Education Notes: Art & Design HS Staff in Revolt, Unity Tables Reso on Abusive Principals, Schirtzer on Ex Bd Experience and more

The October 2016 edition of Ed Notes, downloadable for any readers wanting to share with colleagues, was distributed at the Delegate Assembly on Weds and they were going like hot cakes.

The most pressing issue to me is the situation with bully principals. People have been coming to me for advice. The striking thing is that many of these vet UFT members who have often dealt with principals are shocked when they get one who had an agenda of wiping out the staff in a coordinated assault. They have been totally unprepared by the UFT to respond. The union doesn't look at this as a conspiracy and views each school and individual action on teachers by themselves. Last month I featured a school where this has happened with a 90% staff turnover in 2 years without a peep from the UFT. You can download the Sept. issue here.

I believe if there was a coordinated response and the UFT leadership made it clear to Farina and the CSA that they were in for a war at every school where the principal engages in these actions, much of it would stop or be curtailed. In the meantime entire careers are being destroyed, often senior teachers or untenured, and chapter leaders. 

This is the situation going on at Art and Design HS - a CTE school in Manhattan where the new principal who came in in January caused 16 people to leave the school by June. That is the focus of this edition of Ed Notes.

People seemed more receptive than when I hand out MORE lit. Interesting. I think that some people don't want to read something clearly labeled as opposition lit. I also brought back the jokes which used to be so popular. Thanks to the delegate who I didn't know who told me she was a regular reader of this blog.

I decided to republish Education Notes a couple of times this year at the UFT Delegate Assembly after a decade of absence. Why? I feel there needs to be a targeted newsletter addressing certain issues in greater depth than is done in MORE lit, which in going through a vetting process of a committee loses some style and substance. The current MORE newsletter is basically devoid of information, with a full-page ad about the upcoming social justice curriculum fair next week. With so many issues on the minds of UFT members, I felt using 50% of the ability to communicate with people for the ad was a bad decision and left the newsletter scanty (there could have been a quarter page or even a separate flyer for the conference). One MORE member on the way in offered to help me hand out Ed Notes. When I suggested handing out the MORE newsletter, the response was "It doesn't say anything."

I too felt it was just not something I felt like spending time handing out. If I am going to schlep in to the DA I want to hand out something that says something to the delegates or else it isn't worth going. I want the freedom to be critical of MORE, if necessary. At my age I'm too ornery with a libertarian tendency to get locked in to "caucus think" - loyalty to a caucus over everything which is an unofficial loyalty oath.

You can view or download the October 2016 edition here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4zyl-rfcGZaTlpRNnRpUWp3Wmc/view?usp=sharing

Education Notes Publishes Again - Addressing Fair Student Funding, Abusive Principals and MORE

• “Fair” Student Funding Unfair to Students AND Teachers

• The Hit Job: Farina’s Crew Found the Right Bitch for the Job

• Unity-UFT Leaflet Attacking MORE on Opt-Out Could Have Been written by Cuomo, King, Gates. Slammed by Parent Group

• MORE captures almost 1/3 active teacher vote and majority of high school votes but has NO AFT/NYSUT delegates 

 Ed Notes Returns to Publishing

 Last week, for the first time in a decade, I put together and distributed an edition of Education Notes for the September 14 UFT Chapter Leader meeting. The pdf is available - download if you feel it worth sharing. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8qnFCTQLOqoSVNneHdZRGtTQjA/view?ths=true

I know, I know -- so many of the people at these meetings are in Unity and basically talking to most of them is like spitting in the ocean. I don't even bother giving it to many of them - why waste copies?

I published an edition for almost every Delegate Assembly from 1997-2004. I was a chapter leader and was frustrated at the fact that getting the floor at the DA was totally dependent on getting called on - so Ed Notes was my proactive response -- I would hand out my point of view in advance of the meeting to try to influence the debate. In the early years Ed Notes was geared to trying to use logic to appeal to Unity and the UFT leadership. This was the point where Randi Weingarten replaced Sandy Feldman - and she and her minions reached out to me, telling me Randi was ushering in a new day for the UFT, promising reforms. I was critical but not on the attack. The state of the opposition consisted of 3 caucuses and I found none of them satisfactory all of of them narrow in their vision. I raised issues that none of them had any interest in - mayoral control, testing, abusive principals, protection of chapter leaders. Ed Notes was critical not only of Unity but also the other opposition groups. At one point it seemed everyone at the DA was reading Ed Notes. I began to meet like-minded people.

I guess it was when it became clear that Randi was making changes that made the UFT less democratic while also aiding and abetting ed deform that made it clear that Unity would never change -- that holding and consolidating power was the mantra, with the blatant briber offered to New Action, the leading opposition, being a final straw in 2003-4. Old and new Ed Notes supporters felt it was time for an opposition caucus that tackled issues in depth, thus leading to the birth of ICE (Independent Community of Educators), followed by the spin-off GEM (Grassroots Education Movement), not an opposition caucus but a joint effort of teachers and parents, and finally the realization in 2011-12 that an attempt must be made to bring together the various stands of activists in the UFT into one organization - MORE. I moved Ed Notes to a blog in 2006 and devoted time to the various groups I worked with. While I had some influence I was also no longer using UFT meetings to put out  my own point of view using my style of writing -- group leaflets and newsletters often get neutered in the group process. So I decided that this year I will occasionally bring Ed Notes back to union meeting when I feel I have something to say that goes beyond the blog. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8qnFCTQLOqoSVNneHdZRGtTQjA/view?ths=true

Substance celebrates its 41st year, Influence on Ed Notes, 1994 EdWeek Article

SUBSTANCE ANNIVERSARY, HISTORY... Substance begins 41st year... Series of historical articles planned... to be labeled SUBSHISTORY (Date)...

By George N. Schmidt - August 1st, 2015 | 0 comments

With the publication of the August Home Page here at substancenews.net, Substance begins our 41st year of publication. Substance began as a mimeographed newsletter, produced on a Gestetner mimeograph machine, in August 1975.

August 1 was an historic day for Chicago-based George Schmidt and Substance, the model for the print edition of Ed Notes. One of the things I find very funny about the accounts of the Chicago union miracle from many groups, including MORE during its "Lessons if  Chicago" summer series over the past few years, is how the role of a monthly well-read newspaper played in capturing the union by the CORE caucus is ignored. (Substance also played a role in the victory of the opposition led by Debbie Lynch in 2001.)

Substance influence on Ed Notes
My groups in the 70s had been getting Substance but then lost track. At an ed tech convention in Chicago in 2000 I ran into George at an anti-testing workshop where Substance, by that time a full 20-30 page monthly tabloid, was distributed. We connected and I subscribed.

I began Ed Notes in 1997 as a UFT delegate assembly only monthly that grew from 1page to 16 letter size pages by the time I retired in 2002. I was

producing up to 1500 copies for the DA since people asked me for copies for their schools. It was clear that I couldn't continue growing a newspaper that had to be hand printed on any machine I could borrow and then stapled by me. George's model of a cheaper to produce in bulk tabloid began to make sense. One of the reasons I retired in July 2002 was to give me the time to turn Ed Notes into a tabloid that could reach tens of thousands of teachers. It would cost me a couple of thousand dollars a year but that seemed like the biggest bang for the buck. (And people did want to contribute.)

That July 2002 George was in NY and I invited him out to my house in

Rockaway to meet with some people who were Ed Notes supporters - a group that over a year later turned into part of the nucleus that formed ICE in October 2003. He wowed us with his stories and inspired us in ways to spark activism. I had already started writing and soliciting articles and laying out the tabloid ed notes and the first issue with a print run of 12,000 copies came out in September 2002. The lead article was:

Coming Soon to a School Near You: Mayoral Control 

Ed Notes was the first to go after the concept, which the UFT supported and also go after Joel Klein from day 1.

Below is an embedded but poor copy for you to peruse. You can read a clearer version at scribd: https://www.scribd.com/doc/273300755/Ed-Notes-Fall-02-ID

Ed Notes Fall 02 ID

Here is a report from George on the anniversary:

Consider the story below, that we will be reporting on August 1. It is an example of how the owners of Chicago's media, the same corporate plutocrats who have imposed "school reform", choke off the history that we need to know -- and that the working class needs to know. As we've discussed, the ruling class has blacklisted Substance (and George Schmidt) for a long time. Think about it...

3. AUGUST ANNIVERSARY AND THE ED WEEK ARTICLE. "...Substance is a throwback to the in-your-face underground newspapers of the late '60s and early '70s..." The article below was published in Education Week -- more than 20 years ago! Since then, the blacklist has expanded to the point where reporters from Chicago's corporate media are forced to deny the existence of Substance -- even as they read and utilize the materials we publish. Read below what the national weekly Education Week reported long long ago:

The Muckrakers (Originally published in Education Week)
August 1, 1994

http://www.edweek.org/tm/articles/1994/08/01/9sub.h05.html

Part 1: Education Notes - My Path from Ed Notes to MORE Through ICE and GEM

MORE held two back to back meetings on Monday over a 4 hour period and I got to thinking, always a dangerous thing. It's been an interesting 15 years, 10 of them as a retiree. Where to begin before I forget it all? This could be a book, but I'll spare you the pain and just do as short a synopsis as I can in 4 separate posts.

Lawyers Randi and Joel work on a school. Cartoon special for ed notes, spring '03.

Part 1: Education Notes
I began ednotesonline in late August 2006 and Education Notes print edition in 1997, so this 6th anniversary is as good a time as any to do a retrospective.

Chapter leadership re-engages me - 1994
I became chapter leader in 1994 with a hostile, high stakes testing principal who took over the school in 1979. So the battle was joined from the moment I took over the chapter (we had been on opposite sides of a number of issues since she arrived). I spent the next 3 years through 1997 working to organize a democratic union at the school level. My major tool was a newsletter, "PS 147 Notes." I learned a lot based on the reactions of the staff and the active parents. And I saw my principal, who rarely was afraid of anything, showed more than some concern about what I would write. Being in the non-power position, the Notes gave me a lot of leverage and a means of gathering support. I made sure to share the paper at District Chapter Leader meetings so the entire district was getting the word about what my principal was doing. That drove her crazy.

Education Notes as a 16-page tabloid, spring 2003

When I became CL I also began to go back to the UFT Delegate Assembly after an absence of at least 10 years (I had been a delegate from 1972 around 1984.) I also attended District 14 chapter leader and school board meetings. So I was able to provide a load of information to the staff. Those that read my newsletter (I put out 49 editions in my 3rd year) were as informed on a variety of issues as they could be.

I went to all the chapter leader trainings and that is where I met Randi Weingarten who was clearly the heir and we established a cordial relationship. I learned first hand about the Randi one on one charm.

I wasn't all that active at the DA, being more focused on my own school, even during the fight to defeat the seminal 1995 contract that we turned down the first time -- New Action deserves credit along with people like Bruce Markens who was the Manhattan HS district rep - the only non-Unity DR because the chapter leaders kept electing him for a decade - he officially worked for the union and stood up strong against the contract, which just flipped the leadership off.

Becoming active at the Delegate Assembly
In my 4th year as CL (97-98) I was on sabbatical and turned the chapter over to a pair of teachers. My sabbatical was one designed by me -- I offered the district tech boss my services and he accepted. In the middle of the year, 2 jobs opened up doing exactly what I had offered to do and he offered me one of them if I would give up my sabbatical. I laughed. Before the year ended he got another position for Sept. 1998 and offered it to me. I accepted. So I was out of the classroom for the first time in 30 years. I spent the next 4 years in that job working as part of a team of 4 covering 27 elementary and middle schools and offering after school tech courses (like explaining what email and the world wide web were).

In my year on sabbatical I continued to attend the DA and began to think more deeply about the bigger union issues. At some point I began to migrate my chapter newsletter into  "Delegate Assembly Notes" and then changed the name to Education Notes. I entered that project with the idea that the major opposition, New Action, was not very effective. Teachers for a Just Contract was out there in a fairly minimal way, so I did not formally ally myself with the opposition and naively thought I could reach out to reasonable Unity people, Randi included, to lobby for change within the UFT. And Randi and her people certainly helped lead me on for years, even offering me an opportunity to join Unity.

Not anti-Unity

Ed Notes was a monthly directed at union leaders and school-based leaders. It grew from one sheet to 14 pages. It was a big undertaking but my job at the District media center gave me some some room to roam. Many Unity people, and indeed, many of the people at the DA, especially the leaders of the union were reading it. Unity people were fairly friendly and said they agreed with lots of stuff I was saying. I tweaked but didn't attack Randi and we were communicating regularly. I was seduced by the idea that I was getting my ideas heard at the top level. I was also critical of New Action and Unity loved it. NA started spreading rumors I was being funded by Unity.

Whatever independent delegates there were began stopping by and said they were sharing Ed Notes with their staff. But I had a limited amount of copies.

Old political cronies are supportive
I should point out here that I wasn't totally alone in this endeavor. My political cronies from the 70s on the verge of retirement -- the late Paul Baizerman, Vera Pavone, Ira Goldfine, Loretta and Gene Prisco, provided advice and the political analysis I was sorely missing. They even wrote some  great pieces for Ed Notes. Paul and Gene were also delegates and we worked as a team at the DA.

[Social note: Loretta and Gene's daughter got married last Saturday and we were all together again and we still see each other on a regular basis. More on this amazing group of socially and politically committed people when I get to ICE in part 2.]

When I left my school, I was no longer a delegate but continued to go to every DA to hand out Ed Notes. Having something in writing was especially important as I could no longer speak (from 98-2000).

I looked for a way to get back into the DA as a delegate. As a teacher assigned I could run as a delegate from that functional chapter but that was totally controlled by Unity. But Randi must have given the word and they gave me a slot as a delegate for 2001-2002. I felt even at that point that lobbying Unity was still possible.

Breaking with Randi
It took me over 3 years to see through the Randi bullshit, (I way behind many others). Merit pay and mayoral control were the key issues.

The break with Randi came in the spring of 2001 when I began to see through the bullshit and realized that only by building a strong opposition could we make changes in the union. This was just at the point Bloomberg was running for mayor.

Ed Notes turned extremely critical of Randi and Unity during the 2001-2 school year. Unity people began shunning it and hostility grew. My last year and a half at the DA before I retired in July 2002 was really contentious. I felt the rest of the opposition were not functioning in a critical manner. More independents were giving me their contact information and some even said they were making copies for their schools.

Trying to unify the opposition
There was another opposition group that ran in elections in the late 90s: Progressive Action Caucus, focused on teachers who were losing their licenses because of difficulty with the teaching exam. At some point after the 2001 elections -- maybe late spring or early fall I called a meeting to try to get New Action, TJC and PAC into the same room -- I also asked independents I had met to join us. The idea was to try to unify the opposition. But New Action was the king of the hill at the time, having beaten Unity in the high schools in most elections. The had disdain for the others it seemed. And since Ed Notes had been critical they didn't trust me either.

Influence of Schmidt
I had picked up a copy of George Schmidt's Substance at an ed tech convention to Chicago in June 2000 and continued to stay in touch with George. His model of a full-fledged tabloid with thousands of copies that could reach into the schools began to intrigue me. As I entered the spring 2002 with my office having a new boss who was a joke, thoughts of retirement along with the idea of having the time to expand Ed Notes into a tabloid with a bigger outreach into the schools began to intrigue me.

Retired, July 2002 and a visit from George Schmidt
I started planning a tabloid edition of Ed Notes with the idea of 4 pages -- think one pull-out page in the Daily News - 4 sides, but it kept growing as the summer went on and turned into a 16-pager.

In mid-July George was coming through NY with his family and I invited a bunch of people to my house to meet George and he regaled us with stories of Substance (which he began in the late 70s) and the takeover of the Chicago union by the Debbie Lynch insurgency in 2001. Debbie was no radical -- she had worked in DC for Shanker -- and in fact when I crowed about Debbie, both Randi and Leo were saying "she is one of us." But that she had beaten a Unity style machine was impressive and an indication of things to come in Chicago 8 years later. [Debbie lost in a very close election 2004, got slammed in 2007 and in 2010 was one of 5 caucuses to run and in round 2 threw her 15% of the vote to CORE which helped them gain power.]

Remember, my goal was to use Ed Notes to organize unity in the opposition, at that point by trying to bring all the groups together. All the groups agreed to help distribute Ed Notes -- I offered them space in the initial edition to push their platform. Thus, I had 10,000 printed for September.

Ed Notes as a full tabloid had an affect just by its looks. It was meaty, full of news and analytical, with cartoons specially commissioned and all  kinds of graphics. Boy, did I learn desktop publishing. In between the 4 editions during that year, I put out a one sheet edition on alternate months, at the DA only. I was one busy guy in my first year of retirement during the 2002-3 school year. I wasn't thinking all that far ahead. Just plodding along.

Meeting Lawhead, Ahern and Fiorillo
During that year I put out four issues of 16 pages each --wait, one was even 20 pages ––  even I am stunned at that output and don't see how I did it. I ran around the city dropping off bundles, often with the help of retiree Merry Tucker -- we made sure to treat ourselves to a nice lunch. People began to contact me from various schools. I met John Lawhead and Sean Ahern during that year, two people who would a big influence on me. We began to hang out. And Michael Fiorillo, who I knew from the DA, joined us at times. I would say these guys were the genesis of ICE, a year away. I began to think of introducing them to the 70s crew, (which I did at a party at my house in July 2003.)

Danger signs from New Action
Sometime in my last months at the DA- spring 2002 -  there seemed to be something going on between New Action and Unity. NA leader Michael Shulman and Randi were getting their heads together. I remember a Unity/NA joint resolution that was  toothless and full of holes. I was the only one at the DA to oppose it and heaped scorn on them both. Shortly after Micheal Mendel told me I was insulting to Randi in this speech and she wasn't happy --- hmm, is scorn insulting? Maybe. But I heaped scorn on Shulman too. After I spoke, one of the leaders of TJC came over and said she was glad I had done it but she wanted to -- but was still being careful about being openly critical of the major opposition.

In the spring of 2003, Paul Baizerman wrote a critical analysis of New Action for Ed Notes and New Action started refusing to hand it out. I offered James Eterno space to write a rebuttal. (Bruce Markens had to adjudicate the number of words.)

When the relationship between Randi and Shulman began to blossom into a dirty election deal in the summer of 2003 where NA wouldn't run against Randi and she would hand them the 6 high school seats they had been winning anyway by not running any Unity people -- this was for the 2004 elections -- New Action stalwarts James Eterno and Ellen Fox were very disturbed and started touching base with me and people in TJC.

At a rally in early October, 2003, I ran into Fiorillo at a UFT rally and lo and behold, there was Shulman on the podium with Randi. Fiorillo said, "you think NA is right about putting up a united front with Unity given the BloomKlein assault?"

I disagreed. Given that Randi had floated on so much of the same shit coming from the people doing the attacks, there needed to be more resistance, not less. That the New Action position of putting up a united front would free Randi from being held accountable.

But why don't we get some people together and talk about it. Which we did on the Friday before Halloween, 2003, in essence the first meeting of ICE.

End part 1.

Coming soon
Part 2: Independent Community of Educators (c. Nov 2003)
Part 3: Grassroots Education Movement (c. 2009)
Part 3: Movement of Rank and File Educators (c. 2012)

=============
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.

Historical Perspective of Education Notes

A short history of Education Notes, its relationship to the UFT leadership, the formation of the Independent Community of Educators (ICE) and the Grassroots Education Movement (GEM) was distributed in the hard copy Dec. '09 edition of Ed Notes at the Delegate Assembly, where I have been handing it out almost every month since 1996. That's pretty much the entire Brazilian rain forest. There is a pdf available for downloading if you wish to share it with someone who has no life. (http://www.scribd.com/doc/24276475/Ed-Notes-Dec-09)

I began publishing Education Notes in 1996 at Delegate Assemblies because I was frustrated at the process that allowed the chair, usually the UFT president, almost total domination of the procedures. If you wanted to get the floor to make a resolution they had total control over who got to speak and if you were too outspoken on issues not liked by the leadership, you could easily get shut out. By distributing Ed Notes before meetings, I got to say my piece, whether I was called on or not. Ed Notes grew in size from one sheet to a 10-14-page booklet and then in 2002 when I retired, it became a full-sized 16-page tabloid published 4 times a year.

Having come out of the opposition movement to Unity Caucus in the 70’s (I was mostly inactive in the union from the mid-80’s through the early 90’s) I became active again when I replaced a Unity Caucus chapter leader in 1994 at my elementary school, which had a “my way or the high way” principal for over 15 years and we had butted heads all the time. My becoming chapter leader freaked her out and I began publishing a school newsletter, often once a week. That freaked her out even more and I began to understand the power of the press, even at the most local level.

I took a look at the opposition groups and didn’t find much that appealed to me. New Action was the major opposition caucus and was fairly ineffective though it did win support in the high schools by winning the 6 high school Exec Bd seats on a regular basis. Six out of 89 gave them little leverage and after leading the successful battle against the first 1995 contract to be rejected by the membership, they started fading. PAC, a smaller opposition group was totally focused on the teachers who were losing their licenses when they didn’t pass the teacher exams. Teachers for a Just Contract took positions I agreed with, but I thought they focused too much on a narrow range of issues.

I would attend UFT Exec Board meetings and was so frustrated at the way New Action would deal with Unity, so often cowed into submission. There didn’t seem to be enough fight in them, though a few like Marvin Markman and James Eterno were at times effective. But New Action leader Michael Shulman was the dominant player and so often seemed to throw a blanket over the Caucus.

Thus I figured the only way to create some change in the union was to appeal to what I felt had to be a progressive wing of Unity. At that time, Randi Weingarten was about to take over the union and presented herself as leading that progressive force. She reached out to me, claiming she agreed with me on so many issues, sometimes through late night email exchanges. Her people whispered that she was going to make changes in the union to democratize it and even make changed to liberalize Unity. But absolute power --- you know the drill.

By 2001, it was becoming clear that Randi was not only not liberalizing the union, but also making it more undemocratic than ever. As a small example, the new motion period ever since I became a delegate in 1971, took place immediately after the question period. Suddenly, if Randi didn’t like a resolution I was proposing, she either eliminated the time altogether or pushed it to the end of the meeting. She became more and more of a demagogue. In 2001, I became increasingly restive as she started supporting merit pay schemes and mayoral control, and I became increasingly critical of her and Unity Caucus, seeing that whatever progressive wing there might be (and I had plenty of conversations with people who came off that way) was cowed by Unity Caucus discipline. It became clear that the caucus was like a black hole. Once you went in you never came out.

Many of the positions Ed Notes took in the late 90’s - opposition to high stakes testing and the ridiculous accountability it engendered, unbridled principal power, drastic reductions in class size, support for chapter leaders under attack, a stronger grievance procedure, total opposition to merit pay, a broader curriculum not based on standardized tests began to attract some of the few independent delegates not affiliated with the other opposition groups. People like Michael Fiorillo.

The New Action Sellout
For activists in the union, the dirty deals made between Randi and New Action Caucus in 2003 whereby they wouldn’t run a presidential candidate against her in the 2004 elections and she wouldn’t run Unity Caucus candidates against their 6 high school Ex Bd candidates was a seminal event. Dissidents in New Action who opposed the deal contacted me. James and Camille Eterno, Ellen Fox and Lisa North. They were outraged at the sell-out, especially over the fact that all of a sudden, New Action members were on the union payroll.

Eterno, who had been serving as a New Action Ex Bd member for years, turned down that guaranteed opportunity. We called a meeting of the New Action dissidents and the independents I had been meeting through Ed Notes. Incredibly impressive people like John Lawhead (now chapter leader of Tilden HS), Sean Ahern, Jeff Kaufman and Julie Woodward. Added to that were some of the people who I had been active with in the 70’s: Ira Goldfine, Loretta and Gene Prisco, Paul Baizerman and Vera Pavone.

Formation of the Independent Community of Educators
Out of that meeting on Halloween 2003 came the Independent Community of Educators (ICE), which decided to run a slate in the 2004 elections and challenge New Action for those 6 high school seats, which given the fact that Unity was not running for those seats, we had a chance.

In the meantime, TJC was emerging as another group willing to challenge the Unity/New Action alliance. There were some differences and some ruffled feelings at the time but TJC and ICE united to run one group for those 6 seats, and surprise, surprise, we knocked New Action out of the box by getting more high school votes than they did. This put Jeff Kaufman and James Eterno, along with some strong people from TJC on the Board. For the first time, I saw some fight at these meetings, as Eterno now out from under the New Action blanket, teamed with Kaufman to run Randi ragged. The schlep into the meetings every 2 weeks now became worth it.

By the 2007 elections Randi was desperate to get Kaufman and Eterno out of her hair at these meetings and took her alliance with New Action one step further. She ran a joint Unity/New Action slate for 8 seats, including the 6 high school seats. Thus, every Unity vote would also be a vote for these New Action candidates. Shulman, like a porno salesman with dirty pictures approached one of the former New Action members who was with ICE and offered one of these positions. He was turned down.

Thus, New Action, which actually tells people they have these 8 seats on the Ex Bd without telling them how they got them, tries to claim they are independent. But dare them to declare their independence by running directly against ICE/TJC and without Unity support and see what they will tell you. Shulman actually has the nerve to brag that he refuses to take the double pension from the UFT he could get for his job.

In the upcoming UFT elections, ICE/TJC are running a full slate for the officers and Exec Bd, with an outside chance to win back those 6 high school seats as a beachhead on the Ex Bd to force the leadership to examine its disastrous policies on mayoral control, testing, closing schools, charter schools - you name it, they have been wrong. In response to New Action’s contention its qualified support for Unity has helped the union, I ask them to show us where. By abandoning its historic role opposing Unity, no matter how weak that was, it left a vast vacuum that ICE and TJC have struggled to fill.

ICE/TJC Candidates for HS Ex Bd
There is a superb slate running for all positions, but for now I’ll focus on the six high school candidates, who if elected will have an impact:

Michael Fiorillo is an ICE founder, when Michael speaks or writes on the educational issues of the day, people sit up and listen. He was the chapter chairman at Newcomers HS and is now the delegate.

Arthur Goldstein was recently elected as Chapter Leader of Francis Lewis HS, one of the most overcrowded in the city. Widely published in numerous newspapers and a regular at the Gotham Schools blog, Arthur has established a national reputation as a witty and incisive commenter. In his short time as Chapter leader, he has led the battle to address the overcrowding issues. His commentary on the conditions in the trailer he teaches in has embarrassed Tweed on numerous occasions.

John Lawhead, now chapter leader at Tilden high school, was an ICE founder. He contacted me when he found a copy of Ed Notes in his mailbox at Bushwick HS and wrote some articles. His depth of knowledge on educational issues, particularly on the high stakes testing, is astounding. I went with him to a conference of activists opposing NCLB (remember the UFT/AFT was supporting it) in Birmingham Al, back in early 2003 and hobnobbed with the national resistance to NCLB and high stakes testing. There is not one ICE meeting that goes by that John doesn’t say something that puts things together in a way that makes me say “Aha!”

I’ve known the TJC candidates for years, but I’ll leave it to them to provide more details in their campaign literature.

Kit Wainer, chapter leader of Leon Goldstein HS in Brooklyn for many years, was the ICE/TJC presidential candidate in 2007. Every time I hear him talk at a meeting, he makes complete sense and says it in an amazingly impressive manner.

Marian Swerdlow, who was a long-time delegate from FDR, has been a stalwart of the opposition for almost 20 years. She is as good as anyone I’ve met in breaking down an issue and analyzing it. For years Ed Notes published her awesome DA minutes, which she is still producing. They are not to be missed. If for nothing else, it is worth seeing her on the Ex Bd for those delicious minutes. Imagine the impact Swerdlow, with her ability to think on her feet, would have when Unity tries to pull its shenanigans.

Peter Lamphere, chapter leader at Bronx High School of Science, has been engaged in an epic struggle with a horror story of a principal. Peter was one of the leaders of the 20 math teachers who filed a complaint over harassment. He is as impressive in a public forum as anyone I’ve seen.

Formation of GEM
I must conclude with an account of the origins of the Grassroots Education Movement (GEM), which has been leading the battle against charter, schools and school closings. GEM emerged out of an ICE committee addressing the ATR issue in Jan. 2009. Spearheaded by John Lawhead and Angel Gonzalez, a recent retiree who had been part of the FMPR group supporting the teachers in Puerto Rico and had come to ICE for help and joined, the committee began to address the issue of the roots of the ATR issue by bringing together NYCORE people who were fighting high stakes testing and people from closing schools (it was Lawhead who put these concepts into a neat package for us). GEM held a conference and a march from Battery Park to Tweed last spring and during the summer worked up in Harlem to support the teachers and parents being invaded by Eva Moskowitz’ Harlem Success schools. In a short time, GEM has become recognized throughout the city as the group to go to for support, since the UFT has left such a vacuum.

....to be continued