LEADING EDUCATORS SUPPORT TEACHER TEST BOYCOTT

Press Release

Date:  January 21, 2013

Contact:  Brian Jones, Teacher and Doctoral Student, 646-554-8592 bjones2@gc.cuny.edu 

Wayne Au, Professor of Education, wayne@rethinkingschools.org

LEADING EDUCATORS SUPPORT TEACHER TEST BOYCOTT

In a public statement released today, more than sixty educators and researchers, including some of the most well-respected figures in the field of education, pledged support for the boycott of the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) test initiated by the teachers at Garfield High School in Seattle, calling the action a “blow against the overuse and misuse of standardized tests.” Among the signers of the statement are former US Assistant Secretary of Education Diane Ravitch, Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis, author Jonathan Kozol and professor Nancy Carlsson-Paige. While the MAP test is used exclusively for rating teachers, “the test’s developers (the Northwest Evaluation Association) have noted the inappropriateness of using tests for such evaluations” the educators wrote.

“We’ve had more than a decade of standardized testing,” Ravitch said, “and now we need to admit that it’s not helping.” She added: “By signing this statement, I hope to amplify the voices of teachers who are saying ‘enough is enough’.”

“On Martin Luther King Day, we celebrate people who are willing to take personal risks to act according to their conscience,” Lewis said. “The teachers at Garfield High School are taking a stand for all of us.” 

New York City public school teacher and doctoral student Brian Jones drafted the statement last week and received help with revisions and outreach from University of Washington professor Wayne Au. “I’m overwhelmed by the response to this statement,” Jones said, “I feel like this is the beginning of a real movement to challenge high stakes standardized testing.” 

"We contacted leading scholars in the field of education," Au said, "and nearly every single one said 'Yes, I'll sign.' The emerging consensus among researchers is clear: high stakes standardized tests are highly problematic, to say the least."

"When I look at this list of names, I see the people whose work helped to make me the teacher I am today," Jesse Hagopian, a teacher at Garfield High School said. "Their support really means a lot to me, and I know that many teachers at Garfield High School feel the same way."

Call on UFT to Release the MOU

Thanks, Marjorie. We should demand that the Union provide the MOU to the membership. We know that they will say that it will hurt their negotiating position but keeping the members in the dark will not soften the blow when the approved concessions are presented. This should be a major plank of our demands. --- Jeff Kaufman

Marjorie Stamberg does a nice job in calling out the UFT on releasing the memorandum of understanding (MOU) so we can see what they were willing to give up. But I'm sure we'll find out soon enough after the UFT signs whatever agreement they will sign while making sure the members never get to vote on it despite the fact that would change the contract. And given that Leroy Barr at the Dec. DA affirmed the right of members to vote on contracts, the UFT leadership will enter Leroy into the Bloomberg hall of liar shame.

But enough of my drivel. I too want the MOU, preferably with a quart of milk. I love Marjorie but get such a kick out of so many people on the left who always keep me entertained. At the very end Marjorie calls people like me who don't fight a revolutionary struggle against capitalism an instrument of capitalism. Guilty as charged. Scuse me, while I go check my portfolio, here is Marjorie followed by the great pretender, Leo Casey.

People should read the attached self-serving but revealing article from Leo Casey, formerly UFT vice president in charge of high schools, now executive director of the Albert Shanker Institute (!) at the AFT.

Even the big business press admits that a deal on teacher evaluations linked to student test scores fell through because Mayor Bloomberg complained it wouldn’t let him “fire bad teachers” wholesale. His “scientific” method for carrying out this union-busting scheme is teacher evals based on the junk science “value added model” which with its indecipherable algorithms is guaranteed to produce large numbers of “ineffective” ratings. In this, the billionaire Republican in City Hall is only following the lead of liberal Democrats Cuomo in the NY State House and Obama in the White House, who are trying to bribe and blackmail teachers into compliance.

In his presentation to the Delegate Assembly on Thursday, UFT president Mulgrew called Bloomberg a liar and went on at length about all the fabled safeguards that had been allegedly built into the tentative agreement that the mayor shot down. But he didn’t say a word about the content of the evals scheme that the union had agreed to.

In this piece from Casey’s blog Edwise, he gives an insider’s account of the negotiations. He reveals that at the last minute the NYC Department of Education sprung their draft application to the NYS Education Department, including “numerous scoring tables and conversion charts” which the union had never seen. Without a doubt, these scoring metrics would allow Bloomberg to fire at will, since that has always been his bottom line. But instead of breaking off negotiations, the union proceeded to negotiate with the DOE a “three-part agreement” saying that the union would have to sign off on student “growth formulas,” that “unfairly skewed ratings” would somehow be “recalibrated,” and a “special expedited appeals process” would be set up to deal with internally contradictory ratings.

The union leadership is afraid to tell us what the scoring criteria are, but all Casey is saying is that if there were a glaring contradiction between student test scores and principals’ “observations” (the other component of the evaluations) it could be appealed. Nothing about rejecting the DOE’s slimy metrics. So not only was the principle of linking teacher evaluations to student test scores agreed to, the DOE’s mathematical formulas for firing teachers were implicitly accepted, with an escape clause for when the principal disagreed. Basically, Mulgrew, Casey & Co. capitulated to Bloomberg and Walcott (backed up by Cuomo and Obama). The UFT tops were ready to sign off on a deal that would have been a betrayal of the teachers they supposedly represent, destroying any vestige of job security. But for Bloomberg, who has the mentality of a slave master, capitulation was not enough: he demanded total surrender.

Since according to Casey's account, a Memorandum of Understanding exists in some form, let the membership see what the union leadership was about to agree to -- publish the MOU!.

So in the end, it was the intransigence of the puffed-up dictator Bloomberg  which thwarted the treachery of the pro-capitalist union bureaucracy. He and his fellow denizens of Wall Street really do consider themselves to be “masters of the universe,” entitled by “management rights” to do whatever they please with “their” wage slaves. But it is not enough to oppose the sellouts of the union misleaders. Without a program to take on and defeat a united capitalist ruling class through hard class struggle, liberal and reformist union reformers would end up agreeing to a variant of the deal the UFT leadership okayed (but Bloomberg torpedoed). 

Either wage revolutionary struggle against capitalism, or become an instrument of capitalist rule: as Leon Trotsky outlined long ago, those are the only alternatives in this epoch of decaying capitalism, the supposed middle ground of reforming capitalism no longer exists. 

Caught In Their Own Web Of Deception and Deceit:

Bloomberg, the DOE and Teacher Evaluation Negotiations
By LEO CASEY
After he blew up the teacher evaluation agreement that had been reached between the UFT and his own NYC DOE negotiating team, Mayor Bloomberg appeared at a hastily called press conference yesterday to spin an entirely fictional account of what had transpired. The UFT had made agreement impossible, he claimed, because of our unreasonable demands for more arbitration dates that would make it impossible to “fire bad teachers,” our “last minute” insistence upon a sunset clause that would have made the entire system a “joke,” and a “middle of the night” effort to change the scoring metrics for teacher evaluation so “no teacher” would be rated ineffective. Each of these claims is a lie, pure and simple. Here I will address the last two of Bloomberg claims, as I was personally involved in the negotiations around them.*
To finalize an agreement over teacher evaluations in New York, two different documents must be developed: a memorandum of understanding (MOU) which lays out in legal language the agreement between district and the union over the new evaluation system, and an application from the local school district to the New York State Education Department which provides scores of assurances that the specific evaluation plans laid out in the MOU conform to state law. Both the head of the school district and the head of the union must sign the local school district’s application. During the last week, as the UFT and the DOE met long into the night in an effort to reach agreement on the terms of the MOU, we asked, again and again, more insistently at each turn, to see the DOE’s draft of their application. It was not until late into Wednesday evening, barely 24 hours before the deadline, that the DOE finally gave us their draft of the application. When we read the draft, it quickly became apparent why they had resisted sharing it with us. Included in the draft were numerous scoring tables and conversion charts which the UFT was now seeing for the very first time. These tables and charts were very important: embedded in them were fundamental decisions about the shape of the evaluation system. By waiting until the very last minute to provide the union with these numbers, the DOE was trying to sandbag us: it was now impossible to properly vet those numbers before the deadline.
The UFT would have been completely justified in ending the negotiations, then and there. But we did not. Our Measures of Student Learning team met with our DOE counterparts and I met one-on-one with Deputy Chancellor Shael Suransky in efforts on our part to put together an agreement over the scoring numbers and ratings that would ensure that teachers would receive fair and accurate scores and ratings. Bloomberg’s description of these discussions could not be further from the truth: far from a last minute effort on the part of the UFT to change agreed upon scoring metrics, the union was doing everything it could to rescue the negotiations from a bad faith maneuver on the part of the DOE that could have easily derailed any agreement. We agreed to a three part solution: a joint UFT-DOE committee would have to approve the growth formulas which would be used for all of the measures of student learning; any scoring metric which unfairly skewed ratings would have to be recalibrated; and a special expedited appeals process would be established for final ratings which were not concordant with the different component ratings. On Thursday morning, I confirmed this three part agreement in a telephone conversation with Suransky. Over many years of working with the Bloomberg DOE, through the chancellorships of Joel Klein, Cathy Black and Dennis Walcott, I have seen a great deal of cynicism on the part of the mayor and the top DOE leadership, but Bloomberg’s lie that the UFT engaged in an 11th hour effort to undo agreed upon scoring metrics in an effort to protect “bad teachers” is surely a new low in misrepresentation.
The Mayor’s claim that the UFT introduced a “last minute” demand for a sunset clause on the agreement is refuted by the very draft application shared with us. On the very last line of this section of the draft application, the DOE itself had written that the agreement would only last through the 2013-2014 school year. The preponderance of applications from school districts around New York approved had similar sunset clauses: given the sheer complexity of the new teacher evaluation systems required by New York State law, they reasoned that it was only prudent to revisit their implementation in a year or two. All of these applications have been approved by the New York State Education Department. It was the Mayor who, after an agreement had been reached with a sunset clause, insisted on undoing that clause and blowing up the entire agreement. The Council of Supervisors and Administrators, negotiating for a new principal evaluation, also had their agreement blown up by Bloomberg on the very same issue.

18 January 2013

After two years of continuous efforts on the part of the UFT to negotiate a teacher evaluation system which would provide New York City public school teachers with the means to hone our skills and craft, and provide our students with the highest quality education, it is now painfully clear that Mayor Bloomberg has no intention of negotiating such an agreement.
__________________________________________________________________________________
* When the negotiations on teacher evaluation began two years ago, I was a UFT Vice President, and I served as co-chair of the union’s Teacher Evaluation Negotiations Committee. Last September I resigned my position as UFT Vice President to become the Executive Director of the Albert Shanker Institute at the American Federation of Teachers, the UFT’s national union, but I made a commitment to the UFT to see these negotiations to completion and remained involved in them.

 

MORE General Meeting 1/26

Come to the 1^st MORE meeting of 2013 and join the fight to defend educators and protect students from the continuing attacks on public education!

WHAT: MORE General Meeting

WHEN: 12:00-3:00pm, Saturday Jan 26th 2013

WHERE: 224 West 29th St. btwn 7/8ave NYC 14th floor

During the recent evaluation negotiations, MORE fought for democracy within OUR union. MORE believes that members should have direct input into all major decisions.

Evaluations are just one of many issues MORE is organizing around: closing schools, forced co-locations, over-testing and underfunding, ATRs, denial of tenure, mounds of paper-work, Danielson, common core, special ed violations, and the continued attempt to destroy unions (as in the current school bus strike)….

The time is now!

Come build a positive alternative that challenges the UFT/Unity Caucus leadership.

Join us at our general meeting Saturday 1/26.  We will discuss why we have been successful in growing this democratic movement and what our strategies will be moving forward.

Come find out how to work with MORE in the upcoming UFT elections… including opportunities to run, petition for signatures, leaflet, and fundraise.

If you have sold raffle tickets bring money and/or unsold tickets to meeting, please contact us if you can't make it.

Childcare available only if requested by Wednesday 1/23 - email more@morecaucusnyc.org

https://www.facebook.com/MOREcaucusNYC/events

Next Special Event

Saturday February 23rd " Forum with Lois Weiner, moderated by Brian Jones "Dignity and Democracy in Education: Blowing the Whistle on the Culture of Fear and Corruption in NYC Public Schools"

Check the Facebook link for more info/location

Vincent C. Wojsnis on Eval Deal on Facebook

The time has come for people to consider whether the ruling party of the UFT over 50 years has any answers. Vincent was for many years a neutral chapter leader but has cast his lot with MORE. He wrote a great piece "Why I Joined the MORE ... back in November. He is running on the MORE slate for UFT Executive Board at-large.

Here are some comments in Facebook which he will expand into a general article.

At Thursday's UFT Delegate Assembly, Michael Mulgrew repeatedly said that the proposed deal on teacher evaluations was a "good deal," though he offered few details. What concerns me was his repeated reference to "evidence of growth." (translation: "value added") Was this not the "junk science" we sued Joel Klein over the release of Teacher Data Reports? We're buying into this?!! This is a bad deal. Let them keep their money. It's tainted.

We should be clear on this. The so-called deadline for a new teacher evaluation deal is not an act of nature (or if you prefer, "God"), only by politicians who think they're gods. Cuomo and Commissioner King can release the money (the amount of which seems to be growing) at any time. THEY CHOOSE NOT TO. They would rather hold a "gun" at the heads of teachers to force us to accept an unfair evaluation process that is based on "junk science," a result of of the deal they made with the "devil" when they accepted the Race to the Top funds. This is nothing more than a naked attempt to weaken our union.

"The future of school reform is here. It is the democratic voice of the true stakeholders in the education system...
Unfortunately, the same forces that have given rise to dictatorial mayoral control schemes around the country are also responsible for our own union’s lack of democracy. Since these education reform policies are wholly unpopular, and since our union leaders do not want to be seen as obstacles to “progress”, they have been forced to take a “conciliation” approach with “reformer” mayors who run school districts. In turn, they have been required to turn to increasingly un-democratic means to silence their members who understand that these reforms are harmful to our schools.".. Movement of Rank and File Educators (MORE)

Seven Habits of Happy Kids in 5 SI Schools: Teacher Charges Religious Infiltration

I don't know anything about this but a teacher at one of these schools contacted me with this info and I'm throwing it out there for comment from anyone who knows something about it. The costs to a school -- 30-50 grand sounds so excessive and as the teacher points out these costs come as the loss of major services. But we shouldn't assume that the teacher is correct in charging a connection to religion. This program is about character education and we should question whose values are being promoted when we do character education. Given some bad history in the Mormon church on race I do wonder exactly how they view character in the black community, especially given the repressive charter school restrictions.

Colleagues,
A total of 5 schools are currently implementing the "7 Habits of Happy Kids." PS 21 in Staten Island, P.S. 53... 330 Durant Ave. SI and P.S. 23 in Richmond Town and PS 39 near Grasmere in SI.

We are being told it is not a "pilot" but a real "program" to be used. After sitting through some training I couldn't help but feel it's "cultish" vibe. So I researched Sean Covey and found he is a mormon with relations to the Seventh Day Adventist ... hence SEVEN habits.

It is a clear religious agenda being implemented into our PUBLIC schools. The children and teachers are being trained to use special vocabulary from the seven habits. We had to create mission statements...when in fact Mr. Covey's organization does not have a mission statement.

This is costing each principal of the five schools somewhere btwn. 30 and $50,000...money that should obviously be spent in the classroom to support students who CONSTANTLY lose services due to staffing issues.

In London, Ontario, Canada they tried to use the School Board to try to implement Covey's beliefs but the community and teachers fought against it and won!!!! We are in a SAD, SAD state if we are allowing 'religious' beliefs into our Public School System ....any thoughts? anything can be done?

BTW...TWEED has been visiting the 5 schools this year to determine if it is something ALL schools will do next year.

Paul Proscia works at the Regent and sends out the emails. Also, he held a workshop for teachers last week at 21 and attended the PTA meeting at P.S. 53 on Thursday night...this is PURE madness to me. TWEED was at PS 21 last week as well...teachers were instructed to put on the show so they will implement it next school year across the city.

Sharpton Doesn't Show at Philly Event While Weingarten Does

Our contact in Philadelphia sent us a follow-up to his report on this event Weingarten and Sharpton, Perfect Together -

Al Sharpton was a no show at the MLK event in Philadelphia. His spokeswoman said he was 50% on his way, but stuck in traffic and realized he couldn't make it on time. She wasn't very convincing. The crowd greeted her announcement with silence.

Randi Weingarten spoke three minutes. She did some shouting, pumping her fist about the planned closing of 37 public schools in Philadelphia. After reciting a list of the outrageous we face she asked if we were going to let them do it. Everyone shouted no, and that was it. No proposal for any kind of action.

The other union leaders were little better.

But exactly what is the AFT going to do about -- not talk about how outrageous it is -- the shutting down of almost entire public school system in major cities?

Saturday Sitings: Double Dose of Violence Where Russel Crowe Plays Bloomberg and a Touch of Credit Card Fraud

Bloomberg retaliation? Mulgrew says UFT HQ "inundated with city inspectors" this morning. "I would say the mayor is not responding well"  -- Gotham Schools tweet.

Thursday's UFT Delegate Assembly and its aftermath - especially - King Threatens To Strip Title 1 Money From NYC If No Evaluation System Is In By March 1  - put me in the mood for some good old violence.

So my Friday plan hinged on catching Django Unchained at the reasonably close Sheepshead Bay Multiplex but when it was clear I was not making the 12:05 showing and with the next one at 3:40 I ended up aiming for the just opened "Broken City", a tale of a mayor of NYC running for a third term and his major corruption, malfeasance, misuse of power, and arrogance.

In other words, the Michael Bloomberg story, something the NY Times review didn't dare go near. Expect him to hire a private investigator to track Diana Taylor. Or maybe misuse city power to harass people like Mulgrew who become obstacles. Oh, sorry, been there, done that. The key element of the corruption -- the mcguffin -- was a fictional representation of the attempt to sell Suyvesant Town/Peter Cooper Village as a way to drive lower middle class people out in order to gentrify the area - and I'm sure Bloomberg had is hand in promoting that. If he could manage it, Manhattan would have a moat around it with missiles aimed at anyone without a high credit rating.

 Well, (spoiler alert) -- it was nice to see the Russel Crowe Bloomberg surrogate being led off in cuffs, something we unfortunately will not get to see, though in Joel Klein's early tenure, the corruption was so clear, I predicted he would one day be taken out of Tweed with his coat over his head. There is still hope, though it may be out of a Rupert Murdoch owned building.

Before I went to the 2PM show I made my daily visit to Home Depot and paid at the self-checkout machine. With the movie starting and me with the biggest tub of popcorn I could find, I ignored the phone call from an 800 number at about 2:15. Later I found out it was Amex fraud alert. Apparently, minutes after I used my card, someone used it to shop at Target and then Kentucky Fried Chicken -- and I would have forgiven them if they has sent over a bucket to the movie to save me from that enormous amount of popcorn (which I finished half way through). How Amex figures that is impressive -- later that night they told me to destroy the card - cest la vie.

Well, after the satisfaction of see Bloomberg got to jail, I managed to make the Django Unchained movie just a few minutes in -- remember the days as kids when you walked into the middle of a movie and sat through a double feature to see the parts you missed --- and there was enough violence to last me 5 Delegate Assemblies.

Well, its off to a gala birthday bash being thrown by the children of Loretta and Gene Prisco, two of the old stalwarts from the 1970s right through to today. So seeing some of the old UFT activists today should be lots of fun. Pics later tonight.

MORE Rally Video and Photos at UFT DA, Jan. 17

Some Ed Deformers at actually pitting the militant MOREs vs the E4E slugs, claiming they are a majority.

even if it angers younger, more reform-minded teachers who are the majority of rank-and-file members and seek high-quality evaluations 

Count the numbers of younger MORE (real) reform-minded teachers in the video.

See full dumb statement below pics.



Posted at: http://youtu.be/-EmpYubKraQ

A few photos (thanks to Pat Dobosz)

More MORE Videos - Chants

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQn1ZWY5Lnw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFzWD0iOaaU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xtjfd1zQ0chttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNY2q8nAEU8

On TV:

ABC: MORE Elem school VEEP Candidate Sam Coleman, PS 24K

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/local/new_york&id=8957466

CBS: MORE Elem Ex Bd candidate and CL Jia Lee with gang from Earth School
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/video?autoStart=true&topVideoCatNo=default&clipId=8202344

Dropout Nation

the most-radical of traditionalists within the rank-and-file want a leader who resembles Mulgrew’s colleague in Chicago, the infamous Karen Lewis; blowing off a deal with the district appeals to both Baby Boomers (who may not want to be subjected to performance management under which objective student test score growth on Empire State tests account for between 20 percent and 40 percent of evaluations), and more-militant retirees (who made up 39 percent of the votes in the AFT local’s last election four years ago. The fact that Mulgrew gets to score a victory of sorts against the outgoing Big Apple mayor (even if it angers younger, more reform-minded teachers who are the majority of rank-and-file members and seek high-quality evaluations)

MORE Analysis of Non-Deal and Commentary on Yesterday

The future of school reform is here. It is the democratic voice of the true stakeholders in the education system...

Unfortunately, the same forces that have given rise to dictatorial mayoral control schemes around the country are also responsible for our own union’s lack of democracy. Since these education reform policies are wholly unpopular, and since our union leaders do not want to be seen as obstacles to “progress”, they have been forced to take a “conciliation” approach with “reformer” mayors who run school districts. In turn, they have been required to turn to increasingly un-democratic means to silence their members who understand that these reforms are harmful to our schools... Movement of Rank and File Educators (MORE)

I didn't get home until 10:30 last night after a few hours at a bar with some MOREs where I had a pastrami rueben and beer - urp! - and then getting lost in the dark downtown -- which way is Broadway? --- and then B and Q train problems which was a problem since my car was at Newkirk and forced me to take a long walk after taking the IRT to Brooklyn College - something I haven't done since c. 1965 when I was still living in East NY and taking the New Lots train to Franklin Ave and change to the Flatbush line, a trip that made getting a driving license the single most important thing in my life when I was 18. Oh, did I digress?

I actually did some processing of video I took of the great MORE led rally outside the DA before falling asleep at the keyboard. So I had a lot of catching up to do this morning and in the midst of taking my daily trips to various Home Depots, working on electrifying part of my basement (I heard Mulgrew was putting sheet rock up in his home and he is welcome to stop buy and help) and maybe catching a movie at the Sheepshead (Django Unchained) and being home for my wife's return later this afternoon from her big mahjong gig at Mother Kelly's restaurant, I may actually do some work updating -- but the blogroll is full of stuff anyway.

Below is the MORE official statement, written by a chapter leader who was stuck in school and couldn't make the DA. This was being written on the fly as soon we heard the NO DEAL news while another MORE stuck at home with childcare handled the input from tweets and email, while other MORES did countless things yesterday, like the chapter leader in the Bronx who wrote up an instant leaflet taking into account the new info, to the MORE who took his cell phone to Staples down the block and started printing copies, to the MOREs who took concerted action at the DA in the most effective manner for any opposition group to Unity that I've seen (or heard in this case) since the 1970's.

I will blog more about how proud I was of MORE, which to me had its coming out party yesterday as people came from all over to join in the rally which was aimed originally at a VOTE NO and then managed to shift gears to urge opposition to the use of testing as part of the corporate agenda to privatize schools and destroy teacher unions.  People kept coming up to me to ask what we should do and I was so happy to be able to tell them that I am just a cog and a good soldier. What a relief! I don't have to be accountable for anything, unlike the position the teachers have been put in.

Here is the statement from MORE even though I disagree with applauding a UFT leadership that was ready to cave the night before, even willing to give Bloomberg an extra year more than other districts were doing and were saved by Bloomberg's idiocy, especially given that Ernie Logan has backed up the UFT and I will give Mulgrew credit for calling Bloomberg an out and out liar, which even the press is seeing is true.

But for Mulgrew to spend the entire meeting defending voodoo science outraged many non-Unity delegates. Mulgrew's stand should help solidify his standing in the election -- and for conspiracy theorists - really, would Bloomberg prefer a CORE-like group like MORE and having to deal with a real teacher like Julie Cavanagh or the current UFT leadership which until yesterday was the gift to ed deform that just kept giving?

Yes, there are some cultural differences within MORE between the older ICEers with years of battling the Unity machine --- see James Eterno at ICE --- MULGREW TELLS DELEGATES SCUTTLED NEW EVALUATION SYSTEM WOULD BE GREATEST THING SINCE SLICED BREAD
and the newer MORE activists who have to go through this process themselves. 

One thing you should note -- the full-time UFT employee Unity trolls are out commenting on the blogs while getting their 150k plus salaries and double pensions to leave snarky comments. Lucky there are no teachers in trouble due to their policies of neglect to deflect them from their true occupation.

------------
From MORE - http://morecaucusnyc.org/

Post-Mortem: The Non-Deal Between the UFT and DOE

18 Jan The passing of the January 17 deadline for a new evaluation agreement is not an ending but a beginning. Now the DOE will work overtime to spin doctor the failure to reach an agreement on new teacher evaluations, mandated by New York State’s version of Race to the Top, as the fault of Michael Mulgrew and union leadership. This despite the fact that every indication shows it was Bloomberg who failed to negotiate in good faith.

While we applaud the UFT leadership for standing their ground, the MORE Caucus has no intention of giving up the fight to prevent our teachers and students from being given over to the standardized testing regime. We know there will be efforts in the future to convert our schools into low-level thinking factories and our teachers into low-skilled, low-paid bureaucratic functionaries.

So, why did the evaluation deal fall through? We believe there is no one particular reason. Instead, there were a variety of reasons all working in concert to torpedo this deal. Understanding these reasons will help us understand what the post-non-evaluation DOE will look like:

Reason #1: Race to the Top is Bad Policy
Probably the most fundamental reason why there was no deal is because Race to the Top is bad policy. This goes beyond anything the UFT, city or state did. This has to do with the Obama Administration’s embrace of standardized testing as a way to measure teacher effectiveness. Obama and his Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, often describe themselves as leaders bent on rolling back the Bush-era No Child Left Behind system of testing. However, their RTTT program merely means more testing and, in many ways, an expansion of the NCLB system. Students, parents and teachers have been steadily crushed by high-stakes tests over the past 12 years that are turning education into a stultifying affair. Both NCLB and RTTT erode creativity, free-thinking and openness in our public schools. This fact leads into the second reason why the deal fell through:

Reason #2: A Growing Backlash against Education Reform
PBS recently ran an hour Frontline special on Michelle Rhee. Despite the fact that Frontline barely scratched the surface on criticizing Rhee’s tenure as D.C.’s school chancellor, the fact that a major national media outlet was critical of her to any degree is quite a development. We have come a long way from the days of when she graced the cover of Time Magazine as the hero education reformer.

At the start of the current school year, the Chicago Teacher’s Union went out on strike against Mayor Rahm Emmanuel’s Obama-inspired school reform agenda. They took to the streets to call for a better school day for children and work day for staff. By all indications, the parents of Chicago stood on the side of the teachers and against Emmanuel’s leadership of the Chicago school system. Again, this represented a change in previous actions by the CTU, whose previous leadership stressed compromise and conciliation with so-called reformers like Emmanuel.

Most recently, the teachers of several Seattle schools opted out of that state’s MAP exam to protest the high-stakes testing regime that has rolled over every school system in the land. Just like the Frontline story and the CTU strike, any type of organized opt-out of an exam would have been unthinkable a few years ago.

People across the country are beginning to realize that the so-called education “reformers” are really the status quo. They have had their way for over a decade and the backlash seems to be afoot.

Reason #3: High-Handed and Un-Democratic School Leadership
Both Michael Mulgrew and Leo Casey have stated that the evaluation deal fell through because of Mayor Bloomberg’s “my way or the highway” approach. This is the type of approach Bloomberg used when he demolished the Board of Education which, for all of its faults, was at least subject to a democratic process. In place of the BOE, Bloomberg created a Panel for Educational Policy whose votes he largely controls. The PEP has been the body that has decided to close over 100 city schools at the behest of the mayor. They have done so over massive protests of parents and community leaders who know how devastating school closures can be to a community. When UFT leaders say the mayor has a “my way or the highway” approach at the negotiating table, we are inclined to believe them.

Unfortunately, the same forces that have given rise to dictatorial mayoral control schemes around the country are also responsible for our own union’s lack of democracy. Since these education reform policies are wholly unpopular, and since our union leaders do not want to be seen as obstacles to “progress”, they have been forced to take a “conciliation” approach with “reformer” mayors who run school districts. In turn, they have been required to turn to increasingly un-democratic means to silence their members who understand that these reforms are harmful to our schools.

Therefore, while we applaud and stick by our union leaders in their resistance to the RTTT evaluation deal, we also understand that most of the work lies ahead of us. This rejection of school “reform” is part and parcel of a wider nationwide backlash against what has passed as “improvement” in education over the past 10 years. This is a backlash that has taken place as a popular movement, not a top-down one.

MORE is on the frontlines of this popular backlash. Our goal is to appropriate the title of “reformer” from those that have it now: Rhee, Bloomberg, Duncan, Emmanuel. The people are beginning to see that these reformers are actually some of the most retrograde and centralizing forces in education today.

The future of school reform is here. It is the democratic voice of the true stakeholders in the education system.

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

On Eval Deal, What Do UFT Leaders Fear Most: External or Internal Criticism?

Given the idea out there that Mulgrew is between a rock and a hard place, my thesis is that the hard place is not so hard while the deadline of the rock is. 

They do not want to get into this fight with Bloomberg for the rest of the school year. They will take their chances with the members who are upset and their proven ability to manage them.

They know that Bloomberg will take the lost money out of their hides by threatening layoffs and that will be tied to keeping the "effective" -- young, white, E4E types (can't you hear the wails) and getting rid of senior teachers and tenure. In fact this coming assault is one of the behind the scenes talking points by Unity. After all, the very essence of the evaluation deal is getting rid of tenure in a less messy way.

The Daily News which never cared very much about the excessive rises in class size suddenly is crying over the possibility.  Boo, hoo.

 
Thurs, Jan. 17, 10:30 AM.

Given we are hours away from the Delegate Assembly and the deadline for an agreement and the possible loss of $250 million in state aid, there is some speculation that it will be impossible to reach a deal in time for the delegates to read and absorb the details in time to make an intelligent decision. Then add to that the fact that they are supposedly casting a vote to represent the people who elected them, none of whom will get to see the details.

So how does this situation equate with reality?

Let me point you to some of this speculation before I delve into my analysis.

Philissa Cramer at  Gotham Schools has an extensive piece analyzing many of the options the mayor, the DOE and the UFT have pro and con.

Tim Clifford at Schoolbook goes deep.

Reality-Based Educator has a few posts on the approaching deadline, including a link to a Daily News editorial saying talks are dead in the water.
Last night:29 Hours And Counting: So far, no deal on APPR, followed by this morning:  No Evaluation Agreement Announcement Yet.

The press is going ape over the loss of the money if there is no deal.
At last night's PEP I raised the Francesco Portelos case (Protect Portelos)
to point out that not only does Walcott NOT to teach as just one example of the enormous waste in the DOE.

The Daily News which never cared very much about the excessive rises in class size suddenly is crying over the possibility. The UFT, which should not only be pointing out all the money the DOE wastes but also how if we do sign a deal not one cent will go towards reducing class size or directly into the classroom. That should have been their commercials, prepping the public for a rejection of the deal instead of crying (like E4E and Students First) that we need a deal.

And that is what makes me suspicious that this is all being scripted. Today, at 4:30, someone runs into the DA waving sheets of paper, saying we have a tentative deal which is then passed around to the delegates for a quick read while Mulgrew spends an hour explaining it, followed by a batch of Unity speakers defending it, with a few MOREs thrown in to oppose, and then a quick vote.

Maybe I'm exaggerating a bit but I've seen this act before with other agreements where the leadership does a bums rush to get people to vote (especially since they know they have the house --- you can bet every Unity person was told to show, including as many of the 300 retiree delegates who are not in Florida).

Sounds almost impossible to believe this can happen, which is why some people think this DA can not feasibly be about a vote for a deal and leave the leadership with any credibility with the members and even segment of the public. And I can just see some of my pals in the press who have been around for a while (leave out the NY Times ed people who clearly do not have a clue) rolling their eyes.

RBE's experience, like mine, is that the UFT leadership has never resisted the pressures before so that makes a deal likely. But he does point to the pitfalls for Mulgrew and Unity Caucus in terms of member reaction. And if you read my posts from last night (UPDATE: MORE Statement on Rally)
you can see that some schools with an activist chapter leader explaining all the issues are turning against any deal. Unfortunately, not enough.

I do not believe the UFT leaders are really as worried about member reaction as some think and in fact as an external PR factory (poorly run at that) they put priority on their perception in the public eye over that of the members though their internal PR machine using brute force has much more effective. And that is what they are counting on if they put forth a deal today. My guess is that the DA will vote 70-30 for whatever they put forth and that will be hailed as a victory for democracy.

They have weathered these storms in the past. And in fact are very sure that can manage the members way more easily than they can the press and ed deformers. They have a lot of experience doing that, given they pretty much control all the means of communication within the UFT. Which is why the biggest long-term threat to them would be an alternative like MORE inside the UFT that would have the ability to counter their spin in every school in the city.

If you are looking for an 8 month old group like MORE to do that, you are missing the essentials of what it will take to build an organization to be able to manage that. Even CORE has 2 years to build in Chicago before being able to challenge seriously and they only had a third of the number of schools and geographical area to cover.

Given the idea out there that Mulgrew is between a rock and a hard place, my thesis is that the hard place is not so hard while the deadline of the rock is. They know that Bloomberg will take the lost money out of their hides by threatening layoffs and that will be tied to keeping the "effective" -- young, white, E4E types and getting rid of senior teachers and tenure. In fact this coming assault is one of the behind the scenes talking points by Unity. After all, the very essence of the evaluation deal is getting rid of tenure in a less messy way.

They do not want to get into this fight with Bloomberg for the rest of the school year. They will take their chances with the members who are upset. (Never forget how they controlled the reaction to the 2005 contract, which started us on this decline.)

First, back up the UFT elections just enough to give the entire horde of people working at UFT HQ and in the boroughs to inundate the schools to explain how good a deal this is before the election when MORE will not have access to the schools other than the ones where they have a live body to counter the UFT line.

Next, every single school would get a visit from a UFT honcho. After about 6 weeks of softening people up and attacking MORE for opposing the deal as being merely negative and obstructionist and really wanting to lead you all down the road to a strike and so on and so on.

Meanwhile, they get sort-of accolades from the critics, which is really what they care about.

Given the realities of the way the UFT elections is rigged, people are paying way too much attention to it. And don't forget Unity has New Action as the house opposition. Teachers not happy with Unity who have not heard of MORE, given 2 non-Unity choices on the ballot, may well vote New Action without realizing they are also voting for Mulgrew and a batch of other Unity people. So whatever vote NA gets also goes to pad Mulgrew's numbers.

In the UFT the real elections are the chapter leader elections every 3 years (next one is spring 2015) where the battle for control of the schools take place. Unity uses their training sessions for new chapter leaders to grab them into Unity, a black hole from which they never emerge given subtle and not so subtle offers of jobs and perks, hard to resist for many people who have not been active before.

For any alternative like MORE to get real traction, it must begin to capture these elections while trying to recruit as many current CLs who are independent -- and that is what part of today's events are about. Some people will be showing up who usually do not show and maybe something strikes them to get involves in opposing the Unity machine.

Now MORE is not taking a position today as an attack on the union leadership but as an attempt to pressure them to do the right thing.

The rally outside the DA is directed against the junk science teacher eval schemes that are being foisted upon us, and demands that the rank and file have a say in a ratification of any agreement. It calls for our union to end the self destructive "collaboration" with union hating corporate "reformers" and politicians in both political parties. It is our union even when it is wrong. The rally is not against the UFT leadership.

I for one do not think Unity generally does the right thing but the younger activists in MORE who have not been fighting the Unity machine for 43 years actually have some hope. So they are not viewing today's action as part of a the election campaign. As a good soldier, I am going along. Luckily MORE is a democratic organization where every person has the right to express their personal views without facing expulsion.


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Later if I get some time I will post some of the arguments the union is and will be using to soften up the members.

I will be there from around 3PM on with leaflets and will be working outside with whatever people who show and want to make their voices heard even if they can't go in.

After the DA some of us will gather outside the building for a brief huddle -- all are invited -- maybe with some comments from Julie Cavanagh and Jack -- and then a bunch will go off to a local bar to celebrate or drown our sorrows.  All are invited to join us.

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

UPDATE: MORE Statement on Rally

At my chapter meeting today, there was a unanimous vote of the 30 staff present that I should vote NO! including E4E people --- Bklyn Elem CL
We also had a meeting today and a unanimous vote to vote no. Even the unity member voted no! --- Qns Middle School CL
A number if our teachers joined MoRE today! And definitely are demanding a Vote No! --- Bklyn elem school teacher

Reports coming of unanimous votes in schools today urging a NO vote on any deal. These are schools with MORE activists in them, a totally different reaction from schools run by Unity.  Imagine if one day MORE had activists in most of the schools?

MORE is calling for the UFT to refuse any agreement until there is a reasonable law passed.

More MORE.
Below is an official statement from MORE about the purpose of the rally. I personally believe there is a deal and has been for days and it would only fall apart of the union leadership senses a revolt from below that goes much deeper than the organizing a group like MORE does. Like I mean deep into the Unity Caucus faithful. If the rank and file in Unity are having problems themselves (and there are some signs of fraying at the edges) or are finding they are not able to convince the people in their schools, then the leadership may feel they have to backtrack somewhat. But given their overwhelming interest in keeping their rep with ed deformers as the "reasonable" union and their need to -- in the immortal words of Unity hack Peter Goodman, "satisfy the Rhee crowd" my sense it they feel they can control the members (by sending out their hordes into the school to sell the agreement) easier than the negative public reaction.

See speculation on the UFT being possibly willing to walk away and take the PR hit --- at RBE (29 Hours And Counting) and at Gotham Schools.


* Please attend Thursday rally - 3:30 PM in front of 52 Broadway *

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

As of this writing it is still unclear if there will be an agreement between the UFT and the DOE about teacher evaluations.

The rally outside the DA tomorrow is directed against the junk science teacher eval schemes that are being foisted upon us, and demands that the rank and file have a say in a ratification of any agreement. It calls for our union to end the self destructive "collaboration" with union hating corporate "reformers" and politicians in both political parties. It is our union even when it is wrong. The rally is not against the UFT leadership.

If there is no agreement offered on Thursday it signals an intensification of the anti union campaign and we have to be prepared to join in the defense of our union even while we challenge its leaders in the upcoming election. No agreement will mean that Bloomberg and his cronies feel they can better advance their anti union/privatization program by smearing the UFT for forfeiting the increased state aid money. However, it will also represent a recognition by the union leadership of the limits of what they can sell to an angry UFT rank and file.

On the other hand, if an agreement is presented we urge delegates to vote no. They are [still] our delegates even if they generally follow the Unity leadership. MORE stands for for a positive alternative to concessionary bargaining based on rank and file and community based resistance. Giving in to the bully only whets the bully's appetite. Appeasing the aggressor never worked, even for the appeasers. The UFT leadership desperately wants to be able to sell something to the DA as a victory. We know this is false even if they do reach an agreement.

We demand a decent contract, decent working and learning conditions and an end to the mayoral dictatorship which former UFT President Weingarten helped to put in place. We are calling for the UFT leadership to get up off their knees, organize the membership and join the growing movement against the corporate takeover of public education.

Slogans for signs:

Bloomberg's Education Policy: Ineffective

Value Added = Junk Science

Don't Blame Teachers for the Effects of Poverty

 

Rally to Demand a Member-Wide Vote this Thursday at the UFT

I picked this off DOENUTS blog. More stuff coming. And more MORE stuff coming. One of the young MORE activists made up this sheet for her staff and for anyone who wants to print. (email me for the file). This young teacher just got tenure and is very happy -- don't believe the lies of groups like E4E -- young teachers desperately want and support tenure.

*It's best if you print them out on an 81/2 x 11 sticker sheet and then cut them.

 

Rally to Demand a Member-Wide Vote this Thursday at the UFT

If you read this post from GothamSchools, you'll see that the efforts of MORE may (stress may) be having an effect on our leadership's decision-making process. Get your butt on the train tomorrow and get to the rally. If you can get the delegate card from your school's Delegate or Chapter Leader, then DO IT!! And go and vote no at the DA!! Also:

• Check in with ednotes for any updates or to download literature
• Tweet -frequently!- along the hashtag #VoteNoEval or #UFTDA

All UFT chapter leader and delegates should Vote NO so that they can bring back the agreement to their chapters for a full vote.

Stay up to date with the latest details by joining our email list by request at more@morecaucusnyc.org or follow us at Twitter.com @morecaucusnyc

morecaucusnyc.org

Join MORE this Thursday to demand a member wide vote on our new evaluation system at 52 Broadway NYC UFT Headquarters on Thursday 1/17 beginning at 3:30 for a rally before the Delegate Assembly (DA). All educators and concerned citizens are encouraged to come and have their voices heard.

MORE: Rally to Demand a Member-Wide Vote this Thursday at the UFT

This was posted at MORE on Jan. 14 and below that is the downloadable leaflet on scribd (when it is up and running) if you want to share it with people in your school.

You can read the Jan. 12 MORE post here: MORE Statement on the Pending Evaluation Agreement Between the DOE and the UFT


I will be at the rally early with leaflets for people to give out and any help would be appreciated. And then there is the after DA event at a local bar where we will drown our sorrows or celebrate our joy.

Rally to Demand a Member-Wide Vote this Thursday at the UFT

Join MORE this Thursday to demand a member wide vote on our new evaluation system at 52 Broadway NYC UFT Headquarters on Thursday 1/17 beginning at 3:30 for a rally before the Delegate Assembly (DA). All educators and concerned citizens are encouraged to come and have their voices heard.

The indications are very strong the UFT leadership will reach an evaluation agreement with the Department of Education in just a few days and present it the Delegate Assembly without membership input nor education around finer aspects of the deal.This agreement will radically change our working conditions and our students’ learning conditions without any input from the almost 76,000 teachers of the United Federation of Teachers. This is outrageous!We will send out a digital version of our flier soon-please sign up to email below. We will have copies at DA for distribution starting at 3:30. Bring signs, fliers, poster-oak tag, markers, clipboards, and pens, we will need volunteers to gather names, emails, and phone #’s All UFT chapter leader and delegate should Vote NO so that they can bring back the agreement to their chapters for a full vote.

Stay up to date with the latest details by joining our email list by request at more@morecaucusnyc.org or follow us at Twitter.com @morecaucusnyc

Tags: MORE, Movement of Rank and File Educators, social justice unionism, teacher evaluations, UFT

http://www.scribd.com/doc/120466125/The-Movement-of-Rank-and-File-Educators-urges-you-to-vote-NO-on-the-proposed-teacher-evaluation-plan

The Movement of Rank and File Educators urges you to vote NO on the proposed teacher evaluation plan by morecaucusnyc

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

NYSUT/AFT Uses Fear Tactics to Urge Rejection of Carol Burris Petition

The Burris petition’s call upon the Governor and Legislature to place a moratorium on high stakes testing would, if adopted without federal action, put New York’s public schools at risk of loss of federal Title funding, on which they so depend to support students. Indeed, there is the potential that action on this issue at the state level could result in the forfeiture of funds already paid out by the USDOE—a result that would be devastating to our schools and students.--- New York State United Teachers, a subsidiary of the UFT*

Well, here they go again. Apparently, the fact that top level principals like Carol Burris is a hero to many teachers for leading the fight against a faulty evaluation system while the UFT/NYSUT/AFT has sat on a spiky fence (or worse, played the other side), has once again irked the NYSUT leaders.

*In NYSUT the 200,000 member UFT is the tail that wags the dog. So when Unity Caucus clones come calling with a message that Mulgrew was not the guy who made the eval deal for a state law with Tischless and King, don't believe it.

I got into somewhat of a running battle the other day when a tweet came in asking me what it would take to get the teacher unions to take a strong stand against HST. I said they never would and she seemed confused as to why they wouldn't. I couldn't delve into the details at that time but ended up with responses from Weingarten and Leo Casey defending their record on HST, to a wonk like me, really funny stuff which I will post on a follow-up.

Meanwhile you should read a great post from RBE at Perdido Street School today listing some of the ways the union has supported HST:

Reading The Tea Leaves On Mulgrew's Evaluation Update

Here is the full NYSUT missive: 

Subject: from NYSUT sent to members.

It has come to our attention that a petition is being circulated by Carol Burris, a principal at a Long Island school district, which is entitled “Petition to Governor Cuomo and the Legislature to End High Stakes Testing”. The petition demands that the state place a moratorium on “high stakes” testing. We have been receiving some inquiries about NYSUT’s response and recommendations relating to this petition.

First, NYSUT’s Tell It Like It Is initiative is NYSUT's strongly recommended approach to communicating the concerns that we share about testing, because it allows for a more meaningful, personal, fact-based response than an e-petition. Any member considering signing the petition should be encouraged to instead participate in the Tell It initiative, which is already well underway, will continue up to the NYSUT RA, and is having a positive impact.

Second, action to reduce reliance on testing must come from the federal government, which has conditioned funding to the states on compliance with federal testing requirements. We must persuade the federal government to change its testing requirements. This is why AFT has initiated, and NYSUT strongly supports, a petition drive directed to federal policy makers. We encourage our members to sign the AFT petition, which is directed to the right audience. The Burris petition’s call upon the Governor and Legislature to place a moratorium on high stakes testing would, if adopted without federal action, put New York’s public schools at risk of loss of federal Title funding, on which they so depend to support students. Indeed, there is the potential that action on this issue at the state level could result in the forfeiture of funds already paid out by the USDOE—a result that would be devastating to our schools and students.

NYSUT believes that the dual initiatives of expressing to NYSED the real and serious concerns that our members have about the current testing program through NYSUT’s Tell It Like It Is, and of advocating for changes in the federal testing policy through AFT’s petition, are the best and most responsible strategies to protect and support our students and our members.

As always, you are welcome to contact me with questions or concerns.

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

Were You Around..Kaufman vs Turner on UFT Day of Inaction, Part 3

I don’t know if you personally feel the full impact of our Union’s malfeasance at your school ... Jeff Kaufman to fellow chapter leader

Our Tele Nova saga continues.

Part 1: Jeff Kaufman to UFT on Day of Action: You guys are kidding, right?

Part 2: Jeff Kaufman Vs. Charley Turner and Why You Should be Outside the UFT Deleagate Assembly This Thursday

Part 3, where Jeff responds to a pro Turner Chapter leader, who based on his email below is in Unity -- ya think?

Were you around when we lost seniority; when our grievance procedure was decimated; when we did nothing to stop closing schools or fight the insipid rip off of public education by allowing the anti-union Charter movement to take a strong hold in New York?

Were you around when we stopped electing district reps or when we were no longer consulted about dues increases or the levels of salary and benefits (including double dipped pensions) our leaders receive? Were you around when our leaders supported anti-education politicians including Pataki and Bloomberg, yes, Bloomberg?

Were you around when our contract negotiators, with a few conceded changes created an army of ATRs who were told not to complain since they were being paid as they are constantly abused in schools and have received U ratings at much greater rates than any other group?

Were you around when our leaders lied to us about how school budgets would reflect the costs of staff salaries so that experienced teachers would be routinely discriminated against?

Were you around when our leaders allowed hundreds of teachers accused of a variety of improper conduct or incompetence to be left to be totally unrepresented in kangaroo U rating appeal hearings and improperly investigated termination hearings?

-------, I don’t know if you personally feel the full impact of our Union’s malfeasance at [your school] and honestly I hope you never do. But most of the membership, the dues paying and hardworking members of our profession work in schools where we have lost our voice and have become the focus of the blame for the downfall of public education and look to our leaders for some help and direction only to be disappointed, contract after contract.

As our Brothers and Sister did in Chicago it’s time for our leaders to go back to school. We will take back the UFT for our members. I hope you choose the right side.

Sorry Charley.

Jeff Kaufman
Chapter Leader
Aspirations High School

Here is the email Jeff is responding to -- and I love this line which I have been hearing for 42 years: When this education deform era wanes  [INSERT CRISIS OF THE MOMENT] (and it will), we can debate the value of our spirited points of view again.

This guy is probably too new to get that the Unity leadership has never allowed debating the value of any points of view other than their own and if you do you get charged with being anti-union and a traitor, sort of where this guy is touching on.

RE: Day of action flyer

It is at this point that I feel that I have to stand up for the people in our organization that lead us, that help us, that advise us, that support us and that have been leading the fight side by side with us. I stand by the people that work side by side with us in our every day fight for what is right for our members, our students, our schools and for public education as we know it should be.

While I believe that we must struggle to achieve our ideals I feel that "perfect must not be the enemy of good". We must do the best we can for the teachers we work for, and the students we teach.

We are involved in a monumental struggle against a Mayor that seeks to dismantle our school sytem and our Union. Yet we are sitting at our computers engaged in a debate over the meaningfulness of flyers! Really. Is that what we are about? A flyer is just another tool of the many that we have that help us to lead our chapters. If people feel that complaining about a call to action is more important than actually taking action; I cannot agree to that.

That the Department of Education has become a dysfunctional bureaucracy is clear to every teacher in New York City. The fact that the networks are incompetent is also painfully clear. The fact that Leadership Academy principals, and their supporters in Tweed have mismanaged our school system, damaged our students, and have wounded our beloved communities by destroying our schools is painfully clear to every single New Yorker. He and his chancellors want to destroy our profession, and sowing division among us is a powerful tool.

I am UFT and proud. I go to marches, meetings, and when the opportunity presents itself I try to lead. I will not be a whiner. I will not fault people who work themselves to the bone to do what's right. I will put my money where my mouth is. Given the opportunity I will respond to a call to action.

This is the eleventh hour. It is at this time where we must march side by side. We must put on our union shirts, and put away our grudges. We are a UNION, not a division. We will rise and fall based on how strong we are when we stand together. Nothing less than the fate of our schools hang in the balance. When this education deform era wanes (and it will), we can debate the value of our spirited points of view again.

But right now let's stand together for the good of our profession, and do what is right and good for our schools. After all, we are a Union of Professionals.