom at least half of what they want).

In other words, the UFT is engaging in a rear-guard action to minimize the damage (especially to public relations) but most importantly, to reduce the hit the Unity Caucus leadership may take from an increasingly upset membership --- in the closing schools, schools targeted for co-location and now in the SIG schools. By (smartly) sending in UFT officials to give moral support and offer some logistical support, the union leadership has successfully manage to control the outrage and point it at Bloomberg –– who they used to tout as the good guy vs. the Joel Klein bad boy.

But changing the political line to suit the time is part of successful damage control. It helps when you control all the means of internal communication to the members. Will there come a day when the membership begins to turn against the leadership? Some point to the over 90% vote Mulgrew received just 2 years ago, the adroit use of a phony opposition party - New Action - which is given 8 seats on the Exec Bd to give the appearance of an opposition - as a sign that there is little chance of a serious challenge to Unity. But Unity takes no chances -- thus the constitutional amendment which while needed a 2/3 vote at the Jan. 18 Delegate Assembly, is sure to get passed -- watch how many retirees and Unity Caucus people who rarely attend meetings will show up that day.

Leadership covers up past mistakes
Now, we know their highest level of skill they have shown is in convincing the membership that none of this is their fault (look for them to send their minions into the schools to enforce the "who me" argument) despite a past of collaboration on numerous ed deform issues: the 2005 contract, mayoral control, selling evals and Danielson to the members, joining in the Gates/Obama/etc. push for common core standards-- add your own to a pretty large list).

Here is a perfect example of UFT leadership duplicity reported by Nikki Dowling at the Riverdale Press, who interviewed me for the article. Even Nikki seemed astounded. I didn't have time to tell her the UFT does support the charter but did a law suit they knew they would lose for internal consumption to give the impression they support the public school. I did tell Nikki that the UFT has two charter co-locos occupying space in public schools - so will we see the UFT suing themselves?

UFT head sued charters while on their board


The United Federation of Teachers filed a lawsuit on May 18, 2011, seeking to prevent charter school co-location in public school buildings.
But UFT President Michael Mulgrew [and Randi Weingarten] sits on the board of the very organization — New Visions for Public Schools — responsible for opening two charter schools on the Kennedy campus.
The suit, which ultimately failed, sought to prevent the New Visions Charter High School for the Humanities and the New Visions Charter High School for Advanced Math and Science, as well as 16 other charters from across the city, from opening in a building that already housed another school (also known as co-locating).
The two charters are now located on the Kennedy campus in a mammoth building that houses six other schools, including John F. Kennedy High School, which the DOE is phasing out due to poor performance.
The UFT suit had charged that when they are co-located, disproportionate resources are given to charter schools, while larger schools, like JFK, get less.
“A school building should not be a lesson for a child on what inequality is and that is clearly what we now have. All children should have equal access to facilities inside a school building,” Mr. Mulgrew said in a May 26 press release.
While those interviewed agreed that Mr. Mulgrew’s position on the board is not a legal issue, they found it strange that a union leader who has come out publicly against charter school co-locations would sit on the board of an organization that has, to date, opened two charters in a multi-school building and is seeking to open more.
“They try and play both sides of the fence,” Norm Scott, a vocal critic of the UFT and DOE who runs Ed Notes Online, said.
District 10 Community Education President Marvin Shelton called Mr. Mulgrew’s position on the board a “head scratcher.”
“[If you’re] sitting on the board of an organization … one would believe that you are in support of that organization,” he said.
The two New Visions charters are not yet unionized and thus do not have to abide by UFT rules.
“The process of unionizing these two schools, which is up to the educators in the schools, is underway,” a UFT spokesperson said in a statement.
Mr. Shelton pointed out that though charter teachers may form their own union, it is in the UFT’s interest to solicit more members because they pay membership dues.
UFT spokesman Peter Kadushin and New Visions spokesman Timothy Farrell declined to comment on Mr. Mulgrew’s position on the board.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, also sits on New Visions’ board.

 If there was democracy in the UFT Mulgrew would have to answer to the members at a DA or an Exec Bd meeting (don't expect New Action to bring this up). As a matter of fact, I will pin the astounding errors the UFT has made over the last decade to the very idea that their initiatives are never debated and vetted but instead imposed on the members. If there were vibrant critical voices in the halls of power in the UFT and issues debated openly, the union might be in a very different place.

Which brings me to the State of the Union conference coming up on Feb. 4 which is aimed at examining the role of the union from many angles. I'll talk more about this conference (and why all of you should attend) over the next few weeks. I think this conference reflects the increasing view that if the UFT won't allow these debates to take place within the official halls like the Exec Bd and the DA, people will look for forums outside the official UFT to engage in these debates.

What is very interesting about the people working on putting this together is the number of new faces, most of them young, but also including some long-time teachers who have not been activists before suddenly feeling that it is time to do something. They include individuals from many of the activist groups plus people unaffiliated with organizations.