Dr. King Saw Janus Coming

Today we celebrate the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr., assassinated in 1968. He's famous for his work in civil rights, but when he was assassinated he was supporting working people. He was protesting that black workers got partial pay on a day they were sent home while white workers got paid the whole day. But he knew what "right to work" was all about.

Almost half a century later, we're moving backward. Our lying, racist President labels countries of color "shitholes" and wonders why we don't get more people from Norway. Why Norway? Well, they're white over there. Why would someone from Norway come over here anyway? In Norway, they have cradle to grave health care. How many of them go bankrupt due to catastrophic medical emergency? As in most of the developed world, that number would be zero. How many of them can't afford college? Again, zero.

While few US citizens have pensions these days, Norway, rather than pump energy profits into private corporations, uses it to fund pensions. We teachers are very lucky to have defined pension benefits, and they are under assault by reformies who'd like us to use 401k funds and hope for the best. In fact, even the inventor of the 401k says it wasn't meant to replace pensions.

It's disgraceful that the President of the United States is so woefully ignorant that he regularly blurts out preposterous nonsense, and not only about Norway. Dr. Martin Luther King is likely as not rolling over in his grave. This is a man who literally gave his life for his ideals. Donald Trump has no problem rattling sabres over Kim Jung Un, another lunatic world leader, but took five deferments back when his fat ass was on the line. His feet were no good back then, but now that he's sitting around the White House watching three television screens and eating cheeseburgers before he goes to sleep, he's in perfect health.

I don't know how many states were "right to work" back when King made the above statement, but right now there are 28. After Janus, there will likely be 50. Mulgrew tells us that our new best bud, Andrew Cuomo, will work with us to circumvent Janus if possible. I'm not sure. The fact is Cuomo also enables the IDC, a bizarre arrangement under which Democrats help Republicans control the NY State Senate. Without them we might be looking at universal health care in NY State. With them, Cuomo might be able to say, "See, I tried to help, but I was blocked by those goshdarn senators."

The first thing we need to do to get closer to MLK's vision is to dump the GOP Congress and Senate. If we attain a Democratic majority, it's possible Trump could change his positions. After all, he has no moral compass, no integrity, and cares only about winning. And yes, I know we're all tired of winning, but if the only way our child-man President can win is by doing the right thing, maybe he'll come around. Of course, we have to get rid of the President ASAP too, because he's a blithering lunatic.

The next thing we have to do is let Democrats know that, if they want our votes, they'll have to start representing Americans rather than corporations. Americans want universal health care. Americans want tuition free college. Americans want better wages. I always marvel at how many of us watch the garbage on Fox and buy ideas that ultimately hurt us. I always recall being in East Berlin, seeing Pravda sold everywhere, and seeing no one buy it. What did they know that we don't?

We need to honor the memory of Dr. King. To do that, we have to fight our racist, nazi-justifying President. We need to fight for better lives for all Americans. As teachers, we need to foster critical thinking. That's a tall order considering the national movement toward reforminess, nonsensical tests, and charters that specialize in Drudgery 101, 102, and onward ad infinitum.

We need to stand together and fight post-Janus. That's a tall order, particularly considering local union leadership that opposes democracy almost as much as Donald Trump does. But it's 2018, and I'm up for both fronts.

What about you?

Here's the Real Shithole

I remember the day after Election Day. I woke up, thinking, well, Hillary kind of sucks, but at least she isn't as bad as Trump. I came downstairs and turned on the news. I watched returns coming in. Hillary was up in this state, and Trump was up in that.

Then a graphic flashed across the screen. "Donald Trump elected President of the United States." It was as if a bad joke had sprouted wings and began to fly right there in my living room. How could this happen? How could an ignorant racist galoot like that ever become President of the United States?

I have to admit I was delighted watching him defeat the evil GOP bastards against whom he ran. Their positions are odious. They don't give a crap about working people. They smile to our faces and stab us in our backs. I deluded myself in believing a preposterous clown like Donald Trump could never win the White House. I mean, the crap about Obama being born in Kenya? Demanding the death penalty for innocent teenagers? The bigoted blather on Mexico? Pussy grabbing?

This guy was the total package. I remember watching Saturday Night Live when Kate McKinnon, portraying Hillary, was pictured dancing and drinking, not even contemplating the possibility of loss. I was sure that morning I'd turn on the TV and see she was President.

That day I dressed all in black. People asked me if I did that because Trump was President and I told them of course. That night there was a UFT Delegate Assembly. I forgot to go. I just drove home. It was the only one I missed last year. People told me it was different and that Mulgrew let people speak. I guess it was a good idea. After all, AFT had been an early endorser of Hillary. I never liked Hillary until Donald Trump became the alternative. Once that happened, she looked relatively good.

Now Donald Trump calls El Salvador and Haiti, and African nations shitholes. A while back he talked about them living in huts. I think Donald Trump has never been anywhere. I mean, he's traveled to cities, I suppose, and stayed in first class hotels where they pampered him like he's always pampered. They fed him his well done steaks with ketchup and fetched him the cheeseburgers he needs to power him up for watching cable news.

But this man is a disgrace from A to Z. He's a national embarrassment. I grew up hearing jokes about banana republics with crooked politics. Look at us. Trump got 3 million fewer votes than his opponent and he's President. He musters the audacity to act as though he has a mandate, even as his popularity swirls the bottom of the bowl.

No, Mr. President. My students do not come from shitholes. They come here looking for opportunity, looking for better lives. They come here to escape violence. And what do they get?

They get Donald Trump. Every day I wonder more and more why they come here at all, and every day Trump shows the world we're not a melting pot, but a festering heap of garbage.

Every time I see his face I feel ashamed to be an American.

New and Improved--Now With Only Sixteen Dead (So Far)

Donald Trump went to Puerto Rico, a state that's been thoroughly devastated by a natural disaster, and spoke about how great things were. You've only had sixteen deaths (so far). Fantastic! After Katrina there were over a thousand! So what if your homes are ruined? So what if you have no electricity and no water? Look on the bright side! We're doing a fantastic job!

Trump always thinks he's doing a fantastic job. Our health care program is great! Tens of millions of Americans will be without health care, but it will be available to them. All they have to do is pay a little more. For ten or twenty thousand dollars a month, everyone will have health care. And really, what's that? I mean, I go golfing every weekend at one of my private clubs, and the government pays way more than that. So what's the big whoop?

Trump is always on top of problems. If there's terrorism, let's stop Muslims from coming into the country until we know what the hell is going on. His supporters cheer. But let's base the ban on national origin rather than religion, so we don't piss off our good friends in Saudi Arabia. Of course, when some white guy takes a machine gun and randomly murders people in a crowd, or when a whole lot of mass killings are actually done by white guys, we don't ban white guys from the country until we know what the hell is going on.

Of course anyone who's been watching Trump knows he lacks the sensitivity you'd generally find in a number two pencil. I try not to watch him too much because my stomach's getting progressively weaker these days. But there he is, tossing paper towels to the crowd. Maybe next he'll go to Las Vegas and toss band aids or something. Whatever he does, he'll still be who he is, and that alone is unconscionable on multiple levels.

Sometimes I'm at meetings and some administrator will say that 98% of the teachers in our school got ratings of effective or better. My mind immediately goes to those that didn't. I know they're hearing the same thing I am, and I can only imagine how they feel. Often I need not imagine and I hear about it first hand. How would you feel sitting there and hearing you're an aberration, part of the bottom two per cent?

What if you're rated ineffective? What if it happens twice and you now have to go to some arbitrator to prove you are not incompetent? What if you're required to do this based on a system you find incomprehensible? What if you're required to do this based on a system that virtually everyone finds incomprehensible? That's a tough mountain to climb. What if it's not you, but the system that's ineffective?

For the first two years of this system, I was rated effective. My supervisor rated me highly effective, but the test scores pulled me down. I regard the scores as nonsense, so I was pretty angry at first. Then I saw teachers rated ineffective who were pulled up to developing and I felt a little better about it. My loss was their gain, and the only difference between HE and E was the chance to get one fewer observation.

This year, because of the matrix, I got similar results and was rated HE. It doesn't make me feel like I'm a better teacher. It makes me feel like this particular system works marginally better for me, and also for a lot of teachers in my building. I will grant that the matrix is likely an improvement, and that ineffective-rated teachers may come up in schools like mine. Of course, if you're in a school that gets low test scores and you also have a crazy supervisor, that's gonna be a problem.

So when UFT announces how few teachers got negative ratings, I'm not ready to jump up and do the happy dance. Unfortunately, I know exactly how those people feel. It's bad when admin releases favorable numbers like that and you aren't among them. It could be worse when you get those numbers from the union. Are those teachers really ineffective? Who knows? This particular system certainly fails to conclusively establish anything. Will people be fired as a result of two consecutive ineffective ratings? They certainly will.

Will the reformies look at the low numbers of ineffective teachers under this system and say the reforms need to be even reformier?

Bet on it.

All the Cluelessness That's Fit to Print

A few days ago, Diane Ravitch wrote about the NY Times and Trump. They oppose him, both on their editorial and op-ed pages. Ravitch gives particular attention to Charles Blow. Sometimes I like him, but not always. Ravitch herself wrote about him and how misinformed he is on the topic of reforminess. For me, once people spout reforminess, it's hard to take anything they say seriously. This is especially true when being well-informed is a crucial factor of their job description.

Of course Blow is not the only Times op-ed writer who adores all things reformy. Nicholas Kristof, like Eva Moskowitz, doesn't favor teacher certification. Now we all understand Eva wants cheap, replaceable teachers. If she could simply open up a new can every time she needed a few fresh ones, surely she'd be happy. Kristof, on the other hand, is ridiculous and illogical to the point of contending that teacher certification kept Meryl Streep and Colin Powell from becoming NYC teachers.

Have you noticed Streep and Powell coming to your school asking for work? Are their CVs on your principal's desk? Hey, I know it's a strain for Kristof to bang out 700 words twice a week. That's one heckuva burden. Perhaps all that work has addled his brain. Or maybe, just maybe, we need to be united in something more than opposition to Donald Trump.

Every reformy I know of opposes Trump. Even hyper-opportunist Eva Moskowitz was shamed into saying something negative about him after he vilified people who oppose white supremacy. But we have to be careful before we determine they're our friends. A while back I was Facebook friends with a whole lot of people who opposed Common Core. It was pretty clear, to me at least, that a lot of right-leaning people who opposed it would've embraced it had it not been pushed by Barack Obama. I mean, it was nice agreeing about Common Core, but all in all we don't see eye to eye.

I have a similar issue with opinion writers who oppose Trump but embrace all things reformy. These are people who either can't be bothered with cursory research or choose not to accept it. What's the fundamental difference between them and the climate change deniers? How are their beliefs more acceptable than those of people who think the earth was created 600 years ago, or whatever?

They don’t like Trump. We don’t like Trump. But they go along with nonsense like Common Core and charters. This is pretty much what Hillary did, and what she ran on. And this watered down wimpy nonsense is precisely what placed Donald Trump in the White House. Now they're all on their high horses, telling us how bad he is.

Truth is not a box of chocolates. You don't get to bite into one and place it back into the box half-eaten if you don't like it. There are no "alternative facts." You have to pretty much take it all, whether you like it or not, and deal with it. I voted for Hillary against Donald Trump, but I was sickened by her failure to embrace universal health care, college for all, and a living wage. Most Americans favor it, and a whole lot need it.

The point is we’re gonna have to do better in providing a vision for the future, because theirs has failed spectacularly. You can't come into an election with half-assed warmed-over platitudes and say, "Trump sucks so vote for us." More importantly, you can't present yourself as an authority and then pontificate on topics about which you know nothing.

A free press is vital to a democracy. The outrageous ignorance of NY Times columnists is most definitely one of the things that's brought us where we are today. On education, at least, their editorial staff is no better. Their education reporting, with notable exceptions, can be the very worst of any NY paper. On ATRs, it's little better than reformy Chalkbeat.

If we want to educate our children, and if we want to beat Trump and his merry band of white supremacist apologists, we're gonna need better from the "paper of record."

Steve Bannon and Eva Moskowitz Trash Talk Trump

Everyone's heard of what rats do on sinking ships, so I guess it was bound to happen. Steve Bannon, maybe on borrowed time after Trump's odd comments about him, called up a left-leaning publication on record. He said some things that make sense, i.e., that Seoul would not last very long at all in Trump's fire and fury. He also said he hoped the left kept protesting nazis, thinking it would hurt them in the polls. I didn't agree with that. I almost never watch cable news at all, but the other day I couldn't even see support for nazis on Fox News.

Of course, the other Trump enthusiast to distance herself was Moskowitz, Count on reformy Chalkbeat to shadow her every move, whether jumping on or off the Trump bandwagon. Moskowitz was under consideration for Education Secretary, because Trump needed the reformiest people, and needed to be so reformy that people would get tired of all the reforminess. (In fairness, it seems he's achieving that.)

Of course Moskowitz needed to distance herself from him at this point. Of course, she didn't need to distance herself at other points. For example, before the hoopla of the presidential campaign, Trump spent a great deal of time in his quest trying to prove our first black President, Barack Obama, was not born in the United States. In fact, even when Obama produced his birth certificate, that was not enough for Trump. It's not too hard to see this effort as overt racism, particularly since there was no basis for it whatsoever. But I digress.

Eva Moskowitz was not put off when Trump said Mexicans were rapists and murderers. I was, because I understand the odious nature of stereotypes. In fact, I grew up in a Catholic neighborhood and got to experience them very young. People who traffic in stereotypes ought not to be around children, let alone teach them. But hey, it's okay with Eva Moskowitz, and she runs a bunch of schools.

Moskowitz didn't mind when Trump incited his supporters toward violence with those who disagreed with them. It was fine when he got a bunch of angry thugs all excited. After all, it isn't like they hate her students and everything they stand for, is it? Actually, given that they're white supremacists, nazis, KKK, and whatever, it kind of is. But that didn't temper Eva's support. Go figure.

Trump didn't think a Mexican-American judge could be fair to him. He expected the judge to be just as predudiced as he was. He acted like he didn't know who David Duke was. Forget that three weeks ago he was telling police to hit the heads of suspects on their cars. No innocent before being proven guilty for him, and no issue for Eva.

Then there's that Muslim ban. Trump said we needed to stop them from coming in until we figured out just what the hell was going on. I found it odd that he was running for President and didn't already know. I mean, you kind of look to the President to tell you what the hell is going on. The President has top-secret briefings and info not available to the rest of us. Of course, Trump was too busy read those briefings, opting instead for feel good stuff about himself twice a day. So it's no wonder he doesn't know what the hell is going on.  I's kind of our job to be role models, and it's kind of our job to help kids figure out what the hell is going on. But ignoring that was good enough for Eva Moskowitz if if got her favorable treatment.

And who could forget the "grab them by the pussy" moment, followed soon by Trump's claim that no one respected women more than him. My first thought was that women are in pretty deep peril if no one respected them more than some guy who was grabbing them by the pussy. A lot of us thought that was the end for Donald Trump, but there's the PT Barnum quote that, "Nobody ever lost a dollar by underestimating the taste of the American people." And then there's the fact that Trump actually got three million fewer votes than his opponent, which kind of put the kibosh on any arguments this was a democratic election. None of that mattered to Eva Moskowitz.

Moskowitz is used to manipulating politicians for her own interests.  We all know that Joel Klein, while closing public schools rather than helping them, was at her beck and call. Of course, he's gone now. And we all know that whoredog in chief Andrew Cuomo would appear at a charter rally just about anytime as long as those suitcases of cash came barreling in. But Cuomo sensed the mood was shifting sometime during the last few years of opt-out, and decided to change his image to Sanders Lite.

So there was Eva, all alone. Who could she turn to? There was Trump. You knew he didn't give a damn about opt-out. I mean, a man who refused to criticize white supremacists and KKK was unlikely to come out against standardized testing. It seemed foolproof.

But then came the day that not even Fox News would rationalize his actions and Eva knew she'd made a mistake. So she wrote a letter. Now I can only assume she's now good with herself. She should have been "more outspoken" against all the things she evidently found completely acceptable. She also she has a book to sell.

I can't wait for reformy Chalkbeat to tell us how wonderful it is.

Where Is the Line for Donald Trump?

It's surreal. Donald Trump stands up, in front of the entire country, and suggests there is moral equivalency between nazis, white supremacists, KKK and those who protest them. He gives aid and comfort to terrorists, to those who murder people on the streets.

To their credit, a few Republicans have directly challenged him. Many have not. But almost all supported him, and all who did have blood on their hands today. And they've enabled and encouraged this for decades.

My father is 94 years old. He was in the US Army and fought in the Battle of the Bulge. And he is, therefore, part of the "alt-left" who Trump rejects. If the "alt-left" is composed of people who oppose nazis, I'm proud to be part of it.

It's unbelievable that we now see a President of the United States so undiplomatic he will and does say any damn thing that suits his purposes. While he is nominally a Republican, and while the Republicans selected and supported him, being a Republican doesn't define him. Donald Trump has the mentality and temperament of a junior high school student, and lashes out on Twitter at those who fail to tell him how wonderful he is. He's juvenile. How he did business with that mindset is a mystery to me.

Trump was unable to stick with his refutation of bigotry. He was forced to do that, and Trump cannot be forced to do anything. He's a recalcitrant child who refuses to stop eating ice cream before dinner. Trump can say some of them are good people. Here's the thing--anyone who stands with nazis and KKK is not good people. And anyone who still backs Trump is saying it's OK to wink and nod to nazis.

And maybe, in the United States of America, that's fine. On Facebook I see a lot of people saying this is the end. Well is it? When Donald Trump said Barack Obama wasn't born in the United States, I took him for a lunatic. He's done nothing to disprove it. When he came out and stereotyped Mexicans as rapists and murderers, I thought he was finished. When he said, of John McCain, "I like people who weren't captured," I thought the same. Then, of course, there was grabbing women by the pussy. Who'd have thought that was a route to the presidency?

Now the NY Post has a cover ridiculing Trump. We know Murdoch, who owns Fox News, owns the Post. What on earth does it take before America has had it with this man? What does it take before his fellow Republicans sense they've gone just a little too far?

It's hard to say. If you haven't seen the VICE mini-documentary on the Charlottesville nazi rally, do so now. Then ask yourself if this is the America you want. I'm doubtful anyone who reads this blog will see eye to eye with this President.

It was hard to imagine a President who could make George HW Bush one appear admirable. I was not a fan. Nonetheless, Bush denounced David Duke as a racist and called him unfit for office. The fact that the sitting President of the United States cannot meet even this low bar is a national disgrace.

Donald Trump is unfit for office. And if the GOP that controls Congress and the Senate doesn't impeach him, they are too. Anyone who endorses racism and bigotry needs to be out.

This is not over. The nazis, KKK, and white supremacists will be out again and again, with the tacit approval of our Bigot-in-Chief. And we will see this over and over until and unless we toss out Trump and all his enablers. 

The only question is whether We, the People are up to the challenge.

A Lesson for Neil deGrasse Tyson

I've had great respect for Neil deGrasse Tyson ever since the first time I saw him on Bill Maher's show. I mean, here's a guy, smarter than me, smarter than you, an astrophysicist, an acknowledged expert in his field, speaking the unvarnished truth. Climate change is science, and science is real. Disagreeing with it is like disagreeing with gravity. Then one day, he posts this:

The rise of flat-Earthers in society provides some of the best evidence for the failure of our educational system.

— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) July 19, 2017

Now there are certainly better interpretations of this statement. After all, there's no context here whatsoever. Is he targeting teachers? Is he targeting the system? Is he questioning Common Core, which claims to create critical thinkers but actually gets kids so accustomed to tedium they might spend several decades working at Walmart without killing themselves?

Frankly, those aren't the first thoughts that came into my mind.

The rise of non-education experts pontificating on education pretty closely parallels the rise of flat-earthers. https://t.co/VUESgglvnB

— Arthur Goldstein (@TeacherArthurG) July 23, 2017

How long have we been reading nonsense from Bill Gates? Does it precede the nonsense from Donald Trump? It's hard to say, but for me it's like stereo. Gates nonsense in the right ear and Trump in the left. A frustrating cacophony of garbage, spread through the entire United States. And not by teachers, but rather by a strangely incurious press. In a country where Fox passes as news and millions view it voluntarily, we have issues. But were they taught that in schools? Aren't teachers regularly vilified for being too "liberal?"

Massive unaddressed poverty cannot be addressed by the educational system, despite the best efforts of flat-earthers like @FakeBetsyDeVos. https://t.co/VUESgglvnB

— Arthur Goldstein (@TeacherArthurG) July 23, 2017

Teachers in the United States are expected to singlehandedly overcome impossible home issues. Gates pretty much gave up on poverty, saying he couldn't fix that, but rather he could fix education. Of course he couldn't do that either. And what he's left us with is a junk science system under which we are judged by standardized test scores, a system deemed invalid by Tyson-level experts like Diane Ravitch and the American Statistical Association. Of course, Tyson himself doesn't seem to know that.

Flat-earthers ignore science just as educational reformies ignore research. But fine, blame the schools. Just like Trump and Trump Jr. https://t.co/VUESgglvnB

— Arthur Goldstein (@TeacherArthurG) July 23, 2017

Hey, everyone else does. Go ahead. Put out that statement, offer no context, and let everyone see it. You're an expert so you must be right. Never mind that it's well out of your field of expertise. Who could possibly take it the wrong way?

Glad to have you on board! Do you need a job? https://t.co/Rrj8FLPUi9

— Fake Betsy DeVos (@FakeBetsyDeVos) July 23, 2017

Really, Dr. Tyson, when you write things like that, you may as well be part of Team Trump. They're going to bend or break union so that working people can't organize. Do you seriously expect quelling teacher voice to ultimately benfit education? And just in case it's escaped your attention, teachers are pretty much the last bastion of vibrant unionism in these United States.

I can't read your mind, but a whole lot of people read your tweets. If you don't provide context, people will fill it in for themselves. In fact, poverty accounts for a whole lot of America's educational standing. Despite the nonsense propagated by Gates, and blindly promoted by Obama in the form of Race to the Top, education alone will not solve the issue.

And with all due respect, Dr. Tyson, if you aren't part of the solution, you're part of the problem.

Summer Assignment--Wake the Sleeping Giant

Congratulations to all my colleagues who've earned a break today. We have a few months off, and we need it. So go take a trip. Or go to the beach. Or stay home and do whatever makes you happy. Lots of principals will say you do that to return refueled and recharged. In September they'll all say how excited they are to be back. Sometimes I believe them, but other times I don't.

But make no mistake, we are at war. Barack Obama and Arne Duncan degraded our profession by taking suitcases of money from reformies, and consequently pushing for teachers to be rated by junk science. They also insisted on the proliferation of charter schools, which are largely non-union workhouses for recent college grads (or not) who may put up with it a year or two. They paved the way for Trump and DeVos.

An issue with no union is you're on your own. This is a bad place to be when the supervisors and principals are thirty years old if you're lucky. If their main qualification is having hacked the miserable charter gig for a year longer than anyone else, it doesn't precisely speak to their leadership qualities.

There is absolutely no doubt that's the model Donald Trump, Betsy DeVos and the largely insane US Supreme Court wish to replicate. They've had it with all this career stuff. Pensions are outdated. Better to have a 401K, hope for the best, and find out what the most edible brand of cat food is for your golden years.

The only road ahead for us is paved with activism. I'm hoping to impress this on union leadership as well. So far, though, they're worried about offending people who like Donald Trump. The problem, though, is that people who like Donald Trump actually support this stuff. I don't know how, exactly. Last night I was at a retirement party talking to a retired teacher who supports Trump. He was telling me how wonderful retirement was, and how via this and that he actually brings in more money by not working than by working.

I pointed out that, whatever Fox News may have said on the subject, all of his heroes oppose his retirement. They oppose his health care. I'd argue they oppose his fundamental dignity, though we didn't get to that point. Oddly, he acknowledged all that, but didn't want to dwell on it. What he wanted to discuss was why I blocked him on Facebook.

I did that because, though I long tolerated and responded to his frequent use of ad hominem and strawman attacks on me and my beliefs, I found it beyond the pale when he used them on one of my Muslim colleagues. She's a mom who is fearful for her children since the advent of Trump. I understand that. I told Fox-following friend that she sent her kids to Muslim schools and worried for their safety. His wondered what they taught in those places. I wondered what they taught in all religious schools.

He says not all Trump supporters are racists. I'm sure that's true, though I'd argue that anyone who supported Orange Man is more tolerant of racism and bigotry than I am. I'd also argue, though, that all or most racists are Trump supporters, and that this is not remotely coincidental.

I'd say the hatred toward ethnic groups is one and the same with hatred toward union and good jobs.

We need to oppose all of it. We need to do so publicly and vocally. We need to wake up the sleeping giant that is our membership. Public School Proud is nice, but not remotely enough. If you don't think we're in crisis, you aren't paying attention.

A friend of mine says there are only two problems with the UFT--the membership and the leadership. Our challenge now is awakening and activating both, and we've got our work cut out for us.

Charter Logic

It's old news that NY State tends to give Eva Moskowitz a blank check for whatever. First of all, she doesn't need to follow no stinking rules for pre-K. Reformies make a big thing out of talking about "public charter schools," but the only time they're really public is when they've got their hands in your pockets. Once they have your money, they do whatever they damn please.

There's a whole lot of talk about mayoral control, and why or why not Bill de Blasio deserves it. I don't support mayoral control, as it's been an unmitigated disaster for city students and teachers. For years I attended PEP meetings where entire communities spoke in defense of their schools. Bloomberg's stooges sat there and played with their Blackberries as we wasted our breath. Meanwhile, the shell game of shuffling kids from one building to another and closing the schools they entered continued unabated.

When de Blasio was elected, I thought maybe mayoral control wouldn't be so bad. After all, he ran opposing charter schools. But when he denied the Moskowitz Monster increased space, the reformies brought suitcases of cash to Albany and bought themselves a law that NYC would have to pay rent for charters if it denied them space. So basically, mayoral control was absolute with a reformy mayor but modified when anyone not frothing at the mouth took the office.

In short, who needs it? Why does de Blasio even want it? He and Cuomo can complain about how irresponsible it is to have more democracy in school boards, and UFT leadership can join them in that chorus. But teachers and students are certainly not better off with mayoral control. Without it we may not have seen so many comprehensive high schools dismantled rather than improved. In fact, we wouldn't have seen such a weakening in union as schools were staffed with newbies justifiably afraid to stand up.

Meanwhile, the charters needed to get something. So what does Eva need? Evidently, the way to put children first is to get rid of all those inconvenient teacher certification requirements. Why should Eva's teachers have to bother learning how to write lesson plans when they just have them handed to them and do any damn thing they're told? After all, you're lucky if they last an entire school year, and with the incredible churn this makes for uniformity. Better to have someone following a recipe than actually creating a lesson. That's what you want from a role model for your children, isn't it? As long as they pass the tests?

Here's a fact you won't be reading in any of the NY papers--anyone who can't get a job working for the DOE gets one in a charter. Discontinued? No problem. Suspended without pay from the DOE? We welcome you with open arms. Now I'm not saying that people who are in these circumstances necessarily merit them (having seen seen the DOE go after people for no good reason once or twice) . But isn't it ironic that you read all this crap from Eva's astroturf buddies, "Families for Excellent Schools," about how awful we are, and how the DOE needs more power to get rid of us--yet when they do get rid of us, they're the first ones to grab us up and put us to work?

There is an effort to marginalize our profession. That's why outfits like TFA are happy to grab up Ivy League do-gooders and have them educate the bootless and unhorsed for a few years before they get Real Jobs administering Daddy's hedge fund, or whatever. That's why reformy Belweather, under the guise of helping us, unashamedly attacks our pensions with false claims. And that's a good part of why Moskowitz and her BFFs want to hire less qualified teachers even as they claim to be saving the children from the scourge of unionized career teachers.

The other part, of course, is that they don't want to deal with people full of independent thought. Better to grab them right out of college before they develop a voice. And I guess that's good if we're raising children to be complacent Walmart employees.

I want something better for our children, not only now but also when they grow up. That's why I support union and oppose charter schools. Trump and Obama and Duncan and Gates and all the folks who run schools can talk all day about charters and "choice." But the only choice I want for our kids is the choice to send them to the same kinds of schools to which our leaders send their own kids. I want schools with small class sizes, with ample supplies and decent facilities. I want schools that educate the whole child rather than test prep.

It needs to be about what our kids need, not just whatever Eva wants.

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.

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.

Something's Fishy in the USA

How does Fox News hook people and keep them hooked? And why can't anyone on the left manage to do anything remotely close? These are tough questions. I've read entire books that try to answer them and come away still shaking my head. What worthwhile endeavor on earth can working people expect from Donald Trump?  Sure, he'll stand there and say he cares about you, but he doesn't precisely put his money where his mouth is. In fact, it looks more like he puts his money where his money is.

How do coal miners watch him spend millions of federal dollar weekending at his 200K per head Florida resort and think, "This guy is gonna make my life better"? Well, here's a guy who keeps a life-sized cardboard cutout of Donald Trump and wishes him well each and every day. I wonder if he drives with him in the HOV lane.

Anytime you have fanatical ideologues you will hear things that amaze and disturb you. Their religion is the best. If you don't join, you're going to hell. Their ideology is the only one that's right, and it doesn't matter if their leaders are wrong. So what if they live in a golden penthouse while you live in a shack? That's just a temporary thing, and any day you'll be living in a penthouse too. That's why it's wise to keep taxes low for the rich. Sure, it's inconvenient now, but you never know.

What was really stupid was getting rid of the Fairness Doctrine, which eventually enabled Fox News. Now people can sit in front of it and tell themselves how smart and cool they are. Oddly, when I was in East Berlin in the 80s, they sold Pravda on every corner and no one bought it. If the folks running Fox ran Pravda the wall would never have come down.

I can't watch Fox for any length of time without hurling things at the television, a practice my wife very much frowns upon. Also, I have more than enough things to go crazy about in my real life, and I don't really much need any more. One of them is Donald Trump. I literally wake up in the middle of the night, think that he's President, and can't get back to sleep.

I'm not sure what exactly you need to believe to be a Trump supporter. It's hard for me to understand xenophobia, as I work with kids from every corner of the earth and it's one of the greatest joys of my life. But we're afraid of what we don't understand. When I see, "Make America Great Again," it looks very much like, "Make America White Again." I don't like to assume that people are racist or bigoted, but it's tough for me to imagine they aren't.

What the hell is it that this man does well? He can't open his mouth without jamming his foot into it. He watches crap about Sweden on Fox and all of a sudden the whole country is on fire. Politifact has him at 50% false. I don't know about you, but I don't find that remotely inspiring in a leader. And his famous thin skin, which causes him to criticize the press when it dares to tell the truth, is particularly disturbing.

The very worst thing about Donald Trump, though, is that his need for adulation could easily provoke him to war. That's the best way for him to rationalize doing what he wants to do, and making it unpatriotic to criticize him. I don't actually think he'll select China, as he and Ivanka make money producing their cheap crap over there. But you never know--he could decide he needs the press to shut up, and may think martial law is worth producing Donald Trump ties in Bangladesh, or even (perish forbid) Mexico.

Americans have already died in the service of Donald Trump, and I see no evidence that he wouldn't send thousands of our young people to the same fate in order to comfort his sensitive ego. Hopefully even the GOP will see what a bad bargain it's made and remove this dangerous evil clown from office sooner rather than later.

The Man in the High Castle (and Us)

Unlike my daughter, I'm not prone to binge watching TV shows. But upon seeing ads for season 2 of The Man in the High Castle I felt it my duty to check out season one. I have no idea why. But once I started, I couldn't stop watching. in fact I resented having to go to work because it was interfering with my viewing priorities.

The series imagines that America had lost the war against Germany and Japan, and that the US had been apportioned between them, with a neutral zone in the middle. Evidently the neutral zone is a place where people hang out in bars and listen to country music. It sounds like a better place than the rest, even if country music is not your thing.

The east coast is the property of the Nazis, who have heartwarming family get-togethers like the one pictured above before tossing their guests in prisons or threatening their lives. The west is under Japanese rule, and we see the revised America through the eyes of Juliana, an everywoman who happens to have convenient skills in martial arts.

I guess the reason it grabs me so much is I'm having a lot of trouble distinguishing from the fictitious American leaders and the real ones. You know Donald Trump wants a compliant media, one that will tell the country how wonderful and handsome and smart he is, and refrain from criticizing him when he spouts outrageous lies. You know he hates it when those troublesome courts reverse his selective travel bans. He was just being celebrated by his voters for keeping out, you know, those people, and if he broke up families and left green card holders in the lurch, well, too bad for them.

It's interesting to see how the Japanese on one side have disdain for the Caucasians, while the Nazis on the other side see the Japanese as savages. It's interesting how they kind of play against each other and plot against each other. Evidently once insane bigots mostly wipe out the one group they need to hate, they easily find another. It's always easier to get through life when you have one particular group you can blame for all your issues, and when you need not take responsibility for anything whatsoever.

When you're a despot, though, and you still have a free press, that's pretty discouraging.

Somebody with aptitude and conviction should buy the FAKE NEWS and failing @nytimes and either run it correctly or let it fold with dignity!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 29, 2017

Doubtless Hitler and Stalin didn't have those worries. Truth means nothing to Donald Trump, or Adolf Hitler, or any power-mad lunatic. No doubt Trump would be delighted to establish a state-run press and dispense with all those inconvenient folks who report the truth. The thing is, though, it's kind of on us. We need to keep standing up to him and his thugs. Because in Trumptopia, the truth is just an inconvenience, and Donald J. Trump can tweet petty nonsense to the cheers of his potential brownshirts. Make no mistake, that's what it's about. Just saying this stuff is false is not enough.

I'm happy to see Americans rising up against the nonsense in major cities across the country. I was proud to participate in the Women's March, and I'll be proud to continue to stand up against Donald J. Trump anywhere and everywhere I can. I hope you'll join me.

The thing about  The Man in the High Castle is it's  frighteningly real. You watch the show, you read the news, and it's hard to tell where the show ends and reality begins. I haven't found a TV show so compelling since The Wire. If you can find time to watch only one show this year, make it this one. If you haven't yet determined why it's so absolutely urgent to take a stand against Trump and his goons, a few hours of this will lead you to the answer.

We have to be really careful how we approach this. Trump doesn't love it when we ridicule him or call him stupid, because he's got a 7th grade mentality. But to his supporters, when we call them stupid we become the enemy. One of Hillary's worst errors, aside from running in the first place, was labeling voters "deplorables." This gave them a rallying cry, and I saw, "I'm a deplorable" posted on lawns of Trump supporters.

Hopefully the press will stand tall and do their job. If not, our job is going to be a whole lot harder in the weeks, months, and years to come. 

Schools Flush With Cash, Says Donald Trump

I'm sitting in an office at 7 AM by myself writing this. I do this because there's no one here at this hour. Sometimes I do planning at this time. No one bothers me because almost no one has to be here until 8. I keep ridiculous hours and may fall down and sleep at 8 PM. As chapter leader I actually have a shared office, but it's in a pretty noisy part of the building and kids are always walking in and out to talk to my office mate.

I spent 12 years teaching in a trailer. The first time, I got dumped there. But I couldn't help but notice it was a full-size classroom. This was an improvement from the half classrooms I'd been dumped in, and also from the bowling alley shaped converted custodian work spaces. It was an improvement on my room in the music wing where the guy next door blasted Flight of the Valkyries every single day. It was tough teaching English with that going on.

My school is now at 214% capacity, the most overcrowded in the city. That's because, believe it or not, community residents like us. I'm certainly grateful for that, because were that not the case, Bloomberg would have closed us down first chance he got. I'd be a wandering ATR, visiting schools all over the borough and reflecting on what it's like to be a teacher without a class. For the record, I love teaching but hate subbing. I would be one very unhappy ATR, even though it would give me a whole lot of primo blogging material.

Our PE teachers are gladiators, teaching up to 500 students a week. Some genius in Albany wrote a new requirement that makes it very tempting for principals to offer PE half time, and we of course are doing it. I have no idea how the teachers even learn anyone's name. I have no idea how on earth, other than who shows up, they are supposed to assess these kids. I'm sure there's some idiotic rubric somewhere with instructions for them to follow. I'm also certain it's written by someone who doesn't teach ten classes of fifty students a week.

In our school, what with being at 214% capacity and all, we can't actually fit all our PE classes in the gyms. So a whole lot of them are outside. Unless of course, it rains or snows, or is too cold to hold classes. In fact I've seen classes out there on very cold days. I've seen them out there in the dark. I wonder how many times Donald Trump Jr. had to run around in the dark. I'm guessing never.

Then there are the facilities we are forced to use. I've already mentioned the trailers and the odd shaped classrooms. I forgot the converted bookrooms with no windows, the half rooms in which cheating becomes a virtual national pastime, and the ones with windows overlooking the fragrant dumpsters.

And let's not overlook the oversized classes. Let's first establish that NYC has the highest class sizes in the state already. Then come to my school, bursting at the seams, where new kids walk in each and every day and administration simply cannot figure out how the hell to come into compliance. I'm trying to help, and I am getting very good support from UFT right now.

There's probably more to say, and I'm sure I'm living in the lap of luxury compared to Detroit, but I'll leave it at that. For Donald Trump to say schools are "flush with cash," I'd say he's delusional, but it's more likely he's just telling another ridiculous lie to justify his agenda, one in which reason and common sense play no part whatsoever.

Where Do We Go From Here?

I had an amazing adventure yesterday at the NYC Women's March with my brother ESL teacher/ UFT chapter leader Patrick James Walsh. We met early on, and wandered over to where we thought UFT would be. Usually UFT gives a t-shirt or something so that we can be seen and identified as a group, but for the first time in my memory that didn't happen. I certainly hope that wasn't part of the "Let's Not Name Trump" campaign. It's foolhardy for us to stand around and pretend, say, that it's Pence making decisions so we can just drop Trump's name from everything and that no one, therefore, will suspect we oppose him. Do we oppose him? Judging by leadership, who knows?

Patrick and I got stuck in a crowd and it got pretty scary pretty quickly. Forty-five minutes after the march was supposed to begin we were crammed in like sardines with no movement in sight. This looked to be potentially dangerous. Eventually, this being a women's march after all, we followed some brave women and spent maybe twenty minutes extricating ourselves from the crowd. We attributed these issues to bad planning, but in retrospect it's more likely because turnout was so massive. Even as we were no longer part of the directed march, the march was everywhere, on every street and avenue. Neither of us had ever seen anything like it in our lives.

Whatever else may have happened. I'm 100% sure Saturday was not a good day for the incredibly thin-skinned Donald J. Trump. Millions of people all over the world marched, and none were doing so to thank him for grabbing pussies, for offering to deport Muslims, for adopting anti-Semitic
slogans, or even for the ever-popular vilification of teachers and public schools. Upping his meds might be in order though I've seen little evidence he takes them  as needed, or even at all.

I am in awe of the volume and power of people who came out to send a message to this tyrant in training, and my sincere hope is that it continues both in volume and frequency. Nonetheless, while we have the quantity, we're going to have to make sure our message keeps up with quality. It's not entirely the fault of Donald Trump that he managed to take the White House. There are, of course, the swing state voters. And there's Putin and his wacky antics. There's that guy Comey, who saw fit to publicly bandy about unsubstantiated allegations during a Presidential campaign. There's Hillary herself and her decision to use that server, whatever that may or may not imply.

But the most important part of this last election, for me at least, was none of the above. The most important factor was our decision to run an underwhelming and uninspiring candidate, one whose
primary message was More of the Same. More of the same mediocre policy that ignored the needs of the American people. More of the "best we could do" nonsense that leaves millions of Americans without health care. More of the "Oh well," philosophy of shrugging your shoulders when Americans can't make a living or send their kids to college.

Even now, the same people who called me crazy for supporting Bernie Sanders muster the audacity to lecture me about 1972. How long will those folks heed the lesson of 1972 without learning the lesson to 2016--that the same warmed-over nonsense no longer flies in this country? While Hillary Clinton is not as flawed as Donald Trump, she was simply no prize. Americans don't want someone to be President simply because she doesn't foam at the mouth when she speaks. We want a leader who will help us leave a
better country for our children. We want someone bold and inspiring. A lot of American's mistook Donald Trump for that person, and a lot of Americans will soon suffer from buyer's remorse if they haven't begun already.

Our own United Federation of Teachers is a microcosm of America. Our leadership still fumbles around, terrified they'll offend people by the mention of the Trump name. This, even as millions of American's rose up against him. They had no message for this march, nothing to distinguish us. When we, the teachers, stand up and demand improvements they tell us we improved things five decades ago and that ought to be good enough for anyone. They give us messages so mixed that we have no idea what they stand for, what they stood for, or what they plan for the future. They criticize top-down thinking and demand transparency from others, but operate in complete secrecy and share little or nothing. They know better than us, and it's our job to sit down, shut up, and follow.

And in that, they embody the very worst qualities of both Clinton and Trump. We need to do better all around, for both our union and our country.

I Don't Do This for My Health

We live in a funny place, but not many of us can afford to laugh. I may have had a disparaging word for the steep rise in co-pays we've faced this year, but relatively, they're not nearly as bad as they could be. I have to now think twice before spending 50 bucks at an urgent care, but usually when you or a family member need a place like that, 50 bucks is the last thing on your mind. The real issues are the fact that Mulgrew never presented this to us when selling the contract, and we have no idea how many more add-on costs will pop up these next few years.

We're the only wealthy nation that doesn't guarantee health care for its citizens. As if that isn't bad enough, the new GOP leadership is getting ready to roll back the few improvements Obamacare achieved. I've read a lot of complaints about it. There are high deductibles, for example, and high premiums. Nonetheless, there may be fewer bankruptcies over catastrophic medical emergency, and fewer homes being sold to pay crippling hospital bills. I learned that this was a thing decades ago, and it's remarkable that we've allowed it to continue.

When I was in college at SUNY New Paltz, I played weekends in a band. Most of our work was in Queens. I would hitchhike or take buses and trains on weekends, go to work, and come back. One of my band members was in Queens too. We would stay at his house sometimes. His mom had some issue, and lost first her leg and then her life as a result.

My friend's dad had to sell his house to pay doctor bills. He moved into the basement of the home of one of his sons. One Christmas he took a gun and blew his brains out. That was the first time I started to think our health system, to say the very least, was not all that good. In fact, it began to look unconscionable at that point, and time hasn't done much of anything to change my mind. While Obamacare was far from ideal, it was the first and only improvement on a system designed to enrich insurance companies rather than help working Americans.

The first time I got health insurance myself was when I became a teacher. I think at that time you had to wait six months before you took out insurance. Either that or no one told me I was eligible. In any case, I was at John F. Kennedy High School, and I asked my chapter leader what insurance I should get. He didn't want to tell me, saying he couldn't be responsible and this and that. I pressed him, though, and he told me to get GHI with CBP. I did, and I still have it.

Before I got this chapter leader job, I spent a lot of time playing music when I wasn't at school. To ensure I would never make any money at all doing this, I chose to play bluegrass fiddle. Another really cool thing about doing this is that almost no one in this area even wants to hear it, so I'd travel a lot to New Jersey and Pennsylvania. One Sunday I had a job playing in a historic theater in Pennsylvania. We were opening for the late James King and his band.

The folks who hired us sent us out to lunch down the block from the theater. I remember that I sat with his banjo player. He was the only person in his band who appeared to be in good physical shape. I'd brought my family, and I remember that the banjo player and I both ordered Reuben sandwiches.

Later in the week I got a call. The banjo player experienced chest pains on Monday. Knowing that a visit to the ER would've run him thousands of dollars, a number of dollars that not a whole lot of bluegrass musicians have, he decided to tough it out. The next day he died.

How could this happen? If he lived in Canada, in Europe, in any other wealthy country in the world he'd almost certainly be around today. But he isn't. Back when I was heavily into this bluegrass thing, I'd often hear news about a benefit somewhere for some professional musician or other. These were not weekend warriors like me, but rather folks who were out on the road doing this all the time. How could our country not support artists? In fact, how could we not support everyone?

Obamacare made some improvements. No one gets excluded for existing medical conditions. Kids were covered under parent plans until 26. It did away with plans that didn't meet a minimum standard. It helped some people who needed financial assistance. But it still relied on private insurance companies focused on profit rather than people. And the GOP refused to work toward improving it, focusing rather on killing it and moving us back toward the nothing we had earlier.

Now they pull all the levers of power and their plan appears to be to kill it and tell us all to sink or swim. While anyone with the option will choose the latter, not all will be able to afford it. As if that weren't enough, they want to roll back Social Security and Medicare. Me, I can't believe anyone would vote for these people. I can't believe they persuade anyone with a job they have their interests at heart. But Fox News is a thing, people watch it, and they believe what they say. Some people don't need no stinking facts and won't be swayed by them either.

What we really need is single-payer, which seems to work better than our system everywhere it's used.  Most Americans agree. So how can we allow Donald Trump, Paul Ryan, and all their flying monkeys actively work against our interests?

More importantly, what can we do now to advance the agenda we actually prefer?

Right to Citizenship

Here we are in 2017, and I sincerely wish you all a joyous new year. My hopes for the new year are a little muted, professionally at least. For one thing, my union is still run by an insular group of people with astoundingly poor judgment, and no amount of egregious errors will persuade them they've ever made even the tiniest of mistakes. There are a lot of people who will cheer their actions no matter what their implications, and most of them are on the payroll one way or another.

I go to meetings and watch certain people roll their eyes as we speak, but I am nonetheless a staunch supporter of union. Leadership can roll their eyes when we speak, and invent ridiculous excuses for their lack of commitment, but those of us in opposition understand the value of union. That's why we see "right to work" as such a scam. And make no mistake, those who opt out of paying for union services hurt all of us.

The idea of right to work is that no one should be forced to join a union. That idea is absurd because no one is ever forced to join a union. They can opt out, but if they do they still have to pay a fee for services union provides for all. Those services include negotiating on our behalf. Now I will admit that I don't think UFT leadership does a very good job at this. But on the other hand, they keep getting elected and it is not entirely their fault that three out of four UFT members can't be bothered to check a box and walk to a mailbox to vote.

Of course it's your right and mine to disagree with leadership. You may have even seen me doing so once or twice on this space. Nonetheless, union is our right, organizing is our right, and going hat in hand to ask Mike Bloomberg or Rudy Giuliani for a raise is not anything I'd want to do alone. Right to work supporters disagree. They think they should reap whatever benefit there is from union membership and that payment for such benefits ought to be optional.

If that is what's right, that is what's right. In fact, incoming President Donald J. Trump supports "right to work" as well, and he plans to appoint Supreme Court justices who will make it national policy. Now perhaps you believe that is a good thing. Perhaps you believe that Donald J. Trump is looking out for working people when he does stuff like this. If you believe that, I congratulate you, because you are surely in a better state of mind to begin 2017 than I am.

Of course, based on that line of thought, as someone who supports Donald J. Trump not at all, I ought to be able to opt out of paying taxes. It is really inconvenient to see all those deductions on my paycheck. Since I don't support "right to work," since I don't support any Trump position I can call to mind, and since I don't expect him to represent me or anyone I care about, I ought to be able to opt out of federal taxes. After all, Trump seems not to have payed them. The problem is, though, that he still seems to think I should pay. That's unfair, of course.

But aside from the fact that he has one set of rules for himself and another for working people, if I can't be compelled to pay union dues, I ought not to be compelled to pay taxes either. If there is no responsibility attached to being part of one community, why should there be any attached to another? If I can rightfully expect the United Federation of Teachers to work on my behalf with compensation being optional, why can't I expect the same of the United States of America?

The answer, of course, is that people like Donald J. Trump don't want us to organize against ideas that hurt us. They do want us, however, to be compelled to support the very same government that fights against our interests and impedes our right to organize. If you support "right to work," you may as well support more work for less pay. I don't support that, and I therefore don't support the legislative priorities of Donald J. Trump.

But he's out to weaken us and our unions, and there's no way he's gonna let us off the hook for supporting such counterproductive priorities. Because he and his BFFs are so incredibly greedy and selfish, they don't even understand that hurting and discouraging a middle class is not healthy for this country. As long as he doesn't have to pay taxes, he couldn't care less about those of us who do.

If you believe that weakening union via disingenuous policies like "right to work" are the way to go, and you think paying taxes is different in any way whatsoever, you're laboring under a serious misconception. When Donald J. Trump makes federal taxes optional for all of us, instead of just billionaires like himself, then I'll be happy to listen to him extol the virtues of optional union membership.

Until that moment, you know as well as I do that he's moving us back to the 19th century and that we're gonna have to repeat struggles we thought were over for decades just to get back where we were last November.

Zero Tolerance for Paladino, But Let's Pretend Trump Doesn't Exist

Today I received an email from NYSUT Executive Vice President Andy Pallotta. It demanded the removal of the vile racist Carl Paladino from the Buffalo School Board. I am personally not a fan of vile racism, and I'd be happy to see Carl gone yesterday. This notwithstanding, it's no surprise that Paladino spews toxic bigotry, and the fact is we've known about it for years.

There's a petition to remove Paladino, and the email asks you to sign it. I'd already done so, and if you haven't, you may do so right here. We are public servants, and as such it behooves us to have zero tolerance for racism and bigotry of any kind. How can we serve New York's children unless we fight those who'd discriminate against them based on their skin color, nationality, sex, or religion?

We are advocates for children, and as such we fight the good fight.

Unless, of course, we're UFT leadership. Then it's a different story. UFT leadership is determined not to even mention the name of racist President-elect Donald J. Trump. Instead, we are to attribute his hatred and bias to the Presidential Election.

I could draw a lot of conclusions about people who are afraid to say what we all know. In their defense, they'd say they are concerned about alienating the Trump voters. Evidently they are less concerned about alienating those of us who find racism, sexism and bigotry unconscionable. They are less concerned about alienating UFT high school teachers, who chose candidates who believe in speaking forthrightly and naming names. They are less concerned about alienating 11,000 UFT voters who oppose the counterproductive "seat at the table" politics that brought us President Donald J. Trump.

Before one of the first Executive Board meetings I attended, I was approached by a teacher who asked about leaving the union. I told him there was some paperwork involved, but he could easily do it. He then told me he didn't want to pay dues. I told him to vote for Donald Trump and he said he would. That's who UFT leadership is concerned about appeasing.

You and me, not so much.

Meanwhile, as we contemplate the coming new year, here's a poem:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

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?