UFT: Bleak House

"The unions did not gain any clear benefit from the deal, other than shielding themselves from criticism that they were hurting the state’s chances in Race to the Top."
- NY Times


We hate to tell you so, but we told you so. That the higher the percentage of the vote for Michael Mulgrew, the more likely it was that the Unity Caucus leadership would be freed to give up more without worrying about the reaction of the members. First it was the rubber room agreement, which even without seeing it and knowing the political landscape, we could predict would end up as a losing proposition for teachers.

Now comes the latest agreement by the union Agreement Will Alter Teacher Evaluations that will sink us to new depths - until the next time. Here's the skinny from the NY Times:

The State Education Department and New York’s teachers’ unions have reached a deal to overhaul teacher evaluations and tie them to student test scores, brokering a compromise on an issue the unions had bitterly opposed for years.

The agreement, reached in time for the state’s second bid at $700 million in federal education grants, would scrap the current system whereby teachers were rated simply satisfactory or unsatisfactory. Instead, annual evaluations would place teachers in one of four categories — highly effective, effective, developing and ineffective. While the deal would not have any immediate effect on teacher pay, it could make it easier for schools to fire teachers deemed subpar.

Teachers would be measured on a 100-point scale, with 20 percent points based on how much students improve on the standardized state exams. Another 20 percent would be based on local tests, which would have to be developed by each school system. After two years, 25 percent would be based on the state exams and 15 percent would come from the local tests.

The unions — the New York State United Teachers and the United Federation of Teachers, the city’s union — did not gain any clear benefit from the deal, other than shielding themselves from criticism that they were hurting the state’s chances in Race to the Top. And union leaders who backed the plan could face significant backlash from members, particularly at a time when many districts are planning for layoffs.

The remainder of the evaluation will come from observations from principals and other teachers, and other measures. If teachers are rated ineffective for two consecutive years, they would face firing through an expedited hearing process that must conclude within 60 days. Currently hearings can drag on for several months.

The only inaccuracy here is that there will be little backlash or consequences from the members. The election is over and the rest of the union bodies are locked up by Unity and their New Action lackeys. Am I beginning to sound like "people are getting what they asked for"?

We told you that Mulgrew was more style than substance and would turn out to be Randi light. Check out how the AFT in Colorado and in New Jersey is caving on many issues while the NEA is putting up a semblance of a fight. I will say this time and again. Watch Mulgrew and the 800 Unity caucus members we are paying for in Seattle this summer cave into every sell-out policy.

Watch New Action Mulgrew supporter bloggers try to explain this one away - maybe by raising some questions in a disingenuous "who me" manner while remaining silent at Delegate Assemblies and Executive Board meetings.

I'm more proud than ever to be a 9 per cent dissenter rather than a 91% Mulgrew assenter.

Coming soon:
Merit pay based on the above - leading to total salary schedules being revamped.

And of course, lifting the charter school cap resulting in the UFT loss of another 3% of the members as they flail about helplessly trying to organize these teachers into the union - with a separate and unequal contract. Look for a dues increase to make up the shortfall so Unity can continue to live the life style they are accustomed to.

I'm off to the Pakter hearing. Reports later.

What Did Randi Know and When Did She Know It?

The shot that was heard around the NYC teaching corps was fired on Martin Luther King Day as teachers awoke to a front page article in the NY Times announcing that a secret program was in effect to evaluate teachers based on test scores.

Rather than argue the case against, we want to focus on the role, or lack of role the UFT has played.

With every passing day more and more teachers see that the UFT is not on their side but acts as an intermediary for the powers that be. In essence, they represent the interests of people like Bloomberg and Klein to the members, using obfuscation and confusion to give the members the impression they are on your side.

If you're asking why they function this way, we would have to delve into the history of the labor movement and the role union leaders have played to control the militancy of the members - militancy that could threaten their own power.

Randi Weingarten has known about the program for months but kept quiet about it - she claims she did not know the specific schools which we all know would have been easy for them to find out and warn the teachers. And even if they couldn't find out, a public exposure at the time would have allowed teachers in all schools to confront their principals and ask point blank if they were part of the program. That would have forced them to tell them or basically lie to their faces. At the very least the UFT could have thrown a monkey wrench into the DOE plans but chose the sounds of silence.

Therefore, view Randi Weingarten's words of outrage - I guess she wasn't all too outraged all these months - and promise to fight the plan as the usual empty words designed to obfuscate the issue and confuse the members.


Marjorie Stamberg has written a strong piece posted at the ICE blog:

DOE's Secret Plan for Merit Pay...Without the Pay!

Here are a few choice excerpts related to the UFT's role in all this:

Naturally they had to do it in secret.

The Times revealed that that the DOE has a program in which 2,500 teacher in 140 schools across the city are being evaluated on the basis of their students' test scores.

Did you know about this? Of course not. Because they've kept it under wraps. Now Randi has a statement out (on the UFT website), calling the secret program misguided and claiming it is in contradiction with the "commitment...to collaboration and working together.. in the School Wide Bonus Program." No, there's no contradiction--this is all part of the same program and the UFT leadership has acted as enablers.

The Times said that Randi Weingarten and the UFT knew about this secret program for months and said nothing to the teachers! In a quote, Randi said she could not reveal it because she was told "confidentially" by the DOE and did not know which specific schools were involved. She said she "had grave reservations about the project and would fight if the city tried to use the information for tenure or formal evaluations or even publicized it." (So now it's public--I wonder what she's going to do?)

But we should all ask our UFT reps what they knew about this secret plan and when they knew it.

As members of the UFT executive board, and as district UFT reps, were they informed about the existence of this program before today? Did they know about it when they were asking us to be part of this agenda? Or did Randi keep it from them as well?

I urge you to read the entire Stamberg piece.

Some of the best commentary is over at NYC Educator where his cohort Reality Based Educator did a piece yesterday - and make sure to read the comments.

ICE mail also had quite a bit of discussion and I'll put some of that up in a future post.

One of the themes of the Times piece is the usual "teacher quality is the most important determiner claptrap. Of course, Weingarten and her political cohorts the Clintons say this all the time, which puts the blame for failure clearly on the teacher. So I don't believe the UFT is against this plan philosophically.

But you know my view of Randi and the rest of the Unity Caucus crew is that they are 5th column collaborators, or, Vichyists, if you will.

Michael Fiorillo echos some of these thoughts in a post to ICE-mail:

Apparently, the UFT fundamentally seems to agree with them: rhetoric made for public consumption aside, they clearly support the "testing as achievement" regime, as confirmed by their support of a merit pay plan that enshrines testing, use of management-framed data in making tenure decisions, passivity regarding testing mandates stemming from NCLB, testing used in rating and school-closing decisions, etc.

This is what a "bi-partisan," "post-ideological" political landscape looks like: corporate self-interest and stealth privatization masquerading as "reform," and ambitious union misleaders helping them manage the transition.