Videos, April 25: Aixa, Lisa, Norm, Leonie, Simon, Parent and Student

I did a quick mix of two sections of the PEP with people we know plus a parent and student fighting to save their school, which the PEP voted to close a few hours later.

https://vimeo.com/270083192




https://vimeo.com/268563399

Clear Evidence of Racism in NYPD Based on Marijuana Arrests - NYTimes

Government surveys have shown that black and white people use marijuana at roughly the same rate... 87 percent of those arrested in recent years have been black or Hispanic, a proportion that has remained roughly the same for decades,

among neighborhoods where people called about marijuana at the same rate, the police almost always made arrests at a higher rate in the area with more black residents...

officers in the precinct covering Canarsie arrested people on marijuana possession charges at a rate more than four times as high as in the precinct that includes Greenpoint, despite residents calling 311, the city’s help line, and 911 to complain about marijuana at the same rate, police data show. The Canarsie precinct is 85 percent black. The Greenpoint precinct is 4 percent black....

Black and Hispanic people are the main targets of arrests even in mostly white neighborhoods. In the precinct covering the southern part of the Upper West Side, for example, white residents outnumber their black and Hispanic neighbors by six to one, yet seven out of every 10 people charged with marijuana possession in the last three years are black or Hispanic, state data show. In the precinct covering Park Slope, Brooklyn, where a fifth of the residents are black or Hispanic, three-quarters of those arrested on marijuana charges are black or Hispanic.

 Whenever I get into a discussion on race, the marijuana arrest racial disparities are the strongest argument I've been able to use to prove deep racism exists. This NYT front pager from Monday, May 14 blows the lid off all the arguments used to defend NYPD policy. And it blows the lid off the bullshit de Blasio liberal cover - to such an extent he came out calling for reforms - as if he didn't know. He is the worst kind of phony liberal.

Surest Way to Face Marijuana Charges in New York: Be Black or ...

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/13/nyregion/marijuana-arrests-nyc-race.html

2 days ago - There are many ways to get arrested on marijuana charges, but one pattern .... the headline: Wide Racial Gap For Pot Arrests In New York City.

Why We Choose to Leave MORE - John Giambalvo and Mike Schirtzer

Why We Choose to Leave MORE
By John Giambalvo and Mike Schirtzer

We became involved with teacher unionism after a few years of working in the schools as a result of our classroom and school-level experiences where we saw public school teachers and students being cheated out of the resources needed to provide them with an adequate education. Sparked by the general lack of response from our union, the United Federation of Teachers, our involvement led us to join the Movement of Rank and File Educators (MORE), an organization that we believed would respond to concerns of UFT members by allowing them, as well as members of their school community, a space to voice concerns about our schools within the political structures of our union and the Department of Education of the City of New York.

We joined MORE during a time when few voices within the UFT represented the needs and interests of our colleagues.

We joined under the premise that our union had the potential to be the most powerful vehicle of change for teachers, students and families in New York City and beyond.

We joined MORE to create a more assertive union, where member voice was the greatest priority and, when heard, would lead it to action for the entire education community.

We joined MORE to strengthen the UFT for the betterment of the teachers, students and families we serve. We were aware that the UFT apparatus, under the almost 60 year stewardship of the Unity Caucus, had developed more than a bit of sclerosis, had not been adequately serving the needs of its members, and that that power structure needed to be challenged from the ranks. We believed MORE offered the potential to engage in that challenge.

We joined MORE and were faced with working with people with many different political backgrounds and ideologies, including some differing from our views. We made concerted efforts to function collectively with other members of MORE to improve conditions in our schools. We learned the basics of their ideologies and did our best to find middle ground. We genuinely believed we were learning to struggle together in order to improve conditions, especially for those who were affected by hurtful policies on a daily basis.

We joined MORE to prioritize making connections with teachers throughout all five boroughs; to construct and devote our work towards an agenda that would have wide appeal to a majority of members of our union who have been shut out of influence. In order to be successful MORE would have to, not only offer a way forward by leading in a new direction, but do so by being responsive and interacting with UFT members in our own schools and beyond to transform a union that operated in an absolute top-down manner.

We have been disappointed.

Unfortunately, we’ve seen that MORE has been increasingly dominated by one group with a definite pre-formed unyielding ideology. We’ve come to understand over time that these voices do not represent the needs of most of our members, or even our students or parents. MORE has devolved into an organization that uses anti-democratic and secretive methods to push the agenda of this faction and marginalize, isolate and push vocal opponents out of the caucus.

There were many opportunities for the members of MORE to analyze the results of our work in order to determine the course of the group’s direction, but it has chosen not to do so. There were meetings with varying topics, causes endorsed, social media/blog data, and the results of the 2016 UFT election which provided data on voter turnout by division and district which clearly showed a much higher turnout in the Queens high schools (36.4% compared to 12.8% in the Bronx and 14.5 in Manhattan, boroughs where key leaders of the current leadership in MORE are based.)

Queens high school voter turnout was clearly the crucial difference in winning the high school seats but admitting that would be counter to the narrative being pushed.

This turnout was mainly due to the organizing efforts of two key MORE members. (Ed Note: Details and analysis of 2016 high school elections at http://iceuftblog.blogspot.com/2016/07/district-by-district-breakdown-shows_3.html?m=1).

This should have been an important lesson for MORE about the kind of activism by some more members that reaches out and resonates with rank and file teachers. Yet, these people are the very people who are being pushed out of MORE. One of these people is the chapter leader of the largest high school in Queens with 300 UFT members and an elected UFT Executive Board member.

The other was a former chapter leader of a closed school who led a valiant battle to keep his school open but who was forced to become an ATR. One of the most respected voices in the UFT for almost 30 years who developed hundreds of contacts in schools all around the city, and served for a decade on the UFT Executive Board. He too is being forced out of MORE.

Along with one of us, two of the four MORE Executive Board elected high school representatives are being pushed out of MORE. What does this mean for MORE as an organization when it feels activists with this history and stature and the overwhelming support of their colleagues don’t belong?

Instead of revisiting different petitions we advocated for or addressing the way we have utilized our positions on the UFT Executive Board to create voice for colleagues, the small group taking control of MORE chose to purposely ignore these results, criticized us, and attempted to micro-manage us over issues like class size and the defense of ATRS and rank and file UFT members over abusive principals because this work did not fit their preordained agendas.

Attempts to build a large, robust organization, including the creation of newsletters produced for wide distribution, planning meetings with topics related to school-based issues, like the nuts and bolts of enforcing the contract or running for chapter leader, and attempts to compete in union elections (both at the chapter level and for citywide officers), have been met with obstruction, in-fighting, frustrating layers of bureaucracy and the gradual disappearance of democratic decision making.

All this is a direct result of the group’s lack of democracy and failure to connect with members in our schools.

Predictably, instead of growing into a member driven movement, MORE has seen its numbers dwindle to levels rivaling our earliest beginnings in 2012. Instead of examining and discussing the reasons for the shrinking of MORE, such as the inability to develop a newsletter and distribution network or even a regular handout at the UFT Delegate Assembly, the constant excuse has been that all the problems in MORE have been due to some rude emails by a few people.

In fact, dozens of people have abandoned MORE over the years due to the rigid ideological framework imposed in MORE. Their “solution” to the crisis in MORE has been to actively move to push out even more members who do not go along with their line, many of them older and experienced in union politics, obviously a threat to their ability to win over new and inexperienced teachers who enter MORE to their ideological line. Rather than engage in discussion, including historical reference and analysis, they want to promote their own political positions, positions that are rarely open to debate.

It is especially difficult for us to remain with a group that no longer honors the principles of democracy. There was a glaring lack of due process involved in our recent suspension from the MORE listserves and the caucus’ steering committee, which just happened to remove our ability to vote on crucial decisions concerning the direction they wanted to steer MORE in. There is no provision in the by-laws from suspension from steering.

This decision began as a disagreement over political process and the tone of some emails. The suspensions were decided without either of us being present. Just four people out of nine on the committee created, ex-post facto, new rules. Since MORE is on record as opposing suspensions and calling for restorative justice for students, calls for the use of restorative justice practices in lieu of suspension in our case were voted down.

As union members, social justice activists, and New York City public school teachers, we cannot compromise the principle of due process. We must expect from ourselves the rights we demand for our co-workers and our students.

The loss of trust in the people who made these decisions will be difficult to repair. The realization that a caucus dedicated to the principles of social and restorative justice but can no longer muster enough respect for basic due process portends a future for the group that is far too troubling for us to be part of.

It is simply not acceptable to be involved with an organization that does not hold itself to the very values of democracy upon which it is premised and for which we have both worked.

There are many good people in and around MORE and we are proud of our past work with them. But too many priorities have changed over time, both for the group and for ourselves. We seek out the serious work of helping to build a more robust union, one that can affect policy as it improves the conditions under which we teach and our students learn. We have concluded MORE as a caucus is not capable or willing to build this movement. In order to work with rank and file UFT members and other stakeholders, we feel it’s better we separate ourselves now. We are leaving the organization and disassociate our names from it.

We still intend to spend time learning from our from past successes and failures in future endeavors we pursue.

There is a Janus decision on the horizon, a well financed effort by corporations and interest groups to undermine unions, and a relentless effort to privatize our schools by forcing out veteran UFT members and closing schools in our poorest neighborhoods, which harms our children of color and immigrant children. It is imperative that our union fights harder than ever against these forces.

We are dedicated to defending members unfairly under attack, ensuring our children are provided a great public education in well resourced schools, fighting for racial integration of schools, defending immigrant, African-American, Latino, Muslim, and LGBTQ union members and students. We will continue our work in our chapters, Delegate Assemblies and Executive Board meetings to educate and activate union members, defend public education, demand due process for our students and colleagues, and advance the cause of labor unions for all workers.

In Solidarity,

Mike Schirtzer: UFT Executive Board, UFT Delegate, Social Studies Teacher

John Giambalvo: Social Studies teacher, Coordinator of Student Activities

=======
John Giambalvo will is completing 18 years of service teaching social studies. He teaches in a Queens high school.

Mike Schirtzer, is a member of the UFT  Executive Board and a delegate from his school. He has been teaching social studies at Leon Goldstein HS in Brooklyn for 11 years

*=========
District 71 Manhattan High Schools: 683 votes= 14.5% of total HS turnout

District 72 Bronx High Schools: 594 votes=12.6%

District 73 Brooklyn High Schools: 729 votes=15.5%

District 76 Brooklyn-Staten Island High Schools: 984 votes=20.9%

District 77 Queens High Schools: 1712 votes=36.4%

Schneiderman Resigned While Queens Principal Reassigned After Sexual Harassment Lawsuits Totaling $600,000

Mr. Kwait is “one of those guys who I can’t figure why it took so long to remove from his position,” Mr. Tand said. “They seemed to look the other way until given no choice.” In an email sent to the faculty, he called Ms. Prettitore and four other women the “five star lesbian club,” according to the lawsuit. She said the Department of Education did nothing to act on her complaints. That case was settled in September for $130,000.

Mr. Kwait was transferred “to a central office where he will be closely supervised and will no longer be permitted to manage other employees,”  ....NYT

What are they going to? Put a lock on his zipper?

How One Person Action Can Make a Major Difference - Nikol Pashinyan, Armenia

One day will we see a similar figure come out of the woodwork in the UFT to topple the Unity machine? How about a walk from UFT borough office to borough office.

Can the actions of one person spark a movement for great change? Ghandi? What about Castro? Mao? Lenin? Well, the story in Armenia is relatively small stuff and Nikol Pashinyan doesn't seem to be driven by ideologies. He went from zero to 80 in about 2 months so the faster the rise the faster the fall after he walked across a section of Armenia.

This is a powerful story, even if it ends up badly - and it well might, given that one person led movement are subject to the person being corrupted - or assassinated - or besmirched. And of course we don't know what we don't know yet. When he was young he stood up, often alone. His hot headedness turned people off. But he kept learning. A story worth watching.

Did Marx Get it Right? The View From China - NY Times

While Mr. Xi has tried to woo foreign investors, he has also tried carve a distinctive ideology — part old-school Communist values, part earthy appeals to ancient Chinese tradition — that inoculates China from the tumult of free markets and liberal democracy. The Chinese Communist Party these days rarely mentions class struggle, and has embraced markets since Deng Xiaoping’s era in the 1980s....Even so, leaders insist that China stays above the ruthless rules of capitalism. Above all, they emphasize that Marxism means keeping their one-party rule. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/05/world/asia/china-karl-marx-xi-jinping.ht

An interesting article on the celebration of the 200th birthday of Karl Marx in China called Marx Got it Right.

Is China capitalist? State capitalist? Socialist? A dictatorship?

I know a hell of a lot of people who think Marx did get it right. Smart people. In fact many of my colleagues in UFT politics over the past 50 years do think Marx got it right. All their different sects, tendencies, parties don't necessarily agree or they differ on the outcomes. See my recent post: On Sectarianism One of the Deadly Sins of the Left one of the trending posts over the past week.

Teachers and Parents of Puerto Rico Launch Historic Strike & Boycott Against Standardized Testing

Mercedes Martinez and the FMPR teacher union's resistance to privatization is the subject of this Jesse Hagopian piece. Ed Notes and ICEUFT has supported the FMPR for 10 years since their pullout from the AFT and their subsequent strike though Angel Gonzalez, who was one of the founders of the pre-cursor of GEM along with myself and John Lawhead. (Use the search box on the sidebar to read background pieces going back go 2008.) In recent years, MORE has been a big supporter of the FMPR.

Teachers and Parents of Puerto Rico Launch Historic Strike & Boycott Against Standardized Testing

Spread the word: “We want a just, equitable world for our children.”

by

Jesse Hagopian

Today, my third grade son is supposed to take the Common Core high-stakes test, “Smarter Balanced,” at his school here in Seattle. He decided, however, that he would rather do a research project about a leader who has helped to make the world better. So my wife and I are writing the opt out letter and letting our son know that he will be allowed to continue with real learning today about an issue he cares a lot about.

I am going to suggest to him that for his project he research Mercedes Martinez, the president of the Teachers Federation of Puerto Rico (FMPR).

I conducted an extensive interview Mercedes that I will publish soon about her union’s massive struggle to defend the schools from an all-out neoliberal assault. The Financial Oversight and Management Board that was imposed on Puerto Rico by the United States has control of the island’s financial policy and is imposing disaster capitalist policies that are destroying working people’s lives and public schools. The austerity program that they are assaulting Puerto Rico with includes closing nearly 300 schools, laying off some 7,000 teachers, converting 10% of schools into privatized charters, and cutting public sector pensions.

Another part of the disaster capitalist approach to schooling has been to impose the same high-stakes standardized testing regime that we have in the mainland U.S. on the Puerto Rican education system.   High-stakes testing is being used to punish schools, students, and teachers. With teachers living in fear of the consequences low scores, they are forced to teach to the test, not the student, and it is causing a narrowing of the curriculum to what the corporate test makers believe is important to learn (For example, I don’t think the lessons of how to organize your community against corporate education reform will be on the next test). These tests are used as exit exams in high school and are denying thousands of students the chance to graduate. Perhaps worst of all, the testocracy has trained people to believe that wisdom is the ability to eliminate wrong answer choices on a multiple choice exam, rather than to be creative, empathize, or solve real life problems.

But a mighty movement of parents, students, and teachers has risen up to boycott and opt out of these tests as a way to reclaim public education and fight for authentic forms of assessment.

More at:

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/05/07/teachers-and-parents-puerto-rico-launch-historic-strike-boycott-against

Norm in The WAVE: School Scope - Teachers REVOLT and MEMO From the RTC

Both articles appeared in May 4, 2018 edition of The WAVE

School Scope:  Teachers REVOLT

By Norm Scott

We returned from a 9-day tour of Greece – mainland only – with so much new knowledge, knowledge I was too bored to absorb in school – to find the same education stories lurking when I left. Opt-out stories related to the awful reading tests were infecting the math tests and we’ll see if more parents opted their kids out as a result of the bad press the reading tests had.

The major stories were the spread of the fascinating red-state teacher revolts from West Virginia to Oklahoma to Kentucky to Arizona and now to the blue/purple state of Colorado. All these states had big tax cuts that turned education into banana republic territory. Teachers are not just talking about poverty level salaries but severely restricted working conditions. After all, poor working conditions for teachers lead to poor learning conditions for children. Given the nature of these states, many teachers live and work in the same community and students are often neighbors. So when on strike, the West Virginia teachers helped feed the kids, which garnered parent and community support, thus dashing the hopes of politicians (mostly Republican slugs) that they could turn the public against the teachers.

This is all tricky ground to navigate. An interesting aspect not being talked about is how these revolts come right out of the classrooms, instead of union leaderships at the state level. These are all right to work states which has weakened union leaders at the state level where the two main national unions, the NEA the AFT, operate. We have seen independent movements grow up in these states that are challenging the NEA and AFT, which In some places are competing with each other for members.

Now, will we see some kind of revolts here in NYC in the UFT where Unity Caucus has a lock? Interesting question which I will explore in future columns.

Norm is revolting every day at ednotesonline.com

Memo From the RTC:  Lovers and Other Strangers Opens This Weekend

By Norm Scott

The first adult play of the season finally takes the stage with the Rockaway Theatre Company production of the Renee Taylor/Joseph Bologna play, “Lovers and Other Strangers.” It was made into a movie in 1970 and garnered three Academy Award nominations, winning one for best original song. While I helped a bit with the crew building the sets, I haven’t been able to get over to rehearsal and know very little about the storylines. I hear there is a great cast and directors Peggy Page Press and Michael Wotypka always deliver a top-level production. There reputations are impeccable (other than that they gave me my only two serious speaking roles in two plays) and expect a wonderful experience. I am going to do the video on opening night – and also scam any snacks if they have a post-opening night celebration at the theater. I’ll tell you more in next week’s column.

Evening shows are at 8PM: May 4, 5, 11, 12, 18, 19. Sunday Matinees at 2PM: May 6, 13, 20.

For Reservations: Call RTC Hotline @ 718-374-6400

Or email rtcworkshops@gmail.com

Can Weak Unions Get Teachers More Money? - NY Times

In West Virginia, by contrast, the weakness of the unions left workers no choice but to take the lead. And the unions were in no position to resist. “I said the unions won’t start the movement, but if it hits critical mass, they’ll have to join in,” said Ryan Frankenberry, West Virginia director of the Working Families Party... NY Times

This is a very interesting piece sent to me by Abigail. I've been putting forth the theme for a long time that the stronger the union leadership -- ie. - Unity - the weaker the militancy from the rank and file because the union structure keeps a lid on and has the infrastructure to deflect or kill insurgencies.

An anti-Janus argument has been that unions control the workers and prevent wild-cat actions. I predicted that in NY State the politicians would set up post-Janus protections for the UFT since it is a partner and that process has begun with the Cuomo push to give  unions the right not to represent non-members. I bet more protection is to come - especially in the area of sole bargaining rights, which are weakened in right to work states. In other words, say of 20% of the UFT left and began to organize a counter union. In some states that is easier than others depending on state laws.s

This has been one of my major push backs within MORE against the proposal passed at the April 28 meeting to try to connect the red state insurgencies to the UFT by creating pressure from below to force the Unity/UFT leaders to engage in strike preparation. See South Bronx for complete proposal (MORE Presents It's Contract Demands of the UFT (Seriously)), which I will dissect in future posts (and probably get attacked within MORE for doing so.)

I have made the point that beside so many differences between NYC and West V et al (how many people in MORE have to work 2nd jobs to make ends meet?) the major difference is the weakness of union hierarchy (and due to right to work state laws, competition between the NEA and AFT for members) and the absolute strength of the UFT/Unity machine.

That in the face of this the MORE proposal also calls for MORE to not run in the 2019 UFT elections and focus instead on its strike prep campaign, only makes Unity even stronger. So go figure the logic of the MOREs.

The NYT article makes the point that the red state movements coming out of the rank and file are not sustainable without a union infrastructure and non-teaching union leaders somehow often just don't feel the pain and are less militant than classroom teachers who are fed up.

It is a must read:

Can Weak Unions Get Teachers More Money?

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/05/05/sunday-review/unions-teachers-money-strike.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fsunday

By Noam Scheiber

May 5, 2018

On Thursday, a weeklong walkout by teachers in Arizona resulted in a major victory, as the state’s governor approved a 10 to 20 percent wage increase and a significant investment in public schools.

That followed a roughly $6,000 salary increase that Oklahoma teachers won by threatening a walkout (and later following through). Which in turn came on the heels of a 5 percent raise for teachers in West Virginia, who had shut down schools for almost two weeks.

The teachers were intent on making a statement. “No funding, no future!” they chanted in Oklahoma. And their mantra seemed to carry the day.

That all this took place in so-called right-to-work states, where the power of unions is limited, raises some interesting questions: Do weak unions go hand-in-hand with more effective political activism? Would strong organized labor prevent teachers from getting their way? After all, in Wisconsin, a state where unions were famously powerful, public sector workers suffered a historic defeat at the hands of Gov. Scott Walker in 2011.

Yet the reality is closer to the opposite.

Strong unions tend to be effective at securing gains for workers. Weak unions often shortchange the rank and file. The data show that workers in heavily unionized areas earn a significant premium over workers in lightly unionized areas. And unless the teacher movements in West Virginia, Oklahoma and Arizona breathe new life into unions, or birth lasting institutions to replace them, they are likely to be short-lived.

Perhaps counterintuitively, one need look no further than Wisconsin to appreciate the benefits of strong unions. The measures enacted by Governor Walker — which ended teachers’ ability to bargain collectively over anything but base wages and required the unions to win annual “recertification” votes to officially stay intact — should by all rights have destroyed public employee unions across the state. By some measures they did. Membership collapsed after 2011, from half of public employees to just over one quarter within five years.

But in certain parts of the state, the unions have not only remained viable, they’ve become more aggressive.

Consider Racine, a city of about 75,000 in southeastern Wisconsin, whose teachers have voted overwhelmingly to retain their union.

Just before the Walker measures were enacted, the union secured a two-year extension of its favorable contract — with strict rules on class size, staffing and evaluation procedures. When that contract ended, the union saw to it that most of the key elements were inserted into a “handbook,” said Peter Knotek, a recent president. That included a requirement that the district consult with the union on policy changes.

In 2015, the president of the Racine school board tried to eliminate this provision. His effort narrowly failed, but the teachers were not so forgiving. The union recruited candidates for the nine school board seats and locked down eight of them in the next year’s election.

“We were pursuing an agenda of growing power independent of any other institution in the community,” Aaron Eick, one of Mr. Knotek’s successors as union president, said in an interview last week.

The teachers’ union in Racine is proof that strong unions provide more than just wage increases and protection from arbitrary bosses. They provide a kind of social glue — making members feel invested in a larger mission and promoting a sense of solidarity. Thanks to their involvement in the union, Racine teachers immediately understood the threat that Governor Walker’s plan posed. Hundreds trooped to the capital to resist it.

“Very scared and conservative people were like, ‘All right, fine,’” Mr. Eick said. “People who you never would have thought would participate” got involved.

In West Virginia, by contrast, it was years before teachers rose up to protest their eroding standard of living.

Beginning in 2014, after the Republican-controlled Legislature refused to increase funding for health insurance, foisting benefit cuts and cost increases onto public sector workers, the teachers’ unions pleaded their case to lawmakers. But the unions were ineffectual because they struggled to rile up their membership. Even in many counties where the unions were active, most members were disengaged.

Nicole McCormick, a music teacher who helps lead the Mercer County local, said, “It was like the same 15 faces at every meeting,” even though there were hundreds of members. For the rest, she added: “I was having to say the same thing 25 times and they still wouldn’t understand. ‘What do you mean? What legislation?’”

Worse, the lack of collective bargaining rights set teachers against one another, distracting them from external threats. Without collective bargaining, no one union can operate as the exclusive representative of teachers in a county. In that vacuum, at least two unions competed to scare up members.

“The unions spend a lot of time trying to out-recruit the other one,” said Jay O’Neal, a seventh-grade English teacher from Charleston who was a leader of the protest movement.

Mr. O’Neal and his colleagues were remarkably successful at building momentum for the walkout through a Facebook group. But they won only a down payment on what they’d hoped for. The health insurance issue was deferred to a task force that began public hearings last week — not coincidentally, long after the fervor had subsided.

Mr. O’Neal observed that “we’ve seen people fall off, not be as involved” since the strike was resolved in March, pointing to another problem with weak unions: It is much easier to rouse people for a single, high-profile fight than for sustained advocacy. For that you need institutions that carry on the struggle while workers get on with their daily lives.

“I think sometimes it’s a little glib for people on the political left to say we should just have a more fired-up base,” said Joseph Slater, an expert on public employee unions at the University of Toledo College of Law. “Workers have full-time jobs.”

Of course, strong unions can bring their own baggage. Leaders can grow remote from their membership. A union’s strength may give it irrational confidence that it can defeat threats through conventional politics — like elections and lobbying — rather than more radical measures, like work stoppages.

In West Virginia, by contrast, the weakness of the unions left workers no choice but to take the lead. And the unions were in no position to resist. “I said the unions won’t start the movement, but if it hits critical mass, they’ll have to join in,” said Ryan Frankenberry, West Virginia director of the Working Families Party, who advised Mr. O’Neal and his colleagues.

But, in the end, there is no substitute for a strong union in a long-term struggle against powerful antagonists. And even the West Virginia walkout would have been impossible without the unions, which presided over an authorization vote in every county. “You can’t organize a strike on Facebook, even if everyone sounds really excited,” said Cathy Kunkel, an organizer with the progressive group Rise Up West Virginia who helped teachers strategize.

To really get teachers marching in lock step, Ms. Kunkel said, they needed the heft of a union.

How "choice" relates to segregation in NYC schools

This issue came up when I spoke to a literacy social justice class at Leon Goldstein HS the other day (Where I go back into the classroom) in Maurice Blackmon's class. The first question was about heterogeneous vs homogeneous instruction. And it was one of the longest answers I gave - I taught homogeneous - other than one year -- and there are positives and negatives to both - but I pointed out that getting rid classes based on reading scores fueled the charter movement as parents with kids with good test scores didn't want their kids in classes with lower performing kids.... Norm

Leonie Haimson reported this while on vacation celebrating her birthday in Sicily (happy B-day Leonie). There's no stopping her.

The essence of this report is the further destruction of the concept of a neighborhood school. How to balance that with attempts to desegregate is an issue. Our new chancellor stepped in it with his comments on white parents avoiding sending their kids to certain schools.

Report is here: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/53ee4f0be4b015b9c3690d84/t/5ae8b91ff950b73991688aec/1525201185652/The+Paradox+of+Choice.pdf

It appears that the expansion of charters, the elimination of zoned schools in D7 and D23, the restriction of controlled choice in D1, and the Kindergarten Connect systems have all contributed to more K students attending schools outside their zone:

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, elected in 2001, was a fierce proponent of choice. His administration encouraged the rapid expansion of charter schools by offering them free space in ordinary public schools. The City eliminated attendance zones in three of the 32 school districts. District 1 on the Lower East Side, District 7 in the South Bronx, and District 23 in Brooklyn’s Brownsville section became all-choice districts. [Actually D1 was already]

On Sectarianism One of the Deadly Sins of the Left

Sectarianism: There are many fringe groups on the left that will never be anything more than tiny sects. They are “sectarian” because they counterpose their pre-packaged program against the real movement of people engaged in class struggle. These groups espouse revolutionary rhetoric but have little or no connection to the working class or any other meaningful social base. A rigid adherence to programmatic points prevents them from adapting to changing conditions in society. ..... One of The Left’s Five Dead Ends - Bread & Roses, Democratic Socialists of America, Jeremy Gong   -- DSA (Democratic Socialists) Is At A Crossroads – Jeremy Gong – Medium

There was a link in the article under the heading of: the dead-end wheel-spinning of the activist left - here's the direct link:
http://breadandrosesdsa.org/analysis-tasks.

Sectarianism doesn't only apply on the left. Wiki defines the term:
Sectarianism is a form of bigotry, discrimination, or hatred arising from attaching relations of inferiority and superiority to differences between subdivisions within a group. 

Seems to fit the bill. A major reason the left is so ineffective. The role played by leftists in pre-Nazi Germany, which at one point had more power and influence than the Nazi Party, has often been blamed for contributing to the rise of Hitler though I don't know enough to say that is true. But I did read George Orwell on the left sectarianism in the Spanish Civil War where the Stalinists went after the Trotskyists- which Orwell fought with- I think he was probably a Trot sympathizer - and which led him to being so anti-Soviet and to write "Animal Farm", a castigation of left wing orthodoxy - though I would guess he died a leftist of some sort.

There is even a brand known as Ultra-leftism - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-leftism
What many people don't get is that the "left" is far from homogeneous -- even those who characterize themselves as "left" function in practice like the right. The old joke is that if you put 2 sectarian leftists in a room you end up with 3 groups. Splitting is in the DNA of many left groups. And there are oh so many left wing sectarian organizations you need a score card to keep them straight. And oh how so many of them go after each other for ideological transgressions.

Now there are sectarian groups on the right too but I don't follow them. And how about the Unity Caucus in its earliest days when you had to be a card carrying member of the sectarian Social Democrats USA - SDUSA - considered the right wing of the SD movement -- whose members were key organizers of the UFT. If you wanted to get anywhere in the UFT you had to adhere to the program.

It was Randi who changed things and junked the SDUSA connection after Shanker died in 1996 and opened up Unity Caucus to anyone who showed loyalty to her.

Sectarian organizations on the left - and Unity Caucus too - operate under democratic centralism, where once a decision is made, everyone adheres to it religiously or they can be tossed out and shunned. Now when I am critical of democratic centralism, people accuse me of attacking a basic tenet of Leninism and also point out that Unity is centralist but certainly not democratic. I maintain that there is a lot of hierarchy in many left sectarian groups with a small inner circle making a lot of the decisions and then fancying them up to look democratic. This works for small and large groups (see Communist Party meetings in China where people "vote".)

If people don't agree with them ideologically or programmatically, they function like charter schools and try to push them out or make things so uncomfortable for the people who push back that they leave on their own. A common tactic is to cover the political disagreements with personal attacks and character assassination. Fake news is not off the table.

After describing the roots of the tremendous growth of DSA - the Occupy movement etc -- really remarkable for this country - Jeremy Gong goes into -

The Left’s Five Dead Ends (shit, I think I'm a horizontalist).

Video: PEP April 25, 2018 - Port Richmond HS Protest Principal

https://vimeo.com/267774737

Randi Deletes Tweets That Praised Arizona Republican Governor Ducey's School Funding Plan

Thanks to Jeff Kaufman for this nugget. I imagine this is coming from a report attempting to embarrass Randi by the Ducey supporters but it just shows how her pandering keeps coming back to bite her. Oklahoma teacher Larry Cagle who threatened to go to the AFT should take note.

Teachers’ Union President Deletes Tweet Endorsing Republican’s School Funding Plan

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey received Weingarten’s praise before she endorsed his opponent

Randi Weingarten / Getty Images

·          

Video and Commentary: PEP April 25, 2018 Students Protest Closing Their School, PEP closes it anyway

Students at Crotona Academy: If you close our school we will drop out.
PEP closed the school anyway.

The April 25 PEP was another doozy - Lisa North got home at 2AM. I couldn't stand it anymore and left at around 10:30. Earlier today I posted a piece about speaking to a class at Leon Goldstein about our 2011 film, The Inconvenient Truth About Waiting for Superman. The film opened with students singing: DOE Don't Care About Us.

Clearly. Whether under Bloomberg or de Blasio.

I made this short segment for that class to see that 7 years later nothing has changed. I have 2 and a half hours of video and this is just 5 minutes - only a slice of what happened.

Below the video is a great account of the meeting from the always awesome Leonie Haimson.

https://vimeo.com/267416001

 

Failure of Mayoral control: De Blasio starts yesterday by slandering teachers and the day ends with the closure of yet more schools by his hand-picked panel, despite heartbreaking student pleas 

Where I go back into the classroom - for one hour

Yesterday I spoke to a high school class at Leon Goldstein HS about the movie - The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman - we made in 2010-11 when we were in the Grassroots Education Movement (GEM) - a pre-MORE group that emerged out of the ICEUFT Caucus. At that point we were just beginning to hold secret meetings about a proposed caucus that became MORE.

There is almost too much irony given current conditions between MORE and ICE (ICE SUSPENDS SUPPORT FOR MORE). 
But I'll deal with those issues as I sort them out.

In prep I watched the movie once again and realized a) how freaking good it is - with all the big activists in NYC education in it - and b) how united we were in early 2011 we all were so much together on so many issues.

Maybe everyone should watch the movie together as a reminder.

Mike Schirtzer, a teacher at Goldstein, put me in touch with young colleague, Maurice Blackmon, who invited me. His class watched "Waiting for Superman" and our movie and were asked to come up with question on testing, race, equity, race, class and economic status. And boy did they come up with questions -- questions -- that caused me to have to do a deep dive into so many areas. They asked about tracking, tenure as a way for lazy teachers to escape doing work, charter schools and the union. I made a few critical comments. I learned later that one of the young ladies is the daughter of a top union official. Oooops.

Maurice texted me earlier that today they will hold a debriefing. I hope I pass the test -- but as you all know - I love to talk so if anyone wants to show the movie to their class I'm ready to go.

Addendum: Independent Teacher Revolts Against AFT and NEA

I posted this Antonucci piece yesterday: Antonucci - Oklahoma Teachers Want to Impeach NEA Union Officer and Change to AFT - A WTF Moment

I sent the article out to the MORE and ICE Listserves with this addendum:

Imagine Larry Cagle at AFT conventions. I would go to Pittsburgh this July just to meet him.
Can Larry come here and organize against Mulgrew?

This article may be an interesting pre-cursor of things to come.
We have heard much about the lessons of the red states for us here in NYC.

I'm sorry we never got to to deeper in our discussion at the MORE meeting this past Saturday but would suggest topics like the one below are worth exploring at the May meeting.

A What if?

Back in the fall when MORE began its Janus campaign of staying in the union, I raised the idea that people who might leave the UFT or call for leaving the UFT might actually organize something independent - it wouldn't be easy but it is possible.

The red state revolts are also revolts against the NEA and AFT.

At the Jacobin event I spoke to one of the WV teachers -- they were all NEA I think - and he said that they were being discouraged from working even with their own AFT colleagues in their own schools.

So underlining a lot of what is going on in those states is some competition between the AFT and NEA which may be more intense in right to work states.

In OK I think Randi has been pretty slick and we know she knows how to play people. So Larry Cagle may be fooled -- or just using her.

A big chunk of our dues goes to the AFT and come Janus these issues may come up.

After all our pals in the FMPR in Puerto Rico took their union out of the AFT over 10 years ago, with Raphy calling them blood-suckers.

At last summer's early July MORE event which Mike and I organized and was attended by 35 people, there was a heated discussion about the high school teachers doing a separation from the UFT -- given that they have voted anti-Unity for most of the past 30 years.

Imagine if some group in the UFT post-Janus actually went out and did what Larry Cagle did in Oklahoma and some of the WV and Ky people did and get enough signatures in the high schools to cause a bargaining election? James has floated this idea on the ICEUFT blog.

All balls are in the air.

I'd been thinking that with recent events organizing in the union and beyond here in NYC, with the power of Unity Caucus and a weak opposition that never gets a toe hold, is a dead end. Maybe not.

And here I was looking forward to some easier retirement years. Maybe not.

Antonucci - Oklahoma Teachers Want to Impeach NEA Union Officer and Change to AFT - A WTF Moment

Larry Cagle, one of the co-founders of Oklahoma Teachers United, issued an additional threat. He told KTUL in Tulsa that if his group can’t impeach the OEA officers, he’ll urge OEA members to drop their membership and reorganize under the auspices of the American Federation of Teachers. “If we can’t get rid of the leadership at OEA, then we will just rebuild the state through AFT,” he said.... EIA

Mike Antonucci has another interesting piece on how teacher activists with the leading independent force in Oklahoma, Oklahoma Teachers United , want to impeach their NEA union leaders. The funniest line was the one in the preface from one of the OAU leaders, Larry Cagle, who is using the threat of joining with Randi as a cudgel. Good luck with that path.

Effort Underway to Impeach Oklahoma Union Officers

The emergence of teacher groups organized mostly outside of the union structure is one of the most surprising aspects of this year’s protests. Connected through Facebook, these groups have either supplemented or supplanted formal union leadership of the walkouts.

For the most part their dealings with the unions have been cordial, but in Oklahoma the united front that existed during the strike has given way to open revolt.

Oklahoma Teachers United has turned its grassroots organizing skills toward an effort to impeach Oklahoma Education Association president Alicia Priest and vice president Katherine Bishop, primarily for incompetence in running the walkout and selling it out by ending it without achieving anything substantial.

“No strategy was developed or communicated to measure progress during the OEA walkout,” reads the list of charges posted on Facebook.

The timing isn’t great, since Priest and Bishop were reelected to their posts while the walkout was going on.

Larry Cagle, one of the co-founders of Oklahoma Teachers United, issued an additional threat. He told KTUL in Tulsa that if his group can’t impeach the OEA officers, he’ll urge OEA members to drop their membership and reorganize under the auspices of the American Federation of Teachers.

“If we can’t get rid of the leadership at OEA, then we will just rebuild the state through AFT,” he said.

They are not being subtle about it. One recent post reads: “DROP YOUR UNION MEMBERSHIP NOW!!!!! Make the unions take note that our membership dues is not their country club dues. They either change and adapt with the times or they die!!!!!”

They’re serious, but exclamation points don’t automatically transform into accomplishments. Oklahoma Teachers United may find the formal union governance system a more formidable opponent than the state legislature ever was.

DSA (Democratic Socialists) Is At A Crossroads – Jeremy Gong – Medium

Our choice: we can maintain a tiny navel-gazing subculture, or build a vibrant mass movement for socialism. Let’s build a mass movement.... Jeremy Gong, DSA (Democratic Socialists of America)

Michael Fiorillo:

Interesting piece from a DSA insider: you will all be shocked, shocked to read what the author says is the divergence within the group ...

At the ICEUFT meeting on Friday, one of the founders, John Lawhead, said that any labor movement must speak to all members, not a select few. Otherwise it becomes a club of like thinking members, clearly a contrast to what is occurring in so many teacher movements in red states. Something some people on the left, who want to aim their appeals at a narrow group of people, are glossing over.

I described some of the tensions within MORE on Friday when we were facing ICE and MORE meetings less than 24 hours apart. Exploring Caucus Fault Lines: ICEUFT Meets Friday, MORE Meets Saturday. I will delve into what happened when I sort everything out.
 

I'm Rephrasing Gong's comment:

Our choice: we can maintain a tiny navel-gazing subculture or build a vibrant mass movement inside the UFT to challenge Unity Caucus. Let’s build a mass movement.. 

Gong:

We are a “big tent” organization and a democracy, meaning there is no party line we must adhere to, no cabal of leaders deciding our direction. We have to sort out among ourselves what kind of organization we want DSA to be. I see two paths forward emerging for us.

Over the decades in the UFT opposition movements people with the "big tent" idea of challenging Unity across the UFT have been frustrated as the potential of big tents with a wide range of views shrinks to the size of an igloo. Then along come the party liners - not only on the left - Unity is a party liner.

Gong:

They would rather be big fish in a small pond, posturing with their correct answers, than part of a millions-strong movement that can actually change the world.

Oh boy does this sound familiar.

Michael F. has come up with an interesting piece on DSA. MORE has had an influx of DSA people - I don't know enough to say which wing of DSA - but they seem to have aligned themselves with the ISO and Labor Notes view, people who want to build a safe space in MORE comfortable for young, activist oriented teachers, many of whom are connected to groups like DSA. On the surface this makes a lot of sense. But aiming at what is a relatively small segment of the UFT does not lead to a broad tent. I see a lot of party liners who want caucus discipline alla Unity.

What some people don't understand it that both ICE and MORE were basically founded by people who view themselves as socialists. I've always been in the edge -- never a Marxist though most of the people who influenced me were Marxists -- I'm too leftarian for that -- I'm more social democrat like Bernie with some belief that Marx was right about so much.

Gong gets to the core that boils things down to the essence of the internal battles in many movements bordering on the left.

On the one hand are those of us who are tired of both the useless compromise politics of the liberal center and the dead-end wheel-spinning of the activist left. We know that while it’s incredible and historic that 30,000 people have joined a socialist organization, we are still a tiny fraction of the US population. We have to grow many times over and consolidate the democratic socialist movement into an effective weapon against capitalists and elites before we can really transform our society. This is the DSA that reaches out into the non-DSA world to fight class enemies and bring in thousands of new members.

On the other hand are those who are not interested in the millions of working people who are not yet active socialists. Instead, they fixate on the purity and homogeneity of their own in-group and attack other members of DSA for not meeting their standards. This is the DSA that looks inward and fights with itself, disappointing and exhausting activists who joined DSA in order to change the world, and scaring off those not in DSA from joining.

I was looking to join the DSA myself but don't want to get into the same wars we have been fighting in the UFT over so many decades.
Gong begins by describing two DSAs. We are seeing that there are also two MOREs with some very parallel threads.

DSA Is At A Crossroads

Jeremy Gong 

Two DSAs
https://medium.com/@jer.gong/dsa-is-at-a-crossroads-60de6a4c84b6

The teachers' strikes prove it: the media is finally seeing America's new labor landscape | US news | The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/apr/28/us-teachers-strikes-workers-labor-unions?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+USA+-+Collections+2017&utm_term=273111&subid=18260840&CMP=GT_US_collection

What a Union Is: Matewan Union Speech

We had a good discussion at the ICEUFT meeting yesterday of what a union is and how it has to talk to all members, not a slice of the membership. It came up in the context of a discussion of where MORE is heading. John Lawhead made the point that a union movement can't be led by what amounts to a club of like-minded people. That is not a caucus.

In this clip racism is rampant and challenged over how common ties bind all workers. It is a lesson some on the so-called left who are lauding the lessons of red state strikes but are missing the analysis of the politics and social attitudes that are driving the movement and uniting people of many political persuasions. Kudos to Michael Fiorillo for pointing us to this.

Haskell Wexler

Published on Nov 19, 2014

What a union is. Speech on what unionism is and where the primary strength of a union lies, in it's membership and threat of a strike denying the workforce from the employer to improve wages, working conditions, health and safety.

https://youtu.be/5RSaBoDl_9k