Jackson Potter Rams Rahm and Billionaire Crew

Jackson Potter upon release after arrest after protest

Not enough people know about Jackson Potter, a key organizer and co-founder of the Caucus of Rank and File Educators that took over the Chicago Teachers Union in 2010. (I believe he taught in the same school as Karen Lewis.) I spent some time with Jackson and some of the other CORE members in the summer of 2009 in LA and again last July in Chicago and learned a lot about organizing 101. Jackson has certainly changed my thinking about a lot of things, especially the union. From the latest reports regarding Randi and Mulgrew's relationships with CTU leaders I'm hearing some interesting things (good things) and I hope to explore some of these in Detroit this week at the AFT convention. Maybe Randi is moving somewhat.
One thing for sure, Jackson offers a high level of leadership along with great political smarts. When I asked other CORE members for advice on organizing here in NYC, one response was, "We'll send you Jackson." Please do.

Billionaire Intrigue, Political Deception and the Fight for the Soul of the Chicago Public Schools

Sunday, 08 July 2012 09:24 By Jackson Potter, CTU Net | Op-Ed

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel discusses the Goldman Sachs 10,000 small businesses program with faculty at Harold Washington College in Chicago, September 13, 2011. Emanuel has encouraged teachers to buck their own union by offering them bonuses to work longer hours. (Photo: Peter Hoffman / The New York Times)Nearly one month ago, Joe Ricketts, patriarch of the Ricketts billionaire clan, pledged $10 million to an anti-Obama attack campaign focused on the president's relationship with radical Chicago preacher, Reverend Jeremiah Wright. The revelation exposed a dark undercurrent anchoring the wealth of the Chicago Cubs' new ownership. Tom Ricketts, son of Joe the patriarch and the day to day face of the Cubs organization, has fostered an image as a prominent democratic operative. The image is designed to help the family lobby city Democrats like the Mayor and Alderman Tom Tunney, to increase their profit margins and freeze out competitors on nearby roof-tops and product peddlers in the famous Wrigleyville neighborhood.

The activities of right wing extremists with lots of money, in Obama's home-town, were not lost on the Democratic Mayor of Chicago. Emanuel blasted the move as antithetical to the interests of an overwhelmingly blue electorate. The Mayor continues to use the incident to increase his bargaining leverage over the Ricketts family regarding the amount of tax-payer subsidies the Cubs will ultimately receive. The incident was no anomaly, but a symptom of a larger development in national and local politics where very wealthy and predominantly Republican interests create a façade of liberalism and progressive values to manipulate constituencies that otherwise would reject their efforts outright as diametrically opposed to their political desires.

In the March elections for the Illinois state House of Representatives a precursor to the Ricketts' controversy was playing out on the West-side of Chicago. Crest-fallen representative Derrick Smith was campaigning against his, supposedly Democratic, challenger Tom Swiss. Despite Smith's natural advantages as an incumbent and hand-picked choice of Chicago king-maker, Secretary of State Jesse White, Smith was worried about an advertising blitz by his upstart opponent. Swiss was in reality a Republican candidate who had switched parties in order to show that it was possible to upend a seemingly invulnerable democratic politician in a democratic district through campaign deception and manipulation. The central idea of the Swiss campaign was that a predominantly low income and African American voter base (which some pundits labeled as an "extremely low information" voting block) could be convinced to vote against their own interests. For example, Swiss blanketed the West side with advertisements and huge billboards promoting his candidacy, not with a picture of himself, an older white male, but a photo of a black construction worker with a hard hat saying "Jobs Now." Despite a scandal that showed Smith accepting illegal campaign contributions from undercover agents, he ran away with the election largely because his constituents recognized Swiss' deceptive and cynical tactics.

The intrigue doesn't end there, as the battle for the soul of public education unfolds in Chicago between the Mayor and the Chicago Teachers Union, a litany of outside, well-heeled education "reform" organizations have parachuted into town in an effort to tip the balance of the debate. One of the most prominent of the "reform" groups is Stand for Children, based out of Oregon, that sponsored legislation known as SB7. The legislation requires 75% of the union's membership to authorize a strike, the highest threshold for any union in the country and way beyond the number of votes any politician needs in order to get elected. While Stand claims to support policies that help students learn, they have consistently refused to lobby for smaller class sizes, a Better School Day with art, music, etc., or dramatic increases in school funding in Illinois. However, they have supported the school district in its confrontation with the union. They have also dedicated their time to opining about labor management relations, constantly pushing for the CTU to be "reasonable" and "get back to the table" even though the CTU has never left the table. Prior to the CTU strike authorization vote on June 6th, 2012, Stand 's Chicago Director, Juan Jose Gonzalez, claimed that the CTU was distorting CPS contract proposals with our members even though Stand had never been part of any of the CTU/CPS negotiations and does not have access to either side's official bargaining positions (unless CPS is leaking to them confidential bargaining information, which currently does not seem to be the case based on their one sided version of reality). Stand automatically, took the school Board's side in the dispute. While Stand claims to represent parents and school communities throughout Chicago, despite only their very recent entry into the local scene, the predominantly Republican billionaires and millionaires who fund their operation is another version of the Ricketts Effect.

Stand for Children's top donor, Ken Griffin, a Chicago based billionaire hedge fund operator, was recently quoted in the Chicago Tribune saying, "I think (the ultra-wealthy) actually have an insufficient influence [in our society and political system]" so much for representing the democratic will of the people. Stand also has accepted many donations from the primarily Republican Crown family, partial owners of the Maytag and the Hilton Hotel chain. Last, Penny Pritzker of the Hyatt Pritzker family, and a number of her siblings have donated heavily to Stand. Penny also has the distinction of being the first billionaire appointed to the Chicago Board of Education, making her support of Stand that much more troubling. We should hope that Mayor Emanuel appointed Penny to represent the interests of the 400,000 plus students in the Chicago Public Schools, not fly-by-night advocacy groups, funded by the wealthy, who are clamoring to weaken the voice of parents, teachers and their unions.  Additionally, businessmen from Bain Capital, the vulture capital investment firm where Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney made his millions, have made considerable contributions to Stand for Children.

Stand is not the only group in this category. There is also the Democrats For Education Reform, headed up by millionaire hedge fund operators and Steve Barr, the founder of the Green Dot Charter school franchise. DFER arrived on the scene in recent months, just in time to weigh in on the stand-off between the CTU and the school board, quite a coincidence. DFER also hides behind an advocacy agenda to put kids first, though their real objective is to further the spread of largely underperforming, budget-busting, unregulated and non-unionized charter schools at the expense of our current public system. Their arrival coincides with Mayor Emanuel's vow to double the number of CPS charter schools, making them 20 percent of the system (they are currently at just above 10 percent). It appears that not only Republican financiers, Billionaire Democratic heiresses and charter school boosters are responsible for the proliferation of these fake proponents for Chicago families. The Democratic machine locally and nationally is lending their support to similar astro-turf efforts.
In the days preceding the CTU's strike authorization vote, DFER sponsored a series of radio spots denouncing the vote as rushed and insensitive to parents, with two obviously African American moms blasting the union for its haste. It turns out that the radio spots were developed by none other than AKPD, a firm owned and operated by David Axelrod, President Obama's chief political strategist.

Now that Chicagoans are gaining awareness about the wolves in sheep clothing in our midst and how Initiatives funded by the 1 percent are vying for our hearts and minds, the fight for our schools takes on a new light. The Chicago Teachers Union represents 30,000 educators who have lived and taught in Chicago for their professional lives and this year is the union's 75th anniversary. It's no wonder that Chicagoans by a two to one margin in a recent Tribune poll trust their teachers more than the Mayor's Ed Reform pretenders, to improve our schools. Teachers have deeper roots in their communities and honestly represent their outrage at the district's refusal to lower class size, respect experience in the classroom, provide art, music, P.E. and world language to our students and properly staff schools with social workers, nurses, counselors and school psychologists. It is a travesty that as our city continues to suffer from record levels of violence and homicide while the powers- that- be cut vital services for our children and their schools. The best reforms help to secure our future and stabilize the present. Will the real reformers please stand up!

This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. 

At TFA LIFO Panel Part 1

I gave out about a hundred copies of Julie's statement with a rap about how her position on lifo is stronger than uft presentation.
Lindsay Christ already printed a copy from the blog.
Evan came over to introduce himself. Claims he was supposed to be on panel in wash hts but dis-invited.

False advertising. Pedro Noguera is not here. A woman told me it was clear he wouldn't be here because she just saw him in New Orleans. But did the call Julie? Noooooo. They replaced him with an "emergency" replacement - Matt Willoughby - who is a TFA alum and principal of the Urban Assembly School of Design. He said teachers not working with kids - specifically ATRs and teachers up on charges should go first.
Now E4E - elevate discussion for classroom teachers - which of course she no longer is after 3 years. Laying out E4E line. Excessive absences should go - claims several hundred. Then U ratings. Then target ATRs - over 6 months.
Teachers who turn down jobs should go.
Leo- Bloomberg is stealth Wisconsin - Bloom manufactured crisis. Numbers at Tweed has gone up.
Bloomberg sees oppty to create at will employees (like Green Dot, Leo?). Now good point - turns layoffs into firing so have no right of return.
Due process - don't want dp. Absenses. U ratings. Raises Bx princ who sexually harrassed. Filed 3020a charges agst tchrs who testified against him. Gog help us if we give up protections.
He says only way is Lifo rigjt now.
Lindsey - is that good for students?
Leo- only good thing for students is no layoffs. System lost 5000 teachers over last few years. Class sizes high.
Leo actually did a decent job though I think he didn't lay things out as well as Julie would have.
Michelle Rhee slug is throwing out the anti Lifo line.
Lindsay says she will get back to principals behavior.
TFA guy just said Noguera had family emergency and they only found out a few hours ago. They still could have called Julie.

Part 2 coming next.

Cheers
Norm Scott

Education Notes
ednotesonline.blogspot.com
Grassroots Education Movement

Education Editor, The Wave
www.rockawave.com

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

The Green Dot/UFT 80% Solution - to the Destruction of Public Education - Leo Casey Defends Green Dot Charter at Left Forum

“Randi and I and Mike Mulgrew and I — we don’t agree on everything. … How do you find the 80% we all agree on?”- Green Dot's Steve Barr

Maybe you've been seeing stories in the last few days about UFT/AFT charter school partner Green Dot charter, now to be known as Future is Now Schools. The UFT/Green Dot - or the new name FINS? -or whatever-  is part of some deal to close down 2 Bronx schools and hand them over to Green Dot. There's so much meat in this story, my cholesterol is shooting up just writing about it.

Now you know I am way out there even from some of my colleagues in the movement because I consider the UFT leadership - and I mean the very top, not the rank and file Unity people - collaborators - not labor dupes or just bureaucrats looking to make a buck. I mean full scale ideological collaborators with so much of the ed deform program - and beyond. But they have Leo Casey out there trying to cover this up by giving the union a "leftish" face. Ho, ho, ho.

Before I do any parsing, here is a Gotham item with links to 2 stories:

Under pressure, Steve Barr is leaving Green Dot, the charter school chain he started. (GS, Times)

OK, so if you did your homework you see Randi buddy Barr is being barred from Green Dot and he and the UFT partnership have to change names. Something about financial irregularities. But, hey, Barr is in it for the kids.

Leo Casey on tape defending Green Dot contract

Now if you are up to date on the story, check out this video selection I put up from Leo Casey's panel at the Left Forum - sorry, I'm choking at the very thought of Leo and Left in the same sentence - I started throwing the rope over the lights to hang myself when Leo used the expression, "we on the left" shortly after red-baiting people who oppose UFT policy by comparing their ideology to Leon Trotsky and Rosa Luzemberg. But I have the entire video and will be putting it all up. There's just so much good stuff I don't know where to start.

Emily Giles, a chapter leader from the Bronx whom I've worked with in GEM, made a very strong statement about the UFT support for charter schools (she does agree charter school teachers should be organized) and also raised the UFT role in mayoral control. Leo responds, followed by a comment by  Stanley Aronowitz on mayoral control. Watch the 6 minute segment first before continuing below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uLMBIAl0r4




Had fun? There's lots more to come in future videos - wait till you see how Leo defines public education to fit UFT policy.

Gotham exclusive interview with Green Dot leaders

Now let me get to the Maura Walz (who is leaving to move to Atlanta - we'll miss you Maura) piece at Gotham with some delicious quotes from Barr and partner Gideon Stein, an anti-union guy "won" over by Weingarten and Mulgrew. “Randi and I and Mike Mulgrew and I — we don’t agree on everything. … How do you find the 80% we all agree on?”

What's there to win over when they agree on 80%? What's left to not disagree on? Now, read the following carefully:

[Stein] asked Barr how he could help Green Dot’s mission of re-making schools in partnership with labor. Now Stein is the president of Barr’s national organization, which changed its name today from Green Dot America to Future Is Now Schools. And he’s rejiggered his social calendar. “I’ve now had dinner and drinks with Randi 10 times in the last eight months,” he said, referring to Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers.


Future is Now, whose name is a play on President Barack Obama’s charge to “win the future,” aims to spread the principles that have governed Barr’s schools in California and New York around the country. Those principles include a simplified teachers contract that trades higher pay for tenure and sets only class size, the length of the school day and year, salary and benefits. Barr said that he also aims to transform the learning experience through technology.

Stein and Barr want to start by expanding in New York City, where they are working with the United Federation of Teachers and the Department of Education on a plan to take over two struggling Bronx schools starting next year. The plan would test a model that has not yet been tried here: removing the schools’ principals and half their teaching staffs.

You mean the model used at Locke HS in LA where Barr fired 70% of the staff and then got these results, which of course he is given a pass on, as I reported:

Union Role is Mediator, Not Advocate

Mar 09, 2011

The state test results released Tuesday for Locke High School weren't the sort of thing its new operator, Green Dot Public Schools, is accustomed to seeing: Not a single student scored as proficient in geometry, for example, ..

And again in Aug. 2009 based on work done by Leonie:

Diane Ravitch on charters in the LA Times
And another fine piece from last week along similar lines:
http://www.dailynews.com/opinions/ci_12985055?source=rss
And here's the June Graduation section from the Time's "journal"-type series about Green Dot's takeover of Locke HS in LAUSD. Clearly, throughout the series, the writer is spinning for Locke the whole time, but has enough honesty (or carelessness) in this section to let some tellingly truthful details of actual student behavior slip out:

http://www.latimes.com/la-ed-locke25-2009jun25-test,0,2545367.story

Lackluster test results for Mayor Villaraigosa's high-profile schools and Locke High
The two highest-profile school-reform efforts in Los Angeles — the mayor’s schools and the conversion of Locke High into six charter schools — achieved lackluster results in state test scores released this morning.

Oh, you mean that model. Maura continues:

Organizing parents to support his efforts is also central to the expansion, Barr said. For the two turnaround projects in the Bronx, Barr has promised to knock on every door in the communities where he is taking over schools in an effort to build parent support. He’ll lean on a veteran community organizer he and Stein have hired away from the SEIU for the effort, Mike Dolan.

But it’s far from clear that Barr’s attempt to replace the principal and half the staff of two schools won’t provoke an outcry similar to that sparked when the city has closed schools. Questions linger about the sustainability of Barr’s model, which has proven to be expensive in California. And already critics have grumbled that Barr, the city, and the union are proceeding with their negotiations without identifying the schools they are targeting to their staffs and parents.

(In our interview, Barr and Stein indicated that they had a high school in mind but wouldn’t name it.)

Hey, are you surprised that the UFT and Barr are working together to replace 50% of the teachers in these unnamed chools? How much do you want to bet the average teachers salaries are on the high end - closing schools decisions are based on the economics, not education -compare the schools chosen with similar performing schools not being closed - or turned around - or reconstituted - or regurgitated. That grumbler - critics have grumbled - is Ed Notes, by the way. Maura continues:

Working Together

The city’s teachers union, however, says it is committed to working with the organization. The two groups, along with the DOE, are already working to find common ground in an area where the city and the union have been stalled for months — a new evaluation system for the schools’ teachers.

Formal negotiations on the evaluations began just this week, but the Barr and UFT Secretary Michael Mendel said that there has been progress, although a new evaluation plan has not yet been vetted by lawyers to ensure it conforms to state education law.

“There is absolutely a willingness on our part and on Green Dot’s part to do this,” Mendel said.

Barr and Stein described a close friendship that has formed between Barr and UFT President Michael Mulgrew — and also between Stein, Mendel, and Leo Casey, the union’s resident big thinker and vice president.

“We met for breakfast and we ended up almost going to lunch,” Barr said of his first meeting with Mulgrew three months ago. He said that he found Mulgrew to be extremely thoughtful about the future of the teaching profession. The two spoke about how to reconfigure schools for a changing workforce, he said.

“I think a lot of this is just the lost art of trust,” Barr said. “Randi and I and Mike Mulgrew and I — we don’t agree on everything. … How do you find the 80% we all agree on?”

OK - close schools, get rid of teachers and use technology to get rid of more teachers.
Looks like a plan.

After Burn
Leonie had this comment about the technology component of Barr's plan (read - replace teachers with on-line learning).

In the NYT, he says he wants to take over schools in middle class neighborhoods as well as poor ones, and both pieces highlight how Barr intends to focus on “hybrid” learning, which means a combination of online learning mixed in w/ actual teachers --- the newest craze with little research backing to support it.

And San Francisco activist parent Caroline Grannan said:

Luckily not everything Barr touches turns to gold (or his preference, green). He has been viewed as invincible since the New Yorker devoted a lot of space to a puff piece on him, but his efforts to win a foothold in D.C. didn't get far:

http://www.examiner.com/education-in-san-francisco/breaking-news-from-afar-ed-reform-darlings-rhee-barr-turn-on-each-other

And finally, Michael Fiorillo comments:

I'm so happy that Michael Mulgrew has found a pal who can give him (im)moral support while he goes about the hard work of selling out his members by teaming up to privatize schools, gut the contract (the Green Dot/UFT contract has no tenure or seniority provisions) and destroy the professional lives of the teachers who will be displaced at these schools.


And it's also heartwarming that Mulgrew could earn the affection of real estate developer and charter school funder Gideon Stein. Think of the effort involved in getting him to jilt Eva! But it's a leader's job to go the extra mile and make the tough decisions, and what could possibly be more important than keeping the dues machine going while public education is dismantled? Yes, like his mentor Weingarten, Mulgrew is striving to earn those pats on the head from the education privateers.


When Bloomberg wrote an editorial in the NY Times in February, saying that unions were important in helping him manage the workforce, it was the Weingartens, Mulgrews and Caseys of the world he had in mind. With the union functioning as an arm of the DOE's HR department, it's enough to make the people who've defended it ashamed.

What Ed Deformers Get Wrong About Going to College

The Take Away this morning had a discussion about the classic STEM vs Liberal Arts education, a debate that was ignited to some extent by what appeared to be a contrary view of education between Bill Gates (study what will get you a job) and Steve Jobs (liberal arts prepares you for a wide range of options.) Steve Jobs, Bill Gates clash on merit of liberal arts education.

Now of course the ed deformers push the Gates view. Waiting for Superman made it all seem like a life and death matter to get into a charter school so the kids could see the sign that identifies the college their teachers went to. Life is over otherwise. And it's all about "competing in the 21st century", "America has to stay in the race", blah, blah, blah.

You know the drill - college is all about future employment, not the experience, intellectually and socially. As a history major, I had no prep for a job - Brooklyn College has a 2-track history major - one for future teachers and one for the other stuff you can do with a history degree - as one parent of a history major said, dejectedly - "what's he going to do, open a history store?" But I felt I had a great intellectual experience in college that gave me some skills useful in whatever I ended up doing.

Actually, I received a lot of intellectual stimulus at Thomas Jefferson High School in East NY, Brooklyn where I was in a college bound program of a couple of hundred kids and we were given a college level education that totally prepared us to be intellectually ready for college.

Is there any reason we couldn't do that for all kids if we had the resources? If students came out of high school like I did and chose not to go to college they would still have a full rounded education - remember, the ed deformers are pushing college but not offering to pay for it or support the families of poor kids - the dropout rates or 6 year grad rates make the high school grad rates of schools being closed look good - but you don't see them closing colleges for poor grad rates.

I am reminded of the excellent discussion I was involved in at the NYCORE conference on Saturday with a group that included a special ed teacher (about 10 years into the system), two student teachers who are actually doing real teaching, and one community college future teacher.

I wrote:

Another issue raised by one young lady was her discomfort with being forced to sell going to college as the only way to success considering so many poor kids don't have the means to pay for it or their aptitudes or interest level seems low. But she didn't want to be accused of the crime of low expectations, where the penalty is death of your career

We got into a great debate about vocational education that might or might not lead to college. We also talked about the fact that most new jobs being created are fairly low paying that do not require a college degree. Walmart and McDonald's are the largest employers in the nation. Which as someone commented means that you can hang your college up over your cash register when you ask, "Do you want fries with that?" Also consider that many of the white collar jobs can easily be outsourced  - I say be a plumber since that can't be outsourced - it takes 3 days to get a plumber from India.

I have to say that I have done many manual labor tasks around my house - plumbing, electrical, carpentry, even painting. Every single task has been intellectually challenging - real problem solving. I often hire a great guy who can do some amazing work. He is a college grad who prefers to work with his hands. One of the brightest people I've met - his thinking process and analytical powers are amazing and far beyond my capacity.

I hired another guy to build an extension to my house - with me as his assistant. An immigrant from Portugal with a 4th grade education he was one of the highest level thinking people I ever met. We had to do so much calculating and analyzing of problems - we were sort of working catch-as-catch-can- I found the time I spent with him so mind expanding. And he made so much money he was able to stop working as a fairly young man. But I will say, compared to the first guy I mentioned he did not have a wide range of knowledge and I think a guy like him would have starred in any endeavor.

Paul Krugman (and others) have been pointing some of this out as I reported in Ed Notes.

Krugman is finally delving into the ed deform bullshit. In a (March 8) NY Times piece Degrees and Dollars: The hollow promise of good jobs for highly educated workers, Krugman corroborates my "be a plumber" line and lays waste to the central tenet being pushed by Obama and translated into charter schools calling their kids "scholars" and having teachers post the name of the college they graduated from (don't look for CUNY colleges) on their classroom doors. Krugman writes (read it all)

that modern technology eliminates only menial jobs, that well-educated workers are clear winners, may dominate popular discussion, but it’s actually decades out of date.

The fact is that since 1990 or so the U.S. job market has been characterized not by a general rise in the demand for skill, but by “hollowing out”: both high-wage and low-wage employment have grown rapidly, but medium-wage jobs — the kinds of jobs we count on to support a strong middle class — have lagged behind. And the hole in the middle has been getting wider: many of the high-wage occupations that grew rapidly in the 1990s have seen much slower growth recently, even as growth in low-wage employment has accelerated.

Why is this happening? The belief that education is becoming ever more important rests on the plausible-sounding notion that advances in technology increase job opportunities for those who work with information — loosely speaking, that computers help those who work with their minds, while hurting those who work with their hands.... Most of the manual labor still being done in our economy seems to be of the kind that’s hard to automate.

...there are things education can’t do. In particular, the notion that putting more kids through college can restore the middle-class society we used to have is wishful thinking. It’s no longer true that having a college degree guarantees that you’ll get a good job, and it’s becoming less true with each passing decade. 

On the surface, the discussion on NPR was not about going to college or not but about what choice do you make when you get to college. Focus on the Bill Gates naturally narrow view - what will get me a job? or what Steve Jobs said - which also means getting a job but from a different angle. As a MAC (but not Jobs - also an anti-teacher deformer) fan I believe the products produced by Microsoft and Apple reflect some of their respective points of view and even if an ed deformer, if Jobs were throwing billions into the ed fray he might be very unhappy with test prep all the time.

So, here is the 8-minute  audio of the Take Away tape. About 2 minutes in the guest makes some great points - college experience intellectually - only chance in their lives to read and reflect on great literature, history, philosophy- the audio is worth listening to.




After Burn
Some worthwhile Must Reads from Gotham Schools:
This one adds to blowing the lid off Michelle Rhee - first illegal firings of teachers, then her personal history of lies about her teaching record and now an amazing in depth report on manipulation of tests through out and out cheating caused by the intense pressure Rhee put on to get "results."

• Analysis of Washington, D.C., test scores found high erasure rates at a top-scoring school. (USA Today)

Here is another blowout of the UFT's best buddy Steve Barr - I will post more on this later.

• Under pressure, Steve Barr is leaving Green Dot, the charter school chain he started. (GS, Times)

Separated at Birth: Leo Casey, UFT - Steve Barr, Greendot Charter School Slug

Note: online learning will replace teachers. Another example of the UFT being a partner in crime.

Leonie Haimson wrote:

On Inside City Hall last night, Steve Barr was selling the expansion of his "Green dot" charters in NYC, where he said he will focus on online learning, bring his "model" inside DOE, and he bragged about how he's working closely w/ the UFT,  including Leo Casey and Michael Mulgrew. 

He says "parents are owners" but so far neither the DOE, Barr, nor apparently the UFT have told anyone what schools  in the Bronx he intends to "turn around."

"If you can find that mutual co-option {between union and charter school operators], we can get beyond 3% [of students at ] charters, the great works happening at of charters should be scaled up as quickly as possible, we don't have time to play these adult games."'

NY1.com: http://bit.ly/eAgKym

Union Role is Mediator, Not Advocate

Even Penn and Teller can't make an entire school building disappear from public into private hands in an instant. But watch the UFT and Green Dot make magic.

We've been saying this for years. That the UFT plays the role of mediator between the rank and file members and the people managing the school system. What the members need is a strong advocate, a role that is increasingly being played by people like Diane Ravitch and NYC parent activist Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters and a new national group, Parents Across America (PAA).

I wrote a piece on Feb. 13 titled: Why Won't Mulgrew Defend LIFO?  I know the answer but don't want to scare you so early in this article.

Remember: 110 schools have been closed under the stewardship of the UFT leadership. Schools have become test prep factories (Ed Notes sponsored resolutions at DA's on the evils of standardized testing as far back as the late 90's were ignored). And charters are running rampant inside public schools but the UFT can't say a word because it has its own two charters running rampant inside two public schools. Where's the advocacy on the part of the UFT other than selective words at selective times? Show some results. The scary thing was yesterday's missive to send Governor Cuomo a "thank you" message. Lucky I ate a few hours before.

A new crop of young teachers who have come out of the woodwork recently and become active in groups like Grassroots Education Movement (GEM), NY Collective of Radical Educators (NYCORE) and Teachers Unite (TU). These voices have become important to counteract the message of the anti-union Bill Gates/DFER funded group Educators for Excellence (E4E which ICE's Jeff Kaufman renamed "ME4ME. I just call them ME$ME.) GEM's Julie Cavanagh debated a ME$ME on NY1 the same night Ravitch appeared on Jon Stewart's show. [Diane Ravitch and Julie Cavanagh Kick Butt].
A principal, Brian De Vale, did as good a job as could be done defending seniority face to face with Cathie Black at a District 14 CEC meeting last week. [Brooklyn Principal Challenges Cath...]

I was at the viewing party with Ravitch (Eadie Shanker was there too) sponsored by Leonie and PAA and we also watched Julie eloquently defend LIFO, seniority and tenure in a way that I haven't heard anyone from the UFT or AFT do. Julie tied her advocacy for her students (her school has been invaded by a charter controlled by a billionaire) to the protections she has from tenure. Ravitch was so so impressed she commented, "Julie, you were spectacular, also beautiful!"

Another thing we have been saying is that the UFT for years obfuscated - acting like Joel Klein was the bad guy and Bloomberg was the good guy. Funny how an article in The Observer claims that relations have deteriorated because Randi and Joel have left the room, while also talking about how Klein and Bloomberg played "bad cop, good cop." We maintained that the UFT was trying to fool the membership into believing this was about personalities, not a national attack on teachers, their unions and the entire public school system. EdNotes has been saying that since around 2001.

But I guess Mulgrew hasn't been reading Ed Notes. For in the Observer piece he says:

"I thought it was because of Joel Klein," Mr. Mulgrew said. "I honestly did. But that's not the case anymore. It's just [Mr. Bloomberg] there and it's become worse. ... He has a whole new team around him. ... Everything is carpet bomb and toxicity.

He has to be kidding. Randi fooled him too? We're in more to trouble than I thought. Then Mulgrew comes up with this goody:

"Since I know Deputy Mayor Wolfson's strategy is this when he runs a campaign, I'm assuming it's his influence on [the mayor]," said Mr. Mulgrew. Mr. Wolfson is of course the mayor's hard-driving senior adviser, who notably fought against Barack Obama's campaign long after Mr. Wolfson's candidate, Hillary Clinton, seemed to abandon the 2008 Democratic primary.

Mulgrew and the Observer declined to mention that Howard Wolfson was (and still may be for all we know) on the UFT payroll for years. (Just check the LM-2 reports of past years.)

And then we come to the NY Times piece today (New Strategy Weighed for Failing Schools) about the cozy relationship between the UFT and Green Dot charter maven/scoundrel Steve Barr who will partner together in shutting down a public school but making it look like something else. You see, you can believe in magic. Even Penn and Teller can't make an entire school building disappear from public into private hands in an instant. But watch the UFT and Green Dot make magic.

The plan would also involve forcing all teachers to reapply for their jobs and using a committee of teachers, school administrators and parents to pick who got to stay. The teachers’ contract would give them some measure of job protection, but it would be easier to fire them. The teachers also would work under more flexible rules, including longer hours in exchange for higher pay. “It’s about, what do we need to get this staff in order for them to meet the needs of the children and stop with this one-size-fits-all stuff?” said Michael Mulgrew...

Right Mike! One size fits all. If I were teaching in one of these schools,  I would be scared, very scared.

Let me tell you a few things about Steve Barr:

You know that the school in LA - Locke HS mentioned in the Times article?

Results on the standardized tests were lackluster, but the school gets high marks in other indicators of progress.The state test results released Tuesday for Locke High School weren't the sort of thing its new operator, Green Dot Public Schools, is accustomed to seeing: Not a single student scored as proficient in geometry, for example, and only a few percent tested at the next level down, basic.

How interesting what the Times leaves out. GEM/ICE's Lisa North commented:
BUT this is how NYC schools are closed...based on test scores....but I guess a charter school can be judged by "other" means.

Oakland teacher Jack Gerson wrote in Substance:

Two years ago, Steve Barr and his Green Dot charter schools group engineered a hostile takeover of Locke High School, a large public high school in Los Angeles. Despite the opposition of United Teachers of Los Angeles and the LA Unified School District, Barr was able to convince a bare majority of Locke's permanent faculty (37 of 73) to opt for Green Dot." Barr promptly dismissed the entire staff, forcing them to reapply for their jobs. Over 70 percent were not rehired.

And then there is this side of Barr: According to the Green Dot website, he is no longer on staff either.

Barr stepped aside this fall as board chairman of Green Dot but remains on the board and on staff. The expense problem had nothing to do with Barr's change of role, said Shane Martin, who replaced Barr as chairman.

Green Dot charter schools founder repays group $50,866
The nonprofit's tax return shows that Steve Barr repaid the organization after an internal review found that expenses he had charged were undocumented or unjustified.

Lie down with privatization dogs and you get fleeced. Can't wait to hear the spin at the DA today.
----------------
Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

Bloomberg Lets the Cat Out of the Bag: We Need the UFT to Help Manage the Members- oops - the Schools

I missed the radio program starring the two Michaels the other day but I hear Bloomberg said he was not anti-union - and in fact needs the union. And so he does. What if the membership starts going wilding - like taking mass sickouts or other wildcat actions? The UFT  leadership will be right there to help reign them in.

With tonight's buzz of the UFT giving up on --- you name it ----- here are some email leads coming in:

Mulgrew has been quietly lobbying for the turnaround plan behind the scenes.

WNYC WNYC News Blog
RecommendSharePrintEmail Bill to End Last In, First Out Narrowly Clears Senate
Tuesday, March 01, 2011 - 12:43 PM
By Beth Fertig

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said before Cuomo's bill was released that the teachers union and state education department are already working on a policy to replace LIFO as part of the requirements for receiving federal Race to the Top funding in time for the 2012-2013 school year

It seems that the UFT has agreed to a turnaround plan that not only involves charter conversion to Green Dot (whose teachers, while unionized have less job security that public school teachers), but also would mean at least half of the school's teachers would lose their position and become ATRs, outside of any seniority order. 

A major concession, if true.  Given that the UFT appears to be the major source for this article and then DOE remains noncommittal, it appears that the union is committed to this. I hope it raises major questions at tomorrow's Delegate Assembly.

New Strategy Weighed for Failing Schools: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/09/nyregion/09greendot.html?src=me&ref=nyregion

From The New York Times:

City Eyes New Tactic for Failing Schools: The Turnaround

Rather than closing two Bronx schools, the Bloomberg administration may try to overhaul them with help from a charter school network.

http://nyti.ms/einOwx

(And lots of talk about the UFT's fave charterites: Steve Barr and Green Dot. Too much info to put up here but here are some links at Norms Notes: Green Dot and Steve Barr Updates.)

Here's the best:

From: UFT Political Action Department <noreply@uft.org>
Subject: Take action: Thank the governor

Date: Tuesday, March 8, 2011, 7:50 PM

Take action: Thank the governor
Dear colleagues,
When our elected officials do the right thing by our schools and our students, we want them to know.
Please take a moment to call Governor Cuomo to tell him that we appreciate his leadership on workers’ rights and our schools.
Call him at 518-474-8390.
Here’s what you can say:
Governor Cuomo, because of your efforts, everyone knows that New York is not Wisconsin.
I want to thank you for standing up for both the city’s children and the rights of union members by insisting that the state budget should not require local layoffs, despite Mayor Bloomberg's threat to lay off thousands of teachers and send class sizes skyrocketing.
In addition, while the system you are developing can lead to more objective teacher evaluations, the mayor's proposals would return our system to the days of cronyism and discrimination on the basis of race, age and gender.
Your leadership stands as an example to other states where workers' rights and critical services for children are under assault.
Sincerely,
UFT Political Action Department

 "Shameless!" was one comment. I just gagged.

Well, you know the drill. The Delegate Assembly Weds afternoon should be a bowl of laughs. I better get there early to get the banana. Join a bunch of us to drown your sorrows post-DA:

From Teachers Unite - POST-D.A. DRINKS! 3/9 Happy Hour: Send Support to Wisconsin workers!

Join fellow teachers and allies following the UFT Delegate Assembly in writing solidarity/thank you cards to Wisconsin workers standing up for collective bargaining.

Wed., 3/9, 6pm
Killarney Rose Bar (Upstairs Lounge)
127 Pearl St.
$4 drafts and bottles

Directions from UFT Headquarters:
Broad St. to Pearl St. and make a right

Link to Killarney Rose Bar with map: http://bit.ly/htUzAn

(A monthly affair after every DA)

THIS JUST IN:
READ A GREAT PIECE AT GOTHAM COMMUNITY BY GEMer Liza Campbell, a third year teacher who I've been working with on a bunch of projects. Democracy And Reform: A View From A PEP Newbie

I was at an ad hoc meeting organizing for Fight Back Friday (March 25 - get your school to join) on Monday with Liza, Julie Cavanagh and about 15 other mostly young teachers, all of whose ages don't add up to mine. What an amazing crew. I'm starting to feel sorry for the ed deformers. And for ME$ME. They don' need no stinkn' full time organizers paid for by Bill Gates and DFER.

See where all this is going: Social Justice Unionism

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

Baltimore Teachers: STAND UP AND TAKE A BOW!

Is rejection of contract a sign of emerging teacher rebellion?

{NOTE: If you are a teacher or connected with education in the Baltimore area leave a comment or email me off line with info: normsco@gmail.com}

Back in 1995, when Randi Weingarten was years away from taking over the UFT presidency, she negotiated a five year contract with double zero raises and other onerous provisions. You see, Mayor Giuliani was claiming the city didn't have any money and Randi and crew went right along with it. Thus, no raises. And some other provisions that would eat the young teachers and extend to 25 years before you could reach maximum, which many women who had lost years for childcare said was a form of discrimination.

They were so sure of ratification that Unity didn't bother sending out the hordes to the schools to sell it. It went down in defeat (credit to New Action at the time and to independents like Bruce Markens), sending shock waves through the UFT (they learned their lesson in the 2005 contract). So they made some minor changes - and then sent out the Unity hordes to spread fear and loathing and the contract passed on the second round. Within a year, Giuliani was bragging how rich the city was.

So yesterday's news about the Baltimore teachers voting down a contract Randi helped negotiate was so deja vu.

Baltimore City teachers rejected a contract Thursday that would have provided six-figure salaries for an elite corps of teachers but would have tied the pay of all educators to how they performed in the classroom, a vague provision that caused discomfort for many union members. More than 2,000 educators represented by the Baltimore Teachers Union voted on the tentative agreement, which had been hailed as the most innovative in the nation since its details emerged two weeks ago. However, it proved to be one of the most contentious ever in Baltimore, with its overhaul of how teachers are compensated, promoted and evaluated. The new contract would have eliminated the traditional system of "step increases," under which teachers are paid based on seniority and education degrees. It would have instead paid teachers based, in large part, on how effective they are in the classroom and their pursuit of professional development. On Wednesday and Thursday,1,540 union members voted against the tentative agreement and 1,107 in favor. The union represents about 6,500 educators.

Oh, they were so sure. Randi and friends. That they could shove another Washington DC/Harford/Detroit/etc. contract down the throats of teachers in Baltimore. So sure that Harold Myerson wrote in the Washington Post a short time ago:

Baltimore teachers union is the hero, not a villain

....the narrative that education reformers and teachers unions are eternal and implacable enemies is a hardy one, and one that Washingtonians in particular may well believe after four years of pitched battle between Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee and the D.C. teachers union. The intensity of the local battle might blind them to the experience of cities where the school district and the union have jointly embraced a reform agenda, even including a version of merit pay. And yet, such an agreement -- an impossibility, if we are to believe the conventional narrative -- was reached just two weeks ago in the faraway city of Baltimore.

Yes, they are heroes. But not of the Myerson and Weingarten kind.

Even Valerie Strauss wrote (I can't locate it now) that there would be a more benign atmosphere in Baltimore due to the milder form of Klein/Rhee in the face of Superintendent Andres Alonso, who used to carry Klein's water bottle. We knew Alonso a bit and no matter what cloth they where, an ed deformer is an ed deformer. Besides, I think Alonso couldn't be Rhee if he wanted too since there is some kind of school board instead of mayoral control.

There were warning signs. Mike Antonucci (one of the earliest anti-union sirens of ed deform) sent this out on his blog yesterday:

Last Tuesday, I noted there was some opposition brewing to the new Baltimore teachers’ contract, but I wrote:

“Since the much more controversial DC teachers contract passed, it’s hard to imagine this one being defeated.”

Oops.
City teachers voted it down – 1,540 to 1,107. Union president Marietta English blamed the defeat on the rumor that “some charter school operators have encouraged their teachers not to vote for this agreement.”
So it’s back to the drawing board for the negotiators. I’ll avoid predicting the outcome of ratification votes in the future, and I hope Harold Meyerson will think twice before he writes another column like this one.

Randi on front page in Times
Today's NY Times has a front page article on Randi which reveals so much.

Both friends and foes describe Ms. Weingarten, 52, who became president of the 1.5-million member American Federation of Teachers in 2008 after a decade leading the New York City local, as a superb tactician who cares deeply about being seen as a reformer.
“We have spent a lot of time in the last two years looking at ourselves in a mirror, trying to figure out what we’ve done right and what we’ve done wrong, and we’re trying to reform,” Ms. Weingarten said in an interview.
Early this year, she delivered a major policy speech that embraced tying teachers’ evaluations in part to students’ scores on standardized tests, a formula that teachers — and Ms. Weingarten herself — once resisted. 

----
Yet one scene that the director filmed, but left on the cutting-room floor, showed Ms. Weingarten signing a contract on behalf of teachers at Green Dot, which has had impressive results since it opened in 2008.
Steve Barr, who founded the Green Dot charter school network, lamented that the film ignored examples of charters and unions working together. “It doesn’t help to take the one true open-minded union leader and bash her,” he said.

Yes, we've been claiming all along that Randi wants to be an ed deformer, not a Real reformer. Lest you think Randi came up with this all on her own, we have been pointing out for years that Albert Shanker started leading the UFT/AFT in this direction in 1982 with his support for the now tainted "Nation at Risk" report. (I won't go into details her but you can follow some of it by reading the review of the Kahlenberg Shanker bio Vera Pavone and I wrote a few years ago - read it online here.)

NYC teacher Reality-Based Educator was overjoyed at Perdido Street School over the situation in Baltimore:

Next thing to do is vote out the sell-out leadership who tried to sell Baltimore teachers on the "Salary Commensurate With Test Scores and PD" jive.

Then take aim at Randi Weingarten and the rest of the sell-outs in the AFT leadership who touted this piece of shit contract as a model for contracts all across the country.
Hey, Randi, hope you can read lips!!!!
You too, Arne!!!

 Well, not maybe overjoyed. But RBE's post and the vote in Baltimore, along with the Chicago election, turmoil in Detroit and Washington DC, expresses the increasing revolt of the rank and file teacher, something Weingarten and MulGarten will try their best to manage.

They have the best shot at control in our own hometown here in NYC where Unity Caucus machine reigns supreme. There are stirrings for sure and I will use Ed Notes to support any movement that makes sense.

Today, Teachers Unite is sponsoring the first of a series of monthly forums focused on teacher unionism. I can't make it because we are working on our film response to WfS. But if you are around head on down.

A new union movement starts Saturday, Oct. 16

Saturday, October 16
Rank and File Leadership Program
11am-1pm
Community Resource Exchange, 42 Broadway, 20th Floor

Facilitator: Dr. Lois Weiner, Professor of Education, New Jersey City University
Pushing back on testing, merit pay, charter schools, and de-professionalization of teaching: How can we use teacher unions?

We will share strategies with participants for leading reading groups with colleagues about these issues. Participants will be provided with reading materials to distribute and action steps for organizing teachers in their school building.

Yes, boys and girls. All you people who decry the Unity machine - there will be no change in the UFT - or the AFT which is controlled by the UFT -  until you get actively involved in the struggle. And organizing in your own building is where it starts because Unity actively controls most schools and those they don't control they do so by default due to lack of interest.

There are enough active groups out there for you to jump in: ICE(which met last night), TJC, Teachers Unite, GEM. Or go start your own group at the school level like CAPE did and link in with the other groups.

AFTER BURN
More Teachers Unite: Go see Leonie Haimson speak on mayoral control on Tuesday:

Tuesday, October 19
Right to the City Schools Leadership Program
5:00-7:00PM
Urban Justice Center, 123 William St.

Guest speaker: Leonie Haimson

How has mayoral control impacted your classroom? What does school governance model have to do with the overemphasis on testing and lack of attention to class size?

More WfS Critics- Updated

Last Updated: Sat., Oct. 2, 2pm

You know, I think this Waiting for Superman thing will ultimately work out better for the Real Reformers and against the Deformers. Even noted Ed Deformer Brent Staples, editorial writer for the NY Times, has some words that are not total idiocy for a change - if you extract the super praise for Steve Barr. At least he makes the positive point for why teacher unions were founded in the first place.

And here is Rick Ayers who wrote this great critique of WfS Breaking Down "Waiting for Superman" appears on Democracy Now.

"Waiting for Superman": Critics Say Much-Hyped Education Documentary Unfairly Targets Teachers Unions and Promotes Charter Schools

Waiting for Superman, a new documentary by filmmaker Davis Guggenheim, has caused a stir in the education world for its sweeping endorsement of the charter school movement and attack on teachers unions. President Obama has endorsed the film, describing it as "heartbreaking" and "powerful," but some teachers have called for a boycott of the film for its portrayal of teachers and the teachers union. We speak to Rick Ayers, founder of the Communication Arts and Sciences program at Berkeley High School and adjunct professor in teacher education at the University of San Francisco.

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/10/1/waiting_for_superman_critics_say_much

And here is another video of Diane Ravitch in Los Angeles this week. You don't have to wait for superwoman - she is all over the place (Detroit). Can someone make her a cape with a giant D?



Update: Additional info on Staples piece from Leonie Haimson:

Brent Staples, author of the NY Times editorials on education, and staunch supporter of mayoral control and charter school expansion,  cautions that the film “Waiting for Superman” is overly simplistic in attacking Randi, especially as she has established charter schools in collaboration with Steve Barr, founder of the “Green Dot” chain of charters that started in LA.  (see below).

Staples writes: “Green Dot is one of the stars of this [charter] movement. Despite the fact that many of its 17 schools serve desperately poor, minority neighborhoods, its students significantly outperform their traditional school counterparts, on just about every academic measure, including the percentage of children who go on to four-year colleges. “

Green Dot currently operates 18 schools in Los Angeles, CA and one in the Bronx, NY, according to its website. Yet Green dot has already closed down one of the first five charters it started in LA: http://articles.latimes.com/2010/mar/22/local/la-me-greendot23-2010mar2

 Caroline Grannan, one of the founders of Parents Across America, has analyzed Green Dot’s results. Based on the API, the California Department of Education’s accountability system, the Green Dot schools have mediocre results, and all but one had worse results than the supposedly “failing” LA public schools that Green Dot ran campaigns to take over, through the “parent trigger” measure, led by their fake grassroots organization, Parent Revolution.  (The Parent Revolution is run by Ben Austin, an attorney who works for the city of LA, http://rdsathene.blogspot.com/2009/07/ben-austin-six-figure-salary-man-green.html lives in Beverly Hills, http://www.dailynews.com/opinions/ci_13185224 , has no school age children, is paid $100,000 as a part-time consultant to Green Dot, and yet regularly claims to be a typical, aggrieved LA public school parent.  http://dailycensored.com/2010/04/24/political-patronage-for-green-dot-public-schools-chief-propagandist/. http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2010/02/parent-revolution-and-green-dot-too.html   

As Caroline writes:
Average API of all Green Dot’s schools (15 total, counting several small schools on one campus, Locke High in Watts): 632 (rounded up to the nearest whole)Average API of the “failing” schools Parent Revolution is targeting with parent trigger campaigns: 670 (rounded down to the nearest whole) ….. By Parent Revolution’s own definition, Green Dot’s other 14 schools [out of 15] are “failing.”

http://www.examiner.com/education-in-san-francisco/14-of-15-green-dot-schools-are-failing-by-parent-revolution-s-definition

According to the LA Times, the achievement results of Locke HS, its most celebrated takeover school have been “lackluster.”, despite substantially increased funding. “First-year scores remained virtually unchanged and exceptionally low.”…. http://articles.latimes.com/2010/aug/17/local/la-me-0817-star-tests-20100817

Moreover, Staples claims that Green Dot charters outperformed traditional public schools in “the percentage of children who go on to four-year colleges.”

Yet Steve Barr admitted that “We only started tracking our graduates during the past year and a half”, in an August 2010 interview published on the Univ. of Phoenix (!) website: http://www.phoenix.edu/uopx-knowledge-network/articles/expert-voices/q-a-steve-barr-founder-of-green-dot-public-schools.html  

I have searched the web for any independent analysis or study that shows that Green Dot has outperformed similar public schools and cannot find any.

This is not to say that these schools may not prove themselves over time, but the claims in this column represent yet another example of the exaggerated hype around charter schools. Someday, Staples might consider talking to some real life NYC public school parents in the same way he apparently communicates with LA-based charter school operators.

Parsing Inside Unity Info - Part 1- Does Klein Have A Mole in the UFT?

Well, reporters have been calling about some of the Inside Unity stuff appearing in the comments section of this post Is UFT Bronx Leader Vargas Going Rogue? - Updated. We started hearing from Da Moles (there are definitely more than one) while in Seattle and posted the July comments here.

Now some of the stuff seems "out there" but within all there are many grains of truth. We have confirmed that staffers are unhappy with Leroy Barr and Jose Vargas. As to whether Barr and Vargas are at war we have not confirmed. Lurking behind the anonymous info was the hint of racial issues. Is Vargas setting up a Latino/a only operation? Is there resentment on the part of some black Unity people? When in Seattle we had some contact with some black members of Unity who told us they secretly read and supported many ed notes positions and expressed some unhappiness at the way jobs were being given out.

This Mole comment on July 24th was interesting:

FORGET THE CONVENTIONS AND THE PERKS AND THE DO- NOTHING JOBS AT 52 BROADWAY.
RANDI LEFT MULGREW IN CHARGE- THEN KLEIN SENT HIS GUY BRIAN GIBBONS IN TO KEEP MULGREW ON A SHORT LEASH 

Gibbons used to be the spokesman for the principal's union, which doesn't necessarily condemn him to being "Klein's" man. But who knows?

There was more in the July 24th comment of interest:

RANDI HAS GIVEN UP ON UNIONS AND PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND SHE WANTS TO BE A PLAYER IN D.C.
SHE AND MULGREW WILL DO ANYTHING TO WIND UP ON THE RIGHT SIDE- THE RIGHT SIDE BEING GATES, BLOOMBERG, ET. AL., AND BOTH OF THEM COULD EASILY BE AT D.O.E. SO SHE GUTTED THE CONTRACT, LEFT THE RUBBER ROOMERS IN LEGAL LIMBO FOR TEN YEARS AND STARTED PROTECTING HER FRIENDS IN D.O.E AND GREEN DOT AND SHARPTON AND THE OTHER MISCREANTS.
THIS IS ABOUT DESTROYING TEACHERS UNIONS AND DESTROYING PUBLIC EDUCATION AND RANDI AND MULGREW ARE IN THE MIDDLE OF IT.
EVERYTHING ELSE IS A DISTRACTION.

This is pretty on target. I think there is more to it. I don't look at personalities as causal - what Randi/Mulgrew want, etc. There is policy and I see it as more of a direct line of consistency over 30 or more years than just as Randi's wishes. (GEM has set up a UFT/AFT study group to delve deeper into this issue.)

One thing is noticeable. Randi had her finger on every single button and jumped in at the first sign of trouble. Clearly she monitored the blogs for those signs and any rumblings coming out of dissidents in schools. She jumped in early and tried to coopt or even buy people off (see one New Action Caucus).

Mulgrew just doesn't have the chops Randi had to manage all this. Someone called yesterday and said, "Randi jumped ship just in time and left Mulgrew holding the bag." I used to disagree with this analysis since Randi's power base at the AFT was totally dependent on the UFT and behind that Unity Caucus. (I'm going to do a follow-up on why the management of Unity Caucus is of a higher priority than managing the union itself and will compare it to the Chicago situation.)

But maybe the combination of buying off the leading opposition for 20 years and the ineptness of the current opposition in making a dent (and yes, I play a role in that ineptness)  have made Randi so confident of not having to face a Chicago style revolt in NYC for a very long time, if ever. (More on this in follow-ups too.)

Another thing has emerged: One of the moles seems to be trying to redirect suspicion by giving clues to other people. I have some ideas as to who these people may be. Some are lower level school based and others are in 52 Broadway. Are they just people with grudges - didn't get a job, jealousy, etc -  or are there serious cracks showing up?

One of the more intriguing pieces of information is that there are deals between Klein and Mulgrew for UFT people to be placed at Tweed. We'll delve into some historical aspects of the UFT at the old BOE and what might be occurring. Key words: Aminda Gentile and teacher centers.

See part 2: Parsing Inside Unity: Does the UFT Have Backroom Deals for Jobs With BloomKlein?

--------------
Afterburn1

Some of the latest info tells us that Brooklyn/SI high school district rep Charlie Friedman was forced into retirement. Charlie was one of the many Unity crew that enjoyed a cruise to Alaska after the AFT convention - they paid their own way we hear. His replacement is rumored to be closing school Maxwell's chapter leader Jeff Bernstein. At one time I heard Bernstein was going to replace Mulgrew as Vocational HS Veep supposedly Bernstein and Mulgrew are close). Berstein, on the surface a nice guy, used to have me deliver Ed Notes and then throw them away. And when I went in and put them in boxes he and Distr rep Charlie Turner made sure they didn't stay there. They both went after a GEMer at their school who dared to call out during Randi's farewell speech.

Maxwell by the way had 22 people excessed. ATRville here they come.

--------
Afterburn2

Our ICE pal Julie Woodward's daughter Lisa, who performs under the stage name Lucy Woodward, made a fabulous appearance on the CBS morning show this morning, performing 2 songs from her new jazz album. I've seen her perform as a rock singer a few times but now she is going back to her jazz roots. Her mom is an accomplished music teacher so we know where it comes from.
I put up Lucy's last email newsletter to fans on Norms Notes. From Lucy Woodward
Her web site is: http://www.lucywoodward.com/

I loved this piece:

The Pizza Sessions:
After a recent gig in NYC, I ended up in a pizzeria (naturally) on Bleecker street with my friend, Heather. It was a stormy night, 3 am. Six stoned, english laddies walk in and on the spot, we bonk them over the head with a couple of my songs convincing them to beatbox to 'Babies' and 'He Got Away'. It was a classic New York moment and we got it on videotape here....(viva Flipcam!)...

Let's Discuss Teacher Union Response to Ed Deform

I often get asked about the motivation and behavior of the UFT/AFT and even the NEA, which comes off as as a bit more in opposition to the assault on teachers, their unions and public education.

It may seem funny to those who know of him, but I had a bit of this conversation with NYC Charter honcho Jim Merriman when I ran into him at the Duncan fest in Brownsville the other day. (If I get a chance I'll get into more of this conversation where the two of us seem to agree on a bunch of surprising things.)

The answer is complex, requiring historical context and a deep political analysis. The simple answer is that union leaders' main mantra is to hold onto power at all costs. But it does go deeper. My other simple answer is that fighting back is just not part of their DNA. But then we have to drill down to find out why.

People in ICE and GEM have been talking about a forum that will drill, baby, drill into this issue. Maybe sometime in June. In the meantime, here is a section of a long article by LA teacher Gillian Russom (who I met in LA this past summer.) The article, Obama’s neoliberal agenda for education, is from the International Socialist Review. (You can read it in full here: http://isreview.org/issues/71/feat-neoliberaleducation.shtml)

Gillian covers a lot of ground. I extracted a section on the behavior of the teachers unions vis a vis the attack on public ed. She concludes with:

in the absence of our own grassroots, democratic vision of school transformation (that also protects and extends union rights), these union leaders just end up picking and choosing which aspects of the top-down reform agenda to get on board with.

This is a start but I still feel we need to drill deeper.


Responses by teachers’ unions

National leaders of the AFT and NEA have accepted many of the assumptions of the neoliberal attack. “We finally have an education president,” said AFT President Randi Weingarten, following Obama’s first education speech that stressed “performance pay” and charter schools. “We really embrace the fact that he’s talked about both shared responsibility and making sure there is a voice for teachers, something that was totally lacking in the last eight years.” 39

In response to the same speech, NEA President Dennis Van Roekel said, “President Obama always says he will do it with educators, not to them. That is a wonderful feeling, for the president of the United States to acknowledge and respect the professional knowledge and skills that those educators bring to every job in the school.”40

Both unions initially voiced their support of RTTT. Weingarten said of the program, “The Department of Education worked hard to strike the right balance between what it takes to get system-wide improvement for schools and kids, and how to measure that improvement.”41 And Van Roekel said, “While NEA disagrees with some of the details surrounding the RTTT initiative, this is an unprecedented opportunity to make a lasting impact on student achievement, the teaching profession, and public education.”42

Weingarten has been supporting forms of merit pay and charter schools for years. When she was president of New York City’s United Federation of Teachers (UFT) from 1998 to 2009, the UFT opened two of its own charter schools and partnered with Green Dot to run a third where teachers are under separate contracts from the rest of the UFT. In October 2007, the UFT implemented “performance” bonuses for teachers at schools that improved their test scores.

Now, Weingarten is touting the new contract for New Haven teachers as “a model or a template” for the rest of the country. The contract implements performance bonuses for schools that improve their test scores; gives the school district the right to shut down and reconstitute low-performing schools as charters; and makes it easier for the district to fire teachers after a 120-day “improvement period.” New Haven teachers approved the contract by an overwhelming vote of 842 to 39.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the AFT “recently issued a batch of innovation grants to districts that are tying teacher pay to performance,” and the NEA “is taking similar steps to encourage tougher evaluations and to loosen seniority systems, moves that Mr. Duncan called ‘monumental breakthroughs.’”43

The NEA, which had largely refrained from criticizing Obama, did issue a critical statement after the release of the Blueprint:

We were expecting to see a much broader effort to truly transform public education for kids. Instead, the accountability system… still relies on standardized tests to identify winners and losers. We were expecting more funding stability to enable states to meet higher expectations. Instead, the “blueprint” requires states to compete for critical resources, setting up another winners-and-losers scenario. We were expecting school turnaround efforts to be research-based and fully collaborative. Instead, we see too much top-down scapegoating of teachers and not enough collaboration.

Nevertheless, the NEA has not put forward a clear strategy on how to shift education policy.

For the AFT, Weingarten has issued a strategy piece entitled, “A New Path Forward.”44 Her proposal for fixing public education contains four elements: 1) a new, more fair, and “expedient” process of teacher evaluation and for dealing with ineffective teachers; 2) a new fair and faster system of due process for teachers accused of misconduct; 3) giving teachers the “tools, time, and trust” to succeed; and 4) creating a trusting partnership between labor and management.

Although the document purports to challenge teacher scapegoating, Weingarten’s first two recommendations accept the logic that individual classroom teachers are what’s standing in the way of quality education. The piece makes no mention of the decimation of school funding nationwide. Most importantly, “A New Path Forward” stresses collaboration with politicians and school districts at a time when we need to be mounting a serious fight against them for funding and democracy.

Why aren’t the national unions taking a more aggressive approach to fight Obama’s anti-union agenda? Obviously, their close ties with Obama and the Democrats are a major factor. Moreover, it has been a long time since teachers’ unions in the U.S. waged any large-scale struggle for our rights, and there is the perception that the Obama agenda has such broad support that it would be impossible to challenge—so if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.

In addition, the national unions’ approach is based on an underlying recognition that people are fed up with our public schools. Yet in the absence of our own grassroots, democratic vision of school transformation (that also protects and extends union rights), these union leaders just end up picking and choosing which aspects of the top-down reform agenda to get on board with.
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In this section Gillian offers some ideas for the future which dovetails with some of the concepts we have been talking about here in NYC. Her point about the unease between left activists who ignore radical school reform movements and the distrust by radical/progressive reformers of union activists has been echoed here at times where ICE and TJC represent the former and NYCORE the latter. One of the ideas behind the formation of Teachers Unite was Sally Lee's attempt to bring these 2 movements closer. Some members of ICE and TJC worked with Sally over the past few years on various projects. GEM over the past year has turned out to be the place where some fusion with NYCORE and other groups has taken place. Lately we have started looking at joint projects with the Coalition for Public Education, a broad based group has roots in some communities.


Grassroots, democratic reform versus top-down, corporate reform

We also need to be deeply involved in putting forward our own vision and concrete plans for transforming our own schools. The left within the teachers’ unions has always fought back against cuts, but for the most part has been hesitant to get involved in reform projects to transform individual schools. We have been clear about what we are against, but much less clear about what we are for.

At the same time, radical education reformers whose focus is creating alternative school models have mostly been working at a distance from the teachers’ unions, which they see as uninterested in questions of school transformation.

If our goal is to build a mass movement for public education, radicals in the teachers’ unions need to reclaim the terrain of education visionaries and combine it with our struggle for school funding and stronger union rights. We need to be part of the small struggles to improve schools in the here and now, because these will help build the community coalitions and power to fight for the massive increase in resources that we need. Of course, meaningful, progressive school reform is unsustainable without adequate funding—and that struggle must continue. But developing a vision for the changes we want to see at each school can bring more teachers, students, and parents into our struggle and lend urgency to the fight for more resources.

In other words, we need a dual strategy to confront the dual attack of budget cuts and top-down reform. Progressive teachers in several cities have formed organizations to take on this challenge: The Caucus of Rank-and-File Educators in Chicago, the Grassroots Education Movement in New York City, Educators for a Democratic Union in San Francisco, and Progressive Educators for Action in Los Angeles.