A Midsummer Night's Scream - Picket PEP Over Verizon Contract/Support CWA Strike - Weds. Aug. 17, 5PM

Join BYNEE, Class Size Matters, CPE-CEP, Grassroots Education Movement, New York City Parents Union, New York Charter Parents Association, NYCC, NYCORE, S.E.E.D.S, Teachers Unite, Independent Community of Educators, The MANY, Teachers for a Just Contract (list in formation) this Weds at 5pm.

Verizon has admitted to overcharging us as a result of alleged fraud by a middleman but is not willing to make us whole. They will only negotiate and want their contract renewed first. - Patrick Sullivan

Wow, are these guys at Verizon crooks, stealing money out of the mouths of babes, all with the compliance of WalBloom and the PEP, which wiil vote to hand them piles of more money on Weds. Aug. 17.



Protest Verizon DOE Contract at PEP/Support Verizon Workers on Strike

On Wednesday, August 17, the Department of Education's Panel for Education Policy will vote on a $120 million two year contract with telecom giant Verizon to wire our schools.   There are at least five good reasons to strongly oppose this contract ( see below.)

At the same time the PEP will be voting on a spending plan that will sharply cut our school budgets - for the third year in a row - and lead to even larger classes.

Join us at the PEP meeting near City Hall to protest this immoral and possibly illegal contract. 

 Whether you can join us or not, please  send the message below to the members of the PEP.

What: Picket and Protest 

Where: Murry Bergtraum HS, 411 Pearl Street, Manhattan (4/5/6 or N/R to City Hall / Brooklyn Bridge)

When: Wed. August 17, 2011 at 5 PM

Why?  Verizon is shortchanging their own workers and stealing from schoolchildren!   Say no to more giveaways to private contractors and more wasted spending on technology while are class sizes are increasing! Tell the PEP to vote down the Verizon contract with the DOE!

Take a stand against the increasing portion of our education budget that is wasted on private contractors and for-profit vendors, like Rupert Murdoch's Wireless Generation.

Sponsored by:  BYNEE, Class Size Matters, CPE-CEP, Grassroots Education Movement, New York City Parents Union, New York Charter Parents Association, NYCC, NYCORE, S.E.E.D.S, Teachers Unite, Independent Community of Educators, The MANY, Teachers for a Just Contract (list in formation)  

And please send the following email to the PEP; feel free to change wording and/or add details about the conditions in your child’s school:

Dear PEP member:

Please vote no on the $120 million contract with Verizon. Here are five good reasons:  

1.    45,000 Verizon workers are currently on strike, as management has demanded a long list of concessions, cutting their health benefits, pensions, and sick time – givebacks amounting to $20,000 per worker. Meanwhile, the company has $100 billion in revenue, net profits of $6 billion, and Verizon Wireless just paid its parent company a $10 billion dividend. The top five company executives have been paid more than a quarter of a billion dollars over the last four years.  This is yet one more corporate attack on the middle class. Why should the city be contracting with such a greedy and unethical company?

2.    Verizon is seriously implicated in the recent scandal in which the Special Commissioner of Investigation found that a consultant named Ross Lanham in charge of school internet wiring stole $3.6 million dollars from the city  through a false billing scheme, and that Verizon “facilitated this fraud.” Though DOE admits that “Verizon is in discussion with the DOE regarding repaying of the overcharges,” the company has not yet agreed to pay back any of this money, and the case has been referred to the US attorney’s office for possible prosecution.   Why should DOE reward Verizon by paying the company more millions?

3.    In the same document in which the DOE outlines the contract, there are twenty other instances listed of suspicious or illegal behavior on the part of Verizon, triggering numerous investigations.

4.    All NYC public schools are already wired for the internet; but according to the DOE, this second round of wiring is for high-speed internet and hi-definition video  to facilitate the expansion of online learning and computerized testing.  This is occurring at the same time as budgets are being cut to the bone, schools are losing valuable programs, and class sizes are rising to the highest level in over a decade.  A quarter of our elementary schools are so overcrowded they had waiting lists for Kindergarten.  It is outrageous that in the midst of this budget crisis, the DOE should be spending $120 million for unnecessary technological upgrades when children do not have seats in their neighborhood schools.

5.    Finally, this contract with Verizon began on January 1, 2011, and DOE is only now asking for the PEP  to approve it “retroactively.”  But there is no allowance for retroactive contracts in state law, unless the chancellor finds that due to an emergency, it is necessary for “the preservation of student health, safety or general welfare” and provides a written justification.  This was never done in this case.  Thus, this contract with Verizon is likely illegal on the face of it.  

I                 I hope you will vote your conscience, and reject this outrageous contract, 

(                             (name, address)

Send this message to: llbryant@inwoodhouse.com; jchan@dbpartnership.org; pepofqueens@yahoo.com; FFoster@schools.nyc.gov; thernandez@samvill.org; patk.j.sullivan@gmail.com; okotieuro@yahoo.com; JKay3@schools.nyc.gov; EMarti@schools.nyc.gov; Dperuggia@schools.nyc.gov; majorm766@gmail.com; gittepeng@yahoo.com; Lnieves01@gmail.com

Thanks, and please forward this message to others who care,

Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

Verizon: Corporations Are People Too - Mitt Romney

Rank and file Teachers have been supporting the CWA strikers against Verizon.

Interesting article in Sept 2009 NY Times - Verizon wants customers to cancel land lines. Verizon paid NO federal taxes and Ivan Seidenberg makes $55,000 a day.

Verizon Boss Hangs Up on Landline Phone Business

Roll over in your grave, Alexander Graham Bell.


Here is a current article in the Times

 

Democracy Now covered the strike:  http://www.democracynow.org/2011/8/11/verizon_workers_strike_over_full_scale

Video of GEM, NYCORE, Teachers Unite teachers supporting Verizon on picket line.




This is a letter that came through to a fellow GEM member from a striking mom...

Hi there. 

You probably don't know me.  I'm on strike with Communications Workers of America, against Verizon Communications.  I've been a technician in New York for over a decade and I'm a mother.  A lot of lies are being spread about us, about our union, and what our strike is about.  You should hear our side because things are hard for working families now, and getting harder.

            And I'm scared.  At the end of the month if we are still on strike, my family loses its health care.  My husband is out of work, and strike pay for a month is less than we made in a week.  We can't afford to go to the pediatrician with no health care, period.  Our last visit cost $305.  Just because we can't afford it doesn't mean we won't do it-like everyone else on the planet we'll just go further into debt.


            I'm sure as a parent you've had those moments when you realize just how much you adore your children, that you'd do anything for them, a feeling so strong you can't even put words to it.  Think about how you feel when they are threatened, bullied, or hurt.  That is how we feel every second on our picket lines, knowing we are fighting for them.  We want them to have health care and a stable home. But we also want them to have parents who are not so beat up by working faster and harder with no job security that when we get home at the end of the day, we have a little energy left.  Maybe even are in a good mood.  Wouldn't that be nice?

            My days go like this now: wake up before 6 to feed and change my 8 month old son, then go to the picket line.  I watch managers barely trained in the field drive my truck and use my tools to do my job.  When we rally and chant they drive right through us; 23 people have already reported being hit by vehicles on the picket lines; the first morning we were out I saw a manager hit my coworker in the leg with his car and an ambulance had to be called.  In 1989 a technician in New York was struck and killed right in front of where he had worked by a manager working as a scab.   His kids said good-bye to him one morning and never saw him again.

       We're out in the sun, the rain, the heat, the horrible New York humidity.  We didn't ask to go on strike, the company made demands so insulting we had no choice.

But what's it all for?  Ads are running in the papers saying we make $91,000 a year and have 4 weeks vacation.  Ads that imply it's our greed that is causing the strike.  I have worked 11 1/2 years for the company and never made that much, nor will I if I don't take voluntary overtime for 10 to 12 hours a day, 6 or 7 days a week-but only if the company offers it.  That part kills me-the company shrinks the workforce so they have to offer overtime sometimes, then calls us greedy for taking it! 

Do people who are willing to work 12 hours a day deserve to make good money?  Do people who work in unheated manholes in January or up telephone poles in August deserve to bring home a good check to our families?  To do work that is dirty and dangerous and that keeps us away from our families for all our waking hours to me seems worth the company paying us well.   But I would say the same about the women and men who sit in call centers and offices who handle call after call, who are timed to the second and patrolled like chain-gangs in their cubicles.  And I'd guess you work pretty hard too, maybe too hard and you're exhausted and run down too.

And 4 weeks of vacation is only for those of us who are 15 years with the company, so that's not me for another 3 1/2 years thank you very much.

People also talk about "free medical" and "Cadillac insurance plans".  We don't live in France people!  We don't have money deducted from our paycheck, it's true.  But we pay co-pays, deductibles, co-insurance, out-of-network fees etc etc.  We already pay thousands of dollars a year for our families, and they want us to pay up to $6800 more.  If we all made $91k a year that wouldn't kill us, but we don't.   Most of the company isn't technicians-service reps and operators and call center workers make much less than us already.

But let's be honest, it's tough times, right?  Everyone is being cut back.  Well, not exactly everyone.  Verizon isn't having tough times at all-this year they already made 6 billion dollars.  And the year's not over!  Everyone knows that billionaires got bailouts and people are still getting laid off, foreclosed, and cut back.  Our bosses make money that is inconceivable.  Like $81 billion for former CEO Ivan Seidenberg.  Really?  $81 billion and you want me to pay 25% of my medical premiums?   That seems a tiny bit hypocritical.  When our bosses say "no one has the benefits you do! Why should you be special?" what they are really saying is "no wage worker has what you do!  Why do YOU deserve what WE have?" 

       Well I'm sorry if I look at my son in the morning and think he deserves the absolute best of everything in the world.  You'll have to forgive me that greedy impulse.

If a profitable company like Verizon can get the literally 100 concessions they want from us, who's next?  How will your family survive with what amounts to a 10% pay cut, if you already haven't taken it?  City workers and state workers are already getting choked by the budgets; corporation will be watching to see if Verizon can crush some of the last unions that have preserved a solid standard of living for their members.

We're not striking because we think we deserve more than other people, we want MORE PEOPLE TO HAVE WHAT WE HAVE, or BETTER.  But we can't get there by giving back.

  I'd rather be in a race to the top than a race to the bottom.  A win for us can only HELP your family.  We are in the richest country in the world whether it's a recession or not; no family should be worrying about their mortgage and no child should be without health care.

Ways you can help us:


* Tell your friends and family the truth about our struggle.
* If you see us picketing, give us a thumbs up, or a honk.  If it's a hot day, a bottle of water is nice or a snack.  You have no idea how much a smile and word of encouragement means after 8 hours of picketing in the August sun.
* Don't shop at Verizon Wireless if we're outside.  The unions aren't asking people to boycott or cancel their plans, just don't cross our line when we're there.

* Sign and circulate this letter to CEO Lowell McAdams <http://action.cwa-union.org/c/1153/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=2657&tag=cwa-email:20110808-action-vzgreed> .

The last thing I'll say is, if you thought you could make the world a better place for your kids, would you do it?  Of course you would, you're already trying every day.  And so are we.

Thank you in advance. 

==============
Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

Today: New Teacher Underground Discusses UNIONS! 5 PM

I was really hoping to make this today but it is the last day with our 20 year old cat who while still a fighter seems to be suffering too much. But if you can make it check it out. Gotham funder Ken Hirsh, my favorite hedge funder, said he will stop by. Sorry I'll miss him because we have had some great conversations.

I posted this on the "Ruben Brosbe is leaving" thread at Gotham, urging him to attend this so he can go off to Harvard with a little perspective. Go add your 2 cents.


The New Teacher Underground

5-7pm Thursdays all summer long (Extended time to 8 pm for continued conversation)
Lolita Bar, 266 Broome Street-- Find us downstairs
B/D to Grand, F to Delancey, J/M/Z to Essex

The New Teacher Underground is a social space for new and alternatively certified te

achers to find support and dissect the current realities of education in NYC. Teachers of any experience level will be able to engage with the discussion and help contribute to the development of our thinking, and you are welcome whether you have attended every week or have yet to join us. So far this summer we have had four great conversations on topics such as privilege and power, the history and structure of the NYC public schools, the nature of alternative certification programs, mayoral control and high stakes testing, etc. These sessions have been both socially and intellectually engaging; coming together with newer teachers to strengthen our understanding of education in New York City has been rewarding.

This coming Thursday our topic is Your Union and Social Justice Unionism where we will have an opportunity to engage with questions like, What do teacher protections like tenure and contracts mean for us and for our students? How does the UFT organize us and what more should it do? We will be joined by three experienced and knowledgeable individuals who will share their thinking and help facilitate our conversation. Peter Lamphere, chapter leader and member of the Grassroots Education Movement, will provide some context for why teacher protections are important and can share his knowledge about the history of the UFT and its relation to labor movements in this country. Sam Coleman, NYCoRE member and Fight Back Friday organizer, will help us think about how our union could be functioning differently. Natalie Havlin, organizer with Teachers Unite, will help lead us in an activity where we envision the type of effective collective actions in which teachers could be engaging. We will also have resources for teachers in charter schools who may be interested in thinking about their relationship to the teachers unions. And we will be sure to have plenty of time for discussion, with extended time until 8pm upstairs for those who want to keep the conversation going.

We will have a few copies of the great article "Who's Bashing Teachers and Public Schools and What Can We Do About It?"originally published in Rethinking Schools, but if you'd like to read it before the session on Thursday it may include some useful ideas to bring to the conversation. We hope you will join us!

Please forward this email to anyone who might be interested, and feel free to contact us at newteacherunderground@gmail.com or check us out on facebook or at our blog on the NYCoRE website.

The New Teacher Underground5-7pm Thursdays all summer long (Extended time to 8 pm for continued conversation)
Lolita Bar, 266 Broome Street-- Find us downstairs
B/D to Grand, F to Delancey, J/M/Z to EssexJuly 14th: What it Means to be a Teacher in New York City Right Now
Developing a people’s history of the New York City public schools
July 21st: Privilege, Power and Public Schools
Unpacking the concept of the “achievement gap” by addressing privilege and power in our school system and in our classrooms
July 28th: The Meaning of Alternative Certification
What are the histories of Teach for America and the New York City Teaching Fellows programs? What role do they play in today’s education climate?
August 4th: Welcome to Teaching
Understanding mayoral control, high-stakes testing, privatization and other top-down policies that impact our classrooms
August 11th: Your Union and Social Justice Unionism
What do teacher protections like tenure and contracts mean for us and for our students? How does the UFT organize us and what more should it do?
August 18th: The so-called “No Excuses” Classroom
…and other educational jargon in your teacher training reading material. What do “accountability” and “data” really mean to our work?
August 25th: Anti-Racist Classrooms & Anti-Racist Curriculum
How to circumvent institutional racism in schools and develop culturally relevant curriculum that connects students to the world outside the classroom
September 1st: First Days…
How can you really prepare? What is most important? What strengths will you bring to the classroom? What is your teaching core?

Is the UFT sugarcoating the new ATR deal?

One of our favorite new blogs (and Gotham Schools too) is NYCATR. Today they compare the UFT and the DOE view of the ATR agreement. Yummy! 

 

(Head on over and read the other good stuff: NYC ATR - http://nycatr.blogspot.com/)

We recently summarized an official DOE document that gives the nitty-gritty details of the new rules for deployment of the Absent Teacher Reserve (ATR).  

          *click here for a link to the DOE document

               *click here to see NYCATR's summary

Now, the latest edition of the UFT's newspaper, the New York Teacher, has provided their own summary of the ATR agreement (see page 3 of the August 4th edition). 

The problem is that there seems to be a discrepancy between the DOE's version and the UFT's version.  

The DOE says that vacancies created by long-term absences will be covered by ATR teachers on a "trial basis," prior to a school using a per-diem substitute;  a principal may remove an ATR teacher from such a "trial" at any time, at which point a per-diem substitute may be hired.

     *In other words, there is no guarantee that any ATR teacher will ultimately land the long-term assignment.  If, after subjecting an ATR to a trial, the principal still prefers a per-diem  candidate, Ms. Per-Diem gets the gig.

The UFT reports: "Every long-term absence or leave must be filled by an ATR.  Two ATRs must be sent for consideration for placement to any school that has at least one vacancy.  The principal can accept them or not." (Italics added by NYCATR.) 

     *This sounds like the assignment will definitely be given to an ATR teacher; the only question is which of the ATR teachers will win the beauty contest. 

And so, we wonder:

*Did the UFT have access to a DOE document that NYCATR

hasn't seen yet?

*Does the UFT know how to read?

*Is the UFT trying to sugarcoat a lousy deal

that they negotiated for the ATR teachers?

The author of this blog is pro-UFT, but he is an equal-opportunity questioner. Any answers out there?

Duncan Playing With NCLB Rules is Blatant (and illegal) Attempt to Forcefeed States into More Ed Deform

 Arne Duncan announced that any state promising to lower class size drastically would be eligible for relief from onerous NCLB laws.

NOT!!!!!

In fact, the only states eligible are those meeting the ed deform agenda being pushed by the Obama Admin - and hey gang - let's not make believe that somehow Duncan and Obama are not on the same page- like calls for firing Duncan meam anything. That was one of the weak areas of SOS - the focus on Duncan and not on Obama. How interesting that Obama sat by helpless while Republicans gutted us while he is so blatantly willing to break the law on education. (Like how about him just declaring the debt ceiling is raised and Go Fuck yourselves!) Yes, he views us as patsies.

Well, a lot of people are not buying the Obama/Duncan doodoo.

National organization Parents Across America rejects Duncan's "waiver" proposal and calls for complete overhaul of No Child Left Behind 

The national organization Parents Across America opposes the proposal by U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan to offer "waivers" to states, exempting them from provisions of the law known as No Child Left Behind if they adopt education policies favored by Duncan.  

While Parents Across America (PAA) agrees that No Child Left Behind is an unrealistic, rigid and punitive law, the waivers that Duncan has now proposed are likely to be equally bad, if not worse. The Department of Education could force more states to adopt the Common Core Curriculum thus continuing to ignore the fact that it is illegal for the federal government to impose a national curriculum. The proposal is also likely to expand the destructive agenda of over-testing, school closings, and privatization, despite the fact that these policies have no scientific evidence to support them and are causing tremendous distress in communities across the nation.   

Natalie Beyer, school board member in Durham NC, says: “Parents agree that American students are spending too much class time on standardized testing, but these new proposals would do nothing to help.  Instead, the proposed waivers would further extend federal control over local school issues.  We request a study from the General Accounting Office of how much No Child Left Behind has already cost states and local districts and the estimated costs of implementing Common Core Standards under Race to the Top.  We implore Congress to include parents, teachers and students in an immediate thorough overhaul of NCLB before going any further down this dangerous road.”   

Adds Leonie Haimson, Executive Director of Class Size Matters, “Duncan’s heavy-handed and prescriptive approach would only continue the trend of spending billions to build up the bureaucracy and provide excessive profits to testing companies and consultants, while teachers are being laid off and class sizes are growing throughout the country.  Whether the system of rewards and punishments will be based on value-added test scores instead of absolute goals, the result is the same for our schools and our children: more money and time spent on testing and test prep instead of real learning.”

Says Karran Harper Royal of the Pyramid Community Parent Resource Center in New Orleans, where more than 70% of students now attend charter schools, “Race to the Top has been far worse than NCLB and has done little to help our most academically needy students.  Yet what Arne Duncan is now proposing through these “waivers” could produce even worse outcomes for our children.” 

Rita Solnet of Palm Beach County School District Curriculum Council agrees:  “Numerous studies conclude that incentives linked to high stakes tests do not increase learning.  In fact, long term studies conclude this leads to a climate of cheating and gaming the system to survive. Every month we read of another major cheating scandal created by high-stakes testing.  Stop wasting taxpayer money on failed policies. I am pleased Secretary Duncan acknowledged the destructive flaws within NCLB.   NCLB is a train wreck. Let's not replace it with another one. Let's do this the right way so every child,  regardless of disability, ELL status, family income level can be assured a high quality public education delivered by respected professionals."

 Pamela Grundy of Mecklenburg Area Coming Together in Charlotte, NC concludes, “We need real reforms based on evidence, and partnerships with parents, teachers and communities, not a unilateral and autocratic agenda imposed from above. As parents watching our children’s education suffer, we are saying, “Enough.”

And at Schools Matter

R Lucido: price of NCLB waiver - agree to much worse Race to the Top

Rog Lucido: The feds are offering "a waiver from an oppressive and failed NCLB policy only to be switched to a much more sinister and stifling program."

Sent to the Fresno Bee:

Yesterday Education Secretary Duncan admitted that this year 82% of America’s schools will have failed under NCLB’s test and punish provisions, which he called an ‘impediment’. So, he is going to offer waivers so that our 100,000 schools who are receiving federal funds (approx. 5-10% of their budgets) will not have to meet NCLB’s test score provisions and the associated sanctions. He admitted that the law is faulty and schools need to be free from this ‘impediment’. But there is a price to pay for the waiver. He will gladly give schools a waiver only if they agree to more testing to judge students, teachers, schools and districts, adopt a new set of standards, then the states would need to replace NCLB’s test score targets with their own. Surprise! These are the core requirements of the ominous and educationally perverted ‘Race to the Top’, which is his blueprint for the replacement of NCLB.
This is nothing more than ‘bait and switch’ applied to education. Offer a waiver from an oppressive and failed NCLB policy only to be switched to a much more sinister and stifling program. States, parents and teachers need to reject this ploy to regain their educational autonomy.

 

Education Radio Blog Launches!

Stay tuned for more information about upcoming shows...our debut show will focus on the issues, people and events of the July 2011 Save Our Schools March and National Call to Action.
 http://education-radio.blogspot.com/
 ======

Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

E4E: Fire Peter Lamphere and Rachel Montagano

Read this story at Gotham School Community:

Peter Lamphere (a core member of GEM) and Rachel Montagano in Gotham Schools discussing the importance, and the truth about, tenure: http://gothamschools.org/2011/08/01/our-experience-proves-tenure-is-not-obsolete/#disqus_thread

Both were chapter leaders who were persecuted for union activities. I've written about both of them as poster children for why we need tenure. (Can't manage to add links using one hand but use search blog if interested - Rachel's principal is Reginald Landau and Peter's was Valerie Reidy.)

In the world of E4E, Rachel and Peter are collateral damage. "Sure there are mistakes," they would argue, but the greater good (to us so we can continue to live off the hands of DFER and Gates and not have to teach) is served by firing Peter and Rachel, acknowledged master teachers.

U-ratings for political activity? Why that's the very reason tenure exists in the first place. i said to Joel Klein at numerous PEP meetings: as long as there is one teacher who is allowed to be persecuted for political or personal reasons, the entire structure of monitoring teachers comes apart. Some think that the new eval systems based on test scores is a fairer system. Not when tenure laws are suspended and they can be fired.

I have a dream. That one day E4E's Evan and Sydney are turned loose in a death row cell block as they try to convince the prisoners that even if they are innocent society is better off if they are executed anyway.

Below is the entire Gotham piece for future reference:

Our Experience Proves Tenure Is Not Obsolete

by Peter Lamphere and Rachel Montagano

Mayor Bloomberg’s comments on his Friday radio show that tenure “may have been necessary in the McCarthy era” but is now a relic of the past highlight how out of touch he is with the current realities of the school system.
Bloomberg argued that protection for academic freedom was not necessary for public school teachers because we are “not writing papers about things that are very controversial.” However, in some schools, advocacy for students or for the employment rights of teachers can result in witch-hunts from school administrators that can border on the McCarthyesque. Tenure is meant to shelter teachers from the whims of these administrators.
As two New York City teachers who have both been targeted with unsatisfactory ratings because of our union activity, we know from firsthand experience that tenure is one of the few protections for whistleblowers and teacher advocates.

Update: 100,000 March to Defend Public Education in Chile: SOS on Steroids

UPDATE:
Aug. 9, 2011    100,000 took to the streets today to protest the Government Palace (La Moneda) in

Santiago, Chile to demand free quality public education.

Angel Gonzalez

Angel Gonzalez reports:

Support the struggle for public schooling in Chile:

Sun. Aug. 7 more than 60,000 students, parents, community and teachers marched to demand quality free public education, an end to profiteering, regulation of the privatized system and democracy for all institutions.

 Aug. 9   TODAY......A national work stoppage, mobilizations, march and  a 10 PM Pot & Pans Banging for public education. (something to consider here)

Aug. 12  Coordinated day of action across Latin America for public education.

Folks:  

We need to be in solidarity with the struggles for public education from across the Americas.   

Learn the lessons from the successes and failures from all our movements.  What strategies and tactics work and can be applied here in the USA.  

The neoliberal agenda with public school privatization using charter schools was first piloted (1972) in the nation of Chile after a violent and successful CIA backed coup that toppled the socialist Allende government and installed the fascist Pinochet regime.  

The AFT and the AFL-CIO partnered with the CIA in promoting Milton Friedman's neoliberal politics 

& Dictator Pinochet's barbaric torture & shock doctrine perpetrated against the Chilean working class.  

The AFT was a partner in Chile's charter privatization in the 1970's.  

See Chilean links below in Spanish.

Angel Gonzalez

Domingo 7 de agosto 2011 17:38 hrs.     

http://radio.uchile.cl/noticias/117607/

Familias repletan Parque Almagro en acto por la educación

Javier Candia y Cristián Pacheco

La marcha por la educación pública gratuita de calidad convocada por la Coordinadora Metropolitana de Estudiantes Secundarios, la Agrupación de Padres y Apoderados y el Colegio de Profesores se desarrolló en un ambiente de alegría y fiesta en un acto cultural en el Parque Almagro. Cabe destacar que durante el acto central no se registraron incidentes, y la manifestación se caracterizó por la tranquilidad en que participaron, según los organizadores, al menos 60 mil personas.

Lunes 8 de agosto 2011 19:32 hrs.  

http://radio.uchile.cl/noticias/117737/

Movimiento por la educación confirma paro y marcha desde Usach para este martes

Javier Candia

Los distintos actores que conforman la mesa social por la educación reiteraron su llamado a la ciudadanía a participar de las diversas protestas programadas para este martes para exigir al Gobierno que entregue una respuesta concreta ante las demandas estudiantiles. Marchas, cacerolazos y movilizaciones coordinadas a nivel latinoamericano, son algunas de las actividades que se están programando para esta nueva jornada de protesta social.

http://radio.uchile.cl/noticias/117737/

Abrazos,

Angel

Support Verizon Strikers: NYC Teachers From GEM and other Groups Join Picket Line

Leaflet prepared by CWA for teachers joining picket line

Message to UFT/AFT - You Are NOT a Union of Professionals - and Never Will Be
Yes, teachers today are further away from being viewed and treated as professionals than they have ever been. With teacher unions becoming the main target of the corporate ed deformers, it is time to connect the rank and file teacher to other rank and filers (as opposed to the leadership which expresses "support" for other unions but by harping on the "professional" theme creates a sense of separation from the guy at Verizon who climbs a pole.

Yesterday afternoon I joined a bunch of GEMers and teachers from other UFT activist groups at the Verizon picket line on West St. in the shadow of the World Trade Center site. You see, we can't be only about our own narrow interests as teachers and I'm proud to be associated with a group that clearly recognizes that. That we are young, old and in the middle is clear from the photos.

We were also joined by my friend Joyce, a retired CWA worker who knowing we were coming had the CWA prepare a special "Thank you Teachers" flyer for us explaining the givebacks being demanded. Teachers need to start making the connection that a victory for Verizon workers affects us just like the Regan firing of Patco air traffic controllers 30 years ago has impacted the entire labor movement.

And one more thing. The  imbalance of wealth and corporate control is due to a large part to the lack of a counter force. And labor is the only real potential force out there. But labor union leaders have continually played footsie and made sure to dampen any militancy that might  arise among workers. The cuts to social programs in this country will lead to London calling on our shores real soon.

Video updates will be added as they come in. Here is the first one.

Cheers as Teamsters pull their people out in solidarity

Reports from the picket line
Gloria Brandman, GEM
The Verizon rally was very spirited, energetic and loud. There were approximately 15 UFT members that I saw but others may have arrived after I left. Teachers were well received and Joyce, a CWA member, gave us each a flier with a huge headline stating: THANK YOU TEACHERS! It went on to explain that Verizon had made it clear that they want to remove almost every protection their employees have, leaving no other option for the CWA and EW then to go on strike. We engaged in conversations with the workers which were periodically interrupted by shouts of "scab", boos and whistles as people went in and out of the building. One woman explained that some of the supervisors who had to go to work were really in solidarity with the workers and would give them silent smiles. However, Verizon has brought in many scabs form other states, paying room, board and airfare. When we departed, we were thanked by almost everyone we passed for joining with them on the picket line.

Angel Gonzalez, GEM
As teachers, we're fighting for the same as telephone workers: labor rights, pensions, medical benefits, quality services, adequate wages and to halt CEO corporate/government corruption.

Support the CWA Verizon workers' strike.

Pete, Angel, Kelley join Verizon workers

The crew wearing UFT "painter" caps: Gloria, Julie, Sam, ,Joan

Kelley, Teachers Unite on right

Pete, ICE

I don't have my scanner set up but here are a few shots of the CWA leaflet.

So, find a Verizon picket line and stop by to say hello.  And honk your horn in support if you pass one by.

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Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

Murdoch Thuggery and Long-term Links to Joel Klein - and Bill Gates too

None of this suggests that Mr. Klein cut some sort of a deal that resulted in a job 14 years later. But the speed of the antitrust decision surprised even the people involved in the takeover. One of the participants, who declined to be identified discussing private negotiations, said he thought the sale was effectively blocked before the surprising turnaround.  - David Carr, NY Times, Aug. 8, 2011

You just have to read this article in today's NY Times about how Joel Klein handed Rupert Murdoch a cupcake 14 years ago when he was at the Justice Department. Carr points to another decision made a year later against  Murdoch. Just cover as far as I'm concerned.

As it turns out, a News Corporation division has twice come under significant civil and criminal investigations in the United States, but neither inquiry went anywhere. Given what has happened in Britain with the growing phone-hacking scandal, it is worth wondering why.

Both cases involve News America Marketing, an obscure but lucrative division of the News Corporation that is a big player in the business of retail marketing, including newspaper coupon inserts and in-store promotions. The company has come under scrutiny for a pattern of conduct that includes below-cost pricing, paying customers not to do business with competitors and accusations of computer hacking.

News America Marketing came to control 90 percent of the in-store advertising business, according to Fortune, aided in part by a particularly quick and favorable antitrust decision made by the Justice Department in 1997. 

Now it gets better

The deal would make News America Marketing the dominant player in the business and, for that reason, the San Francisco field office of the Justice Department recommended to Washington that the News Corporation’s takeover bid be challenged on antitrust grounds. Typically, such a request from a field office would carry great weight in Washington and, at a minimum, delay the deal for months.

But the Justice Department brass overrode San Francisco’s objections and gave its blessing in just two weeks. So who ran the antitrust division at the Justice Department at the time? Joel Klein, who this year became an executive vice president at the News Corporation, head of its education division and a close adviser to Rupert Murdoch on the phone-hacking scandal in Britain.

Carr goes on to point to the decision a year later denying Murdoch the right to sell a share of his satellite company and states:

so any suggestion that a department of the United States government was snugly in the hip pocket of Mr. Murdoch would not be correct. 

Balderdash. I'm increasingly proud of having said early in the Joel Klein tenure as chancellor of the NYC schools that one day he would be doing a perp walk with his coat over his head. (Come on, where are the photoshop guys?) I know, I know. I hugged the guy. Contradiction? Not at all. I'll bring him cookies in jail.

As many of you know, Klein pushed Wireless Generation into NYC schools. Murdoch buys the company, hires Klein as consigliare. We need 2 coats over heads at the perp walk - 2 for the price of one. Did Murdoch play a role with Bloomberg to  insert Joel Klein as his Manchurian Candidate to lead the potential goldmine known as the NYC school system?

You can catch up to the story at these links I culled from Gotham:
Teachers unions want the state to kill a contract with Wireless Generation. (Daily News, WNYC)

By the way, there is a petition (see below) urging the State Comptroller to deny this contract - I think it was approved by the PEP but might be brought up again by speakers at the Panel for Educational Policy on Aug. 17 (weds) 6pm at Murray Bergtraum HS which will vote a contract with Verizon, another corporate thug. I think Liu approved for some reason - makes me nervous about him - fear of alienating Murdoch?

Now let's turn to the more general thugery of the Murdoch operations as described in the current issue of Rolling Stone.

But the corruption exposed at the News of the World is not the work of a "rogue" element within News Corp. — it's a reflection of the lawless culture that defines the company. As CEO, Murdoch not only tolerates employees and executives who push the boundaries of legality and good taste, he celebrates them — at least until the cops show up. "There's a broader culture within the company," Col Allan, editor of Murdoch's New York Post, crowed in 2007. "We like being pirates." Whatever veneer of integrity News Corp. may have accrued after its purchase of The Wall Street Journal the very same year masks an ingrained corporate ethos that believes integrity is for suckers. The attitude passed down from the top, says one veteran of Murdoch's tabloids, is aggressive and straightforward: "Anything we do is OK. We're News Corp. — so fuck you and fuck your mother."  ----Rolling Stone

How far did the Murdoch culture pervade Tweed under Klein? And I view the WSJ as just a more literate version of the NY Post with biased reporting when it comes to education, at least. I told a reporter from WSJ who wanted to know more about the GEM high stakes testing committee that the other day. Haven't heard back. My sense is that the WSJ would start with the premise that somehow union money was behind it. Or maybe terrorists who want to undermine the ed deform economy on which Murdoch/Klein are looking to make big bucks.

More from the RS article:

Indeed, an examination of Murdoch's corporate history reveals that each of the elements of the scandal in London – hacking, thuggish reporting tactics, unethical entanglements with police, hush-money settlements and efforts to corrupt officials at the highest levels of government – extend far beyond Fleet Street. Over the past decade, News Corp. has systematically employed such tactics in its U.S. operations, exhibiting what a recent lawsuit filed against the firm calls a "culture run amok." As a former high-ranking News Corp. executive tells Rolling Stone: "It's the same shit, different day."

These are just little bits from the must-read Rolling Stone piece. Remember the affair between Bernie Keric and Murdoch employee Judith Regan. Get all the juicy details including how Murdoch scum Roger Ailes obstructed justice - how about a perp walk for 3?


Thanks to a blogger who would usually do a smashing job on this story but is a bit tied up and sent me the links and commentary below:

Klein helped Murdoch out 14 years ago with an antitrust deal.  Smells crooked (though he did rule against Murdoch in a later deal.)

Here's the Times story:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/08/business/media/news-corps-legal-trail-in-the-us.html?hp

Was Klein on the Murdoch payroll long ago?  Hmm....
 

The dominos are starting to fall into place with the Murdoch story here in America.  Rolling Stone has some malfeasance at the NY Post in this piece here:

http:/www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/rupert-murdochs-american-scandals-20110803

The more they dig, the more they will find that what News International did in Britain, they did here in America too - hacking, bribery, conspiracy to subvert justice, etc.

And Klein is at the middle of it.

Sign our petition vs. no-bid contracts for Murdoch's Wireless Generation!

Also at the NYC Parent Blog:

“As part of our contribution, the [Gates] foundation took an important first step a few weeks ago and selected a vendor to build the open software that will allow states to access a shared, performance-driven marketplace of free and premium tools and content. That vendor, Wireless Generation, will create the software, but it will be owned by an independent nonprofit, so that any school, school district, curriculum developer, or tool builder can contribute to the collaborative.”Really, did it really have to be Wireless Generation?  But why doesn’t that surprise me?

UPDATE: note  the words"free and premium content,"  something I had not originally noticed but was pointed out by Dr. Ed Fuller on his blog here.  So Wireless Gen and Murdoch are poised to make a buck off of this project -- and the content they receive from teachers, who are expected to share their ideas free of charge? 

Unholy alliance between Murdoch, Klein and Bill Gates? "Pretty cool" huh?

http://nyceducator.com/2011/08/murdochs-education-ventures-go-forward.html

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Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

Hey Teachers: Support Striking Verizon Workers

One of the reasons the labor movement is in so much trouble is the lack of solidarity. The UFT/AFT sells the "union of professionals" line - as if we're closer to people who actually manage their professions than to other workers. Where do you think you stand in today's deskilling and degrading of teachers?

GEM and possibly other groups are gearing up for some support activities starting tomorrow afternoon at 5 PM. I may try to make it into the city if I can.

Verizon Workers are on Strike!

Teachers, Parents, Students, Community Members

Let’s show our support and join them on the picket line.

Their struggle is our struggle!

 Monday, August 8  5PM

140 West Street, Between Vesey and Barclay St.

Take the #3 to Park Place  or the A,C to Chambers St

Bring signs, banners, and energy!

http://www.cwa-union.org/

  http://usuncut.org/targets/verizon

Company Refuses to Bargain Seriously, Verizon Proposals Would Take Workers Back Decades

Washington, D.C. -- More than 45,000 workers are on strike today at Verizon Communications. Bargaining continues. Since bargaining began on June 22, Verizon has refused to move from a long list of concession demands. As the contract expired, nearly 100 concessionary company proposals remained on the table.

As a result, CWA and IBEW have decided to take the unprecedented step of striking until Verizon stops its Wisconsin-style tactics and starts bargaining seriously.

Even at the 11th hour, as contracts were set to expire, Verizon continued to seek to strip away 50 years of collective bargaining gains for middle class workers and their families.

CWA and IBEW members are prepared to return to work when management demonstrates the willingness to begin bargaining seriously for a fair agreement. If not, CWA and IBEW members and allies will continue the fight.

Verizon financials

• 2011 annualized revenues are $108 billion and annualized net profits are $6 billion.
• Verizon Wireless just paid its parent company and Vodaphone a $10 billion dividend.
• Verizon’s top five executives received compensation of $258 million over the past four years.

The contract covers 45,000 members of CWA and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers from New England to Virginia.

Read updates at www.cwa-union.org/verizon