School Scope: Erich Ulrich Loves Bo Dietl, ATRs, Charters

I wrote this column for this week's Wave but it didn't get in.


School Scope: A Bit of Riff and a Bit of Raff
By Norm Scott

Summer should be a slow season for ed news, but things never seem to slow down. Here are a few push button issues that you might want to google if interested.

DOE to place 400 teachers from ATR pool
In the old days, teachers got assigned to schools based on seniority. Now it’s a free market system. If your school is closed down or there are an excess of teachers in your license area, instead of being assigned permanently to a school, as people were pre-2005 contract, they are put in a pool and rotated from school to school. Unfairly, the entire pool has been branded in the press as incompetent. Some teachers did undergo disciplinary hearings and were fined or suspended. Some of these cases were instances where principals were retaliating against outspoken teachers or those who insisted on their union rights. (I attended some of their hearings and saw for myself from the testimony.) Due to rules instituted in 2008 by Joel Klein, known as Fair School Funding, school budgets are penalized for hiring higher salaried teachers, not only a major disincentive to hire senior ATRS, but also an incentive to pressure long-time senior teachers to retire or leave the school. The Dept. of Education has decided to start draining the ATR pool by assigning 400 of them to permanent placement in schools. If principals are charged for having to carry high salaried teachers, they won’t be very happy. Will the DOE to work something out to soothe the pain?

Charter teacher certification rules loosened
To become a certified teacher in NY State, you have to jump through all kinds of hoops and spend a lot of money. Charter schools, with their tremendous turnover rate, having to compete with public schools salaries, are having problems meeting their needs. Charters have been able to hire 30% of their teachers as uncertified but they still have to pay competitive salaries, albeit while forcing teachers to work a lot of hours. As part of the machinations going on in Albany over mayoral control and other ed issues, charters authorized by SUNY may soon be allowed to pull people off the streets to teach., even if they have not taken any courses related to educating children. (I can see them gang pressing people walking out of their college graduation.) The NY Post cheered the decision to hire unqualified people for charters. Ironically, but not surprisingly, the Post also condemned the DOE plan to place ATRs, who the Post branded as unqualified, in classrooms. One blogger was left scratching his head: “How can you support the hiring of untrained and unqualified people to teach students on one hand and then be against the hiring of veteran teachers who are properly certified and experienced? “ Read his entire post at: http://chaz11.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-new-york-post-editoral-board-is.html.

It's the Attack on Unions Stupid: NY Times Doesn't Get Why Pay Lags Job Growth
“U.S. Job Growth Picks Up the Pace, but Wages Lag Behind” a recent front page of the NY Times declared. “This is not a market we have typically seen,” said Michael Stull, senior vice president at the staffing company Manpower North America. “We have not before seen unemployment drop, low participation rates and wages not move. That tells you something’s not right in the labor market.” Something's not right in the labor market? -- Duhhhh! I know I’m spitting in the wind when I say the reliance on free markets to balance workers and employers is faulty. Only organized workers in unions can redress the balance.

Eric Ulrich loves lunatic Bo Dietl for Mayor
Ulrich wrote on twitter after Republican Paul Massey pulled out: I will be encouraging the GOP to take a 2nd look at @BoDietl for Mayor. He has the fire in the belly…” Oy! I listened to Bo Dietl on Imus for years and while at times entertaining, suggesting he would make a good mayor is irresponsible, something I would not expect from Ulrich. Though he is a Republican, which automatically makes him irresponsible. But that’s a story for another day. A quick hit from Wikipedia tells us, “On May 4, 2017, the Wall Street Journal revealed Dietl claimed he was hired by Fox News network management to discredit the harassment claims by former anchor Gretchen Carlson and former producer Andrea Mackris against Roger Ailes and Bill O'Reilly.”

Eric is a smart politician, given he wants to run for mayor in 2021 but didn’t have the fire in his belly to take on a very flawed De Blasio ---- who even leftists like me despise. Actually there is a candidate running against de Blasio – Republican State Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis from Staten Island, who apparently does have the fire in her belly. But if she does well against deB, even if she loses, she becomes a very creditable challenger to Ulrich in 2021. So why not promote a guy like Dietl who would send investigators to go after women who charge powerful men with sexual harassment, which given the firings at FOX, apparently were true?

Norm’s fire in the belly is due to acid reflux but he keeps blogging at ednotesonline.com.

July 12: Can MORE Prove the UFT Contract Is Not Worthless?

I am opening up today's MORE Hard Core Contract event at The Dark Horse - 17 Murray St. and that has had me thinking -- a dangerous thing -- about things I haven't thought about in 15 years. I saw the contract being violated regularly in my school, often related to teacher assignments for the next school year. Most people wouldn't file grievances but as chapter leader I tried to use my weekly newsletter to put pressure on the administration.

Some people out there think the UFT contract is a worthless piece of junk. But don't give up on using the contract where possible but using the contract backed by some schoolwide political campaign enhances the chances of winning. One of my main gripes with the UFT over my decades of activity was their advice to keep grievances behind closed doors. I urged people to make their stories public to build support in the school. Why leave the narrative, which would be negative towards the teacher, to the principals and their minions?

Experienced contract guru James Eterno will be schlepping in from his Queens outpost to be a resident expert on the contract. (See his post yesterday on the ICE blog: TRS WORKSHOP; MORE CONTRACT TRAINING

In many schools, with knowledgeable union reps and an engaged staff, there is more enforcement of the contract than in other schools.

Experienced chapter leaders in MORE have supported people on the chapter leader listserve who have contractual questions.

Here is a recent one:

We had 13 staff up for tenure and all were denied, including guidance counselors, speech teachers, regular teachers and an AP. We have a particularly ruthless superintendent but curious if this is the case elsewhere. Some teachers had been extended in the past and as you can imagine, it's very demoralizing and disheartening.
Curious how it's going in other schools...

Is this situation an outlier or indicative of a chronic situation? Depending on how many people who come and the issues they bring, the MORE event today will attempt to gather information on this type of issue -- can we pin this on a particular supt?

We get lots of personal issues, like this one:

A teacher in my school teaches an extra period. We have a staggered schedule. Her normal day is period 1-8, but she teaches period 9 pro rata. During Regents, is she required to stay the extra time or is her day also 6:50?

One of the issues we want to touch on is to develop a guide on what to do when an incident is used to remove a colleague from the classroom, the school (rubber roomed) and how to know what is coming. Or how to prep people for a possible 3020a hearing. One thing I've noticed is that DOE legal will often contemplate adding a charge to people who contact parents for support. So we urge people to be careful and use stealth. I asked Peter Zucker to give us a summary of what he learned.

So many people are in the dark about the process. Catlin Preston of CPE1, who told me he spoke to Peter before his hearing and felt Peter was a great help, will be out of town but may call in. We discussed a follow-up with a working group coming out of this meeting where people with experience develop a guide with a roadmap of what a principal, OSI, etc are likely to do -- and how to interpret their actions.

If you have had issues in your school or want to share issues you have, or can offer some advice - or just to sit down and have a beer or two - or three - and some decent bar food, come on down.

The End of the Party: Clinton/Obama Democratic Center Counter Attack

The split between the Clinton/Obama centrist and the Bernie left Wings only grows more bitter. See the article I recently posted: The Democratic Party’s Deadly Dead-End.
 
And also this op ed by Bernie:

• Opinion Op-Ed Contributor
  

  Bernie Sanders: How Democrats Can Stop Losing Elections JUNE 13, 2017

Will there be a split in the Democratic Party and the growth of a new party? I think the articles below indicate there may very well be, but it will take a few election cycles for the process to work itself out. Think of the Whigs from the mid-1830s to the mid 1850s and the emergence of the new Republican Party from the ashes.

"the Whigs are best understood as an American major party trying to be many things to many men, ready to abandon one deeply held ‘conviction’ for another in the drive for political power.".... history.com

The articles below are examples of the Clinton/Obama wings striking back. The first oped appeared in last Friday's NY Times and I read it with my mouth ajar -- and by the way, our own UFT/NYSUT/AFT pretty well lines up with the Clinton centrist wing, which used and abandoned labor unions, especially teachers, no matter our union leaders' rhetoric.

Remember that the "new" Republican Party captured the presidency in 1860 by taking a stronger stand on slavery -- a radical position at the time -- and basically kept power until FDR in 1932 other then the Wilson years (1912-20) and 2 terms by Grover Cleveland, who was a conservative Democrat -- or a quasi Republican.

An ass looks to chew its own ass

The center Dems turned away from the New Deal, as indicated by the NY Times opinion piece by Clinton apparatchik Mark Penn and, holy shit, a dug up Andrew Stein. I mean, how desperate are they getting? Below that read the NY Observer piece on how they are running a primary candidate against Bernie in Vermont. That should end up well for the Dems. Note that Jared Kushner owns the NY Observer so anything you read there should be taken as working in the Trump interests.

Let's parse the Penn/Stein piece. My comments in red.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/06/opinion/center-democrats-identity-politics.html?target=comments&_r=0

Back to the Center, Democrats

By MARK PENN and ANDREW STEIN 

JULY 6, 2017

The path back to power for the Democratic Party today, as it was in the 1990s, is unquestionably to move to the center and reject the siren calls of the left, whose policies and ideas have weakened the party.

Really? How many state houses do the Dems have? How about the routes in Congress since the 90s when the Dems lost control of Congress in the majority of terms since then?

In the early 1990s, the Democrats relied on identity politics, promoted equality of outcomes instead of equality of opportunity and looked to find a government solution for every problem. After years of leftward drift by the Democrats culminated in Republican control of the House under Speaker Newt Gingrich, President Bill Clinton moved the party back to the center in 1995 by supporting a balanced budget, welfare reform, a crime bill that called for providing 100,000 new police officers and a step-by-step approach to broadening health care. Mr. Clinton won a resounding re-election victory in 1996 and Democrats were back.

Every issue cited was related to the Dems losing in 2016.

But the last few years of the Obama administration and the 2016 primary season once again created a rush to the left. Identity politics, class warfare and big government all made comebacks. Candidates inspired by Senator Bernie Sanders, Senator Elizabeth Warren and a host of well-funded groups have embraced sharply leftist ideas. But the results at the voting booth have been anything but positive: Democrats lost over 1,000 legislative seats across the country and control of both houses of Congress during the Obama years. And in special elections for Congress this year, they failed to take back any seats held by Republicans.

This is a remarkable 2-faced turn of what really happened -- the Clintons did all of the above they are claiming Bernie did. And they attack Bernie with their other face by saying he didn't pay enough attention to identity politics and thus lost the black vote.

Central to the Democrats’ diminishment has been their loss of support among working-class voters, who feel abandoned by the party’s shift away from moderate positions on trade and immigration, from backing police and tough anti-crime measures, from trying to restore manufacturing jobs. They saw the party being mired too often in political correctness, transgender bathroom issues and policies offering more help to undocumented immigrants than to the heartland.

Wait a minute. They are saying this happened without the Clintons? Are they blaming Obama too? The world is turning upside down.

In the next section, they go right at the New Deal and join the Republicans in the attack on government. Astounding.

Bigger government handouts won’t win working-class voters back. This is the fallacy of the left, believing that voters just need to be shown how much they are getting in government benefits. In reality, these voters see themselves as being penalized for maintaining the basic values of hard work, religion and family. It’s also not all about guns and abortion. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama both won working-class voters despite relatively progressive views on those issues. Today, identity politics and disdain for religion are creating a new social divide that the Democrats need to bridge by embracing free speech on college campuses and respect for Catholics and people of other faiths who feel marginalized within the party.

There are plenty of good issues Democrats should be championing. They need to reject socialist ideas and adopt an agenda of renewed growth, greater protection for American workers and a return to fiscal responsibility. While the old brick-and-mortar economy is being regulated to death, the new tech-driven economy has been given a pass to flout labor laws with unregulated, low-paying gig jobs, to concentrate vast profits and to decimate retailing. Rural areas have been left without adequate broadband and with shrinking opportunities. The opioid crisis has spiraled out of control, killing tens of thousands, while pardons have been given to so-called nonviolent drug offenders. Repairing and expanding infrastructure, a classic Democratic issue, has been hijacked by President Trump — meaning Democrats have a chance to reach across the aisle to show they understand that voters like bipartisanship.

Immigration is also ripe for a solution from the center. Washington should restore the sanctity of America’s borders, create a path to work permits and possibly citizenship, and give up on both building walls and defending sanctuary cities. On trade, Democrats should recognize that they can no longer simultaneously try to be the free-trade party and speak for the working class. They need to support fair trade and oppose manufacturing plants’ moving jobs overseas, by imposing new taxes on such transfers while allowing repatriation of foreign profits. And the party seems to have forgotten that community policing combined with hiring more police officers worked in the ’90s — and it will work again today. It can’t be the party that failed to stop the rising murder rates in cities like Chicago.

Health care is the one area where the Democrats have gained the upper hand and have a coherent message about protecting the working poor from losing coverage. But the Affordable Care Act needs to be adjusted to control costs better, lest employer-sponsored health care become unaffordable. For now, the Democrats are right to hold the line in defending Obamacare in the face of Republican disunity.

No single payer for these guys -- let's continue the Clinton folly on health care. Do they forget that giving in to big Pharm and insurance companies is the main cause of costs spiraling out of control.

Easily lost in today’s divided politics is that only a little more than a quarter of Americans consider themselves liberals, while almost three in four are self-identified moderates or conservatives. Yet moderate viewpoints are being given short shrift in the presidential nominating process. So Democrats should change their rules to eliminate all caucuses in favor of primaries. Caucuses are largely undemocratic because they give disproportionate power to left-leaning activists, making thousands of Democrats in Kansas more influential than millions of people in Florida.

Twisting history --- hey, did Hilllary lose the Michigan PRIMARY to Bernie? No caucus there.

Mark Penn served as pollster and senior adviser to Bill and Hillary Clinton from 1995 to 2008. Andrew Stein is a former Manhattan borough president and New York City Council president.

Both these guys are a joke.

Now on to the Observer -- http://observer.com/2017/07/clinton-supporters-challenge-bernie-sanders-senate-seat/

Note the headline.

Bitter Clinton Supporters Try to Unseat Bernie Sanders in Senate Race

Opponents believe his ‘divisive politics’ have split the Democratic Party

It's the Attack on Unions Stupid: NY Times Doesn't Get Why Pay Lags Job Growth

U.S. Job Growth Picks Up the Pace, but Wages Lag Behind today's front page of the NY Times declares.

“This is not a market we have typically seen,” said Michael Stull, senior vice president at the staffing company Manpower North America. “We have not before seen unemployment drop, low participation rates and wages not move. That tells you something’s not right in the labor market.” 

Something's not right in the labor market? -- duhhhh! The reliance on free markets to balance workers and employers is faulty. Only organized workers in unions can redress the balance.

NYC PARENTS FILE COMPLAINT TO FORCE DOE TO REDUCE CLASS SIZE

Since our union leaders ignore the class size issue, parents do the heavy lifting.

This press release is also available here.

For Immediate Release:  July 6, 2017

Contact: Leonie Haimson, Class Size Matters, leoniehaimson@gmail.com
Wendy Lecker, Education Law Center, wlecker@edlawcenter.org

NYC PARENTS FILE COMPLAINT TO ENFORCE LAW TO REDUCE CLASS SIZE

Demand Department of Education Reduce Class Size as Mandated in State Law

Today, nine parents from every New York City borough filed a petition with State Commissioner of Education MaryEllen Elia, charging the City Department of Education (DOE) with failing to reduce class sizes as mandated by the Contract for Excellence Law (C4E). The City’s Public Advocate, Letitia James, and two advocacy groups, Class Size Matters and the Alliance for Quality Education, also joined the parents in the petition.
Education Law Center (ELC) is representing the Petitioners.
Please see Parent Petitioners’ quotes below.

In 2007, as required by the C4E law, the DOE developed a class size reduction plan for the City’s public schools, pledging to lower average class sizes in Kindergarten through third grade over five years to no more than 20 students; in fourth through eighth grade to no more than 23 students; and to no more than 25 students per class in high school core classes. The State Education Commissioner approved the plan.

The DOE never delivered on its plan. Instead, class sizes have increased sharply since 2007, particularly in the early grades, and are now substantially larger than when the C4E law was enacted. As of fall 2016, DOE data show classes in Kindergarten through third grade were more than 18 percent larger, classes in grades four through eight were six percent larger, and high school classes were 1.5 percent larger than in 2007.

“The growth in class size from 2007 to the present is breathtaking,” said David Sciarra, ELC Executive Director. “For example, in 2007, a little over 1,100 students in grades one through three were in classes of 30 students or more. As of November 2016, a staggering 43,219 first through third graders were in classes this large, an increase of almost 4000 percent.”

“New York City students have waited too long for a better opportunity to learn, and it is unacceptable that the City has reneged on its legal obligations,” said Leonie Haimson, Executive Director of Class Size Matters. “The research is crystal clear that smaller classes benefit all children, but especially those who predominate in our public schools: students who are low-income,  have special needs, or are English Language Learners.”

“A decade ago, the City committed to reducing class sizes to appropriate levels, a resource identified by New York’s highest court in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity case as essential for a constitutional sound basic education,” said Billy Easton, Executive Director of the Alliance for Quality Education. “But now class sizes are even larger than when the court issued its decision. It is past time for the DOE to live up to this legal obligation.”

“The research is clear: smaller classes are better for our children. This indisputable fact can no longer be ignored. I am proud to stand with a diverse coalition of education advocates to demand the city provide our students with the smaller class sizes they are owed. There can be no equity or excellence when students in The Bronx and throughout New York City must sit in classes this large,”  said Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr.

The Petitioners are requesting that Commissioner Elia order the DOE to immediately begin reducing class sizes to the averages set forth in the 2007 class-size reduction plan and to reach those averages in no more than five years. Petitioners are also asking the Commissioner to order the City to promptly align its capital plan for school construction to the class size averages in the 2007 Plan, another requirement of the C4E regulations.
_____________________
Parent Petitioners Speak:
“My daughter has been in extremely large classes since Kindergarten,” said Naila Rosario, a parent in District 15 in Brooklyn. “This year, in fourth grade, she is in a class of 32 students. She cannot possibly receive the kind of personal attention and feedback every child deserves and needs to be successful in school. In fact, often her teacher does not even have enough time to answer all the students’ questions. There is no way my daughter or any of her classmates can get a quality education in a class this large.”

Deborah Alexander has two children at P.S. 150 in Queens, one in 1^st grade and the other in 4^th grade. Both are in classes of 3O students: “My fourth grader told me he doesn’t bother to raise his hand anymore, because as he said to me, there are too many kids, so I’m never picked. My daughter’s class is full of restless children, waiting their turn to be able to speak. Some of the children have social-emotional issues and clearly feel deprived, no matter how hard their teacher tries. It is time to aggressively address class size reduction once and for all so that all children know they are seen and heard.”

“My son, who has an IEP, has been held back twice and is at risk of being held back again,” said Rubnelia Agostini, who has a second grade child at P.S. 277 in the Bronx. “His class size is now 25, and he was in a class of 27 in Kindergarten at P.S. 205. After two months in Kindergarten he was bused to another school to address class size violations, since Kindergarten classes are supposed to be capped at 25. Now his independent evaluation says he needs a small class, but his school doesn’t have any small classes, and some are as large as 27. Why can’t my son receive the quality education he needs to succeed?”

Litza Stark’s son is in an inclusion, or ICT, Kindergarten class with 28 students at P.S. 85 in Queens. The ICT class contains 10-12 students with special needs: “Especially since this is an ICT class where students present an array of extra challenges, his class size causes excessive stress on the teachers and the students alike. PreK is important, but so is the quality of education for children in Kindergarten and up.”

“My son’s class has 24 children, many of them requiring close support, and his teacher is not able to individualize instruction as she could in a smaller class,” said Reeshemah Brightley, the mother of a Kindergarten child at P.S./I.S. 76 in Manhattan. “Classroom management is difficult, and students are more disruptive in a large class than they otherwise would be, making it hard for the rest of the class to focus.”

JoAnn Schneider’s son is a fourth grader in an ICT class of 31 students at P.S./I.S. 113 in Queens: “My son receives special education services and has been in an inclusion class since Kindergarten. He’s making only minimal progress because he needs a more focused environment that only a small class can provide. It is not right that my child should be denied the kind of education given to children elsewhere in the state where classes average only 20-22 students per class – especially when the law requires it.”

Johanna Garcia, a mother of two children at P.S./I.S. 187 in Manhattan, explained: “My son is in third grade in a class of 28. He receives special services, but his class is far too big and he has trouble keeping up. When he was in Kindergarten, his class size exceeded the cap, and that’s when it became clear to me that it was impossible for him to receive the attention he needed with so many other children in the class. My daughter is in a class of 29 students in fifth grade, and many in her class have been unable to stay engaged and afloat. The city owes it to my children and all other students in the public school system to remedy this egregious violation of their rights.”
_____________________
To read the petition, click here ; a timeline documenting the DOE’s failure to reduce class sizes since the CFE lawsuit is available here; and data showing class size trends is available here.

Who Ya Gonna Call? MORE - July 12, 3-6 PM - Can Teachers Fight Back Against Principals, DOE Legal and OSI?

Every day we hear more stories about the situation faced by school workers and how the UFT leadership has let them down while principals have full power to use DOE legal and OSI against them. We have seen so many similar stories, we can see how the wheels operate in the minds of so many principals, who have DOE Legal, OSI and an enormous range of weapons.

What do school workers have? A UFT that says you are lucky to have a job or a paycheck no matter how humiliated you are -- until you find you don't have a job. No matter how much we bring it up, the union leadership refuses to consider the attacks on so many schools staffs as part of a plan and treat each situation individually, thus leaving people isolated -- unless they come to a group like MORE which at the very least can offer some sense of collective action. Which is exactly what we intend to do a week from 3-6PM today at the Dark Horse - 17 Murray St. just a few blocks from the Tweedle dees.

To illustrate the point here are a few powerful recent articles by Arthur at NYC Educator,

• Your Health Care Circa 2017 
• Summer Assignment--Wake the Sleeping Giant
• Forging the UFT Unity Wllderness 
• Day by Day in the ATR

and James Eterno at ICE

• JOHN BOWNE HS PRINCIPAL SUED AGAIN 
• WE DON'T NEED A CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION NOR MORE MONEY FOR COPE

Even if not under investigation or even if your principal loves you, things can change on a dime, as our friends at CPE1 found out when they were hit between the eyes by an evil principal.

Mayoral control has not worked out for anyone, yet the entire world seems to think not having a democratic measures of control over the schools by people with the biggest stake is a good thing. And that includes our own union which has supported variations of mayoral control forever.

Collectively we have learned many lessons over the years. And I use "we" in the broadest terms to include many of you out there who blog and read the blogs.

Next Weds - July 12 -- MORE is doing its annual summer series event to try to bring some order and sharing to this collective knowledge base. Do we have easy answers? No. First we have to ask the questions - at the very least to prep people for what they may face. Like I hear even experienced people wonder why for a fairly minor issue they are removed from the school while others with more serious issues stay in school and even in the classroom but don't realize how much say the principal has in that decision.

What can you do when the new principal - depending on how competent - engages in actions clearly designed to wipe out the experienced staff? They have so many weapons and you have pea shooters and the UFT so often absent -- ie, see cozy relationship between your district rep and the district supe?

If you have something to offer, or want to hear the stories of others, come on down.

The Democratic Party’s Deadly Dead-End – Consortiumnews

Nicholas J S Davies: In 2002, when Margaret Thatcher was asked to name her “greatest political achievement,” she smiled her best cat-that-swallowed-the-canary smile and purred, “Tony Blair and New Labour.” The true measure of the Reagan-Thatcher counterrevolution was not how Reagan and Thatcher changed their own parties’ policies but that they remade their opposition in their own image and thus marginalized progressive politics for a generation in both their countries, clearing the way for the neoliberal transformation of society....

The real danger of the Ossoff fiasco is the same one the corporate Democrats keep creating and recreating for their party, that their slick, deceptive brand of politics is so tainting their identity that it will undermine real progressive Democratic candidates in 2018 and beyond. After a generation of corporate politics, it is vital that both journalists and the public learn to tell the difference between corrupt corporate Republicans and Democrats on the one hand and genuine, well-motivated grassroots candidates on the other.

Thanks to Michael Fiorillo for the torrent of articles on the Democratic Party. This one is a doozy. Long but worth reading in depth.

https://consortiumnews.com/2017/07/03/the-democratic-partys-deadly-dead-end/  or below the break.

July 12: Hard-Core UFT Contract Discussions

Do you feel you'd like to set your UFT contrato on fire? Don't do it yet.

Mike Schirtzer and I will be hosting a discussion on strategies for defending the contract even if your UFT rep tells you it is a waste of time. Now we don't have all the answers but we do think that having brainstorming sessions with other rank and filers who may be in the same or similar positions is a worthwhile way to develop strategies.

If you are a chapter leader, there will be others there. If you have a collaborationist chapter leader, is there a path to getting around that?

Can the chapter leader be toppled in the May 2018 chapter elections? MORE will be assisting those who want to run. And if you are planning to do so, this summer session is a good start.

The MORE announcement on facebook:

Hardcore Contract Training

Is your chapter facing abusive administrators? Are there contract violations? Do you want to engage your members in the fight back? Bring challenges that you and your colleagues have at your school, we will share suggestions based on our experiences. Veteran chapter leaders and UFT Executive Board members that have led successful actions and grievances will be joining us.

2017 MORE-UFT Summer Series Event #1

Dark Horse

17 Murray St, New York, New York 10007

 

Memo from the RTC: Adolph Hitler Coming to Rockaway -Order Tickets NOW

The Rockway Theatre Company's ambitious production of Mel Brooks' The Producers enters the intense faze of preparations for the July 21 opening. There is a laugh a minute  and I get to play the judge who sends them up the river.

You can't beat going to a show at Fort Tilden with the sounds of the ocean a few hundred yards away and a wonderful beach if you come early. And tickets are only $20 ($15 for seniors) with free parking for a Broadway quality show. This will sell out quickly (some dates are already sold out, so move fast).

Here are the dates and times:
Friday, Saturday nights - July, 21, 22, 28, 29, Aug. 5, 6 at 8PM.
Sunday matinees - July 23, 30, Aug. 6 at 2 PM
Thursday eve, July 27 at 8 PM ( possibly the best time to get tickets.)

Ways to get tickets:

• Call (718) 374-6400 
• Web: http://www.rockawaytheatrecompany.org
• Email me and I'll have tickets reserved in your name

My last article on the RTC Published in The Wave - June 30, 2017
 https://www.rockawave.com/articles/memo-from-the-rtc-26/

How the producers look while casting Springtime for Hitler. Photo courtesy of the RTC’s Facebook page.

Memo from the RTC: Adolph Hitler Coming to Rockaway
By Norm Scott

I finally managed to attend a rehearsal of the upcoming Rockaway Theatre Company production of Mel Brooks’ hysterical “The Producers,” opening July 21 and running for three weekends (plus one Thursday performance). One thing I can tell you is that the actor playing the actor playing Hitler in the play within a play that was doomed to fail, but didn’t, will not be wearing a blond wig, nor resemble any current politician. (See my review of the recent Shakespeare in the Park production of Julius Caesar - https://tinyurl.com/y7ykqmjx).

In a bold move, Director John Gilleece has executed a brilliant stroke in casting Erech Holder-Hetmeyre, a triple threat young actor from Brooklyn, who has already become a favorite of the RTC in his year and a half of involvement in shows like A Chorus Line and La Cage Aux Folles (See Erech sing at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y67Wc55O97Y).

Even though we are just short of a month to opening, the play is taking shape and the massive cast is superb. Okay, modesty forces me to say I am part of the cast but have such a simple role I shouldn’t mess it up. (But if there’s a way I will find it.) I’ll dive more deeply into the development and the all-star cast of the show over the next few weeks. Theater people familiar with the play – a musical, as opposed to the legendary movie starring Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder – know the challenges of building the set and managing the changes that have to take place throughout the show and master builder Tony Homsey and his crew of Cliff Hesse and Frank Verderame have been equal to the task. (Unfortunately I was not available to provide much assistance to the crew this time.) Overseeing much of the behind the scenes action of the production are two young ladies in college, and a young man in high school, all of whom began with the RTC as teens and are now part of the 3rd generation. I will do a future feature on the remarkable young people spending much of their summer working with the RTC.

Elephant Man Auditions
Director Frank Caiati held auditions last week for the show, which is opening in September. “Edgy comes to Rockaway,” said a guy I met on the ferry who was quite impressed the RTC was taking this on. Last week The Wave had a great piece on Frank and his concept for the show and also his call for newcomers to come out and audition. Frank has been with RTC for about half his life and is part of the 2nd generation of late 20s-early 30s who are playing an increasingly prominent role in all aspects of the RTC.

RTC singers preform at RAA: Here, There and Everywhere

The Rockaway Theatre Company and the Rockaway Artist Alliance occupy buildings at Fort Tilden with a parking lot separating them. Sometimes in the past the twains didn’t always meet. So last Sunday afternoon, locals who skipped the beach were treated to a wonderful performance by a gaggle of RTC performers who put on a review at the Rockaway Artist Alliance organized by James Dalid and Gabrielle Mangano, both of whom have their feet in both groups. So we not only got to see a wonderful photography and painting exhibit of Rockaway based themes, but a professional level exhibit of the amazing talents embedded in both the RTC and the RAA. More important was the coming together of performance and art.

Did Charters Blink When Faced with Demise of Mayoral Control?

Acting to avert a leadership crisis in New York City’s schools amid a legislative stall in the Capitol, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo intends to call a special session of the State Legislature as early as Wednesday and introduce a bill that would extend mayoral control of the city’s educational system for one year.The session would be focused on granting Mayor Bill de Blasio another year of control over the city’s schools and their 1.1 million students, according to an administration official.

Andrew Cuomo to Call Special Session to Extend Mayoral Control of Schools - The New York Times

Mr. Flanagan and his Republican colleagues did pass several bills this month to extend mayoral control, but each bill included an increase in charter schools around the state, something that doomed them in the Democrat-dominated Assembly. Charter schools would not be addressed in the bill sent by the governor, according to the administration official.

Cuomo will introduce one year extension with No charter strings attached. And we know the hold charters have over Cuomo --- that he is brokering this to avoid an end to mayoral control which is a key to ed deformers, means the charters have blinked -- which by the way I predicted when I called in to the Brian Lehrer show and he asked me about the impact on charters if mayoral control ended.
If local communities had school boards and some control over the schools, that would let some air out of the charter balloon.


Here's the link:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/26/nyregion/cuomo-special-session-city-schools.html

Also worth checking out:

Leonie Haimson comment on the article below:
Good piece though I disagree that charter schools have arisen to replace the lack of community input- instead their rise has happened in large part as a result of shutting out parent & community voice.

Some key points before a full read:

A May 2017 Quinnipiac Poll, consistent with other polls on the subject, found that “Only 21 percent of New York City voters say Mayor Bill de Blasio ‘should retain complete control of the public schools,’ while 68 percent say he should ‘share control of the public schools with other elected leaders.’” However, this has not been acknowledged by the mayor or taken seriously by the media. This probably goes to show the power of the corporate-educational alliance so brilliantly forged by former Mayor Bloomberg in his takeover of the schools back in 2002.
When I listen to Mayor de Blasio decry the corruption and chaos of the old local elected school boards, I see it as an attack on the ability of communities of color to run their own affairs.
The idea that decentralization of a bloated school bureaucracy and local community control of neighborhood schools is presented as a given unfairly cuts off any serious discussion of what really happened with the community control movement and how it was made dysfunctional. It cuts off any serious discussion of the role of parents and communities of color in determining education.

Opinion

Mayoral Control Debate Ignores Need for Community Control

June 26, 2017 | by Angelo Falcón

http://www.gothamgazette.com/opinion/7024-mayoral-control-debate-ignores-need-for-community-control

Chronicling 40 Years of Democratic Party Decline

Raising money from Wall Street, from the drug companies, from health insurance companies, the energy companies, kept [Democrats] from their main contrasting advantage over the Republicans, which is, in FDR’s parlance, “The Democratic Party is the party of working families, Republicans are the party of the rich.” That flipped it completely and left the Democrats extremely vulnerable.... Ralph Nader

There's a lot of Democratic Party soul searching articles since last week's election loss in Georgia. I'm going to post a few of the interesting ones.

Love him or hate him, Ralph Nader makes a lot of sense in this historical analysis of the 40 year history of Democratic Party decline.

The progressive Intercept has an interview with Nader by

Jon Schwarz

where he chronicles the stages in Democratic Party decline beginning almost 40 years ago:

Here are some of his Milestones of Democratic Party decline:

• 1979: The party decides to compete for corporate funds with Republicans. They began to judge their challenge to Republicans by how much money they raised. 
•  
• don’t run a 50-state [presidential] campaign. If you don’t run a 50-state campaign, number one you’re strengthening the opposing party in those states you’ve abandoned, so they can take those states for granted and concentrate on the states that are in the grey area.
•  
• they decided to campaign by TV, with political consultants influencing them and getting their 15-20 percent cut.
•  
• the labor unions began getting weak, weak in numbers and weak in leadership. They began shelling out huge money to the Democrats for television. And as they became weaker they lost their grassroots mobilization on behalf of the Democratic Party.
•  
• We’re going to get you a living wage. We’re going to get a lean defense, a better defense, and get some of this money and start rebuilding your schools and bridges and water and sewage systems and libraries and clinics. Instead of saying that, they campaign by saying “Can you believe how bad the Republicans are?” Now once they say that, they trap their progressive wing, because their progressive wing is the only segment that’s going to change the party to be a more formidable opponent. Because they say to their progressive wing, “You’ve got nowhere to go, get off our back.”
• And this went right into the scapegoating of the last twenty years. “Oh, it’s Nader, oh, it’s the Koch Brothers, oh, it’s the electoral college, oh, it’s misogyny, oh, it’s redneck deplorables.” They never look at themselves in the mirror.
•  
• they could never contrast themselves with the Republicans on military foreign policy – because they were like them. They never question the military budget, they never question the militarized foreign policy,
• 
  
• Nobody gets fired. They have defeat after defeat, and they can’t replace their defeated compadres with new, vigorous, energetic people. Labor unions, the same thing. They [stay in positions] into their eighties no matter how screwed up the union is. You don’t get fired no matter how big the loss is, unlike in the business community, where you get fired.
•  
• they make sure by harassing progressive third parties that the third party never pushes them.  

Read the entire piece below the break:

Politico - Undemocratic Mayoral Control Survives as Charters Get Major Objective - Ability to Hire Cheaper, Uncertified Teachers

SUNY is now planning to create “an alternative teacher certification pathway to charter schools.” The regulations represent a major first step to resolving an existential threat to the city’s large and powerful charter sector, which relies heavily on young and uncertified teachers, some right out of college, to staff their dozens of schools. Moskowitz, who demonstrated her power in the Capitol with a push to pass a sweeping pro-charter bill in 2014, has been advocating for a fix to teacher certification problems for several years..... .......Politico-- Charter sector secures win in Albany, clearing a path for deal on mayoral control

Eva gets her teachers

Politico reports that Eva gets what she wants -- charters will be able to hire uncertified teachers right out of school. What Politico and the press in general don't report is the context -- why don't they question the concept of uncertified and fundamentally inexperienced teachers and the impact on students?

Charters have trouble competing for teachers and have to pay people more than they want --- by basically being able to drag people off the street they can control their salaries and cover their massive turnover rate --- none of this gets reported.

So for those who think mayoral control is dead, don't get out the stake -- Leonie points to some history:

NYC Public School Parents

Some fact checking & historical context on community school boards and what happened last time Mayoral control lapsed - 
If you follow the debate on mayoral control, it would seem everyone wants it --- except the public, parents and teachers -- the real stakeholders in the system. In the real world, the ed deformers have the major stake in keeping mayoral control, as does the UFT. And politicians. The press goes along. If you followed my post - I Enter Mayoral Control Debate on @BrianLehrer on WNYC--
after my call to the Brian Lehrer program on WNYC where I made the case for local school boards and the case against mayoral control (I didn't have time to make the full case) -- note the surprise in Brian's voice over the fact that people would support the old school board system -- albeit with fixes.

The obvious fact is that there is an attack from the massive ed deform machine on democracy-- elected school boards because they know they can't get very with them in the way.

Read Josh Karan's proposals to return to a rational governance process on Leonie's blog:

Josh Karan: an opportunity to revise Mayoral control and what should happen next

It was nice seeing Josh at the Skinny Awards dinner the other night. I'm going to repost Josh's entire piece over the weekend.

Brian Lehrer commented that the points I brought up were not being debated anywhere -- and I wonder why Brian would not do a segment on the old system with a serious, not frivolous, critique so we can explore real alternatives to mayoral control instead of accepting it as a given. Brian should invite Josh, Leonie, Lisa Donlan and others on his who to do a segment on school governance alternatives to mayoral control. What's the point of his repeating and endorsing the talking points of the ed deformers?

Mayoral control will not die here in NYC as long as the UFT supports it - though there are some misgivings, they are deathly afraid of local control -- they had to work very hard to try to keep local boards in their orbit. It is time for our people on the Ex Bd to begin to pressure the UFT leadership on this -- and I do get that these are high school people who would remain under a centralized system -- but maybe not -- is there room for local high schools?

Some of my fellow bloggers have commented:

ICEUFT Blog

MAYORAL CONTROL MIGHT DIE A VERY TEMPORARY DEATH -

The Doenuts Blog

Mayoral Control is History (Again) - .

Leonie points out, support for mayoral control around the nation is waning: Monday, June 19, 2017

Arne Duncan still arguing for mayoral control -- when the trend is in the opposite direction

In Chicago, there may soon be an election for a school board, which would take away control from Rahm Emanuel -- this is signficant since Chicago was the first place in the nation to impose mayoral control c. 1995 -- 22 years of hell is enough. Not to say that the deformer won't toss massive money into controlling every local election like they recently did in LA and other places -- and they are winning those elections, but at least we get to compete.

Why does the liberal press like NPR and Brian Lehrer totally ignore the issue of why it is OK for Long Island, etc to elect school boards, but not the cities?

Leonie also published this article on the NYCParents listserve:

NYC Voters Don't Want Mayoral Control Of Schools, Quinnipiac University Polls Have Found

https://poll.qu.edu/new-york-city/release-detail?ReleaseID=2469June 22, 2017 - NYC Voters Don't Want Mayoral Control Of Schools, Quinnipiac University Polls Have Found PDF format

Three Quinnipiac University polls over the last two years show New York City voters oppose by wide margins mayoral control of the public schools.

The independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University Poll asks, "Do you think the mayor should retain complete control of the public schools or share control of the public schools with other elected leaders?"

Opposition to mayoral control is more than 2-1, even topping 3 - 1, in each of three surveys:

• May 12, 2015 - Opposed 60 - 28 percent;
• August 2, 2016 - Opposed 65 - 23 percent;
• May 18, 2017 - Opposed 68 - 21 percent.

"The pundits and the experts may believe that mayoral control of the public schools is the best way to proceed, but they haven't convinced the people," said Maurice Carroll, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll.

In each survey cited, Quinnipiac University surveyed more than 960 New York City voters with margins of error that were less than +/- 3.3 percentage points. The surveys were conducted by live interviewers calling landlines and cell phones.

The Quinnipiac University Poll, directed by Douglas Schwartz, Ph.D., conducts public opinion surveys nationwide and in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Iowa and Colorado as a public service and for research.

Visit poll.qu.edu or www.facebook.com/quinnipiacpoll

Call (203) 582-5201, or follow us on Twitter @QuinnipiacPoll.

Leonie Haimson

Executive Director
Class Size Matters

Here's the Skinny - Where World Class Ed Deform Resisters Gather

Yesterday I was walking east on 43rd Street on the way back from seeing a matinee performance of the soon to close Sweat -- a wonderful play that pretty much explains the Trump victory -- when I felt a tap on my shoulder. The guy looked familiar. "Thanks for all your help," he said. And I realized he was one of the amazing CPE1 parents who were honored Tuesday night at the Skinny Awards dinner (he wasn't there so I at first had a hard time placing him but he was at most of the hearings for Marilyn Martinez). It was the 9th Skinny Awards event and I've been at every one. Just a random slice of the remarkable crew from CPE1.

Arthur Goldstein has an excellent comprehensive report on the Skinny Awards run by Leonie Haimson to raise money for Class Size Matters. So I won't repeat all the honorees he lists but you should read his report: At the Skinnies.

And note that the draft beers we had were at a Happy Hour and all 3 beers (Fred Smith was with us) cost the same as that $14 beer Arthur bought me at the Hilton during the 2014 NYSUT convention. Maybe I'll get to buy him what will probably be a $20 beer at 2019 NYSUT.

We planned to sit together but since Leonie had to find a new restaurant 3 days before the event, sitting was a bit convoluted. Gloria Brandman and I ended up at the table with the CPE1 parents and teachers and had a blast. Catlin Preston, freed rubber room detainee after a year and a half, was at the table. I sat next to a young lady who just completed her first year of teaching at CPE1. She was one of the teachers hired by deposed principal Garg who stood with the teachers and parents who fought her, thus risking her career if Garg had remained. The vet teachers at CPE1 say she is developing into a super teacher.

Partying with the CPE1 crew made the evening even more special than usual.

Leonie of course is the heroine of so much of the resistance to ed deform over the past 15 years and though not publicized enough, her husband and major backer, Michael Oppenheimer, is one of the leading voices on climate change, often appearing on PBS and quoted in the NY Times. Read his Wiki and imagine what a power couple he and Leonie are. It is always great to touch base with Michael, even if once a year. (I did invite him to come visit Rockaway while it's still there.)

Lawyer Arthur Schwartz who was one of the honorees had a previous engagement but did make it there near the end of the evening, just as the belly dancer came out --- you sly guy Arthur.

The Townsend Harris super student journalists were award winners too -- how interesting that 2 of the 4 winners were related to abusive principals.

Dianne Ravitch was there as usual and she told me about her joke tweet urging Trump to drop a super bomb on North Korea and how seriously some took it. So she took it down. Jeez. Sometimes I get the annoyance over political correctness and how it riles people.

Regent Chancellor Betty Rosa was there and just think of that --- Meryl Tisch's successor came to the Skinnies -- she was honored a few years ago, along with Cathy Cashin.

Here are a few pics I took. I do have video of the belly dancer but I leave that for private viewing.

Photos below

I Enter Mayoral Control Debate on @BrianLehrer on WNYC

I just got off the phone after appearing on Brian Lehrer show (one of my must listens every day) on WNYC defending local school boards and attacking mayoral control. Brian seemed surprised to have 3 teachers on the line to support local school boards, given the narrow and biased debate. They picked me to rep the group.

Here's the embed code for the 33 minute segment -- I'm 23+ minutes in:

Brian Lehrer

I tried to make as many points as I could based on recent blogs by Patrick Sullivan, Leonie Haimson and James Eterno -- all links are in my post, Did UFT Boycott DeB Mayoral Control Rally? Patrick Sullivan: What Would Be The Impact of End of Mayoral Control

Here are some quick points I made:

• Local control was only pre-k to 8. High schools were never decentralized.
• My district had corruption and patronage and I and others consistently opposed that but we had a monthly forum in the neighborhood where parents, teachers and community members could make their points, in addition to having school board elections to challenge their control.
• There is much greater corruption under mayoral control - as we've seen over the past 15 years -- add up the money lost in the districts and compare.
• The 1996 law put curbs on the districts -- more accountability.
• We could control the machine politics with more oversight.

When Brian asked me about how charters would deal with that I pointed out why isn't their buying of politicians more corrupt than what ever local school boards did?

Charters in no way want local control because most communities don't want charters. Ben Max of Gotham Gazette, who was on with Brian disagreed with me and said some neighborhoods want charters.

I disagree -- if we had local school boards, the people who supposedly want charters would be involved in controlling the public schools and would have the ability to make the kinds of changes they want.

Charters have used mayoral control as their main instrument. Since de Blasio is not in their pocket, they are unhappy, though from what I've seen he has given them almost everything they want.

Later I got this tweet from Ben Max:

Ben Max @TweetBenMax	Jun 21
@NormScott1 @BrianLehrer good talking with you earlier, Norm. interesting points. isn't this charter point negated by the state, though?

I replied:

Norm Scott   @NormScott1 Jun 21 @BrianLehrer charters fear local bds.@BrianLehrer Parents that supposedly want charters would control public schools and negate charter or run them.

 charters fear local bds.@BrianLehrer Parents that supposedly want charters would control public schools and negate charter or run them.

Some parents will want to be involved in local school board. I can also see highly funded charter school supporters running in some crucial districts and charterizing the entire district, though I believe they don't want everyone -- so maybe select the juicy stuff for themselves. So there could be a downside to this too.