What If New York Had Not Been Enough for Boss Tweed?

I'm watching a Mike Bloomberg commercial. Bloomberg runs them all day, on all channels, in English and Spanish. Michael Bloomberg doesn't need any stinking debates. He doesn't qualify for them because no one contributes to his campaign. He is literally out there trying to buy the presidency of the United States.

Right now he doesn't seem to figure in many polls. He says he isn't running in the first few states. You may recall that strategy did not pan out for Rudy Giuliani as he capitalized on presiding over one of the worst disasters in the history of New York City. However, Rudy Giuliani did not have virtually unlimited personal capital at his disposal

You may also recall that Michael Bloomberg did get a lot of things done. He closed scores of schools. He turned a whole lot of teachers into ATRs, a problem that still lingers now. He achieved mayoral control, effectively shutting the public out of decision making over their own communities. I don't even remember how many meetings I went to in which parents, teachers, students, politicians and clergy went to plead for schools, only to see them closed anyway, even if data was entirely wrong.

Those were the good old days at the Panel for Educational Policy. Michael Bloomberg had the majority of appointees, and fired anyone who contemplated voting his or her conscience. Michael Bloomberg had to have absolute control and could not tolerate any dissension. Does this remind anyone of an orange-skinned, orange-haired figure we read about in the news every now and then?

As for getting it done, Bloomberg was adept at that. Loathsome and reptilian though he is, he was a lot smarter than Rudy Giuliani, who was always suing everyone over, oh, the right to have his mistress come to the home he was sharing with his wife and young children, or excrement-splattered paintings, or other things that did not much affect the community at large. Though he had the same view of education as Michael Bloomberg, he did not really get things done.

After Giuliani presided over 9/11, having cleverly placed his emergency center in a high floor of a proven terror target, he commandeered an elementary school in its place, because who gives a crap about public schoolchildren. Though term-limited, Giuliani thought he needed to stay to keep up the morale of NYPD and FDNY. Once his staunch supporters, they by then hated his guts for depriving them of a union contract for years. Giuliani was unable to extend his term.

Mike Bloomberg, though, got it done. Though the voters of NYC had twice affirmed term limits, Bloomberg didn't feel like leaving. He then manipulated a one-time exception for himself. It wasn't hard to get city officials to approve it. After all, they were term-limited too. Self-interest goes a long, long way. Howard Wolfson, Bloomberg's personal propagandist, was all over Twitter saying voters repudiated term limits. However, the ostensible purpose of term limits is to keep people like Bloomberg from continually buying elected office.

Who else speaks of defying term limits? That would be our buddy with the orange hair, the one who's thoroughly amused by the title "President for Life." Of course, President Trump is a racist, displaying blatant disregard for minorities, and vilifying "the other," to wit, immigrants, Muslims, Mexicans, and anyone not in his exclusive play group.

I haven't heard Bloomberg say much about Muslims or Mexicans, but his stop and frisk policy was so blatantly racist that he's had a change of heart, conveniently concurrent with his Presidential campaign, and now says he's sorry, he made a mistake. And now, instead of condemning the Central Park Five, as he did for years, he says he can't remember what his opinion is. It's a balancing act running for President. Back when he was a Republican, it wasn't really detrimental to support racist policies. As a Democrat, that's tough.

Isn't there some other politician who has been both Democrat and Republican? Why yes, as a matter of fact, that would be President Trump. It's a lot easier to get yourself elected when you have few to no core values. Whatever it takes to get elected. Bloomberg, in fact, has been a Republican, a Democrat, and an independent. Whatever it takes to get what he wants.

And hey, just for the regular readers of this blog, let's not forget it was Mayor Mike Bloomberg who appointed Joel Klein, a man with virtually no education experience who jumped when Eva Moskowitz whistled. He appointed Cathie Black straight out of her penthouse. Anyone who attends the cocktail parties he does must be okay, so you'd best believe he'll appoint the "best people" just like, you guessed it, Donald Trump.

Last but not least, don't forget that Michael Bloomberg treated the United Federation of Teachers like something he'd just wiped off his Florsheims. A lot of people turn their heads and say, "Well, at least he isn't Trump."

But being "not Trump" was what Hillary ran on, and it's exactly what got us Trump. Actually, the whole self-important, self-serving, megalomaniacal despot thing is not working particularly well for us right now. I will say that Michael Bloomberg has a marginally better verbal filter than Donald Trump.

However, that's just not good enough. We need someone better in every way. That's most certainly not Michael Bloomberg. I'm agnostic on term limits, but Bloomberg is the best living argument for them. Giuliani didn't like them and tried to get around them. Trump doesn't like them and wants to get around them. Mike Bloomberg, true to his campaign slogan, got it done. He got around term limits, twice affirmed by his constituents.

That tells me he has little use for democracy. In 2020, such a person is what we need least.

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.

Reverend Al and His Pals Support Mayoral Control

You can stop holding your breath. Al Sharpton has finally weighed in on the mayoral control issue, and he strongly supports it. (It is, incidentally, a done deal now, for two years.) You won't be surprised that some of his friends support it too. Mike Bloomberg was a big fan, and Arne Duncan has also supported it. Newt Gingrich has yet to weigh in because he's running around telling important lies about the GOP's most recent assault on health care.

Of course Sharpton trots out the standard line that scores have improved, ignoring the fact that this is a nationwide trend, mayoral control or no. Reverend Al further can't be bothered to notice New York's rich history of rampant test score manipulation. All the reformies jumped up and down when they improved under Al's pal Mike Bloomberg, and viciously ridiculed Diane Ravitch, who noticed the NAEP scores painted a vastly different picture. The following year, the New York Times and others noticed she was right, and Mike Bloomberg's draconian methods made no significant difference.

I particularly like this line:

There’s no disputing this fact: Mayoral control is the best way to run the largest public school system in the nation.

How could anyone argue with that, since there's no disputing it? But actually, there is. Diane Ravitch has been calling it a myth for years, and wrote in one of her books that it was a reformy shortcut to circumvent democracy. Bill Gates didn't spend $4 million promoting it just for fun,  Leonie Haimson calls it fundamentally undemocratic. I argued in the Daily News that it was destructive to public education. So there is, in fact, dispute, and I'd argue Sharpton has put forth another of those new and trendy "alternative facts" here.

I was particularly fond of this line:

First, public comment rules would change and the Board of Education would be able to meet in “executive session” — in other words, behind closed doors. The board could therefore make decisions without public comment.

I've been to many PEP meetings, as well as school closing hearings, and I've never seen Al Sharpton show his face. Had Sharpton bothered to show up, he'd have noticed that community residents do indeed get to speak, for two minutes each. He'd also have noticed that not only PEP members, but also school chancellors sat there playing around on their Blackberries blatantly ignoring what communities had to say. He'd also have noticed that decisions had already been made, and that the mayor's reps voted as told, regardless of community input. Liza Featherstone called the PEP a fake school board, and everything I've seen and heard supports that.

In fact, Mayor Michael Bloomberg fired three PEP members rather than allow them to vote against him. I'd argue, therefore, that NYC's form of mayoral control more closely resembles mayoral dictatorship. Sharpton can call previous forms of educational input corrupt and ineffective, but taking community control away is fundamentally anti-democratic. Furthermore, this is not an "either or" situation. In creating a better system, we could reform the old one if need be. Nonetheless, I'd rather see communities in control than a mayor.

It's particularly egregious that mayoral control is absolute only when we have a reformy mayor. Bill de Blasio openly opposed charter schools when he ran, yet NY State would not allow him to block Eva Moskowitz. Instead it instituted a law forcing the city to pay rent for charters whether it wanted them or not.

I have no idea why Reverend Al is suddenly an authority on education. I know his interest seemed to coincide with a $500,000 contrbution, and that he rapidly thereafter embraced reformies like Duncan, Bloomberg, and Newt. I know that none of them support working people or union, and I know the kids we serve will suffer for it. I know when push came to shove at Jamaica High School and elsewhere, Sharpton was nowhere to be found.

I see absolutely no reason to listen to his highly flawed arguments now.

On Class Size--Pay More, Get Less

That's what's happening in Fun City today. Even as the Daily News complains payroll is up by $159 million, we might not be seeing a concurrent improvement in services. Actually, even the article admits that's a 1.57% increase, so I'm not sure why it merits attention. Teachers just got a raise, a good portion of which we earned a decade ago, but it's so recent it's probably not reflected in even this modest increase.

The fact is that this money pays for fewer classroom teachers. Back when Emperor Bloomberg ruled New York City, he decided to stop frittering away money on classroom teachers. At first he huffed and puffed and tried to blow up seniority rights. He threatened to fire a whole lot of teachers. After Bloomberg failed to remove them, he was faced with firing new teachers, you know, the ones who aren't evil like those of us with experience. UFT made a deal to forestall firings, and Bloomberg simply didn't bother replacing teachers who left.

This might seem like a win-win, but it depends where you look and who you ask. For example, if you asked the folks at Tweed, the ones who place Children First, Always, they'll tell you this is the best of all possible worlds, we live in the best of all possible times, and our kids are in the best of all possible classrooms. I guess if you ignore Brexit, Trump, kids learning in closets, bathrooms, trailers, hallways and elsewhere, you might be in agreement.

But there's something that teachers on the ground see that the idealists haven't picked up on. The UFT Contract has not substantially changed on class size. In fact, it hasn't evolved in over half a century. But as far as I can see, maximum class size has pretty much become the norm. I have spent an awful lot of time with our 50-plus page master schedule this year. Classes are 34, 34, 34 and 34. Of course there are exceptions, particularly in gym and music, where they are 50, 50, and 50. And there are exceptions. You'll see 33, 32, 49 and 48. But they're now the exceptions.

Is it any wonder that we have thousands of oversized classes? I've spent all year fighting oversized classes in my school, and mine is far from the worst. Despite an arbitrator's ruling that all class sizes be fixed, when that proved to be too much trouble, we had a "compliance call." This resulted in extra teachers licensed in the subject area being assigned to assist. It's not ideal, but better than nothing. Yet still now, with only a handful of days left, not all classes are in compliance with even that modest demand.

At the UFT Executive Board, Unity members are outright indignant at any suggestion that our class size regs need improvement. They formed a committee, they say, they're discussing it, and that ought to be good enough for anyone. We gave up money for these class size regulations, they say, even though virtually no one in the room was teaching at the time these regulations were established.

Actually, the amount of money the Daily News bemoans is a relative drop in the bucket. If we're really gonna focus on what the public wants, we need look no further than the parent surveys, consistently ignored by the DOE. When offered the option, what public school parents want is lower class sizes. As a teacher, I couldn't agree more.

But what we end up getting from the people who muster the audacity to claim they put "Children First, Always," is education on the cheap. Pack 'em in, hope for the best, and blame the teachers if they fail. We have a cookie-cutter rubric to rate teachers and class size plays no part in it whatsoever.

Do you want to know who really places children first? First there are the parents. Those of us who actually send our kids to public schools care a lot about what goes on. Secondly, there are the teachers. Of course we care about learning conditions, if for no other reason than learning conditions are our teaching conditions. We get up every morning to serve these children, and for that we are treated like criminals by administrators and periodicals right up to the New York Times and our pussy-grabbing President.

If NYC wants value for its dollar, it will demand that newly-progressive Governor Cuomo cough up the money for class size reduction mandated by the CFE lawsuit, Otherwise, putting children first is nothing but more lip service.

Teacher as Savior

Yesterday I spoke of a forum I attended in the Bronx. An interesting conversation ensued between audience and panel about recruitment for TFA and Moskowitz Academies. Evidently the pitch is that children of color must be saved and only you, the students, can get it done. Oh, and also we can give you a job after you graduate up to your neck in debt.

There are a number of striking points you could make about this particular argument. One is that there are plenty of public schools right there in the Bronx, and if you wish to branch out there are four more boroughs nearby with kids who could use your assistance. Another is that working in an NYC public school still beats the hell out of doing test prep for Eva and watching your hapless kids pee their pants rather than pause one moment from studying. She treats those kids a lot worse than I treat my dog (and in fact I love my dog, treat him well, and take him out whenever he asks).

Then, as one of the panelists pointed out, it's not exactly within our means to change everything. You know, there's poverty, there are learning disabilities, there is environment, and there are newcomers who speak no English. And make no mistake, Eva talks a big ballgame, but she doesn't take the same kids we do. 100% of the students I teach are beginners. They are most definitely not ready for intensive bathroom-free test prep, and that's not to suggest that anyone else is. If Eva takes ELLs, they are certainly on a higher level. Special education runs the gamut as well. Just because someone has an IEP doesn't mean she's alternate assessment, like a group of kids at my school. Alternate assessment kids are not expected to graduate. We take them to worksites and train them for jobs, and their stats count against us at year's end. And, of course, self-purported savior Moskowitz has a reputation for dumping kids that don't help her test-score-based bottom line.

As for TFA, sure you can have them pack you off to anyplace in the country. Sure you can help poor students whether or not you've got training sufficient to work in a public school. Maybe you've seen movies like Freedom Writers, where the actress what's her name (who, in fairness, has been in some good stuff too) singlehandedly inspires kids and saves them from their otherwise miserable destinies. Then there was the movie with Michelle Pfeiffer, where I think she shot a gun off in class, or jumped out a window or something, and didn't get fired.

One really cool thing about these movie teachers is they invariably have only one class. That's convenient, because you can focus on the handful of kids being saved. Most teachers I know have 170 students, and are pretty busy with things like, oh, grading tests and lesson planning. In my school, located on this astral plane, we now have grading policies so ponderous that teachers can barely find time for anything else. And don't get me started on gym teachers who have different classes every other day and are expected to perform this nonsense for 500 kids. I don't know how they even learn student names.

Of course teachers are a positive influence. Of course teachers, next to parents, are often the very best role models for children. And of course sometimes teachers can do incredible things, and there are extraordinary teachers. I know real stories about real teachers who reach out and change lives. I even know one who did this for years, who was threatened with an ineffective rating from a supervisor who appreciated this not at all, and who died alone one weekend only months before his planned retirement. I don't suppose that would make a movie script, as the protagonists tend to be gorgeous young white women.

The really cool thing about the teacher as savior model is it takes almost everyone off the hook for just about everything. Problems with your kids? The teachers suck. Failing the class? The teachers suck. Not graduating on time? The teachers suck. Teacher calling your house? He should handle it himself, that's his job, and he sucks. Why can't he be more like Michelle Pfeiffer or what's-her-name from Freedom Writers?

Not only parents are off the hook, but so are politicians. Arne Duncan, or John King, or Barack Obama, or Michael Bloomberg, or Joel Klein, or Andrew Cuomo (all of whom send their kids to private schools), can get up and tell some story about how a great teacher can change a life. That takes them off the hook for crumbling infrastructure, lack of a living wage or affordable health care, and allowing both parents to work 200 hours a week each to make ends meet. The implication is that a good teacher can change absolutely everything, and politicians are suddenly responsible for nothing, It's a WIN-WIN!

Thus you devise ways to fire teachers, like value-added, you devise ways to vilify teachers, like attacking their unions, and you devise ways to blame them for every ill of society. You even try to make a few films that drop the whole savior routines and stereotype public school, making charters the hero. You gloss over the whole pants-peeing thing because it doesn't make for increased popcorn sales.

Here's the thing--we do the best we can, each and every day, under incredibly challenging circumstances. We choose to go out and work with America's children each and every day, no matter who they are or how they come to us. We're not asking to be portrayed as super-heroes, but we don't deserve super-villain status either.

I want to support kids and help them to be happy, but I can't do everything. Politicians need to do their part too, instead of simply taking money from rich people, making their comfortable lives even more so, and ignoring those of us who actually work for a living. And we need to hold their feet to the fire.

The best idea would be to make folks who run schools patronize them. If the schools you run aren't good enough for your children, they likely aren't good enough for mine either. If Bloomberg or Klein had to send their own kids to public school, they'd eye very different reforms than the ones they ended up enforcing. You wouldn't have kids sitting in trailers, eating lunch before 9 AM, herded like prisoners, running around outside because there is no gym, or going years without glasses because even an eye check is unaffordable.

With Donald Trump as President, with demagogues like Betsy DeVos and Eva Moskowitz pretending to care about all children but giving in to the backward moves of this administration, our jobs become even more difficult.

Maybe we have to be super-heroes after all. Maybe we can. But our super-hero status will have to bring us outside the classroom and into communities, where we will be truth-tellers. Truth-tellers are in very short supply here in 2017.

Governor Bribes Me with 240 Cuomo Bucks

I may be cheap, but I am for sale. That's what I learned after unfolding one of those check mailers the other day. My village, Freeport, respected Governor Cuomo's tax cap. We raised the school budget by two percent, or whatever the limit is. Therefore, I supposed, every home owner in my town got a similar check.

I guess we could all jump up and conclude, "Wow, that Andrew Cuomo is one heckuva guy. He just gave me money, and I like money." And yet he's the first guy who got me to stop voting blindly for Democrats, as he ran for the first time on a platform of going after unions. I actually think, if he'd been fairer with unions, that I'd have more than just 240 bucks, so I'm not all that happy.

So what to do? Do I sent the 240 bucks back? I don't think that would be an effective form of protest. For one thing, it would just seep back into his Evil Empire. He'd probably find a way to funnel it to Eva Moskowitz, and she'd use it to bus hapless children to Albany. That's not gonna work.

Should I go all consumer and put it back into the economy? Shop local? Maybe I could get all my shoes fixed at the shoe repair shop that's miraculously survived. But my shoes aren't broken, so what's the point in that?

What I really wonder is whether these checks will help soften the loathing and disgust with which people view Andrew Cuomo. He's already being touted as a 2020 Presidential candidate. Personally, I'd hope the Democrats would go with someone who actually favors working people, as opposed to a union-basher. Isn't that the Republicans' job? Shouldn't they sue him for pretending to be a Republican? Should we sue him for pretending to be a Democrat?

Actually, Cuomo is neither a Republican nor a Democrat. Like Michael Bloomberg before him, he's a raving opportunist, doing and saying absolutely anything he thinks will promote his endless and bottomless ambition. That doesn't sound like a winning formula, but given Donald Trump is President-elect, it might just be the ticket.

With the "ethics-shmethics" philosophy of the incoming Trump administration, I see it as unlikely they will do a big push to end corruption. Of course, the Donald could view Cuomo as a rival and therefore go after him to preclude competition, but somehow I'm pessimistic over the possibility of his sharing that cell with his buddies Skelos and Silver.

What do you think the appropriate disposition of 240 Cuomo bucks would be?

1972 Is Not the Time to Criticize Leadership, and It's Always 1972

At this time, we can't criticize leadership. For goodness sake, Donald Trump is President-elect, and is planning all kinds of bad stuff.

No, at this time, we can't be indulging in what Randi Weingarten and Leo Casey call a "circular firing squad." This is no time to be assigning blame. Now is the time for all good unionists to come together and do whatever the hell we are told. Because in a democratic union, everyone must learn the vital skill of sitting down, shutting up, and swallowing the Unity party line. In fact, UFT's "Team High School,"which includes absolutely no elected representation from high schools, is offering important courses taught by patronage employees who certainly know all the ins and outs of these important rules. I know this because I go to the DA and other patronage employees hand me flyers to distribute.

Because when we're facing an enemy like Donald Trump,  Who Shall Not Be Named, it's time for us to all stand together. We need to give up all those petty partisan battles and simply do whatever it is that leadership says. In these times, we cannot afford to show disunity. We need to get together and contribute to COPE, because if we don't, patronage employees like this one would have to scrap by on a miserable teacher salary. How can we expect her to do such a thing?

It's kind of like another time, when we were heavily involved in the Presidential election. Then it was time we all stood together, because we needed to elect Hillary Clinton President. Those of us who supported Bernie Sanders needed to come to our senses, because everyone remembered what happened when we ran McGovern in 1972. That was a Big Mistake, getting behind someone who opposed the Vietnam War. We learned from that mistakes and made sure to not get behind someone who wanted universal health care, a living wage, a college for all. Too bad no one noticed it wasn't 1972 anymore, but this is no time to criticize leadership.

In any case, when Hillary won the primary, it was time to give up all that divisive nonsense, jump on the bandwagon, and make phone calls. This was a time for us to stand together. After all, the AFT had done a scientific survey that said we liked Hillary better than Bernie anyway. Sure we never saw the survey, we never had a vote in it, we never had a vote in AFT, and we never knew who was surveyed, but it was best we stood together.

Before that, we faced Governor Cuomo, who was our sworn enemy. Of course we hadn't opposed him in the Working Families Primary, and we hadn't opposed him in the Democratic Primary. In fact, we didn't even oppose him in the general election. Nonetheless, when we face an enemy like that we need to stand together as one. We can't be bickering amongst ourselves. After all, he was going to pass an APPR law based on junk science. Of course UFT President Michael Mulgrew took part in writing it, so we stood together and supported it.

And then when Cuomo said the law wasn't strong enough, we needed to stand together in opposition. Except it turned out that, when it got passed anyway, Michael Mulgrew, for reasons that have always eluded me, thanked the Assembly for doing so. Of course, at that time, we had to come together and not criticize leadership.We can't afford disunity at times like these.

And before Cuomo, there was Bloomberg, who was very bad. We had to stand together against him, because with an adversary like that, we had to stand together with leadership. After we endorsed a number of Democratic primary candidates, Bloomberg won. We failed to oppose him when he ran again, and we failed to oppose him when he defied the twice-voiced will of the people for term limits. But we were under assault and this was no time to speak against union leadership.

And then there was Giuliani, who said teachers "stink" and didn't want to give teachers raises. I wasn't really active in union matters back then, but I assume that was also a bad time to criticize union leadership.

The only problem is, really, that union leadership locks itself up at 52 Broadway, hears nothing but the voices of loyalty oath signers, and sends them out to represent us no matter how outlandishly unqualified they may be.

Is it any wonder we find ourselves on the losing end of so many crucial elections?

Our Billionaire Is Better than Your Billionaire

That's a pretty ridiculous message, but it seems to be the one the Democrats tried to send us from the convention floor. I didn't watch Bloomberg speak because I have a pretty reliable gag reflex, but that's what people are telling me.

This is a really hard year for me. As a teacher, I find very deep flaws in candidate Hillary Clinton but even deeper ones in Donald Trump. Here's the thing--people on Facebook are always trying to persuade me to vote for this or that person.

Oddly, many who want me to vote for Hillary Clinton try to persuade me by telling me what a moron I am. Or they tell me if I'm not supporting Hillary I'M SUPPORTING TRUMP AND THEY PLACE IT IN ALL CAPS WITH LOTS OF EXCLAMATION MARKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Aside from letting me know how stupid, ignorant, and evil I am, some people tell me stories. One of my favorites came from this guy who let me know that all Bernie Sanders supporters were Hollywood elites, and that none of them spoke second languages. One of the examples he gave to prove his point was the brilliant activist actress Rosario Dawson, who happens to speak Spanish with native fluency. (Full disclosure---I speak Spanish too, though not perfectly.)

The other day, even after I'd said I'd decided to vote for Hillary, the same guy let me know that Sanders was just like Reagan. I have no idea why he made that comparison, and he didn't explain. Like all Sanders supporters, I suppose, I'm fluent only in English and could not quite make contact with the voices in his head that gave him this info.

But the biggest whopper of them all was Hillary's presentation of former NYC Emperor Michael Bloomberg as the good billionaire.  He's our billionaire, you see, because he stood up on that stage in Philly and spoke at the DNC. Even people in my family are telling me how Bloomberg is a much better billionaire than Trump. As you can tell from the picture above, they've always been natural enemies and have never ever had anything in common. (Perish forbid they should opportunistically oppose one another for the sake of an election.)

This notwithstanding, I lived through twelve endless years of Michael Bloomberg. I lived through his ridiculous Chancellors Klein, What's-Her-Name, and Walcott. I watched as they sold us out to the reformies. I watched as children stood freezing on the streets via his no bid bus contracts. I watched as schools were closed and his sham PEP ignored entire communities in predetermined sessions, and as he preemptively fired anyone who contemplated disagreeing with him. I watched them make a farce out of Robert's Rules.

I watched him spend millions of dollars on ridiculous computer systems that never helped with anything, and are now garbage. I watched as he pretended to be a man of the people taking the subway, but actually kept two SUVs in front of his townhouse to drive him to his preferred subway stop. I watched as he equipped his SUVs with window air conditioners because the AC in them didn't keep his sensitive body quite cool enough.

And in the cold weather, while New Yorkers would slog through snowstorms, while children and teachers forged hazardous paths to school, Bloomberg would often be nowhere to be found, and people would wonder where the hell he was. The NY Times thought he might be in Bermuda.  After all, what better way to show that you are a regular city resident like everyone else than to duck out to a tropical paradise in a private plane whenever things got rough?

And then we could rely on the Emperor, if he happened to stay in town for a weather emergency, to explain it not only in English, but also in the worst Spanish I've ever heard. Well at least he wasn't building a wall, and the only group he really seemed to hate was public school teachers.

There was actually one other group Bloomberg treated with outright contempt. He worked to overturn the twice-voiced ballot of the people for term limits. He and Christine Quinn cooked up some scheme to overturn them, only that year and only for themselves. In a democracy, the vote of the people is supposed to be the ultimate power. Well, not for Emperor Michael Bloomberg. He bought another term fair and square with a few millions worth of pocket change he had lying around. While I can't say his contempt for voters was as consistent or vicious as that he held for teachers, he certainly had no problem brushing them aside when they became an inconvenience.

Michael Bloomberg was once a Democrat, but changed his registration to Republican when it appeared that would help make him mayor. I have no idea what party he belongs to now, if any. I can only say for sure that he is a plutocrat and a blatant opportunist. If Hillary is paying attention, she knows that a prime reason he supports her is that his pollsters told him he could not win a presidential election.

I'll tell you one more thing, Hillary. If you want me, or working teachers who aren't on the union gravy train to support you with anything resembling enthusiasm, you'll stop wheeling out the likes of Mike Bloomberg to support you. I agree with you when you suggest the only thing Donald Trump cares about is Donald Trump.

I'll give you three guesses what Michael Bloomberg cares about. 

UFT Unity and Corporate Values

Leonie Haimson is one of the smartest people I know, and I did myself a disservice by failing to pay close enough attention to her comment:

How dare MORE fight for professional autonomy and against a corporate driven agenda! Who do you think you are?

I'd been looking at the relative truthiness of the ridiculous Unity leaflet and didn't immediately recognize the precise words Leonie was referencing:

MORE urged students to opt out of the state tests as a means of protecting the professional autonomy of educators and fighting against a corporate driven education system. 

Now think about that. That is meant as a criticism. Sure, it leads to their nonsensical and misleading assertions about a reward program. But take it on its face, and think about what it implies--precisely what Leonie said it did. Why on earth would any reasonably informed teacher not wish to fight a corporate driven education system? Anyone who's read Diane Ravitch's books knows how destructive and counter-productive such a system is. 

So you have to ask yourself--has UFT Unity leadership bothered to read Ravitch? If so, why would they criticize us? Actually there's a whole lot of evidence that UFT Unity actively supports a corporate driven education system. Do you remember when Mulgrew told the DA that it was necessary for us to participate in the Gates MET system, the one that judged "good" teaching by test scores? 

Does anyone remember the Bill Gates sponsored MET program being a precursor to Race to the Top, which mandated junk science ratings for teachers? Do we remember Michael Mulgrew going to Albany, then coming back and boasting of having helped write the APPR law that made junk science part of our ratings? Do we remember his telling the DA last Wednesday that the "matrix" would take authority away from principals? Doesn't that just mean the junk science is a higher percentage of our rating? Why not just make teacher ratings 100% based on crapshoots? After all, recent research suggests that VAM is never accurate, reliable or valid. So, while it's fairly amazing to see the President of the United Federation of Teachers boasting that we're increasing its value, it certainly helps explain UFT Unity's disgust with those of us who fight against a corporate driven education system. 

Ravitch suggests in Death and Life of the Great American School System that mayoral control is a corporate tool to bypass and subvert democracy. Yet UFT leadership has endorsed it twice, and under uber-reformy Michael Bloomberg to boot. The second time, after it had proven virtually toxic to working teachers and community schools, UFT leadership demanded a few changes, failed to get them, and went ahead and supported it anyway. Now Mulgrew says he supports it, but not as is. Nonetheless mayoral control bypasses community. Those of us who oppose a corporate driven education system oppose it completely. 

The icing on the top of the cake, of course, was when AFT invited Bill Gates to be the keynote at its convention. I've given a lot of thought to what Gates represents, and it certainly isn't working public school teachers or the kids we serve. In fact, shortly after visiting AFT, Gates criticized teacher pensions, calling them a free lunch. I don't know about you, but I've been working for 32 years, and I've earned each and every penny of that pension. Now, with our legislature working on ways to take it away, I'm not seeing the wisdom of cozying up to those who hate us and everything we stand for. Every time we give them something, they want more. We support Gates and he comes for our pensions. We support charters and they come for our tenure. Appeasement didn't work for Chamberlain then and doesn't work for Mulgrew now. 

As for professional autonomy, that's tough to achieve when you're judged by a checklist. Naturally that checklist is endorsed by UFT Unity, because they love them some Danielson. And yet Danielson herself is backing away on it. UFT Unity, whose leaders have never been judged by Danielson, can happily pretend that a rubric makes everything fair, or that all administrators make low inference notes rather than obeying the voices in their heads. But those of us on the ground know better.

Interestingly, when my friend Julie Cavanagh opposed the 2014 contract, UFT Unity's Leo Casey accused her of being against teacher empowerment. This was because the contract contained the PROSE initiative, so Leo made a handy strawman which ignored Julie's real objections and substituted words she'd never uttered. You know, Julie couldn't possibly be talking about the fact that the contract enabled two-tier due process, got us paid a decade after everyone else, or dumped the worst pattern I've ever seen on our brother and sister unionists (considerably worse than those for which we'd criticized DC37 in the past). No, she must have been criticizing PROSE, which was absolutely perfect even though it had never been tested, let alone utilized.

UFT Unity needs to fight dirty because it has no argument. I guess when everyone around you has signed a loyalty oath, you don't expect to ever need one. The only thing UFT Unity knows is that everything it does is right. When Bloomberg wants to use eight components of Danielson, it's an outrage. Unity fights for 22, which is ideal. When Unity pares it down to seven, it's a great victory. No more 22, which is awful. When we get artifacts added, it's a great victory. When we get them removed, it's also a great victory. And what they complain about is pretty much the only thing that's drawn Cuomo, at least ostensibly, out of his relentless assault on teachers.

The weird attribution of Opt Out to the MORE caucus by Unity. Insult to the parents' movement by @TeacherArthurG https://t.co/U4qtNuoXNO

— Carol Burris (@carolburris) June 17, 2016

Unity's arguments stem not from reason or practice, but rather from the outlandish assumption that everything it does is right. Therefore everything its opponents do must be wrong. The relative value or lack thereof of Unity positions means nothing. Their arguments come from backing themselves up no matter what, rather than from any basic value or standard. Otherwise they wouldn't be able to swap out positions as often as you or I change our socks. 

Now they've taken a stand against basic values set out by visionary education expert Diane Ravitch. I don't know about you, but I'm proud to stand with Ravitch, with activist parents, and with communities. Unity can continue to alienate all of us and paint itself into corners by making outlandish assertions simply to insult the most vibrant and thoughtful activist group in the UFT. 

But MORE/ New Action is just getting started. We will continue to speak the truth and Unity can squirm and spout its convoluted logic all it likes.

Or they can simply join us to improve our working conditions, which are precisely student learning conditions. Because whatever they choose, we aren't backing down and we aren't going away.   

Mike Bloomberg and the Magic Mirror

Carmen Fariña is talking about consolidating her some schools. This is a direct reversal of the signature policy of her former boss, Mike Bloomberg. Bloomberg, of course, had to look in a mirror every morning and ask it who was the reformiest of all, and as long as he kept closing schools it said,

Working teachers drop and crawl cause you, Mayor Mike, are reformiest of all.

Now Bill Gates, whose assful of wonders produced the small school initiative, backed up on it when he found out it didn't work. But because NYC is the first to adopt the worst ideas, and the last to drop them, Bloomberg plodded on regardless. I mean, why have one principal in a building when you could just as easily have five? And why have students abide by one set of rules when you can have five? As an added bonus, you could always dump in a Moskowitz Academy, have the whole thing refurbished, and make students in the other four schools feel like total crap because they aren't worthy.

But that's not the only benefit of small schools as far as Mayor Mike is concerned. After all, with Fair Student Funding, whatever that is supposed to mean, the fact is that every school has to be concerned with teacher salary. After all it now comes out of the school budget rather than central. So wouldn't you know it, principals with very small schools tend not to hire teachers with big salaries.

That's just part of it, though. I talk to teachers in schools that have inquiry teams that meet each and every day. Every single person in the school does that. Now there's supposed to be a C6 menu, and if you don't get one of your first three choices, you get another three. That means there should be six choices, at the very least. So could it be that every single person in the school happened to make the same choice? That's quite a coincidence.

Actually, this tends to happen when there is no chapter leader and no knowledge that there is a contract, or rules, or any of those messy things. And if you start a school with 20 teachers, all of whom are untenured rank beginners, you tend not to have a whole lot of union activism. After all, being chapter leader can be like swimming in a pool of sharks, and you're unlikely to opt for that when you have yet to master the doggie paddle. Also, while I've seen untenured teachers as chapter leaders, I certainly wouldn't recommend it to anyone. After all, when you can be fired for a bad haircut (and new teachers are unlikely to find time to seek out a good one), you might not want to be bringing multiple grievances to your principal. Also, you may want to spend time learning your job rather than going to Multiple Meetings About Everything.

In fact, it's likely newer and smaller schools have no chapter leader. I've been to class size grievance hearings where I've met teachers from small schools who weren't chapter leaders. They'd tell me their principals asked them to go. Now I will grant you it's a special kind of principal who will appoint people to grieve school class sizes. And given that, I'd suppose that most of them just go unreported.

If you have no union presence, it's a Principal's Paradise. Do whatever the hell you wish, and no one raises a peep. Will the young teachers get tenure and decide it's time to rise up and enforce the contract? Or will they simply become accustomed to doing Whatever the Hell the Principal Wishes and stay that way?

Bloomberg's magic mirror told him this was the way to go, but I'm not sure teachers who just follow instructions and question nothing are ideal role models. Isn't it our job to not only teach, but also model critical thinking? How can you do that when you aren't permitted to question anything, let alone criticize it?

Fariña is looking at a more practical problem. Why is she paying all these people to do all these things that are redundant, wasteful, and unnecessary? Of course consolidation is a reasonable solution, and hopefully she'll see fit to restore community schools, and even communities themselves. I mean, sure her boss is still pushing mayoral control, which does the exact opposite, but maybe this is a baby step in the right direction.

So if we put together five schools, will one competent chapter leader emerge? Will one principal who truly understands leadership rise to the top?

Only time will tell.

At George Washington Campus, I Learn Opt Out NYC Needs Help

Last night I went to George Washington "Campus." Now there was a big sign in front of the school, etched in stone no less, that said George Washington High School, but that wasn't what it was. It was a "campus," because that's what I read it was.

Now I'm a little naive, I guess, from years of working in one of the few high schools that wasn't destroyed by Michael Bloomberg, so I kind of wondered what the hell George Washington Campus was. Was it a college? Was it a place where students hung out and sat on the lawn? Who knew?

In fact, I asked one of my colleagues, who used to be a cab driver what and where it was. I was trying to decide whether to take the train there or drive. He assured me if I drove I would find a space, so that's what I did. By a small miracle, a car pulled out of a space a block away from the "campus" as I was driving around. A friend I met there came in a cab, and her cab driver had trouble finding the place even though he had it on GPS. So I'm guessing the campus is not that famous.

Why am I talking about this place in a piece with "opt out" in the title? Good question. Our friend Michael Bloomberg thought the best way he could help schools get better was by closing them. Actually that's not precisely what he did. What he did was break them up into smaller schools, hiring four principals instead of just one, and having four sets of rules instead of one. This was better because Bill Gates said it was, until he decided it wasn't. But having already imposed his will on the NYC district, it stayed imposed, as do so many ideas that emanated from Bill Gates' abundant hind quarters.

The effect, of course, was to downplay any notion of community schools (thus downplaying any notion of community, valued by neither Gates nor Bloomberg). Parents now had "choice." They could go to the Academy of Basket Weaving, the Academy of Coffee Drinking, or the Academy of Doing Really Good Stuff. Of course by the time they got there the principals who envisioned basket weaving, coffee drinking, or doing good stuff were often gone, and it was Just Another School, or more likely Just Another Floor of a School, as there were those three other schools to contend with. (Unless of course Moskowitz got in, in which case it was A Renovated Space Better Than Your Space.)

Last night I learned that middle schools in NYC also are Schools of Choice. I don't know exactly why I learned this last night, because my friend Paul Rubin told me this months ago. I think I need to hear things more than once before they register with me, though. Anyway last night I heard from someone who told me that one of the schools her daughter might attend required test scores as a prerequisite. So if her family had decided to send their kid there, opt-out may not have been a good option.

I live in a little town in Long Island. My daughter went to our middle school, as did every public school student in our town. We are a community, and our community's kids go to our community's schools. If I opt my kid out, she goes to that school. If she scores high, low, or anywhere in between, she goes to that school.

That's not the case in NYC. And by requiring test scores from tests that ought not to even exist, these schools effectively deny the right of many students to opt out. So the question becomes, if the tests are not appropriate, and if even bought-and-paid-for tinhorn politicians like Andrew Cuomo say these tests ought not to count, why the hell are we counting them?

And the next question is, is there anything we can do about it? Opt-out brought us these mild, but not insane, modifications from Andrew Cuomo, even though he happily takes suitcases full of cash from the reformies. It also brought us Regents Chancellor Betty Rosa, who I went to hear at George Washington Campus last night. Dr. Rosa impressed me by being consistently Not Insane, even in one instance where I disagreed with her.

If we can have an educational leader who is Not Insane, is it possible we can work toward a middle school admission policy that is also Not Insane? Because for me, and I freely acknowledge I may be in the minority here, I feel that Not Insane is the way to go with educational policy.

Fixing the ATR--We Lag Behind New Jersey

Reformy Chris Cerf has put a bunch of unassigned teachers to work in Newark. This is ironic, because he was part of Joel Klein's band of fanatic ideologues, and likely as not had a hand in the creation of the Absent Teacher Reserve. The ATR was one of the many hideous creations of the 2005 contract. The now-dead Edwize reported it was a temporary thing, failing to anticipate that Klein would hire new teachers while current ones remained in limbo.

Here in NYC, we have hundreds still in the ATR pool. Reformy Chalkbeat NY reports 1,083 ATR teachers currently working. This, of course, fails to consider the hundreds (or thousands) of provisionally appointed ATRs working all over the city, and hoping for appointments. Alas, the permanent appointments are few and far between. In my school, a few veteran teachers have been permanently appointed, and we hope this trend will continue. Some of us worked very hard to make this happen. Nonetheless this appears to be far from the norm.

Here's the thing--Bloomberg and Klein are gone, and de Blasio won by a huge margin running as the anti-Bloomberg. So why on earth can't he and the UFT come to an agreement about placing the ATRs somewhere? Now that there's precedent, in New Jersey under Cerf for goodness sake, you'd think we'd be able to work something out.

I haven't heard a peep from Mulgrew or his minions about this, but I do know that they're fine with reporting only the number of ATR teachers lacking even provisional placement. They're also fine with dumping seniority privileges which would have enabled teachers at closing schools placement in other schools. Mulgrew gets up in front of the DA and claims this is a victory because there are more transfers under his Open Market system than under previous ones. Mulgrew doesn't take into account that principals may be eager to hire lower-paid and more compliant new teachers than those with experience.

The current system is labeled one of mutual consent. Oddly, this means the principal can pretty much turn down anyone but teachers must take assignments. In fact, ATR teachers who miss two interviews can be and are fired. This is a real money saver for the city. They send out notices via the cumbersome and inefficient DOE email, and if you miss two messages they can dump you. That's pretty much it, and this firing system has proven more efficient than even the second-class due process that Mulgrew championed. Mulgrew is happy to suggest that any ATR who twice shouts in the hall ought to face a one-day 3020a process, but I've yet to hear of that being used. Why bother, when the city can pick them off for missing email?

It's time to end this charade. It's time to stop stereotyping people for the crime of working in closed schools. I'm sick to death of reading baseless assertions that ATR teachers are no good, and even more sick of seeing them judged by roving supervisors, at least one of which I've personally observed to be borderline insane. It's ridiculous, in fact, to observe teachers subbing and judge their merit. They have no chance to build bonds that longterm teachers have, and it is in fact these bonds that make classes what they are.

I know it's tough for Mulgrew to admit failure. In fact, he never does. What Mulgrew does is take new positions and pretend the old ones don't exist. For example, Mulgrew enjoyed a great victory when he negotiated all 22 areas of the Danielson rubric be observed. Bloomberg only wanted a few. Mulgrew enjoyed another great victory when he negotiated only a few.

So why not work toward getting all ATRs permanent placement? Mulgrew could pretend he never supported any other position and declare yet another great victory. The city could save millions of dollars. It's a win-win, and since Mulgrew never reads blogs, he could say he didn't hear about it here.

We need to let all our teachers teach. If the city wants subs, let them hire subs. Let's put all the ATR teachers back to work, let's have the ATR counselors offer much-needed help to our children, and for goodness sake, let's give the ATR assistant principals brooms and mops and let them do something worthwhile for a change. Everyone needs to contribute.

Eva Doesn't Need No Stinking Rules

Eva Moskowitz is pissed off that mean old NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio is demanding she sign a contract over her pre-K classes. So what if 277 other pre-K programs have signed it? She's Eva Moskowitz, dammit, and rules don't apply to her. If you, a lowly public school teacher, made kids sit in chairs until they peed their pants, you'd be subject to CR A-420, corporal punishment, and if you kept treating kids like that you'd find yourself fired.

But those rules don't apply to Eva. In fact, chancellor's regs don't apply to any charters. They can make their own rules. Verbal abuse? No problem. Harass families until they withdraw their inconvenient low-scoring kids? That's fine, and an added bonus is their low scores can be counted against those awful public schools. You know, the ones with unions and stuff.

So now Eva is reaching out to reformy MaryEllen Elia, our esteemed education commissioner, and letting her know she's had it with all these stinking rules. Now it's one thing to apply them to public schools, but quite another when they come to her and her BFFs. For example, mayoral control was a fantastic thing when Michael Bloomberg was in charge. Eva had a hotline to Joel Klein, and could push for whatever she needed back then.

When that Bill de Blasio came in, though, things got ridiculous. First of all, he was elected. That sucked, because Joel Klein was appointed by Mike Bloomberg, who pretty much gave Eva carte blanche. Second, he ran on a platform of support for public schools and opposition to charters, and those stupid NYC voters actually chose him overwhelmingly. Who the hell do those people think they are?

Eva was having none of that, so she went to Governor Cuomo, who had taken millions from her reformy BFFs and had had it up to here with that "democracy" nonsense. Cuomo pushed a state law saying that de Blasio would have to either approve Eva's schools or pay rent for them. Now the whole mayoral control thing was no problem. De Blasio could make decisions one way or the other, but they made no difference to Eva, the only person in New York who mattered.

But then there were those troublesome regulations, and that nasty de Blasio didn't even ask Eva before making them. A contract? Now how in the hell can Eva Moskowitz do what she wants, how she wants, when she wants, with whomever she wants if she has to sign some flipping contract?

Fortunately, MaryEllen Elia is a pawn of Governor Cuomo, who's clearly beholden to Eva and her reformy BFFs. Things are looking up.

Staying Ahead of the Curve

I don't  know much about the writer of the quote at left. Oddly, I found it on Facebook, posted by the writer himself. I'm wary of people who quote themselves, but I love this sentiment. Look at Andrew Cuomo, with no moral center, doing any damn thing his contributors want. He only rolls it back when his popularity is swirling the bowl, and even then, not nearly enough to change much of anything. NYSUT and UFT leadership appear not to notice, and spend millions of our dues dollars on what appear to be pro-Cuomo commercials.

Thinking teachers and parents are paying close attention, though, and don't buy the "moratorium" nonsense that rolls back just a little bit of the test-based drek that passes for teacher evaluation in New York State. Our kids are still taking the same number of tests, including the ones that now seem to count for nothing whatsoever.

It's surreal that we live in a country where Bill Gates can dictate that test scores dictate the life and death of schools (not to mention the careers of teachers). Yet Gates sends his own kids to schools that aren't subject to his whims and caprices. Reformy folk like Gates, Rhee, King, Obama, Cuomo and Bloomberg opt their kids out of programs they impose by opening their wallets. When we do the same by declining to allow our children to take the tests, it's an outrage. The taxes we pay for our children's schools can be withheld, they say. Our children will suffer, they say, because we didn't conform. That's not taking care of those in their charge.

Of course, the folks above appear interested in taking care of only their own children. Otherwise, why would they impose a system they deem unfit for their own children on our kids? Of course there is hope for our kids. Opt-out is burgeoning in New York State, despite the druthers of test-happy zillionaires and the politicians crawling through their pockets. Parents and teachers aren't blindly accepting this nonsense anymore.

Classrooms don't need to be test-prep factories. Classrooms can be windows of kindness and encouragement in a tough world. A test-obsessed America makes that tougher each and every day. How can you be kind to children when you're gonna lose your job if they fail that test? It's an awkward balancing act, and every thinking teacher I know feels that pressure pretty much every moment.

Despite that, most of the kids know whether or not we care about them. Most of the kids know whether or not we have their interests at heart. It's harder for us, of course, because we're subject to all sorts of external pressures that have little to do with their welfare (not to mention ours). I can't imagine being a new teacher today, and trying not only to learn a very complex job, but concurrently dealing with all the red tape and nonsense that make actually doing the job a near impossible dream.

It's a balancing act, a juggling act, and it's really getting tougher to maneuver every single day. It's too bad we can't just do our jobs, help our students and give them that little bit of guidance they need. It's too bad these kids will lose so many people who could help them due to myopic to outright hostile leadership.

But we stand, we stay, and we care. How we broadcast that message over the Gates-propagated noise machine is just one more issue for us.

Let's Not Start Partying Just Yet

There's been a lot of interest in this article, suggesting a silver lining to the Friedrichs case. It now appears SCOTUS is poised to deliver a tough pill to public unions, saying that automatic dues collection is a violation of free speech. Friedrichs and her pals feel all workers have the absolute right to do more work for less pay and have had it with those nasty unions demanding otherwise.

The silver lining, according to the article, may be that our free speech includes the right to strike, long gone in NY with that Taylor Law, which takes two days pay for every day we stay out. This has proven a pretty effective deterrent, though the transit workers went out anyway a few years back. For this, they lost their dues checkoff for a year, which resulted in only 75% of them actually paying union dues.

Consider that this scenario occurred under a newly elected activist leadership. For us in UFT, we have the entrenched and clueless Unity patronage mill, which hasn't bothered to organized seriously in decades. 75% would be fantastic for them. But that's not the only issue, even if they could organize, strike, or whatever (which I doubt).

Add to this scenario the disappearance of the Triborough Amendment, something GOP gubernatorial candidate Rob Astorino wanted. Imagine if someone like Bloomberg didn't have to uphold the terms of an expired contract, and could do whatever he wished once the thing was over with. Would we be looking at no contract at all? Would we be looking at a unilaterally imposed thin contract, eviscerating job protections, like the one Bloomberg had wet dreams about years ago?

There are possibilities in this. We could, perhaps, energize the membership and be reborn as an actual labor union. But Friedrichs would only be a first step. Michael Mulgrew championed a contract with two-tier due process. This shows a fundamental lack of understanding of what a union is. And we, under the Mulgrew's appeals to fear (moving back 150 places in line, retro not a God-given right), approved this contract, showing we too have no understanding.

We are many steps away from being an active workforce. Michael Mulgrew is not qualified to lead such a union, and needs to be replaced.  Our loyalty-oath signing patronage mill has to go too--we need leaders, not self-serving sycophants. That's not a quick fix. A friend of mine used to say the UFT has two problems--the leadership and the membership. We're gonna have to fix both before we see the sunny side of Friedrichs.

If Reforminess Worked, NYC Would Be a Utopia

I read with interest a Daily News editorial rating Bill de Blasio on education. They say the graduation rate is inching up, and paint that as a legacy of Bloomberg. But Bloomberg controlled the city schools for twelve long, long years and despite his uber-reforminess they are not perfect. Of course it's hard to achieve perfection when people are not perfect. Bloomberg was certainly not perfect, or he wouldn't have bought himself a third term. But as a self-serving, self-important megalomaniac with billions of dollars, he had little choice.

The problem is, under Bloomberg and the geniuses who reside in the Ivory Towers of Albany, our students had little choice too. I remember when special education students could take RCT exams instead of Regents exams. I remember when ESL students were exempt from taking an English Regents exam specifically designed for English speakers. In fact, I'm so old that I remember an English Regents exam that expected me not only to have a knowledge of English and American literature, but also to understand English spelling. Spelling is incredibly illogical in English, but fortunately so am I. Personally, I've found the newer versions of the Regents exams to be not only more and more tedious, but also less and less challenging.

The Daily News looks at the graduation rate as something important, and I don't disagree. But now that we fail to differentiate (funny how teachers are expected to differentiate in classes but there's no such thing in assessment), it's tough for a lot of kids to pass required tests. I teach newcomers, and any reasonable educator would give them an alternate mode of graduation. The state's notion that we can replace English instruction with Common Core-laced subject classes via Part 154 is blatantly idiotic, and will result in even fewer ELLs graduating on time. Of course, this is the price you pay for stacking the Regents with people who are utterly ignorant of language acquisition. I'm sure that they don't bother making allowances for other special needs either.

The News, like most Americans, doesn't bother to question the one-size-fits-all reformy agenda. Most politicians are right there agreeing with them. Now here's the thing. There is nothing wrong with our schools. There is nothing wrong with our teachers. Sure, they aren't perfect. But the fact is every so-called failing school, without exception, has a high percentage of high-needs kids. To assume, because these schools get lower test grades, that they are not as good as schools full of affluent students is simply idiotic. And when I read editorials (not the one to which I linked) saying that poor-scoring schools have poor teachers, I'm also amazed. It doesn't take a genius to know that some kids score higher on standardized tests than others, or that income is among the best predictors of who those kids will be.

That, of course, is why the Moskowitz Academies need a "got to go" list. That is why Geoffrey Canada had to dismiss entire cohorts from his charter school. That's why the charters who boast of their 100% college enrollment rates forget to tell us that they've managed to lose 30-60% of the kids with which they started. Where are the ones that left? Surely in the same public schools being vilified for being so miserable.

Here's an idea. Instead of going on about how the schools suck, why don't we do something about the fact that 23% of our children live in poverty? Why don't we raise taxes on folks like Michael Bloomberg and actually help these kids? Because I'll tell you something--when you're hungry, when your house is cold,  when your parents can't afford to take time off from their multiple jobs, when parents have no time for their kids, when you have no health benefits or care, standardized tests become a whole hell of a lot less important.

That's why Bloomberg made no difference (though I don't recall the News or any paper holding him to task over that), and that's why, as long as de Blasio accepts reformy premises, he won't make a whole lot of difference either.

The Curious Case of Mike Mulgrew and His Deceptive Piggy Bank

If you're on the UFT mailing list, you probably got the same email that I did. The UFT President wants you to know that you're finally going to see a little bit of the money that most city workers got over five years ago. Mulgrew blames Bloomberg, of course, since it could not possibly have anything whatsoever to do with the lack of negotiating skill of leadership. After all, they are Perfect in Every Way.

Many of us who watched the AFT Convention, when Mulgrew got all punchy defending Common Core, wondered where all that punchiness was as we went years without a contract. In fact, not only did we fail to get one, but we agreed to an APPR negotiated by Reformy John King rather than use it as leverage. After all, it was important to allow teachers to be judged by junk science. Had we not allowed that, we'd have risked losing federal funds to judge teachers by junk science.

Mulgrew's letter explains what a wonderful job he and his Unity Caucus ducklings did in making UFT members "whole." This is certainly true if you fail to distinguish between having money in 2009 or having it in 2020, and indeed Mulgrew's letter ignores this distinction utterly. After all, what's the difference between building a deck on your house this year or eleven years from now? Sitting on the grass isn't so bad, and you're only doing it for eleven years. And, as Mulgrew himself said, retro pay isn't a God-given right, so you'll take what you get, like it, sit down and shut up like good little teachers. What, did you think UFT leadership was going to fight for fairness when they could settle for a substandard contract? Don't you know there are conventions that need to be planned for?

Here's how Mulgrew explains his piggy bank:

Think of it as a large piggybank. If you have been continually employed, you have been depositing money in this piggybank since Nov. 1, 2009 and will continue to deposit money until the two 4 percent increases are fully phased in in 2018. This October, you’ll make your first withdrawal.

Now I have a daughter and I know a little bit about piggybanks. She kept one until she was around eight, at which point I decided she was old enough to have a real account at a bank. After all, money in a piggybank collects no interest. This notwithstanding, an enterprising seven-year-old could finance a lemonade stand with what's inside. Said seven-year-old could buy a gift for someone, or perhaps help finance sporting equipment, a laptop, or even a video game system for herself. She doesn't need to leave all the money in the piggybank for eleven years, or make withdrawals on a completely inflexible schedule made by Daddy.

And that's where the analogy wears even thinner. There is no money in that UFT piggybank. None at all. On October 15th, hopefully, 12.5% of the money that isn't in your piggybank will be reflected in your paycheck. After that, it's two full years before you see a dime.

One of the reasons it took so long to get any contract at all was that the city was having its seasonal financial crisis. This crisis comes up whenever it's contract time. As Mulgrew put it, "The cupboard was bare." (It's unusual that Mulgrew said that, or the remark about retro pay, because those remarks are supposed to come from management.) Of course, as usual, money was found in the sofa cushions at Gracie Mansion, and it turned out the city had a whole bunch of money after all. We didn't discover that, of course, until Mulgrew and his Unity Caucus sold us this contract based on logical fallacies. In this case, it was appeals to fear, to wit:

1. Retro pay is not a God-given right, and
2. If we don't take this piece of crap contract, we have to get back in line behind another 151 unions.

You can bet every one of those 151 unions wishes we weren't first in line, because we dumped the worst pattern in my living memory on them, 10% over 7 years. James Eterno told Mulgrew it was the worst pattern ever at the DA. The ever-gracious UFT President said it wasn't true and turned off Eterno's microphone, but I've yet to see evidence there was ever a less favorable pattern.

If you're on maximum salary, the city owes you about $54,000. That's some serious scratch For a working UFT member, it's a car, or several cars, it's a big part of a down payment on a house, and you will get it in dribs and drabs over the next five years. Goodbye cars, goodbye house. Too bad. You can always pay rent and hope housing prices don't explode more than they already have.

Of course, the contract stretches into the next mayoral term, and Bill de Blasio may or may not win. I'd suppose de Blasio would honor the terms of the contract. After all, despite all the talk about him being a communist and whatnot, he turned out to negotiate the contract with the lowest compensation increase ever for the city's largest union. Sure, some of the other unions managed to do better than we did, but it's still relatively chicken feed.

The thing is, though, that we have to anticipate someone reformy could be mayor. For example, I see Eva Moskowitz being bandied about. Don't you think it's possible Mistress Eva might determined we're having yet another seasonal financial crisis, and that we therefore can't afford the balloon payments to those awful teachers? Contracts have been breached before in times of crisis.

The good thing for Mike Mulgrew, or whoever Unity Caucus puts in his place, is he can always blame the mayor. You know, like he did in that email. It's Bloomberg's fault. It's Eva's fault. Perhaps it's my fault for questioning their judgment.

Because nothing is ever the fault of union leadership, and you can ask any of 800 loyalty-oath signing rubber stamps if you don't believe me.

We Bloggers Gotta Get the Banned Together

Sometimes we bloggers feel rivalry. For example, you may know that José Luis Vilson not only wrote a book, but also actually got it published. And if you don’t think that in itself is impressive, not only have a whole bunch of people read it, but I even read it myself. (Personally, even the idea of writing a book makes me tired.)

But blogger rivalry runs deeper than that. The fact is, whenever I looked up my blog on DOE computers, it just showed up right there, in front of my face. José’s blog was blocked, though, because he’s a dangerous man. So I thought to myself, how can I become as dangerous as José? I tried putting on a fearsome expression, but my students just laughed at me. My wife said she thought I was sick and demanded I go to the doctor. So I gave that up.

I went to plan B, which was sulking. I moped around for a while, but it was very tough. People are always demanding I do stuff and answer questions, so I never get the time I’d really like for a good sulk. So for almost the entire Bloomberg administration I had to endure the stigma as José was banned and I was right out there.

Another thing José and I have in common was our support of Mayor de Blasio. I contributed to his campaign, and got a gold ticket to his inauguration. José only got a blue ticket or something, so I briefly felt a sense of having gotten somewhere. But it turned out we both had to sit outside in the freezing cold, and I was only a little closer to the center. (Had there been heat, that would've been something worth boasting about.)

This year I came to school a few days early with my laptop, and decided to check the blog. I do that from time to time, because you never know who’s gonna come around and say whatever. And it turns out Mayor de Blasio decided to show his appreciation for having supported his election. He did this by blocking my blog. (So in your face, José.)

Now that I have finally reached the summit of the blogging mountain, people notice me more. They look at me differently. People say, “Hey  NYC Educator, what’s it like to be so macho and tough and good looking?” I tell them it’s hard work. You have to say just the right things, and you have to insult just the right people.

And if you aren’t impressed by the fact that I’m banned in the DOE, I have to tell you I’m also banned in China. (And no, this is not an empty boast. I’m friends with one of our Chinese teachers and she always complains she can’t read the blog when she’s there). As you probably know, China’s a pretty big country. There are now well over a billion people who can’t read what you’re reading right now.

So today China, tomorrow the DOE. My pet project now is to have the blog banned in all these United States. Then it will be really elite. Eventually, I aim to become the JD Salinger of bloggers.

Wish me luck.

Labor Day--What Is and What Should Never Be

Happy Labor Day to all. These are tough times for union, and we are under direct attack in SCOTUS. People fought and died for our right to unionize, and may do so again as forces try to erase the twentieth century and move us back to good old feudalism, or whatever you call it when workers have no rights and few options. 

This is an election year in UFT. Before a single vote is cast we're fighting to have something worth fighting over. The Friedrichs case is crucial, and I'm constantly wondering who's paying attention. To deprive union of the right to collect dues from all the people it represents is to almost reduce it to passing the hat. Sadly, in this hat, those who give will be compelled to support those who save the money to buy that new Xbox. 

Those people are like your lazy uncle who doesn't want to work but would gladly sleep on your couch, watch your TV and eat your food. Twelve hundred bucks is a lot to volunteer, and in the short term it seems like a lot of money. Maybe it's a giant big screen TV to go with that Xbox. Maybe it's buying caviar for your dog. The options are endless. 

Now's when I want to tell you that you're paying to have people negotiate for you. Regrettably, UFT negotiators are fairly awful. It's hard to make them a selling point when we're waiting for five years from now to receive the money everyone else got five years ago. But it's not just UFT here. NYPD and FDNY were able to squeeze 4% and 4% over two years from retired Emperor Michael Bloomberg. UFT took that, sort of, and added 10% over 7 years, the lowest pattern in the living memories of anyone I know. 

Now imagine if FDNY, NYPD, and other union leaders had to scrounge around begging for dues instead of negotiating fair contracts. We, the teachers, might not be able to depend on them to establish a decent pattern. Perhaps there wouldn't be a pattern and we'd have to depend on the inept negotiators who worked out our substandard, miserable pattern, dual due process piece of crap contract, the one we have yet even to see. Or maybe they'd get a fabulous raise but make us give it all back for health care costs. (And, to be fair, that might yet happen under this contract, which stipulates that if Mulgrew's projected savings aren't met, arbitrators can make adjustments. That might be why there is as yet no new paper contract.)

Crappy though the contract is, we still have very good health benefits. Dental is not quite as good as it once was, but a whole lot better than the nothing many of my friends utilize. And it's good that every school has a chapter leader, though I understand some may be better than others. 

I believe in union with my whole heart. Flawed though ours is, it beats the hell our of standing one by one in front of Andrew Cuomo with a bowl and begging for more a la Oliver Twist. Make no mistake, that's what our reformy friends want for us. That's why we're facing a ridiculous observation system. 

I believe this school year we can start to change our union for the better. It won't be fast and it won't be easy. But a flawed union is a hell of a lot better than no union at all, and union can accomplish a whole lot more if it doesn't need to troll schools, hat in hand, begging for people to collect dues. 

Don't believe Michael Mulgrew and his gang when they tell you they know what's best. We are the union, we know what's best, and this is the year they will begin to listen, whether they like it or not.