Hamlet and Randi

When I first started this blog in 05, I started to learn a lot about my union. I started it with the intent of offsetting the insane nonsense I regularly read about public schools. While I thought the 02 contract was poorly conceived, giving time for money when we could later get zeros that would make us end up working for free, I didn't have much idea about UFT history or leadership.

Then the 05 contract hit, and I could not believe how absolutely awful it was. Along with others, like Chaz, Paul Rubin, and James Eterno, I went to war in the comments section of Edwize, the now moribund UFT blog. It was ironic because I had just negotiated the notion of writing on Edwize and had thought of scrapping this blog in favor of writing for UFT. I had been published a few times in NY Teacher and it seemed like a good idea.

I found I was the enemy, to be welcomed with some of the most inane ad hominem nonsense I'd ever seen. I was pretty shocked that the great minds of my union couldn't muster real arguments.

I became pretty nasty too, and for years said the most awful things about then-UFT President Randi Weingarten and her staunch defender Leo Casey. I'm not quite as nasty as I used to be, and I try not to get so personal as I used to. Still, I'm amazed at the absolute audacity of this political machine, and I now know it entails not only UFT, but also NYSUT and AFT. They are either wholly subsidiaries of UFT, or perhaps of Randi herself. I can't tell. Maybe someone out there can.

So there is a machine, and it does something, but I'm not entirely sure what. Diane Ravitch posted that Randi was not voting for Cuomo, but later had to modify the headline. Randi said something like she was voting all WFP, but that she was not beginning with the top of the ticket. A clever commenter suggested perhaps she was beginning at the bottom, and in fact nowhere did she explicitly say she was not voting for the alleged Democrat who just called public schools a monopoly.

It's pretty clear to me that Randi's a polished politician and I'm not. I mean, I can't understand why we supported mayoral control the first time, let alone after it proved an unmitigated disaster and we failed to amend it. I don't know why we support charter schools or Common Core. It's a mystery to me why we partnered with Steve Barr and brought Green Dot to NY, particularly when he thanked us by working for parent trigger. I don't know why Bill Gates was keynote at AFT, particularly when he thanked us by trashing our pensions as soon as he walked out. Though Randi now opposes VAM, she's supported multiple agreements to use it, including ours.

Mostly, I have no idea why we scuttled Zephyr Teachout's bid to take the WFP nomination. We managed to deprive New Yorkers of a great choice for a truly progressive candidate, we managed to show that Revive NYSUT's claims of opposing Cuomo were ridiculous nonsense, and we managed to place WFP below the truly progressive Green Party, if not off the ballot altogether.

So Randi clearly takes much more nuanced positions than I do, and spends a great deal of time thinking about them, pondering the possibilities, considering all sides, and perhaps even more sides than all sides. I look at things that hurt working teachers, and say, "Who needs that?" I can't look at them and say, "Well, maybe it's not that bad. Let's try it." Of course, not being a mind reader, I have no idea whether or not Randi thinks that either.

But I'd love to know why on earth she couldn't just say outright, "Andrew Cuomo is a despicable, unprincipled, disingenuous opportunistic thug and I won't vote for him."

If anyone knows, please clue me in. I'm all ears.

Related: Perdido Street weighs in.

Working Families Party--Maintaining the Status Cuomo

I'm pretty disappointed to read that the Working Families Party is leaning toward a Cuomo endorsement, and even more disappointed to see that UFT is helping to make it happen. The more I observe the zany antics of our insular leadership, the more I wonder what the hell it is they're trying to accomplish. It's not like they're trying to get us better working conditions, as they subject most teachers to 80 minutes of PD every Monday. While Fariña may find that a great notion, she clearly has not experienced what passes for PD in most city schools.

Andrew Cuomo's proud achievement is a tax cap that limits most school budgets to a cap of 2% or rate of inflation, whatever is lower. Concurrently he's running a Gap Elimination Adjustment that cuts state aid all over the state. Consequently, most districts cannot compensate locally for the budget cuts our "student lobbyist" has imposed. It's disastrous and has resulted in the loss of thousands of teaching and education-related jobs. It's hurt schoolchildren all over the state.

Here in NYC, Cuomo ran roughshod over our democratically elected mayor, Bill de Blasio, who promised a halt to school closings and an end to the blank check given privatizers like Eva Moskowitz. UFT did nothing as the heretofore inviolate mayoral control was stopped in its tracks. In NY State, mayoral control seems to apply only if you're accomplishing the DFER agenda.

The only alternative for us right now is the Green Party, currently running Howie Hawkins and NYC's own Brian Jones. I voted for Howie last time, and I was happy to see they procured themselves a place on the ballot. Unless the WFP surprises us a lot today, that's where I'm going this year too.

I don't delude myself that they're going to win. But don't fool yourself into thinking that Rob Astorino is a good deal either. Right now anti-union icon Scott Walker is doing fundraising for Astorino, and you can bet he isn't doing it because Astorino is a friend of unions.

I'm not entirely sure why we put in our lot with Democrats anymore. It used to be we didn't really need a Labor party, but those days are gone. What's worse is labor itself, as represented by UFT leadership, doesn't appear to support labor either.

Update: Drama is over, and Cuomo is their nominee.