The Contract: What Lies Beneath

We have been besieged by questions: After all the rancor and viciousness of BloomKlein where did all this sweetness and love come from? What are the real givebacks?

With fall-out from the phony promises and massive sell-job and threats that a “No” vote would result in dire consequences still echoing from the dreadful 2005 contract, these questions are a signal from many people who have been beaten and battered by recent contracts and have lost faith in the union leadership to negotiate anything that is truly favorable to the members. So, what gives this time? Should we lift the hood even a bit to see what monsters might be lurking beneath?

A clue in the NY Times?
“This time the city extracted no productivity increases or other concessions, which seemed to be part of a larger strategy by the Bloomberg administration to pave the way for separate talks aimed at achieving crucial savings on health care and pension costs, which have climbed sharply in recent years... But negotiations over health benefits are to be conducted separately in talks with the Municipal Labor Committee, the umbrella group for the city’s unions, and since Ms. Weingarten is the committee chairwoman, her good will is essential if headway is to be made on insurance issues.”

A follow-up headline proclaimed: “With Teacher Pact at Hand, City Looks at Health Costs.”

Will higher co-pays be the price?

Does this contract basically waive the right of our union to bargain about health benefits by giving this power to the Municipal Labor Committee, in effect removing member rights in perpetuity to vote on any loss of valuable medical benefits? Does the contract assign to the Municipal Labor Committee a “blank check” to negotiate cost containment initiatives and program modifications to City Health Benefits Program that are not subject to our approval? If MLC agrees with Mayor, will UFT members get to vote on potential mandatory health care contributions? (Transit workers were able to vote on whether or not to contribute 1.5% of their salary for health benefits.) If a flat rate percentage is tacked on in the future, what is the real raise, especially for the newer lower-salaried people?

And let’s not forgot the possible quid quo pro in exchange for supporting (or not opposing) mayoral control, which if continued will continue to be an unmitigated disaster for the teachers, students and parents in NYC. Can you get somethin’ for nuthin’ with Unity in charge?








Is the love back?








It feels like April! It’s only November
The teachers in my school are so angry about the current contract. We don’t even have time to use the bathroom during the day. When passing colleagues in the hall, the constant comment is, “It feels like April! It’s only early November.” The weight of the workload and schedule are crushing. We are very angry about the current conditions, and the fact that we can’t do much to complain since most of our rights to grieve and to participate in the decision-making processes of the school are gone. The older teachers are afraid — under the current system they can suddenly become “senile” and unable to teach. The younger teachers don’t understand. Whole classes are guinea pigs as large numbers of new teachers “experiment” with what works. Fed-up, on the ICE blog

With only TJC and ICE members voting in opposition, the negotiation committee did not address any of the issues raised by Fed-up when it agreed to a tentative deal with the DOE . The contract extension contains no take backs of any of the givebacks of the 2005 contract: letters in the files still can’t be grieved at step 2; 37 minutes and a thinly disguised 6th teaching period; loss of Circular 6 and reinstatement of potty patrol; loss of seniority transfers; erosion of workplace rights; inability to question administrative decisions; teachers standing at the mercy of anti-union principals who control through intimidation.

A rush to judgement

Check the timetable used by the UFT to rush this agreement through without providing people with adequate time to discuss it or even look over the fine print:

Monday eve: Negotiating committee votes; announcement to press
Tues: 10am Exec bd votes. Jeff and James lambasted by union leaders for "fear mongoring."
Wed: DA votes before having time to consult with the teachers in the schools.

Why? Why not give people some time? After all, this doesn't go into effect for a year.
Why the rush to judgement? That alone should make people suspicious.

Note this from the DOE press release:

The term of the Agreement covers a 24-month and 19-day period beginning October 13, 2007 and continuing through October 31, 2009. This agreement is based upon the 18-month pattern established with DC 37, although it is six months and 19 days longer, which generated additional funds.

In order to address specific needs, the UFT generated internal funding to provide the following benefits:

· Effective October 13, 2007, the annual contribution to the welfare fund will be increased by $100 per member;
· Effective May 1, 2008, a lump sum payment to the welfare fund in the amount of $166.67 per member;
· Effective October 21, 2009, an additional $35 rate increase in the City’s contribution to the welfare fund per member;
· Effective May 19, 2008, increased longevity payments for certain employees who have at least five years of service;
· Effective May 19, 2008, an increase in the uniform allowance payable to Supervisor of School Safety; and
· The Department will increase by 12 the maximum number of sessions of paid extracurricular activities for which compensation will be provided to coaches and teachers in charge of various athletic and extra-curricular activities.

What does "internal funding" mean?

Bloomberg and Klein Drop the Big One While Weingarten Goes Along for the Ride

Reprint from Education Notes, Spring 2003

When former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani declared that the Board of Education should be blown up there was a huge outcry, particularly from the leaders of the UFT. But when the Bloomberg administration dropped an atomic bomb on the system, the breathless reaction of UFT leader Randi Weingarten was: "What Mike Bloomberg did today was declare war on the entrenched bureaucracy. The implementation is going to be tough. There are a lot of transition issues that have to be worked out. But it is breathtakingly possible.”

Weingarten’s comments are curious considering statements she made as recently as a December [2002] “Meet the President Meeting” in Brooklyn where she lamented the way Klein was destroying the fabric of the school system by tearing down every institution, including many that were so useful to the UFT. For public consumption she will go along with anything the DOE does. Privately, she will blast them. One way or the other, it’s all about public relations. As for the concept of a union fighting for the kind of school system that teachers and children really need, hey, forgetaboutit.

Analytical coverage by Ed. Notes of the massive changes being instituted at DOE will have to wait until future editions. As usual, to the classroom teacher who has been through a zillion chancellors, a lot of this won’t make much difference. And will we be shocked if we see another total revamping of the system if there’s a new Mayor in a few years? Let’s say UFT favorite Bill Thompson becomes Mayor. Maybe the new flavor of the month will be a mushrooming of UFT controlled Teacher Centers (A Teacher Center in every pot?) as the magic answer to our educational problems.

To the 6000 District Office and Central Board people who fled the classroom, the changes might make a large difference. (In the interest of full disclosure, I was one of these people for my last 4 years in the system--boy, did I retire just in time.) We tend to think that many of these people will somehow land on their feet as the new plans call for using many of them in other capacities. We can expect that those with political sugar daddies will have to hustle to find new mentors. One thing is sure. The DOE gurus will start putting their own political buddies into place.

The Bloomberg/Klein (BloomKlein) attempt to break the Byzantine way the school system has operated (we in the district office got to see this lunacy up close and personal every day) by unseating entrenched bureaucrats is not necessarily a bad thing. But the fact they totally ignored people at the lowest levels of the system who have faced the impact of these policies does not bode well. Don’t be shocked to see one lunacy replaced by another.

If resources are truly allocated to classrooms, as Bloomberg and Klein claim they want to do, that would be a good thing. But pardon me if I am skeptical. As far as we’re concerned, a major attack on reducing class size would be a good start. The plan to reduce class size to 28 in middle school English classes is minuscule. Always remember: we are ruled by people who send their own kids to schools where class size is under 20; people who never mention class size in any of their reform packages. With smaller classes you could teach kids to read with phonics or schmonics.

Interestingly, did you hear one word on class size from our union leaders? Like, how about Randi Weingarten saying: it is [all] breathtakingly possible --IF CLASS SIZES WERE SIGNIFICANTLY REDUCED? What impact would adding 6000 teachers to the classroom have? For years Ed. Notes has called on the UFT leadership to demand a reallocation of resources to reduce class size. If every teaching resource were put in the classroom class size would be reduced significantly. First, get class size to a point where there is parity with the suburbs. Then worry about staff development, pull-out, push-in and other programs. A system-wide attack on the class size issue is necessary and it should be led by the union. Supposedly crime went down when a massive police presence was placed on the streets. Why hasn’t anyone advocated the same technique to solve the problems in education? Do we think we would have the same problems in the schools if there were enough teachers to really work with the kids? Inundate the classrooms with teachers. Not enough space? Put as many teachers in a room as necessary. And stop using the excuse that teachers have a tough time working with each other.

Instead of our union leader’s kowtowing to whatever schemes come out of the DOE, we should see the UFT and the Klein/Bloomberg truly team join together in a true spirit of cooperation to make the classroom a truly workable place. It is all so breathtakingly possible. It is all so breathtakingly unlikely.

Comment on UFT Charter School

From the NY Times - Nov. 2, 2006

"Mr. Spitzer, on the other hand, has the unions’ support and recently toured a charter school in Brooklyn run by the city union, the United Federation of Teachers. The union president, Randi Weingarten, boasted of creating a model school with no more than 25 students per class and two teachers in each room."

The UFT argued when pushing for the charter school that they would show they would make a model school with the same funds that regular schools are working under. What is needed is the numbers to show how you could have 2 teachers in a room with 25 children. We do know that Eli Broad, one of the leaders of the corporate onslaught on the public schools, gave $1 million towards the UFT charter school. Does Randi's "boast" help or hurt the cause of public education?

Wrinkles in the Iron Curtain

So where was I? Oh yes, last time I was comparing the BloomKlein takeover of the NYC school system with the Soviet takeover of Eastern Europe. One of the keynotes of that system was inefficiencies and economic breakdowns, part of the reason for the fall of the iron curtain. Here is where one would expect the analogy to the NYCDOE to fall apart. After all, we have master business people running things in Bloomberg and Klein. But au contraire.

I met a businessman on my recent trip to Prague who sometimes does business with the DOE. He was asking about the impact of BloomKlein on the schools. I gave him my take and mentioned no-bid contracts, in particular the $17 million paid to the consultants Alvarez and Marsal to find savings in the very system created by BloomKlein (as I reported in The Wave – “The A&M Story Tastes Better than M&M’s” Sept. 16, 2006). He said one would at least expect that the business end would be well run. He then told me how he had considered bidding on a big contract but when he saw the RFP – request for proposal — it was clearly set up so that only one company could qualify, a company that had lost the contract at one point because of some impropriety. Thus, even bidded contracts are no bid in reality. So much for keeping costs down through competition. Don’t get me started on all the other inefficiencies perpetrated by BloomKlein.

In totalitarian systems, political correctness counts more than competence — one of the most obvious attributes of the BloomKlein takeover, where the keynote is led by the brainwashing Leadership Academy, also known as the Ministry of Fear.

And fear is central in a police-like state — recently a teacher asked me to meet him in a diner far enough away from his school so he would not be seen.

Fear doesn’t exist only at the bottom. One of the hallmarks of totalitarian systems is the climate of fear among top and middle managers over the “numbers” they are expected to produce. Bad numbers and heads would role. Five-year plans always called for increases that were impossible to meet. So they lied. The rulers could never understand why the economy was failing when the numbers coming in showed such great results. When the numbers didn’t match, the rulers just manipulated the data to show how the system was succeeding.

If you work in a school this must sound familiar. Just check the fear factor among supervisors and their supervisors right up to the regional superintendents — the almost desperation and panic at times — over test scores, grades, graduation rates, attendance and anything else that is being tracked by the data-driven ‘educators’ above. (The number of "reported" instances of changing grades grows by leaps and bounds. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/02/nyregion/02regents.html)

Whatever the numbers, they are massaged by the rulers at the DOE. This massage even goes beyond the DOE to the state level where the tests were made easier in an election year.

Collectivization, one size fits all curriculum and standardized teaching
Remember studying about the attempts to eliminate individual farms and collectivize agriculture, forcing all farmers to “forget” their knowledge of farming and use standardized state-run methods in Soviet bloc countries? No matter where it was tried, it turned out to be a disaster and always ended up in a reversal where individual farming had to be reintroduced in some form in order to feed the people. There was actually a general trend to attempt to stamp out individualism on a mass basis.

Teachers at the DOE have undergone their own form of collectivization as a one-size-fits-all curriculum was imposed, along with a standardized method of teaching to go along with standardized bulletin boards. Just listen to the similar jargon and acronyms floating around all schools. (You’re out of touch if you think a LEP is someone with a disease on a remote island.)

In totalitarian systems, there were mass book burnings. When BloomKlein took over, books — many brand new costing millions upon millions of dollars — received the equivalent fate when they were banished to school cellars to rot away unused while millions upon millions more was spent on books that were deemed by many teachers not to be nearly as useful as the ones banned.

Control the means of communication
In all top-down controlled systems, how information is presented to the public assumes a crucial role. Behind the iron curtain all press was controlled. In this country, public relations assumes a crucial role and enormous sums are spent on it, certainly a truism of the NYCDOE. But you might wonder if it is all that necessary. The NYC press, owned by business people who are “with” the program, make you think the world of BloomKlein is a Garden of Eden (though recently more and more reporters have begun to see through the mist.)

Except, of course, for the completely non-critical NY Times, which remains immune to the scandals and always manages to report just one side of the story. I used to at least look forward to the Wednesday “Education” page where Mike Winerip would report on events going on in the NYC schools. Since he left, these reports touch down anywhere in the country — except NYC. Maybe Mike stepped on too many toes.

One of the most blatant examples of slavish support by the business community was a recent glowing tribute to Bloomberg and Klein in US New & World Report, owned by Morton Zuckerman who also owns the Daily News and is vice-chair of Klein’s private fundraising “Fund For Public Schools.” Parent activist Maria Dapontes-Dougherty President, D30 Presidents' Council was prompted to write a letter to the editor.
Here are excerpts:

“Mr. Klein's premise was that ‘teachers are the most crucial people in the system’ and yet he shows them no respect and is dismissive of their opinions… Parents are philosophized and politicized as a vital component of the system, but are blocked any time they voice an opinion or try to participate. Schools cannot be run exclusively like a business, in as the ‘product’ of this business are the future minds of our country. They are our children!
“The savings in bureaucracy was utilized to create a new bureaucracy and to fill the pockets of big business catering to education. Mayor Bloomberg's partnering with private groups is costing the system millions of dollars. There was no public input in the expenditure of this public money. The cronyism and entrenched interests are now with big businesses….
“The uniform curriculum led to a massive expenditure in books and materials. There was a large increase in middle management which was the strategy for centralization of the system. After three years of this decision not really making enough of an impact there is now a strategy to decentralize with the creation of ‘empowerment Schools’. So here we are having come full circle in aging buildings with antiquated electrical systems and not enough materials. Our class sizes are bursting at the seams and [among] the highest in the country. Our middle school students still show a high percentage of low performing students and our graduation rate in high school is still a disgrace at 43%. [Massaged into 57% by DOE data managers.]
“If these two men are an example of what leaders are in our great country, then our future is dismal.”

Maria’s letter is a sign of the growing opposition to BloomKlein from parent groups, an interesting development considering the lack of opposition in the early years. Andy Wolfe explains in the NY Sun:
“Upon assuming … control, the mayor and chancellor moved quickly to win over the school system's parental establishment the old-fashioned way — by giving out jobs.
“At a May 9, 2003, press conference organized by the Department of Education, the president of the United Parents Association, Ernest Clayton, praised Mr. Klein's plans to hire parent coordinators in each school, stating that ‘this is the first time we've had a chancellor willing to make a substantial investment in parent involvement.’ Mr. Clayton, who led an umbrella organization of more than 200 individual school parent associations, was perhaps the city's best-known parent advocate.
“By July, Mr. Clayton had given up his post to take a $60,000-a-year administration job: parent support officer in Division 3 in Northeast Queens.
“In fact, many of the more than 1,200 people initially hired as parent coordinators and citywide and regional support staff came right out of the leadership of the parent groups and parent associations, effectively co-opting a key source of potential opposition.”

Now, there’s BloomKlein doing business the old fashioned way —if you can’t beat ‘em, buy ‘em.

The Wave, November 3, 2006

THE END

Joel Klein’s Iron Curtain

A shorter version of this column appeared in The Wave on October 20, 2006.

When all decisions flow without checks and balances from one source — be it a national leader, the head of a school system, the principal of a school, a union leader, an abusive member of a household — any form of dictatorship — the system inevitably fails. Decisions hatched in the mind of a super powerful person served by sycophants are not subject to the kind of vetting (like someone saying “are you out of your mind?”) and lead to the “emperor without clothes” effect. Some kind of democratic process, often messy, is necessary to prevent the train from running loose down the tracks. If you deal with the daily doings at the NYC Department of Education and with its counterpart the United Federation of Teachers, these words should ring true.

There’s nothing like a trip to Prague and Budapest, a decade and a half out of the yoke of 40 years of Soviet domination, to get one to thinking about similarities to the BloomKlein invasion of the NYC school system. “Are you crazy?” said my wife as we strolled around these incredibly beautiful cities. “If you make this comparison people will think you are nuts.” She’s probably right, but here goes anyway.

The Czech Republic and Hungary were both part of the Soviet Empire that controlled Eastern Europe with an iron fist. Puppet governments were installed but the people saw themselves as invaded by an alien force and feelings of nationalism engendered an anti-Soviet mentality. When the yoke was lifted in 1989, a sense of freedom these nations had never known burst forth. Revolutions in Budapest (1956) and Prague (1968), both revolts suppressed by an invasion of hordes of Russian tanks - bullet holes still show on the walls some buildings - had turned these cities into the epicenter of resistance to Soviet control.

Hungary is about to celebrate the 50th anniversary of their Revolution, which lasted from Oct. 23 to Nov. 4, 1956. Being there two weeks before this celebration had an impact.

While on the trip I read “The Incredible Lightness of Being,” Czech writer Milan Kundera’s story of a Czech doctor during the “Prague spring” of 1968 when freedom blossomed and the aftermath of the suppression by the Soviets that August.

Kundera writes, “Anyone who thinks that the Communist regimes of Central Europe are exclusively the work of criminals is overlooking a basic truth: the criminal regimes were made not by criminals but by enthusiasts convinced they had discovered the only road to paradise…”

Tomas, a brilliant surgeon, is demoted to window washer after the Soviet repression because of a letter to the editor he wrote to a literary magazine during the Prague spring. In the letter, Tomas criticized the apparatchiks (blindly loyal bureaucrats) who had condemned Czech citizens charged with a variety of fabricated crimes and then later claimed they didn’t know and were just following orders. Kundera claims it is irrelevant whether they knew or not. “The main issue is whether a man is innocent because he didn’t know. Is a fool on the throne relieved of all responsibility merely because he is a fool? Isn’t his ‘I didn’t know! I was a believer!’ at the very root of irreparable guilt?”

Let me digress to a story of a NYC teacher who contacted me shortly before I left. Jason (a pseudonym), who has been teaching a number of years, was ordered by his administrators to teach in a certain restricted style in which he was not only uncomfortable, but truly felt was not in the best interests of the education of his students. He refused. The result was a vicious attack by school administrators, coordinated by a new principal who had recently graduated from the Leadership Academy — often compared by teachers serving under the yoke of these graduates as a KGB training ground. He was threatened with a U rating, received visits from regional supervisors, threats of termination, manipulation of personnel that had him at the point of being excessed out of the school, and other techniques taught in the dungeons of the Leadership Academy. Assistant principals who had been supportive and knew him for years turned on him on a dime – the classic response of apparatchiks, the same way Tomas’ boss behaved in the novel.

The struggle reached the point where Jason was pretty much out the door. Realizing he had to think of his wife and kids, he capitulated. He told them he would teach as they wanted him too. (Need I say the union was useless throughout?)

The day Jason gave in, he sat in his car and cried, the first time he had done so as an adult. He just saved his job — you might think they were tears of joy. They were not. Jason cried for having been forced to give up his integrity; for being forced to do what years of experience told him in his marrow was wrong for his students; for being forced to choose between family and principle; for basically losing his profession.

The people who hounded him were smug and satisfied in their “victory” and they now parade Jason around as a model teacher. But they are really parading their conquest as an example to all the others. Jason laughs with irony, knowing full well a crime has been perpetrated against both he and the students he teaches. This battle took a lot out of him and has dissipated some of his passion for teaching. Whether you were in Eastern Europe from the late 40’s through the late 80’s or in the current DOE, passion outside the narrow box of orthodoxy is degraded, not valued.

Did putting Jason through the ringer benefit his students? Apparatchiks who are “True Believers” – Leadership Academy grads and Kundera’s “Fools” - will shout, in unison, “Yes, Children First.” The mentality and behavior of the “True Believers” at the DOE and in totalitarian states are similar and their tactics are scarily familiar.

The Assistant Principals who knew what a good teacher Jason was before and know it is all a crock will claim they were just following orders. Kundera would say they are all fools.

I can’t tell you how many similar stories I am hearing, with many people saying, “Now, it’s just a job.” Or worse, ending up in the Gulag of the DOE – the rubber room.

One day someone will write: “First they came for the senior teachers near retirement; then they came for the non-tenured; then they came for the people who could not produce the results they wanted; then they came for those who could not turn straw into gold; when they came for me, there was no one left.”

Maybe when the iron curtain at the DOE is lifted post BloomKlein and the fear of speaking out against these “state” crimes is over there will be a day of retribution. Meanwhile, the School Scope columns must suffice.

Mr. Klein, tear down that wall!
Klein has built his version of the Berlin Wall between managers and educators. Many of the apparatchiks at the DOE, especially at the Region level who carried out policies they knew were bad for teachers and children — if they were really educators — are now singing a different tune as BloomKlein are reorganizing once again as a way to cover their mismanagement. Region level jobs are threatened as the Empowerment Zone expands and the regions shrink. What has been going on is the replacement of educators with corporate types in the anti-educator modus operendi of the corporate takeover of school systems throughout the country. People trained to be educators are not to be trusted.

Thus, Klein's emphasis on corporate, entrepreneurial types as principals without educational experience. Or taking former educators and brainwashing them at the Leadership Academy before unleashing them (without their muzzles) into the schools.

Enormous sums are spent on doing professional development for all kinds of expensive programs that funnel more enormous sums into the pockets of private companies. What teachers learn in school or what they have learned from experience is denigrated. Yet, a qualified teacher under NCLB is measured by the courses and degrees they complete in education. “Qualifications” are not required of the people being chosen to run school systems, Klein being exhibit number one.

Note this quote by Mike Bloomberg in an article in the Washington Post when he tried to answer criticisms for the lack of parental input under his administration. "Parents know about their kids, but they're not professional educators. There is no reason to think they should be designing a school system or running a school system. Do you want parents to make medical decisions? I don't think so."

Hmmm. Mayor Mike. You sort of skipped the professional educator step when you chose a lawyer to run the NYC school system. If you should ever have to have an operation, I hope you choose a plumber to do the job.

Educators — and by this I mean people who actually taught for a few years — see BloomKlein’s corporate invasion of the school system as a hostile takeover. Sort of like tanks rolling into Prague and Budapest.


Coming soon:
What lies beneath — how the apparatchiks at the UFT almost outdid their counterparts at the DOE when Jason attempted to give out literature critical of the union leadership.

Education Notes - October 2006

Excerpts from the 1 page print edition handed out at the October 18 Delegate Assembly (with cartoon, a joke and a lovely picture of Randi and Bloomberg about to kiss).

PDF of leaflet available for distribution to your school - email me at norscot@aol.com


Contract on Life Support
(see cartoon posted on Sept. 30)

With a tattered contract, we must ask:

What level of responsibility for the erosion of the contract and the general deterioration in working conditions in the schools does the UFT leadership bear? Should UFT leaders be held accountable for their support for mayoral control, the willingness to negotiate givebacks and extended time for money, the lessening of contractual protections, and the severe reduction in protections of seniority? Is there a level of collaboration between the DOE and the UFT that is unhealthy for the members? Or should the leadership’s position be accepted that we are victims of the anti-union “climate of the times” and have done very well compared to other unions?

These are fundamental questions. The issue is whether the current leadership has the will or the capability to stand up to the onslaught of the well-organized forces of BloomKlein that have led to more unbridled power in the hands of principals than possibly in the entire history of the UFT. So far they have been found lacking — just check out conditions in your schools. Can Unity caucus, which has controlled the UFT since its inception over 40 years ago, bear no responsibility?

To understand the UFT one must understand Unity – a massive, monolithic machine that requires a loyalty oath to the caucus that puts its interests over that of the members. Many teachers only found out in the last contract struggle that their own chapter leaders, who were ordered to “sell” the contract to their staffs, were in fact members of Unity who get all sorts of perks like after school jobs, double pensions, attendance at conventions, and even some level of intervention on their behalves from top UFT officials when they have troubles with administrators.

One of the key problems is that the UFT has the trappings of democracy but is really what one would call a totalitarian democracy, a system with elected representatives whose members, while granted the right to vote, have little or no participation in the decision-making process. In the UFT all decisions flow from the office of the President with little room for vetting these decisions. A massive public relations operation and control of all the organs of communication within the UFT in the hands of the leadership, enforced by the Unity machine to the extent that materials critical of the leadership distributed to the schools are removed from teacher mailboxes and those who have attempted to distribute are threatened.

One response to this system is to build an effective, democratic alternative to the Unity machine that can force Unity to make the kinds of changes that will lead to a union that will stand up for its members. The key is to call for a package of democratic changes, one of which is a return to the election of district reps, summarily cancelled by Randi Weingarten years ago. A so-called bipartisan committee to examine the issue is just a smokescreen – a band aid for a gunshot would, as the Unified Teachers Party blog calls it (http://theutp.blogspot.com/).

Democracy does count. It is not a theoretical concept. The lack of it has resulted in bad decision-making on many levels. Fighting for it will lead to a stronger union.



Delegate Assembly Math

If you notice a preponderance of support for the UFT leadership at delegate assemblies that seems way out of proportion to the feelings of the people in your school, there is a reason. The DA has around 3000 members but is held in a room that holds just over 800. Unity Caucus members are expected to show up and many of them are required to be either a delegate or chapter leader.

With at least 1000 or more UC members, that is a serious base to start from.
Add the 89 members of the Executive Board.
Add the 300 Unity members of the retirement chapter.

There are probably 30 activist members of the opposition and maybe another 30 supporters at the DA. The rest are independents, but often actively recruited by Unity, which is always looking to keep people from drifting to the opposition.

So the leadership starts with a big majority, can dominate the discussion and can assure victory on any issue. That is why only 30% of the delegates show up regularly. If you are independent of Unity, we urge you to band together with other independents and begin to make your presence felt at the DA.

REMEMBER THE CONRACT OF 2005.
SAY: NEVER AGAIN!!!!



The following was posted as a comment to the ICE blog after the DA

MESSAGE TO NEW DELEGATES AND CHAPTER LEADERS:
DON'T BOTHER COMING BACK

The October DA is usually the most crowded because it is the first one of the year. This one in particular was crowded because so many new Chapter Leaders and Delegates who were elected last spring were attending for the first time.

The message from Randi and crew was: DON'T BOTHER COMING BACK

With probably 2800 or more delegates, instead of holding the meeting at the Marriott or in a school that could hold what is usually around 1200 people for these first meetings, they held it at the UFT in a room that legally holds around 850 people. It was reportedly so uncomfortable in there that one CL told me he went wild saying that it was a major fire trap and if the fire dept. has been called they would have shut down the meeting. If they did it wouldn't have made a difference as Randi did the usual filibuster thing.

Many people will not come back. But Unity people will. Exactly what Randi and crew want.



Joke of the Month
During a visit to the mental asylum, a visitor asked the Director what the criterion was which defined whether or not a patient should be institutionalized.

“Well,” said the Director, “we fill up a bathtub, then we offer a teaspoon, a teacup and a bucket to the patient and ask him or her to empty the bathtub.”

“Oh, I understand,” said the visitor. “A normal person would use the bucket because it’s bigger than the spoon or the teacup.”

“No.” said the Director, “A normal person would pull the plug. Do you want a bed near the window?”

An abridged version of the Lipstick on the Pig article posted on Oct. 6 is also part of the print version of Ed Notes. The pdf will be sent to my email list. If you are not on it yet, don't be left out.


For those newcomers to the Delegate Assembly, welcome.

Education Notes presents an independent view on issues affecting the educational community, especially as they relate to the actions and inactions of the UFT. It has been distributed regularly to Chapter Leaders and Delegates at Delegate Assemblies for the past 10 years. Feel free to make copies of any of the material in these bulletins for your staffs.

There have also been 10 tabloid size editions that have been produced for wider distributions to the schools. Copies of future editions (the next one is planned for late November) are available for your staffs.

Editor Norman Scott worked in the NYC school system as an elementary school teacher for 35 years. He retired in 2002 but has maintained an interest in union and educational affairs. In late 2003 he and other independents, unhappy with the direction the UFT was going in, organized the Independent Community of Educators (ICE), a caucus that aims to affect change in the UFT. ICE ran in the 2004 elections and will do so again with Teachers for a Just Contract (TJC) in the upcoming elections in the spring of 2007. See the ICE blog (http://iceuftblog.blogspot.com/) and website http://www.ice-uft.org/ for details of their program.

Education Notes is independent from ICE and represents solely the point of view (often weird) of the editor.

Putting Lipstick on the Pig

The following 2 articles appeared in The Wave, Rockaway's community newspaper (since 1893). The first is the bi-weekly School Scope column appearing in the OCt. 6 edition.

The second is a news piece ("Joel Klein Meets the Press") from Joel Klein's press addressing ELA scores and appeared Sept. 29, 2006.


Putting Lipstick on the Pig
by Norman Scott

October 6, 2006

In the movie “Boiler Room” shady brokers used the expression “Put lipstick on the pig” when they dressed up lousy stocks to sell to a gullible public. Attending events put on by the NYC Department of Education are all about putting lipstick on the pig (PLOTP).
(I wrote about the bright shade of lipstick Chancellor Joel Klein tried to apply to the flat ELA scores at his Sept. 21 press conference in a separate article.)

For the DOE, it is all about spinning the many disasters that have resulted from mayoral control. They have managed to do in 30 years what decentralization could not — unite parents and teachers in an increasing understanding that there must be some major changes when the law giving dictatorial powers to politicians and the corporate non-educators they hire to run the school systems for them sunsets in 2009.

A good illustration of people’s frustration was a letter to the NY Times by John C. Fager, former education columnist for The Daily News and currently a teacher. “The mayor… has lost the support of teachers. He and Chancellor Joel I. Klein do not understand the importance of meaningful parent involvement and have alienated parents as well. Having such a person exercise overwhelming control of the school system without any checks and balances is not desirable or effective. Mayoral control, which I ardently supported, needs to be reformed.”

Fager’s letter was in response to a Times article (“Bloomberg Re-emphasizes School Control”, September 20, 2006) on the Mayor’s visit to LA where the mayor there is trying to emulate Bloomberg by fighting for control of the school system. But he has been partially stymied by a less cooperative teachers union than the UFT, which served up the school system to Bloomberg on a platinum platter.

The article stated, “Mr. Bloomberg has embarked on a high-profile offensive to make mayoral control permanent. At stake, the administration fears, is the long-term fate of his changes to the school system.”

Bloomberg and Klein are afraid that there could be a reversal of their so-called “Children First” reforms when a new mayor comes into power. Actually, they are worried that when they are gone people will unbury the lies and distortions and discover it was really Children Last, Management First as all the shennigans (can anyone spell S-N-A-P-P-L-E) of no-bid contracts, political favors no different than took place under decentralization (but with a new cast of characters) are uncovered. At least in the old days people on the gravy train were community based rather than the high end corporate pilfering going on as wheelbarrows of money are handed over to private firms with influence – the BloomKlein version of “friends with benefits.” I never thought I’d say this, but the pre-BloomKlein system was less harmful to children, parents and teachers.

At his press conference Klein started lobbying to remain as chancellor under a new mayor by talking about the wonderful stability in Boston after having had the same Superintendent for 12 years. Boston topped New York for the Broad (pronounced Brood) prize, supposedly for “an award created to honor urban school districts making the greatest overall improvement in student achievement while at the same time reducing achievement gaps across income and ethnic groups.” In reality, it is a prize for the greatest achievement privatizing as much of public education as possible while undermining the teachers union. It is hard to see how Boston could have topped New York in the latter.

Apparently, BloomKlein were so sure of winning the prize, they trucked all regional superintendents down to the award ceremony, only to end up with just a bit if egg on their faces.

The Times article quoted Bloomberg as saying at a meeting of city commissioners a year ago (my brackets), “We’ve got to find some ways [to put lipstick on the pig] between now and the end of our administration to make it so compelling [more PLOTP] that the public will demand that we continue to put the interest of our students first, and the interest of the people who work in the system or benefit from getting contracts in the system last.”

BloomKlein are putting their interests (let me repeat — Management FIRST instead of Children First) ahead of those of the children. What a joke to talk about those who got contracts in the last system when the BloomKlein regime has made the previous outlay of money to contractors look like small change — but the KGB-like hiding of information by the DOE requires a steam shovel to dig it all up. But when they are gone — it will be “Katie bar the door” time.

The damage to children from the rest of their incompetent schemes; from the one-size-fits-all curriculum (millions of dollars spent on new books by the districts were wasted as these books sit in closets); to the massive amounts spent on PD that so many teachers consider a waste (especially those 2 days before Labor Day); to the spending of $17 million to fix their own incompetent reorganization when just about anyone in the system would tell them what to do for free; to the report that the number of overcrowded classes violating the UFT contract have doubled to over 6000 — now there’s Children First for you. If there were no UFT contract (under such attack by BloomKlein) protecting children from obscene class sizes, they would cram a hundred in a class. Or maybe build more stadiums and have class sizes of 50,000.
The BloomKlein administration will need shipping containers of lipstick.

Randi Weingarten’s quote in the same Times article, considering the onslaught against the members of her union, was tepid, at best: “You talk to a student or a parent who’s in one of the new small schools, they’ll tell you that it’s fantastic. You talk to a parent of a special ed student who hasn’t gotten the placement they want, and they’ll tell you it’s terrible. You just have a whole bunch of anecdotes right now.”

With an obvious need to gear up a campaign to stop the Mayor from lobbying a continuance of the disaster known as mayoral control, Weingarten missed another opportunity to call attention to this by taking a neutral position. Why one might ask, considering the fact that for teachers this has been such a catastrophe? Is it that she put so many eggs in the basket by being a major supporter of the mayor's takeover? Or is it her expectation that in the next election the UFT's favorite candidate Bill Thompson will be the new mayor and the UFT can be back in the driver's seat.

The UFT uses a different shade of lipstick

The UFT version of PLOTP is to convince the members of the advantages of the 2005 contract, where the Open Market System and the inability of senior teachers to be given job preference has led to numerous experienced teachers being tossed from their schools and classrooms and turned in substitutes, one of the most horrifying jobs in the school system. While having full-time subs assigned to a school is not a bad idea (that was my job for my first year and a half as a teacher and I learned a lot while doing it) there has never been such a demand from the UFT. Yet, notice the tub of lipstick applied by a 6-figure salaried UFT PR person disguised as a teacher on the UFT blog:

“There is a real educational benefit in having an ATR pool — and a real benefit to teachers too. If you’ve ever worked in a school…where subs were hard to come by, you know how valuable on-site subs can be… the teachers are spared from having to take extra kids…some principals are just fine with breaking up a class, disrupting everybody else’s classes on that grade for the day…nobody ever really liked bumping. Even the senior teacher who did the bumping was often resented in the new school and made to feel unwanted. And of course, some poor new teacher down the line was out of a job. But what choice was there? Now there is a choice. On balance, I think it’s a better deal.”

This lead to a comment from blogger called “Schoolgal”: “After reading the above comments, I can only conclude that this is a sad day for our union. This has to be the worst spin ever, and tasteless at that.”

The UFT can go halfies on a couple of those lipstick containers with the DOE.

Norman Scott can be reached at norscot@aol.com




Joel Klein Meets the Press
Sees progress despite flat results

Special To The Wave by Norman Scott, Education Editor
Sept. 29, 2006

New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein held a press conference at the Tweed Courthouse on September 21 to discuss the results of the just released 2006 English Language Arts (ELA) 4th and 8th grade test scores. While not quite ecstatic, Klein seemed pleased with the results – despite the fact that they showed little or no improvement over last year.

City fourth grade scores dropped slightly, but less than the rest of the state. While Klein attributed this drop to a slightly harder test, he felt it was important that the gains of the previous years had been upheld, a point echoed by UFT President RandI Weingarten who held a brief meeting with the press on the steps of Tweed after Klein’s conference.

In 2005 when there was a big jump in 4th grade scores that occurred throughout the state, Klein and Mayor Bloomberg ignored the gains across the state as the Mayor trumpeted the results in his reelection campaign, attributing the improvement to his educational reforms. Some teachers charged that the test was extremely easy, tailored politically rather than educationally in an election year.

This year, across the grades, there was also a significant jump in NYC of Level Ones, the percent of students at the lowest grade level. That was somewhat surprising since numbers of teachers hired to mark the exams in February complained that many exams they graded as Level Ones were ordered changed to Level Twos after consultation with state officials who created the grading rubric, in essence making the results throughout the system look better than they should have been. “A child practically has to breathe on the paper and we are ordered to give them a Two,” said one teacher. A harder test and an easier rubric could theoretically cancel each other out.

At the press conference, Klein compared the NYC results with the so-called Big 4 cities of Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and Yonkers as a more apples-to-apples comparison. Last year when the Big 4 showed gains corresponding with NYC last year, Klein did not make such comparisons, claiming it was his reform package that was the difference, not the nature of the test.

The news was somewhat better for the 8th grade scores, though still dismal, as 36.6% of 8th graders scored Level 3 & 4. Klein claimed a rise of 7.1% in 8th grade scores in the four years he has managed the DOE, statistically higher than the rest of the state. The Big 4 rose 4.95 in this same period. Yet as Bob Tobias, former head of testing for DOE, pointed out, the results in 8th grade are only 1.3% higher than seven years ago – when the state first established this exam. Klein attributed the severe drop off in performance with each succeeding grade once children leave elementary school as being a national problem.

State Education Commissioner Richard Mills was quoted in the NY Times: “The overall pattern is disturbing. Literacy is the problem. This pattern is not inevitable. This pattern has to change… We still have a lot of work to do. We have to do something different. We have to change our tactics, our curriculum, our approach.”

One teacher had a different take. “They want to make is seem that scores stop dropping after the 4th grade because of the curriculum or teacher quality as a substitute for funding education anywhere near the range of the wealthy suburbs or exclusive private schools. Class sizes are often kept low to assure better scores in a scrutinized grade and allowed to rise after that. So much time is spend practicing for the test instead of actually learning to read in a meaningful way, which leads to artificially pumped up scores, much like a weight lifter pumping up a bicep for a competition. When the level of intensity is reduced in the 5th and 6th grades because they do not get as much focus as the 4th grade, the ‘muscle’ goes down as they revert to their ‘true’ reading level.”

Some teachers feel that a truer measure would be to track individual children from the 4th to the 8th grade over the years as a method of getting valid information that could be useful for them. They point to the fact that a certain number of children held over actually take 5 or more years to go from the 4th to the 8th grade and this has an impact on scores, usually skewing them upward.

Both Randi Weingarten and Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters also disagreed with Mills and Klein, saying that there is a correlation with rising class sizes after 4th grade and worse performance, a point that Klein and Mills totally ignored.

As average class sizes in NYC rise dramatically in grades 5 and up, the percent of students scoring at grade level drops —

5th grade: 56.9% at grade level
6th: 48.6% at grade level
7th: 44.3% at grade level
8th: 36.6% at grade level

While the average class sizes in NYC compared to the rest of the state are significantly higher —
5th grade: 26.6 vs. 21.9
6th grade: 27.6 vs. 22.3
7th grade English: 27.9 vs. 21.6
7th grade Math: 28 vs. 21.3
8th grade: 28

Class sizes in NYC, particularly in 7th and 8th grades, have not fallen significantly in seven years according to Haimson. But the averages tell only part of the story. “According to an analysis from the Independent Budget Office a few years ago,” Haimson said, “60% of middle school students remained in classes larger than 28, with nearly half of them in classes larger than 30. The Bloomberg administration continues to tinker at the edges by creating K-8th or 6-12th schools. But as long as our middle school students continue to be deprived of the individual support they need because of their class sizes, we will not see major improvements in these grades.”

UFT Contract on Life Support

EdNotes Online #3 abridged - Sept. 29, 2006

Putting Lipstick on the Pig
Jim Cramer appeared on Imus and was asked about how such a disaster could occur at Helwlett-Packard, one of the classic tech success stories in history. He pointed to the stewardship of former CEO Carly Fiorina (he used a Martha Stewart analogy) who used a massive, highly successful public relations operation to control the press and disguise the disasters that were really going on. (“Talk to people at HP and they will tell you it was all about Carly.”) The story reminded me of certain operations – AHEM! – closer to home.

This idea is the theme behind my column appearing in the Wave on Oct. 6. I call it “Putting Lipstick on the Pig” a phrase from the movie “Boiler Room” that refers to the act of dressing up a bad stock to make it look good so suckers will buy it.

Watching Klein’s DOE (my article in the Wave on Sept. 29 is a report of my coverage of Klein’s press conference where he spun the slim results of the citywide exams) and Weingarten’s UFT, where globs of lipstick are being put on the catastrophic contract to dress up the Open Market system and the basic end of seniority that has led so many experienced teachers to be used as permanent subs. I won’t go into the rest of the stuff now.

I asked a chapter leader who is a former cartoonist to do a cartoon for the upcoming newsprint edition of Education Notes (I’m printing over 20,000 copies and will need everyone’s help to distribute it – early-mid November is the target). He did the much talked about cartoon we held up at the demo at the UFT last year of Bloomberg and Weingarten in bed. He also did the “Contract on Life Support” cartoon that appeared in the last newsprint edition of Ed Notes over a year ago. I will post that cartoon soon.



Elections: Why should you be involved?
As you know ICE is working with TJC in the upcoming elections and your help is needed if an alternative to the one-person dominated Unity caucus is to be built. And let me emphasize the last word. This election is not an end all and be all. It is part of a process of building a more progressive union that will stand up for its members, build bridges to other unions and communities, support teaching and learning in a positive environment, show positive results in the move to reduce class size, and address many other issues of concern.

Let’s face it. Unity has stacked the deck by manipulating the UFT constitution in such a way as to make it almost impossible for an opposition to “win” the election in the classic sense. It is possible to win 50% of the vote of active members and end up with no seats on the exec bd, where Unity currently has 92% of the seats, all of them in some way on the payroll of the union. There can never be reform in the UFT until the Exec bd reflects the membership and that will never happen as long as these people are on the payroll.

The key is the use of at-large voting where all union members get to vote for positions that should be voted on only by their constituencies (like the divisional – elem, ms, HS VP’s). Giving retirees a major say in this process - UFT leaders make annual junkets all over the country in January and beyond to meet retirees, this year these junkets will take place right in the middle of the election cycle.

But we expect them to do this when Unity’s prime directive is to HOLD ONTO POWER AND DO ANYTHING NECESSARY TO DO SO. That includes serving the membership as well as they can, given their constrictions, so it is not all bad. The reaction of the leadership to the 40% no vote on the last contract has been more responsive as they have taken many positions of their critics in ICE and TJC, at least for PR purposes.

Let us not ignore the benefits to the membership of having an alternative to Unity that can become a serious threat. There will be a response to this pressure and is one of the reasons you should be involved in the elections. If we ran a full slate of 800 people (that includes the AFT/NYSUT delegates, a winner-take-all system for Unity perks so that if we got 49% of the vote we get no delegates) IMAGINE THE IMPACT!!!

Another benefit is the impact on the DOE of a militant opposition calling for the union to really stand up to BloomKlein instead of making phony protestations of militancy while playing patty cake behind the scenes. Apologists for Unity will brand critics of Unity as traitors to the union and assisting BloomKlein by being divisive. Don’t buy it. A growing movement to light a fire under the asses of Unity is a much bigger threat to the games BloomKlein have been playing than total support for Unity’s givebacks. Frankly, if ICE/TJC got a serious amount of votes, I don’t think BloomKlein would be happy. Their union leader of choice is, GUESS WHO? How else will they be able to complete the rest of their agenda in dismantling the contract and the union at the chapter level?

Some of the few divisional positions on the Exec Bd that are up for grabs are winnable and the opposition has won the high school exec bd seats fairly consistently over the past 20 years. The last election 3 years ago was unusual in that long-time oppositions group New Action made deal with Weingarten not to run against her in exchange for Unity not running against them for these high school seats. Looked like a win-win for them. Except that ICE and TJC put a fly in the ointment by challenging New Action for these seats and winning them.

Now mind you, these are only 6 out of the 89 seats - the other 83 are controlled by Unity which naturally votes in a block to support Weingarten. Every single one of these 83 people is in the employ of the UFT either full or part-time and hired personally by Weingarten. They get double pensions and the overwhelming majority are totally out of the classroom. Can you spell C-O-N-F-L-I-C-T O-F I-N-T-E-R-E-S-T?

Well, the most active among this little group at the Exec Bd. – mostly Jeff and James, at times joined by Artie and Ellen from TJC – have driven Unity crazy and they are just as crazy to get these seats back in the upcoming elections. Impossible, you say with the high schools more anti-Unity than ever? Don’t count that gang out.

You see, Unity is desperate to have another opposition group on the ballot to confuse the membership. It is no surprise that in the interests of ”democracy” they have made it easy for people to put slates together. So, they are trying to recruit another “opposition” to run as a stalking horse for Unity so they can install puppet “oppositionists.” There are some eager candidates for the role. We’ll keep you posted.



Union democracy: How it affects you
Most people generally don’t care much about union democracy, unless they are directly affected at the school level. Even District Rep elections (this issue is being featured on the ICE and UTP blogs) used to be in the hands of chapter leaders and didn’t impact directly on the rank and file. (That is one reason many of us are in favor of having all teachers in a district vote for DR.)

The UFT has one-person rule since Al Shanker took over with each person in charge hand-picking their successor – Sandy Feldman – Randi Weingarten. Three strong leaders in 40 years. When I say strong I am referring to internally, how they run the operation and the Unity Caucus political party.

We know that all decisions flow from the top down. There is no real discussion because everyone owes fealty to the person that hired them. Even in the 1000+ member Caucus, there is little discussion as everyone, even if not in the employ of the union, has high hopes. At the very least, they expect to be rescued from a bad situation in their school by the arrangement of a convenient transfer.

I remember a Unity chapter leader who was basically burned out from working in one of the most horrible middle schools in the city and looked like a wreck. He just couldn’t take it anymore. Soon after, he was rescued by Unity and appeared in a Teacher Center job in a nice suit and tie, looking wonderful and managed to get to retirement in good shape. Yes, Unity takes care of its own and it is understandable why people join.

But in the process, they take the Unity oath to support the leadership even when in conflict with the members --- witness the last contract where hordes of Unity people invaded the schools to threaten people with a strike. If you saw the leaflet ICE handed out at the Sept. chapter leader meeting you can read what ICE wrote in Oct. 2005 about how turning down the contract and keeping the old one would at least keep basic protections in place. You can see it at:
http://ice-uft.org/ICELeaf906.pdf or at the ednotesonline blog http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/ in the Sept. 20 entry.

(I received a call from a recently elected chapter leader who had never heard of ICE until that leaflet and said she was sorry the people in her school didn’t see it last year.)

But let me come back to my original premise. Are you as rank and file affected by this undemocratic system? Let’s compare the way the UFT is run to the DOE, also run by one-person rule. What do you think of the results of one-person, unchecked rule in the school system? In the old system you had about 40 little dictators and the chancellor was just one of many. Not a great system but not nearly as catastrophic as today. At least you could pick up a phone and call someone you knew. I also like to think that the graft was local – someone stole a piano, etc. Now much more massive amounts of money flows to the biggies with connections to BloomKlein. I never thought I would say this, but give me the old system.

Back to the UFT. If they delivered under their dictatorship-like system people would not care much about whether there was democracy. But it is my contention that one person rule without checks and balances leads to such terrible decision making that there is no way they can deliver. And if you follow my “Lipstick on the pig” analogy, they are left with nothing else other than to put on a big PR show to give the impression they are being successful. Lipstick on the pig. Shades of Carly Fiorina and Joel Klein.

ICE Leaflet - September, 2006

THE INDEPENDENT COMMUNITY OF EDUCATORS


ICE Contact information
http://iceuftblog.blogspot.com
http://www.ICE-UFT.org
Phone: (917) 992-3734

Dear Chapter Leaders

Congratulations on your election as chapter leader! Being a Chapter Leader is often a thankless job but one that is crucial to our Union.

The Contract of 2005
The contract negotiated by the UFT and the DOE last fall confirmed our initial analysis that the UFT leadership would use givebacks of time and contractual protections in exchange for what they would call “raises.” It’s not hard to get money when you are willing to sell off chunks of the contract. During the ratification process, the leadership claimed “we’re in a crisis” as an excuse for what they admitted was a bad contract, saying it was the best they could do. It was clear that the already bad 2002 contract had more protections than the new one.

On October 23, 2005 ICE put out the following statement on the blog encouraging a no vote:

What We Keep If We Vote No

* The right to grieve letters in our file to have unfair/inaccurate material removed immediately. (Currently letters can’t be used against us in dismissal proceedings after three years and we can attach responses to letters in our file.)
* The right to grieve unfair/inaccurate observation reports.
* The right to do professional activities during our professional period.
* The right to say no to hall patrols, potty patrols, and cafeteria duty.
* The right to maintain our current teaching load; no 37.5 minute small group extra teaching period at the end of the day.
* The right to transfer based on our seniority.
* The right to be part of SBO Committees made up of majority teachers that determine who transfers into our schools, not principals exclusively deciding.
* The right to due process so we can’t be suspended without pay based on an allegation of misconduct.
* The right to a full and fair hearing if we are charged with lateness/absence issues.
* The right not to turn over confidential medical information to the DOE.
* The right to a vacant position if we are excessed.
* The right to widest placement choices possible if our school is closed or reorganized.
* The right to any in license position instead of worrying about becoming an Absent Teacher Reserve if our school is closed or reorganized.
* The right to a full summer vacation. (Many surrounding districts have school years fixed by contract at 183 days. If we vote yes, we will have a 190 day school year, the longest in the Metropolitan area.)
* The right to one less work day in June for teachers in Brooklyn and Queens.
* The right to current longevity and step increases without givebacks.
* The right to have our pay based on our education and experience, not some merit pay system called lead teacher where a committee with a majority of administrators decides who will get a raise based on whatever criteria they want.
* The right to grieve selection of our professional assignment to an independent arbitrator, not a city employee at the Office of Labor Relations.
* The right to ask the state for 55/25 pension that will be paid for by the city, not us (a Tier 4.5)
* The right to push for a no layoff agreement like we had in the last two Contracts.
* The right to full breaks for secretaries.
* The right to demand real raises, not time for money swaps.

Contract supporters admit the contract is terrible. Be not afraid. Rejection does not mean strike. The law requires good faith bargaining.

Don’t Sell Your Rights For Pennies! VOTE NO!

Now, months later:
The actual implementation of the contract has been worse than expected, culminating this fall in the full impact of the open market system and the total breakdown of seniority as numbers of experienced teachers end up as subs while brand new teachers take classroom positions. We have seen:

*Mistreatment of experienced teachers: The end of seniority transfer and excessing rights coupled with the reorganization of hundreds of schools leads to a situation where talented, skilled and experienced teachers are forced to work as day-to-day subs.

*Tyranny of supervisors and inflexible teaching mandates. This includes harassment of chapter leaders, forcing teachers to use inappropriate programs and methodologies, the rampant use of u-ratings and the capricious removals of teachers from schools, and the intimidating of all staff. The concerted effort to replace tenured staff with untenured staff reinforces this tyranny.

*Cost-cutting at the classroom level while the DOE hires more and more layers of consultants, experts and authorities whose main task is to find more ways to insure a compliant, easily replaceable and low paid teaching staff.

*Experienced licensed math teachers as subs while new math teachers hired with housing subsidies.

Yet the UFT/Unity spin machine continues to try to put lipstick on the pig by saying all of the above is a victory for teachers. Part of the damage control is courting chapter leaders through training, meetings, promises of career opportunities and other perks. But membership in Unity comes with a price as Unity members must sign an extensive obligation statement promising to “support the decisions of the caucus and the Union leadership elected from the caucus in public or Union forums.”

The loyalty oath and patronage system have hurt our union because Unity members must owe greater allegiance to the Caucus than to the members in the schools who elected them. The result is cynicism in schools when the program of the leadership is pushed down members’ throats. Change needs to come from the schools and independent chapter leaders will be key to this process. Only by building a progressive alternative to Unity Caucus can we hope to strengthen and unite members in a fight back against a concerted effort to destroy both our union and public education. We look forward to working with you.


Put a dent in the Unity monopoly by supporting the ICE/TJC election campaign. To counter Unity spin every school in the city needs to be reached. You can help by distributing literature in your schools. Contact us:
Name: _____________________________ School: _______________________ Email: ________________
Contribution Enclosed for $_____ made out to Independent Community of Educators.
Independent Community of Educators P.O. Box 1143, Jamaica, NY 11421 Phone: (917) 992-3734

The A&M Story Tastes Better than M&M’s

by Norman Scott

The following article appeared on Sept. 15 in The Wave, Rockaway's (in New York City) community newspaper since 1893. (www.rockawave.com)

Oh my! Where do we start? So many delicious stories, so little time.

The strategy of the DOE is out there for all to see. Turn over and retrain teachers over a 5-year period. Automate and standardize the curriculum and teaching styles and spend a lot on professional development to do this. No tenure, low salaries, no pensions, no real union. New teachers will struggle with high class sizes and other horrible conditions as an apprenticeship and when they have earned their teaching spurs will go elsewhere. In the corporate world of BloomKlein, using children as guinea pigs is irrelevant.

If you read my report of the Joel Klein press conference on Sept. 1, which I covered for The Wave, this became very clear. I wrote Klein “seemed to negate the experience factor in teacher quality when he said even if teachers do leave after 3 years the system benefited from having such high quality teachers for even a short time, pointing out that this is better than having some 20-year teachers who do not function effectively. He did not address charges from some experienced teachers that they have been systematically discriminated against, with some schools openly advertising positions would only be open to first year teachers and openly stating ‘They must not be a transfer from another NYC public school.’ Some have surmised that the move to newer teachers is merely a cost-cutting device.”

The ad referred to above was informally posted by a teacher on a listerve, but it reveals what she was told. Anyone who has been around a school or been in a classroom for any amount of time knows full well that experience does count no matter how dedicated a new teacher is. Preferring a first year teacher to one with experience makes no sense unless it is all about a lower salary and a person without tenure who will not demand the contract be adhered to.

Some say it takes 5-10 years to become a fully rounded teacher but in my experience by the 3rd year, people are pretty capable. That Klein seems so willing to accept that people from the high priced Teaching Fellows program will leave after two or three years shocks educators but makes perfect sense in the corporate world where the bottom line is so all-important. It is interesting that the high end school systems in the suburbs are snapping up many of these NYC people as they compete their 3rd year while avoiding first year teachers like the plague. Just ask new teachers who try to get jobs on Long Island. They are told to go to NYC to learn how to teach. I’ll comment next time on the Open Market Plan that has turned so many teachers with seniority (a dirty word at the DOE – and it seems the UFT) into substitute teachers as the UFT tries to put lipstick on the pig of the last contract.


Many questions were raised at Klein’s press conference about no-bid contracts, in particular the 17 million dollars awarded to consulting firm Alvarez and Marsal. I reported “A&M has come under scrutiny for their management of the schools in St. Louis which led to drastic cuts that included the closing of 16 schools, cut staff and charges the corporate management turn-around mentality had taken a school system in severe trouble and made it worse.” A report from teachers in St. Louis said, “… the ‘turnaround’ management team was brought in for union-busting purposes and privatization.”

Of course, Klein claimed the money is being well spent since A&E will cut $200 million from the bureaucracy to be redirected to the classroom. Sure! Go ask teachers if they see any of these savings.

Why Klein’s expensive management team can’t be trusted to find ways to cut the bureaucracy themselves is beyond me, especially since much of the bureaucracy was created by Klein himself: Ten Lis’s per region (well over 100 altogether) at 135-150k each, Ris’s, Pis’s, who knows how many at Tweed, etc. etc. etc. Klein turned what was a simple mess before he took over and turned it into a tangled mess. Pick ten teachers or principals at random and I bet they could find $200 million in savings and would probably do it for free.

Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters reports:
“I have just finished reading “A Recipe for Failure; A year of Reform and Chaos in the St. Louis Public Schools” by Marilyn Ayres-Salamon, about her tragic experiences as a middle school teacher the year Alvarez & Marsal, a corporate turn-around firm with no education experience, took control of the St. Louis schools. On NY1, Joel Klein said he “had no idea” what the firm had done in St. Louis; a rather astonishing admission considering the money they are paying them. Perhaps someone should send him a copy of this book.”

Basically, A&M balanced the budget at the expense of the students — typical behavior expected of corporate managers who make sure to take good care of themselves financially, while providing the standard corporate perks — lots of travel allowances for managers, expensive communications devices, etc. It is interesting that the corporate manager expect teachers with lots of education to take a hit for working in the public sector but exempt themselves. The complete Audit Report is at www.auditor.mo.gov/press/2004-47.pdf.

Back here at the NYC DOE, also known as Blackberry Ville, we can see all the corporate perks right out in the open as everyone above a classroom teacher can whip out their little machines every 10 seconds to check their email. I hear some teachers want to dress up as Indians and hold a local version of the Boston Tea Party where every Blackberry gets thrown into the Hudson River where they can try to swim their way back to Tweed. Hey! We just saved the DOE some serious bucks.

Attending a press conference with the NYC Education press corps is certainly an interesting experience as Klein lies — I mean spins — and reporters often don’t have the detailed knowledge needed to counter these “spins.” He bills these events as roundtables, which implies some level of dialogue or discussion. But that is not the case as there is little opportunity for extensive follow-up or for providing information to counter what Klein is saying. I’ve covered a couple of these for The Wave and am trying to feel my way and shift from a clearly partisan attitude to a reporter while at the same time framing questions in a manner that will get some useful information out of Klein (who told me at one conference “I see you’ve gone form being a gadfly to a reporter.”) It is a tough shift.

One of the things you notice right away is how many people surround Klein — including an enormous public relations and press control operation. Many of them are very young — some refer to them as “Twinkies.” Since perception is more important than reality, it is a must to spend money on the spinning operation. In the corporate world, the bottom line is profits. In the ed-corporate world the bottom line is based on test scores, graduation rates, attendance, etc. and massaging these numbers to make them look good can be tricky and costs big bucks.


I’ve often been critical of the education press corps. But given the conditions of covering ed news, which many reporters use as a way station to bigger and better things (two of the Times recent ed reporters are now bureau chiefs), some do a pretty good job on certain stories. Dave Andreatta of the Post, considering the anti-teacher positions of that publication, does some very good and fair reporting. Erin Einhorn of the Daily News distinguished herself on the A&E story, as have Andy Wolfe’s columns in The NY Sun. Here is some of Einhorn’s reporting on A&M that is worth sharing:

“The most expensive consultant, Sajan George, is billing the city a staggering $450 per hour as part of a $17 million contract that the city awarded his firm, Alvarez & Marsal, without competitive bidding… George's fees alone will cost taxpayers $1.7 million - more than four times what Schools Chancellor Joel Klein will earn during the same 18-month period. And in an unprecedented move, the contract appears to make some of the consultants responsible for work historically performed by top Education Department officials.”

To Klein accountability is only for people at the bottom.

Ednotes Online – Sept. 7, 2006

What is the difference between Ed Notes and ICE?
Ed Notes and ednotesonline is a one-person operation – me. I get to spout any nonsense I want.

Though I have been very involved in ICE, that is a caucus with a large group of people that reach decisions by consensus, some of which I don’t always totally agree with – but then that is what consensus ca be all about. Thus, I don’t always get to spout my nonsense.

I see Ed Notes as somewhat as a clearinghouse for ideas from all groups, caucuses and individuals looking to build an alternative to Unity. I don’t see ICE as the group working alone that will change the UFT. Let a 100 caucuses bloom is my philosophy, all organizing their specific constituencies.


Running in UFT Elections
Did you know?
Let’s say ICE-TJC received 50% of the active membership vote in the election. Unity would still control over 90% of the Exec Bd. due to retiree votes and other factors in the election process. That this is undemocratic is obvious. But this leads to a leadership that executes such failed policy without real checks and balances and is why UFT members are in the position they are in.

ICE wants to run a full slate so as to use the election as a basis for change in the UFT. Our strategy is to get a large enough percentage vote of the active membership to make a case to the membership to try to force constitutional change to make the union more democratic.

ICE also wants to build an alternative to Unity that has enough outreach to match the propaganda machine. ICE will be part of the alternative but not necessarily the alternative. We will be supportive of other groups who align with our basic views but we are different in the way we approach things by taking on issues that go beyond but tie in to education. Most other groups are/have been high school based. ICE has a balance with a number of elementary school people and increasingly some middle school people.

If you are interested in running with the ICE-TJC slate send me an email.
We also need people to distribute literature in your schools. Let me know if you will/can do that ASAP.

Check the ICE blog and please leave comments
http://iceuftblog.blogspot.com/

The ICE website contains articles with greater depth: http://www.ice-uft.org/

There’s so much great material on the blogs I am including a bunch of them here.

Make sure to make a regular visit to NYC Educator’s blog where you get a real sense of what is happening in the NYC system and his fabulous commentary. He posts every 10 seconds so it is right up to date on the latest atrocities, plus some great picx.
http://nyceducator.blogspot.com/

The UTP blog is still as irreverent as always. http://theutp.blogspot.com/
Read Return to Bountiful – all 3 parts.

Joe Mudgett from the UTP has formed the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) http://www.actuft.org/
“The Alliance of Concerned Teachers is a new caucus dedicated to reforming New York City's United Federation of Teachers. Founded by the former director of the Unified Teachers Party, Joe Mudgett, ACT! takes great pride that the joint ICE/TJC slate has incorporated much of the UTP's ideology in their campaign platform.”
Joe has posted his reports of the Delegate Assemblies last spring.

Check out http://syntacticgymnastics.blogspot.com/
A fairly new teacher posts about experiences and offers new teachers advice on walking the minefield of internal school politics. She writes how her involvement in the union got her in trouble. Here is an excerpt:

“As we are on the eve of the new school year, I have been thinking a lot about what constitutes a good leader. During the past two professional development days, I've been comparing my new Sane Principal (SP) to my old Crazy Principal (CP) from last year. It is a good comparison because both schools are now in their second year of existence and both are now in the Empowerment Zone. “

The following job opening was posted. Note the preference for a new teachers as opposed to a teacher with experience. Everyone knows that experience DOES count as you grow as a teacher over a period of years and that no matter how dedicated and sincere a first year teacher is the kids are still being used as guinea pigs. My opinion is that by the 3rd year people pretty much get it but some say it takes 5-7 years. So, what would motivate a school to only want a first year teacher other than money?

Here’s the post
“We were notified of an immediate opening today, and were asked to pool our resources together to help find the replacement. The opening is in a K/1 classroom. All of our classes at P.S. 3 are mixed grades. We are looking for a teacher new to the Board of Ed. They must not be a transfer from another NYC public school.”


Leonie Haimson’s nyceducationnews listserve generates a lot of email but also some great discussion. Here is a snippet.

On grade retention:
Comment: I feel a child who cannot achieve to meet the standards will falter more if promoted to the next year.

Response:
The research on grade retention actually shows the reverse – kids who are held back do much worse than kids of equal ability who are promoted, and end up dropping out at double the rate.

There is nothing else in the educational literature where the research is so overwhelming. See http://www.classsizematters.org/retentionletter.html

and http://www.classsizematters.org/pressreleaseretentionletter.html

Leonie Haimson
Class Size Matters
www.classsizematters.org


From Teachers Unite
Happy New School Year!
Teachers Unite is launching STMs this Sunday for teachers who need an
educator-friendly space to plan for a full week of school. STMs (Sunday Teacher Motivators), are weekly sessions for teachers to drop-in, plan lessons, grade student work, and network with other progressive educators! This program has been funded by The Sparkplug Foundation.

Please visit www.teachersunite.NET and click on "Newsletter" to learn about STMs as well as the important work being done by teachers committed to social justice in New York City.

Enjoy the rest of this first week of school!

Best wishes,
Sally

www.teachersunite.NET


Posted on ICE-mail and NYC Educator blog

Excessed Teachers
I am an excessed teacher with 25 years in the system. I know, I can't believe it either! My school was reorganized this year, leaving almost 50 teachers - all experienced and tenured - in the ATR pool, which is not a place you want to be. This has been an education, a crash course, about what this contract means to all of us.

When a school is reorganized it is also renamed. (If it had the same name all of the senior teachers would have retention rights). Now you have a brand new school, or two new schools, or however many schools it was divided into. The principal now has to hire only 50% of the staff of the "old" school. Teachers must apply and be interviewed for these positions, seniority counts for nothing. Then the principal is free to hire anyone they want to fill the remaining positions - they can hire the rest of the current teaching staff if they want to, but this is not likely to happen. They generally hire brand new teachers. If you are not hired you become a well-paid sub.

I don't know of anyone who was hired from the open market system. The DOE also sponsored "hiring fairs" for us, where I met a lot of teachers from reorganized schools. Oh, BTW, they had fairs for new teachers at the same time; new teacher's fairs would begin at 3 PM, ours at 4PM, and then they would not admit us for another hour or so. Do you think they really want us to be hired?

The union has mailed us letters, telling us about their great job. They say that the city wanted to terminate us if we didn't obtain a permanent position within 18 months, but they saved us - we can now stay in the ATR pool forever, if necessary. I can't help but notice that the Kleinberg machine seem MUCH smarter than the UFT!!! -excessed teacher

On the First 2 days
http://chaz11.blogspot.com/

Thank You Randi, Joel, & My Clueless Administrators For The Two Most Miserable Days In My Teaching Career

I just spend the two of the most miserable days in my teaching career doing nothing at my school. Instead of recharging my batteries on vacation and preparing for the next school year, I found myself subject to mindless (un)professional development, a principal who spent precious time telling us how great he is, and assistant principals who had a mind-numbing session on bulletin boards, hallway practices, and classroom sharing. We were also exposed to an afternoon of videos of "right to know" that drove most of the teachers bonkers.

You might ask. "How about working on the classrooms?" Well my school administrators didn't program time in for this in our very busy two days of mindless nothingness. But Randi said the two days were to fix-up the classroom? Well, tell that to the administrators because they didn't seem to care what Randi said. What follows is my two days of misery.

Thursday, August 31st started off with coffee & bagels as the principal spoke about how our school improved their Math & English scores over last year. Clap, clap, clap. Next he introduced teachers who came back from sabbaticals and informed the staff of the teachers he excessed. We did not lose any teachers to transfer using the open market system. Note; teachers don't usually leave large traditional high schools in Queens for smaller schools despite the best efforts of Kleinberg to make the smaller schools attractive. See my August 24th blog. Next, he informed us how he single-handedly fought the Tweed educrats on adding cameras, security officers, and a police presence in our school I thought it was a total effort between parents, students, teachers and some administrators? What do I know. Finally, he finished it up with how we should all work together and collaborate on issues that affect the school and that we are one big family. Boy was I getting sick of this phoney. My principal is a "cya person" and will stab you in the back if that is what his Tweed masters want.

Next, it was off to our department meeting for the rest of the morning where we discussed what should go on our bulletin boards. Should it be student work, or posters? What can go on the walls? Can student work be put on the hallway walls? Thankfully, the session ended for lunch as the assistant principal was explaining how three teachers can share one room.

The afternoon session consisted of two videos on the "right to know" what chemicals are being used in the school and what the procedures are to inform medical personnel. However, our right to know apparently does not include knowing if our students have Communicable diseases. We are forbbiden to know if a child is HIV positive, another reason why a teacher should not break up fights. By the time the videos were finished it was time to go home.

Friday, September 1st we are back to coffee & bagels and another speech by the principal. Charitably, he limited it to a half hour. However, he had a wonderful surprise for his teaching staff, a day-long professional development session. Of course, despite his statements that he wants to collaborate with the teachers, he didn't ask for teacher input or comment on the type or necessity of professional development. By the way the administrators were exempt from the professional development sessions. The professional development consisted of
non-educators telling us how we should be in touch with our feelings. What a wonderful waste of time and money. Yes, he used his budget to pay for this rather than saving the money for before/after school tutoring. This professional development was to extend to the end of the day but a revolt by the teaching staff truncated it to 1:50 pm. This allowed the teachers one hour to fix up their rooms!

Didn't Randi say that the two days before Labor Day will be used for teachers to fix-up their classrooms? Well I took a look at the contract and under section 6C it states that "part of the time on the days before Labor Day will be allocated to classroom preparation. " The question is what does part mean? Half a day, 2 hours, 10 minutes? Another, poor job by Randi and her lawyer friends that did not specify what part of a day means. Does giving us one hour on the second day meet the definition as part of a day? What about not having any time on day one? What are the penalties for non-compliance of the contract by the administrators? I suspect there will be no consequences for the administrators for violating the contract. Can you imagine if you refused to go to the professional development session? Yes, you would be charged with insubordination and at the very least receive a letter to the file and maybe even being removed from the school!

My miserable day ended with my assistant principal (who I have a good relationship with) coming into my room and asking me if I finished the Earth Science lab booklet. My response was "you must be kidding" I informed him that had I not been required to go to the professional development session, I would have been finished. He left my room and told me that I forced him to find a common lab paper to hand out next week. My heart bleds.

In conclusion, I would like to thank Joel Klein who does not understand the law of diminishing returns and thinks quantity means quality. Joel, more time in the classroom does not mean better grades if you overwork the teacher & students. I would also thank Randi Weingarten who first, agreed to the two days before Labor Day that ruined many a planned vacation and second, lied to us about how the two days were to be used. Finally, I would like to thank my school administrators who time and again fail to practice what they preach and use limited funds for professional development that nobody wanted.


Before I forget, I want to give special thanks to Randi & Joel for the precedent-setting 190 day school year.

My comment:
Great post Chaz.

"The question is what does part mean? Half a day, 2 hours, 10 minutes? Another, poor job by Randi and her lawyer friends that did not specify what part of a day means. Does giving us one hour on the second day meet the definition as part of a day? What about not having any time on day one?"
The contract is and always has been full ambiguous words like "part" that allow interpretations instead of saying that teachers will be allowed, say, 5 hours to work on their room.

What stopped the UFT from insisting on specific language? So when Jonathan suggests everyone inform Rona and Randi that they weren't given the time I have to ask what were the intentions of the leadership when the word "part" was used instead of a definitive time period?

I do not subscribe to the theory our union leaders are stupid. I think they know exactly what they are doing and the use of the word "part" is what makes them collaborators with Klein. They are intentionally allowing language that can be violated easily and then they will go into the dance of "tsk tsk, how awful of your principal, do you want us to file a grievance? No! WELL, how can we help you if you won't stand up?"

They are perpetrators and phony defenders and the language indicates they are really partners in crime with Klein. That's why at Klein's press conference on Friday he expressed such thanks to the UFT for allowing such basic changes in the contract as he said he looks forward to working for more of them.
Norm | 09.05.06 - 7:21 pm |