#MORE2016 - Randi Believes In Proportional Representation in Democratic Party But Not in Winner Take All UFT

Mrs. Clinton was expected to win 39 of South Carolina’s delegates to Mr. Sanders’s 14... Under party rules, most delegates are awarded proportionally to Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Sanders based on their shares of the vote in congressional districts.... NY Times

How ironic that Democratic Party super delegate Randi Weingarten is part of a system in the many primaries that are not winner take all. After Bernie was routed by almost 50% points yesterday he still gets 14 delegates. Of course many states ARE winner take all, like the UFT.

Let's look at the UFT elections where 750 AFT/NYSUT delegates are up for grabs -- I mean awarded to Unity. In the last election MORE received about the same percentage that Bernie got in South Carolina. If the UFT were run like the Democratic Party, MORE would have gotten about 150 out of the 750 delegates. They got none and will get none in the upcoming election.

Since the majority of the UFT Exec is elected at-large - meaning everyone votes, the winner take all gives Unity all those seats. In a proportional rep world, MORE would have gotten about 20% of those seats.

In some Democratic Party primaries, seats are allocated based on votes in regions. Imagine if we voted by school districts in NYC - the 32 plus the high schools and other special units. Say each gets to choose about 25 delegates based on district voting and they are divided by slate proportions. In strong Unity districts they would pretty much get all or most of the votes. In areas where MORE is stronger, we might get a bigger portion of the delegates. In high schools we would get about 40% to 50%. The outcome would still give Unity an overwhelming majority but not 100%.

Having non-Unity voices at the AFT/NYSUT  and UFT Exec Board would go a long way towards protecting the UFT from the ravages of a Friedrichs ruling. All many people who feel unrepresented by the UFT want is a more democratic operation where they can present their views. If the system is fair and they lose the vote, at least they had the opportunity and can try to win people over.

Unrepresented groups like the ATR would get their voices heard since MORE would include them in the people chosen.

In the delegate assembly, most of the chapter leaders and delegates are elected from the schools. But many come from the functional chapters. The key functional chapter is the rigidly controlled Retiree chapter which elects 300 delegates to the delegate assembly in a winner take all chapter election that took place last May. The Retiree Advocate slate ran against Unity and received I believe in the neighborhood of 25% of the vote. In a proport rep system, the Retiree Advocate should receive 75 delegate positions. They got none.

Imagine if we implemented that system. I and other retirees who stood up to Unity at the DA. Our experience with how they operate and how to counter them would change the nature of the DA -

---one more reason why you will never see proportional representation, unlike in Randi's beloved Democratic Party, come to the UFT.

How Unity caucus controls the UFT/NYSUT/AFT - An Analysis

Updated -

Arthur Goldstein at NYC Educator has a piece today - Weingarten Supports Hochul, Hochul Thanks Her by Supporting Moskowitz.


Randi Weingarten's made robo-calls for NYS Lt. Gov Kathy Hochul, who made a slug appearance in front of the Moskowitz rally. I had a piece on this the other day-   Demand Accountability From UFT/AFT/NYSUT/Unity Caucus..., as did RBE at Perdido St., Time To Ask Randi Weingarten About The Kathy Hochul Robocalls Again.

Arthur raises some essential questions regarding the continuous bad policy decisions being made by the union time and again.

....How many times do we need to fall on our asses before someone in leadership gets tired? How much inexcusable nonsense do working teachers need to experience before someone says enough?
......
when are we gonna learn from our mistakes? How many times are we gonna kowtow to people who hate us and everything we stand for just so they can crap all over us? I guess there's some logic to this, but my mind just can't get around it. Norm Scott regularly posts explanations, but even after he explains it I don't understand.

I'm apparently not able to articulate a clear explanation for the WHY behind the UFT's actions -- and let's make it clear, Unity Caucus, being the largest block in NYSUT and the AFT, controls both those organizations. So for those who try to make it seem Mulgrew is not Weingarten, that is just blowing smoke. All style and no substance in the difference.

Michael Fiorillo has a piece in the upcoming High School Voice newsletter on Unity control which we will try to get into as many high schools as possible (email me if you are willing to distribute.)

Chaz blog

The real problem is not just a small oligarchic leadership who sit in offices but the loyalists in Unity caucus who are actually in schools, many as chapter leaders, and still force feed the Unity line to the people they supposedly represent. Note the comments of people like Unity supporters Paula Washington and John Marvel on blog posts critical of the union as examples - loyalists rushing to rearrange the deck chairs.

You need to look at the institutions the union sets up and controls that extend their control into the schools.

If you attend one of the 50 district and functional chapter meetings which are aimed at chapter leaders, you will find a room dominated by Unity and controlled by the Unity person running the meeting. I know MORE CLs who feel there is little headway to be made with these people. In only one district I know of have MORE and other independent CLs been getting to a point of critical mass where their voices are being heard.

People focus way to much on the elections every 3 years. The really important elections take place this May and June for CLs.

[MORE chapter leader election workshops on March 14 at CUNY.]

Even if independents get elected, they are often pulled into the orbit of the union-employed District Rep and also union training weekends where they are shown the advantages of joining Unity - and many do right away. Then they are told the opposition is poison, radicals, crazies, etc. And they spread the word in their schools if someone asks about the opposition.

NYC Educator blog

One of our new people had a friend who basically knows nothing about the union with disparaging remarks about MORE, which astounded this person. Where did she get that from? It is the Unity Caucus rank and file who are fed the line and pass it on.

Co-opting the opposition is another tactic. They target certain people. They never give up on people other than people like Arthur, James Eterno, Jeff Kaufman and myself.

Many of the newer activists in MORE are being approached by union officials, if not outright offers to join "you will rise quickly in the union" but also more subtle -- we hear you, let's work together, join our working committees, etc. I call this "defanging" the opposition. Hey, it worked with New Action so effectively.

And for people who got involved with a group like MORE only recently, it can be heady stuff being approached with offers to give them a voice. Especially when Mulgrew himself is doing this - as Randi did with me for so many years - and yes, I admit fully to buying it for a long time. So I am not blaming them for being enticed. I can't tell you how many people who  used to distribute Ed Notes from 1998-2003 ended up being co-opted into Unity -- I usually know that happened when they suddenly stopped saying hello to me at the DA -- though they are more friendly at AFT conventions in other cities.

Call them incompetent on policy but in this venture of control they are as good as it can get -- the Unity of Chicago was incompetent and that opened the way for CORE. Unity will make sure that never happens here.

Pogue made this excellent comment on Arthur's piece.

I don't believe leadership and Unity are out of touch, I believe they make decisions on fear... The fear that those at the top of our union leadership will lose their power, fear they will lose their double pensions, fear they will lose all the perks that come with keeping destructive policies the way they are. I imagine backdoor meetings with politicians and rich policymakers are made up of UFT leadership being told what's going to happen, then being assisted on formulating how Unity can make it seem like they are fighting back. Unionized marionette strings, if you will.
I used to think leadership made honest mistakes, too many mistakes, one worse than the last, over the course of the past 15 years, have made it crystal clear they are collaborative and complicit in public education's problems.
Leadership and Unity are not stupid, they are just scared.

I've been putting forward the Vichy-like-collaborationist theory for some time. I don't mean to compare them to Nazi sympathizers but with the kind of thinking that would get a significant group of probably decent people in France to think that a cooperating Vichy was better than the Resistance - which by the way was left wing -- and that is a story for another time given that ANY opposition will always have a left wing because, well, that is where activists and organizers are likely to come from.

One of the major tactics of Unity is the indoctrinate its people that the opposition are oddballs leftists to scare people who might venture into that camp. That MORE has been attracting a broader range of people is a threat to Unity and thus Unity woos them to try to winnow down the opposition to the extent they can be more easily branded.

What disturbs me is when our friends get all riled up when they hear some left rhetoric and end up, unwittingly, enforcing the Unity plan.

Ex-NYSUT Pres Tom Hobart, Spills the Beans c. 1974

it’s in our interest to maintain a number of poor, and to make sure that we don’t have open admission policies like the City University of New York has..... If we assume that we take the major goals, both the NEA and the AFT, which is to improve the educational qualities for every child in the school, and we succeed at that, I suggest to you that we’ll destroy the world economy. Because if we better educate every child in America, and make it possible for them to be say at the lowest level a technician, they’re going to start to demand a greater share of the resources because they now have the ability to take better jobs.... Tom Hobart

They gagged Tom right after he said this in 1974 and I remember we jumped right on it.

I deal with so many people with different ideologies but my 40 year old core group, now diminished by the loss of the Priscos who were at my house one year ago for a similar meeting just before they both got sick, seems to have the best analysis - I'm fading fast.....

Despite my delirium after getting off a flight that left 7 hours late - 4 AM LA time and arrived at JFK around noon - I didn't get home 'til after 1 - I met with Ira and Vera who came out to my house from around 2-6PM to talk about UFT history in prep for tomorrow's MORE event. Ira and Vera can't be there so I wanted to bask in their wisdom - and memories. I took some notes that I will share tomorrow. We were going through stuff from the 70s I saved from Sandy and some of that work is remarkable. Ira has almost everything but I will bring a selection to tomorrow's MORE event at  (Who Runs The UFT? Why Are There Alternatives?) The Dark Horse
17 Murray St. NYC Near City Hall, Chambers St, WTC

I still haven't slept - after they left I had a bite and went over to the theater to do my little role about midway through Act 1, so I was able to leave. But Vera typed up this statement from Hobart which she feels lays out where the union leaders are coming from.

Our core of people from the early 70s through today have had a different take than many others. Vera believes Shanker was not "just" a teacher, but an organizer sent in to do a job - by exactly by whom is not clear but we have some ideas. Vera has been slaving away over the last few weeks gleaning nuggets. And in case you never read our review of the Shanker bio/hagiogrpahy "Albert Shanker: Tough Liberal" -- check it out for some historical analysis:

Albert Shanker: Ruthless Neocon - Review by Vera Pavone and Norman Scott in New Politics
http://newpol.org/content/albert-shanker-ruthless-neo-con

Our thesis is that there is no break in social democracy from the right (SDUSA) from Shanker through Weingarten and probably through Mulgrew to some extent. I found out some info in LA about the AFT ops around the world that reinforces this view.

For those who will accuse us of being conspiracy theorists -- Leo Casey was at the bat on twitter the other day re: the common core critics -- teacher enemy number 1, Eli Broad, was one of the major backers of the Shanker bio.

I'm heading to bed but wanted to get this out -- check it out if you are coming tomorrow or even if you're not.
-->

From Presentation by Tom Hobart, NYSUT, to National Council of State Education Associations, December 2, 1974

[The topic is quotas]

I think the role of our organization is to produce the power that’s necessary to defend the rights and amendments. And I think we have to look at the economics again, and just see what the problems of the world are. If we assume that we take the major goals, both the NEA and the AFT, which is to improve the educational qualities for every child in the school, and we succeed at that, I suggest to you that we’ll destroy the world economy. Because if we better educate every child in America, and make it possible for them to be say at the lowest level a technician, they’re going to start to demand a greater share of the resources because they now have the ability to take better jobs.

And since our world economy is based on the fact that there must be so many unskilled workers, and so many semi-skilled, and so many skilled technicians, and so many professionals, that if we just attempt to do what we are talking about, then we are looking at the major economic powers that are out to resist us. I think they’re already there. Does anybody doubt that the major economic powers in this country have not noticed what we’ve done in political action, and does anybody think that they’re willing to turn over the politics of America to teacher organizations? Does anybody doubt that every action has a reaction, and every power has a counter power that’s going to be built up. And what—how are they going to keep us from exercising that power.

Well, they’re going to come into our organizations and they’re going to try to set up things that we are going to fight among ourselves over, so we never come together as a powerful organization.

……

Now, if I had statistics on who is excluded from higher education and graduate schools, it could be taken one step further. If we call it the poor of America, and we all accept there are more minority people who are poor than any other group. But again it’s an economic situation that we have and not a race situation. If we don’t maintain the status of the unskilled and skilled and the professional, then we’re going to be unable, you and I, to have two color TV sets and two cars, and move to a bigger house next year. So it’s in our interest to maintain a number of poor, and to make sure that we don’t have open admission policies like the City University of New York has.

NYSAPE Parents Outraged at Cuomo/NYSUT Eval Deal, NYC Parents Anger at UFT on Contract Schedule Changes

Look at the 2-year moratorium and when it expires. Right after the 2016 UFT elections. So Mulgrew has some cover before the shit hits the fan. Does anyone think the UFT played NO ROLE in this deal? NYSAPE appears to think so. Or is playing politics by trying not to offend the elephant in the room.

The deal reached today by Governor Cuomo and the New York State Legislature regarding minimizing the impact of Common Core test scores on teacher evaluations is a slap in the face to parents across the state who have implored them to reduce the amount of testing that children are subjected to and to improve the quality of these exams and the learning standards.  ... NYSAPE Press Release

No mention of the UFT/NYSUT. I know there will be some blow back on this post as I get "Norm, the UFT is NOT the enemy." Sure. Just like Vichy.

I am getting weary of parent groups that give cover to the UFT, or make excuses for them -- in essence, they are enabling the UFT to make these backroom deals and not be held accountable. I can't tell you how many emails I get from parents who want ME to expose the UFT hierarchy but don't want to go public because they have dealings with them. In essence they are playing the same "seat at the table" game the UFT plays. It will get them nowhere - as you can tell about these deals the UFT made on evals and in the contract that screw parents. Did the UFT consult ANY of their so-called parent partners on this? Hey -- where is CEJ (Coalition for Educational Justice)/Annenberg which goes silent when convenient?

The UFT uses the same tactics Bloomberg used to buy silence. [I remember when the so-called parent advocate, Moaning Mona Davids, was silent for a time when she was "working" with the UFT. I actually felt sorry for the UFT for even putting their foot in that cesspool. Someone should check LM-2 from c. 2010-12 to see if any money changed hands. Hey, Mona, how much would it cost to get you to support tenure? Well, we can't compete with the hedge funders - are they smart enough to not go there, given they have so many other places to go to kill tenure than Moaning with Mona?]

Isn't it funny how NYSAPE, a great group of parents, put the sole blame on Cuomo and the State Legislature but don't mention the responsibility of the UFT controlled NYSUT? Mulgrew was crowing about this deal. Just last week at the DA he was talking about how the Vergara decision makes it clear how much we have to work with parents and how proud he is of the work the UFT does with parents.

And gee, the AFT/UFT/NYSUT tandem has made whiny statements about how they are opposed to the testing regimen.

But you know the drill -- watch what do, not what they say.

By the way - look at the 2-year moratorium and when it expires. Right after the 2016 UFT elections. So Mulgrew has some cover before the shit hits the fan. Does anyone think the UFT played NO ROLE in this deal? NYSAPE appears to think so. Or is playing politics by trying not to offend the elephant in the room.

This follows on the outrage of parents in schools around the city over the contract that forces changes in school schedules, as I reported the other day: UFT Contract Toxic PD Spillover: Parents Unhappy -...

That post triggered this email from a parent.

6/19/14

Hi Norm,

    Just want to confirm what you said that the parents did not really understand what the new contract means for their school in terms of school hours.  NESTM had a 8:20-3:10 day.  Next year they are going to default 8:00-2:20 day.  The parents are enraged because this is a commuter school so the commutes need to get earlier and then the other problem is the very early dismissal.  The PTA is  calling all parents to go to the Parent Teacher meeting this morning and they sent out a survey about how many parents what this earlier schedule. I will keep you posted.  I am sure that this is not only happening at at our school.

The NY Times touched on this today: New Contract for Teachers Is Altering Schools’ Hours

There is a lot of commentary on the eval deal from teacher bloggers:

Eterno at ICE: COMMON CORE TESTS ALONE FOR GRADES 3-8 WON'T KILL TEACHERS FOR TWO YEARS -

RBE: New York State's Teacher Evaluation System - And Its Governor - Continue To Lose Credibility

Here is the complete NYSAPE Press Release:

Parents Outraged by APPR Albany Deal that Ignores the Children

Bill de Blasio Makes His Move - Will UFT Members Move With Him?

Mr. de Blasio argues that Ms. Quinn and Mr. Thompson have been either unwilling or unable to sufficiently challenge the legacy of the mayor and the city’s corporations over the past decade. .....Mr. de Blasio’s message, despite the excitement it has drawn from liberal luminaries like Alec Baldwin and Howard Dean, has alarmed many business leaders and Bloomberg aides.

Describing what he calls a “tale of two cities,” rife with inequalities in housing, early childhood education and police tactics, he promised those gathered at the Brooklyn bar that this year’s mayoral race was “going to be a reset moment. A major reset.”

Mr. de Blasio can barely contain his fury over what he sees as the central contradiction of the Bloomberg years: a mayor who routinely unleashed the power of government to change New Yorkers’ personal behavior repeatedly balked at harnessing it to change their economic circumstances. “You can see it; there is a bright line,” Mr. de Blasio said. “On health and the environment, he is Franklin Roosevelt. On economic justice, he’s Adam Smith. He turns into a free marketeer.”

.... NY Times

Today's NY Times had an intriguing pro de Blasio article with a nice photo of him, his wife and State Senator from Harlem/Upper West Side, Bill Perkins (our hero years ago for challenging the charter school lobby with a full day of hearings).

Now that Anthony D. Weiner’s campaign has imploded, Bill de Blasio, the public advocate, is drawing new energy and voter interest to a candidacy that presents the most sweeping rejection of what New York City has become in the past 12 years — a city, he says, that is defined by its yawning inequities. “We are not, by our nature, an elitist city.... “We are not a city for the chosen few.”  It is the campaign season’s riskiest calculation: that New Yorkers, who have become comfortably accustomed to the smooth-running, highly efficient apparatus of government under Michael R. Bloomberg, are prepared to embrace a much different agenda for City Hall — taxing the rich, elevating the poor and rethinking a Manhattan-centric approach to city services.  

And there has been favorable coverage of de Blasio's wife, Chirlane McCray. Interesting development, especially for educators with the UFT making a desperate push for Bill Thompson, an historically flawed candidate being run by people like Merryl Tisch and Al D'Amato.

Add the recent Wayne Barrett revealed stuff about Thompson connections to the guy who destroyed Bed-Stuy Interfaith Hospital. Plus Thompson's jumping on the "stop and frisk" bandwagon when he saw that Weiner was way more popular amongst black votes than he was. [I don't have time to find all these links on ed notes but the always reliable RBE at Perdido Street School has most of them:

• Bill De Blasio Hits Bill Thompson Over Stop And Frisk..
• Bill Thompson - Political Hack And Walking Conflict...

Plus some of his great commentary on the race in general.
Mulgrew Stumping With Thompson, Attacks Weiner/Spitzer

RBE at one point said that Thompson was as bad as Quinn.

I imagine the business community, Bloomberg hacks and much of the press will engage in an all out assault to make sure Thompson and not de Blasio gets into the runoff with Quinn. But they can't be seen openly to be on the same side of the UFT - which readers of Ed Notes full well know has been my claim all along - so they will obfuscate and attack Thompson in mild ways.

I know there are aspects of de Blasio's history as president of the District 15 School board pre-mayoral control that may come up.  His  interesting marriage where his wife is black and a former lesbian seems to be playing well at this point --- will she get the black and gay vote for Bill?

de Blasio talks about the free-market concept pushed by Bloomberg and just about all the candidates that if an institution can't stand on its own feet it should close. He seems to be for doing what it takes to keep health care institutions open.

In a mayor’s race crammed with celebrity razzle-dazzle, historic candidacies and tabloid turns, a gangly liberal from Brooklyn is quietly surging into the top tier of the field by talking about decidedly unglamorous topics: neglected hospitals, a swelling poverty rate and a broken prekindergarten system.

One very interesting point is that the page one article continues on a page with this article about a Bronx park and compares it to the funds going to the HiLine (For Decades, Fighting to Rescue a Bronx Park From Disrepair). 

“This is a disgrace,” Mr. Diaz said. “We still haven’t seen what we were promised. The time has come and gone. And that’s only talking about capital improvements. When you look at park rangers, comfort stations and other amenities, we seem to be shortchanged.”

The city’s Department of Parks and Recreation portrays Playground 52 as an example of good policy and volunteerism. When asked about the poor conditions, Zachary Feder, a department spokesman, said designers were working on plans to build a skate park and renovate a basketball court. The scope of further renovations would be determined after a public hearing. Mr. Feder said the playground was cleaned daily by department crews, who also swept water off the courts. But numerous visits over the last several months showed the opposite.

“If this was downtown, this would be fixed A.S.A.P.,” said Dayshawn Holmes, 14. “That’s where the money is in New York. They don’t care about us playing basketball here. Downtown, they’d have glass backboards.”

 You mean a city official lied to the reporter about cleaning the park? Shocking.

The de Blasio article makes much the same point:

Zoning changes have encouraged sky-piercing condominiums with multimillion-dollar price tags, but Mr. Bloomberg vetoed a bill requiring paid sick leave for working-class New Yorkers. By the city’s own measure, 46 percent of residents are poor or near poor, but the mayor scoffed at plans to compel companies that receive city subsidies to pay higher wages.

While a social justice oriented group like MORE at this point is not focused on the mayoral election (given its tiny size and outreach MORE's opinion or actions are irrelevant) my sense has been both inside MORE and amongst outraged teachers generally, was that John Liu followed by de Blasio were the best choices for UFT members. With Liu gaining no traction, many pro-Liu educators are moving to de Blasio.

Now I know that even internal critics say that the UFT is also social justice. But its choice of Thompson given de Blasio's social justice oriented positions shows which side the union leadership is on. Our point has been that only of the union strongly allies itself with community forces does it have a chance to resist the ed deform attacks. The Chicago TU is under assault, as it has been for 15 years, but they only have a chance to survive through their organizing efforts both internally and externally. Right now even with lots of flaws, de Blasio might be the candidate to bridge those gaps though I don't trust him either in the long run if he gets into office.

In a city that is endlessly congratulating itself for its modern renaissance — record-low crime, unmatched crowds of tourists, streets refashioned in European style — a day on the campaign trail with Mr. de Blasio is a reminder of unaddressed grievances and glaring disparities.

And this is not just about the poor, but the working middle class.

A young husband and wife, both employees of the city, told of their shock at being unable to afford a home in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, an evaporating refuge for middle-income buyers. “Now even the gentrifiers are getting priced out by gentrifiers,"....

Do inequalities that affect most of the kids teachers have to deal with interest teachers in terms of getting into a battle to improve the lives of our kids? Their living conditions affect our teaching conditions is clear to everyone. But what can we do about it?  We know that E4E and TFA say we can overcome poverty with good teaching and ignore outside factors. Where MORE differs is that we say YES to good teaching -- not by the way the test-driven teaching E4E and TFA support, but engage in both a fight to give us the rights as teachers to make judgements and teach the whole child, while also engaging in the broader struggles.

An open attack on the Bloomberg negatives will gain and lost people. A perusal of the NY Times metro article today has some interesting stuff about the state of Bloomberg's city in the outer boroughs where de Blasio is aiming his arrows.

• City Room: An Infernal Train Ride: Next Stop, Hell

  section A - page 14

  By PAM BELLUCK

• Side Street: For Decades, Fighting to Rescue a Bronx Park From Disrepair

• Results of New Testing Standard Could Complicate Bloomberg’s Final Months

  section A - page 13

  By JAVIER C. HERNÁNDEZ

• Falling Tree Kills Woman in Queens

  Teenager Is Shot and Killed by Officer on Foot Patrol in the Bronx

At the heart of Mr. de Blasio’s appeal, according to interviews with his supporters and political team, is a willingness to deliver an unvarnished and unstinting critique of the Bloomberg era in spite of polls that show a majority of New Yorkers believe the city is heading in the right direction under the mayor’s leadership.

It is a strategy, he said, that hinges on a pervasive sense that, for all of New York City’s bike-path charms and pedestrian plaza allures, its denizens are deeply uneasy about inequalities that remain unchecked by City Hall. 

.... wherever Mr. de Blasio travels these days, resentments toward Mr. Bloomberg’s New York tend to tumble out of voters’ mouths. A woman stopped to rail against wealthy foreigners who are buying luxury apartments, but rarely inhabiting them. “We don’t want to be like those European cities where rich people fly in once a year and nobody really lives there,” she told him. 

A man who is H.I.V. positive complained to Mr. de Blasio about the absence of a rent cap on housing for AIDS patients, which he said left him homeless. 

A student lamented the city’s class stratification, saying that the city “needs a mayor for the 99 percent, not the 1 percent.” 

Inside Mr. de Blasio’s campaign, aides talk about the need to simultaneously recognize Mr. Bloomberg’s triumphs, on issues like the smoking ban, and tap into a widespread desire for a change. “The remedy verses replica theory,” as one adviser put it, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the adviser was not authorized to disclose strategy. 

Mr. de Blasio’s campaign platform is unabashedly interventionist and progressive. His most eye-catching plan would raise the income tax rate to 4.3 percent from 3.87 percent on earnings of over $500,000, to pay for universal access to prekindergarten.

Now, an overcrowded system leaves tens of thousands of lower-income residents without access to full-day programs, setting back the early education of a generation, Mr. de Blasio argues. The campaign says the 11 percent increase in the marginal tax rate would amount to about $2,120 for a family earning $1 million.

In conversations with voters, Mr. de Blasio argues that Ms. Quinn and Mr. Thompson have been either unwilling or unable to sufficiently challenge the legacy of the mayor and the city’s corporations over the past decade. 

But his determination to emerge as the unrivaled liberal in the race has entailed a moral showmanship that may repel as many voters as it endears. He was arrested a few weeks ago during a sit-in to protest the latest closing of a city hospital.

“That,” Mr. de Blasio said of his arrest, “is certainly not in the Michael Bloomberg playbook.”

Evaluation Deal: The Enemy, King/Bloomberg/etc or UFT/AFT/NYSUT Leadership?

Despite the awful and fairy-dust based evaluation system, despite the fact that not one UFT member was allowed a vote on it, we have been almost five years without a raise and missed the 8% pattern raise the rest of our union brothers and sisters got. I have no problem telling the emperor how I feel about that.... NYC Educator on the June 12 rally
 
Bloomberg is irrelevant. The real emperors are the people running our unions at all levels. ... Me

Posted at Jersey Jazzman blog

Pssst, kid. Want some candy for a good evaluation?... NYC Teacher to 3rd grader.

Remember the great exclamations about Mulgrew being a hero last December for withstanding the pressure from Bloomberg to give up the sunset provision? Well that's gone anyway. Ignore the selling points that any changes have to be bargained collectively. In fact isn't this a new contract anyway given the major change in language and shouldn't the members have to vote? Jeez, in Chicago they might even go on strike over this.

I'm reading "Bunker Hill" about the American Revolution and what it took for the mentality of loyalty to the mother country to change into the movement for independence and accusations of being a traitor. The early adopters -- Sam Adams -- were considered lunatics at one point -- until the day came when the majority came to see that same point of view. I make this point with respect to how we view the UFT leadership.

I understand the ed deformers and why they do what they do. They are despicable but in many ways more honest than the people running our unions. 

June 12 and 8th rallies: who are we rooting for?
I understand that telling Bloomberg on June 12 how you feel means something. But in the context of this situation that becomes a win for the UFT leadership in their deflection of their actions onto Bloomberg. So people end up cheering when Mulgrew slams Bloomberg. And that weakens the movement to create change in the UFT by creating a divided loyalty concept.

RBE at Perdido seems to get it in his just posted piece:

Carol Burris: The VAM And SLO's Are Indefensible

A comment Carol Burris made at Gotham Schools:

This is my prediction...in the end, it will all result in lawsuits because VAM and the SLOs will be found to be indefensible as measures of teacher quality. This is the full employment act for school attorneys.

Unfortunately it does not seem the UFT will be joining the lawsuits because they're too busy spinning how this is a win for teachers. You can bet they are in major CYA mode at 52 Broadway and every critique of the system will get a response from the geniuses there. I wonder, will they bring back Lyin' Leo Casey to lead the pushback?

Remember how Leo vilified Carol Burris? I would take her as my union rep over Leo any day.

I would use the June 12 event to tell people exactly what the union leadership has done to them --- I know, I know, this would be considered a no-no, even by many of my colleagues in MORE. (I'm on the fringe there too.)

In fact Bloomberg is irrelevant. The real emperors are the people running our unions at all levels. DOENuts found the latest Leo Casey ("who famously 'set the record straight' a year ago") tweet: about teachers being fired at a charter school in Seattle.

Yep!!!!!!! That's my union guys. Just change the subject and talk about Charters! Gotta love it. "Hey, my idea just totally ske-ruuued you, but check out this cool graffiti artist!". Ah. Leo Casey! Ah, humanity!

No wonder Leo got out of town in time to avoid being pilloried.

I am ambivalent about the June 12 rally and the June 8 "anti-testing" rally in Albany when key organizers are the very people who have sold us out. I point you to comments made by Sean Ahern (one of the co-founders of ICE) about the role of the UFT leadership. Assaulting the Walls of Ed Deform, NYSUT June 8 ...May 28, 2013. One thing about current and former ICEers, the thinking is way harsher about the UFT leadership  --- probably given the long time experience in watching how they operate. Many younger MOREs just haven't reached that stage yet, wanting to offer a vision of "positive alternative leadership" whereas I would attack, attack, attack.

MORE is going all out in support of the June 12 rally. At this point I am not planning to go.

Following the trail to this evaluation story and the culpability of UFT/NYSUT/AFT leaders, how do we march in support of them? At some point we have to decide if they are friend or foe. There really is no middle. I know that I am often accused of being on the fringe over my comparison of them to the Vichy mentality but once you reach that point it becomes obvious that they are often no better than the enemy and then the next step is to act accordingly: organize in opposition to them. Why not use the rallies to do so?

Thus I would go on June 12 and June 8 with the idea of telling people exactly what the leadership has done. You would be accused of being disloyal -- let's all be united today, blah, blah, blah. Sort of like saying let's march together to support America in all its wars because we need unity. Loyalty to the union does not mean loyalty to the leadership that has coopted democracy in such a fundamental way. If there were bales of tea in front of 52 Broadway I would dump them in the harbor.

At Perdido, someone asked it the UFT leadership was stupid or criminal.

I vote "criminal/Vichy."

Don't ever make the mistake of thinking MulGarten are stupid. They do not function in our interests but as mediators between the powers that be and the rank and file. What to they get? Lots of life/prof perks and power. They really have no other choice. In order to fight them they would need to educate, organize and mobilize the members which would require a democratically run union -- see Karen Lewis in Chicago where they can get the same amount of support without buying off the opposition/New Action. 

In NYC democracy is a threat to the leadership so the only way they can function is in a partnership with the rulers, hoping for crumbs which they will get at times them to help keep the rank and file under control. Neither Unity nor Bloomberg want another Chicago here and will do what it takes to keep Unity in power. That was why the bigger the opposition grows the more the rulers will give to quiet it down. I believe if MORE had gotten say 40% of the vote we would have a much better chance to have a contract.

Here is the latest output (as of 9AM) from the great bloggers on our blogroll. I urge you to take a look at them.

James Eterno:

I tried to limit the commentary because we haven't seen the full decision yet, but the evaluation system looks as bad as we thought it was going to be.

http://iceuftblog.blogspot.com/2013/06/king-decides-on-teacher-evaluations.html

• 
  Perdido Street School

  Mulgrew's Kabuki Dance

  8 hours ago
• 
  The Doenuts Blog

  Oh, John King, You Slay Me (No, I mean seriously. You're going to get me fired, dude. What's up with that?).

  10 hours ago
• 
  Jersey Jazzman

  EXCLUSIVE! First Look at NY Student Surveys for Teacher Evaluation!

  10 hours ago
• 
  Accountable Talk

  Email From Mulgrew Regarding APPR Decision

  11 hours ago 

  

  NYC Educator

  Highlights of Reformy John's New Decree

  14 hours ago

   

   Check the blog roll for further updates. The MORE response should be up at some point.

  
  

Responding to Ed Deform Ideas in AFT Report

There she goes again. Randi sponsoring an ed deform-laden report (of which you will not hear one word of criticism from any of the Unity gang, especially Take-Away-Our-Collective Bargaining-Rights, Please, Mulgrew). Agreementwith attack on the teaching profession and public ed are echoed in this union report.

At The Chalkface, there is a response from Julie Gorlewski. Some excerpts:

The document is grounded in the notion that the profession is ineffective, substandard, and intrinsically flawed. This assertion is emphasized through comparisons with other, presumably more authentic “professions,” specifically those associated with law and medicine. The claim that teacher education and induction are ineffective is erroneous; the myth is perpetuated as part of the attack on public education, labor unions, and the teaching profession.

When US student performance is controlled for poverty, our student achievement (and, by extrapolation, our teacher performance), consistently ranks near the top.  In a pluralistic nation, standardization and consistency do not guarantee quality. Standardization is not beneficial for students in a multicultural society, nor is it beneficial for teacher candidates who will be working with those students.

 Despite the report’s continual refrain about the significance of “evidence,” the CCSS has absolutely no evidence of effectiveness. Assessments and curriculum are being developed at a frantic pace; however, the standards remain unproven. It is bad enough that K-12 instruction and assessment will be aligned to these unproven standards, but to link teacher preparation to them is absurd. The CCSS, and its related assessments, represent a massive financial opportunity – not an authentic learning opportunity.

Read it all:

atthechalkface.com/2013/02/22/guest-post-julie-gorlewski-responds-to-aft

NYSUT/AFT Uses Fear Tactics to Urge Rejection of Carol Burris Petition

The Burris petition’s call upon the Governor and Legislature to place a moratorium on high stakes testing would, if adopted without federal action, put New York’s public schools at risk of loss of federal Title funding, on which they so depend to support students. Indeed, there is the potential that action on this issue at the state level could result in the forfeiture of funds already paid out by the USDOE—a result that would be devastating to our schools and students.--- New York State United Teachers, a subsidiary of the UFT*

Well, here they go again. Apparently, the fact that top level principals like Carol Burris is a hero to many teachers for leading the fight against a faulty evaluation system while the UFT/NYSUT/AFT has sat on a spiky fence (or worse, played the other side), has once again irked the NYSUT leaders.

*In NYSUT the 200,000 member UFT is the tail that wags the dog. So when Unity Caucus clones come calling with a message that Mulgrew was not the guy who made the eval deal for a state law with Tischless and King, don't believe it.

I got into somewhat of a running battle the other day when a tweet came in asking me what it would take to get the teacher unions to take a strong stand against HST. I said they never would and she seemed confused as to why they wouldn't. I couldn't delve into the details at that time but ended up with responses from Weingarten and Leo Casey defending their record on HST, to a wonk like me, really funny stuff which I will post on a follow-up.

Meanwhile you should read a great post from RBE at Perdido Street School today listing some of the ways the union has supported HST:

Reading The Tea Leaves On Mulgrew's Evaluation Update

Here is the full NYSUT missive: 

Subject: from NYSUT sent to members.

It has come to our attention that a petition is being circulated by Carol Burris, a principal at a Long Island school district, which is entitled “Petition to Governor Cuomo and the Legislature to End High Stakes Testing”. The petition demands that the state place a moratorium on “high stakes” testing. We have been receiving some inquiries about NYSUT’s response and recommendations relating to this petition.

First, NYSUT’s Tell It Like It Is initiative is NYSUT's strongly recommended approach to communicating the concerns that we share about testing, because it allows for a more meaningful, personal, fact-based response than an e-petition. Any member considering signing the petition should be encouraged to instead participate in the Tell It initiative, which is already well underway, will continue up to the NYSUT RA, and is having a positive impact.

Second, action to reduce reliance on testing must come from the federal government, which has conditioned funding to the states on compliance with federal testing requirements. We must persuade the federal government to change its testing requirements. This is why AFT has initiated, and NYSUT strongly supports, a petition drive directed to federal policy makers. We encourage our members to sign the AFT petition, which is directed to the right audience. The Burris petition’s call upon the Governor and Legislature to place a moratorium on high stakes testing would, if adopted without federal action, put New York’s public schools at risk of loss of federal Title funding, on which they so depend to support students. Indeed, there is the potential that action on this issue at the state level could result in the forfeiture of funds already paid out by the USDOE—a result that would be devastating to our schools and students.

NYSUT believes that the dual initiatives of expressing to NYSED the real and serious concerns that our members have about the current testing program through NYSUT’s Tell It Like It Is, and of advocating for changes in the federal testing policy through AFT’s petition, are the best and most responsible strategies to protect and support our students and our members.

As always, you are welcome to contact me with questions or concerns.

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The opinions expressed on EdNotesOnline are solely those of Norm Scott and are not to be taken as official positions (though Unity Caucus/New Action slugs will try to paint them that way) of any of the groups or organizations Norm works with: ICE, GEM, MORE, Change the Stakes, NYCORE, FIRST Lego League NYC, Rockaway Theatre Co., Active Aging, The Wave, Aliens on Earth, etc.

MORE Memo: Was the SESIS Decision a Victory?

A great sign for MORE Media, led by its intrepid leader Mike Schirtzer, is the newly constituted MORE Response Team with the 4 bloggers of the Apocalypse leading the way to help put together the MORE statement on SESIS.

Read a great post at DOENUTS that pretty much says what I would.

How, exactly, is winning the right to force teachers into overtime a good thing? Because that happened with this 'victory'....the arbitration process went on for two long years before it was finally "resolved". How exactly is it a victory if I get to abuse you for two long years without being stopped?

Actually, I wouldn't call for 20,000 teachers to march but give me 5000 teachers, parents and special ed kids marching and that changes the game. I also would at least explore job actions -- let the UFT be creative -- look at the Chicago crew and how they are constantly on the offensive.

And, YES, I want my pound of flesh.
A pet peeve over the last 40 years has been the UFT's cavaliere, "Do what they say and file a grievance." So I have to eat the crap and even if I win there is no loss for the supervisor who knowingly violated the contract figured a) most likely I would lose and 2) even if I won nothing happens to them for violating the contract. That was why the groups I was with in the 70s called for penalties for administrators when you win.

I also take issue with the non-proactive use of legal mechanisms that slowly wind their way through the system. This is a fight that should have been taken to the public as doing harm to kids given that teachers had little time to manage this broken system incompetently implemented. I would gladly have congratulated the UFT for spending millions of dollars on commercials.

The MORE statement below, while congratulating the union leaders on winning the money, goes further into what I would classify as a social justice angle by framing the issue more broadly than the focus on money. Look at the impact on teachers and kids.

Yes, the right thing should be that workers get paid overtime for this labor, however, money was never the issue. It was the forced labor that we had to do on our own time IN ADDITION TO the other tasks we have always done largely after school hours including lesson planning and IEP writing (which takes more time on SESIS then on prior paper IEP's). If we gain additional workers to do the data entry tasks required by SESIS, that would be a victory because it would allow more time for intervention and counseling with students.

Here is the MORE statement with a link

MORE congratulates the UFT for the financial compensation they’ve earned our Special Education colleagues across the city. The SESIS case is another example of UFT leadership pursuing the same bureaucratic, top-down strategy it always pursues. Sometimes that strategy yields small victories. Nonetheless, because of this strategy the UFT is losing the war on several fronts.

First, the UFT did not involve rank and file members in this effort any more than it normally does. It issued surveys and asked chapter leaders to report abuses to district representatives. The UFT compiled the survey data and used it as evidence in the arbitration case. Members were not organized to respond collectively or actively in any way. There were no membership meetings, no mobilizations, no involvement of members in strategy discussions. The UFT strategy was purely legalistic and involved only the grievance department, some officers, and some lawyers. And this time they won  an arbitration case. Can we expect more cases against the DOE: Teachers are currently being evaluated with the Danielson Rubric, educators are being compelled to spend hours upon hours writing curriculum in the form of Common Core Units of Study and are grading on Acuity well into the night, high school teachers are being forced to change schools during Regents Week, creating traveling and childcare hazards for our colleagues all across the city.

Many special education workers including Related Service Providers, SETSS Teachers, Psychologists, Social Workers, and Guidance Counselors have been forced to do excessive amounts of Data Entry work. This is certainly not in our contract.

Continue reading at MORE blog →

Other blogs on this issue:

James and Jeff at ICE: WILL SESIS VICTORY BE A TURNAROUND MOMENT FOR DOE/UFT?

[For those who want to know how the ICE blog can congratulate the UFT while I disagree, we are all free agents -- note the word "Independent".]

Chaz (Why My Union Is Important)  where I left a few comments regarding the social justice angle. My tactical take is that if teachers only scream about not getting paid it feeds into the ed deform attack on teachers and unions and public education (see, our charter school teachers will stay up all night doing this for no money -- when in fact my sources say all too many charter schools just ignore IEP type work knowing there is no penalty) and gun-shy passive UFT.

If I were running things I would have held rallies with teachers, parents and kids and do what they did in Chicago -- demand more people to do the work as the MORE response points out --- it is not about money for us but about the kids.

Now I know this offends traditional unionists but we live in a different world now where the very institutions teachers work in and the unions are under severe assault. And our "products" are not widgets or cars so let's now compare ourselves to auto workers. Teacher unions need to unlock the door to parent activism.

In fact, MORE is working with some parents to establish some kind of kindred parent group. And at a recent meeting with 5 MOREs every single one of them have kids under the age of 4 -- except me, unless you count Bernie and Penny --- YES, teachers are parents too. Wish I took a picture.

All of these MOREs are going to send their kids to a public school and that is a theme MORE will develop over time.

Does the UFT Wish Tenure Would Go Away While Hoping the Taylor Law Stays for a Lifetime?

New York’s Taylor Law banning and penalizing public worker strikes violates fundamental workers’ rights protected by international law. -- ILO

If you start digging into the UFT response, or lack thereof, on the tenure issue, they want tenure to go away so they don't have to answer for it...

Would UFT leaders be happy if we had the right to strike like teachers in Chicago despite the limitations? What do you think? Let me try to connect a few dots.

There is an interesting article on tenure and the politics behind granting, not granting, extending, etc. at Gotham Schools:

Amid tenure crackdown, some targeted teachers get good news

Making tenure go away

It is worth reading along with some of the comments. Watching the behavior of the UFT/AFT leadership based on lots of anecdotal evidence and some observations I added the comment below which I expanded into a general analysis of the motivations behind the actions of UFT/AFT/NYSUT complex. Before going to the analysis there are a few points to make about the tenure issue.

First, meet any untenured teacher and the concept of getting tenure is absolutely on their minds -- except if you run across a TFA or E4E slug on the way out of teaching. I met quite a few at the Gotham party yesterday and that fact was reaffirmed.

Secondly, I want to tell a brief story about a UFT DA I attended last spring where Mulgrew was asked what to do if a teacher keeps getting tenure extended year after year -- like a 3rd time. His response: let us know. Too bad the person asking the question didn't follow up with "But if we let you know what will you do about it." Oh, I know the answer: We'll look into it. OK, after you look into it what will you do?

In fact, I believe the UFT wants tenure to go away as an issue and would breathe a sigh of relief if the politicians took it away while they put up a feeble fight (see New Jersey, Cleveland, and the rest of the AFT sell-out tour).

In fact the more you dig the more you find all sorts of revised unwritten tenure issues that have come up that the UFT is ignoring. Like teachers who transfer to a new school in their 3rd year are told that they can't get tenure because they have to work under the principal for 2 years. Or teachers who switch from middle school to high school have to go through some sort of retenuring process. And of course the big enchilada, principals who want to show their bosses how tough  they are --- like how does it look if 100% of your teachers get tenure even if they are all John Dewey? And finally, the denial of tenure to teachers at schools branded as failures, the main point of the Gotham article. In other words, the entire process of not granting tenure for political and not educational reasons.

Send me any info you find on any UFT response or comments on these issues. Is this the fear of Campbell Brown-like attacks operating?

You know this is reminding me of what was done in NYC during the 1930's depression when they had 2 classes of teachers, regulars and permanent subs who made less money and had less rights -- they found all sorts of ways to keep people in the permanent sub category. And I believe the denial of tenure, possibly year after year is returning us to those years.

Taylor Law outlawing strikes takes union leaders off the hook

This is from an interesting article in the Labor Press about an International Labor Organization ruling:

A November 2011 International Labor Organization decision ruled, after the Transport Workers Union Local 100 filed a complaint with the ILO in November 2009 after the union struck in December 2005 and was heavily fined, that New York’s Taylor Law banning and penalizing public worker strikes violates fundamental workers’ rights protected by international law. With 200,000 city public workers without contracts, in some cases over five years, the ILO decision would seem to have presented the city’s public sector unions the economic leverage they have desperately needed to win new contracts. ...... However, since the November 2011 ILO decision regarding the TWU’s complaints ... there hasn’t been a unified response from the city’s public unions, although 200,000 members are working without contracts.

What does that tell you about our labor leaders?

Here was my comment at Gotham:

I believe if you start digging into the UFT response, or lack thereof, on the tenure issue, they want tenure to go away so they don't have to answer for it ala Campbell Brown attacks, etc. But if they are too open about it they face some wrath from the members. So in the ideal world of the UFT, the politicians take it away and they say, "See, it wasn't out fault we just have to give more money to COPE to elect OUR politicians," which of course they know they never will but it takes them off the hook. This is part of the consistency of the UFT/AFT/NYSUT policy -- try to appear as one thing to the members but as another to the rest of the world.

Thus the policy of pushing collaboration because the alternative would be to engage in a war which given the way they operate internally (lack of democracy, total top-down, lack of engagement of the members) they cannot win. (Vs Chicago TU which has mobilized its membership to engage in the war). Why won't they do what Chicago TU has done? You can only mobilize people effectively if they feel they have a say in union policy and the ability to influence it. Giving people such a say is a bigger threat to the union/Unity Caucus leadership than the ed deformers. Thus the support for charter schools and even co-locations in the hope that they can organize teachers in charters even if a small percentage. (See: Exposing UFT/Charter Connections as UFT Supports Co-location)

They know that in the long run the teachers unions without a fight will suffer slow strangulation but given that within the straight jacket of their political framework they are helpless to stop it, at least the people at the top can exist for quite a while and if they make the proper deals with ed deformers (Gates, Broad, etc) they might be able to keep the shell of a union going with them at the top. Ed deformers are not unified. The right wing Republicans want to kill the unions and the leadership completely while the Dem/liberal deformers (Obama, Bloomberg, Gates) see the usefulness to them of keeping the shell and as long as the union gives them pieces of what they want and keeps giving they will support the existence of the current leadership. That is why Chicago is such a massive threat to the entire arrangement between the unions and the Dem deformers.

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The opinions expressed on EdNotesOnline are solely those of Norm Scott and are not to be taken as official positions (though Unity Caucus/New Action slugs will try to paint them that way) of any of the groups or organizations Norm works with: ICE, GEM, MORE, Change the Stakes, NYCORE, FIRST Lego League NYC, Rockaway Theatre Co., Active Aging, The Wave, Aliens on Earth, etc.

Video: A Brief History of the UFT from Fiorillo and Lamphere

There were many workshops at the State of the Union conference held in Feb. 2012, an event that can be viewed as the founding of the Movement of Rank and File Educators, though the group was not named until months later.

One workshop was "Democracy in the UFT Past and Present with Michael Fiorillo and Peter Lamphere." Here are 2 videos with their presentations. Michael covered teacher union history up to 1968 and Peter did the post-68 years. The entire 1 hour session with Q and A is here: https://vimeo.com/45094713

On July 12, Michael and I will be doing some more union history as part of the MORE summer series with a focus on the opposition caucuses since 1968 through the roots of MORE (at Lolita Bar on the lower east side at 5PM).

https://vimeo.com/45094559









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The opinions expressed on EdNotesOnline are solely those of Norm Scott and are not to be taken as official positions (though Unity Caucus/New Action slugs will try to paint them that way) of any of the groups or organizations Norm works with: ICE, GEM, MORE, Change the Stakes, NYCORE, FIRST Lego League NYC, Rockaway Theatre Co., Active Aging, The Wave, Aliens on Earth, etc.

Turn Around This

...city officials have also argued that turnaround is also the fastest way to help the schools improve because it would allow them to shake up their teaching staffs overnight....  Gotham Schools

And there it is, the entire idea behind the ed deform national agenda. Place the blame on the teachers for every failure while avoiding responsibility. Thus the myth of the bad teacher.

What even some teachers failure to understand -- and the union itself fails to point out (intentionally I might say) is that the overall idea is to reduce teacher union contracts to ashes so that ultimately the average pay will drop drastically (remember that salaries are the highest costs of education) and teachers can be squeezed into sweat shop work places and with no protections or other options (all schools in the urban areas ultimately to be standardized) either leave or continue working. And by making it a snap to become a teacher, the revolving door is a win-win for them. And NO PENSIONS since no one will ever reach pension age. And think of the productivity. More classes, more hours, less pay -- except for a few getting lots of money in some kind of merit system so they can hold the carrot in front of the poor rabbits.

So why have the teacher unions signed onto so much of this plan by supporting the concept of charters and turn-arounds, the essence of which are replacing teachers and until recently closing schools? But don't worry about the oligarchs running our unions -- they will do just fine while the members sink. I'll leave dealing with that to a follow-up later which will link back to this blog but note this for a start from this blog:

Yesterday, Randi Weingarten proposed a Bar Exam for potential teachers.  Ignoring the different needs of each region she proposed a national standard for teacher readiness. yet another one size fits all approach. Feeding the naysayers, here proposal implies that yes, perhaps the one size fits all approach just might work.

In other words, Randi is joining the deformers in the teacher blame game, agreeing in essence with ed deformers assault on teacher training programs. But what would a teacher union leader who had no formal training and taught semi-full time for 6 months know about that?

And this from RBE:

How Will The UFT Pull Defeat From The Jaws Of Victory?

I want to share an email that came in this morning from a teacher who is at one of the schools rescued the other day -- rescued temporarily as so many bloggers are pointing out. This teacher gets it.

Here is an article from GothamSchools that suggests why Bloomberg went with the "turnaround" strategy rather than phase out.

http://gothamschools.org/2012/04/24/unraveling-three-and-a-half-months-of-turnaround-twists-part-i/

Here is an excerpt that gets to the heart of the matter:

But city officials have also argued that turnaround is also the fastest way to help the schools improve because it would allow them to shake up their teaching staffs overnight. Here’s what we reported when Bloomberg vowed to go through with the turnaround plans even after the city made progress on teacher evaluation negotiations:

Bloomberg said the aggressive overhaul strategy was necessary because no teachers would be removed from schools because of low scores on the new evaluations for at least a year and a half.

“It would be unconscionable for us to sit around for two years and do nothing, so we’re going to use the 18-D process,” he said, referring to a clause in the city’s contract with the teachers union that the city says allows turnaround’s rehiring process.

What a waste of time and energy this has all been. Instead of being able to concentrate on being an effective teacher and receiving help from the start, the entire school community has had to deal with years of threats from the DOE and the NYSED. We never received help, only threats and attacks. Not once did we have meaningful PD sessions in the past three years. Not once. If [my school] was such a lousy school, where was the help from the DOE? In fact, the faculty and staff had been trying to figure out how to move forward on our own. Pleas for help to the DOE went unanswered. We, in our particular case, were stuck with a weak and ineffective principal who could not figure out how to deal with any of the threats against our school community. He never called faculty meetings because he was too afraid to even face us. So we rose to the occasion and tried to fend for ourselves. We called in Pedro Noguera and other advisers on our own to try and move forward. Noguera, to his credit, met with us on numerous occasions. We formed our own committees to address our needs without the administration helping us. Fight Back protests arose out of this effort and were meant to inform the DOE and the community of our successes. Teachers formed action committees with the help of the Alumni Association and came up with strategies to strengthen our school. Never any help from TWEED. I can only imagine what it may be like to be able to go to work and think only about being an effective teacher in my school as compared to being an effective teacher who also has to always fight and struggle for what is right.

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The opinions expressed on EdNotesOnline are solely those of Norm Scott and are not to be taken as official positions (though Unity Caucus/New Action slugs will try to paint them that way) of any of the groups or organizations Norm works with: ICE, GEM, MORE, Change the Stakes, NYCORE, FIRST Lego League NYC, Rockaway Theatre Co., Active Aging, The Wave, Aliens on Earth, etc.

The Wave: Mulgrew Mania

This hopefully is my last post on the Mulgrew story. It will appear in published form in The Wave this Friday, May 25, 2012. Today is an emergency DA -- to deal with endorsements of useless politicians who will sell us out. Watch them endorse ed deform darling Hakim Jeffries over Charles Baron, while not my favorite either, at least stands up to the ed deformers. Given the outcomes, we might as well dig a giant trench and dump our – excuse me – your – COPE money into it. I'm sure the Unity faithful will give Mulgrew a standing O and we'll see a lot of (well-deserved) NY Post bashing. I'm probably skipping this and heading right up to the much MORE interesting Movement of Rank and File Educators Planning Committee meeting. First I have to head outside an smoke a stogie and listen to the Mets game.

NOTE: See my disclaimer below about the fact that the lunacy expressed here is not reflective of the policies of any of the groups I work with. But just watch the underhanded campaign by Unity and New Action slugs to paint views by people like me and Jeff Kaufman as "policies" of MORE and ICE when in fact we are expressing individual points of view, something totally anathema in the Unity ant hill.

Mulgrew Mania
By Norm Scott

Name a school where a sex act never took place and I'll show you a religious school. Wait, I take back that last part.

In case you didn’t hear, the NY Post’s hit girl, Susan Edelman, did a story about UFT President Michael Mulgrew’s alleged affair with a guidance counselor at his school when he was a teacher there after a recent law suit was filed by a teacher with poor ratings. The suit claimed they were caught in the act in 2005 and it was covered up by the union and the DOE in a blackmail deal to force the union to give away numerous teacher rights in the 2005 contract and beyond. Ergo, that is the reason the teacher is facing potential termination. A Hail Mary pass to save his job. What rubbish! The blackmail, I mean. And probably the “caught in the act charge”. As to the affair, I had heard something about it years ago, but, who cares? As I said above, name a school where a sex act never took place….

The idea that the UFT had to be blackmailed to sell out the teaching corps is ludicrous when we know it is in their DNA to give away decades of hard won rights and pieces of the contract, whole chunks at a time. The interesting part of the charge was that Mulgrew took his supposed lady up the ladder with him to a juicy full-time patronage job at UFT headquarters. But really, does anyone expect people in power to function differently? Corporate leaders, government leaders, union leaders and just about anyone running anything always bring their lovers and pals along for the ride. I mean, why else do you want to come out on top if not for perks like that?

Well, the questions being asked on many of the blogs and in school lunchrooms is, did he or didn't he? If he didn't he has a hell of a libel suit against the Post and the teacher and lawyer spreading the charges. But really, who cares?

My basic take it that it will be a hill of beans. How can it be proven? In today’s world what difference does it make if Mulgrew had a relationship with someone in the school other than the fact she got a full-time union position? The UFT is top-loaded with political patronage people feeding at the union dues trough what’s one more? They used to say the same thing about Al Shanker and Sandy Feldman, who he tapped as his successor. She only worked one year as a teacher before going to work for the union. Rumors floated around for many years. If it was true, which I doubt, really, how quaint to think it wrong for union leaders to put their lovers on the payroll?

The court case will go nowhere. I totally disagree that there was any blackmail involved in getting the Unity Caucus leadership to sell us out. Selling out has been in their DNA since the early 70's --- you should see the materials we put out in those years. Like nothing changes. Why would a party like Unity Caucus with absolute power after running the UFT into the ground for 50 years worry about actually fighting the ed deformers when there are loads of opportunities for a union hierarchy to jump on the gravy train sucking money out of public ed and putting it in private hands?

Will the scandal affect the Unity/Mulgrew team in the UFT elections in March 2013? I doubt it. I’m working with a new group, Movement of Rank and File Educators (MORE), which has announced it is running a slate against Unity/Mulgrew in the elections. MORE put out a statement that said: “MORE is committed to democratic, activist unionism and accountable leadership. Our members have devoted years to challenging the Unity leadership's pattern of bargaining away our rights and calling each give-back a victory. We have also opposed the undemocratic functioning of the Unity leadership which has marginalized opposition voices and discouraged membership activism. At the same time we will not join with the New York Post in its crusade against teacher unionism because it is a campaign not just against Michael Mulgrew but against all New York City educators. The recent scandal to which the Post has dedicated at least two days of coverage is typical of the journalistic standards one would expect from a Rupert Murdoch publication.”

Many bloggers, even internal critics of the union leader, have jumped all over the sleazy NY Post owned by the out and out criminal, Rupert Murdoch. (Did they hack Mulgrew’s phone?)

One of my fellow MORE members, Michael Fiorillo, commented: “John Kenneth Galbreath said that all revolutions are the kicking in of a rotten door, and we all know the UFT structure is rotten, despite the presence of decent, hard working people in the union. That's the destiny of every entrenched, single party state, and that's the potential significance of this story: at a certain point, the superstructure is so internally compromised that it can no longer support itself, and crumbles before a gust of wind.” Well, I’m not so sure it is about to crumble, at least until a group like MORE can convince enough people to support them.

Blogger South Bronx School wrote: “We as teachers and UFT members in this time of constant change and attack from the outside must not let our petty little sh-t to get out, especially in the New York Post. The only method to remove Mulgrew and his ilk are to educate the teachers on how we can affect change from within and take ownership of the power many of us yet to realize we have.” -- Shame on Joy Hochstadt and Andrew Ostrowksy).

NYC Educator said: “I don't need to recount the stories about the UFT President. The Post has done a fine job of that, demonstrating it does not discriminate between lowly teachers and union leaders. It's willing to convict any and all of us without a trial, without a hearing, without conscience, and without reservation.”  --(Trash Teachers! Sell Papers!)

My guess is the Mulgrew story has a shelf life of about 10 minutes. The one-sided role the Rupert Murdoch faux press plays will leave a lasting after taste that hopefully will continue to discredit and undermine his entire agenda. And hopefully take Joel Klein, his BFF – at least until one or both of them are doing perp walks – with him.

Norm blogs daily (and sometimes twice daily) at ednotesonline.com

Afterburn
Does anyone have Randi's comments on the Mulgrew story? I need a few laughs today.

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The opinions expressed on EdNotesOnline are solely those of Norm Scott and are not to be taken as official positions (though Unity Caucus/New Action slugs will try to paint them that way) of any of the groups or organizations Norm works with: ICE, GEM, MORE, Change the Stakes, NYCORE, FIRST Lego League NYC, Rockaway Theatre Co., Active Aging, The Wave, Aliens on Earth, etc.