Written and edited by Norm Scott:
EDUCATE! ORGANIZE!! MOBILIZE!!!
Three pillars of The Resistance – providing information on current ed issues, organizing activities around fighting for public education in NYC and beyond and exposing the motives behind the education deformers. We link up with bands of resisters. Nothing will change unless WE ALL GET INVOLVED IN THE STRUGGLE!
Is there a real left-wing wave or are we seeing a few ripples? Ed Notes will be on the case to help you decipher the issues with a series of posts on the left -- including what the hell the left is -- my right wing friends view the NY Times as left. I will be posting a follow up from Business Insider attempting to define social democracy - Bernie territory - socialists who believe in liberal democracy compared to socialist who believe in a one party system.
The last few days have been seismic for the American left. Last Tuesday, the insurgent Democratic candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez scored an upset primary victory in New York, unseating heavyweight Congressman Joe Crowley. The next day, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement, girding the left for a nomination fight that could put Roe v. Wade—and other settled rights for immigrants and minorities—back on the table. And over the weekend, protesters across the country marched to oppose the separation of families at the US–Mexico border.
On Sunday, CNN’s Brian Stelter discussed sharp, ongoing criticism that mainstream media outlets failed to spot Ocasio-Cortez’s rise with The New Yorker’s Jelani Cobb (who is also a professor at Columbia Journalism School) and Vox’s Liz Plank. “Do you buy into the idea the press missed the story?” asked Stelter. “I think it’s pretty obvious,” Cobb replied. Don’t just follow the money, “follow the tweets,” added Plank, referring to Crowley’s huge, yet futile, fundraising advantage over Ocasio-Cortez.
If I go there will be trouble, if I stay there will be double... The Clash
I'm a fan of The Clash and Should I stay of should I go is a good theme song many UFTers are facing. Try it out. (See lyrics below). The line above is interesting because if those who are most agitated about leaving due to what they consider a weak UFT in defending themselves stay they could be a thorn in the side. Thus my theory that the leadership doesn't really mind if its most vocal critics left. Remember that 12,000 UFT members voted for the opposition in the last election in 2016, a serious number of unhappy people with Unity.
I predict these campaigns will backfire and lead to exposing the attacks on teachers and give some clarity to the motives to destroy the profession as they tie into the same people supporting the anti-union charters. (I still maintain that the school privatization movement represents as big a threat to teacher unions as Janus.
In response to the people on the ICEUFT blog who ask why they should pay in response to my comment about the problems with the UFT leadership, here is my response:
Why pay union dues? Good question. Let's just focus on the local not the big union aspect -- the union in your own school.
I would pay just on the basis of showing solidarity with my co-workers who do pay. For the sake of school wide unity - small u.
Your biggest enemy is not the UFT leadership but most likely some of your supervisors and their enablers at the DOE.
Even with the union it is so hard to fight back against these people.
Try to imagine a divided school where the principal can use the wedge against you all. It could also go the other way where some principals support the idea of a union and punish those who leave -- but I don't see this as the norm.
So an anti-union principal encourages people to leave the union -- devastate the chapter so there is no pushback at all and also no place at all to go to complain -- even if the UFT is poor in responding -- just the fact it exists can be a factor.
Now the other reason is that in a state of having to cater to get you to pay dues the UFT/Unity become more responsive and maybe even willing to fight. Don't hold you breath -- but if people actually banded together - say in a school with an abusive principal and threatened to leave the union en masse unless there was some action -- but you would give them time -- like a year.
Now imagine a whole bunch of schools banding together -- and also saying they will stay in the union but organize people to seek out other representation unless the union reforms democratically.
I've been paying dues voluntarily for 16 years since I retired because I support the concept of unionism and want to stay involved.
James Eterno just retired and is covered under his wife's health plan and could walk away but he is passionate about staying involved.
What is interesting is that the Unity crowd ignores that some of the most passionate support comes from its internal critics and Unity sectarianism means people like us will never be allowed to actually go into schools and support people.
We could mobilize a group of retirees who are not Unity in a second and I believe out critical view of the UFT would allow us to be able to really talk to people the way we do on our blogs instead of going in like a used car salesman to sell fluff.
On the other hand I could understand Unity not wanting to send in people
associated with opposition caucuses, fearing they will misuse their
access to organize against the leadership -- a valid point and something
I've been grappling with in my developing theories of the uncaucus ---
what is the point in working in opposition when there is little chance
to topple Unity? (But more on this in the future.)
Look deep into the lyrics. People want to stay but it's always tease, tease, tease --- one day its fine and next its black
I accidentally deleted my previous post which went into some commentary on my part which is now lost in space forever. So I am just going to republish this without commentary. Sorry, a few of you left comments but they were lost too. Feel free to put them back.
I just heard a clip from Alexandria from Meet the Press in which she was asked about her socialist identification and had a good answer. (I must delve into the different socialisms very soon we know what we are talking about.)
Republicans Are Terrified of What Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Started
Jay Willis
GQ•July 2, 2018
It took the right-wing pundit class all of four days to decide how it planned to attack Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the 28-year-old Bronx native who won her New York City congressional district's Democratic primary on the strength of somereally, really goodpolicy ideas. Their chosen approach, however, might be characterized as a novel one. You should know, says this basic-cable talking head, that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez—and this is a Certified Politics Bombshell, so please make sure you're in a place where you can audibly gasp—grew up in a house.
Look at this dwelling! Feast your eyes on the scale of its opulence! Why, it has a roof, and trees, and several windows! Its walls completely enclose the living area so as to protect its habitants from the elements! By golly, I bet if you were granted access to the home's interior, you might even find a refrigerator in which Ocasio-Cortez's family could store perishable food for consumption several days beyond its purchase date! How, he might ask, can someone be poor if they alsoeat food?
Set aside, for a moment, the fact that Ocasio-Cortez attended Boston University, which is neither "Ivy League" nor "Brown University." (Set aside, too, how creepy it is to post on social media a Google Street View image of whatever now exists at the site of someone's former home as a gotcha argument.) Cardillo's implicit assertion is that because a cherry-picked aspect of her childhood does not comport with his lazy, pernicious stereotypes about the lives of working-class people of color, she must therefore be an inauthentic liar.
The candidate responded, in order, by correcting his mistakes and putting him in a blender.
Her first point is the sicker burn, but her second one is what will matter in November. Cardillo, a Queens native and former Bronx police officer, won't address Ocasio-Cortez's "radical" socialist agenda on the merits because he understands that Ocasio-Cortez's "radical" socialist agenda is popular enough to win elections: With neither political experience nor big-donor money to her name, she unseated a ten-term incumbent by outlining a bold vision for this country in which those who live in it can lead fuller and more dignified lives. This terrifies him. And so, instead of staking out the absurd position that things like "women's rights," "housing as a human right," and "supporting seniors" must bebad—seriously, no one in conservative media tells on themselves more willingly than Sean Hannity—Cardillo abandoned good-faith criticism altogether. It went about as well as you'd expect.
Ocasio-Cortez is thefirst to admitthat her platform isn't likely to be adopted wholesale by the national Democratic Party in the immediate future. But oftentimes, the surest sign of a viable political strategy is the extent to which its successful deployment makes your opponents nervous. If they want to have any hope of slowing the movement of which she is now the most prominent member, Cardillo and his peers will need to come up with a better plan in a hurry. Dumb tweets about a house aren't going to cut it.
In a terrorist version of
the “broken window” school of policing, the Islamic State aggressively
prosecuted minor crimes in the communities it took over, winning points
with residents who were used to having to pay bribes to secure police
help.... the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, was willing —
even eager — to get involved in the messy details of people’s
day-to-day lives, and conversely that hundreds of people trusted them to
fairly resolve their issues, no matter how trivial.... NY Times,The Case of the Purloined Poultry: How ISIS Prosecuted Petty Crime
I'll admit that I'm making a weird comparison here, but read on. The UFT leadership must win points with the members which is one reason some members view the Janus decision as a good thing --- putting pressure on the union leaders to address the major concerns of the members.
In some ways they may be trying. Parental leave was a direct response to the Emily James' 80,000 sigs petition, which after Mike Schirtzer brought her to a UFT Ex Bd meeting, Mulgrew seemed to get on the stick. There is also the seeming move to two evaluations a year despite the union's constant defense of the 4 evals -- this may have been one of the major push-button unhappiness issues in the rank and file.
But, look at the comments on various blogs about the lack of service and response from the UFT/Unity leadership on many issues - note especially the issues with the massively flawed grievance process that the leadership has not attempted to redress - even having weakened it in the 2005 contract.
Now, there are some effective people who work for the union. I was wondering that when they have to cut staff, will these be the people retained or will those who suck up effectively survive? Or will the loyalty oath prevail?
A dew weeks ago we ran into an old UFT/Unity party member who held a position who castigated Mulgrew and the few leaders who hold sway on their refusing to listen to even other Unity people who want to see some change as necessary -- it is just not in their DNA.
There are some interesting lessons in this NY Times piece on how ISIS won some level of support from the populace - by taking care of fundamental disputes. Think of this on the level of issues that arise in schools and the UFT is looked to for some assistance. Now of course ISIS had a few arrows in their quiver to enforce their decisions. But I am focusing on the fact that they were aware that gaining support is not only about top down rule but in providing some service.
Justice
was swift and efficient, mostly because no one wanted to risk
punishment at the hands of the militants. Yet the fact that hundreds of
civilians filed complaints, including against ISIS fighters who had
wronged them, suggests that at least some Iraqis believed the terrorist
group would do right by them.
Even
residents who suffered abuses at the hands of the militants gave them
points for their policing, saying that for nonreligious disputes, they
were not only fair but also willing to wade into problems that might
have been brushed off by most authorities.
Would the Iraqi government have pursued the case of a stolen chicken?
“They
wouldn’t have even heard this complaint because it was only for 4,000,”
or $3.50, said Mr. Imad’s younger brother, Alosh Imad. “You have to
have wasta — a connection to someone,” for the police to take your case
under consideration, he explained. “As far as justice was concerned,” he
said, “ISIS was better than the government.”
Solution to abusive principals
OK, so we don't have the power to behead abusive principals. Can we get that in the next contract?
Or will we one day see certain people in a shrinking UFT/Unity Caucus being led to the guillotine along with their pal superintendents and principal and the leaders of the abuse supporting CSA?
The left is a very wide place, from liberal/left to the many varieties of Marxist_Leninists, Stalinists, Trotskyists, anarchists, social democrats (like Bernie). The DSA is a wide tent and its future is always going to be threatened by sectarianism.
This Jacobin piece makes many interesting points. I haven't joined or participated in Democratic Socialists of America events yet but given the Bernie politics I fundamentally support, I guess this is where I am at politically. DSA is attracting a wide-spread range of people who consider themselves socialists, or anti-capitalists. There is much debate on the left as to how much to align with the Democratic Party -- ie - can it be reformed or should it be used to build something else. I'm thinking things through with this victory over Crowley -- the wing of the Dem party our own beloved UFT hangs out with. Never forget that the UFT/Unity party was born out of an anti-left bias and has always tacked center of the road along with alliances with neocons.
So within the UFT itself, will we see a left surge? Knowing some of the left in the UFT, including some members of DSA, I don't see that happening, but if the energy that went into the Ocasio-Cortez victory were translated to the UFT, who knows?
the corporation was projected to receive a total of about $5.6 million dollars by 2016, with more than half of these funds to be provided by NYC taxpayers. ...charter school carpetbaggers attempted to exploit some of the fears of white parents moving into an area with public schools composed of mostly Black and Hispanic students.... For all their talk of diversity, their internal leaked “marketing plan” identified their primary targets in Williamsburg as “Middle/Upper income/predominantly White” and in Crown Heights, “middle/upper income" parents.....Brooke Parker
Exposing charter school scams is some of our favorite reading. I've known Brooke Parker for many years through our Williamsburg connections. She is relentless. Leonie publishes her latest on her blog.
Leonie writes:
Brooke Parker exposes sham of Century Foundation report on "diversity by design" charter schools via leaked Citizens of the World marketing plan and exorbitant fees.. Please share!
Here is Leonie's introduction on the blog:
Here is a column by Brooke Dunn Parker, Brooklyn parent activist, about a recent controversial report by the Century Foundation, which identified 125 charter schools that are supposedly “diverse by design” – though on the whole, most analysts find that charters have had a segregating effect, according to the AP, NBC News, and the UCLA Civil Rights Project.
Moreover, this list of 125 schools was selected from 5,692 charter schools – only a tiny number.The methodology is also questionable.The authors identify these schools by analyzing their enrollment, websites and survey responses from school leaders.Though the Century Foundation sent their survey about diversity to 971 charter schools, only 86 responded – which means that nearly 40 schools were put on the list even though the school leaders couldn’t be bothered to answer their survey. Several Success Academy charter schools were included on their list, including Success Academy Upper West, which has had multiplecivilrightscomplaints lodged by parents against it.Finally, the report was financed by the Walton Foundation, the largest private funder of charter schools, who no doubt would like to whitewash their poor record of civil rights abuses.Please read the Network for Public Education and Schott Foundation report on how many charter schools violate students’ civil rights.
Check out Brooke’s dive into the issue, informed by her experience with one of the supposedly “diverse by design” charter networks highlighted in the report, Citizens of the World Charter Schools. Brooke has previously written about these schools on our blog, here and here.
Brooke Parker has fought and exposed Citizens of the World charter when they invaded Williamsburg, Brooklyn. They used Eva Moskowitz' husband, Eric Grannis. Ed Notes published a bunch of stuff on the family scam.
We believe that there is a place in public education for charter schools, but Citizens of the World is bastardizing the original intent of charter schools. ...
Brooke left this comment on the role Eric Grannis played: Eric Grannis didn’t start it, but he created an organization, Tapestry, that made introductions between the “community,” the charter network that already existed in California, and SUNY. Tapestry was designed to help open charters in North Brooklyn, a district where we already had the most charters outside of Harlem. Tapestry’s marketing led many of us to believe that they were particularly interested in getting white gentrifying families invested in opening charters for their kids. - Brooke Parker
Jan 27, 2012 -There is so much going on around theEva MoskowitzSuccess Charter invasion of Williamsburg (and Cobble Hill) that I could do 5 blogs a day.
Dec 18, 2017 -Eva Moskowitz' was involved in the scheme early on, as Brooke Parker from WAGPOPS reports:Eric Grannisdidn't start it, but he created an ...
Trashing Citizens of the World Scam Charter Scheme. As registration is happening for citizens of the world (part of Eva Moskowitz empire), if you could circulate these negative articles and have everyone click on them, it would be very helpful. We need to let everyone know that there is significant opposition.
Dec 5, 2012 - Parents Opposed to Citizens of the World Charter: Hundreds, Parents in Favor: 4. The NY State Dept. would allow the Hitler Youth Charter to breeze through and not only would they authorize the Ku Klux Klan Charter School for Racial Harmony but they would wash the sheets. -- Norm at charter hearing.
On NPR's "On the Media" this morning I heard a discussion of tone policing and how attacks on protestors who are viewed as "going too far" has been used to subvert the message. https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/problem-with-civility
The Problem with Civility
It is worth listening to.
I'll admit I also react badly to what looks like uncivil behavior. Like I wasn't for tossing Sarah Huckabee out of the restaurant. The owner who did that also killed her business. So there are consequences.
But having just been through years of being lectured about my tone by the tone police in MORE and seeing Mike Schirtzer purged under the cover of his "tone" when in fact it was a political purge, this story struck a note. I had not heard the expression "tone policing" as a way to deflect debate and yet I saw this in action in MORE on numerous occasions, with the final straw being taking an open discussion listserve and putting it under moderation which has in essence killed all debate in MORE.
Mission accomplished.
It was funny as the same faction, all aligned politically, tried to control the listerves when we were in GEM, so I had an inkling that some form of political policing was behind the tone attacks. But this morning I heard it discussed in the main stream media for the first time.
The wiki item below focuses on tone policing as being used against women and minorities and the left, but it also comes from the left, especially from the sectarian left which always tries to control voices that don't align with their particular sect. On the other hand, to be fair, people do have a right to complain about tone if they are offended - that is fine. But what I found is that I would put out a serious argument and the tone police would ignore the entire argument and chastise me on tone. Sure, tell me I could avoid using a certain tone -- good friends have told me that curbing my sarcasm would strengthen my arguments.
So I tried very hard to avoid giving people an excuse to avoid my political points. The result? They just ignored what I was saying altogether. Dead silence. So now I avoid commenting at all inside the MORE bubble and will use Ed Notes to make my points.
Tone policing(alsotonetrolling,toneargument andtonefallacy) is an ad hominem and antidebate appeal based on genetic fallacy. It attempts to detract from the validity of a statement by attacking thetonein which it was presented rather than the message itself.
In Keith Bybee'sHow Civility Works, he notes that feminists,Black Lives Matterprotesters, and anti-war protesters have been told to "calm down and try to be more polite". He argues that tone policing is a means to deflect attention from injustice and relocate the problem in the style of the complaint, rather than address the complaint itself.[2]In hisLetter from a Birmingham Jail,Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.condemned this type of silencing, writing that he was "gravely disappointed" with the "white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than justice."[3]
Whilead hominemfallacies of relevance are oftenautologies, critics have argued that tone policing is a flawed concept simply because it is autological. As discussed byThe Frisky'sRebecca Vipond Brink, the act of labeling tone policing may itself be considered tone policing:
The problem with telling someone that you have a right to express yourself as angrily as you want to without them raising an objection is that you’re also inherently telling them that they don’t have a right to be angry about the way you’re addressing them.[4]
— Rebecca Vipond Brink, Calling Out Tone-Policing Has Become Tone-Policing
Bruce Byfieldhas written that steering observers away from the validity of an argument is only one of many possible motivations for raising concerns about tone during a heated debate.[5]An article onThe Good Men Projecthas argued that moderating tone, whether or not one cares about civility, is useful for increasing persuasive impact on the listener.[6]
Here is the Jersey version of the law passed in NYC.
Protecting unions with the law
The Workplace Democracy Enhancement Act that Murphy signed last month
is one of those laws that could help public-sector unions. It gives
them:
the right to meet with members on the premises of a public employer
during the workday to discuss grievances and other workplace issues;
the right to conduct worksite meetings on premises during lunch,
breaks, and before and after the workday to discuss negotiations,
administration of agreements, and other union matters;
the right to meet with new employees for a minimum of 30 minutes
within 30 calendar days from that employee’s date of hire, without the
time being charged against the employee’s leave time;
the right to certain employee contact information and the right to use email for union matters.
The Gates Foundation’s big-data experiment wasn’t just a failure. It did real harm.
By
Cathy O'Neil
2
June 27, 2018, 9:00 AM EDT
Quality can be hard to measure.
Photographer: Dave Einsel/Getty Images
The
Gates Foundation deserves credit for hiring an independent firm to
assess its $575 million program to make public-school teachers more
effective. Now that the results are in, it needs to be no less open in recognizing just how wasteful — and damaging — the program has been.
Union leadership will use the Janus decision to shut down internal critical voices. If we let that happen, we are abrogating our responsibility to build a better union by trying to force changes (and believe me it will take force) and we are also helping the anti-union forces who are using the impregnable union hierarchy against them. I expect the slings and arrows to come my way but I have my shield ready.
I wrote my column Monday, June 25, when we were still guessing about Janus outcome. It should be in The WAVE - on June 29, 2018, www.rockawave.com when it will be a bit outdated. It is about democracy in the UFT and whether that would be an issue in decisions to leave the UFT. Though this comment on the ICEUFT blog mentioned democracy.
Bronx ATR said... This decision is not the end of unions. It doesn't even weaken strong unions. The strength of unions is not their bank accounts. but their willingness to fight and stand up for its members. The UFT's lack of democracy and its intentional creation of an apathetic rank and file has it rightfully concerned.
BronxATR is one of the few who mention democracy and my conclusion is that democracy is basically a non-factor for the overwhelming majority of UFT members. Democracy in the UFT only seems to be a factor to the tiny fringe opposition.
We recently watched MORE shunt internal democratic functions onto a side rail by overthrowing a steering committee a faction didn't like and violating so many by-laws we lost count. (See Why We Choose to Leave MORE)
So, even the supposed opponents to Unity (and I no longer consider MORE a serious opponent to Unity) don't seem very interested in pushing back on the issue of democracy in the UFT.
Yet, unless the ruling Unity Caucus party considers offering dissidents a role in reforming the union, Janus will make them bleed deeply unless there are some fundamental reforms. But I don't have much hope this will happen as the Unity DNA means maintain ironclad control even in a shrinking union.
THE WAVE: June 29, 2018
School Scope: The UFT and Janus – Would a More Democratic Union Keep People from Leaving?
By Norm Scott
Democratic norms seem to be slipping away all over the world. But there are alternate views as to exactly what constitutes democracy. We would have to define these norms first – which would require too much of my limited brain power. So I’ll leave it to you readers to define democracy on your own terms. Suffice it to say, I don’t take a traditional view of democracy.
Some UFT members may think the UFT is a full-fledged democratic union. So I imagine the state of democracy in the UFT won’t affect their decision on whether to keep their union membership or not when the Supreme Court most likely rules in the Janus case that no one can be forced to pay dues even though they may continue to accrue the same benefits as those who remain union members.
Without getting into the weeds let’s talk specifically about democracy in the UFT, which I have been a member of since 1967. In UFT elections the almost 60 year ruling party, Unity Caucus (a caucus is similar to a political party), always wins almost every one of the positions up for election with roughly 75% of those who vote. But almost three quarters of UFT members do not even vote and almost half of those who do are retirees, of which 85% vote for Unity. Thus, to a large majority of classroom teachers, a vote in a UFT election is basically irrelevant. Technically, this is still democracy – majority rule, even if only a relatively small minority of the total number of UFT members. Now, it may be that with a sure Unity victory, there is not much at stake, but that is the way our country seems to view democracy – a majority of a minority is still a majority - though given the way things have been working out there are more and more calls for serious reforms.
The Unity party controls the 200,00 member UFT with a minority. Using this power base it also controls the NY State union with 600,000 members which in turn controls the national AFT union with 1.5 million members.
In the last election in 2016, a coalition of opposition groups won 7 out of the 100 Executive Board seats, none of the 12 officer positions and none of the 750 delegate positions to the New York State and national teacher conventions. That’s a worse winning percentage than even the METS. Those 7 seats were all from the high schools. In fact, various opposition parties have won the majority of high school votes in most UFT elections since the mid-1980s. Admittedly, the vote totals are low. In 2016 the opposition won the high schools with about 2350 votes while Unity received about 2150. There are almost 20,000 high school classroom teachers in the UFT. Even though our side won, we did so with less than 15% of the high school teachers voting for us. But that was the majority of those who did vote. Our side often claims that high school teachers as a whole do not get enough representation in the UFT, since a majority of those who do vote have relatively little say over UFT policy. The 7 non-Unity reps are only 7% of the Executive Board and they get voted down all the time. The argument that this disenfranchises20,000 high school teachers, even if it makes the case for our side, is also an iffy one.
Let’s just say that the issue of a democratic UFT is a marginal one and when people chose to stay or leave the UFT post-Janus, the question of democracy will play little or no part.
Having thoroughly confused myself (and you) on the nature of democracy in the UFT, I will go back to blogging at ednotesonline.com where I may just blog about food.
