Parent activists are rightfully outraged at Mona Davids' claims that "the NYCPU, is the leading independent voice of New York City public school students and their parents."
In fact the very idea of an attack on tenure is an attack on parents and students as much, if not more, than on teachers.
Bully, abusive principals, of which there are many, not only abuse teachers but parents and students too. It is often the teachers protected by tenure who build alliances with parents in their schools who are savaged by these principals.
These Principals hunger for the attack on tenure to be successful so they can shut down all voices of dissent in the schools. Think of people like the teachers who could stand up against the assault on PS 15 by Bloomberg and the charter lobby, an assault Mona Davids in one of her earliest incarnations, gleefully joined in. Or James Eterno's brave defense of the doomed Jamaica HS. Or teachers like Francesco Portelos whose tenure protected him against 2 years of attack, until he ultimately prevailed after the DOE spent almost half a million dollars trying to terminate him and failed. Or the teacher in Queens under assault by a psychotic principal who was causing harm to students through financial and other irregularities who worked with parents to organize the resistance until the principal resigned. That teacher would have been gone in an instant if suits like these prevail.
Mona Davids' claims to be defending students and parents are blatant lies and distortions and should be exposed as such.
And let us not forget that Mona Davids eagerly participated (and was of invaluable assistance) in the making of the film, The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman, one of the strongest defenses of tenure - going way beyond anything the UFT has done.
Just another flip-flop on her part in the pursuit of self-interest.
See: Dissecting Moaning Mona Davids
3 comments:
Norm,
Those real education activists who are Mona's "friends" should openly criticize her, expose her. She should not be allowed at parent events that are organized by true education activists. People need to distance themselves from her pronto. I always felt she was up to no good and others let her tag along. Yes a virus is a good way to describe her.
This may happen - but due to the fact that they don't want to offend the UFT which they now may feel they may be doing given that this suit for Mona crosses the Rubicon. She sees more opportunities on the other side of the fence. Apparently when she "worked" with the UFT they were not coming across with much support, financial or otherwise. If Randi had still been around, Mona would have had an office and a staff just to shut her up.
Of course I understand the possible damage that a Vergara-type victory would do here in NYC, though I think it unlikely to succeed.
But tenure rates have collapsed across the City, though they are very variable....something like 50% overall but with some districts as low as 10-15%. When Bloomberg said that "tenure as we know it will end" he wasn't kidding. 96% tenure rates were a little hard to justify but with so few third year teachers receiving tenure and either being dismissed or having their probation extended so that they can spend another year with a principal's Sword of Damocles hanging over his or her head, I think the larger battle has already been lost. I'm not suggesting we take Vergara-like lawsuits lightly.....just that tenure for most teachers is an unlikely endpoint in their careers. They become year-to-year "at will" employees unable to exercise free speech in side their own schools until they are finally forced out of the system.
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