Portelos Asks the UFT "Why" (Once Again)

UFT advice to teachers under assault

Over the last few weeks a young teacher was in touch - I don't know him or know why he touched base with me -- but he was asking for advice. Last week he informed me he was quitting the next day and would never teach again. Why? It was not the kids but his principal and administration. "All I wanted to do was teach kids the joy of science," he said.

Unity slugs have been whining over at the MORE blog about it is not their fault there are so many bad principals. I disagree. They bear major responsibility: for not raising hell in every quarter and using they supposedly vaunted political capital to try to kill the Leadership Academy who were producing Nazis. Or exposing these people in every way possible. Or going after the CSA. Or providing a rigorous defense of teachers under assault.

Tomorrow is the FIRST LEGO League tournament at the Javits Convention center. That is where I met Francesco Portelos a year ago when he gave up a Sunday to bring his IS 49 team. His school will not be amongst the 80 teams there. Neither will the kids he taught. A few weeks later he was in the rubber room for bogus reasons. He's still there with no charges. A scandal under any circumstances. But silence from the UFT.

Francisco Portelos is not quitting or going anywhere, except taking as many of these bad apples down as he can. See them in court. And how does the Staten Island UFT treat him? Well they sneak around trying to brand him as an outlier and a nut -- a "nut" elected as Chapter leader while sitting in the rubber room. In MORE he has found a supportive community. And MORE is lucky to have him. What a skill set he brings to the table. The kids' and his school's loss. Both the DOE and UFT don't want people who rock boats. Take your medicine and walk the plank.

Every time my wife and I get the NY Teacher Newspaper, at home, I place $100 on the kitchen table. I bet her that amount that from cover to cover there will be no articles or mentions of real stories of attacks on educators. No stories on the existence of Rubber Rooms. ATRs or abusive administrators. The NY Teacher circulated an article that the number of ATRs dropped to 831 last April. The latest numbers are 1475, yet no story on that increase.

I sit in a Rubber Room, for over 300 days, with no charges. I'm under investigation for over 400 days with no charges. I'm sent 20 miles away from my school and not a word. Where is my union? Where is my union paper? Where is the story? 

I'm not alone though.There are 17 of us in my building and an estimated 400 across the city. Most have no idea why they are there with almost no contact from their union. Most are veteran educators and minorities. Almost all are career changers. Are educators who were in another field first more likely to perform misconduct or are they more likely to speak up and get targeted?

Forget about us though. We still only account for about half of percent. A bigger issue is the thousands of educators attacked while they are still in school. I receive emails from many of them. They feel helpless and can't speak up about issues for fear of retaliation. The students suffer.

I'm just saying these are stories that are real and relevant to many rank and file members. They are not covered.

Where is Callahan? 

-Francesco Portelos mrportelos@gmail.com protectportelos.org
Parent
Educator
UFT Chapter Leader IS 49
“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” -Martin Luther King Jr.
*sent from my Galaxy S3. Please pardon any typos

Unity Election Lit Causes Laugh Riot

Given Unity people seem so edgy lately regarding the elections, I thought I would help them out by publishing their election stuff. Really, you gotta laugh. As our friend DOENuts has written,

Did Unity 'Jump the Shark' Somewhere Along the Way?

Paul Hogan Battles DOE (and UFT/Unity) Over Paperwork

Exposing the Unity leadership's poor response on an issue affecting every teachers, Paul is a retiree running on the MORE slate and has been a stalwart attendee at MORE meetings. I knew of him through ICE mail where he consistently raised the paperwork issue and the lack of UFT willingness (or ability) to fight this. Here Paul exposes how he went through the "process" with the UFT and where it got him. Paul doesn't name names -- Now watch the Unity slugs claim he and I made it all up.

Paper(work)-thin: I Thought We Were Supposed to be *Teaching*

http://paulvhogan.wordpress.com/2013/02/21/paperwork-thin-i-thought-we-were-supposed-to-be-teaching/

Like death and taxes, certain things  will  be with us forever. Teaching will always involve paperwork . But , just as certainly, teaching is not only paperwork. At least it ought not to be.

Our union (UFT)  seemed to “get”  this at one point;  even successfully  pushing for  a safety-valve mechanism  in the 2007 contract to guard against paperwork excess and abuse. (And that’s as it should be. They,  our union leaders, were teachers at one point.  I think. Weren’t they? )  So… what happened?

I lobbied for *years* to get a  ”paperwork reduction” committee established (as per Art 8-I, Sect. 1. of the NYC UFT contract. BTW, people should actually READ THE LANGUAGE of these  things. They’re chock-full of surprises.) in my district only to be repeatedly stonewalled by the unelected UFT  District Representative  then in charge. When I approached him face to face at the Delegate Assembly… after a number of emails on the topic went unacknowledged…. it was like I was speaking a language other than English.: “PaperWHICH?” “ReductionWHAT?” “CommitteeWHO?!?”

After the initial shock, ( Someone was actually calling him out about something important !)  he quickly gathered his wits. We didn’t NEED a paperwork reduction committee, he explained. His eyes which darted nervously around the room at first , almost bird-like, now met mine with a dead-on earnestness . The UFT had everything under control. There was a lawsuit making it’s way thru the courts… the outcome of which  would surely end “excessive paperwork” as we then ( This was about 3 years ago, I’d say.) knew it.

I went home that night and googled every possible phraseology and word-combination  that I thought might elicit a reference to the UFT being involved in  a law suit  —  the subject or object of which was paperwork reduction. Coming up empty, I emailed DR ( “Flash”;  I decided that this one needed a name.) again. No response. ( Don’t these folks know how to click the “reply” button ?)  Metamessage: “Leave me the fuck alone.”

So I left Flash alone.  Maybe I’ll need him someday for something *vital*, I reasoned, not unreasonably. For something URGENT. Better not antagonize him.  Instead, I  continued… as did everyone else in the district…. to spend hour after unnecessary hour  dutifully producing meaningless, superfluous and redundant paperwork for the nightmarishly dysfunctional bureaucratic swamp   that increasingly IS the New York City Department of Education in the second decade of the twenty-first century; the hideous offspring produced by the marriage of two distinct, nominally antagonistic yet depressingly similar first cousins).

 Then… around March 2011…. my writing hand beginning to throb, the fingers on BOTH hands seeming to strike the keyboard with increasing inaccuracy, ( Is this what early carpal tunnel feels like? I fretted uselessly.) I decided to pick-up the paperwork gauntlet once again.; give the swamp people one more try. I wrote to the UFT  VP  with jurisdiction over Flash in March of 2011  as follows:

“I’m a Special Ed teacher … and a UFT Delegate.  We are DROWNING in paperwork.  I am told by administrators to anticipate that it will get worse. 
Our contract with the DOE reads as follows:
‘Committees composed equally of representatives of the Board and the Union shall be established at the central , district and division levels to review and reduce unnecessary paperwork required of employees.’ (ARTICLE 8, SECTION I; # 1) 
Is there, in fact, a committee  established ( in my district) as described? If so, when does it meet? Where does it meet? Does it issue minutes or summary reports for public consumption? 
Can I  participate in the activities of the committee(s) ? 
Our District (Rep.) … has not responded to emails pertaining to this topic.
 Again, we are DROWNING in paperwork.
Can you help us?”

The Veep’s reply was a bit indirect but the upshot was : yes, all districts, including mine, are supposed to have paperwork reduction committees and she would see to it that the District Rep ( i.e. Flash) would take the necessary steps to get this going. 
“About time”, I muttered to myself. The date on the contract is October 2007. We were now in March 2011. But, grateful for the confirmation that I *wasn’t* crazy after all, and that there was at least ONE person in the union hierarchy with whom I could profitably communicate, I looked forward to the chance to participate in a process that promised to free-up more time for the teachers I represented. So that they’d have at least SOME time to actually, you know, *teach*.

 But we weren’t out of the woods yet. ( Are we ever?) If the DOE’s wheels grind notoriously slowly, waiting for the UFT to implement its OWN part of the deal is “like watching (educational) paint dry.” April came and went. As did May. Instinct ( and experience) told me it was time to act.

In June I wrote the UFT Veep as follows:

“It’s been a long time — over two years — since I asked this question originally: ‘Is there an actual paperwork reduction committee in (my district) as described by the contract?’” (Yes, I was back to square one. But at least I was somewhere again.)

The VP replied the same day. It was as if we were communicating for the first time. “I have copied ……. (“Flash”; alas, still my DR); he will give you the updates to the status of the …. paperwork committee.”

June passed. As did July. Still no sign of life from Flash. On August 21, I wrote the Unity Veep as follows:

“Still haven’t heard from (Flash). In fact, I’ve *never* heard from (Flash), despite the fact that I began asking him about this… at polite but regular intervals … over two years ago.”
(Was there something going on here that no one was telling me? My mind raced. Did Flash even exist? “Getta hold of yourself, pops. You saw him yourself at the DA two years ago. Remember?” )

I talked myself  down but I was getting tired of playing this game. I know in the DOE cultural taboo-hierarchy, going over someone’s head is *way* up there on the gravity scale.  It is… second only perhaps to going public…  the penultimate transgression.” Bette Davis, comes to mind all of a sudden: “Men have been hanged for less!” , she screams in All About Eve.

Screw it. I was getting too tired to care anymore.
After not hearing back from UFT Veep regarding the apparent disappearance of Flash, I wrote President Mulgrew on Sept 7, 2011 as follows: 
“Perhaps at this point you should intervene. I’ve been trying to get a simple answer to what I thought was a simple question for about three years. The contract says there are “paperwork reduction” committees established at the district level. I’m in District ____. I’d like info re. my committee:

1. When does it meet?
2. Are there minutes from these meetings and can I access same?
3. How can I participate?
Michael, we are  drowning in paperwork. Please help.”

The next day, I received my first email ever from my new ‘best friend forever’, Flash. 
Hey, guess what?  We’re  setting up a  joint  UFT/DOE paperwork reduction committee. Would I be interested in participating?

MORE General Meeting Sat and Happy Hour in Upper Manhattan and Da Bronx This Friday, March 8

REMINDER: Happy Hours today:

-->

MORE: Movement of Rank and File Educators

invites you to

EXPECT MORE FROM YOUR UNION!

When: Friday, March 8^th

      4:30 – 6:30

Where: Noche Mexicano

       (842 Amsterdam & 102)

We Promise - food, fun, drinks, and interesting conversation!

All Teachers, Counselors, Paras, School Staff are welcome.

Please bring all your friends and forward this email

Hosted by Nicole Riley

 

We Promise - food, fun, drinks, great conversation, and good times!

Are you:

ü  Nervous about a pending teacher evaluation deal?
ü  Wondering what a more democratic, member led union could look like?
ü  Sick of the onslaught of paperwork, Danielson, Common Core, Test Prep, Unfair Evaluations?

Come meet MORE's candidates. We will have election literature to distribute at your school

We are a new rank and file organized caucus of the UFT, we are running in the April ’13 elections as a positive alternative to the current leadership

All Teachers, Counselors, Paras, School Staff  and Friends are welcome.

Please bring all your friends and forward this email

Fri, March 8^th4:30 – 6:30 Uptown Manhattan

Noche Mexicano

842 Amsterdam Ave at West 102nd St

Fri. March 8th 4-7pm Bronx

The Clock Bar

112 Lincoln Ave. btwn Bruckner Blvd and 134th St

Sat. March 9th 12-3pm General Meeting  Midtown-Manhattan
Our campaign and get out the vote effort will be in full swing. Help us brainstorm and implement ideas to build our movement.
224 West 29th Street, 14 floor New York City
https://www.facebook.com/events/380286228745924/

 =======

From South Bronx School

This Friday 3/8/13 Night MORE Happy Hour in the Bronx!!!!

Come one, come all to the first MORE Happy Hour in the Beautiful Bronx this Friday night, March 8, 2013.

Come with an open mind and hear what we have to say. There will be no hard sell, no commitments asked. But. I guarantee you after you hear the shit I have been through and my colleagues have you will go MORE.

Tell the guys at The Clock Bar Frank Sinatra Jr sent you and get a free glass of wine. j/k

MORE Bronx Happy Hour
Friday, March 8th 4 - 7pm

The Clock Bar, 112 Lincoln Ave., btwn Bruckner Blvd. and 134th St. Just take the 6 train to 138th St-3rd Ave and walk down to Lincoln Ave or hop the Bx15 which stops in front of the bar!
www.morecaucusnyc.org

The UFT Elections are just around the corner, and the Movement of Rank and File Educators (MORE) is running in the elections!  We aim to to build a fighting, democratic union that vigorously defends public education.  Our current leadership squanders our union dues on bloated officer salaries, double pensions, and more.  They depend on back room dealing and compromises which have steadily eroded our working conditions and our students' learning conditions.  Instead we will funnel these squandered resources to mobilize the rank and file fight for a fair contract, against evaluations based on standardized test scores and for quality public education for all students.

Come join us for a discussion about the elections and how to build for MORE.MORE Bronx Happy Hour
Friday, March 8th 4 - 7pm

The Clock Bar, 112 Lincoln Ave., btwn Bruckner Blvd. and 134th St. Just take the 6 train to 138th St-3rd Ave and walk down to Lincoln Ave or hop the Bx15 which stops in front of the bar!

Chicago Teacher Union PRES. At NYCoRE conf Sat. March 16th

And MORE and Change the Stakes too. I'm so excited. Given that Sat all day is tied up with FIRST LEGO League robotics at Javits (come on down - free and open to public) and next Sat with NYCORE, and since we still have one car and my wife won't be able to go to the gym, I expect to be living in the reconstruction zone of my house by St. Patrick's Day.


Hi all,

Next sat, March 16th, is the NYCoRE annual. Its an amazing conference with great workshops (list here). 

But ALSO....Karen Lewis, the dynamic president of the Chicago Teacher's Union is the keynote. This is an opportunity you should not miss. 

     

There will also be many of MORE's top candidates for UFT leadership in attendance and MORE has a workshop and a table where you can learn more about the movement to transform the UFT.

Please register on line by following the link below.

Here are some links to MORE related videos.

MORE website: here

MORE campaign video (only 4 minutes) here

Julie Cavanagh, MORE presidential candidate, speaking this week at Murray Bergtraum HS here

A UFT Election Primer as MORE Petition Campaign Ends

Penny gives paw of approval

With the deadline to turn in petitions to get on the UFT ballot ending at 5PM yesterday (March 6) Joan Seedorf and I for MORE turned in all petitions two days early on Monday, March 4, the first caucus to do so. We assume that Unity and New Action got theirs in yesterday, so expect 3 caucuses on the ballot (there will be a drawing for the ballot order on Friday) but only 2 candidates for president as New Action tries to maintain the fiction that they are independent despite endorsing Mulgrew.

Penny signing petitions

As retirees, Ellen Fox and I, with the help of Penny, took charge of the petitioning. While Ellen controlled the collection data for the 185 MORE candidates and Penny checked out work, we devised a petition gathering strategy, making some good and some so-so decisions along the way and driving the MOREs to distraction with calls to work harder. At times I felt like the slave driver in Les Mis. We made a very good recovery after losing an important Saturday to a snow storm.

Petitioning is time consuming as teachers go around their schools asking people to sign packs of petitions so MORE could get on the ballot. Officers need 900 signatures to get on the ballot and all their names are put on one petition. All other candidates need 100 signatures each. With so many people wanting to run with MORE (we could have had a whole batch more but we didn't have the time to do all that paperwork) even as late as this past weekend, we had a strategy to cover people who decided to run too late to get their own petitions signed by holding mass signing parties where 120 people agreed to sign 200 petitions. For the officers, we had everyone in MORE carry their petitions so we could gather the 900. The campaign was so successful we got over 2000 before we told people to stop.

For the divisions we developed another strategy, asking our 11 elementary, 5 middle school and 7 high school people to carry a pack of petitions for all the others running with them in their category. This worked out extremely well and we were basically covered about 2 weeks ago.

If one wanted to take the temperature of the potential strength of MORE, viewing it solely through the lens of how the petitioning went (and the ease of recruiting people to run), and given that I played a similar role in every UFT election since 2004, this time was a relative breeze with a lot more people involved.

Will this translate into votes? 

In locations where we have people it will. A UFT election is a ground game and building that ground game is one of the benefits of the petition process and from my narrow perch, this was the most successful petitioning effort I have been part of. Over the next 6 weeks with ballots having to be returned no later than April 24, it is about getting out the vote and hitting as many schools as possible with another MORE leaflet.

The election process explained
Now we are into less than a month of campaigning before the ballots go out on April 3. So it is time to explain the process.

Let me say that I tried to do this a number of times at MORE meetings and no one seems to get my explanation. So you are excused if you don't but feel free to ask questions.

Everyone in the union gets to vote for the 12 officers, 48 at-large members of the Executive Board and over 700 delegates to the AFT/NYSUT conventions. These are termed "at-large." This is where the retiree vote becomes important as 23,500 will count this time and with over 40% of the retirees returning ballots and 85-90% voting Unity (most retirees don't feel the pain of working in the schools), before we start counting the score will roughly be: Unity around 19,000 with MORE and New Action, which still has some retirees who always voted opposition still believing NA did not sell out, splitting the rest. (Mulgrew was recently spotted in Florida retiree environs trolling for votes.)

Adding the officers to the Ex Bd and the 42 divisional positions described below makes the total EB 101 members. Understanding the voting process gives you a clue to how Unity manages to assure control of the Ex Bd and the union. In essence, only 23 of these 101 positions are elected by working teachers in the school divisions. Thus, if MORE were to win even an overwhelming vote in the schools they would get only 23 out of 101 seats on the board -- the only positions retirees do not get to vote for. Let me explain.

Different groups of teachers vote for certain sets of divisional executive board candidates. There are 4 different, color-coded ballots sent to the members, depending on which division they are in: elementary teachers get to vote for 11, middle school teachers 5 and high school teachers 7 executive candidates specific to their division. Thus the total of 23. Any non teacher in the schools (secretaries, social workers, paras, psychologists, etc are lumped all together along with retirees into a massive-sized "functional" chapter and get an entirely different ballot with 19 candidates for executive board which are in essence at-large given the retiree vote, thus stacking the executive board with 78 members who the retirees get to vote for.

All the at-large candidates appear the same way on all the ballots.

In a more perfect democratic union, the teachers in the schools, who total 70-80,000 would get the majority of seats on the board. And instead of one functional chapter lumping everyone else together, each group -- social workers, secretaries, paras, retirees would elect their own members, not as one lump sum.

But we live in a far from perfect union. Which is why I'm still trying to form a more perfect union for the last 43 years.

Afterburn
Well, just as Joan and I were turning in the petitions, Ellen was taking off for a 3 week jaunt in Spain. Ellen is our rep on the election committee so now this falls to me and I keep forgetting stuff. This past Saturday a small group of MOREs gathered at Gloria Brandman's (MORE candidate for VP for special ed) to collate and organize the petitions and 3 hours later we had tidy bundles. Thanks to Julie Woodward for coming down to lend her invaluable help and also to Pat and David Dobosz' daughter, a future member of MORE, for helping. Joan Seedorf was there as usual as she has been throughout the formation of MORE.

Join Ravitch, Haimson to Oppose Ed Deform

Breaking News: New Group to Oppose Corporate Reforms

By dianerav

March 7, 2013 //

13

Dear Friends,
It is time to organize to support our children, our schools, and our educators against the well-funded attacks on them.
Please join me and a group of education leaders from across the country in building a movement for improving and strengthening our schools with research-based reforms, not fads and sanctions.
Today we announce the creation of the Network for Public Education. We invite you to join as an individual. We invite you to join as an organization. We will create a huge social network of parents, students, teachers, administrators, school board members, and all others who believe in public education and sane educational policy that focuses on a full and rich education for all children.
Diane
Here is the press release:
For Immediate Release
March 7, 2013
Contacts:
Anthony Cody, 707-459-2147, 510-917-9231 (cell) Anthony_cody@hotmail.com
Leonie Haimson, 917-435-9329, leonie@classsizematters.org

Today marks the public launch of a new network devoted to the defense and improvement of public education in the US. Led by renowned education historian, Diane Ravitch, the Network for Public Education will bring together grassroots activists and organizations from around the country, and endorse candidates for office, with the common goal of protecting and strengthening our public schools.

Diane Ravitch said, “The Network for Public Education will give voice to the millions of parents, educators, and other citizens who are fed up with corporate-style reform. We believe in community-based reform, strengthening our schools instead of closing them, respecting our teachers and principals instead of berating them, educating our children instead of constantly testing them. Our public schools are an essential democratic institution. We look forward to working with friends and allies in every state and school district who want to preserve and improve public education for future generations.”

Our nation’s schools are at a crossroads. Wealthy individuals are pouring unprecedented amounts of money into state and local school board races, often into places where they do not reside, to elect candidates intent on undermining and privatizing our public schools. The Network for Public Education will collaborate with other groups and organizations to strengthen our public schools in states and districts throughout the nation, share information and research about what works and what doesn’t work, and endorse and grade candidates based on our shared commitment to the well-being of our children, our society, and our public schools. We will help candidates who work for evidence-based reforms and who oppose high-stakes testing, mass school closures, the privatization of our public schools and the outsourcing of core academic functions to for-profit corporations.

Renee Moore, former Mississippi Teacher of the Year, said, “One of the greatest gifts the U.S. has given to the world is the promise of quality public education. It is also an unfulfilled promise. Public education is a critical part of America’s legacy, and the key to our future. We must defend and constantly improve it.”

According to Anthony Cody, retired California teacher and columnist for Education Week: “As a teacher in Oakland I saw the effects of our obsession with tests first hand. Our students are learning less, and losing the chance to think for themselves as we put more and more pressure on them to perform well on tests. It is time for the millions of us who know better to challenge those who have put our schools on this path. This Network will allow us to learn from and support one another as we push for real school change.”
Leonie Haimson, NYC parent advocate and head of Class Size Matters, said: “With all the billionaire cash trying to buy elections, we need to amass people power to ensure that individuals who care about preserving and strengthening our public schools are elected to positions of power. As the recent Los Angeles school board election shows, when we are organized we can overcome the forces of the privateers and the profiteers, intent on pillaging and dismantling our public schools.”

According to Arizona parent activist and director of Voices for Education, Robin Hiller: “No school was ever improved by closing it. Every community should have good public schools, and we believe that public officials have a solemn responsibility to improve public schools, not close or privatize them.”

Dr. Julian Vasquez Heilig of the University of Texas stated “This new network will seek to empower communities nationwide to unite to be more influential than the powerful. The network will also be an important vehicle for the latest data and research on the strengths and weaknesses of reform fads espoused by a multitude of talking heads.”

Phyllis Bush, a retired teacher from Indiana, said “Public schools are under assault in this country. Now more than ever it is imperative that concerned citizens unite to save the public school system. Our group, Northeast Indiana Friends of Public Education, and other grassroots groups helped to elect Glenda Ritz to become our Superintendent of Public Instruction, a huge victory against rampant and destructive education policies. With the creation of the Network for Public Education, we will reach out to others across the nation to fulfill the promise of public education.”

Added board member and Alabama education activist Larry Lee, “From my view, a lot more “ed reform” is because of the love of money, not the love of children. The result is that kids have become a very poor rope in a political tug of war. The only way to turn this tide is with the collective voices of the American public saying, ‘Enough is enough.’”

The Network invites individuals to join as members and welcomes other organizations to become our allies, to fight with us to preserve and strengthen our public schools.

The group’s website is http://www.networkforpubliceducation.org
and the Twitter feed is at https://twitter.com/NetworkPublicEd

Rand Paul's Real Reason for Filibuster: Obama Refuses to Rule Out Drone Attack on Ravitch

Does Randi Want to Steal Your Lessons?

The site’s basic content is free, and always will be, and you can be 100 percent certain that your e-mail address and personal information is safe and will never be sold.--- Weingarten on Share My Lesson

Randi does not guarantee that your donated lessons will not be sold or used in some commercial venture. And with teachers being put in a dog eat dog world, even the UFT/AFT used to predict that teachers might be less likely to help others - why would a vet assist a new teacher making half the salary succeed knowing full well she was training the person who would push her out?

My initial instinct always has been to share everything with everyone. But we are in a market-driven world which the AFT/UFT has also signed on to. So here Randi is inviting you to share your intellectual property for free. And mote the usual push for the Common Core.

“My only wish is that I had Share My Lesson sooner.” 

Everywhere I go, teachers, classroom paraprofessionals and other educators are telling me how helpful Share My Lesson is and how it’s helping them and their students find the resources they need. And it’s no wonder:

• Already, close to 200,000 U.S. educators have subscribed to the site, making it the fastest-growing online learning community for those working with students.
• More than 260,000 K-12 classroom resources have been uploaded to the site, tagged by content area and grade level for easy searching.
• A growing Common Core State Standards Information Center points teachers to useful resources that model approaches for teaching to the new standards.
• More than 1.5 million resources have been downloaded, the average user taking 10 on each visit.

I want to personally invite you to sign up for Share My Lesson and take advantage of this incredible resource. 

The site’s basic content is free, and always will be, and you can be 100 percent certain that your e-mail address and personal information is safe and will never be sold. Once you sign up, within minutes you’ll receive an activation e-mail. Follow the instructions in that e-mail, and you’re all set. Hundreds of thousands of resources developed by colleagues will now be at your fingertips.
You asked your union to actively support you in your daily efforts to make a difference for students. Here it is—Share My Lesson, a concrete example of solution-driven unionism. Hundreds of teachers have had a hand in developing Share My Lesson, and we look forward to your participation as well. Please sign up and share this message with a friend.

In solidarity,
Randi Weingarten

AFT President

Good MORE Story @ Brooklyn Rail

MORE election campaign put into context in this excellent piece that drills deep with quotes from a slew of MOREs.

A Groundswell of Teachers Wants More

http://brooklynrail.org/2013/03/local/a-groundswell-of-teachers-wants-more

by Ari Paul
 

In January, United Federation of Teachers (UFT) president Michael Mulgrew once again became a public punching bag when Mayor Michael Bloomberg denounced his union’s reluctance to acquiesce to his demands regarding teacher evaluations, comparing the UFT to the National Rifle Association. In a way, the name-calling helped Mulgrew’s standing among the rank-and-file, clarifying to them that the lack of an agreement was the result of Bloomberg’s intransigence.

But the members of the union’s new dissident caucus Movement of Rank-and-File Educators (MORE) point to the fact that Mulgrew touted his willingness to make compromises on the issue that would erode job security for teachers and further turn public education into an eternal test preparation course. “You have to question the approach of collaboration when the people you are collaborating with are out to destroy you,” said Julie Cavanagh, the 34-year-old Brooklyn special education teacher running for president on the MORE slate in the UFT election in April.

One part of this campaign is demanding better advocacy for schools’ issues, such as resisting privatization, merit pay, school closings, and the emphasis on standardized tests. Another is taking the union beyond these “bread and butter” issues, in order to make it an agent of economic justice in order to address the societal issues that affect public education. But on a grander level, MORE, modeled after the dissident Caucus of Rank-and-File Educators (CORE) that took control of the Chicago Teachers Union in 2010, is organizing against what it sees as corporate unionism that keeps teachers in this target position, with few tools to fight back. Once a hardscrabble union in the early Albert Shanker era, the UFT is now a top-down special interest lobby that shows its strength not through massive demonstrations but via the work of its well-paid army of technocrats.

Bloomberg’s three-term tenure has placed unionized teachers on the defensive. In the past 10 years, 100 schools have closed in the city and teachers have been without a contract for three years. Teachers no longer get reimbursed for school supplies, even though as Cavanagh explained, “the average teacher spends hundreds if not thousands of dollars out of pocket each year.” Teachers are buried in administrative busywork, she claimed, and noted that even though there is a cap on class size, the union’s leadership hasn’t enforced it. Bloomberg’s last budget proposal before he leaves office includes cutting 2,500 teacher jobs through attrition.

Throughout the onslaught against union teachers, Mulgrew’s Unity caucus, which has held uninterrupted power in the UFT for five decades, maintains its position in part through allowing its retirees to vote in elections as well as by appointing district representatives rather than electing them. Dissidents claim these staff jobs are political rewards for caucus loyalists, who in turn hand down information from the central office to chapter leaders regarding day-to-day representation issues, but don’t interact with the rank-and-file and have little interest in bringing workers into the fold. “There’s no way to promote things within the union,” said Seku Brathwaite, a math teacher in Manhattan running for executive board with MORE. “If they don’t want to deal with something they close it off.”

As a result, few teachers get educated about how the union works and they have few avenues to participate, which is why MORE proposes to elect rather than appoint district leaders and tie staff salary and benefits to those of the members they work for. “Teachers and guidance counselors are frustrated by a lack of communication,” said Rosie Frascella, a high school teacher running for executive board with MORE. “There’s no education on what a union is. That’s something that my union is struggling with because we lost what that means. We think of a union as ‘my health insurance and my dental plan’” instead of a way to have “a collective voice inside our schools.”

Cavanagh is the cheery face of dissident militancy. Unlike her running mate, long-time International Socialist Organization activist Brian Jones, she’s fairly new to rabble-rousing, going to her first protest in 2009 to demonstrate against school closings. Between taping a campaign video and entertaining her 7-month-old son on a Saturday afternoon in January, she explains that MORE is the consolidation of two dissident factions, Teachers for a Just Contract and the Independent Community of Educators, and includes members of the New York Community of Radical Educators, the Grassroots Education Movement and Teachers Unite.

Cavanagh admits that the campaign against Mulgrew will be an uphill battle. “We’re trying to get into other schools, into mail boxes,” she said. “We have a team of bloggers, and the traditional boots on the ground.”

And while a victory for the dissidents in 2013 seems unlikely, MORE sees the organizing as direly necessary. “Our main strategy is to use the elections as an outreach tool to build a better rank-and-file movement around the city,” said Queens math teacher Peter Lamphere. “The UFT election is one of the few times when rank-and-filers can go into any school and it’s a chance to expand the reach of the message for more union democracy and social justice unionism to schools where we haven’t been able to get that out.”

The election might not result in Mulgrew’s ouster, but the hope is that it will ignite a discussion of whether the union can move beyond the role of filing grievances and negotiating contracts. Rather than a narrow focus on collective bargaining, MORE wants teachers to be part of a labor movement that fights the social and economic injustices that help produce educational inequality.

“It’s hard to teach students when they have a full time job after school or they’re undocumented or they’re living in a homeless shelter,” Frascella said. “In my school, I’m dealing with students who survived an earthquake in Haiti. There are a lot of different issues that are going on. We need to be looking at different ways to support our students.”

Mulgrew, who would not comment on the election, has gained attention and respect among politicians and observers as a pragmatic player in the education reform debate since becoming president in 2009 and winning overwhelming reelection to a full term the next year. Most notably, he worked with the Department of Education to end the notorious “rubber rooms,” where teachers under suspicion of wrongdoing would sit idly for months or even years while their cases were stalled in the backlog. Under his watch the UFT has used legal channels to attempt to stop school closings and has supported legislation that would give more community input when charter schools want to occupy public buildings.

“Teachers’ unions have to be about education reform themselves in order to continue to have public support and to continue to reach their goal of educating students and protecting the interests of teachers,” said Richard Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at The Century Foundation, who has written extensively on labor in education, including a biography on Shanker. “Education reform is here, it’s going to continue to be here, and the question is how you shape it.”

He added that the perception is that unions are solely about resistance to change, and haven’t been proactive in offering new reforms on their won. “This would seem an odd time for a kind of the left to suggest the UFT hasn’t gone far enough,” he said.

That’s partially why the Chicago teachers’ strike, characterized as an energized show of force, was a particularly awkward moment for labor’s ruling aristocracy. It proved to be a successful collaboration between teachers and parents fighting for better schools. Moreover, it was a strike against a Democratic mayor, Rahm Emanuel, a close ally of President Barack Obama, which took place during the latter’s reelection campaign.

The action, indirectly, was also against the status quo of public sector unionism, which is based on a close relationship between unions and the Democrats, who, when it comes to education, are major proponents of charter schools and shrinking teachers’ union power. For example, during run-up to the strike, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, a former UFT leader, split her time between addressing members in Chicago and attending the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte. One of the nation’s most prominent unionists faced the labor’s most famous question: Which side was she on? Answer: It wasn’t clear.

That is why this election is not just a local union election. Including Weingarten, three of the four presidents of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) have been former UFT leaders. The UFT, once the largest local union in the country, has the majority of delegates in the AFT. “The UFT essentially controls the national union because of the delegate count,” Cavanagh said.

An impressive showing by MORE may embolden other dissidents in other cities where teachers unions have been under the gun of charter school C.E.O.s and politicians, or at the very least, send a message to the union’s leadership that more militant action must be taken, like the teachers’ refusal to use standardized tests in Seattle earlier this year. MORE does not want to be wedded to talking to systems managers who want to turn schools into businesses, but instead demands community control of schools, where pedagogues and parents stand at the forefront of policy making.

That’s a far cry from the system New York City has now. Take, for example, former Schools Chancellor Joel Klein’s comments to the Council on Foreign Relations last year that the biggest problem with American public education was its failure to produce enough qualified workers and people to advance American foreign policy. In this view, public education is not a social good, a place for critical thinking, in order to develop critical minds and life skills. Instead, it’s an increasingly privatized training ground for the American empire.

At present, the leadership of the UFT and the AFT do what any pragmatic union does: Fight to increase the pay and benefits inside the existing system. But what anyone interested in education as a public service needs is a collective, Mario Savio-like rejection of the idea of education as an industry, with teachers being the mere employees, and students the raw material. Any other path turns the union into a mirror image of its supposed adversary, a service-oriented entity that deals with monetary transactions for company employees—rather than a social group of like-minded thinkers participating in a democracy. 

Ed Deform LA Dreamin' Turns Into Nightmare

While we were celebrating Steve Zimmer’s thrilling win over Kate Anderson in the Los Angeles school board race, the corporate reform crowd had to figure out how to spin this embarrassing defeat. Here it is, fresh from Twitter: Deasey kept his school board majority! Monica Garcia was re-elected! Big money saves Deasey! Inconvenient facts: The billionaires put together about $5 million to beat Steve Zimmer, who is a member of the school board in his first term... Diane Ravitch

Monica Garcia’s re-election was never in doubt , especially as she had 5 opponents and outspent the others more than 10 to one.  The key battle was Zimmer’s seat. See yesterday's LAT: "Deasy's supporters regard Zimmer as a swing vote." http://shar.es/jQZeW. Now they’re trying to change their spin for the media.   They must think we are all idiots. ---Leonie Haimson

“This election, with its shockingly outsized spending has revealed a hidden agenda, as old as the hills. With massive institutions and systems is embedded the opportunity for equally massive personal gain. Prerequisite is private control, wrenched from what was formerly public, democratic governance. Couching this banality of greed in educational ideology has been an effective strategy, but tonight’s results suggest a whisper of increasing awareness and resistance to uncontrolled and unbridled, unjustified change.... LA Parent 

Poor Bloomberg. Tossed a million bucks into the LA school board race and made no difference. The more the billionaires push, the more people turn from supporters or neutral into opponents. We see people switching sides every day. Ultimately the deform movement will crash. Just hope to be around to see it.

Diane Ravitch has the latest: A Parent Reflects on the LA Election

This parent was not opposed to charters. She didn’t pay much attention to battles over school issues, although her own children attend a public school in Los Angeles.

But when she realized that millions of dollars were flowing into the school board race, many from out of state, she began to realize that something big was going on. 

She realized that the big money was interested in something other than its stated aims. She realized that the rhetoric of “reform” was a cover for privatization of public goods:

“This election, with its shockingly outsized spending has revealed a hidden agenda, as old as the hills. With massive institutions and systems is embedded the opportunity for equally massive personal gain. Prerequisite is private control, wrenched from what was formerly public, democratic governance. Couching this banality of greed in educational ideology has been an effective strategy, but tonight’s results suggest a whisper of increasing awareness and resistance to uncontrolled and unbridled, unjustified change.

“Because the evidence is starting to pour in. The Reform School agenda which seeks to install privately setup small, isolated, corporately run charter schools are at best no worse than their public counterparts, and reach a small, select subset of the public besides. They result in breathtaking segregation and privation and an impoverished educational landscape. They leach public resources. Unaffordable, now, are the rich opportunities of varied educational “services” like music programs and art programs, lending libraries and speech and behavioural therapists. This School Reform Emperor has no clothes, and the evidence while slow to come in, is arriving at last.”

 And this:  How Corporate Reformers Explain Big Loss in Los Angeles

Video: Julie at Murry Bergtraum HS - Roots of Her Activism

Julie describes the process that led her to become an activist beginning in 2009. From the invasion of the charter school, helping lead the fight against it, seeing the bigger picture and helping organize and lead the demo at Bloomberg's home, to her understanding of the role the UFT was playing and not playing in the ed deform movement to becoming the unanimous choice to run for President on the MORE ticket.

What she doesn't say is that in just a few short months of activism she took this city by storm, winning parents, teachers and community activists over to the cause of defending public education. One prominent perceptive non-educator/leader said to me early on before Julie became interested in the internal union stuff that she should run for UFT president, which was the first inkling I had of Julie's potential to reach way beyond the parochial union internal crap.

Then we did the movie and that made her a national figure. Not only did she make the movie as a narrator but she drove so much of the engine, even doing massive work in organizing our premiere and recruiting Diane Ravitch to be our keynote speaker. Everyone who has contact with Julie on a day to day basis just loves the experience, even when she is a pain in the ass.

Watch both the short version (5 minutes) and the full version (52 minutes) and you will see she wasn't chosen just because she is a pretty face or has a cute baby (though both did enter my devious mind). I became a fan from the first 10 minutes I met her in July 2009 despite the fact that we immediately clashed over my outsized criticism of the Unity leadership, which she contended was and is at times off the wall. Guilty! While she has become my teacher in many ways with her enormous wisdom, I still rebel against someone half my age and young enough to be my daughter. Some say that other than my wife, she is the only one who has found a way to bring me under control. For that alone she deserves your vote.




http://youtu.be/4Wl0CKFVq3A

The full 52 minute version is on vimeo as Julie takes on some tough questions and answers them with intelligence and style, all of which is missing from the Gotham piece. Watch it at the link below as I don't want to slow up this site any more than it is already.

https://vimeo.com/61162249


Julie's activism story is a companion piece to Assailed Teachers powerful blog on the roots of his activism even more recently than Julie's.

MY GROWTH INTO A UNION ACTIVIST: A TRAGEDY IN THREE ACTS

This is so strong I have reread it a few times to absorb all the complex points he is making. What a fascinating guy Assailed is. We are both historians of a sort and I could talk history with him hours.

And see Why I joined MORE pieces at the MORE blog.

I consider these people game changers in terms of the growth of resistance to Unity and the growth of a movement. They went from awareness to a high degree of activism so quickly. And they bring such a high skill set to the table.

The fact that MORE is being built by people like this is a sign of optimism. We just need more of them.

There are two types of activists inside the opposition.

The on the job converted -- I call the rank and file. My root of activism.

and

The politically active people on the left who would be active in any union and in fact purposely go to work in a setting that allows for their activism to operate. They are often key organizers. But their numbers are so low that if we relied on them alone we would be marking time.

And in fact that is where the opposition has been for much of the last 40 years. A combo of left along with some on the job converted. (Though I often wonder that with probably hundred or even thousands of teachers out there who might describe themselves as leftists and are active in some causes outside the union, why aren't they working with MORE?)

MORE will not go far unless the rank and file emerges and merges into MORE -- and the election campaign has certainly activated a portion of the membership that has not been active before and the real victory in this election would be keeping these people active and grow their connection to a post-election MORE. If MORE fails to do that it may find itself back in the same position as other caucuses that began life with a fire and ended up as a flicker.

Just sayin' to my MORE pals.

Look for my follow-up of pics of the new faces of the opposition coming up soon.

=====
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 Candidates Cavanagh and Jones Do Cute Baby Tricks

Lots more below

New Action Attempts to Distort Reality

New Action in their mailer to chapter leaders made references that they were ONLY opposition caucus. Every reporter talking to MORE people have said that Mulgrew/Unity/UFT have refused to discuss or give a comment on MORE or the election. We wondered what their strategy would be. Mostly, they are just trying to pretend that we do not exist.
--- a MORE member

In the UFT elections members will see three caucuses on the ballot but only have a choice of 2 presidential candidates since New Action is endorsing Mulgrew, claiming if they win he would be a better president than he would if Unity wins. You really can't make this stuff up.

Last spring Halabi contacted a MORE member asking for sit-down between MORE and New Action and such a meeting did occur in the fall. It seems he has amnesia/

Gotham linked to a JD2718 blog post where he discusses James Eterno's recent blog post with these comments:

James Eterno, a leader of the ICE caucus,...I don’t usually link an opponent caucus (I support New Action), but James’ speech, on the ICE blog, is worth reading.

James is a leader of the MORE caucus and is running for high school executive board in which he would replace Halabi if MORE wins those seats. But why not use a little distortion, which is New Action's purpose -- toe confuse UFT members. ICE has done nothing as an oranization at any UFT event in years while MORE has been incredibly active.

I left this comment at Gotham:

Is Gotham joining the JD2718 and New Action/Unity attempt to blot out the existence of MORE, (certainly John Gambling recognized MORE in his interview with Julie Cavanagh -- and note no Gotham mention --- listen to the interview to see MORE is real -- http://www.wor710.com/player/?mid=22943474&station=WOR-AM&program_id=johngambling.xml&program_name=podcast)

Really, if Gotham is going to link it should do some basic fact checking. Maybe tell JD2718 that ICE is no longer a caucus as he claims in his post. But then again he must have forgot that months ago he as a leader of New Action requested a meeting between New Action and -- what is that new caucus again -- oh yes, MORE. Amnesia must be at fault given that it has been blasted all over the place that ICE, TJC, NYCORE, GEM and others have all come together to form MORE.

But why give any credence to a real rival to his caucus, New Action, which will be endorsing some guy named Michael Mulgrew in the upcoming UFT elections in exchange for some guaranteed seats on the UFT exec bd, thus leaving UFT members with 2 choices for president: Julie Cavanagh or Michael Mulgrew. A vote for New Action will be a vote for Mulgrew. The choice is obvious -- except to JD2718 and other New Action members, even though some of whom have cast their lot with MORE in this election. Guess the message didn't filter up the New Action food chain. Or more likely an intentional attempt to distort reality. Too bad Gotham goes along with this sham.

Julie Cavanagh Appears on Gambling Show, Bloomberg's Favorite

And boy did Julie hold her own. Hear her response on the "what about bad teachers" and his defense of mayoral control where she deftly deflected his attacks on local community controls. And even he only grudgingly gave Bloomberg credit for raising results just a bit.



http://www.wor710.com/player/?mid=22943474&station=WOR-AM&program_id=johngambling.xml&program_name=podcast

Misuse of Official Union Communication by UFT Chair of ESL/Bilingual Committee

[UFT District Rep] Charlie Turner was at Tilden for a UFT meeting today and used part of his time to get sigs for Unity officer petitions.  --- a correspondent

Ah, yes, using an official union position on your dime to lobby for Unity. So, what else is new?

The MORE blog has a piece Why We Need MORE written by a teacher, Colleen Adrion, who has tried twice to put MORE literature into mailboxes at District 22 middle school, only to be rebuffed by both the principal and the UFT chapter leader. With every rebuff, the MORE people get more incensed and determined. She went back and was rebuffed again. And she will be back. (In the 2010 election a Unity  CL slug at Fort Hamilton made me come back 3 times so nothing is new.)


While we get a good response from the union people at the top when we get stopped from distributing, behind the scenes we find it interesting that the message hasn't reached some chapter leaders.

Here are a few reports from the distribution field:

I just walked into office of JHS 210. I ran into the chapter leader and  delegate in the main office. I showed them the letter and pamphlets. The principal walked out and stated at 2001 letter confused. They didn't let me put them into mailboxes. They had to call legal. I will be back. The chapter leader is Mr. Zander.

-------------------

We were successful in PS 3.  Office secretary was lovely and directed us to the mailboxes (and restroom)  She suggested that we speak to chapter leader who was as nice as could be.

PS 41M was another story.  We struck out completely.  AP in office got chapter leader down.  CL (Susan Schenker) refused to do anything without permission from DR (Dist 2), who she called but could not reach. We showed her the letter - which she noted is dated 2001, when Harold Levy was chancellor! - but no go.      ------------------

This problem goes away when every single school has someone in it willing to put MORE materials in the mailboxes on a regular basis. That is the real internal battle in this election --- not trolling for votes but using the election to build up the forces in the field for a ground game. So if you are in a school and have not seen MORE lit consider redressing this vast imbalance between Unity and MORE and get MORE info to your colleagues.

Now, Unity tries to control every chapter leader it can get its hands on so it can control its message in the schools with on the ground people. Only when MORE can begin to match this ground game can it truly challenge the Unity machine.

Unity has total control of the UFT functional chapters (guidance, social workers, retirees, secretaries, etc -- the largest voting block in the UFT) and uses them to manage the delegate assemblies. They also make sure to control the various UFT professional committees and use them to their political advantage.

Here is one communication from Josie Levine who heads the UFT ESL/Bilingual Committee who recently used her position to lobby for Unity, which some people tell me is a violation of the Landrum-Griffith Act which addresses internal union elections.

Thanks to those who've sent in their registrations for the March 7th workshop.  Please remember that I will be out of town until right before the workshop and that some of you may not receive confirmations. I have kept my word to the members of this listserv, never shared it (though many have tried to get your emails), and don't send you jokes. Though I have read some gems.

But it is that time of the year again when we will be holding UFT elections.  Many of you indicated three years ago that you appreciated my letting you know that I am a member of the UFT's Unity Caucus, the caucus, or party of the UFT Presidents.

This email is to keep you updated on the reasons why Mike Mulgrew deserves our vote:

UFT/Unity President Mulgrew's leadership has.....

--Taken a stand against Bloomberg's policies

--Fought to improve our working conditions

--Won the fight to prevent layoffs

--Preserved our tenure rights

--Protected ATRs from layoffs

--Won closing schools lawsuit and arbitration

--Won SESIS arbitration

--Provided assistance to thousands of Hurricane Sandy victims

--Restored the vacation days before Labor Day

--Increased Welfare Fund benefits twice in two years

For the above reasons, I am letting you know that I will be voting UNITY when the ballots are mailed and I urge you to do the same.

In Solidarity,

Josie Levine

UFT Chair:  ESL/Bilingual Committee

MORE's Karla Tobar is a member of the committee and wrote this in response:

Ms. Josie Levine,

My name is Karla Tobar. I am a bilingual teacher and a member of the Movement of Rank and File Educators (MORE) Caucus.

On 2/24/13 you sent an email to the UFT ESL/Bilingual Committee email list stating why UFT members should vote for UNITY Caucus in the upcoming UFT elections.

I strongly believe in democracy and to that end am asking to send an email to the UFT ESL/Bilingual Committee in a timely manner and of equal length to the one I received stating the reasons UFT members should vote for MORE in the upcoming UFT elections.

Thank you for your time. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

So far Josie Levine has not responded. Karla will be back.

For MORE on this issue see DOENuts (Did Unity 'Jump the Shark' Somewhere Along the Way?) and Assailed Teacher MY GROWTH INTO A UNION ACTIVIST: A TRAGEDY IN THREE ACTS