Exposing UFT/Charter Connections as UFT Supports Co-location

Union [UFT] officials said they would not object to Waronker’s school receiving public space if the building offered has enough room and the existing schools do not object to getting a new neighbor.

Aside from the issue of charter expansion and the potential of a contentious co-location battle, this seems to me to be more experimentation on poor kids in the name of "innovation." What parent and/or teacher wouldn't prefer to have their kid in a class of 15 -- a proven model for success -- rather than in a class of 60? Where is the evidence that this works at all? I encourage people to read this NYT article: New American Academy in Brooklyn Is an Experiment in Class Size - http://goo.gl/Fk7tD ----- Leonie Haimson

What kind of union helps an employer "work around the union contract?" I guess a union that only cares about keeping the dues money coming in, while the contract is gutted and public schools dismantled. Thank you, Randi Weingarten, for showing the world what employer-union collaboration really means. Absolutely, utterly, beyond disgraceful, and a clear demonstration of how the AFT/UFT leadership is captive to the premises and practice of ed deform. --- Michael Fiorillo

Waronker would leave the New American Academy for the charter school, where he would be headmaster, according to the plan, a move that would allow him potentially to earn more than he does as a district principal. 

Children First, of course. Don't get me wrong, I actually find some of Waronker's ideas appealing. So why doesn't he stay in one school and see them through?

But the bullet for me here is that the UFT actually comes out for colocation "if there's enough space" --- like who decides, the DOE scuzzballs --- or "if the school agrees". What exactly does that mean? The school is the principal who works for the DOE and if he/she doesn't agree - ZAPPO.

Can the UFT be any more hypocritical?

Gotham Schools has done a great job in this article of exposing the fault lines and semi-hidden agenda of the UFT and their pal Shimon Waronker, the famous Hassidic who gets more press than Moses. (New York Times columnist David Brooks praised the school in a piece this spring.)

What does it tell you that Waronker is praised by ed-idiot Brooks, the UFT and Joel Klein who said in 2008 “If I could clone Shimon Waronker, I would do that immediately."

First Waronker was a principal of MS 22. But that was not enough to stay in a school and build it as part of the community. Four years and out. And the latest news is not good:

M.S. 22 grew safer under Waronker’s watch, which lasted from 2004 to 2008, but performance continued to lag. This year, it wound up on the city’s list of schools to overhaul.)

Looks like Shimon got out before he could be branded a failed principal. Just like failed CEOs keep moving in front of the dust storm.

Of course he needs to run a school with a different idea so he gets one in Brooklyn. After only 2 years he needs another one despite the fact his

"school also does not have a track record of success yet. Last year, its oldest students were in second grade, so the school has no state test scores to boast." 

But why wait to find out if it works? Both he and the UFT want to replicate something that may be a total failure, as Leonie points out in this comment on the Gotham site:

Aside from the issue of charter expansion and the potential of a contentious co-location battle, this seems to me to be more experimentation on poor kids in the name of "innovation."  What parent and/or teacher wouldn't prefer to have their kid in a class of 15 -- a proven model for success -- rather than in a class of 60?  Where is the evidence that this works at all?  I encourage people to read this NYT article: New American Academy in Brooklyn Is an Experiment in Class Size - http://goo.gl/Fk7tD

He asks the DOE and since the UFT is a partner he is told to cool it. So he and his pals at the UFT do an end run.

Really, you have to read every word and every comment of this article. It is so good I may actually give Gotham a contribution tomorrow at their party (though I may eat and drink it all away.)

In a first, district school is aiming to expand as a charter school

Read it all but let me extract the juicy UFT parts:

Waronker’s application has the support of the United Federation of Teachers, which was involved in the New American Academy’s creation but has had a contentious relationship with the city’s charter sector. Leo Casey, a UFT official who is departing to lead a union-affiliated education research institute in Washington, D.C., is a founding board member. 

This paragraph says it all about what the UFT/AFT is all about:

The UFT was integral in paving the way for the New American Academy to open in the first place. It worked with the city to sign off on a special contract that allows teachers to have larger classes, work longer hours, and climb a career ladder that carries extra pay.

But union leaders have never lent themselves to charter schools’ boards, other than the two charter schools it operates and one that former UFT President Randi Weingarten supported because it was trying to pioneer a new model of charter-union collaboration, Casey said Waronker’s school has long impressed him. Its master teacher model, where high-paid, highly trained teachers serve as mentors to three others, is the best in any city school, he said.

You know, master teachers like E4E's Lori Wheal.

“At a time when everybody talks about innovation and falls back onto the most traditional modes of teaching, they really are doing it,” Casey said. “The school is based on the notion that you have to empower the teachers.”

Teachers are empowered to have larger class sizes, work longer hours and climb a career ladder (read: merit pay).

When the teachers union said it would help [Waronker] work around the union contract to set up some of the school’s special features, such as master teacher positions with salaries of $120,000 a year, and hour-and-a-half long blocks of early morning curriculum planning, he jumped at the opportunity.

But he said he is excited about the possibility of expanding as a charter school —and as one where the union will play an ongoing role. The school cannot open with its teachers unionized, but Waronker and Casey both said the expectation is that teachers will join the UFT quickly, a process that typically happens only after a fight.

As Michael said above:

What kind of union helps an employer "work around the union contract?"
I guess a union that only cares about keeping the dues money coming in, while the contract is gutted and public schools dismantled. Thank you, Randi Weingarten, for showing the world what employer-union collaboration really means.
Absolutely, utterly, beyond disgraceful, and a clear demonstration of how the AFT/UFT leadership is captive to the premises and practice of ed deform.

Here comes the fun part on co-location:

According to a letter of intent filed with the state, the two schools would not have any formal partnership beyond sending their teachers to the same training sessions during the summer and school year.

One piece of information the letter of intent left out was where exactly the school would be located. Waronker’s application asks for space in District 19, but it doesn’t say what kind of space he’s looking for. He said he would prefer to open in a district school building, in the kind of co-location arrangement that about two-thirds of city charter schools currently occupy, though he would figure out how to pay for private space if he had to.

The UFT’s own charter schools share space in public school buildings. But the union has opposed many co-locations and even sued to stop a number of them last year. Union officials said they would not object to Waronker’s school receiving public space if the building offered has enough room and the existing schools do not object to getting a new neighbor.

Ooooh, the UFT supports the Good Neighbor Policy.