#AFT100, #AFT16 Day 2 Post 2: Breaking Shocker - AFT Endorses Hillary

In an enormous surprise, the AFT just endorsed Hillary Clinton for president. Randi Weingarten expressed shock at the outcome given the low key level of AFT organizational support for Hillary.

Seriously folks -- deed is done, let's move on. I've never been a Hillary hater and anyone who says she lies more than most other politicians is nuts - and Trump has 10 lies a minute. I am taking under consideration the idea that beating Trump overwhelmingly trumps voting 3rd party.

Here are my previous 2 posts from the convention in reverse order:

• #AFT100, #AFT16 - Day 2 - First Posting of the Day...
• #AFT100, #AFT16: Waiting for Hillary, Waiting, Wai...

Arthur, Jonathan and I took a long walk to an area known as Eat Street where we found a Vietnamese place - that coffee with condensed milk is like Jet fuel. Gloria and Lisa made copies of the MORE leaflet while we were gone. When we got back they along with Jia and Gladys had distributed many of the leaflets to delegates going in - I saw more than one Unity guy almost choke.

Our leaflet deals with the Unity leaflet attacking MORE for supporting Opt-out -

Dexit -World-Wide Populist Revolt Against Elite from Left and Right Spells Bad News for Both Parties in Long Run

Dexit is the theme of this post. Which I stole from Sean Crowley who says he stole it from a comment on Arthur's blog. There's a good facebook debate going on regarding the Democratic Party. Stay and fight or go? Arthur linked to an interesting piece (see below) with this comment:

At this point the only reason I remain a Democrat is to vote in the primaries. Obama fooled me once, broke my heart, and left me awfully skeptical. Who's gonna stand up for working Americans? We have a governor who ran on a platform of going after unions and a presidential candidate who talks school closings, opposes a living wage, and says we're never gonna get single payer. Who've we got left to support?

On the larger scale it may mean we are revisiting the 1920s-40s of a century ago. Are the dictators coming? Hitler was once a funny little man with an even funnier mustache who was ridiculed. 

Here are a few notes I took yesterday as the Brexit story unfolded:

Does history repeat itself? Will it?

Are we entering a version of global politics of a century ago? Will the 2020s be like the 1920s? Will the 2030s be like the 1930s?

Isolationism
coming apart of 70 year post ww2 euro unity?
resurgent nationalism
economic dislocation helps the right - dictators all over the place

Separate Trump the man from some of the ideology. Imagine a slicker Trump? Marine la Pen disavowed her Trump-like father to slicken up the message. Hungry, Poland, etc. on the right.

Have Al Quada and ISIS won by destabilizing the west? Putin too?

Elites in all countries flourished while manufacturing and other jobs disappeared - elites - Dems and Rep - said or did nothing - didn't care.

There is a lot of anti-Democratic Party and anti-Hillary stuff floating around today. I mean Cuomo is the NY State chair for the convention? Vomit now.

Dear Democratic Party, I’m Leaving You and I’m Taking the Kids

I want to believe we can save the Democratic Party…
But if we can’t, we will walk away..
And build something new and inspiring.....

https://theindependentthinker2016.wordpress.com/2016/06/23/dear-democratic-party-im-leaving-you-and-im-taking-the-kids/

I have too much to say in one post. There are a few things floating around that should be of concern to Hillary and her Randi acolyte, especially after the Brexit vote. I know the things we hear about the differences from here - Britain is 85% white and we are 66% white - and that is a big difference. If the Republicans had a slicker less onerous candidate than Trump it would be a landslide for them and might come close to wiping out the Democratic Party - my only hope that something new could rise in its place - shades of the 1850s.

There are lots of comments on  my post:  Does Brexit Shock and Awe Forecast POTUS Election - and UFT Internals too

One comment said:

Trump is a "slicker" Ross Perot. Remember how right Perot was ? "That giant sucking sound" you hear are all of the jobs that will leave the U.S. with acts like NAFTA. Well, he was completely correct ! Now that giant sucking sound is the entire country now, across the board.

Good point - except for the followup comments that Obama is a racist - like saying Obama is a socialist. Even if you believe that don't share it because it negates the good points made. Obama leaned over backwards to minimize race - and why do you consider him black when he is half white? He may look black but he was brought up white - and the very fact that he had to deal with issues which related to how he looked on the outside is the very essence of why people of color have different experiences. Do you doubt that if Obama looked like his mother his life would have been different? Then you'd recognize the essence of institutional racism. And imagine how so many white people who think of blacks as lower than them are seething every time they see the WHITE HOUSE in the hands of the Obamas.

A comment from Roseanne McCosh on why she is voting for Trump:

If Trump wins, it will be the anti politics-as-usual wave that carries him to the White House. I rode the wave with Bernie and will now ride the wave with Trump. I truly see it as the only way to wake up the Democratic Party. I understand that people may disagree with those who think like I do but what I can't understand is how you can't understand why people like me are voting for Trump. Claims that we aren't "thinking people" or mocking his hair and his speech impediment don't matter to Trump supporters. Some buy his rhetoric. Others, like myself, are willing to accept whatever comes our way with him because we are tired of being told by dems that they are on the side of working and middle class people while their actions contradict their words. Obama was bad for teachers. Clinton will be bad for teachers. Cuomo is bad for teachers. Dems have not been good for unionized workers at all. So there really is no difference between them and the republicans other than the republicans tell us up front that they hate us. As I said....I get it if you disagree. If you think Clinton will be a better president than Trump, you have your reasons and that's your right. But to claim you don't understand why Trump has more than neandertals and racists supporting him means you just don't want to understand. Plenty of teachers and other unionized workers I know are voting for Trump--and they are not racist idiots. They, like me, are tired of the democrats and their bullshit. And as a result, we are willing to back the other guy because we genuinely believe that a vote for Clinton is telling the democrats it's okay to screw us anytime you want because we will give you our vote regardless of what you do. I'm not willing to do that anymore. And I'm also no longer willing to give my vote to a third party that has zero chance of winning. The mere fact that Clinton was endorsed by Randi, who sells us out time and time again, is reason enough for me to vote for Trump. If every teacher committed to voting for the guy/gal Randi doesn't want us to vote for, her political clout would be gone. Agree or disagree but please stop saying you don't understand why. Roseanne McCosh reply to EdNotes: Does Brexit Shock and Awe Forecast POTUS ...":

Roseanne is not voting for Trump because she loves him but because she hates the Dems more. I and many others agree with her - floating around now is: the lesser of 2 evils is still evil. [Make sure to read the loyalty oath signing Unity slug comment on how MORE can accept a Trump supporter].

I think she is wrong to vote for Trump - she may not be a racist but she is joining racist KKK people with her vote --- white supremacists will vote in droves for Trump -- if I went into a voting booth and voted for him I would feel their slime. If your conscience won't let you vote for Hillary there has to be a conscience about a Trump vote.

But some of Roseanne's rationale for the "benefits" of a Trump win are not nuts. Hillary wins and we are now talking lesser of 2 evils in 2020 - and she could easily lose in 2020. Roseanne puts forth the Trump-apocalypse  theory -- he can destroy the Republican Party while the left undoes the Dems.

I disagree with Roseanne on the 3rd party vote -- The Democratic Party will not change - they will keep putting up phony fronts. Only a growing 3rd party can really stop them - it happened very fast in Italy over the past few years. I don't know if Green is the answer but if the Bernie people get active there is a chance. Jill Stein is polling 7% right now - the difference between Hillary and Trump. So a vote for Green builds the cache and influence of a 3rd party - only that threat will force change om the Dems. And really, if Trump turns into the North Korean guy you may not want your vote for him on your conscience.

Here is food for thought:


https://theindependentthinker2016.wordpress.com/2016/06/23/dear-democratic-party-im-leaving-you-and-im-taking-the-kids/

The Wrath of Steve Conn: Wildcat Sickout in Detroit After Randi Weingarten Undermines Union - Will Detroit Influence Friedrichs Decision?

A “substantial” number of teachers from at least 40 schools in Detroit’s public school district will participate in a “sickout” on Monday, the Guardian has learned. The move for teachers to simultaneously call in sick, fueled by frustration over large class sizes and “abominable” working conditions, could close nearly half the district.

Finally, some of you might be saying, a teacher union showing some militancy. Not so fast. The teacher union, which has been even more weakened than it was due to repeated Randi/AFT interventions, seems to be playing no role as they usually do in putting the breaks on militancy.

Nor consider this an outrage: "An estimated 41 cents out of every state dollar appropriated for students in Michigan is spent on debt service, according to an analysis by the Citizens Research Council."

Imagine that. Have you heard a word from Randi and crew that taking away almost half the money from children for debt service is obscene and must be resisted? Screw the bondholders. They took their shot and lost.

What happens when there is not much of a union left to sell out?

What happens if Friedrichs, opening today at SCOTUS, weakens a union to such an extent that teachers left to their own devices and without a union to put the breaks on them actually begin to organize themselves?

Don't think that this threat and what is going on in Detroit won't have some influence on the decision. People in power, from state and local governments through school boards may be seeing the nightmare of not having cozy unions like the UFT and AFT around to undermine militancy.

Friday’s closures brought to five the number of DPS buildings that were closed at least one day this week because of teacher sickouts, a tactic former Detroit Federation of Teachers president Steve Conn takes credit for implementing.... Detroit News

Detroit is an example of how Unity Caucus will undermine a local in danger of going rogue. We've reported on how Randi and AFT crew took charge in Detroit after Steve Conn was elected president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers by having him charged with something or other and throwing him out of the union.

Conditions in classrooms are “abominable”, said Steve Conn, a teacher and former president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers who was removed from office for alleged misconduct in August. Conn has vowed to contest those charges.

Detroit has been on our list of Randi Sellouts since she brokered another one of those contracts loaded with ed deform provisions that ultimately

undermine teachers and the union (see Newark).

Given the history of Randi/Unity Caucus non-militancy, to me it was clear that the DFT now under her control would have little to do with a sickout. Our leaders are perfectly comfortable with debt service coming first, in contrast to our pals in Chicago who have put the influence of the banks in siphoning money out of schools front and center.

Now for my anti-left/social justice friends out there, Steve Conn is from the left and a big social justice guy. That infuses militancy not stops it.

In fact, the only group to oppose Randi and her Unity crew at recent AFT elections is Steve Conn's By Any Means Necessary (BAMN).

In the articles below I don't see one comment out of the union. Let's watch this play out when Randi offers to come in and "mediate". She despises Conn and this should be fun. (I have some great video of Steve disrupting Randi's speech at a rally in Detroit during the AFT2012 convention.)

If you want some background here are some ednotes links to the Detroit situation going back to 2008:

Ed Notes Online: Randi's Nightmare: DETROIT TEACHERS ELECT ...

Jan 17, 2015 ... Randi's Nightmare: DETROIT TEACHERS ELECT STEVE CONN FROM EON/ BAMN TO HEAD DFT. Randi must be banging her head against ...

Ed Notes Online: The Trial of Steve Conn: Is Attack on Detroit Union ... Aug 4, 2015 ... The Detroit Federation of Teachers executive board put president Steve Conn on trial this morning for conduct detrimental to the union.

Ed Notes Online: Randi's Nightmare Continues: Steve Conn Sworn ... Jan 28, 2015 ... Conn, who has run for DFT president about a dozen times before, credits his victory to members being fed up with the "fiasco disaster" that ...

Ed Notes Online: More on Detroit Union Elections: Steve Conn and ...

Nov 17, 2008 ... So what's going on in Detroit with a slate of pro Green Dot so-called "reformers" ( see post previous to this) and Steve Conn running in the ...

Ed Notes Online: Detroit Union Election - Is Randi guy in trouble? 38 ... Dec 6, 2010 ... Detroit teacher Steve Conn (above center) spoke to the Peace and Justice Caucus of the American Federation of Teachers on July 10, 2010 ...

Ed Notes Online: Randi Invades Detroit Dec 9, 2015 ... Aug 4, 2015 - The Detroit Federation of Teachers executive board put president Steve Conn on trial this morning for conduct detrimental to the ...

Detroit braces for 'sickout' by teachers frustrated by class sizes and conditions

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jan/10/detroit-sickout-teachers-frustrated-class-sizes-con

A ‘substantial’ number of educators are expected to be absent from at least 40 schools in a district facing financial calamity with liabilities of $3.5bn

Ryan Felton in Detroit

Sunday 10 January 2016 15.26 EST
 

A “substantial” number of teachers from at least 40 schools in Detroit’s public school district will participate in a “sickout” on Monday, the Guardian has learned. The move for teachers to simultaneously call in sick, fueled by frustration over large class sizes and “abominable” working conditions, could close nearly half the district.

Detroit schools close due to teacher sickout in protest of education reform

Detroit teachers have recently staged numerous such organized mass absences from work, prompting closures at some of the largest schools in the city of 680,000.
State and local education officials have criticized what they call an “unethical” approach to raising concerns that they say hurts students the most.

Teachers say students are already devastated by conditions in the district, which is facing financial calamity with liabilities of $3.5bn.

Last week, nearly a half-dozen schools closed for at least one day due to teacher sickouts. On Monday that number could climb, according to two sources with knowledge of the plan who spoke to the Guardian.

It is unclear what impact the pledges will have on school closures, but such a large-scale demonstration could prompt the closure of nearly half the districts’ 103 schools, which include an estimated 47,000 students.

Conditions in classrooms are “abominable”, said Steve Conn, a teacher and former president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers who was removed from office for alleged misconduct in August. Conn has vowed to contest those charges.

“I’ve been a resident of Detroit for 30 years … my daughter grew up in the neighborhood, went to Detroit public schools, and the conditions increasingly, especially since 2007 with the financial crisis, have been awful,” he told the Guardian.

Another source with knowledge of plans for the demonstration said 90% of teachers at one school had voted to participate in the sickout. Organizers received “pledges of substantial participation” from teachers in at least 40 schools, the source said.

Detroit’s public schools have been a problem for Michigan’s governor, Rick Snyder, a Republican who ushered the city into the largest municipal bankruptcy in US history. Most observers agree the success of Detroit is contingent upon whether its schools can be fixed.

Snyder has made a $715m proposal to overhaul the failing district in 2016. It has so far received little support in the Michigan legislature.

Asked about the spate of sickouts, David Murray, a spokesman for Snyder, said: “Detroit children need to be in school. In addition to their education, it’s where many children get their best meals and better access to the social services they need. There are certainly problems that [need] to be addressed, quickly.”

Snyder’s plan would eliminate debt in the district that is equal to $1,100 per child, Murray said. That was “money that could be better spent in the classroom, lowering class sizes, raising pay and improving benefits”.
Tom Pedroni, an associate professor at Wayne State University, said the governor’s plan was commendable for “taking seriously the notion that Detroit public schools needs debt relief”.

“We know that with the current debt figures if the issue is not addressed soon, Detroit public schools students will be losing [nearly half of the state’s per-pupil funding total],” Pedroni said, adding: “It’s unconscionable that students lose that to debt service.”

The problem with Snyder’s plan, Pedroni said, was that it relied on governing the school district with a board of appointees, not elected members. Since 2009, under a state-appointed emergency manager, the elected board has been effectively neutered.

“There’s currently a lot of debate over whether those appointees for the new Detroit school board [in Snyder’s proposal] would be mayoral appointees or gubernatorial appointees,” Pedroni said.

“But to me, really all of those are inexcusable because what I think we see happening in the district in Detroit is really an indictment of the sort of heavy-handed power from the executive branch without any checks or balances.”

Pedroni said this was similar to what has taken place in the nearby city of Flint. There, a state-appointed emergency manager has been alleged to have decided to use a local river as the city’s main water source. The move has been linked to an increased level of lead in household water supply.
When in 1999 the state first stepped in and overhauled the governance of Detroit schools, the district’s budget carried a $93m-surplus. According to an analysis by the Citizens Research Council, a Michigan-based policy research group, in the most recent fiscal year the district reported a budget deficit of nearly $216m.

An estimated 41 cents out of every state dollar appropriated for students is spent on debt service, according to the council’s report.

“Despite being under the control of a state-appointed emergency manager since 2009, Detroit public schools, the state’s largest district, is failing academically and financially,” the report said.

Despite a depleted school enrollment, class sizes have increased and teachers have repeatedly taken pay cuts. Only one-third of high school students are proficient in reading, according to Snyder’s office.

Teachers say students are being judged unfairly. In an open letter to the Detroit public schools emergency manager, Darnell Earley, who blasted teachers for the sickout protests last week, fourth-grade teacher Pam Namyslowski said pupils had been “set up to fail in every way”.

“We ARE [the students’] voice,” Namyslowski wrote. “We are on the front line, working side by side with them every day, trying our best to overcome numerous obstacles.

“In the winter, we often work in freezing rooms with our coats on with them. In the summertime, we survive with them in stifling heat and humidity in temperatures that no one should have to work in. We wipe their tears and listen when they are upset.”

Successes in the classroom typically go unnoticed, Namyslowski continued, as “most cannot be measured or displayed on a data wall”.

“We, as teachers, know our students and what they need. It is heartbreaking to see that our students don’t have what they need and certainly not what they deserve.”

In a statement released on Sunday, Earley said: “It’s clear that teachers are feeling an overwhelming sense of frustration over the challenges that they and all [Detroit Public Schools] employees face as they do their jobs each day. We understand and share their frustration.

“However, given the reality of the district’s financial distress, it is becoming clearer every day that the only way that we are going to be able to address these serious issues in any way is through an investment in DPS by the Michigan legislature.

“Unfortunately, obtaining that support becomes more challenging with each closure of a school due to a teacher sick-out.”

A teachers’ protest was planned to coincide with the sick outs, at noon on Monday outside the Fisher building in downtown Detroit.

====

State superintendent calls on teachers to end sickouts

James David Dickson, The Detroit News 6:52 a.m. EST January 8, 2016

(Photo: Detroit News file photo)

Detroit — Michigan’s state school superintendent called Friday on Detroit teachers to stop the sickouts that have caused repeated school closures this week and over the past two months.
“I understand that teachers in Detroit Public Schools have real concerns about the financial, academic, and structural future of their schools, but for the sakes of their students, they need to be in the classrooms teaching,” Brian Whiston said in a statement issued after classes were canceled Friday at East English Village Preparatory Academy and Mann Learning Community.
Friday’s closures brought to five the number of DPS buildings that were closed at least one day this week because of teacher sickouts, a tactic former Detroit Federation of Teachers president Steve Conn takes credit for implementing.
“I am calling on teachers in Detroit public schools to end their systematic plans of not reporting to work. ...,” Whiston said. “I will be calling a meeting of state and local stakeholders to sit down, discuss the issues, and finally put together a viable solution that will move education forward for the children in the city of Detroit.”
Whiston issued his statement a day after the chairman of the Michigan House Appropriations Committee on School Aid called on him to sanction the teachers union.
Rep. Tim Kelly, R-Saginaw Township, said Whiston should consider “all available options” and called the sickout “selfish behavior and a blatant attempt to circumvent the law barring the DFT from walking away from their responsibilities and striking.”
The leader of a statewide association that advocates for school officials also called for the teachers to be punished.
“I think any time people use kids for a political statement, I think there has to be ramifications,” Chris Wigent, executive director of the Michigan Association of School Administrators, said Friday during a taping of the public affairs television show “Off the Record.”
“I’m not giving a broad brush over every teacher that they’re not there for kids, and probably even the teachers who are doing this are there for kids, but politics can’t take over what’s going on in the classroom, especially with the types of student achievement that we need to get in the city of Detroit,” Wigent said.
The sickouts have been staged by teachers upset by large class sizes, pay and benefit concessions, and Gov. Rick Snyder’s plan to create a new, debt-free Detroit school district.
Conn said he and a contingent of DPS teachers will meet at 4 p.m. Sunday at Gracious Savior Evangelical Lutheran Church to plan their next moves, which might include a full-blown strike.
Conn was ousted as president of the DFT and expelled from the union in August after the local’s executive board found him guilty of internal misconduct charges.
In a statement issued Friday by the American Federation of Teachers, interim DFT president Ivy Bailey said Sunday’s meeting is not sanctioned by the union.
“The Detroit Federation of Teachers has learned that Steve Conn is holding a meeting on Sunday to talk about further actions,” Bailey said. “Let me be clear: This meeting is not a DFT-sponsored meeting, as has been mistakenly reported.”
Besides the two schools closed Friday, classes this week were canceled at Cass Technical High School, Renaissance High School and Martin Luther King Jr. Senior High School. That means roughly 6,730 students have missed class because of sickouts.
Teacher sickouts also resulted in several school closures in November and December, including Bates Academy, Mason Elementary, West Side Academy and Mackenzie Elementary-Middle School.
District officials at that time sent “notices of investigation” to teachers thought to be involved in sickouts on Nov. 3 and Dec. 1, 10 and 11, according to the DFT.
In a press conference Thursday at King High School, DPS emergency manager Darnell Earley said that while he did not begrudge teachers the right to protest working conditions, it is “unethical” for them to do it in a way that takes learning time away from students.
“These actions, caused by a minority of teachers, disrupt the efforts intended for those who can ill afford to lose instruction time,” Earley said Thursday.
In a statement posted on the DFT’s website, Bailey criticized Earley for “blaming the teachers — the glue that holds this system together.”
“While we don’t condone the action taken by a small number of our members, we understand the utter frustration underlying it,” she said.

The Roots of A Company Union - UFT/AFT Deform Ideology and Randi: Evidence of Collaboration With the Enemy, ie., Eli Broad.

The Broad Foundation is not anti-union. Rather, it seeks to transform unions into a form of company union. A company union is a union located within and run by a company or a national government, and the union bureaucracy is incorporated into the company’s management... Ken Derstine

... the "seat at the table" strategy is not due to bad strategy but in fact that strategy is endemic to the way the union leadership has operated for 50 years - part of the very fabric of their DNA. They can't try to organize the membership or run a democratic union that might threaten this seat - or stool. They are locked in....Ed Notes

As I reported last night - Ken Derstine on Randi after Watching AEI Video: This is a company union -in  re: Randi's tweet to me last night about evidence related to her VAM waffling. Let's look at the bigger picture of evidence of ed deform collaboration. Boy, is there evidence.

In order to mount an effective response to the union complicity, we must study and understand who and what the AFT/UFT really represents, which is not us but the ruling class. [I know for some people "ruling class" connotes a "RC" meeting in some dark rooms to plot - not exactly but when it comes to ed deformers like Eli Broad et al, not totally wrong.]

At Saturday's MORE meeting, Jonathan Lessuck made that very important point. (Jonathan is a member of Progressive Labor, which has been a presence at the AFT and NEA conventions.) He said that without such an analysis people in MORE will think that by certain actions they can get Mulgrew/Unity/Randi to modify their policies instead of engaging them fully.

When an opposition - like New Action - plays the role of lobbying the leadership to change instead of full-scale engagement with the rank and file - it ends up with a mindset of fighting for little crumbs rather than fully engaging the leadership in an all front battle. At times I worry about MORE becoming New Action, light, especially when I see opposition people joining UFT bullshit committees.

[Soon I'll be putting forth my argument for MORE to boycott the UFT election farce next year as a true militant "in your face" act of resistance rather than misleading members that we can win ANYTHING.  And maybe just let New Action have its little crumbs.]

There has been a yin-yang in MORE on this point over the years.

Some caucuses think that getting Randi to say she is now against VAM or supporting opt out is a victory of sorts [Let's celebrate - we got them to react - look how our work is paying off].

I don't agree. I see it as co-optation and when people like Diane Ravitch praise Randi whenever she does something like this I see it as enabling Randi to engage in further co-optation and distraction -- pulling people away from the struggle. Thus, this weekend's big NPE conf in Chicago will enable Randi to play the true reformer. I wasn't able to make it but if I could I don't know if I could be polite.

[Later I'll report on the remarkable attack Leo Casey made on Leonie Haimson and KidsPac for daring to criticize de Blasio on education.]

Without understanding the union obligations to certain interests, Mulgrew and Randi actions do not make sense - like why would the UFT not jump on the opt out and anti-common core case as a way to strike back at the deformers? {"If you fuck our members, we will fight you tooth and nail on every single initiative, even if it has merit - first stop the attacks and then we'll talk."}

I have been making this argument in MORE for years and surprisingly there has been some resistance along the lines of "what difference does their motivation make?" A component of MORE looks at the leadership as  self-interested and often blundering bureaucrats not driven by ideological or entangling alliances with elements of the Ruling Class. Some of us, often the older ICE wing of MORE who have experienced the actions of the UFT since the 60s, see much deeper roots between our union, the government and corporate interests. [We are told that if we present this to the members we will look like nuts - sometimes I think the rank and file is more advanced than the activists].

The George Schmidt 40 year old book on the AFT and the CIA and the Kahlenberg Shanker bio are must reads. (In fact I'm going to run a study group this summer on George's book and invite all of you to join in - we'll hold it a Madison Square Garden.) Some people seem to think that the "seat at the table" strategy is due to bad thinking when in fact that strategy is endemic to the way the union leadership has operated - part of the very fabric of their DNA. They can't try to organize the membership or run a democratic union that might threaten this seat. They are locked in.

Ken Derstine has been relentless in exposing the entanglements, but with a focus on Randi, he makes it look too much like it's her - rather than the 50 years of entangling alliances. If Randi didn't exist, not much would be different and one of my tasks is getting people to see that.

From Defend Public Education

The Broad Foundation and the unions

See also: Who is Eli Broad and why is he trying to destroy public education? 

This is an except from a longer article on this blog originally published on February 24, 2013 and updated numerous times: Who is Eli Broad and why is he trying to destroy public education?

Above: New York City Department of Education Chancellor Joel Klein, second right, hugs United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten after winning The Broad Prize Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2007, in Washington. Eli Broad, left, and Bush's U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings look on.
Diane Bondareff/The Broad Foundation/AP

See:  N.Y.C. Wins Prestigious Urban Education Award | Education Week

The Broad Foundation and the unions
The Broad Foundation Mission Statement states that one of its goals is the transformation of labor relations. The Broad Foundation is not anti-union. Rather, it seeks to transform unions into a form of company union. A company union is a union located within and run by a company or a national government, and the union bureaucracy is incorporated into the company’s management. This opens up the workforce to unfettered exploitation for profits of the owners. Many right-wing governments internationally use company unions to suppress worker struggles against low living standards. In 1935, during the labor struggles of the Depression, the National Labor Relations Act was passed which outlawed company unions in the United States.

Broad has found no shortage of former or current union leaders who are willing to be bought and join his venture philanthropy to foster labor/management “collaboration”. Former President of the Service Employees International Union, Andy Stern, is just the most visible on the board. In education, the Teacher Union Reform Network (TURN) fosters this collaboration.
Outgoing President of the United Teachers - Los Angeles Helen Bernstein was TURN's first head with a grant from the PEW Charitable Trust and  started TURN in 1996. Leadership of TURN was taken over by current AFT Vice President Adam Urbanski, when he was head of the Rochester, New York local in1999. By 2001, TURN had formed a partnership with the Broad Foundation.  According to the Los Angeles Times, on April 5, 2001, Eli Broad announced his Foundation was donating $10 million to TURN to foster labor/management “collaboration”. In 2009, Broad invested $2 million in TURN, “a network of National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers locals”. (Broad's 2009 Annual Report, Page 15) (For more details about TURN's affiliation with corporate education reform see Schools Matter, "Paul Toner and the TURNcoats", July 24, 2012.)

In the early days of this collaboration, labor leaders joined leaders in politics, business and non-profit organizations in staffing the faculty at the Broad Superintendents Academy, training the future Broad Superintendents. According a 2002 Broad press release (Page 2) participants included:
• Rod Paige, U.S. Secretary of Education in the G.W. Bush Administration
• Henry Cisneros, Secretary of HUD in the first Clinton Administration and now CEO of American CityVista
• William Cox, Managing Director of Broad, School Evaluation Services
• Chris Cross, Senior Fellow, Center on Education Policy
• Chester E. Finn, Jr., President, Thomas B. Fordham Foundation
• Frances Hesselbein, Chairman, The Drucker Foundation
• Don McAdams, Founder, Center for Reform of School Systems
• Donald Nielsen, President, Hazelton Corporation, Chairman of the 2WAY Corporation
• Hugh B. Price, President and CEO, National Urban League
• Paul Ruiz, Principal Partner, Education Trust
• Adam Urbanski, Director of Teacher Union Reform Network
• Randi Weingarten, President, United Federation of Teachers.
• Superintendents from the Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Detroit, Houston, Long Beach, Memphis, New Orleans, Oakland, Rochester, San Diego, San Francisco and Seattle school districts also addressed the Academy.
On November 8th and 9th, 2002, Randi Weingarten participated in a retreat at the Eli Broad's home which included corporate and education leaders. The Press Release said this about the Broad Foundation Summit:

"The recent launch of several initiatives incubated at previous retreats and the Foundation's increase in assets to $400 million prompted the Foundation to convene this strategic planning session. Previously, the Foundation hosted retreats in May of 1999 and February of 2000. The Broad Foundation's mission is to dramatically improve K-12 public education through better governance, management and labor relations. The Foundation's investments are designed to transform large urban school districts from lackluster bureaucracies into high-performing public enterprises."

In 2005 the Broad Foundation made a $1 million grant to help the United Federation of Teachers in New York City, at that time headed by Randi Weingarten, to open two union-run charter schools in Brooklyn, the first such schools in the country. In October, 2012, it was announced these schools are in academic and enrollment trouble and will probably close at the end of the school year. This became another opportunity for another round of teacher bashing by the right-wing media. (Note: This column is written by Micah Lasher, executive director of StudentsFirstNY.)

On September 18, 2007, the Broad Foundation awarded New York City public schools the Broad Prize for Urban Education. Joining Eli Broad on stage at the ceremony were U.S. Secretary of Education in the Bush administration Margaret Spellings, New York City Education Chancellor Joel Klein, and Randi Weingarten, President of the United Federation of Teachers.

On November 17th, 2008, shortly after the election of Barack Obama as President, Randi Weingarten spoke at the National Press Club. As reported by journalist Dana Goldstein, in a March 20, 2009 article The Education Wars in The American Prospect, Weingarten offered “an olive branch” to the corporate luminaries in attendance (including many mentioned in this article who are affiliated with the Broad Foundation). She spoke about seeking “common ground” on such things as merit pay for teachers, evaluations based on test scores, and teacher tenure.

In its 2009 Annual Report (Page 10), the Broad Foundation said,

“Teacher unions have always been a formidable voice in public education. We decided at the onset of our work to invest in smart, progressive labor leaders like Randi Weingarten, head of the United Federation of Teachers in New York City for more than a decade and now president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). We partnered with Weingarten to fund two union-run charter schools in Brooklyn and to fund New York City’s first incentive-based compensation program for schools, as well as the AFT’s Innovation Fund. We had previously helped advance pay for performance programs in Denver and Houston, but we were particularly encouraged to see New York City embrace the plan.” (See the picture in the 2008 Broad Foundation Annual Report, page 14 and a featured Weingarten quote on page 15.)

On the same page (Page 10) of the 2009 Annual Report the Report boasted of being one of the earliest funders of Teach For America stating “our investment in this innovative teaching corps has grown to more than $41 million.” The same page also says, “Since 2000, our CMO (charter management organization) investments have swelled to nearly $100 million, creating 54,474 charter seats in 16 cities. We provided early start-up capital for charter operators like KIPP, Aspire, Green Dot and Uncommon Schools. They have since become the models for other CMOs to emulate.”

In April, 2009, the AFT teamed with four venture philanthropies: the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation—to create the Innovation Fund. The private-foundation contributions, in addition to the AFT's down payment of $1 million, brought the fund's total to $2.8 million. Weingarten said its funds were made available for local affiliates to "incubate promising ideas to improve schools."
In an April 28, 2009 article, Education Week’s Teacher Beat described the purpose of the Innovation Fund this way:

“Both Weingarten and the foundation folks spoke a lot about the importance of working together and collaboration...Both she and Adam Urbanski, the president of the Rochester, N.Y., affiliate who will serve as the fund's executive director, were quick to minimize the fact that AFT's education-reform objectives haven't always been in line with those of the private foundations. (Broad and Gates, for instance, were said to be primed to offer financial support behind D.C. Chancellor Michelle Rhee's two-tiered pay proposal, although as far as I know, neither foundation ever confirmed that on the record.)”

On June 3, 2010, at their union leader’s urging, the Washington D.C. teachers Union ratified a contract with the Washington D.C. School District, headed by Chancellor Michelle Rhee, which included performance pay linked to test score growth, and a weakening of seniority and tenure. Weingarten had interfered in the Union's election to ensure it would be held after the contract ratification. Rhee got most of what she wanted in terms of merit pay for teachers and loss of seniority. Union President George Parker called the ratification of the contract “a great day for teachers and students.”
When the union election was finally held on November 10, 2010, Parker was voted out of office by the union rank-and-file. On May 20, 2011, Michelle Rhee announced that Parker was joining her corporate reform organization StudentsFirst. Rhee had resigned as Chancellor of Washington D.C. schools on October 13, 2010, and started StudentsFirst soon after, after her sponsoring Mayor was not reelected. Rhee’s Deputy Chancellor and chief negotiator of the 2010 teachers’ contract, Kaya Henderson, replaced her. Henderson recently announced the proposed closing of 20 schools due to “under enrollment”.

On July 8th, 2010,   Randi Weingarten welcomed Bill Gates   as the   keynote speaker at the national AFT convention.   Subsequently, in April 17th, 2012, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation awarded $2 million to five of the AFT’s TURN regional networks through the Consortium for Educational Change, “an Illinois-based network of teacher unions, school districts, and professional organizations that work to make school systems more collaborative, high-performing organizations.” Of the grant, Mary Jane Morris, executive director of CEC said, “There is clear evidence that policies and programs that truly impact teaching effectiveness result when teacher unions and management collaborate as equal partners. Each stakeholder brings a unique understanding and knowledge-base that must be considered.”

On June 7, 2012 the Chicago Teachers Union was holding a strike authoirzation vote. (90 percent of the teachers' union, and 98 percent of those voting called for a strike.) Randi Weingarten flew into Chicago the same day, not to support the teachers, but to attend the Clinton Global Initiative Conference. She participated on a panel with Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to praise him for his Chicago Infrastructure Trust. Speaking on the panel, she supported the neoliberal agenda of labor and management collaboration which historically has been to the advantage of capital against labor. Weingarten left town without speaking to the teachers. She did join the picket line near the end of the strike. (It has not been disclosed if she was there to support the CTU or to end the strike.)

An article in Reuters, right after the 2012 AFT convention reelected Weingarten to a third term, began: “In the maelstrom of criticism surrounding America's unionized public school teachers, the woman running the second-largest educator union says time has come to collaborate on public school reform rather than resist.”  "U.S. teacher union boss bends to school reform winds", Reuters, July 31, 2012

The Chicago teachers' strike in September, 2012, to which the AFT gave tepid financial and verbal support (not rallying locals nationally to support the CTU), ended on September 19th, 2012. On September 22nd, Weingarten joined Secretary of Education Duncan, who was on a bus tour through the Midwest to promote Race to the Top as part of the President Obama's reelection campaign.

On the tour she joined Gayle Manchin, wife of West Virginia U.S. Senator Joe Manchin, on a panel to discuss “how to build public-private partnerships to support educational improvement as the path to a brighter future.”Weingarten had praised this program as an example of business/labor collarboration at the Clinton Global Initiative conference. The state-run McDowell County, West Virginia school system and the AFT had created the philanthropy organization "Reconnecting McDowell” in 2011 to foster “collaboration between business, government and nonprofit organizations to establish programs that address the challenges faced by this community.”  The AFT has given the fund millions of dollars from the dues of the AFT rank-and-file to this corporate organization. The AFT is now teaming with Teach for America and businesses (see the last paragraph) in McDowell County to build low income teacher housing for low income teachers. (For more on this and the use of the pension funds of AFT members to invest in this and other infrastructure projects, see Which Side Are You On? on this site.)

On November 17th, 2012, Weingarten teamed with New Jersey Education Secretary Chris Cerf (Broad Academy Class of 2004) to successfully promote the ratification of a contract for Newark teachers that included merit pay based on performance (including high-stakes test scores). The merit pay scheme was subsequently deemed to be a witout merit.

On December 13, 2012, the New Jersey Education Law Center announced it had found that Eli Broad was offering a $430,000 grant to New Jersey contingent on the reelection of Governor Chris Christie. Terms of the grant include a requirement that the number of charters be increased by 50%, requiring that all public announcements of the program by the state have to be cleared with the Broad Foundation, and it contained a lengthy provision about making documents, files, and records associated with the grant the property of the Foundation. New Jersey bloggers speculated that Broad’s real concern was the keeping Cerf as the New Jersey Secretary of Education.

On December 13th, 2012, Weingarten held a press conference with Bill Clinton and Obama’s housing secretary Shaun Donovan to announce the AFT would invest $1 billion from the NYC teachers pension fund for Hurricane Sandy relief for the NYC area. NYC Mayor Bloomburg criticized the investment because taxpayers would have to bail out the pension fund if the investment failed. 
One month later the U.S. Congress allocated $50.5 billion dollars for Hurricane Sandy relief.
Weingarten had explained her belief in the investment of the teacher pension fund in infrastructure projects around the country at the June 19th, 2012 Clinton Global Initiative Conference. She has never explained what gives her the right to use the pensions of millions of teachers for this purpose.

On January 29, 2013, Weingarten was interviewed on NPR’s All Things Considered. She continued her campaign for a teacher’s “Bar Exam”. This year long campaign is an endorsement of the corporate education reformers campaign against teachers that says the problem with schools is “bad teachers” and tenure. Arne Duncan and New York Governor Cuomo have been aggressively supporting this proposal. Weingarten did this NPR interview at the same time as New York City teachers are in a battle against an unfair and flawed teacher evaluation system which Cuomo was threatening to impose through drastic cuts in state funding for NYC public schools if not agreed to or dictatorially imposing the teacher evaluation system outright.

On March 11, 2009, in an article in the NYC education website Gotham News, in the article "Eli Broad describes close ties to Klein, Weingarten, Duncan", Broad described his education philosophy and his collaboration with Klein, Weingarten, and Duncan. The article did not state that Weingarten's relationship with Broad dates back to at least 2002. 

 

Impeach -- The Uncommon Ed U. Cator on Cuomo, Tisch: Playing Fast and Loose in a Labyrinth of Deceit

[T]he web of money, appointments, corporations, hedge funds, people, and campaign contributions crisscross so much in this complex money maze that it was difficult to write with any fluidity. It appears to me that Merryl Tisch needs to be seriously investigated as to her part in this web of deceit, as well as many others. The corporate money and real estate connections to Tisch cannot be ignored. There is no doubt to me, however, that Mr. Cuomo may have crossed some ethical lines. There is also no doubt to me that due to the way the impeachment process of a Governor works in New York state that if our senate and legislature were truly the voice of the people, then they would pursue that avenue with much vigor until Governor Cuomo is indeed impeached.....The Uncommon Ed U. Cator

A nice piece of work pointing to Cuomo impeachment possibilities from The Uncommon Ed U. Cator.

Dishonesty, Lies, Deception: Cuomo Playing Fast and Loose in a Labyrinth of Deceit

February 22, 2015 at 10:13am

Cuomo: Playing Fast and Loose in a Labyrinth of Deceit

The impeachment process of a governor in New York starts in the state Assembly and then moves to the state Senate. “It doesn't have to be a crime. It doesn't even have to be an official act. The words are "willful and corrupt conduct in office." It could be a private act. The Assembly decides what's impeachable.” http://www.myfoxny.com/…/impeachment-process-in-new-york-st…

Andrew Cuomo's recent budgetary tactics are completely despicable to me. His”strategy”of blackmail is usurping the budget process and completely circumvents the entire idea of democracy. Holding the budget process hostage in order to achieve his own personal and political goals is nothing short of economic terrorism against his own constituency.

Over the past few days I have had information shared with me and today started digging some more on my own. This writing unfortunately is itself a winding labyrinth meandering from education & campaign donations to hedge funds to Pearson to education reform to tax breaks to real-estate and back. At this point is impossible for me to make it fluid narrative because of all the twists and turns.

After piecing this together though it is difficult for me to believe that Governor Andrew Cuomo has not broken any legal laws of ethics. It is also my opinion that he most certainly has betrayed the working class of NY and the public trust. I also believe that there is enough here to begin the impeachment process.

A reading of the Teachout/Kuhn Washington Park Project paper, “Corruption in Education: Hedge Funds and the Takeover of New York’s Schools,” published recently in December of 2014 clearly shows the amount of private dollars that were pumped into the NYS legislative process last year with the sole purpose of taking over public education.

“New York State is plagued by legal corruption: campaign contributions and outside spending explicitly designed to buy policy outcomes. In 2014, a tiny group of powerful hedge fund executives, representing an extreme version of this corruption, spent historic amounts of money in order to take over education policy.

This paper details this fast-paced purchase of political power, and the threat it poses to democracy and public education in New York State.

A small cadre of men, including Carl Icahn, Paul Tudor Jones, and Dan Loeb, poured more than $10 million into state lobbying and election campaigns since the beginning of 2014, with electrifying results.i Their campaign bears the signature components of the corporate takeover world which they occupy: rapid action on multiple fronts; highly secretive activity shielded from the public view; high stakes, big spending; and top-down power plays that are not accountable to the public.

First, in a span of 10 weeks they spent over $6 million on lobbying that won unprecedented public funding to pay for charter school rent. ii

This was done as part of a campaign orchestrated with Governor Cuomo, designed to frustrate Mayor Bill de Blasio’s efforts to win universal full-day pre-K, paid for entirely through expanded taxation of New York City millionaires.

Phase two of the attack came in the fall elections.

UPDATED: 1250 Broadway - den of ed deform - Chalkbeat Cozy With Ed Deformers: Chalkbeat NY and New Classrooms (Joel Rose's company) all share office space

Hi Norm,

Your post about Chalkbeat's office space gets a few significant things wrong. Here's what's actually happening:

1. Chalkbeat rents a room from New Classrooms. No special arrangements. We're paying tenants of office space. 

2. Lightsail no longer works in this space, and hasn't for as long as we have. 

3. We have disclosed our rental arrangement with New Classrooms wherever the organization has appeared in Chalkbeat since we moved here, including the Rise & Shine that you say didn't note that link. Not sure how you could miss it. I quote: 

Class Size Matters' Leonie Haimson is criticizing a $420,000 city contract for New Classrooms, a personalized math program that was developed inside the Department of Education and now operates as an independent nonprofit. (Disclosure: Chalkbeat rents office space from New Classrooms.)

We did the same in a recent story about the iZone, which you can read here. 

I'd appreciate it if you would quickly correct your post. If you have any questions, as always, you can reach out to me directly.

Thanks, 

Sarah Darville

 ===

EXCLUSIVE: Ex-Education Department official’s $420K contract violates ethics rules, critics say --- New Classrooms, started by [Chalkbeat roomie] Joel Rose, was granted a one-year contract for $420,750 in federal grant money to operate a learning program Rose created while working for the city. Critics say Rose promised the services free of charge in a previous deal... Daily News

I guess things still might get sticky when Chalkbeat people run into Joel Rose, who ran the School of One (another scam) under Joel Klein, at the water cooler if they did actual reporting.

Chalkbeat, Lightsail and New Classrooms all share offices in the same building.  Lightsail is selling itself as the ELA online platform as New Classrooms is doing for math....

Gideon Stein is the the CEO of LightSail and treasurer (!) of the board of Chalkbeat, on the board of New Classrooms, GreenDot, Teach Plus, Stand for Children; former VP of Success Academy Charters, and still apparently on the Upper West Success board.  Also, on the board of  Moriah Fund,^[9] a private foundation.

So as Sarah points out Lightsail is not in that space but the connection to Stein seems to still be there.

Gideon Stein is a top-level ed deformer. Note that when Gotham went to Chalkbeat all the nightly reports of the blogs, which were the only places to read exposures of ed deform, were dropped.

Joel Rose is giving them a deal on the space? Is that corrupt?

But you all knew that Chalkbeat was not independent journalism. But then again neither is the NY Times -but there is no reason not to believe that Chalkbeat is an agent of ed deform.

Here is an interesting example regarding the conflict of interest over Joel Rose and his company, New Classrooms. Rose used his position as a Joel Klein hire at the DOE to make his bundle. Here is how Leonie Haimson, who has been on the Joel Rose case for years, reported the story.

Joel Rose and School of One get new NYC contract that violates conflict of interest rules and the terms of his earlier contract

http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2014/10/joel-rose-and-school-of-one-get-new-nyc.html.

NY Daily News reported that last month, the Panel for Educational Policy approved a contract for New Classrooms to teach math in city middle schools via an online program called the School of One.  The contract  charges the city nearly $200 per student for the licensing fee: “An estimated 2,220 students will be enrolled in the School of One program at a cost of $420,750 for license fees ($191.25 per student)."  This is the second contract granted New Classrooms; the original one was granted in January 2012.

Joel Rose, a former chief of staff to Deputy Chancellor Chris Cerf, created School of One while at DOE, starting in February 2009.  He developed the algorithm and the program along with Chris Rush, a consultant then working for Wireless Generation, now headed by former Chancellor Joel Klein for Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp.   

Really, Mulgrew can crow all he wants about change of tone at Tweed and the PEP, but the games go on.

Of course the algorithm and methodology inherent in the School of One program was developed by Rose while he worked for the DOE – and would remain fully confidential.  The city’s Conflict of interest rules also say a former employee “may never work on a particular matter or project that you were directly involved in while employed by the City.” 

Yet somehow, despite the fact that Rose is head of the company and his company would clearly benefit from the contract, the conflict of interest rules were waived. 

Chalkbeat had a link to the Daily News story featuring Leonie in Rise and Shine: http://ny.chalkbeat.org/2014/10/20/rise-shine-state-expected-to-approve-career-focused-regents-exam-swap/#.VEkqfsm2Wk0

The link was buried near the bottom - with no mention that the conflict of interest was about one of their roomies.

Here is the DN link: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/exclusive-ex-ed-dept-official-420k-contract-violates-ethics-rules-critics-article-1.1979272

And some financials on the interlocking directorates of ed deform.

http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=251769438

LightSail Inc., an ed tech company, provides a tablet-based literacy platform for grades K-12 that combines tools to drive student growth. Its LightSail includes a personalized library of books for each student drawn from various acclaimed titles; an interactive e-reader with tools to support active reading and fast feedback; Lexile and Common Core-aligned assessments embedded in every text; real-time and actionable data for teachers and administrators; and Common Core State standards scaffolding for students and teachers. LightSail Inc. has a strategic partnership with Clever. The company was founded in 2012 and is based in New York, New York.

Mr. Gideon Stein

Chief Executive Officer

Ms. Marian Pho

Director of Operations

Ms. Jessica Marshall

Chief Strategy Officer

Ms. Jessica Reid Sliwerski

Chief Academic Officer

Ms. Melissa Loeffler

Director of Professional Learning

Address: 1250 Broadway
30th Floor
New York, NY 10001

LightSail Education Signs Strategic Partnership with Clever to Seamlessly Integrate Student Information System

Feb 25 14

LightSail Education announced that it signed a strategic partnership with Clever to seamlessly integrate student information system (SIS) data with its LightSail literacy platform. The collaboration will make it easier for schools to expedite and manage access to LightSail's expansive eLibrary containing thousands of digital books from virtually every major publisher as well as hundreds of smaller ones. The LightSail platform provides students with tablet-based libraries and embeds assessments and analytics in students' texts, monitoring their Lexile measures, Common Core State Standards progress and reading habits. For teachers, it delivers real-time data along with tools designed to support best literacy instruction practices in classrooms. The Clever integration allows effortless sign-on to LightSail, no longer requiring teachers to track multiple log-ons. It also provides a secure connection to a school's SIS, pulls student enrollment rosters and demographic data, and automatically syncs that data with the LightSail literacy platform.

http://brfny.org/community/gideon-stein/

Gideon Stein, CEO of LightSail, has raised over $50 million for education reform-related not for profit organizations and serves on the board of a foundation with an endowment in excess of $100 million that funds education reform around the globe. He is Vice Chairman of the Education News Network, Green Dot New York Charter High School, and New Classrooms, the nation’s leading organization focused on delivering individualized instruction. He co-founded and was formerly President of Future Is Now Schools, and was founder, Chairman, and CEO of the enterprise messaging company Omnipod, Inc. (now a division of Symantec.

New Classrooms | LinkedIn

www.linkedin.com/company/new-classrooms?trk=top_nav...

LinkedIn

Headquarters. 1250 Broadway New York, NY 10001 United States ... Gideon Stein · Gideon Stein: Director. Robert "Swan" Swanwick [linkedin@swanwick.com].

Chalkbeat Overview - Company Information - aiHit

endb-consolidated.aihit.com/01134933/overview.htm

Oct 14, 2014 - ... currently serving in an advisory capacity: Sue Lehmann, Gideon Stein, and Jill Barkin. ... 1250 Broadway, 30th floor New York, NY 10001 ny ...