Ed Notes Online: Social Equality Educators (SEE)

Showing posts with label Social Equality Educators (SEE). Show all posts

Friday, September 11, 2015

Why Seattle Teacher Strike Matters - MORE and Port Jefferson Station Express Support

There's no little irony that social justice oriented teacher unions are leading the way in militancy and a willingness to strike while UFT/Unity type unions are passive. That's why I love it when so-called action oriented UFTers opposed to the leadership try to put down MORE as too "social justicey". They just don't get it.

They should take a good look at Seattle - and Chicago where SJ caucuses - MORE brothers and sisters - CORE and SEE are leading the way against ed deform -

MORE people are informing their chapters about these events so UFTers who want to fight back understand what it will take - teachers at the school level must go out and work with parents and community to build the kind of support necessary for us to fight back effectively. Or MORE's support for the #FightForDyett – Support the Hunger Strike against School Closings - in Chicago where parents are fighting to keep a school from being closed and savaged by ed deformers. (Chicago teachers lost 10,000 jobs over the past 15 years of deform).

MORE's Lauren Cohen, Chapter leader at PS 321K, one of the leading opt-out schools in the city, helped organize this support photo:

MORE/ST/UCORE/UFT Chapter Leader Lauren Cohen and her PS 321K chapter

When I began teaching the UFT had a "no contract, no work" mantra - meaning that the day after a contract expired we would be on strike. That only happened in 1967 - and not long after that mantra disappeared, thus leaving us go years without a contract.

Not since 1975 has the UFT been on strike. We know all about the Taylor Law 2 for 1 penalties, the removal of dues checkoff and severe financial - if not crippling - penalties against the union. All these rules came as a result of the 1967 and 1968 UFT strikes. The 1975 strike was an anomaly - no contract on the table - but massive cuts - the leadership did not want to go on strike but was forced to by an outraged membership who saw their schools crippled by massive budget cuts that resulted in the loss of 15,000 jobs. Shanker even went to jail - which we, part of the opposition (Coalition of School Workers - CSW) - considered a rigged show so he could end the strike and make a crippling deal to save the city with our pensions while the working teachers got screwed (shortened school days, loss of preps, frozen everything - like no repairs). The system didn't begin to recover for 15 years. And soon after came ed deform. Unity Caucus has been the steward of 40 years of disaster - 47 if you add in the '68 strike.

Since then our own union leaders have used the threat of a strike against the members -- giving up the major weapon.

Either other states don't have such onerous penalties or the unions just don't worry about it.

The Chicago Teacher Union 2012 strike as schools opened was a major event and they are talking about going on strike again - but this time, as my pal George Schmidt urges, it will be a winter strike which will have a bigger impact that one in balmy fall days. Male teachers are already beginning to grow their winter beards.

It is no accident that the Social Justice unionism movement in Chicago has caught on in so many other cities - as evidenced by our national UCORE coalition from 15 states. A growing SJ oriented caucus in Seattle, where Jesse Hagopian came within a hair of winning the recent election as president, has played an important role in the strike - gaining parent and community support - and how ironic it is in the home territory of Bill Gates - and how delicious that the State of Washington courts ruled charter schools unconstitutional?

When we were in Seattle for the Bill Gates AFT convention in 2010, the local union, which I believe is NEA, has minimal presence - though some of them did hold an anti-Arne Duncan demo when he came to lunch at a restaurant. Due to the work of a caucus - Social Equality Educators (SEE) - there is a world of change as evidenced by the strike.

Socialist Worker has an article summing it up: Teachers draw the line for Seattle schools

Beth Dimino and Brian St. Pierre of Port Jefferson Station come out strongly on Seattle Teacher Strike and call for NYSUT to do the same.

Seattle Teachers On Strike!

The Seattle Education Association is ready to strike tomorrow, on the first day of school in their district, if negotiations tonight do not reach an agreement. In a situation reminiscent of the Chicago Teachers Union's 2012 strike, the teachers in Seattle are ready to strike for more than just typical "bread and butter" union issues. While things such as salary increases and length of work day a... See More

PJSTA Passes Reso in Support of SEA; Launches Solidarity Campaign

At today’s Representative Council meeting the PJSTA’s governing body passed a resolution in support of the Seattle Education Association who are currently on strike in Seattle as they fight for the schools Seattle’s students deserve. Additionally the PJSTA pledged to launch a solidarity campaign in our schools and asked NYSUT to similarly support the SEA while encouraging it’s locals to issue their own resolutions in support of the SEA. Details on the solidarity campaign will hit the buildings tomorrow.
Here is the text of the resolution…

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"A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

What media call "philanthropy" for the public schools are actually seed monies to establish a private "market" in publicly-financed education - an enterprise worth trillions if successfully penetrated by corporate America. Cory Booker, one of the "New Black Leaders" financed by the filthy rich, is key to creating a "nationwide corporate-managed schools network paid for by public funds but run by private managers.

"Ed Reformers" want to cash in on public education and to control its content and outcome, not improve it. Provide great education? Baby boomers had as close as this country has ever gotten to it when we were growing up. The Ed Reform Movement has no interest in seeing such a well-educated, democratically astute population ever again.

http://blackagendareport.com/content/cory-booker-clear-and-present-threat-public-education

History of the UFT Pre-Weingarten Years

This award-winning series of articles by Jack Schierenbeck originally appeared in the New York Teacher in 1996 and 1997.

Naturally, from a certain point of view. But, despite certain biases, Schierenbeck, a great guy, was one of the best NY Teacher reporters so this is worth reading. Jack suffered a debilitating stroke many years ago (I used to get secret donations to ed notes from him through a 3rd source.)

This chapter looks interesting:

Class struggles: The UFT story, part 3

“The schism in the union over radical politics [is] a major reason for stalling the growth of a teacher union for decades.” Revolutionary politics and ideology take center stage, as the original Teachers Union becomes a battlefield, pitting leftist against leftist and splitting the union.

Clarence Taylor's "Reds at the Blackboard" focused on the old Teachers Union which disbanded in 1964 after suffering from anti-left attacks.

Of course for another view, check out the review at New Politics of the Kahlenberg Bio on Shanker by Vera Pavone and me: Albert Shanker: Ruthless Neocon

Effective Union Organizing

A video series put together by Jason Mann from the British Columbia Federation of Teachers about social media and how to use it for effective union organizing.

The first series was called New Media For Union Activists Roadmap and it's still available on-line at:
http://www.newmediabootcamp.ca/welcome/
I watched some of them and need to rewatch as they are loaded with information.

The second series started last week and it's called "Online Campaigning for Union Activists"

You can sign up for this free series at :
http://act.bcfed.ca/online-campaigning-for-union-activists/

You Don't Have A Choice - Join the Revolt

Ex-Harlem Success Teacher Comments on Eva the Diva

Ex-HSA Teacher has left a new comment on your post "Fear and Loathing at Evil's Harlem Success Empire ...":

I am a former Harlem Success teacher. Not many people who work/worked for her like her very much. I once made the comment that she is very nice when I first was hired. Two of her closest colleague responded immediately almost in unison, "Eve is not nice!" Over time I realized that there was a lot of political games going on. Another colleague once said to me that he was tired of "being part of a political campaign." Sending out 15,000 applications for only 400 seats in a school is reprehensible. The money that paid for those mass mailings could have paid the yearly salary of another teacher not to mention the heartache of all those parents who applied but did not get a spot. She does good work trying to give disadvantaged students a quality public school education but at a great cost to staff AND the school's educational budget! school budget.

Davis Guggenheim Compared to Riefenstahl

“Waiting for Superman" is the second most intellectually dishonest piece of documentary work I have seen. It is surpassed only by Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will," the pro-Hitler propaganda classic, in that regard. Uses personal narratives of adorable children to create narrative suspense that overrides public policy discussion with pure emotion in unscrupulous attack on teachers and their unions, among others

Timothy Tyson
Professor of African American Studies and History
Duke University

How Teaching Experience Makes a Difference

Even as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Michelle Rhee and others around the nation are arguing for experienced teachers to be laid off regardless of seniority, every single study shows teaching experience matters. In fact, the only two observable factors that have been found consistently to lead to higher student achievement are class size and teacher experience, so that it’s ironic that these same individuals are trying to undermine both.
- Leonie Haimson on Parents Across America web site

Full article with charts here.

Weingarten/Gates Foundation announce drone-driven teacher evaluation

According to a press release issued by the Gates Foundation, the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, these three have entered a ground-breaking partnership to evaluate teachers utilizing the drone technology that has revolutionized warfare in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. A bird-size device floats up to 400 feet above a classroom and instantly beams live video of teachers in action to agents at desks at Teacher Quality Inspection Stations established by the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

When asked if the drones were authorized to drop bombs on teachers who exhibit inadequacy, Chester E. Finn, Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, replied, "Don't be ridiculous. Gates money puts other methods at our disposal."

Randi Weingarten, president of the 1.5-million-member American Federation of Teachers said the powerful union has signed on to the drone project...

More at Substance

The Real Reason Behind Push for Standardized Tests: It's All About the Adults

On standardized testing in our schools

A must read article about the standardized test industry.
Written by an insider who has worked as a test scorer, the article outlines a multinational industry based on an army of temporary workers paid by the piece at $0.30 to $0.70 per test, translated in the need to grade 40 tests per hour to make a $12 salary. The article goes on to show how the companies gauge the grading "results" based on the need to ensure new contracts to continue profiting off of our youth. The original article is from Monthly Review. Here it is on Schools Matter blog.

http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2010/12/on-growing-use-of-corporate-test.html

Parallels between America today and Germany in the 1920's and early 30's

"Resentment and obstruction are all the right wing in America have to peddle. Their policies are utterly discredited. Their ideology - even by its own standards - is a sham. They are so bereft of leaders, their de facto leader is a former drug addicted, thrice-divorced radio talk show host. That is literally the best they can muster. But they have built a national franchise inciting the downwardly mobile to blame the government, not the right, for their problems, exactly as Hitler did in the 1920s."

The US Is Facing a Weimar Moment

Published on Sunday, March 15, 2009 by CommonDreams.org

Chicago View of Unity/UFT on Charters

After many meetings and debates, the Chicago delegation succeeded in working with the New York United Federation of Teachers, Local 2 (UFT) to push the AFT to take stronger stands on charter school accountability and school closings — though many delegates from Chicago would have liked the language to have been even stronger.

Generally speaking, the New York delegation represented organizing charters as the best model for handling their role in reshaping unions, despite the fact that according to many reports few charter schools in New York have been organized as is the case in Chicago. This logic is the same touted by the Progressive Caucus of the AFT. The few that have been organized are a part of the UFT local though they have separate contracts negotiated with the help of UFT. The Chicago delegation reflection the mindset that allowing new charters to continue to proliferate while attempting to organize existing charters is an end game in which public schools and the union lose.

Jen Johnson, CTU, Local 1 in Substance

Ed Notes Greatest Hits: HSA Rally and Founding of GEM

SEE MY VIDEO ON HARLEM SUCCESS RALLY 2009:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEp7rg_L5JI

Angel Gonzalez and I attended that rally and used the footage to promote our conference on Mar. 28, 2009, which is where the concept of a group like GEM emerged. Until then we had basically been a committee of ICE working with the NYCORE high stakes testing group. The actions of Eva and crew helped spawn GEM. Mommie Dearest!!

I have more video somewhere. I was hoping to get Leni Riefenstahl to edit it but she died. We would have called it "Triumph of the Hedge Fund Operators."

Ed Notes Extended

Friday, September 11, 2015