Leonie Haimson and Carol Burris TALK OUT OF SCHOOL

Leonie and Carol on the radio every week. Here's their first show: Listen here: https://www.wbai.org/archive/program/episode/?id=5601

Topics:

• Student privacy and school diversity proposals. -

Synopsis: Co-hosts Leonie Haimson and Carol Burris discussed the latest education news of the day, including the proposed student privacy regulations that would allow school vendors like the College Board to sell personal student data and use it for commercial purposes. More on this below, including how to submit your comments to the State Education Department.
Then they interviewed NYC parent Shino Tanikawa of the School Diversity Advisory Group and high school students Tiffany Torres and Alex Rodriguez of Teens Take Charge about the proposals to increase integration in NYC public schools by eliminating gifted programs in elementary schools and to stop screening middle schools by means of academic factors.

Also below is a link to the latest proposals of the School Diversity Advisory Group.

Guests:

• NYC parent Shino Tanikawa of the School Diversity Advisory Group and high school students Tiffany Torres and Alex Rodriguez of Teens Take Charge. -

Playlist:

• Stay in School by Chuck Berry. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHG5 - GxI_Es

Info / Links:

• More on the proposal of NY State education department to allow for the selling of student data and its use for marketing purposes here.  Here's a sample message if you'd like to provide a comment to the State about this proposal, with a deadline for comment of Sept. 16.
• 
  
• Here's the copy of the report of the School Diversity Advisory Committee.

TALK OUT OF SCHOOL

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Air Date & Time: Wed, Sep 18, 2019 10:00 AM

Hosted by: Leonie Haimson + Carol Burris

Leonie Haimson

Carol Burris

BIO's
Leonie Haimson is the Executive Director of Class Size Matters, which the NY Times has called the“city’s leading proponent of smaller classes.” The organization is dedicated to providing information on the significant and wide-ranging benefits of smaller classes, particularly for at-risk children, to boost student learning, engagement, and graduation rates, and lower disciplinary referrals.
Leonie was a public school parent for 15 years. She received the John Dewey award from the United Federation of Teachers in 2007, was named one of NYC’s “family heroes” by NYC Family Magazine in 2009, and was honored as an “Extraordinary Advocate for our Children” by Advocates for Justice in 2012.
In 2014, she received the “Parent Voice” award from Parents Across America for her work on protecting student privacy and leading the success battle against inBloom, the Gates-funded student data collection company. In 2015, she was named one of the ten most influential people in education technology by Tech and Learning Magazine.
She co-founded and co-chairs the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy [PCSP], which has released two toolkits, one for parents and one for educators , on how to better protect student privacy. The Coalition has also been invited to testify before Congress twice in recent years on how federal student privacy law should be strengthened. Leonie also sits on the board of the Network for Public Education.
She has appeared onCNN,Fox News,MSNBC,Good Day NY,WNBC News,National Public Radio, Al Jazeera, Democracy Now,NY1,Bob Herbert’s Op-Ed.TV and numerous other television and radio shows. She has written for theNY Times,the Nation,Education Week,Washington Post,the Indypendent,SchoolBook,Huffington Post,Chalkbeat,In These Times,Gotham Gazette,City and State, and other publications. She blogs at the NYC Public School Parents ..

Carol Burris is the Executive Director of the Network for Public Education, a national organization dedicated support and improve public education. Carol served as principal of South Side High School in Rockville Centre NY from 2000 to 2015.
Prior to joining Rockville Centre, she was a teacher of Spanish at the middle and high school levels in Lawrence, New York. She received her doctorate from Teachers College in 2003. Her dissertation won the NASSP dissertation of the year award. In 2010, she was recognized by New York School Administrators Association as their Outstanding Educator of the Year, and in 2013 she was again recognized by NASSP as the New York State High School Principal of the Year. In 2018, she was honored as the Outstanding Friend of Public Education by the Horace Mann League.
Carol has co-authored two books on educational equity, and her third book, On the Same Track: How Schools Can Join the 21 st Century Struggle against Re-Segregation, is available from Beacon Press. She is the author or co-author of numerous journal articles on educational equity, and she has served as an expert witness of school desegregation for the U.S. Department of Justice. Carol is a frequent guest blogger for the Answersheet of the Washington Post.

I Went to the Labor Day Parade, UFT First Ex Bd Meeting with New Board - UPDATED

It was nice to see labor unions making a show. For organizing purposes a lot more could be done. Every union was isolated and the march just dissipated. A mass rally might have more impact. It was funny but when we passed Trump Tower there was little reaction.

Despite trying to disengage from the UFT scene since I gave up on MORE and caucus building I can't seem to manage getting it out of my blood.

I attended two UFT official events over the past few days plus

I had not been going to Labor Day marches until last year when post-Janus I felt there had to be some showing of support for unions. And I went back this past Saturday. Last year and this year the UFT was having a post-march barbecue and I never miss a food event. I had a good time and it was a good feeling to see so many unionists from so many different unions gather together, all wearing their tee shirts identifying their union - except the UFT which gave out umbrellas. It is more powerful to have every union with their tees. The CSA all had on their tees and marched in front of  us.

I saw many familiar faces at the parade, mostly those I see at regular UFT events. Many Unity Caucus foot soldiers who are probably expected to show up.

It is funny how over the years the activists in the union an all sides have something in common that separates them from the overwhelming majority of UFT members -- a common bond. I see that when I go to AFT conventions -- the same people. We get along fairly well on the whole. I see no reason to engage in attacks on people I may disagree with. It is what unites the Unity Caucus and their critics - about a 1000-1500 in a union of 200 thousand members. Add the chapter leaders who mostly do the work in their own schools but don't take part in union events and it could be over 2000 people serious about union work. But most likely less.

I call it the 1% of the union. And if the day comes when that interest level rises to even 10% we will have a very different union.

I did hang out with some of my compadres - former MOREs - which is pretty funny- there were more former MOREs by far than current MORES - I saw only two handing out Bernie leaflets. I walked with Mike Shulman from New Action, Arthur Goldstein, Patrick Walsh, Bruce Markens, Ellen Fox, Lisa North, Gloria Brandman and a few others - people who  rubbed shoulders with in MORE.

Unity people I knew were very warm and friendly, particularly toward Arthur. I think they see his and Mike and Mindy's (she was still recovering from back surgery) running with Unity as a big victory for them -- an affirmation to them of sorts that they have been on the right track and their critics wrong. Given the vacuum out there and the uselessness of trying to build an opposition, I can see how easy it is to fall into the pull of their gravity. There are union activities and for those who want to do union work where else is there to go? Spend your life trying to build a caucus instead of finding more fruitful things to do?

I saw Jamal Bowman who is primarying Eliot Engel for Congress in the Bronx and his crew who are young and active. He is supported by the AOC backers. I told Jamal not to expect UFT support as they would back Atila the Hun if he was an incumbent but did suggest they come to Delegate Assemblies to distribute lit and maybe finds some volunteers. They have until next June. I am thinking of working in a primary campaign for Lauren Ashcraft who is running against Caroline McCarthy in Manhattan/Queens. I met her and her campaign manager at a Bernie debate watch party and she is seeking Justice Democrat support. I should have told them to come to the parade.

There were few spectators, right winger Curtis Sliwa among them - he gave me his card. I heard him on the radio on Monday talk about the thousands of marchers but how few spectators. Why would you watch this parade and not march if you are a supporter of unions? I think only tourists might be interested. However, given the number of union members our turnout was only a smidgen. It definitely seemed like less than last year. Good, more barbecue for me.

On the way to the barbecue I did notice how the CSA crowd all gathered in a restaurant to drink to their happiness at being considered a union despite how they screw other unionists while the UFT treats them with kid gloves. 

UFT Ex Bd
On Monday afternoon I was sitting in my garden smoking my pipe and reading and trying to decide whether to shlep into the city for the first UFT Ex Bd of the year. The fact that I did so has more to do with enjoying the social relationships I've developed than with union policy. I like seeing people and chatting. And of course they feed any UFT member who attends.

It was sort of sad as the New Action crew is no longer there. We all used to meet at 5 to talk about stuff. With no one on the board they don't see it worth going. I don't either and probably will go much less often than in the past. 

With the retirement of Howie Schoor, this was the first meeting Leroy Barr was running. On Saturday I asked Howie how we could live without him and he wondered if Leroy would be funnier than him. I told Howie I was going to compare Leroy's food with his. Leroy hit a big one with steak, chicken and salmon plus eggplant. Not bad. No macadamia cookies however.

Leroy tried to be funny too. Actually, he seemed a bit nervous since this was a brand new ex bd -- younger, more diverse. I like Leroy personally even though we've had some spats over the years. He is clearly one of the people in line to succeed Mulgrew one day though given that 75% of UFT members are women there might be some push back. Insiders say that there are some internal differences over policy inside the top leadership - nothing serious enough to make a difference. I don't have enough info to go into more detail.

Leroy ran the meeting efficiently - will he have the same patience Howie seemed to have to give people some room? I hope he will be as flexible as Howie.

He had to wait a bit for Mulgrew to show and give his report. Mulgrew also seemed a bit nervous -- he tried to pull some enthusiasm from the audience and they weren't giving much. These are his core people. I think hard liquor at these meetings would get him a better response.

As for what was discussed at the meeting, I was too busy eating, though I took some notes between bites. The UFT may not always be there for everyone who needs help with their school issues but it does try to put on a show about its humanitarian work.

I took some notes and I'd tell you more but I'd have to go look for them and I'm lazy, so why not just leave it to Arthur to tell you what happened at the EB? [Next meeting Monday Sept. 23 at 6PM. Looking forward to some pina coladasand filet mignon.]

NYC Educator

UFT Executive Board September 9, 2019--UFT Supports Dorian Victims, Census, Trump Victims and More -

http://nyceducator.com/2019/09/uft-executive-board-september-9-2019.html
 

Critique of Rank and File Strategy/ Kim Moody/ Solidarity - DSA Build Caucus

There are a lot of ideas buried inside the article below and my commentary where I try to make connections to where things have been and may be going inside the UFT union movement and will be doing a followup using the articles on so-called the rank and file strategy which is what MORE Caucus has and will be operating under. But I will have more to say at another time.

By the way, I'm heading over to the Labor Day parade up 5th Ave today followed by a UFT sponsored barbecue, which is our union leadership's version of a rank and file strategy -- faux organizing by feeding them.

the Rank and File is a strategy document for a socialist organization dedicated to raising class consciousness and building a mass movement. The document is not only relevant to would-be vanguard parties, but also to organizing socialists as a whole....

“Industrialization” was not unique to Solidarity[the Labor Notes Trotskyist org not the caucus]. Many socialist and communist groups (especially those like Solidarity in the Trotskyist tradition) tried throughout the 70s-90s and largely failed. Industrialization sought to place members of socialist organizations into industrial jobs. The goal was twofold: first, to move away from middle-class, college-educated, and counter-cultural recruitment and reorient towards a blue-collar working class. Second, to agitate amongst workers for a radical movement against the bosses and the conservative, bureaucratic unions who protected them. Industrialization was a failure. Employers screened out degreed applicants and long hairs. Those who got hired had trouble recruiting for a revolutionary party when workers’ political horizon shortened, caught up in defensive struggles over pay and pensions.... 
   ... Build/DSA,  https://dsabuild.org/rank-and-file-analysis

The 1% in the UFT - the activists on both sides
The landscape within the UFT for the inside players in the union leadership and in the opposition - the 1% of the UFT - has gone through some changes over the past three years, though to the 99% of the rank and file these changes are irrelevant and if they were aware, somewhat of a joke. And I admit I am part of the joke due to my obsessions as part of the 1% for 49 of my 52 year membership in the UFT.

I've been trying to sort issues out from an academic and organizing perspective within the context of my own history of activism in the UFT which has been my personal focus for the past two and a half decades plus the decade of the 70s. While the experience in MORE has given me insights into the various political forces that operate in unions, I still see many of the ideas worth examining, and not automatically reject them as some colleagues who left or were pushed out of MORE have done. The recent influx of teachers from the Democratic Socialists into MORE could be a new dynamic in the UFT - or not. But I am focusing my attention on this dynamic and also on those who are pushing back against it.

MORE has adopted the rank and file strategy for whatever that means inside the UFT (which was used as an artificial divide in MORE to push out people - especially the ICEUFT who were charged with not supporting the rank and file strategy - which was not true -- ICE didn't support using suspensions and turning over democracy in its implementation.

But there were questions to be raised and I actually tried when I pointed out that the old defunct TJC caucus failed with the same strategy which is an imported strategy not organically grown inside the UFT.

And it is always interesting to watch how a strategy hatched outside the context of our particular union is adapted to our unique situation of being in a union with a massive membership and with a leadership in its most dominant position in 25 years, partly due to either the inherent weaknesses in the rank and file strategy or MORE's incompetent implementation - with the recent failed election strategy being a key - like alienating the non-DSA connected opposition in the UFT is not a violation of the rank and file strategy. But I leave it to interested readers to explore further.

I posted an article on the Rank and File Strategy by Barry Eidlin a key player in the Labor Notes/ Solidarity vapor. And you should read it

• DSA, the Rank-and-File Strategy, and Organizing the Unorganized

A sort of counter group in DSA to Bread and Roses seems to be Build
https://dsabuild.org.

Th article below takes a more critical look at the Rank and File Strategy, which seems to be the working plan in MORE. Rather than break down the Bread and Roses article and this one, I'm posting it without further comment but will take a closer look at segments in follow-ups. The key for me is how it touches on the politics and organizations that have been active in segments of opposition groups in the UFT over the past 50 years. As Arnold said, I vill be back to dig deeper.

https://dsabuild.org/rank-and-file-analysis

Was Jeffrey Epstein Protected Because He Was an Agent of CIA Blackmail?

I read in today's NY Times that there will be a podcast on the Epstein story. So far reporting has been about the young girls and clearly this was a major focus of Epstein's actions. But is there more to the story? Like was he using a form of kompromat to gain leverage on people by getting photos and tape on them? I think there was a pretty good chance he did. But the big question is "was it only for personal gain or was Epstein working for the CIA and the Israeli spy agency?

This long a sordid story from Mintpress points things in that direction. But I no longer trust anything I read so don't just buy everything this talks about - the focus is on Clinton/Epstein but also includes people from both parties. I put up stories for wider consumption to get comments but don't just buy everything. Filter, filter, filter.

There are critics of Mintpress and then there are critics of those critics. (They wrote that it was Syrian rebels not Assad who did that chemical attack). It is left-leaning so don't think this is a right wing attack on the Clintons. Google them to read pros and cons. The same author of this piece also wrote this:

How a Group of Pro-Israel Activists Blacklisted MintPress on Wikipedia

By Whitney Webb

Oy! But this is riveting as it points to Clintons (both of them)/Epstein connections going back to the 80s when Clinton was governor.

While this network has long been able to ensure its success through the use of sexual blackmail, often acquired by the unconscionable exploitation of children, it has also been a driving force behind many other ills that plague our world and it goes far beyond human and child trafficking. Indeed, many of the figures in this same sordid web have played a major role in the illicit drug and weapons trades, the expansion of for-profit prisons, and the endless wars that have claimed an untold number of lives across the world, all the while enriching many of these same individuals.

There is no denying that such a network is “too big to fail.” Yet, fail it must — otherwise this decades-long cycle of abuse, murder and fraud will continue unabated, destroying and taking even more lives in the process."..... From “Spook Air” to the “Lolita Express”: The Genesis and Evolution of the Jeffrey Epstein-Bill Clinton Relationship

Far from being the work of a single political party, intelligence agency or country, the power structure revealed by the network connected to Epstein is nothing less than a criminal enterprise that is willing to use and abuse children in the pursuit of ever more power, wealth and control.

by Whitney Webb

The Genesis and Evolution of the Jeffrey Epstein, Bill Clinton Relationship

The Genesis and Evolution of the Jeffrey Epstein, Bill Clinton Relationship An investigation into the relationship between Jeffrey Epstein and Bill Clinton and the host of characters that ...

School Scope: Off the beach and back to school for you, but not for me

Posted to The WAVE for publication Sept. 6, 2019.

School Scope: Off the beach and back to school for you, but not for me
By Norm Scott

Before I begin, kudos to the excellent WAVE editor/reporter Ralph Mancini who left us for a new career on the west coast. Best of luck Ralph.

I got a call from a teacher friend who reminded me it was the first day back to school. I looked out the door and my block was filling up with teachers parking their cars. It’s seventeen years since I retired from teaching and I’ve conquered those butterflies of going back after the freedom of over 60 days off. I’ll leave it to the mathematicians to figure out how many consecutive days I’ve had off since retirement. I never minded going back because I liked being in a school. My problem was the loss of freedom and how all the things I wanted to do in the summer never got done. Many of them have still not gotten done in seventeen years. I made my friend, who has a year old toddler and that made it even harder for him to leave home, feel better by reminding him he only has 184 school days to go till next summer.

I haven’t lost my interest in education issues, as you can see by the existence of this School Scope column which I took over from the great Howie Schwach in 2003 when he retired from teaching to become the editor of The WAVE. (I used to buy The WAVE for Schwach’s writings on education and school policy and was often on the same wavelength.)

A Sept. 3 NY Times editorial led with: “Diversifying New York’s Schools: New York’s schools are among the most racially segregated in the country.” We’ve been buying that trope forever. Blogger Bob Somerby (dailyhowler.blogspot.com) pushed back and attempted to trace the source of this claim. He posted the % of white kids in major cities and almost all of them have much lower percentages (Los Angeles: 9%, Chicago: 9%, Miami/Dade County: 6.7%, Dallas: 5.1%, Houston: 8.9%, San Antonio: 2%) which counters the trope. As usual, I am torn on the issue, examining all sides with an open mind, thus leaving me paralyzed. How nice it would be to be able to take a simple and firm position, even when facts get in the way.

The big back to school story was that a panel appointed by de Blasio recommended the elimination of, or at the very least, major modifications in gifted and talented (G&T) programs, which ties into the controversies over the tests for the specialized high schools, the SSHAT, which I wrote about over the past few weeks. There is too much context to get into in this limited space but check my blog where I go deep.

One of the major problems I faced as a teacher, and currently in general discussions with people on just about any topic was/is providing context – digging deep down to the roots. Like teaching of evolution to children who came from religious homes, though I think I only got pushback from one parent. New ideas have emerged, only firming up the legitimacy of the theory. I used to enjoy having discussions about evolution with the earnest Jehovah Witnesses standing at my door with their pamphlets that “disproved” evolution. Evolution is only a “theory” and so is creationism and therefore the two theories are equivalent and both should be taught, they would say, though I question how evolution is taught, if at all, in religious schools. They weren’t convincing me and I wasn’t convincing them so we didn’t get very far, though when I wanted to be snarky I brought up the theories of a round and a flat earth and whether they should be taught that way. All I’d need to do is flatten a globe and present it as proof of a flat earth.

Norm aims to reach the edge of the world at ednotesonline.com.

Daily Howler on Elimination of G&T - Trashes NYT coverage, How WIll teachers teach?

....are the people on this panel really "education experts?" Or are they possibly just liberal/progressive bubble-dwellers, like those in the other tribe? The membership of this high-level collection of experts can be perused at this link. At a glance, they don't necessarily look like a group of "education experts" to us. At a glance, that includes several members of the panel's five-person Executive Committee. This doesn't necessarily mean that the panel's proposals are bad. It tells us something about the way modern "elites" pander to one another. According to Shapiro's report, this panel has apparently recommended "doing away" with "all elementary school gifted programs."Really? The New York City Public Schools should "stop most grouping by academic ability," even as it eliminates "all elementary school gifted programs?" Can that possibly be what these experts have recommended?

We ask the question because we spent a number of years in Baltimore's public school classrooms. During that time, we learned that fifth-graders are not all alike. .... Daily Howler

It's always interesting to hear The Howler who actually did teach in poverty schools in Baltimore for a decade. I didn't just jump on board and yell "Yippie" as most of my progressive friends are doing when I heard about this. Behind the scenes even progressives I know have doubts. But I do think that the G&T programs have been a joke - like you can tell about a 4 or 5 year old. Or even later. And the numbers of kids of color denied is ridiculous -- I met enormously talented kids of color in my own school.

Everyone seems to agree there will be white flight but feel these changes are crucial - a "so what" view of things. I think it will go further than that and will give new life to the charter movement and we will see more powerful forces calling for lifting the charter cap - charters won't be held accountable of they are segregated. In fact I believe that the elimination of homogeneous grouping has spurred many parents of kids of color to get away from classes that put their kids with kids who are struggling academically and behavior wise. I taught top classes and bottom classes and believe me - all poor to some extent and parents of color - but there were major differences in these families - the somewhat poor, the poor and the very poor. The top classes based on reading ability were the G&T on most schools.

"In Search of a Russiagate Scalp: The Entrapment of Maria Butina" John Kiriakou

she met and began dating Patrick Byrne, the founder and CEO of Overstock.com. We learned recently, thanks to Byrne himself, that he was a longtime FBI source and that the FBI directed him to begin dating Butina. He did so. And he reported back to the FBI that she was simply a graduate student. That wasn’t good enough for the FBI, though and, according to Byrne, he was instructed to go back to Butina, to begin a sexual relationship with her, and to again report back to the FBI. He did that, too.

In the end, the Justice Department accused her publicly of “trading sexual favors” for access, an accusation that prosecutors had to withdraw. It was patently untrue... Consortium News

Sean Ahern sent this story to the list serve and I'm publishing  - is some truth in the claims about fake news - I prefer to call it misleading news that leaves out info or distorts it? Maybe. Maybe not.
But then again do we believe this version is accurate and not coming from undercover Trump defenders? Fact is that many people on the left never believed the Russia stuff which liberals jumped on to justify the Hillary loss. Here are some other articles to check out about Patrick Byrnes.

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/08/overstock-ceo-patrick-byrnes-odd-fling-with-maria-butina.html. And another from the Daily Beast:

Former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne Claims Maria Butina Offered to Arrange One-on-One for Him With Putin

See below the article for the NY Times coverage. It's hard to figure out what to believe and we need to apply this to - well- almost everything.

Maybe we are all living in the figment of someone's imagination. But I'm learning to check out the publications and came up with this on

School Scope for Aug 30: Bits ‘n Pieces

WWW.Rockawave.com

School Scope:  Bits ‘n Pieces

By Norm Scott

I got a call from Gail at Fios that my monthly bill was going up but the good news was that for about the same cost I could have five premium movie channels I will barely watch instead of the three I currently have that I don’t watch. I told her my problem was that with Netflix I had so many choices I often wasted so much time trying to choose I ended up just watching the Yankee or Mets game. I took the deal anyway because I can’t resist a “bargain.”

So, as I come to what will be the final School Scope of the summer, I face the same problem: I have so much to write about I can’t choose. So I’ll take a brief shot at a few of them and leave it to interested readers to follow up.

The SHSAT

My last two columns were about the test that some elite NYC high schools use as sole admission. While I don’t support the entire structure behind standardized tests and all the baggage they bring to the educational table, I won’t take the position at this time that they shouldn’t count at all – just that other factors should be taken into account, including creating a diversified school environment for all students which will benefit everyone. That means having some flexibility so that if a student scores a one point below another don’t assume that the other student is one point smarter. I scored very well on standardized tests to become a teacher but certainly wasn’t a better teacher than colleagues who scored much lower (our scores were posted on the seniority lists and some of the best teachers had the lowest scores). In other words, don’t take a narrow view of the concept of merit. Speaking of which…

Teacher Merit Pay Dies in Newark and Denver

We heard this summer of the death of the much vaunted merit pay for teachers in Denver and Newark pushed by the ed deformers with a lot of help from former UFT and current AFT President Randi Weingarten which negates the charge that it was the teacher unions that killed them. For years Randi campaigned for teachers in numerous cities to accept contracts with merit pay. At the time I termed that “Randi’s Sellout Tour.” In Newark, then mayor Cory Booker took the $100 million bucks Mark Zuckerman gave him and wasted it on this and other scams. Good riddance hopefully to him as a serious candidate and to merit pay. While capitalism may teach a logic that these schemes should work, the reality is that they don’t work in education and cause harm because the only way to judge “merit” is based on student test scores. I knew every trick in the book on how to inflate test scores and could have been a rich teacher. I know there are many rabid capitalists out there who doubt me and consider the way teachers are paid based on years served as socialism. Of course police, fire, sanitation and just about every other public worker don’t work on merit pay. Go out and do some research.

Speaking of capitalism and socialism, I’ve been doing a little bit of thinking given that this is the first time that the concept of socialism is being discussed in a serious way since the 1930s. Polls show that over 40% of young people think favorably of socialism, which has caused panic among right wingers and Republicans, which pretty much boils down to the same thing. Witness last week’s distorted and hysteria-filled (and hilarious) letter to The WAVE attacking socialists and branding Democrats as socialists. As if here are no failed capitalist systems. But that is the way Republicans think so I don’t hold it against them. The reality is that the leadership of the Democratic Party are just as nervous over the insurrection from the left in the party they have owned which is why they are pushing Biden. There is much confusion over what exactly “socialism” means and I was using this column to explore the differences last summer. I get the feeling that The WAVE doesn’t want too much talk on that issue so check out my blog for that discussion.

When you examine the presidential candidates considered most “left” (despite polls showing their ideas have a lot of public support, Sanders and Warren, there are differences. Bernie has always been a socialist and brands himself as a democratic socialist, which means bringing elements of socialism through democratic means by convincing enough people that society needs a serious makeover. Warren proudly calls herself pro-capitalism, as long as it is not allowed to run amuck with the “greed is good even of we have to burn down the Brazilian rain forest and make the earth inhabitable one day” crowd.

Norm burns with ambition – to blog at ednotesonline.com.

School Scope: Those SHSAT Tests, Part 2

Published in The WAVE: WWW.Rockawave.com - August 23, 2019

School Scope:  Those SHSAT Tests, Part 2

By Norm Scott

Debates over the controversial SHSAT special high school admission tests has roiled the local education world and has driven a rift between the Asian and Black/Latinx communities. State law forces the city to use only the SHSAT despite de Blasio’s attempts to have it changed. Let me state right up front: I am opposed to using a standardized test as a sole criteria for admission to specialized high schools for a number of reasons, which I will get into in a follow-up column. (For SHSAT news - https://shsatsunset.org.)

In a previous column (Those SHSAT Tests Part 1 https://www.rockawave.com/articles/school-scope-315). I wrote about my experiences prepping for tests in the late 1950s/early 60s for Brooklyn Tech (which I didn’t get in) and the NY State Scholarship exams in my junior and senior high schools (where I was successful). I described my evolution in learning how to take tests between the disaster in the 8^th grade where time was called with 65% of the test completed and 12^th grade where I had mastered test time management. Both times I had been well-prepared to answer the questions but the test prep my schools offered did not address the “how to take a test” issue. I pointed to a Malcolm Gladwell podcast that addressed test taking using the LSAT (law school admissions) as an example. Gladwell referred to a tortoise and hare concept of test taking and how time limits favor hares whereas tortoises who take a slow and steady course bring skills to the table that hares may lack. (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/revisionist-history/.)

What if the SHSAT were not timed? Would some tortoises pick up enough right answers to get into the specialized schools? A for-profit web site actually has a guide on how to apply for extra time on the SHSAT, a legitimate exercise for students with IEPs, but something that has been abused for SAT’s and other tests, as pointed out in this March 14, 2019 NYT piece:

Is the College Cheating Scandal the ‘Final Straw’ for Standardized Tests?

“For parents desperate to boost their children’s SAT or ACT scores, the test preparation company Student-Tutor offered an enticing solution: claim a learning disability and qualify for extra time. “This time advantage can help raise their scores significantly!” the website blared. “Some students have even reported raising their score by as much as 350+ points!” This week’s college admissions scandal provided an instruction manual for gaming the SAT: bribe the proctor, hire a stand-in, see the right psychologist to get a signoff for more time.

college admissions experts said that in some communities, it is well known which psychologists will provide paperwork attesting to disabilities like A.D.H.D. — for thousands of dollars. “Parents have figured out that this is a freebie,” said Miriam Kurtzig Freedman, a special education lawyer. ‘This was a scandal waiting to happen’.”

The NYC Marathon has no time limits and when I used to volunteer there were people coming in late in the evening. We often hear this said about many aspects of life – even applying to the baseball season: it is a marathon, not a sprint. Should this concept be applied to standardized tests? What if we totally removed time limits? I see the good, bad and ugly to that. I could see myself spending hours on a question that stumped me once freed from the time limits.

I went from a tortoise when I took the Tech test in 1958 to a hare when I received a NY State scholarship in 1962. But was I any smarter other than having figured out how to use limited time on tests to my advantage? Well, I did figure out how to manage a test. I learned to take the number of questions and divide it into the amount of minutes I had and to set up sign posts as to where I should be at different times. Thus on a 50 question test in 60 minutes I had a little over a minute for each question. My strategy was to run through the test answering all the quickie questions to gain time, putting a little dash next to those questions that looked solvable with a little more time – I would go back after knocking off the easy ones. The ones that seemed hardest got a dot, so they could be attacked with the balance of time. The aim was to come down to two options and guess, giving me a 50-50 chance even on the hardest questions. If half the test were in the hardest category, that was a sign to just go home.

Norm takes unlimited time when he blogs at ednotesonline.com.

Any serious effort at building a powerful socialist movement in the U.S. will have to involve transforming existing unions and dramatically expanding their ranks.... Barry Eidlin 

There's a lot that bothers me in this article when applied to the UFT but my brain can't organize my thoughts well enough to address them here. The idea of going into teaching with the higher purpose of pushing socialist ideas is somehow bothersome. Some of the best organizers I've seen came out of the UFT not based on political aims but out of the experience of teaching and the conditions in the schools and the UFT and that is what turned them towards more general progressive politics.

There are people in the UFT confused about the strategy within MORE Caucus around the idea of not running in elections to win.

I'm putting this up as a way to go deeper on the issue raised in Politico which bloggers in the UFT commented on (links included in my post: Politico's Big Joke: MORE Wants to take over UFT - by not wanting to win Elections.)

The local DSA labor group, which includes the faction in control of MORE, is part of the group and the Rank and file strategy (RFS) which comes out of the Labor Notes/ISO/Solidarity faction on the left is making this the heart of their organizing efforts. This is a 20 year old idea and author Barry Eidlin is part of the Labor Notes wing. RFS on the surface makes sense for lots of unions but when it comes to the UFT the MOREs live in a reality distortion field, choosing to follow a formula rather than their own experiences - or those of other activists in the UFT like the more experienced people in ICEUFT that MORE purged.

One of the keys to the RFS is to avoid taking union jobs  - and in MORE, taking positions on the Ex bd seems to fall into that category. Though actually winning elections like in Chicago and LA and Baltimore is something I have not teased out of the RFS.

Eidlin is providing a framework for DSA people who go into unions. In all the Labor Notes training I took - which by the way many of what's left in MORE also took but given the results the training didn't take in terms of organizing the rank and file -- MORE is pretty much filled with their version of "activists" - people who have longer term goals than taking over the UFT.

My version of an activists is someone like Unity Must Go who took in the job of chapter leader and supported push backs to Unity. MORE is not interested in this class of activist.

I'll try to get deeper into issues raised here and also post some critical views of the RFS -- from within DSA from the Build Caucus which seems to push back against Bread and Roses Caucus of which Eidlin is a supporter.

https://socialistcall.com/2019/07/03/dsa-organizing-unorganized-labor/

by Barry EidlinJuly 3, 201911:00 am

DSA, the Rank-and-File Strategy, and Organizing the Unorganized

Dystopian fiction? Lunacy? They won’t need us...We’ll be a problem. The solution: climate change will kill some, the bots will deal with the rest.

To elites, we are tools at best, useless eaters at worse. They are trained to look at us and figure out how much value they can extract: as consumers, workers, voters and soldiers. Then they extract the value, and if some of us wind up dead, or homeless or sick or crippled, well, they don’t lose one second of sleep over it. Because to them, we aren’t people. The great problem of being a member of an elite is keeping the Praetorian guard happy: which doesn’t just mean the core soldiers and cops but the key retainers who execute policy at the highest level. The next great problem is the mob: the tools and useless eaters sometimes get uppity, and revolt and you need to be sure you can put them down: hence the Praetorian guard.
But they’re working on this problem..... Ian Welsh

Another interesting find from Michael Fiorillo. I've been thinking along these lines since one of my favorite movies, the 1984 The Terminator. which other than the time travel stuff has some serious elements of the future. You know the drill. Skynet takes over and decides humans are not needed. Here Ian Welsh speculates on why climate change dangers are ignored by most of the ruling class: They have the means to protect themselves. Take Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos - why put so much wealth into space? That's their or their heirs' escape routes.

https://www.ianwelsh.net/our-leaders-kill-for-their-own-benefit/

Our Leaders Kill For Their Own Benefit

2019 August 20

by Ian Welsh

Big Brother Award

Merit pay Dies in Newark But don't forget Weingarten Role in Getting it passed in the first place

Mr. Christie and American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten hailed the contract as a model for cooperation that teachers union locals across the country should emulate.... Wall Street Journal, 2012

Merit pay was the heart of a ‘revolutionary’ teachers contract in Newark. Now the Cory Booker-era policy is disappearing.

https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/newark/2019/08/15/merit-pay-was-the-heart-of-a-revolutionary-teachers-contract-in-newark-now-the-cory-booker-era-policy-is-disappearing/

Arthur has a post on this story today: Long Discredited, Merit Pay Dies in Newark. 
As does Ravitch: Newark Wipes Out Performance Pay for Teachers

Neither mention the role union leaders played. You can't understand the merit pay issue without understanding the complicity of our union leaders with Randi Weingarten leading the parade.

In fact the break in my quasi-support for Randi came in 2001 over her support for merit pay and I tried to bring a resolution to the DA calling in us to oppose all forms of merit pay and for the first time I couldn't get the floor for months.

Monday, October 22, 2012

Weingarten Negotiates Another Sell-Out in Newark, NEW Caucus Says "VOTE NO"

President of Puerto Rico Teacher Union Resigns Over Conflict of Interest

There's a long history of the relationship between the various versions of the Puerto Rico Teachers Union over the past 15 years. There are two versions - the FMPR - the left - which pulled the PR union out of the AFT over a decade ago -- we covered that story extensively and over the years Ed Notes has been a political supported of the leaders of the FMPR through my old UFT colleague and pal, Angel Gonzalez.

Naturally Randi was vexed by the FMPR which came under severe attacks by the government of PR - and eventually was decertified which opened the door for the Randi/AFT friendly AMPR to become the official union in PR, a story we also covered extensively.

For links just search Ed Notes for FMPR -- there are probably dozens of articles. Here is one I posted 

Wednesday, November 25, 2015

MORE Supports Puerto Rican Teachers Union, Links to Backstory

Angel Gonzalez (left ), Lisa North, FMPR Pres. Rafael Feliciano at forum c. 2011

ICE, GEM and now MORE have been supporting the FMPR for over a decade, since they bolted from the AFT - they sued but lost and the FMPR won and withdrew 40,000 AFT members.We established contact with the FMPR through NYC teacher Angel Gonzalez who worked with ICE and then helped found GEM. His good friend, FMPR President Rafael Feliciano,  made a number of visits to speak at meetings and events. (We had some quotes from him in our movie.) It's been a long story, too complicated to tell now. I'm proud that MORE is contributing $200 to the support of the FMPR.

See also Dissent: Puerto Rico Remade
{https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/puerto-rico-remade}

Below is an article Angel sent me in Spanish that I used google to translate, followed by the AFT Randi praise of Aida Diaz.

2019 -- Politico's Big Joke: MORE Wants to take over UFT - by not wanting to win Elections

What's left of MORE prides itself on being intolerant and insular. It does not wish to deal with viewpoints that vary one iota from theirs. As for what that viewpoint may be, I have no clue. I only know that whatever it is shuts me out as a "right-winger." .... If I'm a right-winger, so is a good 95-99% of UFT membership. What's left of MORE represents what's left of MORE, and little else.  .....NYC Educator:  Blithering Baloney from Politico on MORE {Updated Sunday, Aug. 18, 2019, 1:30 PM}

Oh, that's just great,  and makes the Gods of Irony laugh: unions in legitimate need of reform (if the UFT is at all representative) are to be shaken up by naive Democratic Socialists acting as cat's paws for the Trots[kyists] ..... Former MORE leftist member, a founder of purged ICEUFT.

Democratic Socialists look to take over New York's powerful labor unions screamed the headline from Politico.

Another target is the United Federation of Teachers, a nearly 200,000-member union representing teachers, social workers, secretaries and other school employees. “UFT is the largest local of one of the largest unions in the country. It has the potential to be extremely influential in electoral politics,” the group wrote. “It is extremely internally undemocratic, but there is a reform caucus, MORE, which has many active DSA members.” MORE refers to the Movement of Rank and File Educators, whose website leads with a July post criticizing the union’s internal election process and calling for voting reforms. The union “fails to exercise the full potential of its power” and ends up backing centrist or conservative Democrats, the group added.

Did the authors check out the outcome of the last UFT election which was won by Unity with one of its highest vote totals in history while MORE's vote totals dropped by 75% and they finished behind a ghost caucus? Or read about the way MORE is no more democratic than Unity Caucus? Or that there are way more ex-MORE members than current MORE members?

The funniest quote in the article was a quote from a MORE statement on the election as if to blame the UFT election process instead of their own ineptness and poor judgement where they could claim, "at least we didn't finish last."

“With more DSA teachers, we could bolster and significantly support the internal movement for democracy and militant organizing within the union but it will likely take years to reform the UFT,” it concluded.

Note they say they want to reform the UFT which cannot be done without creating a credible threat to Unity which MORE killed in its divisiveness. They also lodged a protest over some of the procedures in the election with the UFT, some of which were out right funny.

One thing it does is reveal the MORE strategy, since the faction in control has not been able to make inroads into the rank and file even in their own schools, they have used an old tactic on the left and right: Seeding – Bring in activists to form a cadre - a woke vanguard who will lead the unwoke rank and file. There's more than a little arrogance in this concept.

Actually, the UFT was organized using similar tactics – remember, Shanker and other founders came out of the Socialist Party - the very anti-communist cold warrior wing. One of the founders who had been in a middle school which became the organizing center of the future UFT in the late 50s purposely left to go to a high school where he was able to organize inside the high school teachers association, the most militant segment of the union - he used the term "salting" when I spoke to him.

But they had no Unity Caucus to contend with - and it is that factor that is missing from all the training MORE does along with Labor Notes. In the future I'll get into why the current MORE strategy that took us away from the concept of a broad based opposition will fail and for every cadre MORE brings into the UFT and MORE, an equal number will leave or drift away.

The Democratic Socialists members approved zeroing in on six of those labor groups during a January meeting and have since begun pursuing the effort.... Politico

Funny how the MORE steering committee came out of the witness protection program in January 2019 to suspend me for 6 months for revealing the misinformation at the MORE election meetings to get people to run in the election not to win and alone in the fall.

James Eterno, another former MORE member (there are way more formers than currents) calls them out on the ICEUFT blog in his excellent piece on the same story: SOCIALISTS OF AMERICA TRYING TO PENETRATE NYC UNIONS

If the Democratic Socialists of America want to be taken seriously inside the UFT, they should work on having their people live up to that democratic part of their name. ... MORE voted against working with any other opposition group in 2019. It appears they are more interested in pushing their political views than in changing the UFT. It is impossible to defend MORE's indefensible lack of fairness. While I can still work with members of MORE on individual issues like opposing the contract, it is very difficult to support their candidates for union office under these circumstances. I don't want my union to be run like this caucus....

Here is another quote on the story from a former MORE member:

Honestly, I'd like to burn every single Bread and Roses flag I see. But from my vantage, this memo was a leak from DSA and, after reading the quotes from the union presidents, I think they may have angered the better part of all 151 of them. (The last time all the city's unions were on the same page, they pulled the rug out from under both Cynthia Nixon AND the entire WFP.) I don't think this is going to go unanswered by the union heads and I'm curious who to sympathize for here.... Former MORE  member.

Now to be clear - I joined DSA and like the work they are doing generally. The organization as whole is broad tent socialist unlike the MORE wing which is sectarian. DSAers who are teachers are wasting their time with MORE since DSA has so many other options for organizing and social justice work. Spending your time at meetings to "learn" how to organize your colleagues to do exactly what? When you could join one of the numerous DSA committees on housing, working for progressive candidates etc can actually lead to results?

Here is the full Politico story - tell Sally and Janaki to do some research.

https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/city-hall/story/2019/08/14/democratic-socialists-look-to-take-over-new-yorks-powerful-labor-unions-1141206

Democratic Socialists look to take over New York's powerful labor unions

Sally GOLDENBERG and JANAKI CHADHA08/14/2019 05:01 AM EDT

NEW YORK — A left-leaning political organization that publicly backed Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in her insurgent victory last year was also quietly plotting to penetrate another New York City power source — labor unions.

The New York City branch of the Democratic Socialists of America presented its members with a strategy last year to gain entry into some of the city’s most powerful labor organizations and ensure they are adhering to the “militant” principles that the group felt had been diluted over time. POLITICO obtained a previously unreported, 37-page memo laying out a follow-up plan that identified 10 unions to target.

School Scope: The Politics of Newsies

I have two columns in The WAVE this week, both related to Newsies.

[Memo From The RTC: The Oldies But Goodies]

School Scope 

The Politics of Newsies

The Wave  | on August 15, 2019 

By Norm Scott

OK - So it's an old photo

I was so excited to be part of the recent Newsies production at the Rockaway Theatre Company. Much of the play follows the real 1899 strike which inspired a 1992 Disney film which was turned into a 2012 Broadway musical. The story follows a citywide strike by newsboys who were the key distributors of newspapers in the streets of New York. The newsie strike is described in detail in the 2003 non-fiction book Kids on Strike! This was before child labor laws.

The lead character, Jack Kelly, (played to perfection by Sam Kelley) is possibly based on a real character, 18- year old Louis “Kid Blink” Baletti. The play makes publisher Joseph Pulitzer into the main villain but in the real story his competitor William Randolph Hearst was also responsible. I played the part of the evil Snyder who ran a “refuge” – really prison – for boys. The Refuge reminded me of recent stories of the century old Florida state-run Dozier School for Boys in the Panhandle town of Marianna, where boys were abused in every way possible, including being murdered. The school was closed in 2011. Colsen Whitehead based his recent wellreceived novel, The Nickel Boys, on the school.

Snyder’s refuge is funded by the city and he clearly does Pultizer’s bidding, including leading a group of goons to beat up the newsies when they go on strike, fundamentally shutting down the entire city newspaper distribution system. A telling moment comes when a newsie, after being beaten, runs to a cop for help and he clubs the newsie. Police forces from their very origin have been instruments of controlling unions and workers and siding with the owner class.

The newsies are very poor and most are living on the streets or on rooftops. Exceptions are Davey and his little brother Les, who have parents (and are mocked by their fellow newsies – “where do I get myself a mudder?”), but have been forced to leave school and sell newspapers to support the family after their father suffers an on the job accident and can’t work. The charismatic vagabond and emotional firebrand leader, Jack Kelly, also a talented artist, has won the hearts and minds of the newsies (and Katherine, a rare female reporter).

But it is Davey who has an education and knows stuff Jack doesn’t, who provides the blueprint for forming a union and the strike. Yet when they are on the verge, the more conservative Davey, who has more to lose suggests holding back. Jack retorts: if your father was in a union he would have been protected when he got hurt on the job and you wouldn’t have to sell newspapers. That wins Davey over. Naturally, as in real life, the bosses hire scabs and pay them more. The majority of newsies want to use violence against scabs, but Davey says they lose unless they stand together and Jack and he convince the scabs to join them.

The fictionalized romance between street fighter Jack and the educated Katherine who turns out to be (spoiler alert) Pulitzer’s daughter adds the romantic element, but also a political one. Here’s where we enter fantasyland, but after all, this is a Disney production. When the newsies are demoralized after they are beat up by the goons led by Snyder (me) who smashed the cripple Crutchie with his own crutch and he is dragged off to the refuge, it is Katherine who rallies them, not Jack, (a lead in to the showstopper tap dancing “King of New York”). Jack’s spirit is revived but when he saunters into Pulitzer’s office and discovers who Katherine is, he is arrested and bitter and takes a bribe to sell out the strike, which has some basis since Kid Blink and Davey in real life also supposedly were bribed and had to step down as union leaders: a really important point about how some union leaders are sell-outs (as a UFT member, no comment).

I had been wondering why the historically anti-union Disney would create such a seemingly pro-union work of art. But the current corporate Disney does have some unions. But again it is Katherine who wins Jack and the boys over and her upper class friends (including the son of Hearst) help the newsies put out their own newspaper written by her which wins over the city.

Once again, the upper class kids come to the rescue. The final straw is the intervention of Governor Theodore Roosevelt on the side of the newsies. Wiki reports that in the actual strike, Theodore Roosevelt didn’t do anything. In real life the newsies won some victories due to their own efforts, but here, left on their own, would have failed. It took the intervention of powerful politicians and noble wealthy people to save them. Seemingly, Disney fantasyland, but touching on some truths. Like the goon character I play, Snyder, is the only one to take a fall while the politicians and corporate chiefs escape. And I might even have committed suicide while in jail. 

Norm is always in fantasyland when he blogs at ednotesonline.com. And see his Memo from the RTC column.