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Written and edited by Norm Scott: EDUCATE! ORGANIZE!! MOBILIZE!!! Three pillars of The Resistance – providing information on current ed issues, organizing activities around fighting for public education in NYC and beyond and exposing the motives behind the education deformers. We link up with bands of resisters. Nothing will change unless WE ALL GET INVOLVED IN THE STRUGGLE!
What is amazing is that at a time when the city has a huge surplus, we have to make the retirees whole, at a cost that extends out into the future.... Comment on MORE listserve in response to Arbitrator extending latest UFT contract in order to pay retirees, as reported by James Eterno, ARBITRATOR RULES ACTIVE PEOPLE HAVE TO PAY FOR RETIREE LUMP SUM PAYMENTS.Look for a comment soon along the lines of, "It's only a month extension, what are you guys complaining about?"
This is very interesting. Although the modifications are relatively minor, they do involve a financial loss to active members. Most importantly, the power of this arbitrator over contract provisions has been decisively demonstrated, which will come into play in a major way if the magical 3.4 billion in health care savings promised fail to emerge.Ahhh, that magical 3.4 billion, which doesn't have to be settled until AFTER Mugrew has to run for re-election - with the support of New Action, of course -- for which they will get their piece of the Ex Bd.
ARBITRATOR MIGHT NOT YET BE DONE REWRITING UFT CONTRACT
The arbitrator who decided last week to lengthen our contract by a month and delay one of the raises may have another crack at rewriting the agreement. If the city and the union can't agree on the UFT's share of $3.4 billion in heath care savings, then guess who gets to decide on the savings? You are right if you guessed it is the same arbitrator who just extended the contract. With our union's track record, most are expecting to experience some kind of healthcare giveback in the not too distant future.
Pissed Off teacher also commented from the perspective of making sure retirees are kept happy and voting for Mulgrew:
Ms. Tsouris on POT blog ...Courting Votes
Mulgrew loves his retired teachers. They sing his praises at meetings and, since they are not working they ask nothing in return. He doesn't have to waste time defending them or answering their questions.
Mulgrew might be in for a rude awakening. The new bunch of retired teachers don't remember or care about the union Shanker created. They and their colleagues have long been neglected and abused by the union of today.
It's been the usual dog-and-pony show. The orginal $180 million was suddenly "not enough" as if the UFT and the DOE didn't know all those teachers were going to retire, given the "retire by June 30th" incentive. That of course is total baloney. Of course they all knew that many teachers were going to retire. The decision to extend the contract by a month and restructure the raises was imposed by the arbitrator. Retirees really shouldn't be voting at all, but that's how the corrupt, mean spirited and bloated Unity caucus maintains its stranglehold on what once was a great union.And Chaz:
If we don’t transform teacher unions now, our schools, our profession, and our democracy—what’s left of it—will likely be destroyed. I know. I am from Wisconsin, the home of Scott Walker and Paul Ryan.... Social justice unionism is an organizing model that calls for a radical boost in internal union democracy and increased member participation. This contrasts to a business model that is so dependent on staff providing services that it disempowers members and concentrates power in the hands of a small group of elected leaders and/or paid staff. An organizing model, while still providing services to members, focuses on building union power at the school level in alliance with parents, community groups, and other social movements....
Bob Peterson, President of Wilwaukee Teachers Association and founding member of Rethinking SchoolsThe long piece below by Bob Peterson is worth reading. For people who attack the social justice unionism concept, I find it funny how many SJ people are getting elected in Chicago, LA, Milwaukee, Detroit and coming close in Seattle.
A Revitalized Teacher Union Movement
Reflections from the field
By Bob Peterson
http://www.rethinkingschools.org/img/archive/29_02/ peterson-1.jpg
The fact is, the war between the unions and Cuomo was NEVER on because these people running the unions don't want a war. They like testing, they like Common Core and they like reform. They're simply negotiating the terms of exploitation and surrender while sucking up their double pensions and other union perks and putting on a show for the rest of us... RBE points out that the ed deform supporting union leadership (AFT/UFT/NYSUT) UFT Continues To Put On Dog And Pony Show Against Cuomo, But Signals They Expect Defeat -Michael Fiorillo left this comment below on the Perdido Street School blog where Reality-Based Educator talked about the resolution at the DA: UFT President Michael Mulgrew Discovers Nixon's Silent Testing Majority which is a must-read.
Do I really need to pay over a thousand dollars a year to listen to someone who misrepresents me and acts like a ventriloquist's doll for Bill Gates, Eli Broad, Michael Bloomberg and all the other so-called reform privateers? To say that tests should drive instruction, as Mr. Robeson did, is to repeat their phrasing word for word.
The needs of children, not tests, should drive instruction.
The reviving of democracy, not tests, should drive instruction.
Education as a means of providing choices, and the ability to rationally judge them, not tests, should drive instruction.
Yesterday's DA provided yet more proof, as if it was necessary, that the Weingrew regime fully accepts the premises of the so-called reformers, which pivot on high stakes testing. These people are there to manage and pacify us while the deal goes down.
How these folks think they can maintain their dues machine once the union is so weakened and discredited (and make no mistake, any union where 80% of the active membership doesn't vote, where archipelagos of schools have no Chapter Leader, and where the contract is ignored with impunity, is racing there) that it can be drowned in the bathtub.
That is exactly what Gates and company will do when Weingrew have outlived their usefulness: stop taking their phone calls and send them on their way to their double pensions.
Apparently, they've signed a loyalty oath to Bill Gates, not that it will help when he's used them up.
Perhaps they're operating under the assumption of the crooked bankers and mortgage brokers leading up to the financial crisis of 2008: IBGYBG, or "I'll Be Gone, You'll Be Gone."
Did I tell you we got back from Singer Island and Delray beach Tuesday? |
Motion—Mike Schirtzer rises, raises motion for next month on behalf of MORE, to support I Refuse Movement. Circulates it. Mulgrew says it needs a simple majority to be placed on agenda.Oh, and a post-DA conversation between Schirtzer and New Action's Shulman where Shulman complained loudly that if only MORE had communicated with New Action they would have fixed the reso and it would have passed. Sure. New Action has so much influence. They've been on the UFT Ex Bd through the grace of Mulgrew and in exchange for supporting Mulgrew or Weingarten in the past 4 UFT elections over a decade and we have seen so much "inaction" on the testing issue.
Mike says has been passed by several locals, that testing regime is out of hand, and that we should oppose high stakes testing. Says test prep saps joy from teaching, helps neither us nor our students. Kills creativity, critical thinking so we can do non stop test prep. Says we must starve the beast, that MOSL is junk science. Says if we’re gonna go to war against Cuomo, let’s take high stakes testing away from him.
Point of information—states we cannot make resolutions for NYSUT, and that there is no NYC Board of Education. Mulgrew points out other reference to NYSUT, makes disapproving noises, says DA does not have ability to bind NYSUT’s hands.
Sterling Robeson rises to speak against resolution, says we are against overtesting, but that we need tools to help drive instruction. Says parents need tests to ensure that they’re getting the “education they deserve.” Says we’ve supported this issue “from teachers of Chicago,” and in early grades. Says we’ve enforced it and reemphasized it over and over. States there is difference between opting out and refusing. Says it tells folks to tell their kids to refuse. Although there are pieces that are appealing to us, it goes to far. Urges this motion be defeated.
Mulgrew holds vote, I did not hear him declare outcome (it was clearly voted down, I would say 2-1) takes point of personal privilege, says he understands passion around this issue. Says resolution is out of order because it asks us to make decision about NYSUT. Speaks of how parents want tests. Says we’re in a fight and have to be smart about it, that we ought not to take a boilerplate resolution that was put together in other places. Says we should be against high stakes.
Supporter of resolution makes point of information—"Last resolve makes it clear that this resolution is only"—Mulgrew interrupts speaker before she finishes and says it’s already been voted on. Calls speaker out of order.
Brian Williams was in Iraq because his employers worked quite hard to get us there. That’s how we found our way into Iraq—with people like Williams and (Chris) Matthews pimping the glories of Candidate Bush, then calling Gore “un-American.”Read it all at:
Brian is very wealthy today. People are dead all over the world because so many chasers of “press corps” Mammon sang these particular songs. On the brighter side, Williams is very wealthy today.
We’ve warned you and warned you and warned you again—disaster lurks when “journalists” are handed multimillions by corporate owners like (Jack) Welch. This syndrome affects our “liberal” journalists too, including those we may be most inclined to love, respect and trust.
.......
Immelt could afford both cribs? Having fawned to his friend Rush Limbaugh, Williams was now bringing in two times Immelt’s haul! He owned a house in wealthy New Canaan too, handed down from the influential in-laws which must never be discussed in profiles of Williams. Now, he also shared a Manhattan address with Immelt and with Welch. These are the sorts of facts people like Williams work quite hard to suppress. Obedient members of the guild will generally keep such facts undiscussed. This leads us rubes to believe the relentless cons about Brian’s vast everydayness.
We’ll discuss that problem before the week’s end; your lizard brain will insist that we’re wrong. But we don’t think that Williams is an obvious “decent guy” in the way he approaches the world.
We think he scratched his way to the top. Along the way, we’ll guess that he was often less than obsessively honest, and not just about those RPGs in Iraq.
When Howard Kurtz sang Brian’s songs: Back in 2007, Howard Kurtz sang Brian’s various songs in his book, Reality Show. By then, Williams was very important. Perhaps for that reason, Kurtz broke his back to tell Brian’s story in the way Brian likes it told. In December 2007, we did a three-part Special Report about Kurtz’s ridiculous fluffing of Williams. For links to all three parts, click here. For something resembling a fourth part to the series, you can just click this.
Usually most of the things they say on their internal web site are either dull and unimportant, or shrouded in their lingo (words like "efficacy," etc.) but here we have shilpi giving out talking points, about a politico article that's going to be published today about them.
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Here we have them talking about "lessons learned" from the parcc
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Here is something from January 21, 2015; This is their hilarious response / talking points regarding the recent fortune magazine article, called 'everyone hates pearson,' -- they completely dodge any questions about lausd and their so called charitable foundation, and they deny that barber wants global standards (of course he does) and they go on about how they are the most accurate assessment system ever!
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Maybe you've seen this one, ...but it's straight from the horse's mouth about how they are purposely dumbing down the children, I mean, they say it right there, "this material has been totally re-written, not repurposed from existing materials" and, get a load of the math problem on page two, where "marta" has a glass full of pieces of gravel VARYING IN SIZE (varying in size!!!!) and yet she has to GUESS how many will fill the glass, I mean, THIS IS NOT MATH, this is not rounding numbers, it is absolutely designed to confuse young children and make them feel that there are no correct, exact answers that can be found. They want kids to do it by a "best-fit" line. And with algebra, they're teaching it all wrong, they're having the kids move all the scientific formulas around first, solving for just one variable, before plugging in numbers. That's an extra step you don't need to do, and makes problem-solving very time-consuming. They apparently don't want you to be able to plug in numbers directly into formulas written the way they're supposed to be written in the standard format.
Disciplinary Action/Termination: Rather than simply moving forward with disciplinary action based on a teacher’s “Ineffective” rating, the DOE will only pursue disciplinary action (3020-a) for teachers rated poorly if principals agree. It is also important to note that principals can use their autonomy to go in another direction and recommend teachers rated “Developing” for 3020-a.
SANDERS: I really am concerned about some of the language you used leading up to this discussion, the suggestion that it is un-American to criticize the president and we're supposed to be fighting for freedom.Let's attribute correctly! Suddenly, Brian was very concerned about fundamental fairness! He was willing to float “un-American” rather widely with respect to Gore. But he sought fairness for Rush!
This is not Iraq. It's not China, and I think the American people want a serious debate on this issue.
[...]
I think the position that Jim [McDermott] and I are advocating is what the vast majority of the people want. They want us to work with the United Nations. They are concerned about the impact of a unilateral effort on the war on terrorism, as Al Gore just said...
WILLIAMS: Congressman, Congressman Sanders, just to be fair, I was quoting, when I used the term “un-American,” a caller to Mr. Limbaugh's radio show accusing—
SANDERS: But who cares what—but who cares what Rush Limbaugh says?
WILLIAMS: Well, let's not attribute it to the broadcast. Let's attribute correctly.
WILLIAMS: For the record, we tried to get Rush Limbaugh on tonight. He had another engagement, sent his regrets. But I confirm that was the sound of a trash can hitting the wall during his broadcast today, a rough day for Rush.Poor Rush! He had really had “a rough day,” all thanks to that speech by Vile Gore!