(By the way, Julie and Seku are like finding diamonds and that they cast their lot with MORE is a sign of the potential MORE has to attract amazing people.)
Julie Cavanagh and Seku Brathwaite on wbai
http://archive.wbai.org/show1.
Brooklyn Rail: A Groundswell of Teachers Wants More
Cavanagh is the cheery face of dissident militancy. Unlike her running mate, long-time International Socialist Organization activist Brian Jones, she’s fairly new to rabble-rousing, going to her first protest in 2009 to demonstrate against school closings. Between taping a campaign video and entertaining her 7-month-old son on a Saturday afternoon in January, she explains that MORE is the consolidation of two dissident factions, Teachers for a Just Contract and the Independent Community of Educators, and includes members of the New York Community of Radical Educators, the Grassroots Education Movement and Teachers Unite. Cavanagh admits that the campaign against Mulgrew will be an uphill battle. “We’re trying to get into other schools, into mail boxes,” she said. “We have a team of bloggers, and the traditional boots on the ground.”Hmm. First time I've heard Julie described as "the cheery face" but not bad.
The Indypendent - Ready to Resist (excerpts)
Late on the Thursday afternoon before spring break 15 teachers gathered around a long table in the back corner of a tapas bar in Chelsea. Faced with a daily grind of standardized test prep, performance metrics, data management and pervasive job insecurity that increasingly defines their existence as teachers, they were looking forward to a week’s respite. But, they were also discussing this April’s elections in the United Federation of Teachers and how they might be able to rejuvenate a union that they say has failed to effectively resist the corporate-style education reforms that Mayor Michael Bloomberg has implemented over the past 12 years.
“Resistance is not futile if we join forces with the people in the communities we serve,” said Sean Ahern, a teacher who works with troubled youth at Rikers Island, as the group went around the table introducing themselves and describing the teaching work they do.
The happy hour gathering was organized by the Movement of Rank and File Educators (MORE), an opposition caucus that is battling the UFT’s entrenched leadership. MORE was formed last year by members of several left-leaning teacher groups. Many MORE members have joined protests in recent years against school closings and charter school co-locations inside existing public schools carried out by the NYC Department of Education. In the 170,000-member UFT, they see an institution with the resources and the citywide reach into school communities to lead a powerful fightback against Bloomberg’s policies — including mayoral control of schools — which have proven increasingly unpopular with parents. But first, they say, the UFT must transform itself and become an organization that fully encourages member participation and forges strong ties with the communities it serves.
“The membership is not educated, organized and mobilized, and that has hurt us,” said Julie Cavanagh, an elementary school special education teacher who is MORE’s candidate for president against UFT chief Michael Mulgrew.I had a frank talk with the writer of this piece John Tarleton who has been following things closely for years. I asked for it to be off the record because I wanted to lay out the challenges MORE has ahead. John did include this quote:
Cavanagh’s candidacy is a by-product of New York’s school wars. She first became politicized several years ago when she led a community struggle in Red Hook against a politically-connected charter school that was looking to take over much of the school where she teaches.
Campaigning with minimal resources, MORE has held happy hour gatherings like the one in Chelsea, organized public forums to discuss issues of importance to educators, set up social media sites and email lists, and distributed tens of thousands of flyers to members at school campuses. It’s this kind of patient, bottom-up organizing that MORE activists hope will enable them to make inroads this year against the Unity Caucus, which has controlled the UFT since shortly after its founding in 1960.
“There is a mass machine that has to be battled at the school level and the district level,” said Norm Scott, a retired teacher and education blogger who is active in MORE.I'm one of the pessimists regarding this and any election and never expect us to do well -- and people always accuse me of being a defeatist. I am a realist and don't believe in magical thinking. I believe in building a movement and a UFT election is just a piece of it. For instance, at last night's Change the Stakes meeting which was attended by mostly parents, the number of them supporting MORE to the extent that they were taking leaflets to distribute in their children's schools was encouraging. That MORE has attracted the support of these activist parents means we are doing something right, though I always think it was the amazing work of GEM that got us going and sometimes I fear that a focus on the UFT gets us away from that movement building we did in GEM.
John caught the drift of some of the stuff I was saying in that MORE has to balance the left within and attract a broader base beyond that.
Despite all its top-down power, the UFT has little impact in the daily life of many of the city’s 1,700 public schools. With MORE’s chances of victory in this election almost nil, organizers see this year’s campaign as an opportunity to build a school-level network of supporters that can continue to grow and win more chapter elections in 2015 and pose a stronger challenge in the next union-wide elections in 2016. Their success will be determined to a large extent by their ability to connect with and move union members who do not already self-identify as leftists.I agree but also think that we need to activate the left-leaning people in the UFT in addition to attracting the center and I just don't mean people who will vote for us but will become active core members in MORE and help shape the future of a member-driven caucus which can morph into a member-driven union. Examine both Unity and New Action and you will see they are not member-driven and never have been. New Action is just an executive board and has given up any idea of actually building a force that could challenge Unity. Believe me, MORE could easily be that alone and one of the dissatisfactions with ICE was that was what we had become -- a narrow group -- a great group -- but narrow.
More from John:
MORE was formed last year by members of several left-leaning teacher groups. Many MORE members have joined protests in recent years against school closings and charter school co-locations inside existing public schools carried out by the NYC Department of Education. In the 170,000-member UFT, they see an institution with the resources and the citywide reach into school communities to lead a powerful fightback against Bloomberg’s policies — including mayoral control of schools — which have proven increasingly unpopular with parents. But first, they say, the UFT must transform itself and become an organization that fully encourages member participation and forges strong ties with the communities it serves.
“The membership is not educated, organized and mobilized, and that has hurt us,” said Julie Cavanagh, an elementary school special education teacher who is MORE’s candidate for president against UFT chief Michael Mulgrew.
MORE, of course has a long way to go to match CORE and I don't just mean in terms of winning power, but as an organization. After the election I do want to go into the details of the good, the bad and the ugly of organizational issues, what we think we learned from CORE and what we have applied and have not applied. There are things I am happy with and things I am not but who listens to the old fart anyway? In fact, when someone recently told me that some Unity types are saying that I am behind MORE I find that laughable. I have mush less influence in MORE and I am happy about that -- less guilt when things don't go the way I want.
I will say that we've done all we've done without any formal structure or steering committee -- everything is "show up and volunteer" -- which by the way a group of MOREs are doing tomorrow in Brooklyn to do phone banking for the election. But we won't go very far without getting things in order very soon. We can't get too ICEish which was totally free form.
Enough philosophizing.
It's so easy to vote for MORE. BUT the ballot is confusing.
James did a great piece at ICE:
http://iceuftblog.blogspot.
And Peter Lamphere did this for his staff:
James did a great piece at ICE:
And Peter Lamphere did this for his staff:
And of course the indefatigable Portelos who is another diamond.
Damning video on Mulgrew
You can say what you want about More being different than ICE-TJC or whatever. Bottomline everyone knows that MORE is exactly the same opposition. Same faces different brand name. All roads lead to Norman Scott, Kit Wainer, and the Eterno family.
ReplyDeleteYou are not fooling anyone with the new kids on the block.
I should know not to take you seriously but let me ask why do I give a shit about hiding my role? Everyone knows Julie is a leader and is listened to by all, most of all by me.
DeleteWe all begged her to run even with a new baby because she is the bomb.
The 4 of us certainly play a role but everyone can see who is running MORE and it ain't us though I would say Kit has some influence as does James. There is so little of ICE and TJC in MORE and that is as it should be given that we didn't get it done. I think the next gen view us as having failed to build something and in many ways they are right.
Really, no one listens to me and if they did you would see a greater attack on Unity as Vichy but they don't believe me and actually think there are times for common ground with the Unity slugs. I'm a senior advisor and do the scut work like picking up leaflets from the printer and doing the petitions. No thinking involved. And I'm perfectly happy to not have to worry about that crap anymore.
Free at last! and free to use ed notes as a bludgeon the way I want without having to ask people if it is OK.
That is why New Action made a mistake in distorting the truth and attacking people who actually had some respect for Jonathan. They might have found ways to make their little shitty inroads by preying on the newer MOREs liberal tendencies. Now I think not -- they did my job for me. Thanks Jonathan.
Well, you're fooling me and everyone I work with (who are voting for the first time..for MORE)! Congrats!!
DeleteI hope you continue to fool me! I'd be interested in experiencing the things a real strong union can do.
I don't care that MORE is comprised of many of the same faces as ICE. You know why? Because I voted for ICE in the last election! I warned all the teachers at my school that they needed to vote for ICE in 2009 because UNITY would be selling us out. And they did. Do you feel more or less secure in your teaching job since 2009? If not, then vote for MORE.
DeleteThanks for staying the course. ICE played a valuable role but with its overload of retirees and inability to attract the newer generation of teachers, it was clear that it was fading. And besides, its non-caucus spinoff, GEM, which accomplished so much in a short time, took energy away from union work. I intend to write about the roots and genesis of MORE as a caution that it could face the same issues ICE (and TJC) did if it doesn't pay attention to organization building, which ICE never did. But you know youth. Sometimes you can talk until you know longer can and maybe they will have to go through the same trials. That is what I meant when I said I don't have much influence in that sense --- I think there is sometimes a "there he goes again, lecturing." I don't believe in the turn and talk and "let's break into small groups" concept. Which is why I still find the occasional ICE meetings so rewarding.
DeletePlease stop going to issues and focus on character assassination. We are accustomed, when amongst ourselves, to talk about how you stink, how Eterno stinks, and so forth. We don't much like it when you answer. So from now on, we'd like for you all to also focus on how much you stink and stop telling us that we stink. We don't know how to respond to that. So let's please discuss why you are so awful, how awful you are, and things like that. And if there is to be name-calling, we'd like to do it, and again, we don't like it when you defend yourselves. If we wanted to engage in discussion, we'd just debate you. All we want is to be understood. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteNorm, i am interested in the history and the shades of diff between the various oppositions. You rather snarkily chastised me last week for conflating ice and tjc, but Im hardly alone in my penchant for lumping them all together.
ReplyDeleteSorry if I misunderstood what looked like a snarky comment about a meeting a decade ago. ICE and TJC were never one organization and only worked together for elections and then not even worked together other than in the most rudimentary manner. One day you can read the history of opposition movement in the UFT from my own little narrow perspective. Somewhere on the sidebar I have part one of the story.
DeleteTJC disbanded when MORE went live while ICE has not and meets occasionally. While the genesis of MORE was based on each active group connected to teacher movements sending 2 people to regular pre-MORE meetings, there was a decision to end that practice and instead of an unwieldy coalition of groups MORE would be a membership organization of individuals. Some ICE people were not interested in MORE or any new caucus and keeping ICE going allows them to participate in the discussions ICE does hold now and again. Given that both ICE and TJC had to go out of business as caucuses this was not a light decision. For the other groups -- GEM, NYCORE, CAPE -- they can continue working in whatever format suits them as does ICE now with the aim of funneling UFT work through MORE. But MORE can also funnel high stakes testing work through the Change the Stakes committee of GEM which MORE people work with too. With James maintaining the ICE blog it gives him and other ICEers a voice that might get drowned out in MORE given that MORE seems to have attracted a lot more people than ICE did (I can't speak for TJC). And of course there are differences of opinion on some issues inside MORE and that is an ongoing process. As long as all voices are heard and decisions made after open debate we can live with that. It is groups like Unity, New Action, E4E where differing opinions are suppressed that creates a sort of black hole.
Correction, all Unity wants is to keep their gravy train rolling.
ReplyDelete