A Day in the Life of a ... Mar. 20, 2007

This will be my last post of the winter. Almost time to hit the backyard and start rubbing fingers through the soil.

Got home last night after a night at Tweed watching Klein squirm after parents broke into the meeting and disrupted it. He tried to keep the meeting going and reversed himself about 12 times throughout the night. Boy, I can just imagine what kind of teacher this guy was when he taught for 6 months in the late 60's (something you never hear him talk about, for good reason I suspect) before high tailing it back to law school. I took some video and will post it on you tube when I edit it. The guys doing the movie on the rubber room were there and tried to get Klein to talk but he told them to see his press office. They should have just asked a question and get his response on tape but the minute they said they were doing a documentary, he shut up.

Some of the parents made strong statements and you can read more at the NYC Parent blog.

Today I hit elementary schools in my old district with the ICE election leaflet. It was like old home week as I met people I knew in every school. What a difference putting leaflet in boxes while chatting with old friends - teachers, paras, secretaries, even principals and asst. princ's who I've known for years. Everybody agrees -- BloomKlein suck! Plus a number of "the UFT is useless."

I started at my old school - lots of "I voted for ICE" comments. My old buddy the cook offered me a nice bowl of homemade chicken soup. One of the nice things about the school was how when we partied, there was little distinction between teacher, para, secretary, kitchen worker or custodian. Well, that's over under the new regime. Many teachers have left and all say how much happier they are in their new schools. The leftover masses huddle together, still in shock over the arrest of their colleague (who was my neighbor across the hall for 10 years) orchestrated by the principal a few weeks ago. (I spoke about the incident at the PEP last night, pointing out to Klein that these are the people he wants to give unfettered power to. Of course he does! Fear and loathing is how he wants schools to be run.)

I probably shouldn't talk about the rest of my day where people are actually relatively happy (or relieved they are not ruled by a Leadership Academy clone.) BloomKlein might hear of it and try to turn these schools into factories.

The highlight was a visit to a school where 2 of the people I worked with in my last years in the system are teaching. They love their principal to death, one of the old gang from the district office. It was a wonderful reunion and as it was Open School Day, they asked me to join them for a parent luncheon. I had other places to go but hung out with them on the line for food. A woman standing behind us turned to one of them and asked who I was. They told her and she said, "Oh my God! It's my 6th grade teacher." Turned out I was also her sister's 6th grade teacher and my wife and I had gone to her sister's wedding (one of 3 weddings from kids in that 1975 class I eventually attended.) She has been teaching for 17 years. (Oy vey! Am I old.) She is the 2nd former student I have connected up with in the last few months. (See the post on the play No Child where one of my students and her 18-year old daughter attended with us.) She will put me in touch with her sister and I hope to see her. It was sad to hear their mom, who I was very fond of despite the fact we couldn't communicate because she spoke only Spanish, had passed away.

Then it was off to some other schools, running into the former PTA president of my school who is an aide and had good stories to tell about her 4 children and all her grandchildren. Then on to the first school I taught at for 3 years, finding myself stuffing the same mail boxes that I stood before on my first day on the job almost 40 years ago. Phew! There was just a little lump in my throat as I worked. That was the scene of the 2 strikes in '67 and '68 and also the birth of my activism. But that's a story for another day. I called the CL from the office as a courtesy to let her know what I was doing and she said I should come up. She is a new CL and battling the principal in a fierce struggle. She doesn't want to be the one to put the ICE leaflets in the boxes. She has decent reasons. We went out with some of the gang after the last DA and had a lot of fun. I hope she'll join us again next week.

I was off to 2 small schools where I got to see some of the old computer teachers I used to hang with and we talked about how the multimedia center where I worked provided so much support to schools. Of course, it was killed after BloomKlein and now tech support is a sometime thing.

I ended up at a small school where 2 of my favorite people have become the principal and AP, who was the computer teacher at one time. On my last day of work before I retired almost 5 years ago, we had to wait around until 6pm for some delivery people to come to bring computers from my office to her school. I reminded her that she still owes me a night of drinking to celebrate the retirement binge I missed out on. I forgave her because I had to come in to work the last 2 days of June to help with the computer transfer and the per session I earned was added to my final salary.

Both gals spent most of their careers teaching at the school and it is very surprising they are now running it, as the corporate mentality of BloomKlein discourages this kind of fraternization. Every teacher I met there seems happy and relieved to be working for them -- actually, knowing these gals, they work for the teachers, as supevisors should. If teachers could elect their supervisors, which I feel would give us the best people, these 2 would win hands down. I left happy for them and the staff, though I suspect the CL is pro-Randi and the staff will vote Unity. But happy staffs often don't see problems with the status quo. Still, I met a teacher on the way out who said she can't believe people don't see how the union sold them out. At least one vote for ICE-TJC.

Well, I had enough for the day and was off to take my 89 year old dad out to a Chinese restaurant. He was ILGWU. If only he could vote ... nah! He wouldn't vote for me anyway.

Early Returns on Eterno/Zahler Debate

Thank you James Eterno for participating in the debate on WBAI tonight. You were strong and concise. You presented the ICE-TJC position with pride. The views of ICE-TJC were explained with no hint of antagonism or malice in you words and voice. I'm sorry to say this was not true of your opponent. You clearly were the winner. The union should be proud to have you as a representative.
P

Bravo, James! You did an excellent job tonight on the WBAI debate with Unity's Jeff Zaller. I agree that you were the clear winner. Your statements were clear and strong and reflected the ICE/TJC position very well. You were not defensive and challenged Unity with intelligence. You gave specific examples of what ICE/TJC believe is wrong with the UNITY approach to leadership and presented an alternative way to lead our union!

Bravo once again!

G

(The show will be archived and can be listened to on-line from the WBAI website-

The official WBAI-Pacifica Archive and Podcast site )

Red-baiting from New Action Supporter? You Decide

When New Action candidate and blogger jd2718 posted a report on the debate on the war at the February 2007 Delegate Assembly, there were signs of the coming red-baiting buried in the report. Here are the details:

An openly Communist political party called the Progressive Labor Party has been active in the UFT since I can remember. They have a contingent of teachers in many schools all over the city. Though most PL people in the UFT do not join caucuses, they have been long-time supporters of Ed Notes and when ICE came together in the fall of '03, a few members of PL became part of the process and have been somewhat active in ICE since, with 3 PL members running on our slate. Though ICE'ers have been critical of both their politics and their tactics at times, we also find a lot of common ground.

As an open and democratic organization, ICE welcomes the discussions engendered by the views PL supporters bring to the table and we have grown to respect their views and the passion with which they express these views.

At DA's they mostly give out PL, not ICE literature and when they have tried to do both, we have spoken to them that it is not correct to confuse people as to which group they are representing. Mostly, they have complied with our wishes.

I was downstairs giving out ICE literature at the Feb. DA when a contingent of students came in with signs, led by someone I was not familiar with. Later I heard they were allowed into the DA. When I read jd2718's report, these people were labeled as ICE supporters instead of members of PL. No names, no mention of PL, just "ICE supporter." And mentioned 3 times — as "calling for the UFT to oppose imperialist war."

Gee, I've searched our archives and can find no expression that ICE has taken such a position, though there are certainly people who work with ICE that might agree. And others that might not.

The word "imperialist" is something I have discussed with out friends in PL as being a buzz word that is meaningless out of context to teh average person not steeped in left politics who hears it and in fact hurts whatever ideas PL is trying to get across. I also have pointed out that when a member of PL expresses their view as being in favor of Communism to an audience at a DA or at an ICE meeting, the meaning as understood by that audience is completely off base to what I assume the PL'ers really mean. Or maybe not. But I think it is a mistake on their part, despite the fact that we all absolutely love PL'er Derek Pearl, the charming 70-year old Brit who often made such proclamations. (I used to sit in front of him at DA's to block Randi's view, as she always tried to call on him as a way to avoid opposition resolutions.)

The Feb. DA
The entire action PL engaged in at the Feb. DA obviously had nothing to do with ICE and in fact I do not know how jd2718 knew which speakers were ICE supporters (as there were a lot more PL people who I did not know present) unless there was some help from his friends in Unity or New Action. The affiliation of members of PL have been well-known to anyone who has attended DA's for a while.

I wonder what jd2718 would say if someone representing the Communist Party speaking about how the old Soviet system was better for the people of eastern Europe, were mis-labeled as New Action supporters. I bet if he took a poll of his caucus, he might get some interesting answers on this question. Not that there's anything wrong with it.

Here is the relevant section of jd2718's post (my emphasis added).

In February, at the DA, ICE supporters brought students with signs against military recruiters on campus. The students were allowed to address the body, and offered fiery remarks. An ICE supporter moved a resolution - the exact language is not in front of me, but the sense follows: 1. The UFT opposes imperialist war. 2. The UFT has a resolution against the War in Iraq. 3. The UFT should oppose military recruiters in public schools for the duration of the current war. Jeff Zahler, a Unity leader, moved a motion eliminating point 1. He also spoke of extending the last point (3, the ‘whereas’ ) so that it referred to military recruiters at any time, and not just during the Iraq War. (either Jeff or a later speaker made that into a second amendment).

There was debate. An ICE speaker was so upset about the loss of inflammatory language, that he forgot to speak in favor of widening the scope of the opposition to recruiters in schools. Veterans who are delegates and chapter leaders spoke. One was upset by the tone of the discussion, didn’t want us to be against the troops, but agreed that students who want to sign up should go to a recruitment station rather than have the recruiters come to the schools.

The next time jd2718 gives a report, I suggest he name names and true affiliations instead of joining the Unity red-baiting bandwagon. I won't hold my breath, as jd2718 never misses an opportunity to take a pot shot at ICE.

James Eterno ICE's and Unity's Jeff Zahler tonight on WBAI at 7pm

WBAI Radio's Building Bridges: Your Community & Labor Report
Produced & Hosted by Mimi Rosenberg & Ken Nash
Monday, March 19, 2007, 7 - 8 p.m. EST, over 99.5 FM
or streaming live at http://www.wbai.org
**************************************************************
No Child or Educator Left Behind: A Debate with Candidates for the UFT Elections with
. Jeffrey Zahler, Special Assistant to President Weingarten,
At Large Candidate for Executive Board
. James Eterno, Chapter Leader Jamaica High School,
ICE-TJC, Candidate for Executive Board from High Schools

The UFT elections are underway - the ballots are out and two coalitions (UNITY-NEW ACTION vrs. ICE-TJC) are fielding slates vying for leadership. While the opposition ICE- TJC slate says that the 2005 contract gave away a tremendous amount of rights in the classrooms and in the schools, the ruling Unity Team boasts that the 2007 deal includes major salary increases and was concluded a year early. ICE-TJC maintains that the current UFT leadership refuses to mobilize the membership while UNITY accuses the opposition of advocating strikes and strike threats for political and ideological reasons and not as a last resort in bargaining. But, the question is what affect the position of these candidates will have on the education of our children!

I'll be at Klein's monthly PEP meeting tonight to hear all sorts of fun stuff, so let me know how the "debate" turns out.

Marian Swerdlow Video: The High School Executive Board elections

Marian Swedlow, one of the founders of TJC (Teachers for a Just Contract) 15 years ago, and a delegate from FDR high school, talks about the high school executive board elections.

"Children First" Game

Check out the "Children First" game at the NYC Public School Parent blog.

Unity Propaganda Machine Treads in Dangerous Territory

Considering the attack on ICE-TJC presidential candidate Kit Wainer as being old-century, the McCarthyite tactic of branding the opposition as "Reds" seems so old century. But this is an old tactic on the part of Unity Caucus. Ironically, they used this time and again against their current allies New Action, many of whose leaders have strong connections to socialist political parties and are themselves so-called red diaper babies, whose parents actually faced persecution by the real deal, Joe McCarthy himself and have a visceral response to "Red-baiting." Not the least of risks for Unity in taking this action is the potential is the negative reaction from some of New Action's core members who have gone along with the Unity/New Action deal out of loyalty.

Of course, there's the UFT legacy itself where most of the leaders are/were members of the Social Democrats, USA. And then there's the additional danger that the same right-wing audience Unity is trying to incite against ICE-TJC will come back to bite them. What if the right wing anti-Unity forces (of which there is a considerable number) start mud-slinging and get other areas, such as race-baiting or gay-bashing? Ultimately, a right-wing group, not comfortable with some of the politics of ICE or TJC will spring up. Unity may consider that a good thing, but when you get what you wish, sometimes there is a high price to pay. They ain't seen nothing yet.

Before I even knew about the mailing, calls of outrage started coming. Some thoughts expressed were, "Isn't it a slam dunk Unity will win? This smacks of the kind of desperation of someone who is losing a political campaign instead of expecting to win with a 90% vote. Why is it so important that a 70% majority is not enough? "

I agree sending out this to the homes of so many people appears desperate but desperation is in the eye of the beholder.

To Randi Weingarten/Unity/New Action there are a lot of balls in the air in this election.

The most common analysis I heard from people is that Weingarten is most interested in an overwhelming victory so she can sail into the sunset with a glorious victory and head off to the AFT in the summer of '08.

It is not that simple. For Weingarten, it is important to keep the ICE-TJC vote low as a way of margianalizing ICE-TJC, which if it starts attracting 25-30% if the vote, threatens to pass the vote totals New Action was getting when it was THE opposition. For Weingarten to leave an orderly union for her successor, she must reduce the threat ICE-TJC present and promote her home grown opposition New Action.

By getting more votes than the ICE-TJC upstarts New Action can claim, despite their alliance with Unity, they are still the main opposition, albeit totally tied to Unity's apron strings. They also have to prove to Weingarten that they are viable and that she still needs them. It should be pointed out that despite enormous inroads ICE and TJC made into the New Action support base 3 years ago, New Action with the addition of retiree votes actually outpolled either of the 2 groups.

For ICE and TJC, this election is about establishing a base of support and then building out from there. (ICE got less than 5% and TJC around 6-7% in 2004.) It takes a long time to establish a brand name and both groups are beginning to work themselves into people's consciousness as an alternative to both Unity and New Action. But legitimacy as an opposition will not truly come until they begin to reach into the 25-30% range.

As pointed out in a recent article in The Chief, the real battle is in the high schools where Weingarten is desperate to keep the ICE-TJC people off the Executive Board where they can raise questions about UFT policy. They would be especially dangerous when she is not around to keep things under control. A lot of issues are coming up with the expected UFT support for the current system of mayoral control (with just a few cosmetic tweaks) high on the agenda. No embarrassing questions, no answers.

Weingarten is so enamored of New Action's leader Michael Shulman because he has proven time and again he can control the troops. When she announced the purchase of the new buildings on Broadway in 2003 just as the alliance with New Action was in the earliest stages, some of the New Action members on the Ex. Bd at the time wanted to raise questions. Shulman, not a member of the Board, passed by each one and ordered them not to raise any questions. "Randi doesn't want this to become an issue, so don't say anything," Shulman said.

Now there's the kind of opposition Randi can be proud of.

Unity Uses Red-Baiting - Just Part of their MO

Mr. Welch: Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty, or your recklessness. You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?


That there is a large core of activists who have shunned UFT internal politics has been a well-known fact. Activating this group has not always been easy, as many of them view the UFT leadership as unmovable and the opposition movement devoid of the kind of politics that are of most interest to them.

Today's Unity mailing that slithered into UFT members' homes red-baiting ICE-TJC presidential candidate Kit Wainer has provoked many of these progressive UFT members into outrage and shock. The emails and phones have been burning up with offers to help in the final days of the election campaign from people who have had little prior interest.

Will the Unity intent to garner last minute votes backfire in the long run by waking up a potentially activist left-oriented section of the UFT that has been ignoring internal politics?

This is not the first time Unity has resorted to red-baiting. When New Action was not yet sucking up to them, Unity regularly slimed New Action's leadership for ties to left wing political parties. What will be New Action's response to the Unity attack on Wainer when they were themselves so wronged? And how does Unity's attacks on Wainer jive with the history of their current allies in New Action? Members of ICE and TJC always condemned the Unity mud-slinging at New Action in the past (and won't sling the enormous amount of mud on Unity personnel they have accumulated.) But now all we can expect from New Action will be the sounds of silence. Getting those seats on the Executive Board come with a very high price in principles, whatever ones are left.

Read TJC's strong response on the Norm's Notes blog.


I received this email tonight from a former New Action member:

"We used to go to Mike Shulman's home on Saturday mornings signing countless times to ensure a large number of NAC names would be on the ballot. As a former chapter leader, I had Mike come to our school--an elementary school--where the opposition message to Unity was warmly greeted.

When he and his inner circle betrayed us by pandering to Unity for jobs, it left us with a bitter taste.

The New Action ad in this week's UFT rag looks like it was an anti-NAC piece written by Unity."

The more you hang out with the sleaze, the sleazier you become.

UFT Election News - March 12, 2007

It is not often that people leave Unity Caucus, which can be compared to black hole where some good people desiring to change the union enter, never to emerge. Once enticed with job opportunities, free trips and other perks, the desire for change seems to go south.

Former Unity Chapter Leader running with ICE
That is why the Jerry Frohnhoeffer's move from Unity to the ICE-TJC slate is so remarkable. Jerry is chapter leader at Aviation HS, one of my favorite schools. He is running for Vocational HS VP against Mike Mulgrew from Unity. You can read his bio at my other blog, Norm's Notes.

Building a viable opposition
I met a new Unity CL recently and he is and has been a critic of Unity and even ran against the Unity CL at his school who was humping the 2005 contract. When he won he looked around for signs there was a viable opposition building. When the vote was taken on the 2006 contract he looked for signs in the vote totals that something had been built since the 2005 contract, and seeing the 90% YES vote decided that Unity was his only option. He hopes to reform them from within. Good luck!

He is wrong about that vote being the key. Many people opposed to Unity voted YES. The building of a viable opposition takes a lot of coalescing of forces to create a political movement. Seeing things evolve over the years there's room for hope. New Action's desertion has left a void in the infrastructure of an opposition. No matter how ineffective they were as an opposition, they did have the ability to get literature out. TJC started building 15 years ago but with New Action still around, the going was slow. Once it was clear they were aligning with Unity TJC began to have much greater success. ICE, starting out 3 years ago also has been building infrastructure and the election process is part of that building effort. No matter what the result in this election, the opposition is not going away. And if we should see the farce of New Action holding 8 Exec Bd seats, Unity 81 and ICE and TJC none, there is no better demonstration of the lack of democracy in the UFT.

Next: New Action History Lesson 1

See you at tonight's UFT Exec Bd meeting. Come on down. I'll be hovering over the ribs.

Measuring Teachers

"If teachers are to be held accountable for the performance of their students, strategies for measuring the impact of their work must be refined or, at least, the uncertainties of these measurements must be taken into account in assessing the impact of teachers and schools on student performance."
http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB9050/index1.html

The word performance can be viewed narrowly (how kids score the reading and math test) or broadly. Once behavior enters into it - often discounted as an "excuse" but to teachers one of the most important factors - things get very sticky. I do not mean behavior in the sense of "good and bad' but in the wider sense of the resources students bring to the table and the ability of the teacher to work with them in that framework. I had "successes" with kids who did not move higher in reading but moved significantly in their ability to control their emotions, function within the context of a classroom, etc. Can these things be measured?

I taught in a rotation system in elementary school. One year you get the higher performing class, the next you don't. Same school, same families, same teacher, etc. This was not a big school -- 2 or 3 classes on the grade. My measured performance varied vastly depending on which level I taught. In some ways I was better with the struggling kids. There were teachers in my school who were awesome with the top classes but fell apart when they had the bottom classes. We had teachers who were willing to sell their souls to stay out of the bottom classes.

Class size made a difference but the administration in my school in the 70's at least tried to make the lower exponent classes smaller. Most teachers fought to teach the better classes even with the higher class size. Favorites of the principal were often rewarded (violating the contract) with these classes year after year. Or they tried to put the teachers they thought to be the best with the top classes, relegating the lower classes to some sort of triage.

The entire process is so complex, trying to judge teachers on performance is very difficult. In the old days the key thing was if you could control your class. The entire school -- colleagues, admins, parents, etc measured you as a teacher based on that factor alone. When I learned how to do that I felt it was one of the major accomplishments of my life and turned me into a confident teacher. It was one of the hardest things I have ever done. Dealing with actually teaching them after that became the next hard thing.

I met a top lawyer at a party a few years ago and he entered teaching around the same time I did in the late 60's to stay out of the draft. He couldn't believe I stayed in all these years. He taught in the south Bronx for 2 years and said it was the hardest thing he ever did. He was not referring to the teaching part.

Klein was there too as a teacher escaping the draft at the same time for around 6 months and you never hear him sat a word about that experience. I know what he must have went through. We all did. He knows what it's all about and that is why I consider him such a snake in the way he and others put the main blame for failing schools on teacher competency.

Cerf said as much at the Manhattan Inst luncheon. That is why we have all the phony prof. development. The way I and other generations of teachers learned PD was from the great teachers who worked with us.

Robotics at Javits Center Mar. 16-18

FRC (FIRST Robotics Competition) Regionals at Javits, Mar. 16-18

The New York City Regional is a FIRST Robotics Regional Competition that will be held between Friday, March 16 and Sunday, March 18, 2007 at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. The 2007 competition will include sixty-three FIRST Robotics teams from New York City, the metropolitan region, and as far away as Brazil, Israel, and the United Kingdom.

The event is a world-class celebration of high school students, engineers, and mentors creating and discovering tomorrow’s science and technology! Twenty major New York City corporations will be on-hand to offer information about summer jobs, internships, co-op positions, and other employment opportunities at our first ever career fair. With an additional 200 middle school teams in five boroughs, the 2007 FLL and FIRST Vex demonstrations will only increase the excitement! http://www.nycnjfirst.org/nyc_frc.html

I will be there all 3 days at the registration desk, so stop by and say hello.

Friday is a practice day so the kids will have some time to take visiting school groups around.
I am coordinating school visits on Friday, so if you are interested in bringing a group contact me directly.

Read more at my robotics blog: http://normsrobotics.blogspot.com/

Daily Doins: March 8, 2007

How does a retiree spend a relaxing day? First, you start out by going to the printer to order more UFT election leaflets. Then, on to the full-day Region 4 robotics workshop. Then back to the printer to pick up the leaflets. Then off to meet a group of teachers at a high school who want to hear about the UFT elections. On the way, drop off leaflets at varying schools. Wrap up the evening battling the Unity slime on the blogs. Who wants to be sitting in the sun in Florida?

Tech Support in Medieval Times

In my last years in the system I was a technology staff developer assisting teachers with the integration of technology after Giuliani wasted $150 million putting 4 computers and a printer in every middle school classroom in the city, a system most teachers found practically useless in the context of the 45 minute or less period. (Most tech educators begged them to start out in the early grades and work the systems up the chain, but why listen to educators when businessmen can make the dicisions?) So my "support" often involved crawling around under tables plugging in printers and internet cables.

There's a much better system of tech support at Devil Ducky: Introducing The Book

Kit Wainer On the Non-Debate: Friday, March 2

Ballot facts

from Jeff Kaufman

Ellen Fox and I examined the membership list today at the American Arbitration Association. Over 161,000 ballots will be mailed. The list was missing 56 full time UFT staff members. This list will be emailed to me shortly. Jeff Zion, AAA official in charge of elections expected less than 50,000 to be returned.





Ballots to be mailed on Friday.
Academic HS 17642
Vocational HS 2125
JHS 12826
Elementary 36892
Retired 50207
Functional 38541
Special Ed 3579
While they were separated in the list Academic and Vocational will get the same ballot. Functional and Special Ed will get the same as well. Functional includes private sector. Charter schools are in each division.

Schmoozing at the Brecht Forum

As previously posted here, Sally Lee of Teachers Unite, hosted a forum on UFT basics aimed at new teachers, a number of whom enter teaching with a negative attitude about the UFT and unions in general. They are going to rescue the schools from those burned out teachers who value the contract over the children. Many have been imbued with the "corporate is good, public institutions are bad" mentality from college or previous jobs.

After all, look at the massive propaganda machine in the media that blame teachers for all the problems in the schools. With the DOE pointing its finger directly at the union contract as a reason for failing schools and with the DOE's ability to capture Teaching Fellows and Teach for America teachers with a "stay away from the union" and "you will find union people who don't want to work" and "UFT Chapter Leaders are the worst teachers" propaganda blitz, there is a lot of work to do.

At the same time, a group of these teachers are socially conscious and looking to be politically active in social justice areas. Sally's idea was to bring veteran union activists like myself and Megan Behrent (just a little bit less vet than I am) together with some of these people to explain how we see the union operating from our perspective, as members of ICE and TJC. If people want to get the Unity/union leadership point of view, they can always read the NY teacher, watch the commercials, or go to chapter meetings when the suits come to the school. But these are the people who often turn them off.

The event, surprisingly, brought out a mixed group of newer teachers and vets, some of whom read about it on this blog, including someone from Unity (not from the leadership.) We think everyone got something out of it. It was a pleasure working with Megan, who is so knowledgeable and articulate in presenting her views and that of TJC. She combines practical experience with her theories of activism. In particular, Megan is so good at addressing the idea that teachers who insist on adhering to the contract or who don't put in 12 hour days as somehow not being as caring as teachers that do. Points were raised that none of these 12-hour a day teachers have families with children or have to commute and that when they do they will find it impossible to put in the same time. In some ways, the concept of "heroic teacher saving the children," the Klein/corporate model of the ideal teacher, is very anti-mother (I know that many fathers take a big share of child-caring, but let's face it, women still bear the brunt). Lost in the rancor of the last few contracts with its time extensions was the disruptions so many families went through with rearranged baby sitting, etcc.

Sally has been bugging me for years to put together a flow chart of how the UFT is organized and I finally did it as well as a chart of the various caucuses. I used them to present a section on "UFT Basics 101." I will ultimately post them both when they are more presentable for the web.

Here is Sally's outline we worked from. We got most of this done, but not all.

Getting to Know the UFT: An Introduction for Teacher Activists
March 1st, 5:30 p.m., Brecht Forum

Overview of UFT Structure and History (15 min.)

(Sally) [slide presentation]
• Radical history
-What did Teachers Union fight for?
• 1968 strike
-Teachers vs. Community
• 2006 Context
-Community perception of UFT
-UFT’s role in national politics (Beyond Contracts)

(Megan)-Purpose of labor unions: Current State of solidarity/labor movement
(including: How TFA/Fellows program break solidarity)

(Norm) -How UFT is structured (hierarchy, caucuses, how resolutions are passed, etc.—

Why Get Involved (and what may happen if you do, and how to do it)? (20 min.)
(Norm/Megan) •Individualistic set-up of teaching (the “Dangerous Minds”/”Freedom Writers” trap): “I can make a difference” vs. building a broad movement
• Rank and file involvement/democracy makes the UFT stronger (including: how this will affect community/social justice issues)

(Sally) • Social Justice Unionism

(Norm/Megan) • Risks and Advantages of getting involved with the union in a school
(including the content of what you teach)

(Norm/Megan) • How can rank and filers get involved?/How can rank and filers utilize union as an organizing strategy for social justice?
-Rep/Delegate
-Caucuses
-Voting
-Chapters endorsing particular issues
-Conduct outreach about issues at DA meetings

• Strategies for protection
(Megan) -Consultation Committee
(Norm) -Customized consultation committee

Know Your Rights! (10 min.)

(Norm) • Role of chapter leaders
• Typical abuses/typical grievances

• Resources: Where can individuals look up rights?

Q & A (30 min.)

Participant questions for veteran union activists (introduce any union activists who are present to answer questions).

Klein & Weingarten: Separated at birth?

Trained as corporate lawyers.

Reached the highest positions in their organizations through appointment by the largesse of a powerful person above them.

Entered education for reasons unrelated to developing a career as a teacher.

Taught full time for only 6 months.

Run autocratic, rigid top-down, patronnage-ridden organizations top heavy with people making six figure salaries a year where personal loyalty is more important than competence.

Believe appearance is more important than reality.

Have in-house public relations staffs at great cost and pay high sums to outside PR agencies. View public relations as primary over trying to solve real problems.

Make at least a quarter of a million dollars a year plus expenses.

Wainer Clear Winner in "Debate"

While not a debate, but more in the nature of statements made by Weingarten and Wainer, the response by Weingarten to even the possibility of a debate is indicative of a fear of standing in front of the members in a forum where he doesn't have absolute control.

The following appeared today at the UFT-CWE wiki. Since I was banned on Broadway (52, that is) I remained outside to interview people as they left. Video is being edited and we hope an interview with Kit Wainer outside the UFT building will be available soon. Also, more coming on my banishment.

From http://uftcwe.pbwiki.com/

ICE-TJC candidate Kit Wainer clearly demonstrated his clear vision for a union that represents its members instead of its leadership at a meeting held at our regular chapter meeting on March 2nd. While Weingarten came off as personable she clearly told us that raising awareness of adult education issues was "our problem."

"The work must be done by the Chapter," she stated suggesting that it was our responsiblity to get other organizations involved.

It is hard to understand why she would not help us more. She offered to allow us a few minutes at a Delegate Assembly meeting which, of course, is attended only by UFT members, hardly the group that needs to be convinced about the need for adult education.

We have not endorsed a candidate but it is clear who the winner should be. For more on Kit Wainer see his video at http://www.elfrank.com/Kit/.

Coming Soon to the UFT: 28,000 Home Child Care Providers

I've been writing about how at-large voting guarantees Unity victory time and again. So far the 55,000 retirees with the addition of the lock-step chapters like guidance and secretaries that support Unity (most of the functional chapters are naturally led by Unity loyalists) have done the job. But soon they will have another 28,000 home child care providers, who have been organized by the UFT, joining them as another chapter. This will finally make the working in school teachers a minority in the UFT. (80,000 out of close to 200,000 UFT members.)

We totally support the organizing effort and the great work the UFT has been doing in organizing this group. But of course, we always question their motives. Rumors have been around that getting the UFT recognized as official bargaining agent is subject to negotiation -- like supporting the lifting of the charter school cap in exchange (with language to give the appearance that it will be easier to unionize the teachers, but in reality nothing much.)

They should be a totally separate chapter with their own president and executive board and should not be deciding issues like the high school, middle school and elementary VP's. If it is necessary to amend the UFT constitution, we should make that a contingency of supporting the entry of these workers into the UFT.

NYC Public School Parents Blog (New)

She will protest, but I believe Leonie Haimson's listserve has been one of the major galvanizing forces in the city for parents and other forces to unite against BloomKlein. Alliances have been built across the city. At the rally on Weds. I met more of Leonie's Lions, a force that will increasingly be reckoned with. We've seen some of Patrick Sullivan's fine posts on NYC Educator and other places. It was a pleasure to finally meet him on Weds. He will now be running a blog based on Leonie's nyceducationnews listserve. Lots of email, but worth all of it. A progressive parent voice with others chipping in. This is so scary for BloomKlein that they monitor it and often respond based on what is being posted there. Now comes the blog. Go there or be square!

Here is what Leonie sent out to the listserve.
Check out the new parent blog with contributions so far from Diane Ravitch, Patrick Sullivan, and Leonie Haimson – about the rally this week, the statistical lies of Tweed, the protest in Queens over Halsey Junior High School and more! Parents and others invited to contribute and to comment.

http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com