Ed Notes Online: MORE Events: Chapter Organizing Sept. 19, General Meeting Sept. 22 and MORE

Sunday, September 16, 2012

MORE Events: Chapter Organizing Sept. 19, General Meeting Sept. 22 and MORE

MORE on TV:
Julie Cavanagh on Chris Hayes Sunday 8AM

Meghan Behrent was on the Melissa Perry show on Saturday. I will put up links to both appearances

The MORE ride continues.
Come to the chapter organizing training by MORE and Labor Notes on Weds. Sept. 19 - see below for details.

MORE continues its efforts with a CL and Del support listserve where people post questions and get answers they won't get elsewhere. Email more@morecaucusnyc.org if interested.

Many MORE members were at the UFT Chapter Leader meeting on Sept. 12 with a possible record being set by 9 week old Jack Cavanagh.

– the first Delegate Assembly will be in October. (For those not aware, the DA is made up of chapter leaders and delegates. Each school has at least one of each and bigger schools get one additional delegate for every 60 members.)

After the meeting, MORE held a Planning Committee meeting at a local bar, and Jack wasn't even asked for ID. The Planning Committee is MORE's temporary steering committee to run the group while we figure out more lasting structures – sort of trying to build the house while living in it.

Over 20 people showed up, which created a few logistical issues – like how do I get my beer and food while trying to meet? Unlike some groups (E4E Screens People Out at Screening of WBD,) MORE is totally open and some people who had their first contact with MORE were welcome to join in. No pledges to sign before entry. MORE does have a mission statement with basic principles of agreement decided on democratically and to be a voting member (when MORE does vote) people should be in basic agreement.

Get Involved! Attend our upcoming general meeting next Saturday or our Activist Training Wednesday, and distribute our latest leaflet "Why we are running in the Election"

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Movement of Rank and File Educators - MORE - The social justice caucus of the UFT

Movement of Rank & File Educators

Weekly Newsletter #24 - September 15, 2012

In Solidarity with the Chicago Teachers' Union Local 1

Norm:

It has been an electrifying week as the Chicago Teachers' Union has led the way in fighting back. MORE has been picketing, rallying, wearing red and educating our coworkers about how a grassroots approach has led to this successful struggle.

Please check out our statement in solidarity with Chicago! Look for our roundup of analysis of the strike coming soon to morecaucusnyc.org.

Take the next step

by attending our general meeting on September 22nd.

CUNY Graduate Center

365 5th Ave @ 34th rm. 5414

12 - 3pm

We will be organizing our work for the fall - forming committees around action, education, internal and external communication, and the upcoming elections and we need your help! Also we will be assessing and analyzing the national and local impact of the Chicago strike.

Spread the word about MORE

to your coworkers by distributing our latest leaflet: "Why we are running in the elections"

MORE believes that we can transform the UFT into a force that can win us a good contract, build an activist alliance with parent and community groups to stop the political assaults against our schools and our union, and stop the testing craze which threatens students’ learning conditions and teachers’ job protections.... Read more here

Please take a second to forward this to a friend or coworker, and consider joining our discussion list or our chapter leader meetup list.

Other Upcoming Events:

Fundraising Party - 9/29 - 7:00pm - 132 16th st (btwn 4th and 5th Ave.) R Train to Prospect
District 15 Happy Hour - 10/19 Freddy’s Bar - 627 5th Ave. - R to Prospect

Evaluations petition now online!

Go to the MORE website to sign the petition to call for a vote on the new evaluation scheme.

You can also download a copy to distribute at your school.

In February, the UFT agreed to a new framework that will base 25-40% of our future evaluations on standardized test scores.

The union will be negotiating the final details with the city over the fall and winter, but the membership deserves a discussion and a vote on the agreement.

Wednesday
September 19

MORE and Labor Notes present:

Secrets of a Successful Organizer

A training for new chapter leaders, new delegates, and all teachers who want to organize in their schools.

MORE is joining forces with Labor Notes, a publication and organizing project focused on “putting the movement back in the labor movement” for a workshop on how to engage members and build rank-and-file power in your school.

Wednesday September 19th 5pm
Murphy Institute
25 w. 43rd St., 18th floor
click here for flyer

No comments:

"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