Ed Notes Online: UFT/Unity Chapter Leader Richard Candia Attacks Staff While Backing Principal

Friday, May 18, 2012

UFT/Unity Chapter Leader Richard Candia Attacks Staff While Backing Principal

Is Staten Island UFT assisting in the sell-out of teachers at IS 49 SI due to a cozy relationship with abusive principal Linda Hill?

In order to leave the building the principal has to sign you out. So, a long line forms and 15 minutes after the day is over teachers are still on line. Does that happen in any other school? ---- conditions at IS 49 SI [WHERE IS THE UFT? - SEE BELOW]

I refuse to let him [Porteles] ruin what WE work so hard for each and everyday.

-----IS 49 (Staten Island) Chapter Leader Richard Candia to Principal Linda Hill who has been harassing teacher Francesco Portelos since he raised issues as to how school grant money was being spent.

They said like 3/4 of the staff is supportive of him and that they want him to be chapter leader. It was reported to me that many were very supportive and very outspoken in their support of Portelos. ---- Chapter Leader Richard Candia to principal Linda Hill, Jan. 2012

Linda Hill answered this plea for help from chapter leader Richard Candia afraid of losing his job because Francesco Porteles is running for chapter leader -- from the rubber room, where he has been sent on trumped up charges by Hill to get him out of the school before the election against chapter leader Richard Candia.

This letter alone should get the UFT to call a press conference and go to a judge asking for an immediate injunction to get Portelos back into the school. But it won't and will let Portelos languish in the RR forever. They were so threatened by Portelos they even had him removed from a Staten Island RR out to Ozone Park in Queens at the corrupt Network 211. Imagine the costs Portelos has been subjected to with the bridge and gas bills? What does the UFT do? "Look into it." Really pathetic.

We know many chapter leaders are more partners of the administration than of the teachers they supposedly represent. But this Candia guy takes the cake. In this communication to the principal he gives up 15 teachers who support Portelos. It is not often that they get their comeuppance but Candia looks like a deer in the headlights as he loses staff support.

That Richard Candia is a supposedly a member of Unity Caucus, the party that has ruled the UFT for 50 years, is a further indictment.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Richard Candia To: Linda Hill
Date: Sun, Jan 29, 2012 at 12:48 AM

A close friend in the building that doesn't get involved with absolutely any BS called me tonite after checking their email and said the buzz around the building was that I was totally wrong by not letting Portelos speak and that the staff has no voice in the building. I guess they feel that someone is effective if they are confrontational with the administration...not my style. I'm so disappointed in so many staff members that I have spent countless hours talking to at night and helping each and every day. This person is a true professional and never gets involved with anything negative and they are always totally honest with me. They said like 3/4 of the staff is supportive of him and that they want him to be chapter leader. It was reported to me that many were very supportive and very outspoken in their support of Portelos. The Portelos supporters included [Candia NAMES 15 Teachers listing degree of support for Portelos]. They are clueless. I tried to mediate this on Thursday and he went nuts so how was I going to let him discuss this in front of 60 people..not the forum. I spoke to the staff..I took questions..Then when the meeting was just about over he stood up and went to the front of the room and started his BS..totally degrading Susanne in front of the whole staff when we had left the room. I keep getting calls and texts from staff members as they receive this letter that he sent to the whole staff. Im thoroughly embarrassed by these emails. He is not going to stop harrassing people. I am thoroughly committed to our school community and I refuse to let him ruin what WE work so hard for each and everyday.

See: http://www.protectportelos.org/

and Ed Notes - Portelos Story

Before I was tenured

Posted on April 13, 2012

Many have told me “Good thing you are tenured.” and also “You would never open your mouth if you weren’t tenured.” That last one is absolutely not true at all. I admit I was against tenure when I received it in 2010. I thought it got in the way of getting rid of ineffective teachers. I mean teachers who were not only poor at their job, but more importantly had no intention of improving and were able to stay in the system.
Of course now I am happy to be tenured,

2 comments:

Anonymous said...: I have worked in schools where the CL reported back to the principal. That's when many stopped expressing their feelings at union meetings.

After the '05 contract it became clearer that the union no longer wanted to help teachers who could easily be sent to the RR for no reason at all.; Saturday, May 19, 2012 at 10:29:00 AM EDT
NY_I said...: Cozy relationship is not far off from cover-up and quid pro quo of going easy. It's in this context that Mulgrew's scandal can be seen as political. Why Post-Scooped Mulgrew Sex Story has Political Relevance
--the NYC Eye; Sunday, May 20, 2012 at 8:33:00 AM EDT

"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