The Motorless City: @AFT Convention

As I got closer to one massive beautiful brick building that in most cities would be a high-priced condo, it was clear that it was a building for cars. Maybe it is a condo of sorts where people get a parking spot and live in their cars.

Thursday, July 26, 10AM, revised 11PM

All I can say is "Detroit seems to be trying."

Parking lots, parking garages seem to be the major industry. I don't get it. Some of the newest and best built buildings are parking garages. Is this the post-post industrial age of a city in its last days - like a white dwarf about to be snuffed? One big parking lot? And who are the people driving all these cars? Actually, where are these people? I see empty streets, mainly devoid of cars. Well, it is the Motor City, but with so few cars on the streets do we call it The Motorless City? But maybe I'm not in the right area of the city. I hope.

I went to dinner. As I got closer to one massive beautiful brick building that in most cities would be a high-priced condo, it was clear that it was a building for cars. Maybe it is a condo of sorts where people get a parking spot and live in their cars. Think of it. You sleep in your car and there are bathroom and food services and maybe even lounges with TVs. You get all the amenities but just sleep in your car. You get to own that spot. And pay more for parking spots in "better" areas -- like with a view. What a great idea for an entremanure. Go to it you TFAers looking for a post-teaching gig.

When I went out to look for a place to eat I decided to walk over to Greektown, where guess what -- lots of Greek restaurants. I saw relatively few people in the streets. I found what looked like a reasonable place but didn't care much for the food -- but I did order some dumb stuff, given that my wife wasn't there to watch me. The area, which also has casinos, was livelier but still there wasn't a lot of action in the streets. Walking back I was certainly cautious, given the pretty much deserted streets. And still few cars.

First impressions of Detroit: Oy vey!

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The convention doesn't really start until Friday. Today is for registration and preliminary stuff. I decided to head to Detroit on Weds. to get acclimated – at my age I like to take things slow. Actually, I was like that at any age. I get too flustered when I have too many things to do. So let me tell you about my day yesterday.

My wife drove me to the airport at 7AM (yes, I owe her big for getting up hours before usual) and we landed at 10:40. So how come I didn't get to my hotel until almost 2PM? Don't ask. I took an AFT arranged bus for $30 which saved me about $20 but cost me about 3 hours. I'm taking a cab when I head back Sunday night.

But there were perks for being on that looooong bus ride that hit every hotel until getting to ours. Some of you may remember Kombiz Lavasany who used to work for the UFT in 2005 and set up Edwize. He left to work for the Democratic National Committee and worked on the Obama 2008 campaign. He got hired by the AFT just this week and we sat together on the bus. I don't remember anyone who didn't like him and find him very helpful in navigating blogging in those early years. I know I asked him for advice in those years as did many others. He will be working in the communications department along with former blogger Sabrina Shupe-Stevens who I ran into.

There was one retired UFT/Unity Caucus woman on the bus and the rest were AFT staffers and we had some very interesting conversations regarding charters and organizing teachers in charters. My opinions always get somewhat adjusted coming out of these dialogues. (I really have nothing to share about the content other than seeing that people who you may not agree with on many points have no less a passion or commitment to the work they are doing than the rest of us.) I did learn that the 2014 AFT convention will be in Los Angeles, the true motor city.

After arriving at the hotel, checking in and doing housekeeping to get ready for the rest of the MORE/GEM crew who are coming in today and tomorrow - we have a suite of sorts but no kitchen like we had in Seattle in 2010 and Chicago in 2011 – I headed over to Cobo Hall to check out the convention site, then took the People Mover -- a monorail that does a loop around downtown. I got off at the Renaissance Center where Marriott HQ for many of the delegates will be staying (yes and the 800 Unity people too). A bit fancier than the Doubletree where we are staying.

Then I did the Riverwalk from Renaissance back to Cobo, one of the highlights where a Detroiter can see across the Detroit River and say "Oh Canada, why can't I have universal health care like you." Nice walk.

At  Cobo hall I walked back to the hotel through a back route that led around a Wayne State University outpost. A few hours of hanging out before heading out for dinner over the Greektown, a walk across town on empty streets.

Heading over the Cobo now to see about registering.

I wouldn't miss Diane Ravitch's speech on Saturday for anything. Last time in the same slot we heard Bill Gates. Let's see now, Gates-Ravitch-Gates-Ravitch. (I'll write some stuff about some of the shifts and turns I detect in this fairly late choice to have Diane address the convention -- when people used to ask her whether she was, her response was, "I haven't been asked." Didn't she address the NEA? Is this Randi's "me too" moment? Remember, Diane has been increasingly vocal (and what seems to be at odds) about the collaborationist aspects of Randi and the AFT. So her speech should be interesting and worth the price.

Unlike Unity Caucus we are paying our own way on this trip to Detroit, leading people like my wife to say, "Are you f---ing crazy?" Now in a democratic world, given that ICE/TJC got about 10% of the vote in the last UFT election, we would have had about 80 delegates and I could get meal tickets too. A few thousand people voted for us and their voices are totally shut out here in Detroit. (That would be a major reform in democratizing the UFT.)

NYC Educator has more than a few thoughts on this situation.

To Be an Activist

A Strong Union Embraces Diversity

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The opinions expressed on EdNotesOnline are solely those of Norm Scott and are not to be taken as official positions (though Unity Caucus/New Action slugs will try to paint them that way) of any of the groups or organizations Norm works with: ICE, GEM, MORE, Change the Stakes, NYCORE, FIRST Lego League NYC, Rockaway Theatre Co., Active Aging, The Wave, Aliens on Earth, etc.

Chicago teachers win a victory for all

"This was a stunning victory for the CTU. It shows what happens when a union is resolute and united, and its demands are just.". Ravitch

Diane Ravitch says it perfectly. (Go to her blog for all of it - Chicago Teachers Union Wins This One.


What are the implications for uft people based on how our union has functioned in the face of these attacks? You be the judge. Is there a chance Randi and Mulgrew have learned something? You may be surprised but I think they may have. And if they have I would join in supporting them.

Diane:
As you may recall, Mayor Rahm Emanuel in Chicago has demanded that teachers teach a longer school day without additional compensation.

For that and other reasons (including rising class size), the Chicago Teachers Union took a strong stand in opposition. It took a strike vote, and 98% of those voting gave their approval, which was unexpected and unprecedented. The CTU held a rally, and 10,000 members turned out.

Mayor Emanuel accepted a deal that met the CTU's demands. Its members will not have to work longer hours without pay. The school day will be extended, as he wants, and the teachers who provide the extra time will be selected from the pool of veteran teachers who were laid off.

This was a stunning victory for the CTU. It shows what happens when a union is resolute and united, and its demands are just.

Here is the CTU press release, which is the only information available at this time:

CPS STEPS BACK FROM LONGEST SCHOOL DAY; A VICTORY FOR STUDENTS AND TEACHERS
INTERIM AGREEMENT MINIMIZES LONGER TEACHER WORK DAY,  STAFFS LONGER STUDENT DAY THROUGH NEW HIRES,                                 GUARANTEES NEW JOBS TO DISPLACED TEACHERS

Chicago details


Cheers,
Norm Scott

Twitter: normscott1

Reverse Creaming: NY Post Exposes Basics of Ed Deform Game

Bronx Health Sciences HS’s senior class had just 58 students count toward its overall graduation rate in 2011, even though there had been 107 students in the freshman class four years earlier — a stunning loss of 46 percent.......She said complaints to the Department of Education and the city’s 311 line have gone unanswered.

The standard model of creaming is for schools to choose their students. The reverse it to get rid of unwanted students. Most charters demonstrate this in the attrition rates between entry and a few years later. KIPP is one example and if we track Success Charters over time we will see the same --- though they might try to sneak kids in who don't make the lottery later on if they are proven performers.

So what is the end game? I was told by a public school teacher whose school shares a building with an Success school that there have been around 10 kids tossed out of Eva's school into his. In addition he said there is an enormous spike in special ed kids for next year and of course without the services. They will end up in regular sized classes most likely. Now imagine the regular parents at the school whose children will be in crowded classes with teachers struggling to manage regular and special ed kids. Some will want out and natch the charter schools can brag they don't have to worry. So the end game will be public schools left to educate kids most in need but without the services. Many will be closed or shuffled. My friend's building will eventually be turned over entirely to Eva. Imagine her real estate empire when she "owns" 20-40 public school buildings. Can't you see the stock offering?

 While we all slam the Post let's give credit to Yoav Gonen for this report.

HS’s expelling bee
Accused of hiking stats by ousting kids

By YOAV GONEN, Education Reporter

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/bronx/hs_expelling_bee_IFKWDdA9APtt5BPCzjbscI#ixzz21b8wZtjK

AN F FOR EFFORT: Staff and parents say Bronx Health Sciences HS has forced out underachieving students to artificially increase its performance on statistical measures.

 

A high-performing Bronx public high school has been maintaining its 95 percent graduation rate by forcing dozens of students who underperform to transfer to other schools, students, staffers and other sources charge.

The underhanded practice by the Bronx Health Sciences HS in Baychester lets it shed unwanted students to keep its pristine academic record, while hurting the booted kids and the stats at the schools that accept them, they said.

Sources said dozens of students have been handed their walking papers in recent years, and that parents are pressured into signing forms that make the involuntary transfers appear aboveboard.
“Basically, any student who in someone’s eyes isn’t worth the trouble and not worth investing in — they just pass the buck on them,” said a source familiar with the school. “The parents, a lot of them don’t realize they have a choice and they can say no. So they kind of steamroll over the parents.”
Terrence Allen, a 19-year-old now at Bronx Regional HS, said Bronx Health Sciences HS prevented him from attending summer school when he fell behind in credits last year — and then blocked him from entering the building at the start of last school year.

“I’m very upset,” he told The Post. “I did not want to transfer.”
His mom said she signed his transfer papers only because he had missed three weeks of school as a result of Bronx Health Science’s forced lockout.

She said complaints to the Department of Education and the city’s 311 line have gone unanswered.
“My son showed up for school in September last year and they told him, ‘Oh, no, no, no. You no longer go to this school,’ ” said Julie-Ann Allen. “They broke every rule in the book.”
A Department of Education spokeswoman said the agency is taking the allegations seriously and is looking into the claims.

Many students who fall behind voluntarily seek to attend transfer schools — which are smaller and can provide additional support, she said.

Principal Miriam Rivas, who earned $24,000 in bonuses over the past three years for her school’s performance, did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment.

Bronx Health Sciences HS’s senior class had just 58 students count toward its overall graduation rate in 2011, even though there had been 107 students in the freshman class four years earlier — a stunning loss of 46 percent.

The Post reported yesterday on other alleged rule-breaking at Rivas’ school, where students claim they are granted half a year’s worth of course credits in just 10 days of summer classes

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/bronx/hs_expelling_bee_IFKWDdA9APtt5BPCzjbscI#ixzz21b8Y5Ltr

Jackson Potter Rams Rahm and Billionaire Crew

Jackson Potter upon release after arrest after protest

Not enough people know about Jackson Potter, a key organizer and co-founder of the Caucus of Rank and File Educators that took over the Chicago Teachers Union in 2010. (I believe he taught in the same school as Karen Lewis.) I spent some time with Jackson and some of the other CORE members in the summer of 2009 in LA and again last July in Chicago and learned a lot about organizing 101. Jackson has certainly changed my thinking about a lot of things, especially the union. From the latest reports regarding Randi and Mulgrew's relationships with CTU leaders I'm hearing some interesting things (good things) and I hope to explore some of these in Detroit this week at the AFT convention. Maybe Randi is moving somewhat.
One thing for sure, Jackson offers a high level of leadership along with great political smarts. When I asked other CORE members for advice on organizing here in NYC, one response was, "We'll send you Jackson." Please do.

Billionaire Intrigue, Political Deception and the Fight for the Soul of the Chicago Public Schools

Sunday, 08 July 2012 09:24 By Jackson Potter, CTU Net | Op-Ed

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel discusses the Goldman Sachs 10,000 small businesses program with faculty at Harold Washington College in Chicago, September 13, 2011. Emanuel has encouraged teachers to buck their own union by offering them bonuses to work longer hours. (Photo: Peter Hoffman / The New York Times)Nearly one month ago, Joe Ricketts, patriarch of the Ricketts billionaire clan, pledged $10 million to an anti-Obama attack campaign focused on the president's relationship with radical Chicago preacher, Reverend Jeremiah Wright. The revelation exposed a dark undercurrent anchoring the wealth of the Chicago Cubs' new ownership. Tom Ricketts, son of Joe the patriarch and the day to day face of the Cubs organization, has fostered an image as a prominent democratic operative. The image is designed to help the family lobby city Democrats like the Mayor and Alderman Tom Tunney, to increase their profit margins and freeze out competitors on nearby roof-tops and product peddlers in the famous Wrigleyville neighborhood.

The activities of right wing extremists with lots of money, in Obama's home-town, were not lost on the Democratic Mayor of Chicago. Emanuel blasted the move as antithetical to the interests of an overwhelmingly blue electorate. The Mayor continues to use the incident to increase his bargaining leverage over the Ricketts family regarding the amount of tax-payer subsidies the Cubs will ultimately receive. The incident was no anomaly, but a symptom of a larger development in national and local politics where very wealthy and predominantly Republican interests create a façade of liberalism and progressive values to manipulate constituencies that otherwise would reject their efforts outright as diametrically opposed to their political desires.

In the March elections for the Illinois state House of Representatives a precursor to the Ricketts' controversy was playing out on the West-side of Chicago. Crest-fallen representative Derrick Smith was campaigning against his, supposedly Democratic, challenger Tom Swiss. Despite Smith's natural advantages as an incumbent and hand-picked choice of Chicago king-maker, Secretary of State Jesse White, Smith was worried about an advertising blitz by his upstart opponent. Swiss was in reality a Republican candidate who had switched parties in order to show that it was possible to upend a seemingly invulnerable democratic politician in a democratic district through campaign deception and manipulation. The central idea of the Swiss campaign was that a predominantly low income and African American voter base (which some pundits labeled as an "extremely low information" voting block) could be convinced to vote against their own interests. For example, Swiss blanketed the West side with advertisements and huge billboards promoting his candidacy, not with a picture of himself, an older white male, but a photo of a black construction worker with a hard hat saying "Jobs Now." Despite a scandal that showed Smith accepting illegal campaign contributions from undercover agents, he ran away with the election largely because his constituents recognized Swiss' deceptive and cynical tactics.

The intrigue doesn't end there, as the battle for the soul of public education unfolds in Chicago between the Mayor and the Chicago Teachers Union, a litany of outside, well-heeled education "reform" organizations have parachuted into town in an effort to tip the balance of the debate. One of the most prominent of the "reform" groups is Stand for Children, based out of Oregon, that sponsored legislation known as SB7. The legislation requires 75% of the union's membership to authorize a strike, the highest threshold for any union in the country and way beyond the number of votes any politician needs in order to get elected. While Stand claims to support policies that help students learn, they have consistently refused to lobby for smaller class sizes, a Better School Day with art, music, etc., or dramatic increases in school funding in Illinois. However, they have supported the school district in its confrontation with the union. They have also dedicated their time to opining about labor management relations, constantly pushing for the CTU to be "reasonable" and "get back to the table" even though the CTU has never left the table. Prior to the CTU strike authorization vote on June 6th, 2012, Stand 's Chicago Director, Juan Jose Gonzalez, claimed that the CTU was distorting CPS contract proposals with our members even though Stand had never been part of any of the CTU/CPS negotiations and does not have access to either side's official bargaining positions (unless CPS is leaking to them confidential bargaining information, which currently does not seem to be the case based on their one sided version of reality). Stand automatically, took the school Board's side in the dispute. While Stand claims to represent parents and school communities throughout Chicago, despite only their very recent entry into the local scene, the predominantly Republican billionaires and millionaires who fund their operation is another version of the Ricketts Effect.

Stand for Children's top donor, Ken Griffin, a Chicago based billionaire hedge fund operator, was recently quoted in the Chicago Tribune saying, "I think (the ultra-wealthy) actually have an insufficient influence [in our society and political system]" so much for representing the democratic will of the people. Stand also has accepted many donations from the primarily Republican Crown family, partial owners of the Maytag and the Hilton Hotel chain. Last, Penny Pritzker of the Hyatt Pritzker family, and a number of her siblings have donated heavily to Stand. Penny also has the distinction of being the first billionaire appointed to the Chicago Board of Education, making her support of Stand that much more troubling. We should hope that Mayor Emanuel appointed Penny to represent the interests of the 400,000 plus students in the Chicago Public Schools, not fly-by-night advocacy groups, funded by the wealthy, who are clamoring to weaken the voice of parents, teachers and their unions.  Additionally, businessmen from Bain Capital, the vulture capital investment firm where Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney made his millions, have made considerable contributions to Stand for Children.

Stand is not the only group in this category. There is also the Democrats For Education Reform, headed up by millionaire hedge fund operators and Steve Barr, the founder of the Green Dot Charter school franchise. DFER arrived on the scene in recent months, just in time to weigh in on the stand-off between the CTU and the school board, quite a coincidence. DFER also hides behind an advocacy agenda to put kids first, though their real objective is to further the spread of largely underperforming, budget-busting, unregulated and non-unionized charter schools at the expense of our current public system. Their arrival coincides with Mayor Emanuel's vow to double the number of CPS charter schools, making them 20 percent of the system (they are currently at just above 10 percent). It appears that not only Republican financiers, Billionaire Democratic heiresses and charter school boosters are responsible for the proliferation of these fake proponents for Chicago families. The Democratic machine locally and nationally is lending their support to similar astro-turf efforts.
In the days preceding the CTU's strike authorization vote, DFER sponsored a series of radio spots denouncing the vote as rushed and insensitive to parents, with two obviously African American moms blasting the union for its haste. It turns out that the radio spots were developed by none other than AKPD, a firm owned and operated by David Axelrod, President Obama's chief political strategist.

Now that Chicagoans are gaining awareness about the wolves in sheep clothing in our midst and how Initiatives funded by the 1 percent are vying for our hearts and minds, the fight for our schools takes on a new light. The Chicago Teachers Union represents 30,000 educators who have lived and taught in Chicago for their professional lives and this year is the union's 75th anniversary. It's no wonder that Chicagoans by a two to one margin in a recent Tribune poll trust their teachers more than the Mayor's Ed Reform pretenders, to improve our schools. Teachers have deeper roots in their communities and honestly represent their outrage at the district's refusal to lower class size, respect experience in the classroom, provide art, music, P.E. and world language to our students and properly staff schools with social workers, nurses, counselors and school psychologists. It is a travesty that as our city continues to suffer from record levels of violence and homicide while the powers- that- be cut vital services for our children and their schools. The best reforms help to secure our future and stabilize the present. Will the real reformers please stand up!

This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. 

Arthur Goldstein: False stats are nonsense and indefensible. Your strategy has decimated city neighborhoods

I mentored teachers in the Chancellor's District in 2002. If that is a model the UFT is holding up as a solution I have a bridge to sell you. --- Ed Notes

 

Arthur Goldstein takes on Howard Wolfson


Never forget: Wolfson was a consultant for the UFT. Search Ed Notes for his name for more details.

howard wolfson ‏@howiewolf

Today @rweingarten praises Chancellor's District. But in 2000 she said the CD had failed: http://articles.nydailynews.com/2000-06-02/news/18134962_1_schools-chancellor-rudy-crew-school-day-teachers-union …
 

20h Arthur Goldstein ‏@TeacherArthurG

@howiewolf @rweingarten Today's Daily News says Bloomberg school closings have failed. But for ten years you've been pretending they worked.

19h howard wolfson ‏@howiewolf

@TeacherArthurG @rweingarten sorry, no. New schools far superior to the schools they replaced. Our strategy has been a huge success.

19h Arthur Goldstein ‏@TeacherArthurG

@howiewolf @rweingarten Sorry, no, false stats are nonsense and indefensible. Your strategy has decimated city neighborhoods.

Retweeted by MORE Caucus

I mentored teachers in the Chancellor's District in 2002. If that is a model the UFT is holding up as a solution I have a bridge to sell you. Success for All for all schools? Give me a break. That company walked away with a gold mine. There were plenty of perks for the union embedded in the program -- like mandated patronage controlled teacher centers. Not a bad thing per se but still....

 

 I have a lot to say about the Weingarten/Mulgrew editorial on closing schools but heading into the city today to go to the World Trade Center memorial and then on to the Tenement Museum. So hopefully, later.

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The opinions expressed on EdNotesOnline are solely those of Norm Scott and are not to be taken as official positions (though Unity Caucus/New Action slugs will try to paint them that way) of any of the groups or organizations Norm works with: ICE, GEM, MORE, Change the Stakes, NYCORE, FIRST Lego League NYC, Rockaway Theatre Co., Active Aging, The Wave, Aliens on Earth, etc.

More on MORE

Our only hope is to build a base of members who are fired up to BE the union. To re-imagine the potential of a union run by and for its members. -----comment by MORE member at Gotham

I have no idea who wrote this comment at Gotham but it is one of the best descriptions of where MORE stands and is coming from I've seen. I wish I could articulate it this well. It is a comment on the Gotham Schools story (Teachers union faction wants to shake up electoral status quo) from a week ago on the July 12 history of the UFT session Michael and I did. Actually the title is somewhat misleading mentioning the electoral status as if it were a sole goal. The goal is to shake up the complacency, lack of involvement, etc of the UFT membership as much as the leadership, which will move if it sees a movement from below threatening it. My belief is that they can only fool some of the people some of the time and they do not have it in their dna to do anything other than talk about change. If and when they actually are forced to domocratize the union where you will see representation of all factions in the union on the Ex Bd and the AdCom then we will be talking. But as long as it's winner take all and 100% control nothing will change and they will have to be dragged kicking and screaming into change. It is the goal of MORE to create a movement strong enough to accomplish that.

guest (unregistered) wrote: A couple of thoughts. I was active in the formation of MORE, which began with the bringing together of members of the most active teacher led social justice groups in the city. I hear the concerns of the folks who have commented that they hope MORE will work to protect workers and not just deal with larger political issues in education. I also hear the concern that MORE has left leaning union members in it and that can be a turn off for some members.(as an aside: I think the idea of being a union that protects workers IS radical at this point, and that, in fact, the very concept of organized workers is a radical left position, but thats besides the point. . MORE, from the start has been democratic. Decisions are being made by an open steering committee. If you want a different UFT, come build it with MORE. There are people in MORE who are more focussed on bread and butter issues, and others that are more focussed on larger questions of inequity, racism etc (which personally I dont think there is much point in doing either one without the other). Our only hope is to build a base of members who are fired up to BE the union. To re-imagine the potential of a union run by and for its members. Anyone in a school knows this is a long and difficult battle; the fear, ignorance and apathy among members is powerful. AGAIN, if you want change, get involved! Don't bash from the sidelines and then complain that nothing is happening. The only way MORE will fail is by people not getting involved. Come do the on the ground organizing that many of us have been doing for years. One person at a time. One conversation at a time. One workshop at a time. I am not in this because I think we will stop school closings next year, or co-locations, or take over from UNITY next spring. I am doing this because I KNOW that WHEN we take over from UNITY, it will be because we will have built a mobilized active, democratic base that supports more militant actions. School closings will not stop because we have a rally, or win a law suit. They will only stop when we have teachers, parents and students together who sit-in and yes, occupy, their schools. That won't happen until our union has changed its attitude towards the communities we work in, and has built (slowly, patiently) on the ground alliances. Not overpaid union boss to overpaid astroturf CBO boss. But member to parent. In hundreds of schools.

As I warn below. the views I express above are not those of MORE but of myself. Many people do not agree with my analysis and in fact I may be a minority. People think the union leadership can change. I'll smile if they do and retreat into the sunset.

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The opinions expressed on EdNotesOnline are solely those of Norm Scott and are not to be taken as official positions (though Unity Caucus/New Action slugs will try to paint them that way) of any of the groups or organizations Norm works with: ICE, GEM, MORE, Change the Stakes, NYCORE, FIRST Lego League NYC, Rockaway Theatre Co., Active Aging, The Wave, Aliens on Earth, etc.

Death Watch for Murry Bergtraum

Lottie Almonte's rumored assignment to Murry Bergtraum would be an act of open hostility on the part of the DOE.

Given the report below from a teacher in the know on Lottie Almonte, Bergtraum, one of the few large schools remaining in Manhattan becomes a clear target. By the way, watch the end game here -- charter networks like Eva's will end up with dozens of public school buildings in their hands.

This is terrible news. Lottie Almonte was forced out of a small school, PACE, the Jefferson building [MY ALMA MATA]. She then got a job with one of the networks dealing with Multicultural HS at FK Lane (2010-2011). She's a nasty piece of work, a messy, disheveled, arrogant scoundrel and habitual liar. The school chapter at Jefferson passed a nearly unanimous resolution that she not be allowed to observe teachers in the school. The network leader acceded to this. She meanwhile aided the abusive, lunatic principal (Liciaga Altagracia) on a regular basis, sitting in on her "meetings" with some teachers which were random interrogations. She's also a part time prof at Brooklyn College. Her assignment to Murry Bergtraum is an act of open hostility on the part of the DOE.

Read the Gotham School report on the removal of Liciaga Altagracia (google her) for sending kids on a dangerous furniture moving trip while the real reason was an outrageous cheating scandal that has not come out full-blown yet. Here is an Aug. 2011 report from the NY Post

The investigation of Multicultural HS Principal Altagracia Liciaga by the Department of Education comes after teachers complained that they were pressured to help kids pass at all costs. Several instructors told The Post that science Regents exams had been brazenly taken out of the Cypress Hills building for scoring in past years. They also said a close associate of Liciaga's was seen holding up a poster containing the answers to math Regents in front of a classroom of test-taking students in August 2010. Ninety-eight percent of students passed the exam with a score of 65 or higher that year, as did 99 percent in 2009. This year, after teachers made efforts to stymie the proctoring oddities, just 1 out of 72 kids passed the math Regents, a source said.

So this is the person Almonte gave unequivocal support to, supporting her harassment of teachers into cheating. The network knew exactly what was going on and covered up. This story I believe has been buried. By the way, a sidelight is that the great Pedro Noguera used the school as an example of how great leadership can get great results despite limited resources in a statement he made in May 2011. Ooops! Note to Pedro: when a school like this gets higher scores in algebra than Midwood HS, look before you leap.

If Almonte does get the job at Bergtraum, she will immediately go after a number of teachers. Talk to the UFT HS reps in Brooklyn for more on her. The NY Teacher should profile her if she goes to Bergtraum as an example of DOE intentions to close a school.



Remember Jolanta Rohloff?

The Almonte story is shades of Jolanta Rofloff, the joke of the Leadership Academy who was sent into Lafayette HS to create such alienation as to make teacher, parents and students wish for its closing. And so that came to be. We have dubbed these principals "Closers." The DOE has done the same with countless schools by recycling clearly incompetent principals to drive them into the ground. Janet Saraceno at Lehman and Matt Malloy of Aspirations Diploma Plus (whose incompetence we chronicled last year with a video of Jeff Kaufman who is Chapter leader there). Both of them are now buried in a network supposed to provide support for closing schools, a supreme joke on the part of Tweed -- putting the very people who caused the closing schools in such a position, as the Daily News point out below.

It's supposed to be an educational SWAT team to help schools as they phase out of existence.

Instead, the city Education Department has turned the elite Transition Support Network into a dumping ground for disgraced school officials with tarnished records, critics charge.
Its staff includes two principals who resigned their positions after investigators found they improperly boosted student scores and a bureaucrat who was suspended for nepotism, city records show.

“This network was supposed to be a safe and supportive space to protect the most vulnerable students in city schools, but instead it has been staffed with DOE outcasts,” said Zakiyah Ansari, a parent leader with the Coalition for Educational Justice. “It is shameful that the city would use this critical network as a dumping ground.”

The support network was launched last year to aid struggling schools that are in the process of being closed down.

When the Education Department closes a school, it usually phases it out, allowing existing students to move up through the grades until graduation while a new school — often with extra resources — takes on the younger incoming students.

Critics charge that process leaves thousands of students in the lurch as their closing schools are stripped of resources.

The support network was created to aid those schools through their final years, but the DOE is apparently also using the network as a jobs program for struggling administrators.
Among the 17 educrats now working there:

l Janet Saraceno, a formerly celebrated administrator who was given a “superprincipal” job to help resuscitate Lehman High School in the Bronx. Superprincipals can earn an extra $25,000 for taking on tough assignments, but Saraceno’s controversial tenure ended when investigators found she’d improperly changed student grades and she lost her bonus two of three years there. She declined to comment.

l Matt Molloy, the founding principal for the poorly-rated Aspirations Diploma Plus, who was caught boosting a student’s score on a Regents exam to ensure he graduated.
l Rosa Gonzalez-Ingles, who was a supervisor in the personnel office of the Division of School Safety in the late 1990s when she was suspended four months for circumventing hiring rules to score security jobs for a friend and for her husband’s cousin.

Education Department officials said they are looking into the circumstances surrounding these three individuals but defended the record of the new support network.

“The department is so pleased with the work that this team has begun that this network will be expanding for the coming school year,” Education Department spokeswoman Erin Hughes said. 

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/doe-blasted-re-assigning-disgraced-school-officials-elite-transition-support-network-article-1.1118150#ixzz21AZ4Do23

Slick Commercial Strikes Back at ALEC and Ed Deformers

The worm is turning....
Outspent and outgunned by the billionaire-backed ed deformers, we've been seeing signs of more effective fight backs. I believe our GEM produced film response (now online) to Waiting for Superman (The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman) was one of the first effective shots fired which explains why it has resonated with so many people. We really started out thinking about doing a commercial but it turned into over an hour film. And of course it was produced by we amateurs so there is no slickness to match what the other side can do. That costs so much money.

But here is short piece that matches them in every way produced by Brave New Media about ALEC supported education titled

Which CEO made $5 million stealing your kid's lunch money?

Here is the tag line:

ALEC is working to ensure that public education dollars get diverted to private profits. Their approach is working -- for them. Not so much for the students who pay the price in the form of a subpar education and poor performance.

http://youtu.be/sFTNQ1PAMiY





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The opinions expressed on EdNotesOnline are solely those of Norm Scott and are not to be taken as official positions (though Unity Caucus/New Action slugs will try to paint them that way) of any of the groups or organizations Norm works with: ICE, GEM, MORE, Change the Stakes, NYCORE, FIRST Lego League NYC, Rockaway Theatre Co., Active Aging, The Wave, Aliens on Earth, etc.

Teach for America rap: A Scab is a Scab is a Scab

 Treme, the HBO series focused on New Orleans by The Wire crew hits all the right notes.
Remember how The Wire took a strong stand against ed deform? Arne Duncan said the best thing that happened to New Orleans was Katrina in that it allowed them to fire all the teachers and bring in TFA and open charter schools. Check NO over the next dew years to see the results.

 From the episode "Santa Claus, Do You Ever Get the Blues?"

http://youtu.be/b8t3YQe3CEU

See our recent post on TFA: The Onion Takes on Teach For America
which prompted this cry baby comment:

I'm sorry, but no where on The Onion’s website does the article even mention Teach For America. To say that The Onion has a piece "on Teach For America” is quite the leap—especially given that the details in the Onion article don’t actually match details associated with Teach For America. To start, their teachers are, in fact, NOT volunteer teachers.  Not to mention that there are very few Teach For America corps members with a middling GPA or sparse law school application.

The last line says it all. How insulting to connect us elites to middling GPAs.

UPDATE:
This comment came in:

Jack has left a new comment on your post "The Onion Takes on Teach For America":

So Anonymous actually thinks the satirist who wrote this was not using TFA as the object of this parody.
Hmmm... let's check out some excerpts for a better handle on this:

"... some privileged college grad who completed a five-week training program and now wants to document every single moment of her life-changing year on a Tumblr... "

A well-known alternative teacher training with program with a specific length of "five-weeks"? Nahhh, that's nothing like TFA. I'm sure there's countless alternative training programs famous enough that a satirist outside of education would have used one of those programs to satirize. Anonymous, if you can find a link to another such well-known-enough-to-warrant-

satire program other than TFA that whose training last exactly five weeks, please offer it so you can prove me wrong.

The kids is sick of "... dealing with a new fresh-faced college graduate who doesn't know what he or she is doing... "

Again, that's nothing like the well-known critisms people have lobbed at TFA for the last two decades.

The kid desires "... a real, honest-to-God degree in education and not a twentysomething English graduate .... "

DITTO.

"... a qualified educator who has experience standing up in front of a classroom and isn't desperately trying to prove to herself that she's a good person.... "

DITTO.

"... sort of stepping stone to a larger career... "

DITTO.

"... someone who actually wants to be a teacher, actually comprehends the mechanics of teaching, and won't get completely eaten alive by a classroom full of 10-year-olds within the first two months on the job.... "

DITTO.

"... adopted puppies you can show off to your friends... "

Yeah, like you never read TFA blogs or books from former TFA-ers who talk of their students in such a manner.

"... Underprivileged children occasionally say some really sad things that open your eyes and make you feel as though you've grown as a person... "

Yeah, like you never read smarmy anecdotes from TFA-ers that condescend to low-income students while the writer gushes about how it makes him/her a better person in the process.

"... can't afford to spend these vital few years of my cognitive development becoming a small thread in someone's inspirational narrative."

DITTO.

One more thing: nowhere in the fictional kid's letter does he ever refer to the alternatively-trained teachers as "volunteers", so that's a strawman.

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The opinions expressed on EdNotesOnline are solely those of Norm Scott and are not to be taken as official positions (though Unity Caucus/New Action slugs will try to paint them that way) of any of the groups or organizations Norm works with: ICE, GEM, MORE, Change the Stakes, NYCORE, FIRST Lego League NYC, Rockaway Theatre Co., Active Aging, The Wave, Aliens on Earth, etc.

An Open Letter to Richard Ianuzzi and NYSUT members at large

We are writing with frustration, anger and disgust about the current lack of leadership at NYSUT. Union leaders have not acted in the best interest of the public school teachers they are charged with representing. They have allowed both teachers and students to be pawns in what will be a disastrous experiment with public education. The ramifications of implementing Race to the Top were never fully researched before NYSUT agreed to pursue the funds. The strictures of RTTT, Common Core and APPR are detrimental to public school teachers and students. 

ED NOTE: I interrupt this letter to say "Yay" to the CToCC (Concerned Teachers of Chautauqua County) who have called out our union leaders for supporting chasing after the Trojan horse funding of Race to the Top. Please consider signing this letter and passing it on. 


UPDATE: Here is the link for the facebook page for the Chautauqua County folks.  They have revised their statement a little, so if you forward this info, pls go to their facebook page first. 

http://www.facebook.com/pages/CToCC-Concerned-Teachers-of-Chautauqua-County/391385627565243 

 REVISED VERSION, JULY 20, 2012

We are a small but committed group of active, pro-union teachers. We believe that a strong teacher’s union is beneficial to its members as well as to students. NYSUT has a proud history of hard fought gains for public educators and public education. We feel very strongly about current trends in public education and feel compelled to share some of our concerns.

We are writing with frustration about the direction of NYSUT. We feel that our union has not acted in the best interest of the public school teachers they are charged with representing. Both teachers and students have become pawns in what will be a disastrous experiment with public education. We feel the ramifications of implementing Race to the Top were never fully researched before NYSUT agreed to pursue the funds. The strictures of RTTT, Common Core and APPR are detrimental to public school teachers and students. 

To be clear; we are not against, nor afraid of, being evaluated. Teachers are under constant scrutiny by parents, students, administrators, and the public at large. We are and always have been evaluated professionally by a state approved APPR. The state mandated an updated APPR document approximately eight years ago. We are also not against all standardized testing per se. Testing has its place if used appropriately and fairly. 

By agreeing to the burdensome and patently unfair teacher evaluation that is tied to RTTT we feel abandoned by NYSUT. Recent legislation allowing people to view teacher evaluations should hardly be considered a “victory”. Research has shown how excellent teachers can be rated ineffective or developing, depending on students’ scores on exams. These tests are not designed to evaluate teacher effectiveness. How can we, as professionals, think that a test that is as flawed as the 2012 eighth grade ELA exam can accurately assess ELA proficiency? Student testing and value added "rating” systems could never accurately evaluate the relationship between students and teachers. It cannot assess the "art" of teaching. What it will do is create tension, fear, uncertainty and a divide between teachers, students and administrators. Critical thinking, inquiry and discovery will be lost from teaching as schools become factories for test taking.

At a time in which the state is decreasing aid to schools, school districts are being forced to eliminate courses and programs and shift precious dollars into implementing Race to the Top requirements. RTTT has become a boondoggle, costing districts much more money to comply with than they received from the program in the first place. The paperwork, creation of SLOs, printing costs for scoring materials, the inability of teachers to proctor and score their own students' exams, and forcing schools to buy more tests from third party vendors are all nightmares of scheduling and budgeting. This is one more example of the shifting of public money into private coffers. Companies like Pearson, with NYSUT's approval, will make hundreds of millions of dollars selling tests and other "educational" materials aimed at "improving" education, while local school budgets get tighter and tighter. Corporations selling products are more interested in making money than in the well being of children.

We wish NYSUT hadn’t waited so long to take a public stand against the overuse of standardized testing. It should have had the foresight to see what was coming. NYSUT should have been out in front of these issues from the get go, loudly and proudly proclaiming that the teachers it represents deserve better than demoralizing directives from the Commissioner and denigrating comments about how teachers must work harder from the Governor. NYSUT's primary job should be to protect teachers from unfair and intrusive practices, not to go along with false reforms that victimize teachers and harm students.

The following is a list of issues that we would like NYSUT to address:

1. Publicly denounce not being included in the governor’s Education Reform Commission.
2. Advocate for a return to the federal government of all RTTT funds so that we can be free of its mandates.
3. Publicly endorse and support the Campaign for Fiscal Equity.
4. Demand an immediate end to high stakes testing and the VAM of teacher evaluation.
5. Endorse the Principal’s Letter circulated by Carol Burris and Sean Feeney.

The changes and pressures that New York State public educators have had to confront this past school year are just the beginning of what we fear is a vast sea change that will forever hurt public education. In these trying times, all union members need to have the courage and the will, whatever it takes, not to concede, not to cave to whatever is politically expedient, but to do right by teachers, and by extension the children in their care.

Signed,
Concerned Teachers of Chautauqua County
Kara Christina-Fredonia Middle School
Amy Lauer-Fredonia Middle School
Michelle Greenough- Fredonia Middle School
Cathy Casini-Steger- Fredonia Middle School

 =====================
The opinions expressed on EdNotesOnline are solely those of Norm Scott and are not to be taken as official positions (though Unity Caucus/New Action slugs will try to paint them that way) of any of the groups or organizations Norm works with: ICE, GEM, MORE, Change the Stakes, NYCORE, FIRST Lego League NYC, Rockaway Theatre Co., Active Aging, The Wave, Aliens on Earth, etc.

Weekly Update #16 - MORE Summer Series Continues Tonight - Kit Wainer on UFT Elections

When I had doubts about running in the 2013 UFT elections I was convinced by Kit Wainer and others that the election would be used as a mechanism to help build MORE so that emerging from the election no matter what the results the Movement will be stronger. Tonight Kit will be doing a presentation at the 2nd session of the MORE Summer Series that will delve into how to build a new movement using the UFT election process. I have visitors coming in from LA who I have to pick up at the airport so I can't be there but I hope some of you will be to chip in your ideas. MORE already has an election committee that is open to people who want to get involved. Check out the next meeting date in this Weekly Update.

Movement of Rank & File Educators The social justice caucus of the UFT “Our working conditions are our students’ learning conditions”

MORE

Weekly Update #16 - 07.18.12

more@morecaucusnyc.org

The Onion Takes on Teach For America

Just once, it would be nice to walk into a classroom and see a teacher who has a real, honest-to-God degree in education and not a twentysomething English graduate trying to bolster a middling GPA and a sparse law school application. I don't think it's too much to ask for a qualified educator who has experience standing up in front of a classroom and isn't desperately trying to prove to herself that she's a good person.

More signs the tide is turning in this hilarious send up of TFA

Point/Counterpoint

July 17, 2012 | ISSUE 48•29

Point

My Year Volunteering As A Teacher Helped Educate A New Generation Of Underprivileged Kids

By Megan Richmond, Volunteer Teacher
When I graduated college last year, I was certain I wanted to make a real difference in the world. After 17 years of education, I felt an obligation to share my knowledge and skills with those who needed it most.
After this past year, I believe I did just that. Working as a volunteer teacher helped me reach out to a new generation of underprivileged children in dire need of real guidance and care. Most of these kids had been abandoned by the system and, in some cases, even by their families, making me the only person who could really lead them through the turmoil.
Was it always easy? Of course not. But with my spirit and determination, we were all able to move forward.
Those first few months were the most difficult of my life. Still, I pushed through each day knowing that these kids really needed the knowledge and life experience I had to offer them. In the end, it changed all of our lives.
In some ways, it's almost like I was more than just a teacher to those children. I was a real mentor who was able to connect with them and fully understand their backgrounds and help them become the leaders of tomorrow.
Ultimately, I suppose I can never know exactly how much of an impact I had on my students, but I do know that for me it was a fundamentally eye-opening experience and one I will never forget.

Counterpoint

Can We Please, Just Once, Have A Real Teacher?

By Brandon Mendez, James Miller Elementary School Student
You've got to be kidding me. How does this keep happening? I realize that as a fourth-grader I probably don't have the best handle on the financial situation of my school district, but dealing with a new fresh-faced college graduate who doesn't know what he or she is doing year after year is growing just a little bit tiresome. Seriously, can we get an actual teacher in here sometime in the next decade, please? That would be terrific.
Just once, it would be nice to walk into a classroom and see a teacher who has a real, honest-to-God degree in education and not a twentysomething English graduate trying to bolster a middling GPA and a sparse law school application. I don't think it's too much to ask for a qualified educator who has experience standing up in front of a classroom and isn't desperately trying to prove to herself that she's a good person.
I'm not some sort of stepping stone to a larger career, okay? I'm an actual child with a single working mother, and I need to be educated by someone who actually wants to be a teacher, actually comprehends the mechanics of teaching, and won't get completely eaten alive by a classroom full of 10-year-olds within the first two months on the job.
How about a person who can actually teach me math for a change? Boy, wouldn't that be a novel concept!
I fully understand that our nation is currently facing an extreme shortage of teachers and that we all have to make do with what we can get. But does that really mean we have to be stuck with some privileged college grad who completed a five-week training program and now wants to document every single moment of her life-changing year on a Tumblr?
For crying out loud, we're not adopted puppies you can show off to your friends.
Look, we all get it. Underprivileged children occasionally say some really sad things that open your eyes and make you feel as though you've grown as a person, but this is my actual education we're talking about here. Graduating high school is the only way for me to get out of the malignant cycle of poverty endemic to my neighborhood and to many other impoverished neighborhoods throughout the United States. I can't afford to spend these vital few years of my cognitive development becoming a small thread in someone's inspirational narrative.
But hey, how much can I really know, anyway? I haven't had an actual teacher in three years.

MORE In These Times

Wow. Two article on MORE in 2 days. Check out the Gotham Schools piece with the comments. Leave your own.  

Teachers union faction wants to shake up electoral status quo.

The article below in In These Times is by James Cersonsky a Philadephia based journalist who has been working on this piece for a while. I spoke to him along the way but thankfully am not quoted.


In These Times: http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/13540/dissident_caucus_aims_to_give_nyc_teachers_union_m.o.r.e/

Dissident Caucus Aims to Give NYC Teachers Union M.O.R.E.

BY JAMES CERSONSKY

Members of New York's Movement of Rank-and-File Educators (MORE) turned out to support striking Con Ed workers in early July. Founded this year, MORE plans to challenge the reign of the Unity caucus in next year's union elections.   (Photo via Facebook)

“You’ve got to stop thinking about education as a monopoly,” says former New York City education Chancellor Joel Klein in the documentary, The Inconvenient Truth behind Waiting for Superman. Klein’s anti-monopoly stance—based on a portfolio model of education that runs on school turnarounds and choice—goes hand-in-hand with the monopoly that he and his successors under Mayor Michael Bloomberg have had over school reform in the country’s largest urban district since the instatement of mayoral control in 2001. In the last decade, the Bloomberg administration has closed 140 schools and opened 589 new ones, many of which are privately operated “small schools” that directly replace neighborhood schools.

The Unity Caucus of New York’s United Federation of Teachers (UFT) also runs a monopoly—or so dissident caucuses have argued over the course of Unity’s unchecked reign since the UFT’s founding in 1960. The newest opposition is the Movement of Rank-and-File Educators (MORE), which was founded this year and will vie for union leadership in next year’s elections.

In February, MORE leaders hosted a conference attended by more than 200 teachers with workshops on union history, chapter leadership, and broader issues like high-stakes testing and school funding. After a founding meeting with 70 teachers and allies in March, the caucus settled on a name and a mission statement.

MORE’s opposition to Unity leadership covers a range of issues: the incumbents’ support for mayoral control under Randi Weingarten in 2001 and again (though less stridently) under current President Michael Mulgrew in 2009; its agreement to merit pay in 2005; and a “weak stand” on school closings, charters, co-locations, class-size reduction and testing.

Rank-and-file dissidence in the UFT is as old as Unity’s incumbency. New Action was the primary opposition caucus for two decades until 2003, when it reached a détente with Weingarten that effectively killed its militancy. Two newer caucuses—the Independent Community of Educators (ICE) and Teachers for a Just Contract (TJC)—filled the void. Both represented different elements within the UFT: ICE members were older and predominantly white; TJC was younger and more focused on direct action.

In 2005, ICE and TJC combined forces in response to that year’s contract, which instituted merit pay and absentee teachers reserves, or ATRs. Before 2005, teachers who were laid off due to school closings were slotted by the city’s Department of Education into vacancies in other schools. With the new contract, teachers lost seniority placement rights and had to apply for new jobs while remaining on the DOE’s payroll. Despite widespread outcry from teachers, the ICE-TJC opposition still lost the 2007 and 2010 union elections by large margins.

This year, UFT leaders signed onto a new evaluation system requiring 40% of teacher ratings to be based on local or state student tests. The union was under pressure from officials to agree to a greater role for high-stakes testing in order to restore $58 million in federal Race to the Top funding.

MORE has taken an unconditional stand against testing, joining hundreds of other organizations nationwide in signing the National Resolution on High-Stakes Testing. In order to reverse corporate reform—a tall order given federal pressures and the city’s determination to shed its schools’ workforces—the caucus envisions a new unionism based on member organizing and wide-scale community partnership.

“Right now the majority of members who get angry respond by tuning the union out,” says Kit Wainer, a former TJC member who has been teaching for 24 years. “That’s the problem that we’re struggling against. Through education, through organizing our own actions, hopefully we can change it.”

Unlike previous caucuses, MORE is an alliance of dissident teachers and teacher-community groups. It includes Teachers Unite, a non-profit that has run organizing trainings for teachers and is currently collaborating with the Urban Youth Collective on “Dignity in Schools,” a campaign for restorative justice to stop the school-to-prison pipeline; the Grassroots Education Movement (GEM), which runs forums and protests around school turnarounds and has attended virtually every city turnaround hearing since its formation in 2005; and the New York Collective of Radical Educators (NYCoRE), which organizes around social justice principles through meetings, peer-led conferences, and inquiry-to-action study groups.

“Part of the work of transforming the UFT is not to be a union all about bargaining but also a union that promotes a discussion of pedagogy that’s richer and appeals to community,” says Sally Lee, a former elementary school teacher and now the executive director of Teachers Unite.

“It can be about the disappearance of black and Latino educators,” adds Rosie Frascella, a leader of NYCoRE’s “NYQueer” campaign for queer justice and a former organizer with SEIU who compares her experience with SEIU’s “top-down” unionism to the UFT. “It can be fighting stop-and-frisk policy. It can be about huge questions of poverty and housing and healthcare.”

Unity incumbents do have their own community partnerships and strategies to buffer school turnarounds. Together with the Bronx’s Community Collaborative to Improve District 9 Schools, the union started the Lead Teacher Program in 2004 to attract teachers to the district and cultivate peer support. The Coalition for Educational Justice, a citywide composite of community groups, has fought alongside the union to preserve free student MetroCards and school dollars in the city’s budget.

Last month, the union won its suit against the city for turning around 24 schools under the pretense of replacing them with “new schools,” but really, as the union argued, as a maneuver to remove half their staffs. MORE has come out against this legal strategy. “Even if the lawsuits succeed,” a May pamphlet read, “they will merely delay the closings and leave our members in schools with shrinking enrollment, worried for their futures, and no better organized to fight back than they were a year ago.”

MORE’s vision is to expand on the community outreach of its affiliate groups and build member power through direct organizing. Thus far, internal capacity building has taken the form of electing chapter leaders—which, in many schools, are merely appointed by the principal and functionally non-existent—and bolstering existing pockets of support. This focus on organizing, while yet to assume full shape, takes after the work of the Caucus of Rank-and-File Educators (CORE) in Chicago, which currently leads the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU).

“In terms of political and social orientation I think we have a lot in common with CORE,” Wainer says, “turning a union into a force to fight for members’ rights and also allying with larger forces to fight for quality schools.”

MORE’s connection with Chicago goes beyond vision. NYCoRE is a close ally of its Chicago equivalent, Teachers for Social Justice, an active force in the CORE-led CTU. Leaders from MORE and CORE have built relationships through a variety of meetings, including an international teacher conference that CORE hosted last summer and a presentation that CORE leaders gave at Columbia’s Teachers College in 2010.

MORE is sober about its challenges in replicating CORE’s efforts—winning union leadership and shifting discourse and policy in the city.

“The election next year is going to be a massive operation on our part,” says Sam Coleman, a seventh-year dual-language teacher. “We have more people than any of the opposition groups have ever had, because we’ve pulled so many groups together. Our work is still finding those people who are willing to do extra work.”

The vastness of New York’s school system, along with the coverage of Unity leadership and loyalty from retiree voters, poses a major uphill battle for any opposition caucus. MORE has almost no representation in Staten Island and in large parts of Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx. By contrast, the incumbents uprooted by CORE in Chicago had only been in office for six years and lacked anything remotely resembling Unity’s electoral machine in New York. What’s more, the writing had been on the wall in Chicago for longer—mayoral control was granted by Republican state legislators in 1995, and had been followed by a string of charter-happy public school CEOs, including Arne Duncan.

“There was much more of a sense among Chicago teachers that their careers were on the line,” says Wainer. “We have no choice but to engage in patient organizing, which may take a long time. On the other hand, there could be an explosion of activity if the climate changes.”

 --------------
Here's something the Unity Caucus/UFT has not signed onto: an elected school board.
See this video from Chicago where the union has called for such a board.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=1rcDyfzOVZY#!


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The opinions expressed on EdNotesOnline are solely those of Norm Scott and are not to be taken as official positions (though Unity Caucus/New Action slugs will try to paint them that way) of any of the groups or organizations Norm works with: ICE, GEM, MORE, Change the Stakes, NYCORE, FIRST Lego League NYC, Rockaway Theatre Co., Active Aging, The Wave, Aliens on Earth, etc.