Friday, January 20, 2017

Reporter Wayne Barrett

.... by the time he had graduated from the Columbia School of Journalism in 1968, at the height of the antiwar movement, his politics had veered to the left. To avoid the draft, he became a public-school teacher in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, where he moved with his wife, the former Frances Marie McGettigan, whom he married in 1969...
As a teacher, he became embroiled in a racially charged debate in the largely black Ocean Hill-Brownsville district over what should take precedence in the tumultuous transition to school decentralization: community control over hiring, or the seniority rights of unionized teachers.

Mr. Barrett sided with nonunion teachers on the hiring issue, but he also documented malfeasance by the local school board and reported it to prosecutors and in The Voice, revelations that led to federal corruption charges.... NY Times Obit
The death of reporter Wayne Barrett, who was born a few months after me, reminded me of the 2 times I met him. It was not long after my political activation in 1970-71 and local school board elections in those post 1968 teacher strike days were the hot bed of school politics, often between the UFT political machine and local community forces. The major battle ground was District 1 on the lower east side where a UFT slate was running against an activist slate which was supporting the local superintendent who I believe was named Luis Fuentes. Forces were needed on election day- which was in May - to reinforce the ground game against the power of the UFT. I took a day off to assist that day and went down to volunteer where I met a beautiful young couple who were there to volunteer too -- Wayne and Fran Barrett. We spent the day working the campaign and I really liked them both and hoped to spend some more time with them but that was it. After that day there was no contact.

The next time I ran into Wayne was years later at my childhood friend's -- Marty Needelman's -- wedding. Marty was a legal aid lawyer in Williamsburg where I taught and ran in the same circles as Wayne. Marty and crew had been involved in the local school board politics in District 14 and it was through him that I met Lew Friedman who, with people in his school - IS 318 -- had begun a local teacher based newspaper called Another View - me entry into both activist politics and a muckraking form of citizen journalism. By that time Wayne was already a famous journalist for the Village Voice.

It was Wayne who exposed Randi Weingarten's distortions about her teaching career. See links below for more Barrett articles on the UFT of which he was a major critic.

 

Weingarten's War | Village Voice

www.villagevoice.com/news/weingartens-war-6410367
May 13, 2003 - By Wayne Barrett. On Saturday, United Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten, whose power in state and city politics exceeds that ...

Bloomberg and the Teachers' Union | Village Voice

www.villagevoice.com/news/bloomberg-and-the-teachers-union-6390196
May 13, 2009 - ... 2009 at 4 a.m.. By Wayne Barrett. The mayor has given historic raises to the teachers represented by UFT President Randi Weingarten. 1 ...

An unholy alliance - NY Daily News

www.nydailynews.com/opinion/unholy-alliance-article-1.1838112
Jun 22, 2014 - Barrett: I am a progressive, have been one since the 1960s, when I became a New ... BY Wayne Barrett .... Capping the real narrative of UFT choices, its longtime president Randi Weingarten became president of the American ...

ICEUFT Blog: Can Randi Bite the Board of Ed Hand that Improperly ...

iceuftblog.blogspot.com/2007/03/can-randi-bite-board-of-ed-hand-that.html
Mar 5, 2007 - ... investigative journalist Wayne Barrett illustrates, Board of Ed officials finagled the rules back in the nineties so that Randi Weingarten could ...

Ed Notes Online: Neo-Liberal Wayne Barrett, Pseudo-Progressive Anti ...

ednotesonline.blogspot.com/2014/06/neo-liberal-wayne-barrett-pseudo.html
Jun 23, 2014 - John Elfrank-Dana responding to Wayne Barrett anti-union diatribe ...... Randi Weingarten, president of the 1.5-million-member American ...

An Open Exchange With AFT President Randi Weingarten | The ...

www.huffingtonpost.com/mercedes.../an-open-exchange-with-aft_b_4210262.html
Nov 4, 2013 - An Open Exchange With AFT President Randi Weingarten .... Ironically, the third source you cite, Wayne Barrett, was the one Joel Klein used to ...

Special Interest: Teachers Unions and America's Public Schools

https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0815721293
Terry M. Moe - 2011 - ‎Political Science
See, for example, Randi Weingarten, “D.C. Deal Has Few Lessons for N.Y: ... Wayne Barrett, “Bloomberg and the Teachers Union,” Village Voice, May 13, 2009.

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