Another Day, Another Abusive Administrator

I've been hearing about Rose Marie Mills and adult education for some time now.

The adult education teachers have been getting the runaround from the city at least since last school year. UFT has gotten involved, but the adult ed. teachers don't seem to have tenure, and they've been dropping like flies at the hands of a leader who seems to confuse herself with a fly swatter.

Fired adult ed. teacher Roberta Pikser has been coming fairly regularly to Executive Board meetings. I've gotten to hear a lot about this firsthand. A lot of what I hear seems outright scandalous, so was pretty happy to read about it today in the Post. They say sunlight is the best disinfectant, and this particular branch of the Department of Education seems infected to the core.

Last June, the city Department of Education settled for $362,000 a suit from an office director, whom Mills had terminated after he was diagnosed with a medical condition requiring brain surgery.

That's not enough for DOE to act, of course. You may remember that the city didn't reassign the principal of John Bowne until settlements over sexual harassment allegations hit 830K. Teachers, on the other hand, might face termination if they sell students copies of Frankenstein for $2 a copy. It doesn't matter if such things are common practice in your school. Once someone important at DOE finds out about horrible infractions like these, they leap into action.

People wonder what makes Boy Wonder supervisors. Wonder no more. Superintendents like this, evidently, seem to not only encourage, but also require them.

One former OACE assistant principal, Luckisha Amankwah, has filed a suit claiming Mills demoted her for refusing to give bad reviews to two teachers whom Amankwah believed didn’t deserve them.

We often hear stories of supervisors giving ridiculous and unfair observations. This suggests that, in the cesspool that is still Michael Bloomberg's Department of Education, they are directly told to do this. I remain incredulous at Mayor de Blasio's failure to not only clean house, but also his evident lack of awareness that a house cleaning is necessary.

Reached by phone, Mills told a reporter, “Have a wonderful day,” and hung up.

Abusive administrators couldn't care less, evidently. You're gonna report on my actions? Fine. I haven't cost the city 830K yet, so what, me worry? The arrogance and indifference is palpable. It's disgraceful that, four years into his term, Mayor de Blasio has allowed Michael Bloomberg's ghost to linger at Tweed and set the tone. Screw teachers. We are in charge, we know everything, you know nothing, and that's the way we do things here.

“I want blood,” Mills allegedly told a former principal, the teachers’ lawyer, Bryan Glass, wrote last month to the state Division of Human Rights, which is investigating.

You can't win with people like that. Some supervisors blame others for everything and take personal responsibility for nothing. As far as I can tell, that was the way to go in Michael Bloomberg's New York. Is new chancellor Richard Carranza going to step up and change the tone? Or will we continue with supervisory abuse and the lunatics at DOE legal advising administrators to wipe their asses with the UFT Contract?

Only time will tell, but I've yet to see any action or statement from Carranza that indicates a new deal or even fresh eyes. It serves neither us nor the 1.1 million NYC schoolchildren to have teacher morale at such a low ebb. Hopefully, someone at Tweed, or better yet, someone in the mayor's office, will wake up and smell the stupidity.

UFT Executive Board, May 7, 2018--We Condemn Mayor de Blasio's Crass Stereotype of Sexual Harassment Victims

6 PM Howard Schoor, secretary, welcomes us.

No speakers

Minutes—approved.

Mulgrew is not here.

Robert Levine—Brooklyn rep, handles most OEO cases citywide. OEO is empowered by chancellor’s reg a-830. Numbers in papers don’t match ours. 16-17—280 interviews in Bklyn office. This year, 200 so far. On track to do the same.

UFT represents all sides in cases, subjects, witnesses, and complainants. 190 subjects, 73 witnesses, 17 complainants this year. Union believes every witness is potential subject. Complainants don’t always seek union reps.

OEO handles harassment and discrimination—Discrimination 60%, 50% of whole are student based claims of discrimination. Others are sexual harassment cases, 40% of total, mostly student based. Employee cases 10%, not a frivolous number.

We have issues with OEO, biggest is timeliness. Violate timeliness on almost every single case. There is 90 day rule for them to complete, unless circumstances dictate otherwise. All seem to do that. There is six month rule. Any investigation must be completed within six months, Problematic with suspensions of paraprofessionals. These cases being moved along but still problematic. 11 new investigators insufficient.

Arthur Goldstein--I know a member who get suspended for six months after OEO ruled against him, even though they took well over six months to accuse him. Are they allowed to do that?

Levine--No, that is a violation, should be a grievance.

Staff Director LeRoy Barr—Last Friday there was an assaulted nurse. 40 or 50 UFT at sentencing hearing, person received 2 to 4 years for that crime. Saturday was 5K run thanks Rich Mantel for organizing. First book event at PS 15, gave 40K books. This Thursday better speech and hearing celebration, 5-7 here. May 11, awards for guidance, next week, Shanker ceremonies, give away 1 mil each year. DA May 16, conference 19, EB May 21, chancellor will be here. June 12, UFT school counselors recognition ceremony.

Schoor—Press conference at city hall for parental leave, 10 members of city council there. When these people become candidates, we interview them. If we support them and they win, they never forget. You can see this when they come out for us. We must continue political action. Pres. testified for City Council on parental leave, was fired up. City council people said this is right, not benefit.

Questions

Arthur Goldstein—This year the DOE has decreed that annualization is out. Thus, if I think a student failing in January might pull it out before June I can no longer have her grade reversed at the end of the year. I’ve seen a lot of outrageous credit recovery schemes but annualization is not one of them. This is allowing a student’s teacher to give that student a second chance. If indeed the student has mastered the material by June, why should she have to go to summer school, night school, or even another year of school to catch up?

I realize this came down via Carmen Fariña, and that unlike her I lack the ability to tell that it’s a beautiful day simply because Macy’s is open. Nonetheless, I am the teacher of my students, and with all due respect I believe I’m a better judge of their progress than Ms. Fariña, who never once bothered even setting foot in my school.

Is there any mechanism for us to negotiate moving this option back into the hands of teachers, where it belongs, and if not, could we create one? We have a new chancellor, it’s entirely possible he is not insane, and perhaps this is an opportunity for us.

Janella Hinds—We are engaging in conversation about all of this, about different ways we can deal with this. We will bring responses.

Schoor--Please send a link or get papers to document this.

Ashraya Gupta—What is format for chancellor’s visit?

Schoor—We don’t know yet. Sometimes we go into executive session, members only.

KJ Ahluwalia—Chancellor has made integration a priority. Has union taken a stand?

Janella Hinds—reps UFT on committee representing DOE, educators, and students. We talk about integration and how to ensure all our students have needs met. Still working in sub committees. UFT committed to equity across barod.

Jonathan Halabi—Thinks me too movement caught us by surprise, not that we condoned that behavior. These things are far more pervasive and now we see them better. Part of city hasn’t understood they need to rethink. We ourselves need to look at how we handle our own in our own house. Have we checked or updated our own procedures?

Schoor—We do have it, People responsible not here. Will get report.

Halabi—Can we look at policy again?

Schoor—Yes. I will ask for a report.

David Kazansky—began anti harassment and anti discrimination training. Were on this before new things came to light.

Schoor—77% teachers female. We are concerned.

Reports from districts

Anthony Harmon—First book even—serviced over 700 teachers, 500 parents. Thanks people from Queens office. Also an immigration clinic in Bronx. Over 100 people to begin a path to citizenship. Also first of three part series on parent leadership. 80 parents from across city participating.

Pat Crispino—Thanks Betty Zohar for assisting with programs. Lost at PEP, but organization was amazing. Will be future leaders. HS in Bronx organized very well. Lost but in long run really won. People will do amazing things.

Karen Allford—City Council breakfast, thanked them for being part of our program, showed that we put their dollars to great use. Showcased, Dial a Teacher, Brave, Teachers Choice and other programs.

Rosemarie Thompson—Flyer for save the day June 12 at Brooklyn UFT. Asks that counselors who are union activists are nominated.

Camille Edie, District 16 rep, was D16 diversity summit to address growing issues, like gentrification and charter schools. Well attended, thanks Anthony Harmon. Students gave play on diversity. Not just about race, crosses many different lines.

Rich Mantel—JHS VP—200 runners at 5K, raised 8K. Good weather, was perfect. This Thursday we are hosting anti-bullying contest for MS students. Will report on 21st. NY Jets involved. Tony Richardson is keynote.

Rashad Brown—co chair of LGBTQ committee. sponsoring scholarship. Encourage seniors to apply. Rosemarie Thompson, It wil bee June 2 12-3

Janella Hinds—School closing fight this year Wadliegh HS—Jewel of NYC crown up for truncation, but phenomenal organization stopped it. Community and UFT worked together. Chancellor Carranza went to see them and sang with their mariachi band. Thanks educators and UFT.

George Altomare—great committee of SS teachers want more in service younger members. Can keep doing good things but we have to get in service and younger people. Wine and cheese reception May 11 from 4-6.

Paul Egan not here—two resolutions.

In support of poor people’s campaign—Anthony Harmon—Led by Dr. Barber. Important to remember Dr. King, who did it in 60s. Similar resolution at NYSUT. Asks we endorse.

Passes.


Resolution for Eradication of Sexual Harassment.


Janella Hinds—Important for this city and DOE to show respect for any victims of harassment and unfair treatment. Heard de Blasio brush it off, Heard city council speak in favor of safe space. We are shifting and must engage in conversations.

Kate Martin—words missing—Have to fix sentences. (There is some discussion over whether Kate is an English teacher, but it turns out she's a math teacher.)

Arthur Goldstein—I was shocked that Mayor De Blasio could stand up in front of God and everybody and declare that 98% of teacher sexual harassment complaints are frivolous. I worked for this man. I contributed to his campaign and sat through the freezing cold at his first inauguration.

If you’re a friend of teachers, you don’t stereotype us as whiners. Most teachers are women, and I often think that’s why people like those on the Post editorial board feel so comfortable degrading us. I have a hard time differentiating those who stereotype teachers from garden variety bigots. It’s far more egregious when it’s directed at victims of sexual harassment, who certainly have enough on their minds without being gratuitously ridiculed.

If you are a UFT chapter leader, you know that the investigative agencies can never get anything done in time to follow their own rules, that they convict people on the flimsiest of evidence, and that they defend the city on equally ridiculous evidence. It it’s not them it’s the thirty dollar an hour minds on DOE legal, the ones who know next to nothing about the contract, who decided that 98% of us were cranks. Every single time I have had a dispute with legal, without exception, they have been wrong and UFT has been right. These are the people who fight me twice a year to keep class sizes over the limit, and they muster the audacity to claim they place children first, always. The people who really do that are the ones who wake up to serve these children each and every day, and that would be us.

I certainly hope this was a momentary aberration, and that the mayor will come to his senses. If I were him, I’d not only follow the terms of this resolution to the letter, but I’d also go out of my way to grant a fair family leave policy for those of us who devote our lives toward serving the children of this city.

I urge you to vote for this resolution, and to tell Mayor de Blasio that we stand up for our own, particularly when they’re victimized like this.

Schoor—corrects sentences, asks for vote.

Passes

We are adjourned 6:48

Carmen Kills Annualization

What's that, you ask? Annualization is the process, in high schools at least, of changing January grades to reflect June grades. We have two semesters, and students get one credit for each. In our school, if you give a grade of 55 in January, and a passing grade in June, the January grade converts to 65. The student gets credit for the entire year. I'm sure we're not the only school that does that.

This year, Carmen "It's a Beautiful Day" Fariña decided that this was no good and had to go. How horrible to grant a full year of credit to high school students simply because they were passing the class at the end of the year. It's an abomination, evidently. So next year we can't do that anymore.

I don't really know how this affects every discipline. For mine, if a student is proficient in June with the English level I taught, that student ought to get the full credit for the year. If that student can write, read, speak and understand at the same level as the other students, why not? I guess it could be different in an ELA class. I mean, what if the student had read Catcher in the Rye but not Ethan Frome? (I've read both and I'd have been happier to have read neither, so perhaps I'm a bad example.)

Maybe it's not fair to the students who do well in the beginning but screw up in the end. Or maybe it encourages students to ignore the first half and aim for the second. To me, we were doing the right thing. I mean, we always read about how this percentage of kids is ready for that, or how that percentage of kids is ready for this. And always, whatever percentage is ready for whatever, we're at fault because it should have been higher. Or lower. Or different.

But hey, I'm the teacher, and my judgment ought to count for something. Under this system, if I give a kid a 55, I'm saying I think the kid can pass for the year. I'm not issuing a guarantee, but I'm telling the world that it's possible. In fact, I might even tell the kid that. Don't they want us to encourage kids to improve? Isn't that kind of our job?

This is a lot different from sitting the kid in front of a computer and having his smart girlfriend answer a bunch of questions so he can get credit. This is the teacher saying, in January, I think this kid might pull it out in June. And if the teacher doesn't believe that, the kid gets a 50, fails, and that's it. Of course I'm not Carmen Fariña. I haven't got the ability to determine it's a beautiful day simply because Macy's is open. I require further evidence, like, say, the weather report, or the capacity to drive home in fewer than four hours. But I digress.

There has been a lot of nonsense put in place to help students get credit. Ridiculous "blended learning," which entails having kids sit on computers rather than interact with humans or books, has been used to give students credit for, of all things, physical education. I'm not exactly sure how reading passages about basketball and answering a few questions is a substitute for playing basketball, but of course I'm not one of the great minds behind blended learning either.

Of course, neither am I a policy maker. I'm just a guy who spends each and every day in the classroom trying to teach. Oddly, I think that makes me the number one most qualified person to decide whether or not my students deserve credit for my course. I'm the one who issues assignments, I'm the one who assesses them, and I'm the one who observes student performance each and every day I go to work.

But Carmen Fariña, who sat in an office deciding just how beautiful the days were, was the Schools Chancellor. Who the hell am I to assess the students they hired me to assess when she has a better idea? So starting next year, your students and mine who've mastered the material we've taught will need to go to summer school, night school, or some credit recovery nonsense in order to graduate.

And make no mistake--because the city has limited the number of credit recovery courses students can take, fewer will graduate on time. Do you think anyone will blame Carmen Fariña or the incoming mariachi chancellor? Neither do it.

As always, working teachers will be stereotyped as having failed children. It's ironic, because a whole lot of us would be fine with simply passing those who've mastered the material. But why ask teachers what they want when there are so many people sitting around air-conditioned offices who are paid many times our salaries and are 100% certain they know better?

Adios, Carmen Fariña, and thanks a lot for saddling us with this legacy.

Mayor de Blasio Jumps to Dark Side

I'm shocked to hear the mayor of New York City, a man who rose to prominence with a progressive agenda, offhandedly dismiss the bulk of sexual harassment complaints in the Department of Education. We now see over 100 complaints simply disappearing:

A veteran city educator who said officials botched her sexual harassment case is calling out Mayor de Blasio for shaming victims — and omitting dozens of sexual harassment complaints from recently published city statistics.

The educator, who asked to remain anonymous because she fears retaliation, said she was sickened to hear de Blasio say this week that the Education Department substantiated less than 2% of complaints because of a "hyper-complaint dynamic" in the city agency.

I've been to a whole lot of hearings with city reps, on very black and white issues. I've watched city reps actually suggest arguments to my principal when they were supposed to be judging an issue. I'm trying to determine exactly anyone would assume an agency that judges itself would do so fairly. I mean, UFT loses almost all Step Two Complaints. Are we just a bunch of whiners who complain about whatever?

Clearly the mayor would assume so. I mean, if he can make that assumption about people complaining of sexual harassment,  he must have even less regard for teachers who complain of untimely letters in file. People who've experienced sexual harassment have even stronger words for the mayor. In fact, courts have determined the city to be wrong;

"I'm certainly offended that Mayor de Blasio would say that," said the educator, who sued the city over her harassment by a supervisor and won a settlement.

"With a wife and daughter of his own, I was in shock," she added.

She called the city Education Department's investigation into her claims "a long, complicated, ugly process," that ultimately failed to bring her justice.

"No one would go through this if it were not true," she said. "It is a horrific experience. It upends your entire life."

I have to concur. Who on earth would want to not only go through this, but also relive it? It's nothing less than disgraceful that the mayor would simply assume city lawyers know best. I'm not even persuaded city lawyers have been through first grade, considering their perpetual inability to understand the UFT Collective Bargaining Agreement. Can you imagine people of that caliber making decisions about whether or not you were sexually harassed? It boggles the mind.

I'm not really disappointed in the city's lawyers, as anyone who's tangled with DOE "legal" knows they are a bunch of self-serving boobs with no interest whatsoever in the truth. But I expected better from this mayor. I worked for him and contributed to him, hoping he'd be the anti-Bloomberg. In any case, he's supposed to be where the buck stops here in NYC.

Instead, he stereotypes a whole group of educators. Unless he has personally investigated each and every one of these cases, he's got no business doing so. It's time for Mayor de Blasio to step up and start serving the truth, as opposed to the bloated, inept bureaucracy he inherited from Mayor Bloomberg.

Let's hope the bad publicity he gets from this is a wake-up call. Waking up is the sort of thing you're supposed to do before you go to work, or make pronouncements about large groups of people, but better late than never.

The Mariachi Chancellor, El Rey

I honestly don't know a whole lot about Richard Carranza. I see good and bad things. On the plus side, he's a former English Language Learner, or ELL. This gives me hope that he might see through the miserable Part 154 that robs ELLs of both direct English instruction and also core content instruction. In 2017, we ought to offer our most needy kids something better than sink or swim.

Also, he seems to be an advocate for public schools. The last guy the mayor picked, Tom Carvel or somebody, looked like an advocate for school choice in the Jeb Bush mode. Florida's not where I would go to model public schools, though the weather seems pretty nice. Alas, Carvel not only failed to bring the weather over, but also failed to show himself.

On the other hand, there are the stories about Carranza, largely in the Daily News, from his failure to perform miracles, to creepy treatment of female subordinates, resulting in a 75K payoff. I'm not personally too put off by the miracle thing, because miracle stories, like accomplishments of Texas and Michelle Rhee, usually turn out to be outright fabrications. Carranza seems to have a thing for TFA, while I think he'd be better off finding local talent. In fact, I wonder why the mayor couldn't find anyone in NY. The mayor said mayoral control was all about him doing what he wanted to do, but that's not really true.

When de Blasio was elected, he not only stated opposition to charters, but also blocked a Moskowitz Academy or two. Cuomo and his Heavy Hearted Assembly rapidly passed a law that NYC would have to pay rent for charters of which it didn't approve. This said to me that mayoral control was valid only if the mayor was a reformy. They never passed laws against Bloomberg. Evidently, de Blasio hasn't put that together just yet.

Carranza says there's no daylight between his vision and that of the mayor, but I have no idea what the mayor's vision is anymore. When he first ran, he seemed great. He opposed charters and reforminess. He was the anti-Bloomberg. I supported him even as the UFT was pushing that guy, what's his name, who told the Daily News that teachers didn't deserve the raise cops and firefighters got.

These days I have no idea what the mayor stands for. He left a whole bunch of Bloomberg's people in place, so we still lose at step two hearings even when we're 100% correct. He left a bunch of scumbag lawyers in "legal" who believe in doing whatever the hell they feel like and think screwing UFT members is the national pastime. He picks an outright reformy to be chancellor and then immediate turns around and picks a guy who appears to support public schools. Though the NY Post thinks de Blasio's Che Guevara, he negotiated the lowest pattern bargain in my living memory for city workers.

A few days ago, I was speaking to a music teacher I respect a lot who said the new chancellor was a great singer. I later found a video over at Leonie Haimson's site, which I've posted below. He is a very good singer, and he also plays the violin. You have to respect that. Maybe I'm culturally biased or something, but his choice of song is pretty unusual as far as I'm concerned. It's called El Rey, or the king, and it seems like a tribute to machismo or something:

Con dinero
Y sin dinero
Yo hago siempre
Lo que quiero
Y mi palabra
Es la ley 

That says, roughly, if I'm rich or if I'm broke, I do any damn thing I feel like, and my word is the law. It's the kind of song Donald Trump might tweet if he had any music in his miserable, barren soul. El Rey is about a man whose "queen" appears to have dumped him for his miserable attitude, a man who's learned nothing whatsoever from it. While it's tongue in cheek, I'm not at all sure I'd teach it in a class. Given Chancellor's Regulation A-421 about verbal abuse, I'd be very nervous about it. You know, it might make some student feel uneasy. 

I might be sitting in the principal's office being accused of sexism and getting a letter in my file for sharing that song, but there's our chancellor, with an orchestra full of students, performing it. Putting the potential sexism aside, the notion of being the king is the kind of thing I'd expect from Bloomberg or Trump, not an educator. Does the new chancellor have a sharper sense of humor than I do, or is he broadcasting the future?

Only time will tell.

Walking Around With a Gun to Your Head

That's how I'd feel if I were working in one of the so-called renewal schools. You have to graduate this many more students by such and such a date. Failure is not an option. Okay, it is an option, but if you exercise it, it's not because the students are impoverished. It's not because they lack homes. It's not because they haven't got health care or food. It's not because they have special needs. It's not because they don't actually speak English. It's not because of the lack of vision of the DOE, which is ready and willing to dump the entire staff.

After all, that proves they are willing to step up. It isn't like they are unwilling to blame the people who go to work every day in these beleaguered institutions. No, they stand right up and say, "You all suck and we aren't afraid to admit it." Then they close the schools and make everyone reapply for their jobs before they sit their asses right back in ergonomic chairs in their air-conditioned offices. Doubtless they discuss their boldness in dealing with the issues at gala luncheons all over the city.

No, the only reason that the school could possibly have a low graduation rate is because, as the mayor and chancellor boldly proclaim, that the UFT members all suck. And again, the DOE, right up to the tippety top are not afraid to stand up and say, "This situation is because you all suck." Otherwise, why would the remedy be having them all reapply for their jobs? That's the underlying logic behind this. Certainly none of the factors I mentioned are addressed in the reshuffling of staff. The only genuine mitigating factor I see in this preposterous exercise is that UFT members have the option of not reapplying, and stepping off of the blame game train.

I applaud this bold approach. It's fantastic that the city is unafraid to step up and blame someone else for everything that goes wrong. There's nothing more American than standing up and declaring, "This is your fault." I have to say, though, that it kind of clashes with the vision Mayor de Blasio laid out when he first ran. I remember the tale of two cities, one inhabited by wealthy demagogues like Michael Bloomberg, and another for, you know, regular people struggling to get by.

This was evident nowhere more than in the wholesale closure of public schools undertaken by the Bloomberg administration. Every high school in the Bronx was terrible, evidently, and needed to be renamed and restaffed. The issue was not that test scores predicted nothing but zip code, even though they did. No, the only reason that a Bronx high school didn't perform as well as Great Neck was not affluence or lack thereof. It was that the teachers sucked and all needed to be made ATRs.

Interestingly, one of the schools in the article is called Automotive High School. I wonder whether they still teach about autos in that school. They used to teach about them in my school, and in the last school I was in. They don't anymore. You see, the goal of high school is to place every student without exception into college. That's because there is no value in trades that don't require college. There's no value in auto repair, or plumbing, or construction, or being an electrician.

The fact that we offer none of our students preparation for trades that don't require higher education is another non-factor in why students don't graduate. It doesn't matter that a whole lot of people in these trades make excellent livings, and it doesn't matter that people attracted to such professions may not excel in the classes the geniuses in Albany have decided everyone has to take.

No, the mayor, the chancellor, and every single apparatchik at the DOE has determined that the only factor that needs addressing is the relative suckiness of UFT members. By shuffling us around like cogs, they will solve each and every outside factor without addressing a single one. Clearly I lack this overarching vision.

That's why I'll never make it as a DOE administrator.

Actually, There IS Free Lunch

That's true for NYC's schoolchildren. No more getting free lunch forms and letting all your friends know your home income is below poverty level. No more paying half price and letting them know you're close to it.

This poses a problem for my school, and I presume, a whole lot of others. Why bother filling out a lunch form if lunch is free anyway? Will there even be one, now that it makes no difference? And what are we going to do about Title One funds, assuming Betsy DeVos doesn't donate them to her good friends at Walmart?

The article says 75% of city students were eligible for free lunch. Up until now, Title One has been distributed school by school. I don't recall offhand the percentage our school needs to hit to receive it, but it seems like around 60%. In Staten Island it's closer to 40%. It's ridiculous that children in Queens have a higher threshold than children in Staten Island.. Evidently there's less poverty in SI somehow, so their schools might not qualify otherwise.

I've seen a lot written about so-called Fair Student Funding. Aside from making principals have to think twice about hiring experienced teachers, it has another major drawback. That is the fact that the city does not issue many schools funding it calls "fair." Schools get varying percentages of it, which by its own definition is unfair.

I know that schools that don't get Title One are struggling to keep up. They don't have enough teachers to keep up with exploding class sizes. In our building, being Title One, we probably have enough money, but we haven't got any space. In any case, without Title One, we'd probably need to excess teachers and then we wouldn't have enough personnel. It's a ridiculous situation.

The city is a huge district, with all sorts of rules we have to follow. We have not only the UFT Contract, but all sorts of Chancellor's Regulations. (Unless of course, you're a charter, in which case you take the money and do any damn thing you want with it.) A whole lot of things are centralized. Yet every year, the administration of our school puts an inordinate amount of energy in collecting lunch forms. We've made Title One by the skin of our teeth the last few years.

It boggles my mind that we need to find a higher percentage of students than other boroughs. How can aid revolve around which borough you reside in? Why on earth do SI kids need help more than Queens kids? Why on earth are there different thresholds in different boroughs? I recall Queens being the highest. What possible rationale could there be for Queens students getting effectively less support?

It's great that the city is giving free lunch to all children. But if they're going to do that, they ought to distribute Title One equally as well. The city gets a big federal grant, and who knows what it does with undistributed funds? All city schools need all the help they can get, and it's time we dropped the insane formulas.

If all city kids need free lunch, they all need funding too. It's time to take another look at "Fair Student Funding," another look at Title One,  and it's time to find a system that works for New York City, rather than just Bloomberg's held-over thugs.

Also, Mayor de Blasio, it's well past time you showed all of Bloomberg's leftovers the door.

Rick and Morty and Unity

I have a confession. At night I watch cartoons on Adult Swim until I fall asleep. One of the most bizarre cartoons they show at night is called Rick and Morty. It's about a grandfather who's some kind of scientific genius dragging Morty all over the universe.

The other night, there was an episode about a group called Unity. It's this being or consciousness that's constantly replicating itself. It does this by vomiting in the mouths of its victims and taking over their bodies. See the video below for an example.

You may not be surprised that I saw parallels to our union, what with the organization having the exact same name. The pale looking guy in the middle is Rick, and all the blue people around him are Unity. So that could be me at a chapter leader meeting, except for the scientific genius part. Of course this episode took it a little further. Evidently Rick was having an affair with Unity, seemingly in the form of the young blue woman to his left, your right.

Now as far as I know, signing up for UFT Unity does not entail having someone vomit in your mouth. Rather, it entails signing this loyalty oath, which used to be available on the Unity website. For some reason, they took it down after PJSTA posted it publicly. The best way to advance in the union is to sign it. If you don't, well, that pension consulting gig might elude you.

I'll tell you the truth--I really like some people in Unity. I'll tell you another truth--I really don't like some other people in Unity. They don't seem to have a code about how they treat non-Unity members. So some people in Unity are reasonable and open, while others are kind of defensive and proprietary. I figure it's better to be reasonable and open, particularly if you purport to represent the union, but that's just me.

Now I understand forming a political caucus. I'm part of one, as a matter of fact. I also understand espousing a particular series of values. I share a lot of Unity's ostensible values. I'm absolutely pro-teacher and pro-union. I don't believe in abuse by administrators, and I think we need to take a stand against Boy Wonders  (even if they're girls).

Sometimes, though, I'm not sure. I don't understand why we supported mayoral control, ever, and I'm not sure why we didn't oppose it vehemently when it came up this year. Though it hasn't been as bad under de Blasio, there's no guarantee he'll be around forever. We suffered through 20 years of GOP mayors here in deep blue NYC, Also, de Blasio's mayoral control has been far from absolute, as the state did an end run around it, forcing him to pay rent for charters. (Of course, my bursting at the seams school has 4728 incoming students, and no one's forcing him to pay rent for us.)

I certainly understand the argument that, in times of crisis, we need to pull together. The only thing is, I can't recall when we were not in crisis. It wasn't time to oppose when we were facing Bloomberg, or Cuomo, and it isn't time to oppose when we face Trump, or "the Presidential Election," as Unity calls him. I can only suppose it wasn't time to oppose when we faced Giuliani either, though I wasn't involved with union politics back then. Is the answer, then, to keep your mouth shut forever and ever and just hope for the best?

Of course not. Unity is wrong sometimes. The Democrats, with Unity's early endorsement, lost the last national election because they presented the populous with a warmed-over agenda that consisted largely of, "We aren't Trump." In fact, I voted for Hillary in the general precisely on that basis. But I enthusiastically pulled the lever for Bernie Sanders in the primary.

We're gonna have to pull out all the stops after Janus. It might not be good enough to say, "Well, you still have a job," when you're sent out to teach subjects you don't understand and rotate schools week to week. It might not be good enough to say, "Well, we did the best we could," when Moskowitz takes over your school and places a non-union test-prep factory in its stead. It won't be good enough to hear "Fifty years ago we sacrificed money for class size regs," while you stand in front of 50 kids in a trailer and try to persuade them that anyone other than you takes them seriously.

And whether Unity knows it or not, that's why a vibrant opposition is necessary. There are voices that need to be heard, and with three out of four teachers not even voting in union elections, I'm not highly optimistic union is a prime concern for them. We all sink or swim together, and I'll work toward the latter. If we want everyone to pay union dues, we're gonna have to stop pandering toward a privileged class. That's the sort of thing that empowers the likes of Donald Trump, and it ain't gonna work for us.

Mayoral Control Is a Lose-Lose

I've opposed mayoral control since its inception, originally because it went to uber-reformy Michael Bloomberg. During his seemingly endless tenure, I learned more about it. I think Diane Ravitch wrote in Death and Life of the Great American School System that it was a reformy tool designed to bypass democracy. Unlike Bloomberg and Trump, I believe in democracy.

Now you'd think that having a professed charter foe like de Blasio in office might make mayoral control better. You'd be wrong because to Andrew Cuomo and the bought-off members of the Assembly and Senate, reforminess is almost like breathing. Because NYC has chosen a mayor who doesn't support the people who sent them suitcases full of cash, they passed a law that the city has to pay charter rent even if it disapproves of the actual charter.

It's fundamentally unfair that NYC has to shoulder the mandates of reformy suburban reps who wouldn't build charters in their own district on a bet. This notwithstanding, there was a barrage of pro-mayoral control talk recently, from self-appointed public education experts as diverse as Andrew Cuomo, Arne Duncan and Al Sharpton. The outcry led to a special session to push mayoral control and a two-year renewal. And we were told it was a clean deal, with no givebacks to the charter sector.

That sounded too good to be true, didn't it? Well it was, and NYC is now going to have 22 more charter schools. Reformy StudentsFirstNY is jumping up and down with giddiness, as are all the astroturf groups that represent the hedge funders who care so much about public education. Evidently these were charters that were granted but somehow did not make it as charters.

There's a lot of talk about charter quality, but the fact is they don't simply take a representative cross section of students. The fact is they don't hold on to the students they have, and they aren't burdened with the stats of the students they shed. The fact is all the students they don't finish with end up in public schools, and we are then vilified for their test scores. Even more importantly, the only stats the media regards as significant are test scores. There's something fundamentally wrong with a school that needs to keep extra clothing around for when kids pee their pants. If kids in your class peed their pants from fear, you'd be sitting in a rubber room somewhere, not making a half-million salary like Eva Moskowitz.

UFT's position is odd. As an organization we favor mayoral control, but not in its current form. Thus there was no UFT presence at some demonstration favoring it. On the other hand, there was no fervent opposition either. We just kind of stood on the sidelines. Thus, it appears that not only is the city getting another 22 charters, but it's also paying more money to charter operators. I don't suppose Moskowitz will have to wait eight years (like we did) before giving herself that hefty raise.

Here's the thing--charters are a Trojan Horse. They are designed to undermine and destroy us, and they hire people to move just in that direction. Jenny Sedelis works for StudentsFirstNY. I don't know what she does, but I know I've seen her name in many, many articles about reforminess. Moskowitz just won a lawsuit allowing her to take city money for preK while ignoring city rules about preK.

It seems to me that any school that wishes to take city money ought to be bound to follow city rules, including chancellor's regs. If I were to treat kids the way Eva does, I'd be in a rubber room. Someone who runs a chain of schools that treats kids like that ought to be in prison, meeting like-minded child abusers.

Mayday, Mayday

In order to Make America Great Again, our good pal Donald Trump wants to cut hundreds of millions of dollars used to hire teachers and keep class sizes down. You can write Congress today to ask them to fight that, and please do. Still, that's just one fight of many. Because the President is so virulently anti-union and anit-public education, he made it a point to nominate a Supreme Court justice who would vote to, among other things, leave us with less money and less power. So now we're facing an almost certain "Right to Work" nation.

This essentially means everyone will be able to enjoy the benefits of union, like representation in and out of building, like collective bargaining (unless SCOTUS makes that illegal as well), and everything else we do, but only some of us will pay. That's what Trump calls freedom. Ironically, though I don't support most of what Donald Trump does, I'll still have to pay income tax.

On Monday, I went to a May Day demonstration in favor of immigrants. It was a little odd for me, because I think of May Day as a day to celebrate labor and our achievements. In some European countries it's a national holiday. The UFT sent something out in the chapter leader weekly. I had a really hard time finding UFT, but after a while I saw George Altomare, Mel Aaronson, and a handful of others standing on a corner. Later, there may have been 15 or 20 people from UFT Central. There were also 15 or 20 people from MORE and New Action. That's odd because in general we are outnumbered. It says something about our collective values.

Other unions took it more seriously. I saw DC37 all over the place, issuing green hats and posters. Other unions had a lot of posters and things to identify themselves. It was nice that UFT had a banner, but it would have been a whole lot nicer if they'd tried harder to mobilize people.

Bill de Blasio spoke strongly in favor of immigrants. At one time I thought he was going to be a one-termer, but now that he's running against Donald Trump it looks like he's a sure thing. He hasn't got a really serious opponent, and some, like Tony Avella and Bo Dietl, look like circus clowns. In Nassau County, where I live, it looks like Laura Curran will be the next county executive. Even though she's running against an opponent who appears hopelessly smeared by corruption charges, she's chosen to run against Trump as well.

Trump, of course, took a moment from his weekly taxpayer-funded golf vacations to declare May Day "Loyalty Day." I suppose he wants us to support his concerted effort to, and let's say it correctly this time, Make America White Again. It's remarkable that, on a day we're supposed to celebrate labor's victories, he'd have us celebrating loyalty to his bigoted and repulsive policies.

This is a fight that needs to go on. If the thugs from ICE show up at my classroom door, they'll have to drag me away before they get their paws on my kids. Because of UFT and others making the egregious error of endorsing awful candidate Hillary Clinton, perhaps the only Democrat who could manage to lose to a dog like Donald Trump, we're stuck with an anti-labor SCOTUS for years to come. We're stuck with further erosion of rights for voters and working people.

May Day is a time to take a stand for democracy. Every day is May Day now.

Think of What It Would Lead To If Teachers Spoke Up

I'm sorely disappointed to read this exchange with Mayor Bill de Blasio at a Staten Island event:

An IS 61 teacher asked de Blasio why teachers are under a "gag order" not to speak ill about state tests, when teachers elsewhere encourage their students to opt out of tests.

"Think of what it would lead to" if teachers openly criticized every education policy they disagreed with, de Blasio said.

I'm thinking about it right now, and I think it would lead to better education for each and every one of the students I serve. Opt-out is relatively inactive in NY City, and that's a shame. The discredited Common Core exams drag down the whole state in the nonsense that passes for data here. For my money, the only reason Andrew Cuomo has slowed down his vendetta against pubic education is the principled and outspoken parents, teachers, students, and residents who fought it.

Standardized tests are largely crap produced by overpaid corporations who take money we could use to build libraries, school seats, and joy into the work we do. What they excel at is letting us know what zip codes our kids live in. Rather than make all schools good ones, rather than empower teachers to do what we know works, we hand out these tests and sort out the winners and losers. Great Neck wins, the Bronx loses, and we all pretend to be surprised.

I can't tell whether the mayor is misinformed or whether he knows better, but the effect is the same. His statement is upsetting to those of us who support opt-out, and to those of us who are going to be rated on nonsense, but it goes beyond that. It's one thing to oppose opt-out, and perhaps you could make arguments against it (though I myself can't think of any). This reminds me of nothing more than John Kasich saying he would abolish all teacher lounges.

De Blasio is attacking more than opt out here. What he's attacking is our free speech. In fact I do not believe I ought to make overt political arguments in front of my students. It's my job to encourage them to think things through, not to bully them into believing what I do. I do not believe it's my job to tell students whether or not to take tests. I believe that's a discussion for a parent to have. So I would not address the students.

But hell, I would address the PTA, and I would speak up in whatever forum afforded me, and I would write here and elsewhere. While I don't believe that my classroom is the best forum for political speech, there is a First Amendment, this is still America, and I will criticize each and every crappy educational policy with which I disagree.

Not only that, Mr. Mayor, but I will actively encourage my colleagues to do the same. Four years ago, I refused repeated and insistent requests from UFT to make calls for Bill Thompson. I donated to Bill de Blasio. I went to his inauguration in the freezing cold. More recently, I voted with the UFT Executive Board to endorse him.

Maybe this is a slip of the tongue on the mayor's part. I certainly hope so. What would happen if every teacher stood up and criticized all the crap that infects our education system, Mr. Mayor? Every kid in your city would get a better education. We wouldn't spend our time worrying about tests that measured zip codes and we wouldn't have parasites like Eva Moskowitz vilifying us for teaching every kid, no matter which zip code, which disability, or which level of English.

Teachers are great advocates for children. It's nothing less than a disgrace that a progressive politician would utter word one about shutting us up.

De Blasio Makes a Good Call

I don't know about you, but I just made breakfast and I'm sitting in my cozy living room drinking coffee. I'm pretty happy for 1.1 million schoolchildren and over 100,000 DOE employees who are not going in today. I heard almost immediately yesterday when de Blasio made his call to close the schools, and I ran around the halls and offices telling people. I watched kids and teachers literally jump for joy.

This is a far cry from the Klein era, when I'd be up and blogging at 4 AM wondering whether or not the schools would be open. I'd see my car snowed in and the guy on channel 2 would be shaking his head that the city had yet to make the call. It would be maybe 5 AM when they determined that yes, it was a terrible snowstorm and they were closing.

I took my dog out over an hour ago. He hates this weather and I knew it was only gonna get worse, so I dragged him out of his little bed and pulled him reluctantly outside. He still hasn't spoken to me, but I expect he'll get over it. Hopefully later my wife or kid will take him out and he'll be thankful I did so before things got so bad.

I absolutely recall days as bad as this or worse when I went in. The only concession I made was not dressing as I usually do. I figured if they made me shovel my way in and out of work that I'd dress the part. I'm very grateful, this morning, to not be in my car and listening to Mayor de Blasio announce that everyone should stay home. Instead, he actually made it possible for all of us to do so and is putting his money where his mouth is.

I understand the thought that this inconveniences parents who do have to go to work. I understand that this may cause some of them to stay home, and that there are two sides to that coin. But here in Nassau County, they've always closed the schools on days like these. People like me often had to go to work when that happened. And despite all those school closures, our island has not, in fact, broken away and floated into the Atlantic. I expect New York City will survive this day as well.

Bill de Blasio set a precedent last month when he made an early call to close the schools, a precedent he followed yesterday. He gave parents and teachers adequate notice. He didn't make them sit by the radio. He didn't make thousands of teachers get up, shovel themselves out, set out to work and turn around. That's happened to me at my chronically overcrowded school, which I've had to to report in as early as 7 AM. Now, at least, parents who need to make preparations won't need to make a mad rush at the last possible minute.

Could this be ushering in a new era of treating snow days in a manner that is not insane? We can only hope. Now if he'd just unload the Bloomberg-era DOE lunatics.

UFT Delegate Assembly--We Are Visited by the Mayor

Mulgrew calls us to order. 4:20

Mulgrew mentions we have one snow day this year. Says it’s a likely school day. If we have more than one snow day we will extend the year.

Mulgrew says let’s have some fun, plays Melissa McCarthy as Sean Spicer on video.

4:31 President’s Report

National

We now have most unqualified ever Sec. of Ed. Goal was to make sure everyone knew who DeVos was. Thinks we’ve accomplished that. Thanks two Senators from NY. Says they want to be strategic and have a long few years, but will try to let people know who DeVos is. Says she’s helped us by showing who she is.

We laugh, but it’s sad and terrifying. That we got two GOP to switch….says colleagues pushed. Senator from Alaska took 300K from DeVos and voted no. Says parents are beginning to think this is not good. Says she’s given word not to go after neighborhood schools, but President Numb Nuts and VP something won’t abide by it.

We need to use this process to portray her as unqualified. We did that, and state two is Public School Proud. Mulgrew asks who attended Women’s March, many hands. Shows photos of placards at march.

Shows photos of schools with Public School Proud, says hashtag popping up all over US. Shows tweets.

Says we are working with locals all over US. Says they want to move forward with this. Says no matter what your political POV is that you want to protect public schools. Says we wanted to give people a positive message to run with.

Asks for input on insignia. Black or white? Asks if we like pencil in insignia. One lined, one unlined. Shows designs for various groups. social workers, paraprofessionals.

Says schools have contacted him about making videos, will send videographers if there are large enough groups. Speaks of showing love for public schools on Valentine’s Day. Says it is not one-day event, but rather long, tough campaign.

Speaks of immigration, craziness, talk of safety from Trump. Likes that press is asking whether or not craziness is intended to distract. Says it isn’t fake news, but that’s he’s lying. Have not yet heard him say Trump’s name.

For us, DeVos has paid dividends in NY. Only Flanagan supported her, but he also came out against constitutional convention.

Mulgrew says one thing that would stop DeVos plans is anything about transparency. Says we will try to protect our state and city first, and focus on education. Says everything we believe in is on the line.
Why are GOP against transparency for charters? Because of funders.

State

Assembly has come out very strongly for complete funding of CFE, major expansion of millionaire tax. Says extension of millionaire tax will be tough, but we will need more revenue as we wait to see what feds do. If they mess with health care—he finally says President Trump—whether he likes it or not he is President. He says they aren’t repealing Obamacare so fast because they have no replacement. Says it’s done a lot of good to get people health care.

Lobby day March 14th.

Contract for Excellence—governor’s proposal wants to call it foundation aid, which has never been fully funded. Some ideas from Cuomo are good but we need other formula. Mulgrew will testify in Albany on Valentine’s Day. Says it’s not true NYC doesn’t fund schools and state is doing funding. Says this mayor has funded schools well.

Constitutional Convention—we cannot lose this issue. Cites commercials favoring it, appealing to cleaner environment, ethics, women’s rights. New talking point is we are going to change constitution without convention, and that it’s faster. Legislature will vote on pension forfeiture for elected officials. It will pass and go to general vote in NY.

Did we need convention for this? No. Do we need one for any of these issues? No. That is our strongest argument. Estimates 400 million cost for convention.

City

Mayor giving state of city address on Monday. Says he’s been positive on education. We still continue to struggle? Who likes their principal? More than normal, and that’s positive. Surveys for lukewarm and negative. Says we are seeing changes. From now on when principals says they’ll call legal, ask if it’s Karen Salamondo, who is now in labor relations. We have three grievances about paperwork and OPW we expect to win. Please let us know if it’s happening in your school. One school makes teachers teach during C6 assignment.

We have to make sure we’re doing right thing at local school level. Use paperwork grievance as tool if it’s problem in your building. We like paperwork process. Over 150 schools resolved unreasonable mandates. We cannot stop being vigilant on this. C6 not teaching period. Even Bloomberg didn’t do it.

Asks if anyone ever did cafe or hall duty. Says it used to be required. Says in 1995 it said we no longer had to clean up cafe or monitor halls. In return, we got C6. Is this happening elsewhere.

Last but not least, Mulgrew was very proud at AFT Executive Committee last week. Says he presented Public School Proud, and that other locals adopted it. He said they lit up with things to go back to in their states. Says they didn’t want to ask for another petition against DeVos, but rather something else. Says he wishes he could film it so we could see what’s happening outside the city.

Says we aren’t just fighting a governor or mayor, that these are really bad people, but we are nimble and move quickly. Says we will produce a storm of parents and teachers across country. Says this is the work that will make a difference. Says mayor is champion of public education, and to imagine Bloomberg and Klein under this scenario. Says Arne Duncan wasn’t that bad, and he’s surprised to be saying it.

Says what you’ve done already is important, we’ve reached goal number one, we now have friends picketing Senators saying you are responsible for DeVos. Goal two is to spread this energy and bring it across US. Ends report 5:05.

Staff Director Report  Leroy Barr—UFT Black History film series, two more films, 13th on Monday, Rising from the Rails coming. Says discussion has been great. NYS Black and Puerto Rican Caucus on 18th. Paraprofessional awards March 18, deadline March 3rd. High schools future and focus March 9th for 10 and 11 grade students. Early childhood conference March 11th. Labor seder, March 28. School secretary luncheon May 6. Next DA March 22.

Questions

CL—How can we involve members in endorsements?

UFT controls city endorsements, NYSUT state, AFT national. Uses politically active teachers. Let political action department know. Exec. Board recommends to DA, DA decides.

Delegate—Can we get buses to DC to welcome Betsy?

I think we will wait to see what she does. Is she as good as Cathie Black? I wouldn’t let her speak publicly. If there is a need, we will go.

Exec Board member—What happens when principals don’t want to deal with CL?

You need intervention. If it rises up in DOE, they cannot sustain it’s a good idea. Contractual obligation to confer. If supe won’t stop action, will go from borough rep to central. Some CLs don’t want to deal with principal, feels that’s a disservice, lapse of responsibility. Says we have fun with that.

CL—After many notifications about paras not doing lunch duty, principals still scheduling it. What are we doing to ensure that IEPs, notifications are kept.

Principals were notified recently that principals have to arrange for paras to have duty free lunch. We sent it out again after supes reinterpreted it from last year. Said obligated didn’t mean we couldn’t do it. Paras may not be in lunchroom unless IEP calls for it.

CL—Our acting president proposed national right to work law. How do we protect pensions, collective bargaining, dues checkoff?

Unless there is a big shift…things can change…we will all be right to work sooner or later. Will it leave states to decide when 1975 decision is overturned? We have legal people and strategists thinking about it. 27 RTW states. NY and CA, MA union strongholds. Believes it will happen, and we have to organize. At AFT exec. committee, we help RTW states organize. Says elections matter.

CL—Charters use space as leverage to get into buildings. Is there anything union is doing that’s similar? My school utilized at 186% and we aren’t co-located. We have portables. Is there an arbitration, and if not, how can we get more construction for schools that need it?

Schools do not fall under OSHA regulations. Otherwise, would kick in, Mayor has upped school seats by 35k. We are winning argument as more people move to NY. Populations go up and down in neighborhoods. Will they build seats in right places? We will be part of process. We propose that if you aren’t transparent and accountable you can’t get free space—OR if you have assets of over one million—you should not have access. This is where DeVos is important. She did this in Michigan. Overcrowding destabilizes schools.

Q—We do a lot of advertising. We have great art and music teachers and should have a marketing department to have jingles or commercials people will talk about, like Super Bowl commercials. Let’s market aggressively. Any progress on ESL teachers scoring? We've seen fake news under Reagan, was called misinformation.

We want to move with public school proud. I would be good with jingle.

Motions 5:26

For this month, not enough copies, on Chancellor’s letter on immigration. We need to take action now to protect our students and their families. Seconded.

Voted down, after people on dais indicated they were against it.

Mulgrew says we’ve passed more resolutions on this topic than anything but education.

Dave Pecoraro—one line reso—resolved that UFT oppose Judge Gorsich and that senators filibuster against. Says seat was stolen, vacated during Obama admin, says he founded fascist club, ruled on Hobby Lobby.

Carmen Alvarez—supports energy but says we must be judicious. We shouldn’t react, but we should build and keep momentum building our unity.

Voted down. Mulgrew says he will reach out to AFT and Senators to see how they want to handle it.

Resolutions 5:33

Mulgrew moves to do 2 and 3 first. So moved.

City council endorsement—Paul Egan—special election Valentine’s Day. Recommend Bill Perkins, has been great for UFT.

Passes overwhelmingly.

Mel Aaronson—recommends we endorse Tom Brown. We will vote on Constitutional Convention that could jeopardize retirement benefits. Wants someone to lead fight. Mulgrew forgets to hold vote, is called.

Endorsed unanimously.

Moves to go to number 4. Passes.

Howard Schoor—Children we teach in danger of being deported. We want to make sure students safe from outside forces. Urges support. Hopes no speakers against. Mulgrew forgets to have us vote on resolution, is reminded.

Passes

LeRoy Barr—speaks of mayoral endorsement. Says we decided to endorse Democrat, that GOP was largely against us, based on past 20 years. Said we needed to endorse now, as other unions have endorsed. Wanted UFT endorsement to mean something. Voted unanimously to endorse de Blasio. Said we remember where we came from, 20 years prior to his being mayor. Mentions years without contract. Said if you have to wait two or three years for retro you’re getting every dime.

Mulgrew moves to allow committee members to speak. Passes.

Antoinette Offucio—Says they looked at positives, all he did, preK, economy, 98% of all unionized contracts done fairly—ours ends in 2018. We looked at affordable housing. Standing against Trump in sanctuary city status, even if we lose money. Says de Blasio is a friend of unions, good for us.

Grier Hanson Velasquez—After surviving Bloomberg and Giuliani, to be recognized and respected, valued—didn’t happen until de Blasio. Says he’s stood against charters with us. Feel it’s in our best interest to endorse now.

Marjorie Stamberg—Says we absolutely do not need a Democrat, particularly de Blasio, Dems and GOP twin parties of capitalism. Trump is misogynist racist, pig. Democrats brought every imperialist war. Record of dems on deportation is 3 million. De Blasio has not supported us against charters, fell apart against Eva Presided over police acquittal in Eric Garner. We need our own worker’s party.

LeRoy Barr takes chair—calls Mulgrew.

Mulgrew— disagrees with speaker. Appreciates committee. Says it was bipartisan. Says it’s easy to forget what happened for two decades. This is someone whose soul and spirit is with us. We had horrendous battles. Mayor tried to do everything in venal way, and Giuliani crazier even than we thought, Bloomberg though education should be privatized. We fought him in streets. Big story was how de Blasio would settle contracts—settled with us first. PreK for all, literacy push, sound educational policies based on research.

We survived, battled governor, our new friend. Have never had battle like this. Blessed to have this mayor who will stand with every single public school teacher. So many people don’t have that. He will get bad press from Post for this endorsement. Bill de Blasio has always said public education is key, and we must respect those who’ve dedicated lives to it. That’s why UFT should do this today, right now. He’s going to war, standing with us, as we go to war in United States.

Point of order—James Eterno—says there should be speaker against.

LeRoy Barr says Robert’s Rules say body may call and end debate. Says chair would be out of order if I called to end debate, but body may call. We want to be judicious and hear speaker against, there was a speaker for quite some time against. Body doesn’t choose who goes next, calls on Gregg Lundahl.

Lundahl calls question.

Note: UFT leadership didn't follow Robert's Rules and allow Eterno to present his opinion, but you can see it right here.

Mulgrew asks applause for Barr.

Endorsement passes. 6:01 PM.

Mulgrew says we are not adjourned. Bill de Blasio is here. Crowd chants four more years. De Blasio says he and his families have been to public schools. Talks about what it means to have teachers who help kids reach potential. Disgusted by political sport of denigrating teachers and unions. Says we saw it for years. Remembers tuning into conventions where denigrating teachers was part of program. Tolerated for years. No more. We’ve proved over last three years it’s morally right to respect teachers.

We’re going to fight for soul of public education. You saw what happened in DC. We were teetering on brink until VP intervened. Will we commit to public education as a nation? Or are we going to slowly slice it apart, degrade and undermine it? That’s what’s at stake.

Education matters more than ever. It determines destiny more than at any point in human history. If you want a middle class life, you’d better be educated. Public schools hold the key. How can we denigrate people who uplift our children. Public schools core of democratic society.

I want to thank you for work that you do. 1% trying to destroy rights of working people. This union will fight that.

Very proud of what’s happened, but proud to have joined you in creating pre-K for all. You had to do work to raise grad rate. Proud it’s highest ever, and we’re moving away from obsession with high stakes testing. We believe in multiple measures. But test scores go up as result of people in this room.

We can innovate, we do teacher training because people deserve support. We need to support those who do this essential work. We achieved this together in contract. Those who’ve done work well should run the schools.

We are proving how powerful this is, and how dangerous to our opponents that we keep achieving together. Opponents were sure it would go wrong. What did we do together? We’ve moved forward in ways they couldn’t even imagine.

Now when you look to Washington, we will fight and look at NYC as proof positive. We are held accountable by public and parents. We keep performing and holding up. Some don’t want to be accountable. Some charters have been hoisted on own petard. But we all have one standard here. This debate in this country will be about that if we prove what traditional public schools can do for all. Everyone has to be inclusive. We don’t turn away handicapped or ELLs. No one here would kick a student out for not testing well. We believe in reaching those students We prove privatizers, anti-unionists wrong every day. Why don’t we keep succeeding together?

Thanks us.

Adjourned 6:16

Due to expected significant snowfall all @NYCSchools will be CLOSED tomorrow, Feb 9.

— Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) February 8, 2017

Who to Blame for the Miserable Pattern Bargain?

In the Daily News there's been a series of union leaders speaking out on whether or not Bill de Blasio deserves re-election. My friends at ICE-UFT blog chimed in and said the mayor doesn't deserve unconditional support. I'd argue that no politician alive deserves unconditional support. I was a great fan of Bernie Sanders, but even he was relatively blind to education issues.

Now the last pattern was 10% over 7 years. James Eterno, who writes most of the ICE blog, told UFT President Michael Mulgrew that was the lowest pattern ever. Mulgrew, even in the best traditions of civilized discourse, called him a liar and turned off his microphone. Yet I cannot recall a worse pattern in our history, and I've been around over 30 years.

I'd argue that it's de Blasio's job to lowball us, and that it's Mulgrew's job to counter with something more reasonable. But here's the thing--the UFT had utterly missed out on the last round of bargaining, and had missed the two-year 8% deal Bloomberg had granted to NYPD, FDNY, and most other city unions. So rather than the miserable 10% over 7 years, Mulgrew could present a fair-to-middling 18% over 9 years. It sounded just mediocre if you ignored the pattern he was imposing on everyone else.

It was not Bill de Blasio, but rather Michael Mulgrew who sold this thing to us. There were various sales pitches. One was that retro pay is not a God-given right. That, of course, is the sort of argument we should have heard from management rather than our own leadership. Mulgrew's job, I'd say, would be to argue precisely the opposite. Another was that if we didn't take this deal, we'd have to get behind 151 other unions and wait. That was a particularly weak argument, given that we're waiting until 2020 to get paid anyway.

In fact, that argument is even weaker when you consider how low the pattern was that Mulgrew negotiated. I remember being angry with DC37 for accepting the double zero contract that UFT had rejected. In fact, it turned out that they'd cooked the books to get that thing to pass, and some of their leaders actually went to jail over it. This notwithstanding, that pattern was better than this one. So we may as well have gotten in back of the line, because it's hard to imagine anyone doing worse.

Mulgrew also told us the cupboard was bare, which it turned out not to be. That, also, ought to have been an argument from the city rather than from union leadership. In fact there seems to be a pattern of the cupboard being bare around negotiation time and then the mayor finds a billion dollars lying around the Gracie Mansion couch cushions. We merit not even a simple "oopzie" when that happens.

Of course this is an adversarial process. It certainly appears that we, the UFT, and we, organized labor lost this round. I'm surprised the NY Post, instead of criticizing de Blasio for being a socialist hippie weirdo, doesn't erect a statue declaring him to be the savior of public funds against us, the evil unions.

If you want to criticize de Blasio for something, try the tone of Tweed, unchanged utterly from that of Bloomberg. Try criticizing the fact that there are a whole lot of holdovers from Bloomberg's miserable, anti-teacher, anti-union administration. Criticize the choice of an old Bloomberg employee for chancellor.

But if you want to blame someone for the contract, it's not Bill de Blasio. In fact, it's not Michael Mulgrew either. That rests squarely on our shoulders. We voted for it, three to one. We chose to believe the threats. We chose to ignore the fact that the only time we rejected a contract, we managed to improve it, allowing teachers to reach maximum pay three years earlier, even though leadership said anyone who thought they could do better must be "smoking something."

The fact is we made our bed, so we can't blame Bill de Blasio for failing to drop a mint on our pillow.

When Things Come Together

 Full disclosure--I may say something good about an AP here, so if you can't take that, please stop reading now.

On Wednesday morning, my colleague Paula Duffy, English teacher and UFT delegate, Eric Mc Carthy, AP Security, and I met near the Francis Lewis trailers at 6 AM. From there, we drove to the Edison Ballroom in Manhattan for the Daily News Hometown Hero Awards.

I had applied posthumously on behalf of my colleague, Kevin O'Connor, who passed away suddenly last Spring. We had known since last summer that he'd won and had to keep it secret. Kevin taught social studies and worked as a dean.

Kevin would surely have done the same for me. Eight years ago I had to take a semester's leave when I got cancer, and he ran around seeking contributions from colleagues. He presented me with a $500 Visa card. That made for a lot of lunch dates for my wife and me before I went back to work.

Kevin had applied for the dean position a few times before he actually got it. He seemed to find his place and a really distinct voice in our school as a dean. He had endless patience for kids, and he had a way of connecting with the most troubled of kids. Kevin had had his own troubles, and he was able to quickly understand what troubled kids needed. Often it was a non-judgmental adult ear, and he was always ready and willing to provide one. Ears like those are hard to find.

Kevin himself found one in our AP Eric McCarthy, who would always listen and help him out with scheduling issues or whatever he needed. Any extended conversation I had with Kevin always included praise for Eric. I was really happy to hear this. As chapter leader, I get to hear absolutely every negative comment about every AP. It was very nice to hear something different for a change, and it's pretty good to be able to repeat it here.

Kevin, like me, had the insane habit of coming to school ridiculously early. He lived in Long Beach, which is not precisely a hop, skip, and a jump from Queens. The only way to beat the traffic is to leave well before you need to. Thus on days when there was some awful accident or something Kevin and I would be among the only people who showed up on time. Our drive to beat the traffic made for many early-morning conversations.

When my colleagues and I got to the Edison Ballroom, they were pretty impressed by the surroundings. I think they expected something like a school breakfast, with tables full of bagels and cream cheese, and a big coffee urn with 500 people waiting in line to take a cup. Instead, we got fresh fruit, table service, eggs, quiche, and asparagus with hollandaise sauce. It was a nice change, though we'd all drunk too much coffee to eat much.

There were celebrity presenters, one for each of the eleven award recipients. There was Chancellor Carmen Fariña, a bunch of TV newscasters, and rapper DMC. But we all almost fell out of our seats when Mayor Bill de Blasio broke from his general comments and started speaking about Kevin O'Connor. It was almost too good to be true to see the Mayor of New York City recognizing someone much beloved by our children, a thousand of whom stood to mourn and praise him at a ceremony held in our courtyard.

We're the largest school system in the country, with 1.1 million students and 76,000 teachers. One out of 300 Americans is a New York City student. So there's a lot of bureaucracy, and a lot of nonsense. There are a lot of people sitting around Tweed who've never taught a day in their lives. There are principals who haven't either. Consequently there's a great deal of nonsense with which we have to contend. (I may even have written about that once or twice.)

But sometimes they really get everything right. On Monday, everything kind of came together, courtesy of sponsors NY Daily News, UFT, CSA, DOE, and CUNY, and the excellent judgment of the mayor, who obviously had choices, and chose to come out and speak about Kevin.

More please.

Mayoral Control, but What About Evaluation?

Every year is a carnival. What new and more convoluted ways will the government find to catch us in the act of doing our jobs and fire us? Will it be another rubric for supervisors to follow, or the same one? Will it be the same parts of the rubric? Are we assumed to be so stupid that we believe every supervisor follows the same rubric in the same way?

Are we gonna get surprise visits from people who don't know us, don't know our students, and don't know anything about our schools so as to make things fair, as defined by NY Governor Andrew Cuomo? Will he then look at said program, declare it "baloney," and set about constructing a new one that will fire more teachers? No one really knows.

Because Albany deems Bill de Blasio to be a hippie commie weirdo, perhaps due to his opposition to charter schools, he's only gotten a one-year extension of mayoral control. This places him in the position of having to renegotiate it next year as he runs for re-election. That will be convenient for whichever pawn Eva Moskowitz selects to run against him. After all, if there were a mayor who'd rubber stamp whatever she wanted, like Mike Bloomberg did, Albany would have no issue granting a multi-year extension. (And if he'd pull a million dollars in loose change our of his pocket to keep the Senate's GOP majority, like Bloomberg did, that wouldn't hurt either.)

It looks like there are some goodies in there for those with the corporate driven agenda UFT Unity criticizes MORE for fighting.

The deal also will allow charter schools to more easily switch between authorizers. That could mean the city’s education department, which oversees a number of charter schools but no longer accepts oversight of new schools, could see some of those schools depart for the State University of New York or the state’s education department.

After all, charters need more freedom to do whatever the hell they see fit, and be authorized by whoever the hell they see fit, in case more restrictive authorizers say, hey, you can't do whatever the hell you see fit. Because whatever Eva wants, Eva gets. After all, charters don't need no stinking rules, and the Times offers this:

Charter schools can be authorized by three agencies — the State Education Department, the city’s Education Department and SUNY — but all operate according to the same state law. Although the announcement of the agreement did not offer details, the Senate’s proposal would exempt SUNY schools from the usual state standards and free to set their own rules, two officials with direct knowledge of the negotiations said.

But here's where, as a public school teacher subject to all those rating regulations charters can't be bothered with, I really wonder what the hell is going on here:

Lawmakers also agreed to give districts until the end of the year to negotiate the details of new evaluation systems for teachers and principals. according to Assembly spokesman Michael Whyland. Districts, including New York City, have been facing a Sept. 1 deadline to develop systems that complied with an unpopular 2015 law.

So let's see-- we have until the end of December to negotiate a new evaluation system. Therefore, we could conceivably start with one system in September only to find it completely revamped in January. We could, for example, then train teachers in January to prepare them for what was expected of them in September. That makes sense, doesn't it?

Well, it seems to have passed muster with the Heavy Hearts Assembly that passed the draconian evaluation law demanded by Andrew Cuomo. Of course that law was passed before Tough Andy became the Softer, Gentler Andy, worn down by the opt-out movement so reviled by UFT Unity. This notwithstanding, UFT Unity had no problem taking credit for the superficial changes in tone, and has no problem treating a partial moratorium on Common Core tests and Yet Another Great Victory.

And where does that leave those of us who actually have to go to work every day in New York City's public schools? I'd say pretty much rudderless and confused. After all, UFT Unity is led by Michael Mulgrew, who boasted of helping write the APPR law that brought junk science to teacher ratings. Mulgrew just boasted at the DA that junk science would count even more in our ratings.

Now Mulgrew may say that the junk science ratings help teachers more than they hurt them, and for all I know, he may be right. After all, some people are luckier than others. But I happen to know a very smart teacher who got an ineffective rating solely because of her MOSL scores. I have to think if I know one, there must be many more. But regardless of this, one is too many.

If the judgment of principals and assistant principals is so bad that the quality of their ratings is improved by a virtual coin toss the issue is not how much authority they do or do not have. The issue is not the optimal percentage of junk science we blend in to ameliorate that. The issue is the competence, or lack thereof, of those in positions to supervise us.

Until and unless the United Federation of Teachers faces up to that, there will be no system worth looking at. I've said it before and I'll say it again--the optimal percentage of junk science in a teacher evaluation is zero. If anyone wants to dispute that, I'm all ears.