AFT and DNC Joined at the Hip

In this piece from Education Week, there's a clear connection between the DNC, which has recently been exposed as in the tank for Hillary, and the AFT, which has pretty much always been in the tank for Hillary. Tweets from AFT President Randi Weingarten are now peppered with anti-Trump items, but before Hillary pulled ahead the flavor of the month was those awful "Bernie Bros" and their terrible abusiveness.

Evidently Common Core is now the third rail of American politics, loved by virtually no one except Randi Weingarten and Hillary Clinton. Even UFT President Michael Mulgrew, who was gonna punch our faces and push them in the dirt, now talks of Common Core as though it's dead and buried. Of course it isn't. I fully expect the Common Core name to be erased and replaced. Maybe they'll be the Happy Smile Standards. But it'll be a while before we teach love of reading rather than close reading.

Clearly the AFT wanted to avoid that particular third rail and focus more on Mom and Apple Pie. I sat there for four days and the only really interesting parts of it were when someone stood up and started trash-talking Mom, or saying the Apple Pie was full of cyanide. So while AFT leadership can pat itself on the back for having passed a bunch of resolutions about how the world would be better if people were nicer, it's not difficult to have the appearance of unity when you avoid talking about topics that really trouble teachers.

That, of course, is not to mention that almost 30% of the delegates came from UFT, who'd have nominated a ham sandwich for President of the United States if Leroy Barr told them to. In fact, Mulgrew called Hillary the most qualified presidential nominee ever, or some such thing. Everything is pretty black and white when you're bound by loyalty oath, and you can't or won't look at the gray areas.

So it's better to have 2600 delegates stand around and pretend we don't have Common Core. They can pass some watered-down amendment suggesting some nebulous opposition to testing up the wazoo and continue to trash the opt-out activists who actually caused Emperor Andy to make some superficial concessions.

Let's be clear--it is the job of AFT to represent us, the working teachers who do this job each and every day. It is not the job of AFT to represent the DNC, or their clearly unethical priority to get Hillary nominated by any means necessary. In fact, while the Republicans are fairly awful, it's not the job of the AFT to work with the DNC unless it's advancing the education goals that will help us and the students we serve.

I'd argue that DNC has done a wretched job of that over the last few years. President Obama is the reformiest President ever. He's pushed charter schools, insisted that teachers be rated by junk science, appointed some of the very worst people on earth as Secretaries of Education, and ignored the concerns of activist parents and teachers. He's allowed Arne Duncan to make some of the most offensive comments I've ever heard, like Katrina being the best thing to happen to NOLA education, and shows virtually no awareness of what is actually going on in K-12 education.

How that merits our support, let alone our loyalty, is beyond me. And frankly, given our evident unconditional support, let alone the dollars flying to Hillary from Broad and Walton, I fail to see any reason to believe she will do any better than Obama did.

Happy Days Redux

Day 4 in Minneapolis and they've slipped the hotel bill under our door. $548.47 to stay at the Normandy Inn, which is kind of a cool place. Jonathan Halabi and I debated sending the UFT a bill as this is related to our Executive Board duties--we ought to know what the hell is going on--but have decided against it.

Normandy Inn has a great restaurant and a bar with local beer on tap. You have to pay for breakfast but the breakfast is amazing. I'm splitting the room and hotel tab with Norm Scott, but Norm can be difficult. For one thing, he strenuously objected upon locating various forms of pond life swimming in the puddle the shower somehow made on the bathroom floor today.

OK, that was my fault. I don't have a shower curtain at my house so I haven't quite got the swing of closing it. But Norm has his idiosyncrasies as well, For example, the night before last he went out bar hopping with a bunch of CTU people. He came back with half a bottle of Diet Coke. I tried to explain to him what bar hopping was all about but he couldn't seem to grasp it. (Some people don't understand anything.)

Minneapolis is actually a very cool place. Everyone has been friendly and there seems to be an abundance of great bars with great food and drink. I was pretty happy because I had no expectations. You can't be easily disappointed when you have no expectations.

The convention itself was a lot less interesting than I'd expected. You know, when you're an activist who's shut out of virtually all union activity you're curious about this stuff. But when the dominant Progressive Caucus held its meeting right out in the open for the whole world to see, all the mystery was pretty much gone. Some guy stood there and told everyone how to vote on everything, and all that passed after that was very little sound or fury, signifying whatever the caucus leaders said it would.

Now UFT Unity says they discuss this stuff behind closed doors, and I believe they do but only at a very high level. With all due respect, I do not believe a typical Unity chapter leader gets up and argues with the people who pay for the trip to Minneapolis or LA or wherever. That's kind of a shame, because people at our level are the ones who witness and experience what goes on each and every day.

If you only speak with people sworn to support you, you really get very little idea of what the hell is going on. That's why Michael Mulgrew can get up in front of the entire crowd, say virtually nothing of consequence, and assume he made a great presentation. I've no doubt there are 749 people here who will tell him his presentation was Brilliant Beyond Belief. Imagine that each of them comes here at two or three times what it cost me to, and that they come for the express purpose of doing whatever they are told.

The NYSUT event in NYC two years ago was a lot more interesting, UFT Unity decided to topple the popular sitting President, Dick Iannuzzi, along with his team. Secretary Treasurer Lee Cutler was much loved by virtually everyone with whom I spoke. I ran against EVP Andy Pallotta, and it was a great experience. The convention itself was fascinating, specifically because there was actually this ongoing tension as to who would win.

Of course it was an uphill battle, but here's the thing--UFT Unity is the big dog not only at AFT, but also at NYSUT. UFT had 28% of the state's teachers, but 33% of the NYSUT vote because small locals can't all afford the trip (let alone the NY Hilton). So while UFT had to recruit only 18% of the vote to win, we had to get 51%. Sadly we failed, and state leadership is just as timid as city leadership. Except, of course, when it came to making sure they had two pensions because Priorities.

This union needs to wake up and smell the coffee. Teacher morale is at an all-time low. This is not something we debate about for the next four years and hope for the best. This is a crisis. I'd love to just hang at Murray's, pictured above, and have the union pick up the tab for my silver butter knife steak, whatever the hell that is, but I'm gonna work to alleviate this instead.

First I'm gonna go home to see my wife, my kid, and Julio the Wonder Dog, who knows nothing but pure joy (except during thunderstorms).

Social Justice Is for Everyone, Including Teachers

Norm Scott says it's hard to "out social justice Randi," and in a lot of ways he's right.  AFT and UFT leadership are certainly diverse. And Randi hits every note when she speaks. There is no doubt whatsoever that she's aware of racial inequality. She's a great advocate for the LGBT community. Communities are well-represented at the AFT Convention. In fact, the only community I know of that has no representation whatsoever at this convention is UFT high school teachers.

That said, social justice does not apply only to race, national origin, religion, or sexual orientation. Social justice applies to all groups, and one of them is working teachers. Another is unions. I'll admit to being a little biased here, as I'm unabashedly in favor of both. I oppose things that hurt working teachers and unions, and I think it behooves us to fight them with everything we've got. And if we haven't got what we need to fight them, it's on us to go out and get it.

That's why I am mystified as to how Hillary Rodham Clinton can stand in front of us and babble nonsense about how we can learn from "public charter schools." I don't even know what that means, or what we're differentiating. The fact is every charter school is privately run, judged by different standards, and no charter is on a level playing field. For charters to boast of their stats when people like me are teaching kids who have been in the United States only five minutes is ridiculous.

I'm also mystified as to how my union, the most powerful in the country, can support things like mayoral control. How on earth do we support giving absolute power to a fanatical ideologue like Michael Bloomberg? And when we finally get a mayor who is not insane, why do we not fight tooth and nail when they demand he pay rent for the likes of Eva Moskowitz?

How do we not only support, but also have our President take part in writing a law that has us rated via value-added junk science? How does our President determine the reformiest man on God's green earth, John King, is a reasonable and unbiased arbitrator for our evaluation agreement?

How can UFT leadership attack the opt-out movement, a grassroots uprising of parents outraged about reforminess? How can those who control our union call allies of the movement "reckless and feckless," and make ridiculous arguments about how they cost schools money they don't even have?

I could go on, but here is the point---MORE fights for social justice for teachers. That's why we took the high schools, and that's why we will move ahead and win further. MORE opposes judging teachers by test scores. MORE opposes using our kids as puppets who sit for tests just to prove how much we suck. MORE believes teachers are under assault and need help.

We reach out with both hands to working teachers. We want to help, and we want to force our leadership, if necessary, to help too. I am an open book. I don't work behind the backs of Unity to thwart them when they are trying to support children. But I will fight them with everything I've got if they want to block social justice, say, for ESL students just because they can. MORE believes our working conditions are student learning conditions, and I couldn't agree more.

If Unity wants to play stupid games and write baseless nonsense to discredit us, that's fine. But we are standing up for teachers, we are standing up for children, and we are standing up for communities. We are not afraid, we will not be deterred, and we will not be intimidated by the usual nonsense.

We're open to working together, but we expect nothing. You can't have any social justice unless you include working teachers, and you can't put children first if you put teachers last. And you can't represent teachers if you sign loyalty oaths to leadership and vote as told.

Democracy is from the bottom up. UFT Unity is top down. We will fight for the voices of high school teachers and all teachers. Social justice applies to us too, we aren't going to forget it, and we aren't going to let UFT Unity forget it either.

From AFT 2016--Resistance is Futile--Prepare to Be Assimilated--Or Maybe Moved a Little

I'm here at the AFT Convention in Minneapolis. When Norm Scott and I arrived, we were met by several unionists from Chicago and Boston. They were very excited about our modest victory in the UFT. They, of course, have had more significant victories.

They're kind of in awe of the machine that runs the UFT. They can't believe it when I tell them retirees control around half of the votes in the UFT. (In fact, in 2013 they represented over half the voters. In 2016 they were a little less.) How can retirees vote on who gets to negotiate contracts for working members? Do they care about what working teachers go through?

I still can't believe we placed that little crack in the monolith that is UFT Unity. We worked very hard for around 16 months, in and out of the MORE Caucus, and managed to get the word out enough to squeak out a victory. We were very fortunate that New Action finally came to its senses and worked with us. We would not have been able to pull this off without them.

In a few hours Hillary is gonna be here, and it's quite clear that she is the star of this particular convention. Not everyone is enthusiastically on board just yet:

"The only choice in this election is Hillary Clinton" 50% rose, semi-standing ovation. #aft100 RW asked 4 a warm welcome when HRC arrives

— Jonathan (@Jd2718x) July 18, 2016

Of course that was just a rehearsal. I will try to tweet the speech as it comes, and if you want to read it, I'm @TeacherArthurG.

Regular readers of this blog know that I'm not in love with Hillary. I have not been persuaded at all by friends of Hillary who've beseeched me to vote for her. Usually these efforts at persuasion entail telling me how stupid I am and that I don't understand high school civics.

I don't expect Hillary to change my mind today, but I am coming around for two reasons. The second best reason came from Fred Klonsky, who lives in Illinois. Like me, Fred could vote third party and have no effect whatsoever on the general. But Fred wants to pile on against the odious Donald Trump.

The best reason I've seen to vote for Hillary came from two conversations I had on Facebook. I was bemoaning Trump's vile bigotry, particularly his decision to ban Muslims. Several people argued with me. One defended the Japanese Internment, which I thought one of the most shameful episodes in American History. Then he said we'd banned German and Japanese immigrants during World War II. I thought the fact that we were actually at war with those countries was a fairly good defense. Banning Muslims would be almost waging war against a major religion.

Another Facebook friend said that Trump no longer took that position, and that he now only wanted to ban people from certain countries. That didn't much impress me. The thing I really don't like about Hillary is that she talked school closings. Yeah, I know, she explained it, it was a mistake, it was out of context, whatever. The fact that her brain could formulate the words that came out of her mouth, saying she would not keep any school open that wasn't above average, well, that was too much for me.

On the other hand, you have Donald Trump, who likes right to work, who has actually ruined lives of working people in Atlantic City and elsewhere. You have this guy who wants to bounce countries from NATO if they don't pay, and if they don't pay all what they've owed in the past. On the other hand, he's personally had multiple bankruptcies and bounced back to the point he may be President. He wants to do something similar with our national debt, and that's pretty odd, since one thing the US has never done is default on our debts.

But the ban Muslim thing is beyond the pale, more beyond even than teacher issues I hold dear. For a nations Presidential candidate to stereotype an entire religion is an atrocity. For folks to tell me it's a good idea to practice active discrimination is even worse.

Those are the people who are now pushing me toward voting for Hillary and piling up against the execrable bigot Donald Trump.

No Accountability for UFT Unity

One of the cool things about being in Unity is once you're in, you're in. You have a whole group, a family if you will, that you can depend on. And as long as you are loyal to the family, you'll have a bright future. For example, you might be elected chapter leader, or you might just take the job because no one else wants to do it. You'll go to chapter leader training and your district rep will ask you if you want to spend more time in hotels having meetings and going to meals. Do you want to travel? Maybe next year we'll hold the AFT convention in Hawaii. Who knows?

And maybe you have a good time, going to California, to wherever, and staying in fancy hotels. But, oh no! What happens if you do a crappy job as chapter leader and your colleagues dump you? The cool thing about that is it doesn't matter even a little bit! As long as you're willing to vote as told, as per the loyalty oath, there is no consequence whatsoever! Why should the district rep go to the trouble of recruiting the new chapter leader when you're already in? So no more counting oversized classes, representing troubled colleagues, going to long meetings, and you still get to enjoy the fruit of everyone else's union dues!

That's right, you're off to a whirlwind trip to Schenectedy for the NYSUT conference, and then AFT could send you right to Sin City on the member dime. Sure, you may have to applaud for the likes of Bill Gates, or maybe the Vice President after his administration has imposed junk science on pretty much the whole country. And sure, you have to support Hillary even though you might like Bernie Sanders a whole lot more. But maybe, just maybe, you really don't give a crap who's in charge of the country, state, city, or schools, and you just want to fly around and stay in fancy hotels every now and then. Let the yahoos sleep in Motel 6 because you're headed to the Hilton.

And if you have any moral qualms, just keep them to yourself, unless you want to be relegated to the sidelines like every single UFT activist who dares agree with Diane Ravitch. Sure, UFT will pay lip service to the greatest educational thinker in the country, but she goes just a little too far for leadership. After all, UFT leadership has repeatedly supported junk science. Sure, sometimes they call it "growth model" instead of VAM, but it's the same old baseless crap whatever you call it. Ravitch not only opposes mayoral control and Common Core, but also unequivocally supports a parent's right to opt children out of high-stakes testing. She even opposes charter schools and colocation, while UFT has actually colocated its own failing charter school.

But let's ignore all that and get back on topic. If you vote the way you're told, it makes no difference how poorly you do as chapter leader. It makes no difference whether your colleagues respect you enormously, or even at all. You can stay on the Unity gravy train, keep your patronage gig, and dispense with all those troublesome chapter leader duties. In fact, you can even keep your spot on the UFT Executive Board if you've got one!

The UFT election is set up so that everyone represents leadership rather than schools. Sure there are a few New Action types sitting on the Exec. Board, but they'll try to fix that next time so they have total absolute power to continue making abysmal deals for working educators. Cool, isn't it? No voice whatsoever for anyone but leadership, and that's how they like it.

The only problem is that darn election. But unlike most unions, UFT allows that retirees get to help decide who represents active members. In fact, retirees made up 52% of the vote last time. And most working teachers, cynical after years of indifferent representation, often by the very people they deemed unfit to run their chapters, take the ballot and toss it right into the trash.

It's a great system, unless you happen to advocate for, you know, democracy. I do, and 2016 is the year we bring democracy back to our union.

Cuomo's Betrayal--The Fruit of Appeasement

We in UFT/ NYSUT/ AFT are always on the cutting edge. When people say Bill Gates is trying to destroy American education, we open our arms, show them how open-minded we are, and invite him to be keynote at AFT convention. Of course I wasn't there, you weren't there, and anyone there who may have opposed Bill Gates had signed a loyalty oath agreeing not to do so in public. Nonetheless, our loyalty-oath signing "representatives" showed how reformy the UFT was.

When mayoral control came to NYC with Mike Bloomberg at the helm, we supported it. When it proved to be an abject disaster, with dozens of awful school closures that sent our brothers and sisters into the ATR, we asked for a few piddling improvements, failed to get them and supported it again. When Bill de Blasio kept a campaign promise to block charters, Cuomo and the legislature passed a law favoring Eva Moskowitz, and we did not even lift a finger to stop it. A very highly placed source in NYSUT told me my UFT President supported it.

When it's time for passionate defense, though, we're right there. Mike Mulgrew brought 800 loyalty-oath-bound "representatives" to Los Angeles last summer and swore anyone who took his Common Core away from him would be punched in the face and pushed in the dirt. Any day now I expect to be crawling around in the mud recuperating with Diane Ravitch, Carol Burris, Leonie Haimson and all the other dangerous figures my President needs to beat the crap out of.

When Zephyr Teachout, who actually supports and respects teachers, reached for the Working Families Party nomination, our union made it known that it would not support the party if it embraced Zephyr. And we blocked the only viable chance of making Andy Cuomo, with his booming warchest, break a sweat. When Zephyr boldly challenged him in the primary, the President of the AFT was busy making calls for arch-conservative Kathy Hochul, lest Tim Wu should win and a true progressive should even help govern NY State.

And God forbid NYSUT or UFT should endorse Howie Hawkins, the last and only candidate standing who is not insane. That would be radical and scary. What would people think? Instead, we'll sit it out and pretend we aren't tacitly endorsing Governor Andrew Cuomo. After all, he is a Democrat, when he isn't making glitzy commercials pretending to support women, or students, or anyone other than the only person he cares about--himself.

You'd think Cuomo would be grateful. You'd be wrong, of course. The error our union leadership makes, over and over, is thinking because we let the reformies stab us in the arm, in front of God and everybody, that they won't follow up by stabbing us in the back. But they always do and we never learn.

Cuomo got in front of the Daily News editorial board and used the boilerplate term favored by fanatical ideologue teacher bashers everywhere--the public school "monopoly." Likely he forgot about the police monopoly, the fire department monopoly, and the government monopoly. Certainly he forgot how many Americans and New Yorkers would benefit if we enacted single payer, gave everyone health care, and had a monopoly rather than people going bankrupt over medical bills. Certainly the fact that charter schools have failed to improve education hasn't factored into his thinking. The fact that the best education systems in the world are public and unionized didn't seem all that important either.

 For our restraint, for our diplomacy, for our covert support, he has declared war against us. Once again, Mike Mulgrew, Karen Magee, and Randi Weingarten have screwed up by failing to take be proactive, by choosing fear over inspiration, by moving backward rather than forward.

Cuomo pretty much announced he hates us and everything we stand for.  What do we do? Boycott Time magazine, a magazine that has hated us for years, a magazine it's unlikely any of us read anyway?

When are we going to wake up and insist on real union and real leaders? I, for one, am getting a little tired of waiting. How about you?

Related: Perdido Street School on NYSUT's pathetic response.

The Brutality of UFT Leadership

Mike Mulgrew's UFT is promoting Al Sharpton's August 23rd march for "justice for victims of police brutality."  I don't know of too many, off hand, who support police brutality.  I'm guessing very few police officers support police brutality.  I hope the march will be one of solidarity, rather than violence--which brings me to my next point.

I oppose police brutality, but I also oppose UFT-president brutality, including the threat of it.  I realize the issue does not parallel the other, as there have been no deaths and I don't forsee any.  But, I'd like to take a minute of your time, nonetheless, to discuss it.

It was only last month, Mulgrew, all fired up at the AFT Convention in L.A., emphatically told the audience that he would punch in the face and push in the dirt anyone who tries to take his standards away.  In other words, hands off his Core.

I can't oppose a rally against police brutality as long as it remains peaceful, but I can oppose the failure of the UFT to mobilize its rank and file on so many other educational issues.  I can oppose the UFT's disregard for its rank and file, to the extent of increasing the weight of the vote of retirees to ensure its iron grip on power.  I can oppose loyalty oaths that close the door to union offices to any person of high integrity who refuses to rubber stamp leadership.  And, I can oppose the intimidation of Unity members by threats to cut the purse strings to double pensions--which turns them into eight-hundred tools deaf and sometimes dangerous to their own constituency as well as that of NYSUT and the AFT (in which the UFT holds a controlling interest).

When Mulgrew finished his punch-and-push-in-the-dirt speech, the camera focused on the beaming face of Randi Weingarten, obviously pleased with Mulgrew as she commended the passion in the room.  For some reason at that moment, I could only think of Dr. Frankenstein.  Weingarten knows as much as anyone, if not more, what a sham the UFT makes of union democracy and she, as much as anyone, is responsible.  I'm sure if she thought more people knew, she would have to be at the very least embarrassed.  I hope someday, everyone knows how the UFT operates.  Not because I'm cruel, but because it's the truth and I love democracy.
 


So, if you'll be marching across the bridge opposing police brutality with the UFT and many others, say a silent prayer on the lesser issue of threats of UFT brutality, intimidation and tyranny.

E4E and Union Leaders--Strange Bedfellows

One of the interesting things about the corporate push to #SupportTheCore on Twitter was the E4E do-it-yourself page.

Not surprisingly, yesterdays #supportthecore media blitz was based largelyon scripted talking points and hand holding http://t.co/0NBpvD4ZYv
— Anna S. Sothvny (@SOTHVNY) August 13, 2014

It had all these wonderful suggestions. First it told you how to join Twitter, if you hadn't yet done so. Then it gave you formulas for writing tweets, like I #SupportTheCore because it helps my students think for themselves, or whatever. Because no one wants kids growing up depending on Gates-backed astroturf groups to know what to say, or how to say it.

And yet, the teachers of E4E, the supposed role models, are doing just that. How do you set an example for free thinking when you need help doing it yourself, even when your target is 140 characters? Even more frustrating is who their allies appear to be.

Of course, E4E took the page down, because the truth hurts. But I saw it. I can only assume to them, "excellence" entails following directions rather than thinking. And, I guess to them, those of us who model thinking aren't excellent at all.

@AFTteach @lechianese #supportthecore because AFT took Gates' money. The kids better support it, or Mulgrew will "punch them in the face".
— Mary Porter (@mport84chemtchr) August 12, 2014

It's disconcerting, to say the least, that our unions have taken Gates money just as E4E has. As you saw in both the NEA and AFT conventions, leaders of both support Common Core, though at least NEA isn't punching anyone in the face yet.

Later today, NYC results will be released. A slight improvement is predicted, and this is to be attributed to more Common Core instruction. But the fact that the results are determined in advance, as they were last year, ought to clue any thinking person into the fact that the game is rigged. Gates poured millions and millions into it, and couldn't be bothered with research or testing before dumping it on our children.

Parents of young children are horrified by CC results, and don't accept Arne Duncan's idiotic remark blaming their children for the abysmal results of his Gates-sponsored social experiment. Actually, parents were supposed to throw their arms up in horror, and decide their public schools suck. As a result, they would have demanded charter schools and made Eva Moskowitz even richer than she already is.

Remember that when people spout nonsense about the implementation. The only problem with the implementation was that thousands of parents independently determined the tests were the problem, rather than their kids or their schools. When the Gates program didn't resonate as predicted, when people independently rejected it, that was a problem.

The response, rather than scrapping the miserable program, was to plod on with it, make excuses, and hope no one would notice it was the same untested, unproven crap. Uber-advocates Gates, Obama, Cuomo, and King send their kids to private schools where they won't be subject to this nonsense. There's no excuse for them pushing programs for our kids they deem unfit for theirs.

Remember that when hearing from Gates-funded shills who can't even come up with 140 characters to push this nonsense. And remember, when our union leader needed an idea to push it, the best he could muster was punching us in the face and pushing us into the dirt.

We can do better.

Does AFT Merit a Member Boycott?

AFT reps, not a single one of whom represents me or my school, took time out to assemble at a local Staples to protest their use of private workers to replace US Post Office workers. The President of NYSUT cut her Staples card in half to show she meant business. After all, we value union, and we don't want unqualified people handling the mail.

But according to the AFT reps, none of whom represent me or my school, it's OK for unqualified people who aren't in a nurses' union to issue medical care, and so they passed a resolution saying people could get a little training and do the work of medical professionals. Perhaps the AFT reps have determined the work of medical professionals is a lot less demanding than that of delivering packages and envelopes. It's tough to say since none of them consult with me or anyone I represent about anything, ever.

But since one action so mirrors the other, it's only fair that one reaction mirror the other as well. So I guess the only logical thing to do is boycott the AFT. This begs the question--how do we do that?

After all, AFT simply takes money from our paychecks. We have no say on that. Then they hold conventions, on our dime, conventions in which we get no representation whatsoever. I'm chapter leader of the largest school in Queens, and they don't give a golly gosh darn what any of us think about anything. Otherwise, how could they fail to demand the removal of corporate clown Arne Duncan? How could they continue with the preposterous charade that the problem of Common Core is how it was rolled out?

In fact, it was rolled out exactly as it should have, and that's why 70% of our kids failed the tests. It's pretty clear to me, when Arne Duncan slanders suburban moms, that it was designed to make us think all public schools are failing. The problem, for demagogues like Duncan and Reformy John King, is that neither working teachers nor working parents accept their corporate-backed conclusions.

Now here's the thing. Maybe your school has a Unity chapter leader, a chapter leader who actually went to the convention. But if that's the case, your chapter leader has signed a loyalty oath and in fact is not permitted to represent you at all. Your chapter leader must vote as directed or be banished, a longstanding Unity tradition, dating back to when Albert Shanker expelled Unity members for opposing the Vietnam War. We all know how that turned out, and we all know how all the reformy nonsense they support now is turning out.

So, because their actions mirror those of Staples, and because no one in UFT is represented in AFT, it's time to boycott the AFT.

How the hell do we do that?

I actually don't believe union dues should be optional. But representing the largest local in the country ought not to be optional either.

What say you, AFT?

The Good, the Bad and the Really Ugly

I learned of the death of Eli Wallach on the way to grade Regents last week in someone else's school.  The star of stage and screen had died at the age of 98.  I will always best remember him as Tuco, "the Ugly," part-time sidekick to Blondie, in Sergio Leone's "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly."

Eli Wallach was a New Yorker; while Wallach was building a career in film, his brother, Sam, faced some pretty big challenges of his own.  He served as president of the Teachers Union, 1945-1948, a more radical precursor of the UFT.  He was instrumental in pushing the Teachers Union to include substitutes.  He, ultimately, suffered in 1948 under the post-WWII anti-communist hysteria that led to the passage of the Feinberg Law, requiring the firing of anyone advocating the overthrow of government, and the imposition of loyalty oaths.  Teachers were asked to renounce all past associations with Communists as well as to inform upon other teachers.   There were even undercover informants, including one "Blondie" or "Operator 51."  Wallach penned a statement published in The New York Times, co-signed by sixty others, including Albert Einstein, arguing for a teacher's right to his or her own personal and political beliefs.

This period was documented in a film entitled, "Dreamers and Fighters:  The NYC Teacher Pages," narrated by Eli Wallach.  Although in 1967 the Supreme Court found the firing of teachers amid this Red-Scare hysteria unconstitutional, Sam Wallach never taught again. He went on to help mentally-retarded children at Maimonides Developmental Center.  As he was about to retire in December 1976, the NYC Board of Education reinstated him with nine others.  They regained their pensions.  Sam Wallach died in February of 2001.

In retrospect, Sam Wallach stated that the radical Teachers Union (replaced by the UFT in 1964), "frightened large chunks of teachers, especially the obvious red positions.  We should have steered clear of controversial issues and concentrated on the practical, day-to-day concerns that all teachers have."

It seems to me that the issues facing our AFT as it gathers to meet in two weeks' time (July 9-10), are far from controversial.  We must stop the privatization of public education which further lines the pockets of the already wealthy at the expense of democracy.  We must stop those who would demolish the rights of a unionized teaching force and deprive us of the due-process rights of tenure.  We must motivate our teachers to stand against a media image that largely uses us as scapegoats for poverty.

We must oppose the Common-Core, despite Gates' "Fistful of Dollars" and Weingarten's hesitancy to listen to the popular uproar against it.  We must oppose its test-based view of teacher accountability, standardization that enriches the likes of Pearson, as well as those who would reduce our children to data points.  I do not view these goals as extreme or "red."  I view them as common sense.

Many will be watching the convention very carefully, including the actions of the reflex-hand-raising, loyalty-oath swearing Unity faithful, the UFT tail that wags the AFT dog.  In the immortal words of Tuco, "There are two kinds of people in the world, my friend:  Those with a rope around the neck, and the people who have the job of doing the cutting."  I would hope the AFT does some serious cutting at the convention.  If it doesn't, dissension will only grow.  

Oopzie! UFT and NYSUT Goof Again

Education/ legal expert Campbell Brown is at it again, and this week, rather than simply labeling teachers a bunch of shiftless perverts via stereotype, she's going after teacher tenure for all of us. She won't tell us where her money comes from, but I'm pretty sure it comes from our good pals in Reformyville.

Do you know where Reformyville is? It's the place where teachers can be judged by value-added via test scores. I watched up close and personal while former NYSUT President Richard Iannuzzi was excoriated for his participation in the NY State evaluation law. This couldn't be tolerated. And thus Michael Mulgrew's UFT leadership told Unity's loyalty-oath-bound faithful to dump him, leaving him with a 34% vote deficit before he lifted a finger to protect his job.

And yet--pardon me if I'm not recalling correctly--Mulgrew himself was part of the team that negotiated this law. It was the bestest thing ever. Finally, he told us at the DA, we would have multiple measures. Before, principals could do whatever they liked. Now, everything was perfect. We could negotiate evaluation ourselves. Unless, of course, we couldn't, in which case totally objective John King could just do whatever he wished.

The point is, we played ball on evaluations. We played ball on mayoral control, not once, but twice, after we knew it was an unmitigated disaster. We sat on the sidelines while Bloomberg changed the law and bought himself a third term. We supported and helped enable Race to the Top. We supported Barack Obama, who promised he'd find comfortable shoes and stand with labor when we were under attack. We supported Common Core and Arne Duncan, the man who stood in front of God and everybody and stated that Hurricane Katrina was the best thing that ever happened to education in New Orleans, the man who ridiculed suburban mothers when their kids failed tests for which they were utterly unprepared. And we didn't say boo when Andrew Cuomo took mayoral control away from Bill de Blasio and passed it to Eva Moskowitz.

And here's what UFT leadership told us when they sold us the sellout 2005 contract, the one that created the wretched absent teacher reserve--they won't like us if we don't take it. The tabloids will attack us. What will they say? Actually, I saw the same questions asked as they sold the current contract.

But here's the thing--self-proclaimed progressive Wayne Barrett just wrote a piece that basically condemned de Blasio for paying us the retro that matched a previous pattern. Chalkbeat NY penned a column about how their reformy pals consider it a waste of money to pay us for our work. And now, because it is not enough that we've decimated seniority with the ATR, because it's not satisfactory that they now get second-tier due process, because junk science is not firing enough teachers, they are using a nonsensical rationale that the only way to protect children is to make us at-will employees.

We, the UFT, NYSUT, and the AFT have played ball with the reformers. When we give them an inch, they want a yard. Appeasement doesn't work. Guess what? They don't like us, they never have, and they never will.

And if NYSUT, UFT, and AFT don't support Zephyr Teachout's primary bid against Charter Champ Andrew Cuomo, that only proves we've learned nothing.

Wayne Barrett Is Shocked, Shocked

It's important to Wayne Barrett that you know he is progressive.

I am a progressive, 

How can you argue with that? After all, that's clear. You are, therefore, supposed to take his argument against union that much more seriously. But that's not all:

...have been one since the 1960s, when I became a New York City public school teacher for a few years and learned that my union, the United Federation of Teachers, was much better at representing my interests than those of the kids I taught. It shouldn't have come as such a surprise.

Wait a minute. Is Barrett stating that the United Federation of Teachers represents the interests of (gasp!) teachers? Now I'm shocked too! But what Barrett also does here is advance the meme that the interests of teachers are counter to those of students. Why aren't we out rallying for more work for less pay? After all, isn't that what the children of America need?

Despite Barrett's boast of how amazingly progressive he is, teacher v. student is precisely the argument you'll hear from Michelle Rhee, Scott Walker, Jeb Bush, Bill Gates, Chris Christie, and virtually all other supporters of corporate reform. Are we to determine, then, that there is no possibility they could be wrong? That appears to be the conclusion. Were Barrett to oppose abortion, gay rights, or a woman's right to choose, I can only suppose there'd be universal opposition to those issues as well. Barrett continues:

Seen through a progressive lens, all that should matter in these school skirmishes is whether a charter, a contract or an employment rule benefits students. Whenever progressive Democrats instead choose teacher power over the futures of minority kids, they are putting a big bucks lobby ahead of a core but comparatively powerless constituency.

It's pretty remarkable that Barrett forgets all the money billionaires Gates, Broad, and the Walmart family have invested in charters. Does he seriously expect us to entertain the outlandish notion that they are powerless? Does he expect us not to realize all the power and money they put behind charters? Does Barrett expect us to ignore the fact that their money dwarfs that of unions, or that Gates' has basically imposed his agenda on the nation, with the full cooperation of President Barack Obama?

Does he expect we don't know the attrition rates of charters? For example, the fabled Eva Moskowitz Academy just graduated its first class. Over half of its students not only disappeared, but were not even replaced. Are we to ignore that, as uber-progressive Barrett did?

You may, for example, have gotten the impression, when the WFP appeared poised last month to nominate charter foe Diane Ravitch to oppose Gov. Cuomo, a charter champion, in his reelection bid, that these nonprofit-run public schools are a Republican hedge-fund conspiracy. That's what the WFP, a sometimes-blunt instrument exploited by the interests that bankroll it, and 75-year-old Ravitch, the adopted guru of the UFT and de Blasio administration, would have us believe.

I wonder why Ravitch's age is of any relevance to Barrett's argument. Nonetheless, it's one of the most preposterous arguments I've ever seen, particularly if Barrett is as progressive as he claims. There's no evidence whatsoever that Ravitch was poised to win the nomination, and if that's not clear to you, you can ask Zephyr Teachout. Teachout lost the nomination, and it's pretty clear the teacher union did not support her.

As if that's not enough, the fact is the UFT, far from labeling them a "Republican hedge-fund conspiracy" not only supports charter schools, but has opened and co-sponsored them. AFT made Bill Gates the keynote at its convention. UFT and Ravitch differ on not only issues like charters, but also mayoral control, Common Core, and VAM ratings, all of which UFT has supported and Ravitch has opposed.

It's remarkable that someone as "progressive" as Barrett fails to comprehend the corporate influence on the modern Democratic party.

Even Zephyr Teachout, the Fordham professor who ran unsuccessfully against Cuomo for the WFP designation after Ravitch dropped out and now plans to challenge him in a Democratic primary partly because of his "support of corporate school reform," is the protégé of new charter school backer Howard Dean.

This is classic guilt by association. Barrett, despite acknowledging her opposition to Cuomo's corporate reform, sees fit to extrapolate Teachout's positions from those with whom she's acquainted rather than her actual words criticizing Cuomo's education positions or the obvious act of her opposing him.

Aside from the pyrotechnics involved in constructing Barrett's arguments, it's pretty disappointing that the self-styled progressive appears to oppose higher wages for those of us who, unlike him, have chosen to continue to educate all of New York's children, whether or not they meet the selective standards of Eva Moskowitz. I'd say one bottom line for anyone progressive is supporting working people. And lest Barrett shed further crocodile tears for the children he sees as well-served by charters, they will grow up and need jobs too.

It's my hope that we can offer our children something better than what Walmart has spent millions and millions creating for them. And like many of my colleagues, I'm poised to support real progressives to counter the Walmart message.

Good Day AFT

As Vice-President of the United States, I'm pleased to address all you teachers! I know you're here because you have a calling, a dedication to teach our kids. Otherwise, why would you be facing pay cuts, additional fees for pensions and health care, and be buying supplies out of pocket?

When President Obama and I see the things Republicans are doing to you, we're horrified, and that's why we're out there every day, paying teachers valuable lip service. And let me assure you that, when and if President Obama finds his comfortable shoes, he may or may not be out there with organized labor, protesting the loss of collective bargaining rights!

Now I can see there are those of you who object to some of our programs, specifically Race to the Top. Sure, you say, it brings more testing, and that your very jobs depend on getting better grades on those tests. While that is certainly true, remember that our priority is to make the United States the best educated country in the world. That's why we do whatever Bill Gates asks us to, whether or not it's been tested or disproven. After all, if he didn't know about this stuff, why would he have all that money? And I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that President Obama said in his State of the Union speech that he wanted less testing! So what more do you want? For Chrissake, he's the goshdarn President of the United States!

Remember, the President's kids and my grandchildren go to the Sidwell Friends School, where there is less testing, so we're putting our money where our mouth is, and anyone else who wants to can just move to DC and pay 33K a year to send their kids there too! This is the land of opportunity!

So don't be a Gloomy Gus! Some things we do may not please you, but the important thing to remember is that the things Romney will do may be even worse! He doesn't care about class size! Arne Duncan cares deeply about class size, which is why he said class sizes should be raised just one week after Bill Gates said so. And I know you all admire Bill Gates, since he was the keynote at your last convention! Can I get an amen? No?

Well, anyway, I realize the whole merit pay, teachers getting fired for no reason, and school closing thing doesn't resonate among teachers, and I truly regret that those troublemakers from Chicago are actually saying so out loud. Honestly I was not prepared for that. So let's put our differences aside and take a real look at what I've done since I arrived here.

As I look around me, I notice many of you are smaller than me. In fact, I've seen many of you walking down the stairs, and I chose not to push any of you. Not only that, but I saw several of you walking by the fountain, and I didn't toss any of you into it. This was my choice. Could you say the same for Mitt Romney? Nobody knows, right? Let me tell you something about Romney. He supports high-stakes testing, charters, merit pay, privatization, decreased teacher voice, and vouchers. Let me make one thing perfectly clear--President Obama and I DO NOT support vouchers! That is a promise.

So God bless America, God bless teachers, and remember, when you're in that voting booth, Joe Biden has not pushed any teachers down the stairs, as far as you know. And thank you, AFT, for endorsing us without asking us for any concessions whatsoever! Those goshdarn LGBT and Latino communities actually pushed the President to change his positions, and that was pretty freaking inconvenient!

So believe me when I say this administration really appreciates teachers!

If Diane Ravitch Were UFT, She Wouldn't Be at AFT Convention

This week we've been examining precisely what it takes to represent the UFT at a national or state convention. The prime requirement, of course, is to be an invited member of the elite Unity Caucus, and to do that you must agree to support all union positions in public. Ravitch, though I like her very much, fails to meet the standard. Here's why.

1. She publicly opposes mayoral control. UFT supports it, and this alone would disqualify her. It's a long tradition to expel Unity members for failure to conform. In fact, Albert Shanker used to expel people for opposing the Vietnam War. Mayoral control is what brought us the rubber-stamp PEP, and I've seen high-ranking UFT officials get just as frustrated with them as most of us are. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and placing all that power in the hands of an elitist billionaire, let alone anyone at all, was a huge error. We ought to stop pretending otherwise.

2. Ravitch vehemently opposes VAM, and has publicly labeled it for the junk science it is. She does not support using it for teacher evaluations, not at any percentage. Standard union argument is that principal's judgment can be flawed, and therefore other measures are needed. I cannot really argue that point, nor the one that there are plenty of crazy principals out there, but adding random nonsense to the mix hardly helps. In fact, if you have a small-minded principal, it's likely this person could work to see your value-added scores scour the depths of whatever underworld whatever remains of the soul of Joel Klein has been relegated to.

3. Ravitch fails to support Common Core, contending it should be tested before it's put into effect. This makes perfect sense to me. In fact, with the AFT circulating a petition against excessive testing, before supporting it, wouldn't it be a good idea for us to find out precisely how much testing it will entail? The spectre of nine tests a year, to me, hardly bodes well. I'm upset by Common Core in that it does not differentiate between ELA for American-born kids and ESL for my students. To me, that's patently idiotic. Issues like these ought to be addressed before we throw our support to any program.

4. Ravitch is highly critical of union-endorsed President Barack Obama, going so far as to say he's given GW Bush a third term in education. UFT members won't be talking any of that when Vice President Joe Biden addresses the crowd in Detroit. When Obama's people applaud entire teaching staffs being fired, when Arne Duncan states Katrina was the best thing to happen to NOLA education, Obama says nothing, but Ravitch is not impressed.

I could go on, but you get the point. I commend the AFT for selecting Ravitch this year. She's a much better choice than Bill Gates.

On the other hand, it's not particularly admirable that UFT leadership has excluded absolutely every New York City teacher who publicly supports her ideas.

How Do You Get Teachers to Clap for Bill Gates?

At the last AFT Convention, incredibly, Bill Gates was the keynote. Personally, I was horrified. Here is this man who's doing everything his billions will permit to eviscerate our profession, and we're inviting him in to tell us about it. Why on earth would anyone want to do that? I have no idea.

I do know a little about how you get New York teachers to clap, though. It's largely because each and every UFT member at the convention is a member of the Unity Caucus, the group that’s controlled the UFT virtually since its inception.

The caucus is open only by invitation, and there are very particular rules one must follow, when and if invited. You can access the application here by clicking download.

Here’s one part of the agreement:

To express criticism of caucus policies within the Caucus;

That’s healthy, of course. If something’s wrong, it behooves you to let people know about it. It’s the next part that, although it pretty much explains everything, is a little disturbing:

To support the decisions of Caucus/ Union leadership in public or Union forums;

Thus, every single "Union activist" in attendance is bound to do whatever they're told. Does this applause for Gates represent the membership? Certainly not those who really know what Gates is all about. 

Would it really be that dangerous to allow UFT members to tell Gates their real thoughts? And would Gates show up if he thought that had half a chance of happening?

Most perplexing is this--how can you be an "activist" if you're sworn not to express any but pre-approved thoughts?

To be continued...