Just found out DR coming next week to my school to discuss Friedrich case.
I guess UFT reps worried about THEIR jobs.
Karma
And how about that principal in the Bronx who made the teachers throw out their desks?
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!
Just found out DR coming next week to my school to discuss Friedrich case.
I guess UFT reps worried about THEIR jobs.
Karma
Donna Connelly at Ps 24 in the Bronx has been controversial for years; she was pushed out of ps 3 by parents when my daughter was there, has been despised by teachers and also threw a reporter out of an SLT meeting a few years ago- illegally as the DoE spokesperson later explained.I'm not astonished. It's been going on for decades. Principals can get away with anything.
In her latest craziest move, astonishingly, the DoE spokesperson appears to back her up.
http://nypost.com/2015/10/18/principal-forbid-teachers-to- sit-so-she-threw-out-their- desks/
Jamaal Bowman: Incredibly blessed to be a part of tomorrow. Almost 600 strong working on the most important issues in and related to education. Another major step toward the schools and society that we and our children deserve. It's on!Jia Lee, a non-stop energizer bunny who is all over the place, is helping headline this conference. I'm so sad to miss this today.
Success charters won't sign contracts to allow city to oversee its preK program yet presumably wants to continue to receive city funds for that purpose.Leonie questions why the city even wants to have Success run a pre-k program where they can suspend kids they don't want so the parents pull them out of the school and allow them to cream even further.
The city doesn't have to grant them these funds but according to this article wants as many charters as possible to have preK.
Question I have is given Success charters Abusive treatment of Kindergarten students as well documented in the recent PBS segment why should the city want them to have preK?
http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/city-hall/2015/10/ 8579889/pre-k-contract-sparks- new-fight-between-success- academy-and-city-h
If you read Ed Notes you know my position is for the opposition to totally ignore the retiree issue related to their voting in UFT elections - at least until an opposition can show it can win enough votes from working UFT members in an election. Unity Caucus takes care of its retirees.Our faux Tough Guy President's pathetic excuse is further belied by the fact that he made sure that retirees were made whole before anyone.
Not to suggest they were undeserving - we all deserved that money back in '09, and should have been made whole immediately, with interest - but where was their "continuous employment?"
Then again, what does he care? Like the so-called reformers he often shills for - witness his continuing support for Common Core, test-based evaluations and expedited firings - or passively allows to loot and pillage, it's obvious to me this man thinks teachers are chumps.
The Queens maternity liason for the U.F.T. rose to oppose the resolution. First, she objected to the printing of the resolution on a page containing advertisements for an oppostion caucus, free of the "union bug." Even the parliamentarian, himself, could not say whether it was permissible or not.
Then, she proceeded to oppose the motion on the grounds that people on leave must know what they're getting themselves into. I would guess, however, if one is fighting off a deadly disease or surviving brain surgery, one doesn't have much of a choice. If one is about to give birth, although the situation is usually infinitely more joyous, one may also lack much choice.One of our new MORE moms missed the retro by returning to work a day or 2 later.
The Queens liason further stated that the resolution seemed vague and that all persons on leave would be made "whole again" when the next retro check rolls around, provided he or she has returned to work. It is my understanding, however, that if one dies, not only will one never be made "whole again," but one's spouse, children or family will never be made "whole again" in more ways than one. The money once earned will be gone. Perhaps, retro is not a "God-given right," but the Union might have taken further pains to fight for it as a contractual right for those who might need it most.
The arguments used by the maternity liason struck me as callous, particulary to our colleagues fending off life-threatening illnesses and those who are the parents of children, much like the ones we have dedicated our lives to teach. So many members of our profession are women and so many are mothers. The system is stacked against them and the Union seems unphased--even the Queens Maternity Liason. Given that all members were asked to create a sea of pink shirts at the October Delegate Assembly in recognition of breast cancer, the callousness was magnified many times over. It felt like a flood.
Maternity Workshop (Queens)Try this common core math question - if you are pregnant in April when do you have to deliver and be back in time to get your retro?
Date:April 14, 2016
Time:4:00 pm - 6:00 pm
Location:
UFT Queens borough office
97-77 Queens Blvd.
Rego Park, NY
US
Preregistration is required. Walk-ins will not be admitted. RSVP by emailing kjordan@uft.org.
...considering the extraordinarily high pressure work environment at Success Academy that is also verified by job review sites, it is hard to believe that very many of the promised teachers for next week’s rally feel comfortable declining to participate... Daniel KatzCan we take a secret ballot of all those teachers attending the rally asking if they would like to be in a union?
I don’t know about you, but when my children’s unionized public school teachers take a half day, it is because they are in professional development workshops and related activities. They certainly are not being taken from their schools to a rally organized by a lobbying group funded specifically to increase their influence with lawmakers in City Hall and in Albany. In fact, try to imagine this scenario: Chancellor Farina organizes a half day of work for all city schools and then coordinates a rally for public schools with the UFT on the same day and 1000s of public school teachers, rather than using the half day for professional development, show up near city hall to provide the optics.I love that Eva always goes too far. She is her ultimate worst enemy.
Fresh off their rally with charter school parents and students on October 7th, “Families” For Excellent Schools has announced that they will hold another rally on Wednesday the 21st of October. This rally, which will be held in Manhattan’s Foley Square, will reportedly feature nearly 1,000 charter school teachers predominantly from Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy network. While some teachers from Achievement First, Uncommon Schools, and KIPP are expected to be present, Ms. Moskowitz’s workforce will be the primary participants, and the network just so happens to have a scheduled half school day so that teachers can show up to the rally for the purpose of pressuring law makers into allowing more charter schools in the city. Chew on that for a moment: a scheduled half day of school. A political rally. The teachers in attendance.
I understand Mulgrew stated the city didn't want anyone on leave to get retro, that the city wanted continuous employment. Wasn't it his job to tell the city, "no?" Did Mulgrew explain why he didn't fight when he learned the city wanted to withhold money from any member who already earned it? It could be argued that members on a childcare leave need that money the most while they are caring for a baby with no income. Perhaps Mulgrew has a good reason for not fighting for these members. I'd like to know what it is.
I desperately needed that money BECAUSE I am on a childcare leave.
The DOE doesn't allow staff to earn ANY part-time income while on a leave. At the same time they are withholding money we've earned when we need it the most, when our children need it the most. It makes no sense. That money is mine. I earned it and it could make a real difference for my family and my son.
Darren Marelli has left a new comment on your post "Mulgrew Against Moms: Jia Lee/MORE Raise Reso at DA
To the Maternity Leave Liaison Unity hack from Queens: How about those out with a serious illness? Should they have re"considered" that kidney transplant or cancerous tumor removal and post op care? Should they have "decided" to forgo medical treatment and opt for death? Death isn't even a viable option bc Unity negotiated a deal that gives our families NOTHING of the retro we already earned if we drop dead. We "got to handle our own business?" I assume you meant we "have to" not that we we "got to" or had the opportunity to. We didn't negotiate this piece of crap in our contract -- you and your Unity crew did. And "our business" includes OUR MONEY. So hand it over already. Shame on Unity for blaming people on approved leave for not "handling their business." Unity is seriously out of touch with the concerns of their membership. ...... Roseanne McCosh PS 8x
Does anyone know the cost of the TV commercials the UFT has been running?A non-UFT member - an activist parent - asked this question.
These commercials, in which a bunch of smiling teachers and students assert that they are unified, ends with UFT President Mulgrew telling how NYC teachers do wonderful things.Of course - these commercials are as much for the membership - it is a UFT election year after all -- as the public.
Which they do.
But I do not believe that these ads, which must cost tens of thousands of dollars, will convince anyone of that, except their own members.
I think that money could be much better utilized by devoting it to hiring additional parent organizers.How about teacher organizers and support for schools with awful principals where parents are also affected?
UFT borough parent organizers do wonderful work, but they cannot possibly cover many schools with the frequency that is needed to engage parents in the battle against the dividers and privatizers.Yes, I know some of these organizers. But among the wonderful work they do, they also are selling the UFT line on common core and testing -- and against opt out. I've witnessed it myself. In essence they are agents among parents of ed deform.
That battle will be won only by engaging parents where they are at.
It will be lost by aping a TV commercial campaign, many of which are useless, as even advertising execs know.
The early retail store magnate John Wanamaker stated: 50 % of the money I spend on advertising is totally wasted; I wish I knew which 50 %.Gamble with our money of course.
The UFT doesn’t know either, but gamble in that casino.
A Unity Caucus member, who is the Maternity/Child Care Leave Liaison for the Queens UFT office, spoke against our resolution. “I explain to those going out on maternity leave they need to be on payroll to get retro -- eventually they will be made whole. You decided to take your leave, you got to handle your own business, you have to consider things before taking leave”... MORE Report from the UFT Delegate AssemblyTranslation: You decided to have a baby. You know that is not allowed under the new order of ed deform, which we support, which punishes mothers with children. Fuck you!
Like many of us, when I heard Greer(?) speaking against the motion I was outraged. At one point when she was lecturing on personal responsibility for planning I blurted out "How condescending!" to which Mulgrew pointed his finger at me and said "Stop it!"More from MORE
After the DA, I was so mad I didn't even bother talking to Mulgrew but he came up to me on the way out and said, "You're just like me." I then gave him an earful. I said, "Maybe people choose to have children but nobody chooses to get cancer or serious illnesses or injuries and those members as well as those on maternity leave need this money more than we do!"
I'm still disgusted by the way Greer spoke against this resolution and I let her know how I felt. These are the people that UFT puts in place to "help" our members? Really??
Jia Lee, Chapter Leader of The Earth School, raised a resolution (see below) at tonight's UFT Delegate Assembly calling for the city or UFT to provide a no-interest loan for those UFT members who are on unpaid maternity, family, or medical leave and did not receive their first lump sum payment this week. Because they are not on active payroll the members who most need this money will not get it until 2017 at the earliest. If they never return they may never see their own hard-earned money. UFT President Michael Mulgrew’s Unity Caucus which dominated the DA voted the motion down. They voted against our members who are mothers, caregivers, or who are sick and need to be out on leave.Ms. Lee said "in my school we have moms who are on leave to take care of their children and we, as a union, need to find a way to get them the money we all got. If you read the resolution we are asking for no interest loans to the members who need it the most.”“Medical distress should not be financial distress.” Mulgrew said earlier in the evening in regards to the skyrocketing costs of prescriptions for our members. Ms. Lee referred back to that sentiment and said “I feel the same and that should apply to retro for our members on leave."A Unity Caucus member, who is the Maternity/Child Care Leave Liaison for the Queens UFT office, spoke against our resolution. “I explain to those going out on maternity leave they need to be on payroll to get retro -- eventually they will be made whole. You decided to take your leave, you got to handle your own business, you have to consider things before taking leave”.
edTPA is a high-level collaboration between the education establishment and the poster child for corporate education reform. Whether this is a good or bad thing depends on which side of the fence you occupy, but let’s not pretend it isn’t exactly what it appears to be.... EIA, The Continuing Saga of edTPAMike calls a spade a spade. The NEA and AFT are in up to their ears with the ed deformers no matter how they equivocate. Until we get union leaderships that refuse to cross the line, public education is behind the 8-ball.
Posted: 13 Oct 2015 10:27 AM PDTSympathy or schadenfreude – you can take your choice when it comes to the edTPA predicament in which the teachers’ unions find themselves.
edTPA is a performance assessment system for teacher candidates and it has all the education establishment pedigree you might want. It was developed by the Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, and Equity (SCALE) and Linda Darling-Hammond. It is supported by the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE). NEA and AFT officers sit on its policy advisory board, and the assessment was “purposefully designed to reflect the teaching tasks that are represented in the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) as it pertains to the skills and competencies attained as part of teacher preparation.” The unions have promoted national board certification since its inception.
Portfolios and video-taped lessons require a sophisticated scoring system and staff to operate it. The options for edTPA were limited, and why not choose the same folks who score submissions from national board candidates? Alas, those folks work at Pearson.
Pearson is part of the Axis of Education Evil, so a large group of union activists oppose edTPA, either not knowing or not caring how deeply involved their own organizations are in keeping it going. NEA has responded to this opposition with a number of contortions, and now the administrators of edTPA are in the unenviable position of trying to distance themselves from the people scoring their assessment.
edTPA just released its latest administrative report and came to the conclusion that edTPA is working great! It’s this kind of congratulatory self-assessment that led to the obsession with standardized tests in the first place.
But I’m not qualified to judge edTPA as an assessment system. I only want to read what they say about Pearson, and they come off pretty defensive about it.
SCALE is the sole developer of edTPA, and Stanford University is the exclusive owner of edTPA. The university has an agreement with Evaluation Systems, a unit of Pearson, to provide operational support for the national administration of edTPA.Translation: Our assessment is untainted by Pearson. Alternative translation: If you hate our assessment, you can’t blame Pearson. In any case, it is clear that Pearson is absolutely indispensable to edTPA:
…The design framework for edTPA and constructs assessed were established prior to the partnership with Evaluation Systems/Pearson and were informed by earlier work led by SCALE staff (National Board and PACT). Evaluation Systems was chosen as the operational partner to ensure that edTPA assessment development built by the profession and supported by foundation funds could be scaled up for national use. That is, the Evaluation Systems/Pearson group has no authority or decision-making role in the design and development of edTPA.
Stanford University/SCALE engaged Evaluation Systems, a group of Pearson, as an operational partner in March 2011 to make edTPA available to a national educational audience. As the operational partner, Evaluation Systems provides the management system required for multistate use of edTPA, including the infrastructure that facilitates administration of the assessment for submission, scoring, and reporting of results from both national and regional scoring.edTPA is a high-level collaboration between the education establishment and the poster child for corporate education reform. Whether this is a good or bad thing depends on which side of the fence you occupy, but let’s not pretend it isn’t exactly what it appears to be.
…Pearson (through edTPA.com – the candidate-facing program web site) provides operational assessment services associated with registration, scoring, and reporting of edTPA scores. Assessment services include use of the technology platform which registers the candidate, receives the portfolio, coordinates the logistics of scoring the portfolio, and reports the results to the candidate. Additionally, a faculty feedback feature is available through the Pearson Portfolio system, allowing candidates to request formative feedback from a designated faculty member based on SCALE’s guidelines of acceptable support. Assessment services also include the recruiting and management of qualified educators who serve as scorers, scoring supervisors, or trainers. Scorers are trained using a training curriculum developed by SCALE, specifically for use with edTPA rubrics. Scorers use standardized scoring procedures and are calibrated and monitored during scoring. Pearson also works with EPPs and state agencies to securely report candidate scores as appropriate. Through the ResultsAnalyzer tool, stakeholders are able to review and utilize their data sets as provided on each reporting date.
…Pearson uses a well-established and reliable software platform to screen submissions for originality of content.
Have to share this for so many reasons - I'm incredibly proud of Jamir, who attends our school in the East Village. His teachers, like all of my colleagues at the Earth School, believe in supporting the whole child. How we want to feel at school is discussed as a community and we develop, together, with our students, the strategies to help each other feel happy, supported, calm, engaged and safe. A code of conduct, like the kind described here, developed by an outside entity can be equated to a form of colonialism.
Links to the 9-minute video: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/ https://www.youtube.com/watch? | ||
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We were told in 2014 that it was necessary to delay retro payments to avoid a city financial crisis, a budget shortfall that has since evaporated.... When your own union has to sell you on the deal, you know it's not good. Our friends in other city unions look at us and shake their heads.... MORE, http://morecaucusnyc.org/
Nearly 90% of Your Retro Money Is Being Withheld |
UFT members will be receiving only 12.5% of what is owed to us from 2009. We will not receive our full retro until 2020. Our fellow UFT members who are on maternity leave, family leave, or medical leave will be getting zero. This is nothing to celebrate, yet Mulgrew and his unity caucus leadership sent out a happy message with the piggy bank image you see above. We were told in 2014 that it was necessary to delay retro payments to avoid a city financial crisis, a budget shortfall that has since evaporated. We deserve what every other union received, we deserve the full back pay that is owed to us.
When your own union has to sell you on the deal, you know it's not good. Our friends in other city unions look at us and shake their heads. Look at our brothers and sisters who are Firefighters, they received 8% raises from 2008-2010 that we did not and will be receiving their full retroactive upon ratifying their contract. They don’t have to wait for 5 installments of money that is rightfully ours. We constantly settle for less than others and then are told by Mulgrew to be thankful for what we have. New York City will have a 6 billion dollar surplus. but we were told they were broke. It was a lie. Our members are educated professionals and deserve to be treated as such. It is time to tell the truth.
Just to add one more layer of complexity: The numbers 12.5%, 12.5%, 25%, 25%, 25% are also not accurate because in reality they don't add up to 100%. Consider the fact that we are still accruing arrears from the city and will continue to do so until 2018 because the 8% raises will not be fully phased in until then. That means that the total lump sum owed to us will be higher in 2017 than it is in 2015 (especially considering that teachers will continue to go up steps, accrue longevities, and earn differentials). That means that the 2017 12.5% payment will not be equal to the 12.5% we get in 2015. The final, 2020, payment will not actually be 25% of all the arrears. It will be whatever we are still owed. For most of us that will be somewhat more than 25%.
Let’s be clear this money is ours, we worked for it, including those who are on leave to raise a child or because of health issues. Mulgrew should not have sent out celebratory letters, instead they should be using the full force of our union to demand that ALL members who are owed money get that money now. If you believe like we do that it is time for new union leadership, one that negotiates on behalf of all members, and ensures that we get treated with the respect we deserve, please join MORE now
The UFT officer elections are in Spring 2016 and we want to hear from you. Please join us at our State of The Union, State of Our Schools Conference.
Register Here
MORE-UFT
http://more.nationbuilder.com/
.... our union president has said “the cupboard was bare” — that retroactive pay is not a “God-given right,” and that we should be satisfied with this money being further delayed. If workers have not won the right to be paid for the labor they have already done, then the labor movement has fallen very far indeed...Jia Lee: A must read for NYC Educators! Kevin Prosen published this piece before the contract was voted in, and at this time, it gives us cause for reflection.
Kevin Prossen, Jacobin magazine on May 12, 2014.
This is money that we are owed, and that those of us who are those mid-career teachers that will have to leave the system in the next few years — who can’t continue working for these wages — will never see. The proposed pay increases fall below the rate of inflation, our rents continue to spiral upward, and every year the conditions of life for working New Yorkers gets worse. We’ve been told by our union that if we vote this down we will go “to the back of the line” — that we could be waiting for years for a contract. We were told that if we could just wait out Bloomberg, we would be richly rewarded. Yet here we are, still waiting.Before we get back to Kevin's must read piece, a few points.
...please check out the ICEUFT blog where a simple post about the 12.5% retro pay stub being online is getting a significant number of comments. We haven't seen comments in these numbers since the contract came out in 2014.There has been lots of internal buzz inside MORE about this issue. I've been out of town and can't follow that closely but there is talk of the UFT dues increase in the midst to a retro snafu and other stuff - so go check it out at ICE.
This week 80,000 are going to be looking at some BS money- while the city withholds about 90% of what's due us. This week my friend who worked the last 9 years like I did, is sitting home taking care of her sick child, without a paycheck and without retro payment to help her-pay her free healthcare (copay after copay).Roseanne McCosh informed us that "BX UFT is taking our grievances over Oct first retro delay. Taking them and stuffing them in a drawer is my guess but who knows maybe they'll surprise us."
If we vote “no” on this proposed deal, we will, of course, be attacked in the press as greedy labor aristocrats. But this isn’t only about the UFT, and we can’t talk as though it is. We must challenge the idea that we are somehow not deserving of a professional wage. But we also need to point out that this deal will set the pattern for hundreds of thousands of other city workers.Kevin goes into the details of how the contract supports ed deform, as the UFT has all along. Read it all at:
Saying no to this deal is about drawing a line for the entire working class of New York City — about saying there is a limit to what we will suffer and how little we will accept. Many of our students’ parents are city workers: they drop their kids off before making their way to operate buses and subways, to pick up our trash, to direct our traffic and clean the offices of City Hall. This is not only about us, it’s about solidarity with the rest of working New York. It is about making our city a more humane place for the people who love it enough to keep it running. That is the language we need to speak in.
A contract is a negotiated settlement on the conditions of exploitation under which you will spend most of your waking life. Don’t accept arguments that this offer is “the best we can get” from anybody who won’t have to work under its terms. Not from liberal mayors, not from union leaders making generous salaries on your dues money, not from newspaper editors; it’s your life under discussion, not theirs.
I hope you will join me and the majority of teachers in my school in voting no on this contract. By all means, do it for the money. But also, do it for love.
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