Ed Notes Online: Rule 10 Redux: A Failure to Communicate

Sunday, April 29, 2012

Rule 10 Redux: A Failure to Communicate

The UFT/Unity Caucus leadership have adopted the same attitude towards the members as Tweed has towards the schools: we bear no responsibility. It is all on you.

The other day I posted some thoughts on Rule 10 which gives 20+ year teachers the right to remain in their schools even when they are being phased out. (Closing Schools and Rule 10 Defense of 20+ Year Teachers).

I heard from a CL that the UFT is well aware of Rule 10 and there has even been discussion at his district chapter leader meetings. "They are definitely not averse to using it and are aware of it," he said.

This left me scratching my head. If the UFT is aware and not averse to using it, why not just use it? I don't read the UFT paper or chapter leader updates. Have they informed all chapter leaders at these schools that Rule 10 is an option? Have they helped besieged people at these schools by writing up mass grievances? I bet they haven't but inform me if I am wrong.

Is it that some people in the union are aware and others are not? Does the UFT keep secrets from its own people?

There was some debate on this issue on ICE-mail and in the comments section with even experienced union activists not sure.

Jamaica HS Chapter leader James Eterno from a phaseout school said he had won grievances on that and and John Elfrank-Dana who is CL at Murry Bergtraum which is not yet a phase-out school (we believe due to Murry's daughter joining the PEP as a Bloomberg Klone) won 3 cases this year. Some people made the point that while a school was still open as it was being phased out this rule would seem to be useful, though the language in the contract is somewhat obtuse. I made this point

But the school does exist for 3 more years. That is why Bloomberg switched to the turnaround model which allows them to close it in a short time. Has anyone heard of the UFT ever opposing these quick change models? In fact they have gone to schools and pushed them as their savior.

Yes, the UFT has actually been a partner to the DOE in so much of this. Read this Ed Notes piece from the Dec. 26, 2006 which refers to a pre-blog hard copy of Ed Notes from April, 2005 to indicate how far back this UFT/Tweed collaboration on closing schools goes:
(Ed Notes Online: Where's Waldo – er– the Union at Far Rock?) Here a teacher chronicles a visit from then Queens HS District Rep and now Queens borough rep Rona Freiser on the day the Far Rockaway HS phase-out was announced.

Elfrank-Dana responded to my comment above:

according to a UFT Special Rep last night, it’s only bound to the school… So, Rule 10 doesn’t apply to protect teachers in closing schools.
Here’s the whole read of Rule 10:
“Teachers at all levels who have served 20 years or longer on regular appointment shall not be excessed except for those in neighboring schools who are excessed to staff a newly organized school.”
Does “except for those in neighboring schools who are excessed to staff a newly organized school” mean rule 10 only applies if the school is not reorganized? What’s “neighboring schools”. That phrase “…who are excessed TO staff a newly organized school” means what? Does that mean staff excessed AWAY from their school so it can be newly organized, or, so that the excessed staff can staff the new school?

So the UFT contract and a UFT special rep say things that doesn't enlighten but further confuse. Really, is the UFT allowing language that gives the DOE a way around the contract? The giant loophole --- "wink, wink you can get what you want but this protects us from the members" deal?

Eterno replied:

Until the school shuts down completely, we should be safe. That clause is clear. If the school no longer exists, then it is a different story. After the school is closed, it does not help but our school is phasing out so it still exists.

So why isn't this being blasted around by the UFT as chip to protect senior teachers? Well, really, what's the point in even asking this question, except for the fact that there are all too many people out there who should know better who somehow think the UFT leadership's priority is to work for the members instead of their own much more narrow interests.

Take the current use of turn-around with the legal fiction that you can close a school on June 30 and reopen it on July 1 and just by changing the name you have eliminated Rule 10 and other contract provisions the UFT seems to have accepted that as a fait accompli -- and shame on them for either being ignorant, not paying attention or complicit.

The UFT/Unity Caucus leadership have adopted the same attitude towards the members as Tweed has towards the schools: we bear no responsibility. It is all on you.

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ISN'T IT TIME TO CHALLENGE THE UNITY CAUCUS MACHINE? CHECK OUT THE MOVEMENT OF RANK AND FILE EDUCATORS (MORE) THE NEW CAUCUS IN FORMATION, WORKING TO ESTABLISH A DEMOCRATIC FRAMEWORK FOR THE UFT.

THE CAUCUS WILL NEED PEOPLE IN EVERY SCHOOL AS CONDUITS OF LITERATURE TO COUNTER THE UNITY MACHINE.

SEE:

800+ Unity Caucus Klones Shuffle Off to Buffalo for NYSUT Convention at Our Expense

UNITY Attempt to flood teacher mailboxes with literature

YOU CAN JOIN THE CAUCUS ON MAY 12 AT THE NEXT MEETING. EMAIL ME FOR DETAILS.

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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

Sunday, April 29, 2012

Rule 10 Redux: A Failure to Communicate

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