Oh man, did your readers leave stuff out!

Remember the comment from Son of Unity (you promised to come back - pleeeze, we could use more material) about all the incredible stress UFT leaders are under from having to deal with the likes of BloomKlein on our "Stress Relief for UFT Leaders" post and our top 10 stress relievers? This follow-up comment by the ghost of Eugene Debs deserves a post all it's own:

-Randi makes at least over 350 grand on three payrolls- UFT, NYSUT, AFT. Plus an unlimited expense account-worth tens of thousands- to entertain and feed herself, deputy mayors and candidates, consultants, hangers on and newspaper folks. She has an SUV and a driver- he makes 120K to ferry her back and forth to the Hamptons. Add it up- gasoline, insurance, lease payments, maintenance, parking- it's all free for this "average" person.

Add: she is in the NYC pension system for her part-time job at Clara Barton [where she worked as a full-time teacher for only 6 months, partime for 6 years]- so the value of her pension is increased every year, just like teachers- except she hardly taught!!

Add: she has surrounded herself with sycophants whose main job is to say "yes" to whatever crazy scheme and or sellout Randi comes up with. She tolerates no dissent, rewards her sycophants, allows the incompetents who are her friends to scam the union, punishes those to speak up (think principals) and is wholly owned by BloomKlein and Wall Street- she does whatever they tell her to do.

She hires $20,000 a month consultants who wear different hats with other clients (Murdoch, the Jets, the Post. Whose side are they on?)

Question: How does she get away with filing the LM2 reports a year and a half after they are due? The figures on the last report should be raised by whatever increase teachers got. Someone should ask the Department of Labor why they allow this.
[Ed Note: An older LM2 is available at the ICE website or email me and I'll send you one. Or go to the US Labor Department and download the last one available yourself - UFT File number is 063-924].

ADD - Unity folks get free parking at 52 Broadway that is worth $40 a day because they refuse to ride the subways. Plus they get their tolls paid for and $32 a day to use their car for "UFT business." (going to one school).
[Ed Note: I've seen this myself as they line up with their union credit cards after Exec bd meetings to get their cars. The UFT has around 40 spots and Randi micromanages the doling out of these spots to her favorites.]

ADD- The Unity crew - 50 of them- treated themselves to a five-day vacation in Philadelphia the July 4 week- for an NEA convention! This defines chutzpah.
[Ed Note: Hey, they worked hard all year. Think they actually sat in on meetings? Besides, they were layng the groundwork for the ultimate merger of the AFT and NEA so Randi can lead the entire educator labor movement as the springboard to AFL-CIO leader.]

keep it coming folks-

-Eugene Debs.

Commentary:
Generally, I have not made a big deal about the salary earned by UFT leaders and I never viewed Randi Weingarten as being in it for the money - power is way more important to her. Some people feel they couldn't care less how much Weingarten earns if she had delivered great contracts instead of selling the "Look how bad BloomKlein are and we did the best we could under terrible conditions" line.

But now, it's getting obscene when the union leader earns 4-5 times the salary of the average teacher. Not only at the very top, but throughout the hierarchy of the UFT/Unity Caucus staff, people have an incentive to sell bad contracts as long as there is money in it - for them, since they all get the same percentage raises as teachers do without the negatives - though Randi has ordered all staff members to do lunch duty - at the nearest restaurant. Even the gap between district reps, the people at the union staff level most in touch with the schools, and teachers, has been growing.

And the gap grows between the daily lives of teachers and union officials - who many of us in the opposition think work hard and put in long hours, but that is oh so different than teaching. I worked at the district level for the last 4 years of my career - I worked hard and long hours too, but that was a joke compared to what teachers were doing.

I have been more concerned with Weingarten's lack of real teaching experience just as I do about principals who have not really taught because that gives one so much insight into the emotional core of people - ie, a visceral understanding of the impact of the reinstitution of lunch duty or the longer day or the even why going back a measly 2 days before Labor Day is so disturbing to people or what it means to have a vicious Asst. Princ. on your back or teh humiliation of having a kid curse you out in front of the whole class and have nothing done about it.

Weingarten was/is a lawyer for the UFT when she was hand-picked by Sandra Feldman to succeed her (which everyone knew about) and was carefully placed at Clara Barton HS - not at the scary Prospect Hts. HS across the street. She was treated like a celebrity by the staff and administration and chapter leader Leo Casey assured she would be taken care of, a favor that has been returned 10-fold by Weingarten. This history is such a sore point that Weingarten feels the need to lie and distort the truth, even declaring in a NY 1 interview that she taught 5 periods a day for 6 years.

I hear vets speculate all the time about what Shanker and Feldman would do in today's climate. Some people, even Unity vets, mutter to me at the Delegate Assemblies, "Shanker is turning in his grave." Even their vehement opponents feel Shanker/Feldman had a real sense of "union" that Randi seems to be lacking. They were true Social Democrats, albeit right wing SD's in the SDUSA party, while Weingarten is a liberal of the Clinton variety, which means not all that liberal in the classic sense. When Casey and I used to communicate, he swore Weingarten was not SDUSA.

I'm not so sure if they would have made any difference, but they could not be happy with the state of the union, especially in the schools. Of course a major difference is that Shanker was so smart and confident, he surrounded himself by very smart and capable people. As Eugene Debs points out above, Weingarten is too insecure and needs sycophants and YES people around. People outside the UFT who have worked with them complain at the lack of people around Weingarten one could respect.

Since 1970, I fought against Shanker and Feldman. But today, I actually miss them.

Sol Stern on mayoral control

Revised

I posted Sol Stern's recent article in the City Journal "Grading Mayoral Control" at Norms Notes. It is a good summary/history of the issues that have arisen since Bloomberg took control of the schools.

Stern was a supporter of mayoral control in the beginning. He was also a severe critic of the UFT, blaming many of the ills in the school system on the teacher contract, something Joel Klein has also consistently done. But politics makes strange bedfellows and Randi Weingarten has embraced Stern, even giving him space in the NY Teacher.

Stern focused his original criticisms of Klein over the adoption of what he called a progressive curriculum, instituted by Diana Lam and enforced by her successor Carmen Farina. I won't get into the details here. But teachers reacted as much to the dictatorial nature of the forced implementation as to the ideas of how to teach.

Stern says:
“Dictate” is exactly what Klein did for the next three years. The city’s principals were deemed so deficient in pedagogical understanding that Klein and his lieutenants would tell them how to arrange the chairs, the desks, the rugs, and even the bulletin boards in their classrooms. But Klein’s directions on more important matters did not inspire confidence: for example, he imposed a reading program that progressive educators favor called Balanced Literacy (a euphemism for the “whole language” instructional approach), despite the lack of evidence that it works for disadvantaged children.

I know teachers that believe in balanced literacy, which they say is very different from the whole language approach, which has been discredited in many places for the lack of phonics and structured language teaching. One of Stern's points has been that phonics should be taught, an approach that seems as rigid as Klein's. I was a big fan of phonics teaching, but as a teacher I made the choice as to what extent it was necessary. I eschew any system where teacher choice is minimized.

Ironically, Stern supports "Success for All," one of the most dictatorial, rigid, non-teacher input (and expensive) programs out there. He writes:

To his credit, Klein approved the inclusion of several providers with substantive academic programs. One of these was the Success for All Foundation, which features the scientifically tested reading program that Klein unwisely dumped from dozens of schools in his first year in office. But it soon became clear that the program didn’t have much of a chance to sell its goods in Klein’s new supermarket. When I visited the hall in which SFA staffers were making their presentation, it was practically empty. Nervous principals, shell-shocked by this latest reorganization, decided to play it safe and go with one of the providers that knew its way around the DOE headquarters, rather than with an out-of-town organization like Success for All. Several sources also confirmed that providers had offered jobs to some of the supervisors departing the school system—on condition that they sign up as customers the principals whom they used to supervise.

It's class size, stupid!
I have heard teachers refer to Success for All as a "Nazi" program. Well, maybe that's going a bit too far. I mentored Teaching Fellows for a few years; one of the schools was using the program. All activities in the school would stop for an hour and a half and all personnel, including out of classroom people and cluster teachers would be part of the program. Thus, the sizes of the reading groups were drastically reduced.

Duh! There's the scientific basis Stern refers to. Small groups work, not necessarily the program itself. Scientific studies would cite a control group where, say balanced literacy were used with the same student/teacher ratio as SFA. Bet we would see similar results.

The morning would start with some kind of music piped throughout the school and kids would be marched to their classrooms. Teachers complained that they often worked with students that were not in their class but for just the SFA period. After about an hour and a half the music would start and everyone would be marched back. I often thought they could sell a CD called "Best Marching Songs Success for All."

Stern attributes the lack of interest in SFA from Nervous principals, shell-shocked by this latest reorganization. But even principals who knew the program from the days when former Chancellor Rudy Crew forced it into every school in the former Chancellor's district, also rejected it as too expensive for what they were getting - just another program for profit. They chose not to go with SFA because they could get more for the buck elsewhere.

Stern has also pushed the program being offered by Kathleen Cashin, one of the 4 super superintendents left from the regions, claiming her program was the most rigorous. But she ended up with the lowest total of schools of all 4, while Judy Chin, considered the least rigid, got the most schools. Many Principals seem to have voted with their feet for the least restrictive environment. And that will probably end up being an illusion too.

Another irony here is that the UFT leadership with Randi Weingarten leading the way, partnered with Crew in implementing the SFA program with the support of the UFT run Teacher Centers. When the UFT complained about the rigid programs implemented by Klein, SFA teachers had a good laugh. Oh, the hypocrisy!

I have one more bone to pick with Sol Stern over his article when he says:

The Bloomberg administration must have known that the UFT would have to protect its senior teachers. Along with a coalition of activist groups that opposed the entire reorganization, the union began organizing a massive City Hall protest rally. The mayor initially hung tough: he called his own mini-rally, attended by 100 supporters, attacked the “special interests” blocking progress in the schools, and likened the UFT to the National Rifle Association.

But the next morning, the mayor was breakfasting with union president Randi Weingarten. After a weeklong negotiation, the administration took both the new funding proposal and the tenure initiative off the table for the next two years—by which time Bloomberg will be packing to leave City Hall. The mayor may have been right about the “special interests,” but his retreat had plenty to do with politics and his own interests. A big fight with the teachers would have damaged his reputation as the “education mayor” and threatened his potential White House run.

Th UFT gave the impression of protecting senior teachers, who were not really protected, as all the ATR teachers and the inability of so many to find jobs in the Open Market System have proven. Who really blinked? As previous posts here have pointed out, Weingarten wanted as little to do with a rally as Bloomberg.

Who blinked first?

Broad Jumping

The Educational Intelligence Agency's Mike Antonucci reports in this week's posting on his coverage of the NEA convention:

The delegates also pulled their annual punch at Eli Broad, referring to committee an item that directed NEA to "aggressively work to expose the dangers of pursuing the 'Broad Prize' and other veiled awards promoted by those who seek to destroy public education."

Don't expect even a light jab from the AFT at Broad, who gave the UFT charter school $1 million and is the backer of Green Dot charters' Steve Barr who has been in a love fest with the UFT's Randi Weingarten. When Weingarten takes over the AFT next July, will her connections to Broad be one of the sticking points in the long-sought merger between the AFT and NEA?

The Broad prize has been much coveted by BloomKlein so they can use it politically to validate their daily reorganizations of the schools. Getting the Broad prize for NYC would be the equivalent of the Bush Administration getting the Halliburton prize for humanity.

People consider it a slam dunk they will win it this year (announcement is Sept. 19) so the Broadies can use NYC for their own political purposes: defang teacher unions, privatize as much as possible, etc.

Pretty ironic, eh, for Broad to give $1million to both BloomKlein and Weingarten? But then again, you know the mantra of this blog - that the UFT collaboration with BloomKlein has been instrumental in allowing them to do what they did to the system - sort of a 5th column. You know, like in the old WWII movies, where you are shocked to find out the supposed leader of the Resistance was actually working for the Narzi's all along.

The one chance to make a statement opposing them by holding a massive rally on May 9th was undermined by Weingarten who sold teachers on the deal by claiming the deal with Bloomberg would keep schools from being penalized for hiring higher salaried teachers. See if that's true by checking out the post: The Bronx is burning with ATR's.

Note: Leonie Haimson came up with an interesting idea for a date to hold a rally: Sept. 18, the day before the Broad prize is announced. Want to bet my pension the UFT will nix that idea?

Today's This & That - July 4, 2007

Happy Post July 4th

Rush on over to NYC Educator - DO NOT PASS GO - to read this week's Carnival of Education round-up of the blogs, where he features a few choice items from this abode. http://nyceducator.com/

There is an item from blogger and NYC teacher jd2718 "Do we really want Black and White kids to be educated not only separately, but differently?" that makes so many good points I wish I had written it myself as he analyzes some crucial issues related to the small school movement and how it has been implemented. As I pointed out in my post about how the DOE has a dog in the hunt, when it comes to this issue and will use every PR move to make sure their dog wins.

While I have had issues with jd2718 over his support for the role the former opposition caucus New Action has played with its total support for Weingarten and Unity, it was nice to see him at least raise the the possibility that the UFT should be taking more of a role on this issue besides passing resolutions and issuing reports - both PR moves from my point of view. I repeat uncle Normie's mantra: watch what the UFT leadership does, not what it says. jd2718's point below pretty much nails it:

"The United Federation of Teachers issued a report saying that we support a mix of large and small schools. But there is no mix. Some groups of neighborhoods have large schools. Some have good mini-schools. And some have ‘redesign’ and Gates mini-schools. Which groups of neighborhoods have a mix? The UFT’s resolution has never been acted on. We have never challenged in a serious way the Department of Ed’s willy-nilly opening of lousy mini-schools, or their disruption of larger schools. And today? Today the UFT is partnering with Green Dot to bring a small charter high school to…. the Bronx. We already set one up in Brooklyn. And Green Dot doesn’t have a pretend report about supporting a mix of types of schools."

I just hope New Action leader Mike Shulman doesn't get too much agita that one of his members might have gone too far to make Randi mad. Bet he gets a call from Leo Casey.

Jolanta Rohloff in today's Daily News:
"We're very pleased and relieved," said Lise Hirschberg, who heads East Harlem's Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics school's chapter of the teachers union. "Klein objects to moving bad teachers around the system, but that is apparently what they're doing in this particular case."

In her new $130,000-a-year job, Rohloff will be developing a new high school that she will run when it opens in 2008 - a job specially created for her, said schools spokeswoman Melody Meyer.

We're sure teachers will just be dying to work there. They'll probably have to hire them off the dead scroll list. Jolanta has already given U-ratings to 20% of the prospective staff before hiring anyone. Gary Babad of GBN News at the NYC Public School Parent Blog reports the real story behind the scenes and reveals who the other candidate for principal at Manhattan Center really is.


Check Samuel Freedman's article in Wed. ed section of the NY Times which I posted on the Norms Notes blog. Of note are the assinine comments of Andres Alonso regarding the overwhelming paperwork ESL teachers labor under. His blabber just reaffirms my post on my own brief experience with Alonso. I would love to hear from any teachers who actually worked with Alonso. I bet he had real disdain for his colleagues. As I said, "Good luck Baltimore."


In response to this post on ICE mail,
"I heard a rumor in the Unity grapevine that Randi is trying to set her table up for a possible nomination for Secretary of Labor should Hillary Clinton be elected President. Randi wants to appear more conservative and tougher on labor in order to have an easier nomination process before conservative Republican Senators. This could explain Randi's collaboration with BloomKlein."

Michael Fiorillo responded:
Well, if Randi wants to appear tough on labor, she's done a pretty good job by going out of her way to undermine the AFT local in Los Angeles. Her embrace of Green Dot, despite their maintaining a company union in LA, is a disgrace.

I had assumed that the green Dot ploy was her entrance onto the national stage vis-a-vis her expected assumption of the national AFT throne. Either way, duplicity and betrayal, in the guise of "new realities" and "cooperation" with management, is the order of the day.

EdNotes comment:
I totally disagree that Weingarten is interested in the Dept. of Labor position, since once out of that office she would not gain entrance back into the labor movement. Leading the AFL-CIO eventually is the perfect arc. But it all starts with the AFT presidency in July '08.


I was at a meeting last night with a bunch of people of various ages and experience in the schools who represent a wide constituency of interests in education. One of the article I read in prep was on Neo-liberalism as it relates to education by Lois Weiner. It nailed and tied together so many points related to privatization of schools, Eli Broad, the World Bank, standards, testing, etc. and the role the unions, in particular the AFT contrasted with the NEA, play in this scenario. We're working on a series of events addressing many of these issues for next year. We'll keep you posted.


I was at the annual July 4th party in Rockaway today - this is about the 30th edition we've been to - where we get to see people only this once a year. Naturally there were a bunch or retired or soon to be retired teachers. One of them works a few days a week doing PD in a small school - one of 4 or 5 occupying a large school that was closed years ago. She said that with each year things in these small schools get worse and in a few years the building will be as bad as the one that closed. She feels so bad for the newer, younger teachers and said their first year, one of the main things she does is pass out tissues. A lifetime high school teacher with an impeccable rep, she gave more insight into how the DOE has been able manipulate the grad rates through lots of subtle and not so subtle pressures to pass kids so they graduate on time. She points to the importance to the DOE of keeping students in their cohort - one of the major words we hear bandied about - and all sort of little tricks are used. Like a few days or even hours of summer school instead of a full course to pass kids for courses they have failed. And of course, teachers marking their own students' regent exams. She said she actually gets physically ill at some of the things she sees going on. There was more but it's midnight and time to go.

Tilden and Lafayette: A Tale of 2 Chapters...

....What a farce 3

The response from the Unity gang at Lafayette to the posts of comments by current and former teachers at the school is so indicative of how Unity operates. They brag about how they got rid of the doctor even though the patient died. And add on some egregious statements that confirm the charge of one teacher about how they play both sides against the middle.

Unity: The DOE had the support of the Alumni.
ICE: They distributed to all staff the recent op-ed by well-known Lafayette alumnus Jerry Della Feminina denouncing Klein for closing Lafayette and calling for a rally of alumni to keep the school open.

Unity: Support the 2005 contract and denounce the ICE person at the school for being anti-union for opposing the contract.
ICE: They ostentatiously denounce the 2005 contract as the "worst" contract ever.

The anon. Unity comment "the ICE guy MELTED during the fight against Rohloff" is interesting considering he was the one who openly was quoted in the NY Post about the lack of textbooks in articles as he stood up despite Rohloff's attacks. That has to be put in the context of the comments from the teachers who were attacked by Rohloff (as posted in both What a Farce items below) that they did not feel the Unity people really fought for them. Besides, as one of the fairest-minded people I know, the ICE guy always felt that, though Rohloff was so wrong-headed, he felt she had some positive things about her and never gave up the idea of getting her to function in a better way. Idealistic? Maybe. But he kept his eye on the prize - keeping the school open.

Contrast the actions of the Unity people at Lafayette with the way the Tilden chapter responded as both scenarios played out at the same time. Weingarten, who in the initial stages did not respond at Tilden, was forced to do so when the chapter activated itself to engaged in an active fight to keep the school open, a fight that they are still engaging in, as Meredith Kolodner pointed out in last week's article in The Chief.

I posted a series of articles on the evolving situation in Tilden on this blog. (Do a search of the blog for the Tilden tag to read them, in particular the comments of ICE's John Lawhead, one of the leaders of the fight keep Tilden open.

Of course having a user-friendly principal at Tilden helps, so the cases are not exactly equal. But the ICE person tried to get the chapter at Lafayette to unite behind the idea of keeping the school open.

When Weingarten said that Lafayette should be closed -

"It is no secret that there have been problems at Lafayette, so its closing is not surprising. We are working with the DOE to create a redesigned school - and potentially two new schools - that parents will want to send their children to and where educators will want to teach."

-that was the death knell for any action by the Unity reps there to engage in such a fight. The Unity gang owe allegiance to Unity and the leadership over the members at Lafayette - remember, there are free conventions to attend and other perks. So when the leadership decided getting Rohloff's scalp took priority over a battle to keep the school open, it was game, set and match for the demise of Lafayette. The people at Tilden may not win the fight and end up being closed anyway, but they are still in the game.

The Unity "victory" over Rohloff has resulted, and will result, in many of the teachers at Lafayette ending up as ATR's. The anon. Unity commented,

"As the unity folks at Lafayette have seniority, more than 60 years combined in teaching, they have a right to remain until excessed. Or do you and the ICE person begrudge them that?"

With the Unity abandonment of seniority, resulting in so many senior teachers under attack despite, and maybe because of their high salaries, this comment shows they are not too worried. Just another perk of being in Unity.

Atlantic Yards – and the UFT

An article on the massive project in Brooklyn in today's NY Times points to the release of documents that were only obtained through a lawsuit.

"Critics have long suggested that the project is a taxpayer-subsidized bonanza for the developer, the project’s promised jobs and subsidized housing a kind of Trojan horse for the thousands of high-end apartments that come with them. But the developer, Forest City Ratner, and state officials overseeing the project have resisted divulging much information about the project’s financial structure, confining those criticisms to the realm of speculation." [My emphasis.]

From purely an education point of view, though there is no mention of this point in the Times article, Leonie Haimson and other critics have been pointing to the fact that with all this building, there is no provision for schools. Our May 4 post "Bloomberg Vision: A Childless NY" with a link to Leonie's comments addressed that issue.

But I always come to the question: Where is the UFT on the refusal to divulge crucial information or the no-schools issue or on the enormous amount of public money being pumped into the project? Just as the UFT took an initial position supporting the Jets stadium until they jumped on the bandwagon when public sentiment turned against it, the UFT, being part of the power structure, goes along with what the power structure wants. That is the "new unionism" - a partnership, lining up with the real estate and corporate interests – have you heard of any criticism over the enormous tax breaks for corporations while telling the members there is no money for class size reduction or new schools and relying on decades old CFE suits and phony petition drives on class size?

Well, it's not really all that "new." A new book on Al Shanker backed by the UFT's best friend, millionaire Eli Broad will connect even more of the dots, green, pink or whatever. Sean Ahern has been off and running on this one already and we'll get to that in another post.

Connecting the Green Dots

(Links to full articles posted on the Norm's Notes blog)

Why Weingarten's deal with Green Dot dovetails with the general attack on public education

Following up on her Screw ball toss at the Brooklyn Cyclones game, Randi Weingarten has taken the screwing metaphor to a new level in today's announced deal with Green Dot charters. It is not just teachers the deal screws, but with all other the news today about Charter schools, her actions aid and abet the screwing of public education.

First we have a link to the LA Times version of the story where LA teacher's union president AJ Duffy rejected a deal with Green Dot. But not Randi. Watch the Leo Casey and crew at Edwize justify this one. As the NY Times version says "but their contract would be simpler than the citywide contract." Let's see how simple: "Rather than dictating the number of hours and minutes teachers must spend at the schools, it would just call for a “professional workday,” they said. The contract could also eliminate tenure, but would set guidelines for when a teacher can be dismissed."

Heard of fuzzy math? Child play compared to fuzzy contracts. NYC Educator goes into much greater detail on the contract so let's focus on other aspects. I won't even go into the issue of union democracy, where if the UFT weren't run like the Roman Empire under Augustus, there would actually be a serious discussion taking place. But the mandate given Weingarten by the 78% of working teachers who did not vote will have a long-lasting impact. By the way, has anyone seen a word mentioned about class size in this contract?

“We have never been against increasing charters, but we were against the anti-union animus in some charter schools,” Ms. Weingarten said. The Times says, "Green Dot is heavily financed by the billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad."

If one looks at Broad's agenda in San Diego (and many other places) where Anthony Alvarado got to do his magic, which was almost totally replicated in NYC by Bloomberg and Klein, which Weingarten was supposedly so critical of - and you understand why I see her as such a duplicitous collaborator whose interests dovetail more with the BloomKleins, Broads, Gates, etc. When she criticizes them it is mere rhetoric. Always follow the mantra uncle Normie lays down: Watch what Weingarten does, not what she says.

Pay attention to the very relevant David Herzenhorn piece "Patrons' Sway Leads to Friction in Charter School," also running in today's Times.

This article points to the pitfalls of the benefactor model of charter schools. While the rich Reiches gave a lot of money to Beginnings With Children school, Pfizer (across the street) donated the building. But I bet most money still comes from the public sector. Should the Reiches have such total control? What about parent and teacher roles?

Herzenhorn writes:

"The clash has exposed fault lines of wealth and class that are perhaps inevitable as philanthropists, in New York and nationwide, increasingly invest in public education, providing new schools to children in poor neighborhoods while making communities dependent on their generosity.

"And for those lucky to have such benefactors, the situation raises core questions: Who ultimately controls charter schools, which are financed by taxpayers but often rely heavily on charitable donations? Do the schools, which operate outside the control of the local school district, answer to parents, or to their wealthy founders?

"At Beginning With Children, many parents and teachers say that the Reiches’ main interest is to burnish their reputation as advocates for charter schools, and that the school’s original purpose, of catering to each child’s individual needs, is now secondary to drilling for exams in an effort to elevate scores and the Reichs’ credibility.

"The Reichs said the problem was that the board was “constituency-based”...... Among those told to quit were five parent and faculty representatives."

Well, there you have it in a nutshell. We no want constituency-based input. Sound familiar?

I have a little background with the school, which is located in District 14 in Williamsburg and was once a public school but not under control of the district (a good thing). But it did function under the UFT contract. The chapter leader used to attend the district CL meetings.

I visited a couple of times and was impressed. They were adding a grade a year and had a very progressive model of education.

But the Reich's have the same agenda as so many other"benefactors" like Broad – to take public schools away from the public – and the school became a charter school. In order to further their political agenda the school moves away from the progressive model and towards test prep.

Note in the Herzenhorn piece how quietly we find out that the Courtney Sales Ross' charter school relocated at Tweed after they failed to force their way into the NEST school and has had 4 principals in a year. In the belly of the beast with all the Tweedles running around. We don't get any Tweed press releases telling us about that. Hey, I have an idea. Instead of running around the city telling everyone how to run schools, let Klein or Chris Cerf become the principal of the school and show how it should be done. Deck chairs on the Titanic, indeed.

If we connect the Green Dots to Weingarten's deal with Steve Barr, she is treading in dangerous territory with the future of public education. When a major union spokesperson basically accepts the philanthropic model (Broad gave the UFT $1 million,) it seriously weakens the case calling for full funding of public education and gives enormous power and sway to people with a narrow agenda that goes beyond the interests of the kids.

"If you really actually believe in kids and believe in their success, those of us in education, we really shouldn't be in the sandbox fighting with each other. We should be … trying to figure out how to work together," Weingarten said.

Does she really believe this stuff? People behind Green Dot have had so many negative effects (witness the DOE/Tweedles) and she wants to sit down in the sandbox with them? I'm sure that if she taught just a bit longer than 6 months she would have a slightly different perspective. Are they sitting down in the sandbox in Long Island schools or Scarsdale, where there are no charters but schools are fully funded, as NYC Educator has pointed out numerous times about the suburban school system his daughter attends?

That Weingarten will soon be spouting this stuff nationally as AFT President is a scary prospect indeed for the future of public education. Luckily, at this point, the NEA has taken a stronger stand and this issue may pop up in merger talks when Weingarten will hope to one day lead the entire national teacher movement into oblivion. Though AFT member AJ Duffy in LA took a politically correct stand when commenting on Weingarten's deal with Green Dot, the hope is that the LA Teachers Union will lead some kind of national resistance to Weingarten's turning the AFT into a shill for the attack on public schools by wealthy benefactors with narrow agendas.

As one of the first people in the UFT to advocate for Charters as a way for teachers to take over and run schools, I had conversations with Weingarten almost 10 years ago (Tom Pappas told me "You lost 50% of your support because you favor charters.") At one point in the conversation when I was pushing the idea from the point of view of teacher power, Weingarten made a rare, but revealing, slip, saying something like, "How can we trust these people" – meaning the teachers. Realizing what she said, she shut up and said no more. But it was a rare slip, my first inkling as to which side Weingarten is really on.

(Thanks to DB for the picture.)

Randi tosses out ball

Randi Weingarten was to throw out the first ball at the Brooklyn Cyclones game Tuesday night. Teachers who have become ATR's, older, higher salaried teachers, younger and older teachers left without contractual protections, teachers doing lunch duty and potty patrol, you fill in the blanks ______ have no doubt she threw a screw ball.

Green Dot, Randi - Jeff Kaufman Comments

There's been much ado about Green Dot charters and possible collaboration between the UFT and Green Dot. Today's NY Sun addresses the issue below as does a follow-up article in the LA Daily News which I posted at Norm's Notes.

Weingarten and UFT ideologue Leo Casey (who will find a way to justify just about any UFT policy) repreesnt the "new union" movement, which means to me they are not old-line trade union leaders. Instead they look to be partners with management. (There's a lot more to analyze on the implications - another time.)

What to make of the flirtations between Weingarten and possibly LA's teacher union head AJ Duffy will also take some analysis. Jeff Kaufman's quotes below represent a mainstream view of many unionists that the underbelly of the charter movement - remember, the brainchild of Albert Shanker - is really an attack on public education and on teacher unions. Like, let's build reform on the backs of young, committed, low-salaried teachers who burn out and get replaced - like who needs tenure if you don't last long enough to gain it.)

Many young teachers who want to make a difference often enter the system with an anti-union bias, partly as a result of the general anti-union attack going on in the mass media. Meeting union hacks in schools does not help.

Being far away from the scenes in Chicago and NY I may be wrong. With Chicago and Debbie Lynch, who I initially saw as a real contrast to Weingarten (despite emails from Weingarten - where in a weird convoluted argument she attacked me for being anti woman - and Leo Casey claiming I was wrong and saying "Debbie is one of us") I was part right in terms of Lynch's attempts to make the union more democratic (I base this on reports from George Schmidt.)

I was questioned by one correspondent based on yesterday's post "LA Dreamin" where I posted that comment. My response as to how I see a comparison between AJ Duffy and Weingarten was this:

"There is a different dynamic going on based on the politics of the leadership which has a more radical bent than the UFT plus the mayor's history of being a union activist.

"Maybe a lot more trust than one would have in Bloomberg plus I believe from other stuff way more of a commitment to building a more democratic union with an activist rank and file, the total opposite to what Randi wants to do. They also come from a place of running as part of a reform in the union and in the system - not like Unity which has been part of the system as collaborators (and still is I firmly believe) for 45 years.

"These people did win -- sort of like what if ICE/TJC should ever win. We would probably have to tread carefully too given what happened to Debbie Lynch.

"It is a minefield but I could be wrong but also have a better sense of trust as to where these guys are going and their willingness to admit mistakes and backtrack.

"I know where Randi is going and it's deal making all around and no move to democratize the union. When one person makes all the decisions like Weingarten does there is always a bad result. As bad a result as when BloomKlein make all the decisions. We need checks and balances all around and when the entire UFT Ex Bd is on the payroll..."

Those in NYC who like to look at the ability of reformist movements in the unions in LA and Chicago to win an election as some kind of hope are barking up the wrong tree as the Unity Caucus equivalents in those towns had nowhere near the power and money and machine as Unity does in NYC.

End of the UFT Is Talk, After a Parley in L.A.

BY ELIZABETH GREEN - Staff Reporter of the Sun

June 11, 2007
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/56244

A possible deal with a Los Angeles charter school group has infuriated opponents of the teachers union president, Randi Weingarten, with one opposition leader decrying "the end of the union." The charter group, known as Green Dot, has been battling its local teachers union over how much to protect teachers.

Ms. Weingarten last month visited Los Angeles and held friendly meetings with each side — and left open the possibility of a partnership with the charter group. "We'd like to build a relationship," her special representative for high schools, Leo Casey, said.

Leaders of the New York City union's opposition caucus, the Independent Community of Educators, learned about the trip from a Los Angeles Times editorial, and lashed back in angry blog posts. Green Dot teachers are unionized, but not through the city union, and they lack protections such as traditional tenure or privileges for senior teachers. ICE leaders called Green Dot's contract anti-teacher.

Ms. Weingarten defended her visit with Green Dot's founder, Steve Barr, during a meeting of her union's executive committee, but she failed to satisfy some. "This is the end of the union," an ICE leader who sits on the executive committee, Jeff Kaufman, said. "She's going to leave in her wake now a real change in terms of what teachers unions are."

Mr. Kaufman's caucus won 10% of the vote in a recent UFT leadership election, but lost all its seats on the executive committee. Mr. Kaufman admitted the blow would dampen the caucus's power, but vowed to keep up pressure via blog posts.

Some education experts praised Ms. Weingarten's outreach as a rare display of leadership from a union head, contrasting it with her West Coast counterpart, A.J. Duffy, the president of United Teachers Los Angeles.

The union's battle with Green Dot escalated last month when teachers at an L.A. high school voted to abandon the public district and join Mr. Barr's group. United Teachers Los Angeles had fought previous expansion attempts by Green Dot, and a teacher wrote in the Los Angeles Times last week that the union also managed to squash teachers' push for change. (In an interview, Mr. Duffy denied that any bullying took place.)

Ms. Weingarten's visit, when she met with Messrs. Barr and Duffy, was an attempt at peacemaking, Mr. Casey said. But he said the trip also continued an ongoing conversation between Ms. Weingarten and Mr. Barr. It had been on Ms. Weingarten's schedule for two weeks — well before tensions escalated, a union spokesman said.

Ms. Weingarten said she wanted to visit the Green Dot schools, whose union status is unique among charter schools and which boast an 81% graduation rate, in order to see them for herself. After visiting two, she said she was impressed. "They are very teacher-centered," she said. "It's obvious, the teacher professionalism and collaboration that is the center of these schools."

Several sources said Green Dot's founder has been looking to expand his network into cities beyond Los Angeles. Ms. Weingarten would not say what her next step would be with Green Dot, and Mr. Barr declined to comment for this article. Mr. Casey said the relationship is part of a broader United Federation of Teachers plan to organize what he called the "progressive pole" of the charter school movement, citing groups in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Many union leaders strongly oppose charter schools, which are privately run but publicly funded. Ms. Weingarten has taken a softer stance, even opening two charter schools of her own.

"She gets that choice is coming to public education, so she's out in the front, instead of just waiting to get run over by it like some of her colleagues," Andrew Rotherham, the co-director of an education think tank, Education Sector, said.

During her trip, Ms. Weingarten also met with the philanthropist Eli Broad, who gave Green Dot $10.5 million last year.

Ed. Note: Broad also gave UFT Charters $1 million.

LA Dreamin'

Some very instructive points in this article and George Schmidt's comment comparing the reactions of teacher unions in LA, Chicago and New York. Debbie Lynch won election originally with what seemed to be a reform agenda over the Chicago equivalent of Randi Weingarten's Unity Caucus, though Debbie also had long-time ties to Al Shanker.

AJ Duffy in LA also won election with a slate of various caucuses that defeated an incumbent leadership that could be viewed as a Unity Caucus equivalent. But Duffy and his team have very different political points of view than the leadership in NYC and have a long-term strategy as opposed to the very short-term goals of the UFT which always looks for the quick PR value and then runs on to the next big thing. And there's got to be a different mind set between dealing with a mayor in LA who was a teacher union organizer and Bloomberg. But the problem with handing over control of schools to a mayor is that you never know who you might end up with. That is why any governance plan requires some serious level of oversight.

From almost the day I started teaching I thought the school system (and the UFT) was in serious need of reform. To see the reform movement captured by the likes of BloomKlein and their allies like Eli Broad nationwide is due to a great extent to the collaboration people like Randi Weingarten and other union leaders who are always defensive about protecting teacher rights because they have no vision for how a school system should look and seem more intent on impressing the powers that be and the press as to how "cooperative" they can be.

Actually, I believe they are way more in line with the BloomKleins of this world than they are with the rank and file teachers. Look at the connections with the Clintons who have played a role in these "reform" movements that end up with teacher bashing. And follow the line to Clinton billionaire buddy Ron Burkle who tried to buy the Tribune newspaper chain with Eli Broad, who has so much praise for both BloomKlein and Weingarten (he gave the UFT charter schools $1 million.)

Some of our colleagues in TJC have contacts in LA and we will monitor what is happening out there.

George comments: 6/10/07
The reason Debbie Lynch was ousted was that she didn't heed the voices of the "rank and file" against these bullshit corporate "reforms." And she just lost her bid to get back into office by a huge margin because her opponents (the Chicago version of Unity) successfully portrayed her as having sold out the membership during her brief three years in office (2001 -2004). The fact it, the "mayoral control" model of corporate school reform that the newspapers all back was in place in Chicago for six years (1995-2001) under Chicago's version of Unity before Debbie ousted them by opposing their sellouts. The exciting thing in Los Angeles is that the leadership of UTLA can't fall prey to this phony fascist version of "reform" despite what all the New Democrats" and their media are saying if the membership remains active. As we know in Chicago and you've also learned in New York City, mayoral control is not in the interest of teachers, children, or democratic public schools. No matter how big the opening bribes are. Hopefully, the Los Angeles union will reverse its support based on how much we've learned already in Chicago and New York (and Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cleveland, Detroit, and now New Orleans... among others).

George N. Schmidt Editor, Substance Chicago www.substancenews.com

Union leaders in a bind
Reform-minded UTLA chiefs struggle to win over teachers
BY NAUSH BOGHOSSIAN, Staff Writer

With momentum growing for drastic reform at Los Angeles public schools driven by the superintendent and mayor, the politically powerful teachers union finds itself on the front lines of a potentially divisive battle.

United Teachers Los Angeles' own crew of reform leaders is walking a tightrope between privately backing reform efforts it has long sought, while publicly defending the rights of a rank-and-file that is being described as staunchly rigid and unaccepting of change.

Led by President A.J. Duffy, the small team of advisers is keenly aware that it must quickly and smoothly work to engender the support of its membership or risk jeopardizing the unprecedented alignment of leaders to spark a revolution at the beleaguered school district.

After decades of failed reforms, achievement scores lagging well behind the state averages and dropout rates estimated between 24 percent and 50 percent, the lives of more than 708,000 students and teachers hang in the balance - and with that, the health of the city itself.

"I don't think it's the union leadership any longer. It's a battle between the leadership being more reform-minded than the membership and the membership dragging down what the leadership wants to do in political and classroom advances," said Jaime Regalado, director of the Edmund G. "Pat" Brown Institute of Public Affairs at California State University, Los Angeles.

"It's a tussle with the staunchly rigid rank-and-file where the reformers are on top, but they're being held back by a fear of change in the predominant majority of members."

Los Angeles teachers, who have been on the receiving end of countless promises while little has resulted from previous reform efforts, have become mistrustful of the district even as they have wielded considerable clout in district politics.

The divide is deep, especially in the wake of the backroom deal struck by the mayor with the union leadership to create Assembly Bill 1381, which would have given the mayor a substantial role in the school district.

Maclay Middle School algebra teacher Tim Henricks, who considers himself new to the profession with seven years experience, said what he sees is a membership divided, particularly between newer teachers and their more senior colleagues.

Younger teachers seem more receptive to ideas like charter schools or getting charter-like freedoms, while those who have been in the Los Angeles Unified School District system far longer may be more complacent.

"With charters, there's more freedom to do what you want without the LAUSD breathing down your neck. But the major concern is, what happens after five years and the issue (arises) of getting rid of teachers with just cause?

"It's the parents and the teachers - nothing really gets done without that, anything that's productive anyway, that moves in the right direction. Without our support, it's going to go nowhere."

Suspicious of reform
At Cleveland Humanities Magnet High, teachers have a long record of classroom success by working together closely to help students do well in core classes.

But they said that despite getting 40 percent of their graduates last year into University of California schools, they are facing increasing pressure to follow a standardized approach.
"Teachers are skeptical of the reforms that would seemingly help them because of all the strings attached," said Gabriel Lemmon, a 10th-grade philosophy teacher in the magnet program.

"Bureaucracy should fit itself around good teaching. Teaching should not fit itself around a bureaucracy."

For Duffy, the key to winning broad support for reform is local control.

"I've seen this district reorganize every 2 years for a new reform, and teachers are tired of putting their time and energy, their hearts and their souls into reforms that are not going to bring better student outcomes and more support for teachers in the classrooms and health and human service professionals at the school sites."

Mindful of election
With a union election coming next February, Duffy and his team will likely be treading carefully, especially with the district facing a deficit that might jeopardize its ability to win further increases on top of the 6 percent raise won this year.

"The union's leaders are not strongly moving forward with any reform agenda because it's a very fine line with the upcoming election," Regalado said.

And although AB 1381 is dead - defeated in the courts, with the mayor announcing he won't pursue appeals after he secured a majority on the school board - the sentiment of a "hostile takeover" is very much alive among the members who were split down the middle on support for the legislation.

As school board officials and the Mayor's Office are working quietly to develop a plan for Villaraigosa to oversee a "demonstration project" of low-performing schools, the union has sent a clear message to them: Let the schools come to you with the overwhelming consensus of teachers or we will be forced to oppose the move.

"The mayor has a nasty habit of jumping too quickly," said one official, who asked for anonymity. "What we're trying to get him to understand through back channels and get him to do is not move so quickly."

At a recent news conference announcing the mayor's decision to give up the legal fight for AB 1381, Deputy Mayor Ray Cortines emphasized that the mayor's team will not actively "pick" schools. Rather, it will look to schools that ask for the office's involvement.

Allaying fears
The mayor, a former UTLA organizer and committed union liberal, has insisted his agenda puts teachers first. He has formed an alliance with new Superintendent David Brewer III, won majority control of the school board control and embraced union leaders. But it will take all his powers of persuasion to assuage fears of the rank-and-file.

"The public schools in Los Angeles are not going to be able to change unless you have buy-in on the part of the teachers, administrators, and parents," said Kent Wong, director of the UCLA Labor Center.

"The fact that the mayor came out of the teachers union, and the fact that he's a very persuasive, charismatic leader, the potential still exists for the mayor to play an important role in shaping the discussion on how to best improve the schools in Los Angeles and getting buy-in from the teachers to make that happen."

Villaraigosa said he believes any reform effort has to come from the "ground up, not from the top down," and that the union is "key to any effort to reform our schools." He admitted there will be challenges with the union, but he repeatedly emphasized one point: his long-standing relationship with the powerful organization.

"I've got a long history with them and we go way back, and my expectation is that we'll be able to work just fine," he said. "Challenges are opportunities and I can't tell you that there won't be some challenges, but I can tell you that I've got a long history with them, a very, very long history, and I think it's one that will provide the foundation for a successful partnership."

Need for change
Brewer insists he wants to work with the union but also made clear he means those who share the reform vision.

"Believe it or not, there are people inside the union that really understand that they need to change, and we just have to work with those people," he said.

What the mayor, Brewer and the union are seeking to achieve are the same core reform concepts: Small schools, greater local autonomy with teachers and principals having more control over budget and curriculum, and streamlining the bureaucracy to redirect those funds to classrooms.

Few can deny that teachers would embrace all those ideas, but the key to getting their support will likely come down to the process and showing teachers they are valued as professionals who have something to say about the reform proposals.

Wong said with public education on the forefront of public discourse, teachers feel under attack.

"There is a concern on the part of many teachers that their input is not being fully appreciated, so they resent it when people use the discussion about school reform as an opportunity to make disparaging remarks about teachers, that it's their fault," Wong said.
Union leaders believe their fatal political misstep was the decision to strike the backroom deal on AB 1381 with the mayor without involving UTLA's governing bodies.

Now they are working hard to educate teachers about the different reform options and what they would mean to them.

"These changes cause so much uncertainty for many teachers - we're not the most revolutionary of folk - and uncertainty causes folks to get very conservative in their thinking," Cleveland High's Magnet Program coordinator Lemmon said.

"So I don't know. I hope that we do something, but it seems that bottom-up or top-down, at the end of the day, it all seems about the same."
naush.boghossian@dailynews.com
(818) 713-3722

Merit Pay in Play

The NY Sun's Elizabeth Green reports that some schools will give individual teachers merit pay for performance. Randi Weingarten objects - sort of. Way back when, I attempted to bring resolutions to the Delegate Assembly calling for the UFT to refuse all proposals to institute merit pay, Weingarten blocked them by not calling on me for months. I finally got the floor at around 6:15 pm on a day when Unity Caucus was heading to an election victory party at the Hilton afterwards. Boy were they pissed that they had to listen to me for 5 minutes. Naturally they turned it down. After all, Randi had supported the plan in District 19 (East New York in Brooklyn) that gave merit pay to entire staffs for rising scores. And her plan when Giuliani was still mayor to pay summer school teachers for high scores with free airline tickets caused much hilarity all around. (That proposal has disappeared from her resume.)

Stacey Gauthier co-director of operations at the Renaissance's Charter School doesn't understand "why the union wouldn't want to support their members getting extra income."

Shame on her to think think the UFT leadership has any core values beyond money. Remember extended days, times, years, lunch duty, and the entire litany of givebacks? So when they support "a plan that would reward entire schools for meeting performance goals, but would not differentiate between teachers" that is just a foot in the door for full merit pay where teachers can get to compete with each other for the best kids and to see who can spend more time doing test practice. Sort of like let's give the first fireman up the ladder bonuses.)

The UFT is in favor of teachers at different schools competing against each other (there's a good basis for union solidarity) on the basis of no performance goals other than a narrow range of tests. And so soon after the UFT came out with a report that laments the impact of testing which just goes to prove the mantra: watch what they do not what they say. Randi's actions rather than words shows she supports the testing/standards malestrom that is destroying public education.

Note what Randi said:
"But the union's president, Randi Weingarten ... said unionized schools could not enact merit pay without renegotiating their contracts, a process the UFT could halt. "It has to be negotiated," she said. "CEI or the school leadership is not going to unilaterally do this."

Not that she is unilaterally opposed to merit pay and giving the powerful reasons why teachers who support the idea should stand against it. But that things have to be negotiated. In the UFT lexicon everything is for sale.

The entire UFT leadership should be sworn to take the hypocritic oath.

Teachers in Wisconsin have written:
"Those in government who would like to bring about the demise of public education in the interest of privatization have a multi-faceted approach. Among them is paying teachers based on the test scores of children. Plain and simple this is an attack on public education and those who teach in the public schools. "Merit pay won't make our classrooms less crowded, won't make our schools safer, won't get parents more involved in their children's schoolwork... won't improve teaching or pupil learning...(it) would encourage divisive competition in a profession that requires cooperation and teamwork... (and it would be unfair given the uncontrollable factors) that children's learning is also affected by circumstances related to their home environment, health care, nutrition, and other factors", so says Adam Urbanski, in MERIT PAY WON'T WORK IN SCHOOLS."

The Wave - School Scope Column

-- will appear in the June 1st edition

DOE To Eliminate Job Of Principal

As reported by Gary Babad (Gadfly News): In a stealth announcement, the NY City Department of Education today released the news that it will be eliminating the position of principal in all of its schools by the start of the 2007-2008 school year. Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein, weekending in an undisclosed location in East Hampton, released the announcement in Dan's Papers, a Hamptons-based give-away publication. Reached on his beach cell phone by this reporter, Chancellor Klein elaborated on the decision. "In every single one of our schools, principals draw the highest salaries. Eliminating those salaries will allow us to get the funds directly back into the classroom where the money belongs. It's a clear, simple business strategy: cut out the middle man."

How exactly will this new plan work? As Chancellor Klein explained, teachers will be able to choose from a menu of Supervision Support Organizations. "Some," he said, "called Big Bucks Supervision Organizations (BBSOs), will be funded entirely by Bill Gates. We're in discussion with him about that right now. Another option, which we're calling Throw Them A Bone Supervision Organizations (TTABSOs), might be offered by former principals. Some of our exiting principals might want to take advantage of the Memorial Day holiday to throw together a plan and submit it to us first thing Tuesday morning. And the third choice on the menu will be our Up The Creek Without A Paddle option (UTCWAP). Those teachers who opt to go the UTCWAP route can choose their Supervision Supports a la carte."

Gary does this regularly on the NYC Public School Parents blog (http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/). But BloomKlein provide oh so much material.

People not directly involved in public education tell me they can make no sense of my columns. That it’s like trying to read another language. Aside from my natural tendency to be confusing, writing about the NYC DOE under BloomKlein is like a trip through the fun house in an amusement park. Well, at least for us retirees. For people still working in the system, it’s more like Nightmare on Elm St. So what about all those SSO’s, PSO’s, ESO’s, and LSO’s? This is NOT a joke, for all you civilians who happened to accidentally wander into this column, most likely never to emerge.

Okay, okay. If you’re trapped and can’t get out, let me try to explain it in one sentence. BloomKlein destroyed the structure of the school system not once but twice and every school is now a free agent (the Yankees were bidding on one of the PSO’s) and can choose amongst all these acronyms. If you insist on knowing what all this stuff stands for –

There are three types of SSO’s (School Support Organizations):
Empowerment Support Organization (ESO): schools choosing this option will join other schools in a network and choose how to receive support
Learning Support Organization (LSO): four organizations to be led by former regional superintendents
Partnership Support Organization (PSO): non-profit groups under contract to provide services

And the winner is...

Empowerment (35% of the systems almost 1500 schools).... and amongst the LSO’s, former Region 3 Superintendent Judy Chin making a spectacular showing at 27%. Spectacular compared to the other three LSO’s. Region 8’s Marsha Lyles (12%), Laura Region 2’s Laura Rodriguez (8%) and our own Region 5’s Kathleen Cashin (7%).

Now mind you, these four gals (where have all the men gone or does Klein have a problem) were the big winners in the sweepstakes over all the other regional superintendents and were then sent off to compete with each other. (An interesting sidenote is the ethnic breakdown of the fab four: Asian, Hispanic, African-American and White.)

Had enough? Sorry, there’s more. Chin’s network is called the Integrated Curriculum and Instruction LSO, or ICI. Got it? And the others? Lyles (Community), Rodriguez (Leadership) and Cashin (Knowledge Network.)

Oy vey! Can I get out of this column? Now! Sorry poor readers, I have to take a stab at breaking some of this down.

Other than Empowerment which may be coming from the newer principals, especially the Leadership Academy trained attack dogs without deep political ties to the old districts or regions, the home boroughs of Chin (Eastern Queens), Lyles (North Brooklyn) and Rodriguez (East Bronx) broke out as expected.

Cashin was the anomaly with a base in southeast Brooklyn and southwestern Queens. She got 55 schools in Brooklyn and only 35 schools in Queens, 4 from Staten Island, 2 from Manhattan and 0 in the Bronx. What explains her poor showing? Having received favorable press for going against the grain of BloomKlein with a more structured curriculum, cooperation with the UFT hierarchy and being the darling of the right-wing critics of BloomKlein (the phonics police) one would have expected a better showing. The NY Times article made the point of how few of the schools in Region 5 went for Klein’s Empowerment Zone baby last year. Was she sabotaged from within? Or did some of Cashin's constituents vote with their feet? Who can wend their way through the Byzantine DOE system?

I wouldn’t count Cashin out in the long-term. After the deluge of BloomKlein, when the Thermidorian Reaction (the revolt in the French Revolution against the excesses of the Reign of Terror) takes place, Cashin may well find herself as the Chancellor when the bobsey twins are out of office.

Judy Chin's team ran a great campaign (this IS all about the kids, right?) She has a reputation as the most benign Superintendent who gave her people the most leeway and the least hassle. Most of Region 3 probably stayed put. She made the popular Superintendent of Region 4, Charles Amundson, a deputy and a lot of Region 4 went with her. (Amundsen was a major backer of the robotics program that I worked for in the region and is one of the most pleasant mucky mucks I have met.) Amundsen also has a base in Staten Island and Chin got almost half of the schools in that borough.

All the LIS’s and PIS’s and who knows what from the former districts/regions and now back to districts who are still looking for jobs (think any of them are going back to the classroom?) will gravitate to Chin, who will have tremendous hiring power over all the others.

New Vision led the non-profits with 5% but they have been tabbed as extortionists in the past as they steal entire schools when large high schools are closed. Being the bag people for the Bill Gates money certainly helps New Vision.

Changes at the UFT Too

Randi Weingarten, BloomKlein’s Consigliore, also announced changes, moving the affable Michael Mendel from Staff Director to Executive Assistant to the President and elevating attack dog Jeff Zahler to staff director to ride herd over the staff and to stamp out any opposition while Weingarten traipses away to Washington as president of the AFT, most likely in July 2008 or 2010.

Weingarten’s goal is way bigger than AFT Presidency. A national merger with the much larger NEA would put her in position to head the massive combined union that would be the largest in the nation and set her up to head the entire AFL-CIO, a unique position for a woman, especially from the non-trades.

Who will replace her in the UFT? The betting has been that it will be former Rockaway resident and long-time Wave reader Michelle Bodden, currently UFT Vice-President for Elementary School. Many UFT staffers who are tired of Weingarten’s act are hoping for the change, as Bodden is extremely popular both in the union and in the schools.

But the UFT is just as Byzantine as the DOE and the changes announced are indicative that Weingarten, following in the footsteps of her predecessors Sandra Feldman and Al Shanker, will not give up the UFT presidency when she goes to the AFT. The AFT president has little real power but lots of prestige. Power resides in the locals and the UFT is the big enchilada in the AFT. To hand over her power base even to a hand-picked successor is a risk. When Feldman elevated Weingarten there was friction between them as Feldman felt she still had the right to tell Weingarten what to do. Weingarten was quick to purge certain Feldman loyalists who did not go along with the program, but most switched in a heartbeat. Would Weingarten fall into the same trap?

The recent UFT election was very important to Weingarten in that the lack of ability of the opposition to make a real dent gave her free reign to get away with holding both the AFT and UFT positions and I'm convinced she will run for UFT President again in 2010 even if she is in Washington and will fly in to run Delegate Assemblies and put out fires.

Both Shanker and Feldman had obvious lines of succession in place so they were able to give up the UFT Presidency at some point. For instance, as far back as the late 80's it was clear that Weingarten was going to take Feldman's place and they quickly moved to get her a teaching license and put her part-time in a safe school. Weingarten has not been as far-sighted, a deep level of paranoia being one of them. But hey, absolute power corrupts absolutely and all that crap. Experienced observers of the UFT know all the signs that will point to a successor.
And the successor is..... no less than Randi Weingarten herself.