Ed Notes Online: UFT Opposition Caucus Historical Reference -- UFT Election Results

Friday, January 2, 2015

UFT Opposition Caucus Historical Reference -- UFT Election Results - 1977, 79, 81

Some of us are going to be meeting to talk about the past history of opposition groups in the UFT. For those few interested in UFT historical trends over time, we have been looking back in order to move forward. If the opposition in the UFT over time has made little progress in denting the Unity machine then what exactly is the point of continuing the traditional route of running in elections every 3 (until 2004 it was every 2) years?

It is worth examining the entire concept of "opposition" caucuses.

I was one of 2 votes in ICE about a year before the 2010 election urging ICE not to run. I felt it was a fruitless endeavor, especially given the state ICE was in at the time and knowing I would have to do a lot of work. But the decision was to go ahead, and being a political junky I threw myself into the details of petitioning and other minutia of UFT elections - in fact I became an expert UFT election petionologist.

I was one of the few people as MORE was forming in 2012 urging MORE not to run in 2013. I went along with the majority even though it was pretty clear how things would end. I was following John Lawhead's "Uncaucus" proposal which is still intriguing (I will publish more about that idea soon.) "First build it from the bottom before running," I urged, feeling the mistakes of the past where caucuses focused on election cycles, were being relived.
There was so much enthusiasm at the time, I felt I had to support them and put my petionologist skills at their service. I

We uncovered this chart the other day in the files Vera had in her home. Lots of other good stuff too. All the caucuses in the late 70s put out 4 page tabloid editions of their newspapers - an incredible amount of production for those times.

Note the higher number of people voting and also how in 1981 the opposition got almost 2200 elementary school votes with 22,500 ballots sent out. Compare that to the 2013 election where 36000 elem ballots were sent out and MORE got about 1100 (New Action got around 400) and Unity got around the same number of votes as they did in 1981.

https://www.scribd.com/doc/251369305/UFT-Elections-77-81-

UFT Elections 1977-79-81

Caucus notes: (my memory may be short so correct me if I am off).

In the 1977 election our group - the Coalition of School Workers ran a joint slate with Teachers Action Caucus under the banner of United Action. Another caucus - New Directions ran separately -- the totals have been combined.

In 1979 I believe CSW didn't run with TAC - so it was TAC and New Directions on separate slates. Merry Tucker reminds me that Chalk Dust was also part of the coalitions either in 79 or 81.

In 1981 for the first time all opposition groups ran under one banner - New Action Coalition -- NAC - note the jump in numbers voting.

In 1985 NAC for the first time won the High school VP seat and HS Ex Bd seats but Unity contested the election and forced a new won for HS VP which NAC won again.

In 1990 Bruce Markens won the District Rep election for Manhattan High Schools - elected by the chapter leaders -- this was cataclysmic for Unity which spent the next decade trying to vote him out but couldn't until he retired around 2000. In 2002 Randi eliminated District Rep elections. I consider this as more grassroots than anything related to the elections. [Some of us are meeting with Bruce this week to get more historical background.]

In 1991 NAC won 13 seats on the Ex Bd. High school and middle schools.

In 1993 the opposition won no seats. At that point Unity changed the constitution to remove the VP positions from the divisions and make them at-large positions where everyone voted, thus making sure that there the opposition could never again repeat the 1985 election.

In 1995/6 TAC and New Directions merged into New Action which won HS Ex Bd seats in the 95, 97, 99, 01 elections.

Fearing they would lose in the 2004 elections (the UFT changed from 2 to 3 years terms) NA made the deal with Unity and at that point the new caucus - ICE and TJC ran and won the HS seats - (Unity did not run for those seats).

In 2007, 10 and 13 NA and Unity ran a joint slate for the HS seats and won them by combining the votes.

In 2013 - MORE got 1440 HS votes while Unity got 1580 and New Action around 400+. Over 19000 ballots were sent out
In 1981 12,000 HS ballots were sent out. (NAC got 2544) and Unity 3077.

So interesting how there has been a loss of interest in the UFT over time.

More historical results:

UFT Election Results 1999-2013
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B8qnFCTQLOqoQkRmVmpMR0dIR0U/preview?pli=1

Recent posts on this subject:

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"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

Friday, January 2, 2015

UFT Opposition Caucus Historical Reference -- UFT Election Results - 1977, 79, 81

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