THE CHANCELLOR SENDS US LOVE LETTERS AND EMPTY PLATITUDES BUT REFUSES TO GIVE US A CONTRACT. RIDICULOUS....WE ARE THE LEADERS OF OUR CITY’S SCHOOLS, yet we are left without a contract for months on end. STAND UP AND JOIN US!!!!.....--- Council of School Supervisors & Administrators
Norm - You should let teachers know to regularly check www.csa-nyc.org for useful information. They make their newsletters public: www.csa-nyc.org/csa-news. Incidentally, CSA stands for “Council of School Supervisors & Administrators” and not “Council of Supervisor Associates.” It used to stand for “Council of Supervisors & Administrators,” but then they added “School” into the name of their Union. For whatever reason, they didn’t rename the short form as “CSSA” when they made the above change.... since the UFT and CSA are locals of the AFL-CIO, that's probably why the UFT won't generally go after rotten, incompetent, and abusive supervisors.-- anon.
Eterno comments: the CSA's rather lukewarm notice for their rally says, "How many non-CSA members do you anticipate bringing along?" Non CSA members? Are principals going to order their non-tenured staff to accompany them and support them? No, they wouldn't do that. Just kidding.When I told a retired teacher and former ATR about this rally he said me might come - and boo. He even wanted to organize a counter rally. Yes, a lot of teachers are pissed at supervisors and the way the CSA takes no role in controlling even the worst of them. (Contrary to the UFT which often lets its members swing in the wind.) The UFT leadership has said it can't be too critical of supervisors because the CSA is another union and they have to respect that - like teachers get respect for being in the UFT.
Personally I don't think people supervising other union members can be considered a union. I also don't think we need principals - teachers should run their schools.
Some of my readers may LOL at this but I do know a great guy who is a great principal and supportive of teachers and our union and he sent me this on a rally the CSA is organizing for their contract. By the way, I rarely if ever hear about abusive principals in his district and I believe if he hears of issues he wouldn't be quiet. They are using the settlement of our contract as an argument:
As you know, the teacher’s union settled their contract before their last one even expired. They deserved it and we are happy for them.Happy for our contract which so many of them ignore.
He asked me to attend the rally and I might even do so for the fun of watching it. My friend, who will be retiring soon, wrote me this note:
"I was told de Blasio and his “Equity” Chancellor walked out and left us hanging despite the basic pattern bargain for NYC unions being settled. Anything you could do to get this some attention to this would be appreciated. We are organizing a turnout for our Rally ... I hope you can an join us if you are in the City that day.Here is the email sent to CSA members. Don't they still get their 8 and a quarter per cent on their TDA?
I won’t be around to collect most of the raises, but it is about securing a contract for future members of our union.
Thanks brother!
Please share this with any and all of your fellow local elected officials.And another notice sent out:
As you know, the teacher’s union settled their contract before their last one even expired. They deserved it and we are happy for them. However, the contract for principals and other school supervisors has been expired for 7 months. For some reason the Mayor and Chancellor refuse to give us the same respect. It is ridiculous. The pattern bargain for all City labor unions has already been established. Nobody is going to get rich on this pattern. That said, we deserve the same respect of a fair and equal contract that was shown to our teachers.
We would love to see you and all of our local elected officials come out in support an equal contract for principals, assistant principals and other supervisors and administrators.. A letter from you to the Mayor and Chancellor in support of our demand would be nice and joining us at our Rally for a Contract at City Hall on October 30 th at 5 pm would be equally appreciated.
The Chancellor earns 375,000 a year with a chauffeured ride. He gave a crowd of his executives at Tweed double digit raises. Then he asks US, school leaders, to implement his EQUITY agenda. They preach Equity but don’t practice it.
Thank you for your support of our District’s school leaders.
I was just informed by Vice President Henry Rubio that the City has very disrespectfully left us hanging and contract negotiations are stalled again.
THE CHANCELLOR SENDS US LOVE LETTERS AND EMPTY PLATITUDES BUT REFUSES TO GIVE US A CONTRACT. RIDICULOUS.
President Cannizzaro is counting on US: YOU- ME ; ALL OF US!!
NO EXCUSES!!! SHOW UP AND TELL THEM WE WANT RESPECT AND A CONTRACT.
THERE IS NO OPTION. IF HAVE NOT ALREADY DONE SO, SEND YOUR LETTERS TO THE MAYOR AND REGISTER FOR THE RALLY AT CITY HALL.
CALL 311 to complain, call your elected officials and tell them you feel disrespected by the Mayor and Chancellor.
WE ARE THE LEADERS OF OUR CITY’S SCHOOLS, yet we are left without a contract for months on end. STAND UP AND JOIN US!!!!
I LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING ALL OF YOU WITH YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILIES ON OCTOBER 30th as we tell Them: ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!!!
6 comments:
There is something so PTSD about seeing an admin asking people to call 311 to complain.
CSA members get what they deserve (NO CONTRACT) for teacher bulling providing PTSD to many UFT members with their unethical lies - I hope DOE works them to death increasing hours and NO PAY! I can provide a list beyond belief with hope many teachers were hurt falsely by CSA members- good luck meeting your maker- how can they sleep at nigh! And they don’t even know the Danielson rubric or know much of anything else only what DOE legals instructs to go after teachers and how do they can get a pay check for being low level attorneys.
You refer to the CSA as the Council of Supervisor Associates. I believe the name of the local is the Council of Supervisors and Administrators. Was the misnaming intentional Norm? Hmmm?
Also, the CSA's rather lukewarm notice for their rally says, "How many non-CSA members do you anticipate bringing along?" Non CSA members? Are principals going to order their non-tenured staff to accompany them and support them? No, they wouldn't do that. Just kidding.
Norm,
How much is accomplished when you get a bunch of people together to help build and sustain a project that everyone agrees is important? In what ways, do character structures, ego, power, ideology, and hubris destabilize group dynamics, community building and potential accomplishments?
Teachers cannot run schools for the same reasons that dissident union caucuses cannot get anything done. Too many cooks in the kitchen.
Across the city there are awful, woeful administrators and Central Office staff. Some are awful because they are simply rotten human beings. Some are awful because they are inexperienced and know close to nothing about their job and the ability to manage their staff with compassion, wisdom and excellence.
Institutional knowledge and the passing on of wisdom were disappeared under Bloomberg. The blind lead the blind.
Teachers need excellent principals who can talk the talk and walk the walk and truly support them.
Principals need excellent superintendents who can talk the talk and walk the walk and truly support them.
Central, now more than ever, needs a Chancellor who leaves his ego at the door every day, and who understands that the bullshit he pedals and embeds within the framework of identity politics should be locked away never to be seen or spoken about again.
Central, now more than ever, needs to raise its standards and stop hiring toddlers who haven’t learned to wipe their asses yet and who look like they all walked off the pages of a J. Crew catalog.
The Chancellor and the NYCDOE need to eliminate bureaucratic bloat, streamline data collection and minimize its data fetish.
Class size matters (of course it does…hire more teachers, cut admin bloat and cut out all the consultants and companies that are allowed to be hired to provide PD, etc.). Develop talent from within. No one talks about the privatization of schools without mentioning Charter Schools. Our schools have already been privatized. Tax money goes into budgets and then it goes right back out to non-unionized companies who most often pedal bullshit. And ironically these people are needed because the DOE doesn’t have anyone left with real knowledge and expertise.
The last and perhaps most neglected subject in NYC ed talk: Teachers with no content knowledge. I won’t say too much more Norm. There was a time in NYC when teachers had undergraduate degrees and sometimes graduate degrees in their license area. No more. Very few. Someone from the media should look into this matter. I think there are lots of reasons why. A demoralized profession with unrealistic and impossible demands and thus a high turn over rate = demand for teachers. Keeps the costs down too. Salaries. Pensions. Lower standards for the amount of credits needed in a license area. For social studies and English there is an identity politics crisis. Undergraduate degrees in social studies and English without having taken core classes in American History and British and American Literature (ooppss, I said something dirty). Yes, courses that fall outside of the “Canon” are extremely important too, but...AH. Forget it. Would take too long to explain.
We are screwed.
Lots of meat to digest here. I caught the use of the "canon" which probably refers to the recent death of Harold Bloom, the master of the canon, most of which I haven't read. There's some truth to what you say but also some false assumptions. I was an elementary school teacher and my overall general knowledge seemed to cover me and I feel I had a very decent education in public school - I was prepared for college. I specialized in history through an almost masters, most of which I never got to use in teaching. But despite that listening to Mike Duncan history podcasts I realize how much I don't know even in my specialty.
As to the initial point - my experiences in the various groups I helped form over the past 15 years - ICE, GEM, MORE - none of which ever had a core larger than 20 and in fact were run by a smaller group of committed people - I learned a hell of a lot about political group dynamics. One day I may be able to organize myself to write about it all. What was accomplished? I met a lot of interesting people and made some friends and maybe we nudged the union a bit. I feel our best work was in fighting ed deform - we were way out in front on that and now I am way behind as the movement passed me by. Or I'm just losing interest in putting time and energy into a battle.
As for the argument that people don't know their subject matter, of course teachers have degrees and must have a masters. So what are they studying? I'm sure you run into some weak content people but you also run into strong content people. Certainly the people I met in MORE were very well educated and I believe most of them are excellent teachers.
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