Happy Independence Day

I wish everyone reading this blog a safe and joyous holiday. We call it the Fourth of July but it's really a day we celebrate liberation and independence. This is something we sorely need, what with a raving lunatic in charge of the country.

On this Independence Day, union is pretty much under assault. In Texas, already a "right to work" state, they're moving to stop payroll deductions for those who choose to remain in the union. Note that this is only for teachers, and not for police officers.

This mirrors actions in Wisconsin, where Governor Scott What's His Name eliminated collective bargaining, except for police and firefighters. He rationalized this with some nonsense about public safety being important, which clearly implies public education is not. It's more likely that he was concerned about being protected when the rabble came out with torches and pitchforks. You know, in North Korea a lot of people go hungry, but not the military.

And this is where we find ourselves on Independence Day 2017. Orange Man is attacking the press as fake news with clips from wrestling, a fake sport. This is what occupies our time and our news. It's nice that we have one day a year blowing up stuff, even though in doing so we drive our canine friends out of their minds. Likely, though, they'll get over it tomorrow.

We, on the other hand, are stuck in a more complicated and long-term mess. Our union is already fragile, and national leaders, having expertly stolen the Supreme Court, are poised to push it off a cliff. Our pensions are under attack from reformies nationally, many posing as Democrats. You can hardly tell whether they are fake Democrats or Democrats are real reformies. While I sadly lean toward the latter, it doesn't much matter because we find ourselves in exactly the same place.

The question becomes not only where do we go from here, but also how bad do things have to get before we rouse ourselves from our indifferent slumber? Take a look at Puerto Rico, just a little bit farther down the road than we are. Over there they face massive school closures, and they've just been told their pensions are no more.

Could that happen here? Absolutely. And how will we face it? Will we continue to put on a tie and ask for that seat at the table? Will we wear a few buttons that say we're Public School Proud? Or will we take to the streets and tell them no more?

Eventually we'll need to move toward the latter, and the sooner the better. A whole lot of Americans are no more awake than we are. 

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.

Will Obama Sacrifice Labor for a SCOTUS Pick?

I have some friends who support Hillary. Passionately. In fact, some of them support her so passionately that they cannot bear to hear that some of us will not vote for her. The biggest argument is Supreme Court nominees. Evidently, if we don't support Hillary Clinton, Scalia will be infinitely cloned and SCOTUS will continue to make insane, anti-democratic rulings.

Of course I'm just as unhappy as they are with that prospect, and there's no way I'm gonna vote for Donald Trump or any of the GOP gang. But I've pretty much had it with Democrats who don't support working people. Obama enabled the very worst education policies I've ever seen, managing to outdo GW Bush. He failed to enact card check for unions or find the comfortable shoes he said he needed to walk with us. His shoes were so uncomfortable he never set foot in Wisconsin as Walker decimated union.

So I'm understandably wary of Clinton, who seems more of the same. As if that weren't enough, she blurted out the idiotic notion of closing all schools that weren't above average. That means closing half of all schools all the time. She then said we would never, ever get single payer. More recently, she advocated longer hours and school days, emphasizing quantity over quality. If kids aren't happy now, or even if we judge schools via reformy test scores, more of the same isn't gonna make anything better.

Now I read that Obama is considering GOP Governor Brian Sandoval for SCOTUS. Evidently he's aligned on certain issues with the President. However, he's known as anti-labor. Were he to be confirmed, what would that mean for the Friedrichs case? Is President Obama ready to sell public unions down the river in order to confirm a nominee? Or is he just trying to embarrass the Republicans by demonstrating they'd reject one of their own simply to avoid cooperating with him?

Either way, were Obama to nominate someone like this, it means he didn't deserve our votes. This whole triangulation strategy was created by Bill Clinton, and Obama seems to be following in his footsteps. The prime mode of following appears to be throwing teachers and public unions under the bus. I, for one, have had it with this nonsense. I declined to vote for Obama during his second term, and I'm not voting for Hillary this time around. If she beats Bernie I'll probably vote for the Green candidate, or find some other third party candidate who appears not to be insane.

It appears that Obama, who we supported twice, may not even meet the low standard of appointing a Supreme Court justice who shares our values. If that's the case, I expect Hillary is ready to follow in his footsteps, even as she criticizes Bernie Sanders for failing to sufficiently embrace Obama. For the life of me, I can't figure why our leadership supports people who are so eager to stab us in the back. I can't understand why we endorse without asking for anything in return.

But this teacher no longer votes for people who don't support public education. It's time for union leadership to wake up or get out of the way.

How I Won Friedrichs and Jia Lee Didn't

Hey it's me again, "Punchy" Mike Mulgrew, here to give you an important update on the thing that's been keeping some people up nights, the Friedrichs case. OK, it hasn't been keeping me up nights, because I have very smart people to worry about this stuff so I don't have to. They calculate and strategize, and measure each and every bit of data. They have slide rules and everything. Now I can't explain their thinking, because it's secret, and I don't understand it anyway, but the point is they think about this stuff and figure it out, so that should be good enough for anybody.

What's indisputable is this---under our leadership, Justice Antonin Scalia has died, and unless he comes back as a zombie or something, it looks like that pretty much rules out his vote on Friedrichs. We figure, even if Obama doesn't get to appoint a new justice, it doesn't matter because it's gonna be 4-4. That means the lower court ruling holds and Friedrichs loses. Everyone has to pay, members and non-members, and we won't have to bother with all that organizing and stuff it looked like we might have to do. Sheesh, that's a relief. I really didn't feel like doing that, not that I was gonna do it anyway. Of course I have people for that.

So here's the thing. I keep hearing about this Jia Lee character who seems to want to run against me. Can you imagine? I have to control my base instincts so as not to use bad language right now, but who the hell does this character think she is? I'm even hearing that newspapers write about her. Can they even do that?  I'm the President, dammit. They run my picture and quote her. What's up with that? This is just one more case of the NY Post running some radical point of view without coming to me, the reasonable center, who could have one of my people make up some quote or something.

So let me ask you this. Do you think, under the leadership of someone like Jia Lee, that Scalia would have died and we'd have won Friedrichs? Of course you can't say that. What you can say, with 100% certainty, is that under my leadership, with the input of all the smart people who write my op-eds and tell me what to say, that we dealt with this. All those of you who made jokes about our contingency plans can go screw yourselves. There are reasons we can't tell you what our plans are. And it doesn't matter what you say because the fact is that we won this one, and we win them all.

Now sure you can vote for Jia Lee and all the disloyal bastards she represents. But the next time we're in a crisis, can you be sure the Supreme Court Justice will die before the case gets heard? Of course not. That's why I'm telling you not to change horses in midstream, and to elect me again. We now have a history of Supreme Court Justices dying before they could enter judgments that would harm us. Can MORE say that? Of course not. And just remember if there's some odd confluence of events and Friedrichs comes up again, it isn't my fault. Who could predict things like that, or Bloomberg winning, or his third term?

I'd just like to say one more thing. I'm sick and tired of hearing about the blogs, the ones I don't read, saying that our Unity members sign a loyalty oath. Let me make this very clear, once and for all. It is not a loyalty oath. It's simply an agreement that they will all do whatever we say they're gonna do.  We make our top secret decisions via a very fair process, with our elite, handpicked members. I can't tell you what that process is because then I'd have to have you killed, and there's a whole lot of paperwork in rubbing people out and attributing the expenses to caterers of gala luncheons. But I have very smart people arrange all this stuff, so it's OK.

Anyway, I want you to get on social media, on Twitter and MySpace, or whatever the hell it is you kids do nowadays, and tell everyone what a great job I'm doing, and not to vote for that Jia Lee character. I hear she hangs around with, you know, bloggers and other lowlife characters. I don't approve of blogs, and that's why I killed Edwize. Sure no one read it, but that's not the point. The point is I don't want you reading any blogs at all. The only info you need is in NY Teacher.

So, in retrospect, don't vote for that weirdo Jia Lee, and remember, under our leadership not only have we won Friedrichs, but we also haven't had a catastrophic natural disaster in over three years. Can Jia Lee and her gang of MORE/ New Action bastards say that?

Of course not. The choice is clear folks. See you at the next DA. I have a lot of hilarious in jokes that none of you will understand, and I can't wait to share them with you.

On Marking and Marginalizing

I'm getting field reports from my friends in exile. They're off grading Regents exams in schools that are Far, Far Away. They keep asking me how things are on the home planet. I've been proctoring and sitting in the reserve room. I even got to go out to lunch, once, but I can't count on lightning striking twice in the same place.

Of course they're away because here in Fun City, teachers are assumed to be worthless layabouts who sit in classrooms reading the New York Times all year. Toward the end of the semester, they try to make it look like they're actually doing something, so what they do is falsify results on Regents exams, instruments so precise they are the only valid measurements of how kids perform. For example, as a teacher of beginning ELLs, it's assumed I'd give each and every incoherent scribble an excellent grade because the students draw breath.

That's not an offensive assumption, is it?

In most of the state, they deal with the perfidy of teachers by swapping exams, i.e., you grade my class and I'll grade yours. But in New York City, we're scrupulous about ethics. That's why we insist on perfect leadership and you never, ever read about administrators being arrested for drug possession or having sex on official DOE property. It's those filthy, cheating, unscrupulous teachers to blame for it all.

So we don't swap exams. We're so scrupulous that we don't let teachers even grade tests from their home schools. We either send them packing to other buildings or pay them hourly to grade tests. After all, why shouldn't we pay people extra to do what they've always done as a matter of course? That's a worthwhile expenditure, isn't it?

In fact, we've taken it one step further. My colleague reports that she and another teacher at our school are not permitted to grade together. This, of course, is because they would surely conspire to pass everyone. Or fail everyone. Maybe they'd conspire to pass some and fail others. It's tough to say. The only thing of which we can be certain is that each and every element of this plot is diabolical. Thank goodness the great minds of our city have come together to prevent such an outrage.

The takeaway, though, is that teachers are cunning and ruthless, utterly self-serving, and must not be permitted to get together and hatch their evil plans. No doubt that's why the powers that be are so intent on crushing our unions over at SCOTUS.

Surely that will teach us a valuable lesson.

A Christmas Wish

I ask Santa to stop closing schools for Christmas. It's among the worst policies ever. Sure I have selfish reasons. I don't want any of my colleagues to become ATRs, and I don't want to be one myself. Despite all the noise and nonsense that swirls around this job, I still love it. While politicians talk smack about what needs to be done, I know what I do is very important. I know a smile from a kid is a more hopeful sign than a good grade on a standardized test, or rigor and grit, or whatever it is the reformies are selling.

A kid's smile shows an openness, a willingness to be there, and a willingness to learn. It's something you treasure, something you can't force, and something you don't tamper with. A kid will follow a teacher who elicits a smile. Wouldn't you? And for all I know, that teacher who makes the kid smile could be in a so-called failing school. What if we have a whole community with low test scores? Does that mean we take the public school, the heart of the community, and replace it with a Moskowitz test-prep factory where kids pee their pants rather than stop filling in bubbles?

Should we trust a politician who says with one breath she wants to help struggling schools, and with the next that she will close them? That's a hard sell, for me at least, because I cannot determine which side of her mouth is credible. Is it a slip when she says she will close all schools that aren't above average? Probably yes. If average is a midpoint, that would mean closing half of all schools, and as Mercedes Schneider pointed out, it would necessitate perpetually recalculating to close even more.

So yes, Hillary misspoke. But that doesn't mean she won't be closing schools. And for those who say the feds can't close schools, I point you to President Barack Obama's Race to the Top, which mandated all sorts of school closures. Sure, it gave states a choice on how to do it, but it became virtual national policy when cash-starved states had to agree or be frozen out. (They don't call it the bully pulpit for nothing.)

So here's the thing--I'm finished voting for Democrats just because they make me puke a little less than their GOP opponents. Would Hillary make better Supreme Court appointments than Donald Trump? Probably. Would she be a better President than him? Certainly. But that's a low bar.

If Hillary wants me to consider voting for her, she will walk back that comment. She will not simply say that she didn't mean to say she'd close schools that weren't "above average." She will not simply says she meant she'd close schools that weren't "good." What does "good" even mean? In reformy, it means high standardized test scores. Anyone taking a good look at the situation knows that test scores are precisely aligned with income. If we were to cure poverty, something politicians assiduously avoid, this would not be an issue.

I ask Santa to support schools rather than close them. I ask Hillary to support Santa.

Because honestly, who can vote for a politician who opposes Santa? Not me.

An Untimely Death

As awful as our union leadership is, they're our fault because the overwhelming majority of us can't be bothered to mark an X, lick an envelope, and drop it in a mailbox. And with all the bad things I say about them, they are at least better than nothing. Nothing is likely what we will have if Friedrichs becomes law.

I spend a good part of every year trying to collect for our local's Sunshine Fund. We collect 15 bucks a head. With that, we buy gifts for retirees, do lunches, and sometimes buy shirts for members. Some people won't pay. They tell me they have phone bills, electric bills, and all sorts of inconvenient things that, of course, pretty much everyone has. I will continue to pay the union, if we have one, but I dread the possibility of having to go around and ask people to contribute a thousand bucks a year.

And honestly, I don't know whether I would ask. Even if I pay myself, should I bust my ass trying to raise money for Michael Mulgrew to sit at 52 Broadway and have someone write emails he signs telling us how wonderful things are? Should I actively enable all the loyalty oath signers who we pay because they've shown an unshakable faith in all the nonsense our union has supported?  Don't they include charter schools, colocations, mayoral control, two-tier due process, among their Great Victories?

Unfortunately, Friedrichs transcends leadership. I will pay 15 bucks for pretty much any half-decent cause in my building, and so will a lot of others, but when the ante rises to a thousand bucks it's gonna be a much harder sell. That would be the case no matter who was running the union, and that would be the case even if Unity had not stacked the deck to ensure their monopoly.

Even if Unity were to cut down on patronage and fire some of the blitheringly incompetent ass-kissers that pervade union employees, it's hard to imagine that the union would be able to provide the same level of service with significantly less cash. The political clout of union will diminish as its funding does, and the demagogues who hate us and everything we stand for will be in full party mode. If they can get this through the courts, they can get pretty much anything through the courts. After all, they'll have pretty much neutered much of the opposition by effectively defunding public unions. They've already got citizenhood for corporations. Why not further degrade the whole one person, one vote thing by crushing organized labor, the voice of working people?

Of course they can make exceptions for police, like Scott Walker did, because someone will have to guard their mansions when and if the bootless and unhorsed rise up with torches and pitchforks. But that hasn't happened to Walker yet, and considering the distance leadership has created between rank and file and themselves, I don't see UFT members rising up to follow Mulgrew anytime soon.

Make no mistake, we educators represent the last bastion of vibrant unionism in these United States. Our enemies want this to be the last nail in our coffin. Mulgrew says we will appeal at the state level if it passes, but my faith in his word is sorely limited. The middle class is rapidly disappearing, and the folks bankrolling Friedrichs couldn't be happier.

I can't believe we're left hanging, likely at the whim of one of the lunatic GOP Supreme Court Justices.

But what can you expect in the  face of an incipient oligarchy? Am I overly naive in calling it incipient? Time will tell, if it hasn't already.

What Seattle Has that We Don't

Seattle teachers just ended a strike. The fact that they would strike at all differentiates them from us. It's risky going on strike. It's also costly. In NY, you pay two days back for each one you strike. That's a side-effect of the draconian Taylor Law, which strips us of one of our strongest weapons. Of course, going on strike could also strip leadership of their right to automatic dues collection. They may lose that anyway in SCOTUS, but those dues dollars are pretty important.

We've got hundreds of loyalty-oath signing faithful whose activism revolves around going to conventions. These are the ones who treat Mike Mulgrew like a rock star at the DA and hang on every word he says. These are the ones who answer phones at UFT after school, and if you've ever gotten bad advice from one these folks, it's probably because they were hired for loyalty rather than competence. I always tell my members call UFT, but if the person doesn't help you let me know and I'll find someone who will.

What happens when teachers stand on principle rather than patronage?

For one thing, teachers demanded, and won, guaranteed daily recess for all elementary school students — 30 minutes each day. In an era when recess for many students has become limited or non-existent despite the known benefits of physical activity, this is a big deal, and something parents had sought.

That's remarkable. As a class size advocate, I wonder what would happen if UFT demanded reasonable class sizes. In all the time I've been a teacher, since 1984, the only instrument that has controlled class sizes has been the UFT Contract. And in all that time leadership has not taken a single step to improve it. They say they've gotten us money instead, yet we have to wait until 2020 for money everyone else got over five years ago. In a few weeks, maybe, we'll get a small slice of it. Go to a car dealership and ask if they'll give you a car now if only you can pay for it interest-free in five years.

Teachers won an end to the use of student standardized test scores to evaluate them — and now, teachers will be included in decisions on the amount of standardized testing for students. This evaluation practice has been slammed by assessment experts as invalid and unreliable, and has led to the narrowing of curriculum, with emphasis on the two subjects for which there are standardized tests, math and English Language arts.

Holy crap. That is a major victory.  Here in NY, our union President helped craft the awful APPR law that every teacher I know is freaked out over. And he actually thanked the Heavy Hearts Assembly when they voted to make it even worse.  Our brave brothers and sisters in Seattle said they weren't going back to work until they could be judged by something other than junk science.

Would teachers in New York City stand up? Do teachers in New York City even know what a union is? Tough to say, since 79% of us voted for second-tier due process in a contract that settled for raises that were ten years late. Isn't union, you know, when we all stand together? Isn't union when we are all one?

Not here, and not now, apparently. That has to change. As leadership has allowed our union to be so degraded, it will take some time. The cynicism engendered by consistent indifference to membership is pernicious, and will take a long time to reverse.

But I've waited a very long time, and I can wait some more. We need to be what we can be, and there's no reason we can't learn to stand up, just as our brothers and sisters are doing in other parts of the country.

We will get our heart back, no matter how long it takes.

UFT Leadership in the Face of Friedrich

Here's an interesting piece suggesting that losing Friedrich might inspire a leaner, more effective union, with possibilities for more involvement with rank and file. It does, of course, mention union's abject failure in Wisconsin, with the proviso that they've also lost collective bargaining. If unions can't do that, it's an even harder sell than it would be here.

What happens in NYC if UFT loses the right to automatic dues collection? Will Mike Mulgrew do a barnstorming tour, shaking hands and kissing babies? Will he get on Twitter? Will he begin to answer email? I don't think so. People don't fundamentally change overnight and UFT leadership is quite set in its ways. Of course there are people in Unity who are a whole lot more responsive than the President, but the organization runs primarily on patronage, and is largely tone-deaf to what teachers live with every day.

I will tell you exactly how UFT will react to a negative decision. Of course great effort will be directed toward dues collection. After all, 80% of working UFT members who can't be bothered to vote. If writing an "X" on a piece of paper and dropping it into a mailbox is too much of a personal strain, how are you going to get them to send a hundred bucks a month to 52 Broadway? That will be an uphill battle, to say the least.

But I know one message that Unity will certainly be broadcasting, because I've heard it over and over before. If we lose Friedrich, Unity will say, "This is not the time to be opposing leadership. All those of you who dare question the wisdom of the loyalty oath need to sit down and shut up immediately, if not sooner."

How many times have you heard that old chestnut? We're fighting Giuliani and now isn't the time to oppose leadership. We're fighting Bloomberg and now isn't the time to oppose leadership. Bloomberg wants to (insert outrage here) and now's not the time to oppose  leadership.

In fact, according to leadership, there is absolutely never a good time to oppose leadership. But this is the argument they invariably trot out when times are tough. Ask yourself, over the last few decades, when have times not been tough?

The problem with that argument is this--the very leadership asking us to sit down and shut up has actively contributed to these tough times, and continues to do so. By accommodating reforminess, by consistent appeasement that invariably results in further loss, leadership has contributed to the misery teachers face each and every day. I've seen Michael Mulgrew praise the Open Market system with nary a mention of the ATR situation it created. I've heard him wax poetic about a "growth model" that was somehow not value-added. Don't get me started about how UFT brought Steve Barr and Green Dot to NYC.

Unless leadership wakes up tomorrow and says to itself, "Gee, maybe we should start thinking about what effects rank and file, and have chapter leaders represent them instead of us," there's always reason to oppose leadership. In fact, through years of appeasement, leadership has emboldened our opponents to the point that they're bringing us, like animals, to the vet to have us declawed.

I don't like fighting leadership. But I don't like their decades of abject failure to fight for us either. They're going to have to address that, and if I were them I'd begin right now.

Advise you to sit while waiting for that to happen.

Watch What They Do, Not What They Say

That's the mantra of Norm Scott, and nowhere is it more apparent than in this Facebook post from AFT President Randi Weingarten:

Ok-I am not beyond a selfie with the President.... particularly on Labor Day when he says as he did at the Greater Boston Labor Council Bkfst: "if I were looking for a good job that builds security for my family, I would join a union" 

Now I certainly don't begrudge Randi a selfie with the President of the United States. And the guy has done some good things. While I'd much prefer single payer, Obamacare keeps my daughter (and many others) on a medical plan until 26. Americans don't have to face rejection for pre-existing conditions to acquire an insurance policy. While there should be none, there will at least be fewer bankruptcies on the basis of catastrophic medical emergency.

But on the union front, President Obama has not particularly walked the walk. I mean that in a very literal sense. When campaigning, he said he was going to find a pair of comfortable shoes and walk with labor if it was in trouble. Yet search though he may have, we did not see hide nor hair of him in Wisconsin when there was a popular uprising against current Presidential candidate Scott Walker. I mean, I understand losing stuff in the closet, but he's the President of the United States. I have to assume he doesn't need to run to the mall when he needs a new pair of shoes.

As a teacher, I am now rated by junk science test scores. This is a direct result of Obama's Race to the Top. At a time when states were dying for money, Obama pushed high stakes testing and junk science to a level GW Bush could only have dreamed of.  This has demoralized every teacher I know. The only ones crowing about it are the leaders of E4E, and they aren't teachers anymore anyway. The American Statistical Association is very clear that judging teachers by test scores is nonsense, and the President, along with every editorial board in New York and dozens more around the country, can't be bothered to acknowledge that, let alone respond.

And while it's nice that Obama will be photographed with Randi, now that he doesn't have to worry about re-election or midterms, I haven't seen him fret much about union over the rest of his term. One of the large reasons I voted for him the first time he ran was that he promised to support the Employee Free Choice Act, which would've enabled unionization via card check. It would've prevented a lot of anti-union management from prevention unionization. As far as I can tell, he did not lift a finger to do that, and I voted for the Green candidate rather than Obama mach two.

Right now we are at a crisis. We are facing a SCOTUS decision that will effective render all public unions right to work status. Without automatic deduction of dues, Wisconsin unions have withered and all but died. This will be particularly damaging to a union like UFT that's been hands off and managed top-down. If fewer than 20% of working teachers can be bothered to vote in union elections, what percentage will pay dues?

As bad as leadership is these days, they can be persuaded, and if enough of us crawl out of our collective coma, they can even be replaced. But there's gonna be little hope for that if nothing is done. And as far as I can tell, President Barack Obama has done considerably less than nothing for union over the last seven years or so.

John Kasich Has a Royal Edict--Sit Down and Shut Up, Teachers!

That's the message I get from John Kasich, who talking heads sometimes falsely paint as the least insane rider on the Republican Clown Car. I'm not getting a whole lot of laughs from these clowns, as every one of them seems to hate us and everything we stand for. Though a bunch of them oppose Common Core, I personally believe it's not on principle (they don't have any). Republicans oppose it because it was introduced by President Barack Obama. If GW had introduced it, perhaps the Democrats would have fought it. Maybe not, since they were on board with NCLB. I'm not seeing much principle on that side of the aisle either.

Kasich is getting a lot of attention for his meeting with self-appointed education expert Campbell Brown yesterday. He said if he were king, he'd get rid of teacher lounges. Let's get one thing straight--it's not a great idea to elect people who fantasize about being king. It's the President's job to represent We, the People, not to issue edicts on what we should and should not do. Kasich uses what authority he already has to do things like rescind collective bargaining for day care workers. He says he doesn't want to impose right to work laws, but actions speak louder than words, and SCOTUS may soon make that unnecessary anyway.

Much has been written already about how there are, in fact, few teacher lounges anyway. In my school, there are a few adjuncts to bathrooms that have tables and chairs. In our school, they also have computers and there are always a few teachers working out lesson plans and power point presentations. Oh, the luxury of sitting in a bathroom. The only school I remember working in that had a dedicated teacher lounge was Newtown High School, where I worked for one semester in the 80s. I have no idea whether or not it's still there.

Teacher lounge has a broader and more obvious meaning. Right here, this is a virtual teacher lounge, and John Kasich would like nothing more than for us to all shut the hell up. Here's why:

Kasich said at an education summit in New Hampshire that many teachers believe that "we’re out to take their job" when schools evaluate teacher performance and that teachers' lounges provide an environment where this worry spreads.

So basically, when we're judged on the test scores of students we may or may not teach, and when our jobs literally depend on the outcome, we shouldn't worry. Who cares if the American Statistical Association says there's no validity to this method of evaluation? So what if there's no science or research to back it up. John Kasich says it's no problem, and that should be good enough for anyone.

"No we’re not out to take their job. If you need help, we’ll help you. If you’re a terrible teacher, then you should be doing something else because you’re going to find more satisfaction doing something else that you’re good at," he said. "We have to constantly communicate that."

How is Kasich going to help us? As king, he doesn't even want us to speak to each other.  Does Kasich know something we don't? If so, why doesn't he tell us about it? Are we supposed to trust a guy who says he doesn't need right to work, but who rescinds collective bargaining when given half a chance? Apparently that's precisely the level of critical thinking King Kasich wants from working teachers.

He then suggested that teachers' unions contribute to educators' worries.

That's because Kasich thinks union leadership stokes the fires of teacher discontent. I can't speak for all union leaders, but right here in Fun City Michael Mulgrew participated in a law that imposed junk science value-added ratings on NY State teachers. I have heard him praise it repeatedly. He likes to call it a growth model and say of course we can get kids from point A to point B. That may be so, but  tests that purport measure it are a whole lot more specific, may or may not be valid, and are subject to NYSED setting cut scores wherever the hell they feel like.

That's not to mention, of course, things like PE teachers being judged on scores kids get in English. An alleged improvement is that now PE teachers will be judged on the English scores of kids they actually teach. Do you need to be a genius to conclude that PE scores may vary wildly from English scores no matter how good or bad the PE teacher may be? Are the English teachers supposed to hear no evil and not realize that tests designed to measure student achievement do not, in fact, measure what they do when they teach?

Teacher unions contribute to my worries, but not in the way Kasich thinks. Teacher unions here made noise about opposing Andrew Cuomo but failed to do so when it counted, during the primaries and election. Teacher unions have enabled and supported mayoral control, junk science ratings, two-tier due process, and the erosion of tenure and seniority rights. In stark contract to Kasich's royal musings, the overwhelming city teachers are so cynical and demoralized that they can't even be bothered to vote in union elections. Kasich should be getting together with the other GOP hopefuls and having a party.

And if that's not enough, we're now facing the end of automatic payroll deduction. UFT's top-down method of governing, along with its miserably inept contract negotiations and craven willingness to give up whatever possible for a "seat at the table" has failed to inspire. It will be very had for people like me to convince thoroughly disaffected members to pay dues.

Up in that ivory tower at 52 Broadway no one frets over that. It's tragic they live in an echo chamber where absolutely everyone has signed a loyalty oath. Hopefully we can do so before SCOTUS puts a knife in our heart, because make no mistake, if it goes down this year, there's nothing to prevent it reading its ugly head again.

And I have a message for John Kasich--there may or may not be a physical teacher lounge in most buildings. But there are virtual ones everywhere, you're looking at one now, and we are not going down now, or ever.

Not even if you become king.

It's Time to Unite

That's the song I'm hearing now from Unity members. We are, in fact, facing a dire threat. The Friedrichs suit can result in the decimation, if not the destruction, of public sector unions nationwide. I strenuously oppose this, as do most people of my acquaintance. If possible, I will certainly work with union leadership to prevent this.

But with the premature Hillary nomination, a lot of us have a lot to say about the less-than-democratic nature of union elections. Bernie Sanders speaks to us. He stands up for working people, and does not take money from corporations who suppress and silence us. He hits almost every bell, for me at least. I've donated to his campaign, and will do what I can for him. And I will not be silent on AFT, an organization to which I pay dues but have no vote.

The line I'm getting, as usual, is sit down and shut up. And that, frankly, is par for the course. You're opposing us, and the real enemy is Giuliani. You're opposing us, and the real enemy is Bloomberg. You're opposing us, and the real enemy is Cuomo. You're opposing us, and the real enemy is the Supreme Court.

There is, evidently, never a good time to oppose leadership. And there are mechanisms in place to ensure very few voices creep into heavily rigged processes and elections. On the ground, of course, there are hundreds of chapter leaders, most of whom have signed loyalty oaths to UFT Unity. Though their jobs ostensibly entail representing membership, they vote as they are told by leadership. For this, they are given duespayer-funded trips to NYSUT and AFT conventions. This ensures that 100% of UFT votes in NYSUT and AFT are controlled by leadership.

If you don't support Common Core, for example, not only do you get no representation in NYSUT or AFT, but also the UFT President wants to punch your face and push it in the dirt.

This is insidious. It goes further, as officer positions are at large, so that not only elementary school teachers, but also retirees help high school teachers select a VP. And like the Hillary nomination in which we had no choice and no voice, this is reflective of an absolute disregard for democracy. It's a fundamental problem, and it's no coincidence that over 80% of working teachers fail to find voting in union elections worth their time.

In fact, it is time to unite. It is time to unite against the Supreme Court decimating public sector union. I will help. I always support leadership when they're right. I oppose them when they fail to oppose Cuomo, say, at election time. It's disingenuous for them to say otherwise, and waiting until he was actually attacking us to speak up was a miscalculation by any standard. One of many, actually.

Who remembers the parade of candidates UFT endorsed, leading up to Bloomberg's first term in office? Who remembers their failure to oppose him, particularly when Thompson came within five points of preventing his third term, the one voters had twice affirmed no one should have? Who remembers their endorsement of Thompson four years too late, and after he told the Daily News editorial board NYC couldn't afford to give teachers the raise most other city unions got?

I am persona non grata in UFT, but that didn't stop them from calling me at least three times to make calls for Thompson. Given his history, and given de Blasio was surging at the time, it was pretty easy to refuse repeatedly.

Leadership is absolutely correct to fight for union, and I certainly hope they come up with a plan better than, say, a Twitter campaign in which they do not participate. 

But it's preposterous for them to tell us to shut up and sit down, that this is not the time to express ourselves. Randi Weingarten is not the union. Michael Mulgrew is not the union. We are the union, and if we don't like it when they shut us out, we need to let them know loudly, insistently, now and forever.

If you don't believe me, just look around at where all this sitting down and shutting up has gotten us.

If Union Dues Are Optional, Shouldn't Taxes Be Optional Too?

I've been giving a lot of thought to the Freidrichs case, which, if we were to lose, would render dues optional for public union members. Basically, if you don't feel like paying your dues, you won't have to. And not only could you keep your precious 1300 bucks, but you could also retain pretty much whatever services the union offers. Why should I pay 1300 bucks for eyeglasses and representation when I could just let some other fool lay out the money?

That, of course, is not the basis of the argument. The argument is that union engages in political activity of which you may not approve. For example, your union might support less work for more pay while you are passionate about more work for less pay. Or maybe they support candidates who don't believe people should work seven days a week. Who knows what awful things the union might support, and how the hell are you supposed to know that your money isn't supporting it? The only fair thing is to let you freeload while everyone else pays.

Well, if that's the rationale, and SCOTUS thinks it's unethical to mix politics with dues, I'm good with it. But they need to be consistent. If, for example, one does not believe in war, one ought not to be compelled to pay for it. I'm not a huge fan of war, and certainly haven't supported the last few I've seen. In fact, there are education programs, like Common Core and Race to the Top, which I oppose fairly vehemently.

One of my biggest issues with the government is taxes. Federal taxes pay for Arne Duncan, and I gotta say, I find him pretty repugnant. For one thing, he's the highest ranking educator in the country, but he isn't even a teacher. For another, though he spends a lot of time imposing policies about public education, he has decided public schools, after years of his stewardship, are no longer good enough for his children.

So, if union dues are optional because I might not believe in what union does, taxes should also be optional.

If I don't have to pay union dues because I don't agree with what the union does, why should I pay taxes when I don't agree with what the government does? It's all about me, isn't it? It's all about persona liberty. If I'm opposed to NCLB, if I'm opposed to Common Core, and if I'm opposed to Arne Duncan representing education, why should I have to support these things?

I'd also like to determine whether or not I support military actions before my tax dollars go to pay for them. As far as I can tell, our last excursion into Iraq was incredibly costly, and not particularly effective in stabilizing the region. Why should I pay for GW's mistakes? In fact, I approved of almost nothing GW did. Can I get a refund?

Because the premise is the same. To tell you the truth, I disagree with a whole lot of things my union leadership does. But I don't see withholding my dues as a solution. This notwithstanding, if the law of the land says I don't have to pay for things I may not support, I don't want to pay federal taxes. And given His Majesty Andrew Cuomo, I don't want to pay state taxes either. I'll continue to pay local taxes because I believe in public education.

Maybe the money I save will make up in some small way for the destruction of my union. Ultimately, though, I doubt it will be enough.

Whither Democracy, UFT?

How does a top-down, undemocratic, loyalty-oath driven UFT survive an unfavorable decision in Fredrichs v. California? Who is gonna pay $1300 a year to a union that has a fundamental aversion to essential democracy? If leadership can't inspire 20% of working members to vote in union elections, how the hell are they gonna get the majority to pay voluntarily?

The last time UFT lost dues checkoff was after a strike in 1975. It took until 1982 to resolve, and UFT lost 20% of its revenue. I hear that some UFT employees actually had to leave offices and go back to work in classrooms. Oh, the horror!

The thing is, on the heels of a strike, people saw things differently. Members had actually walked out en masse to support union. Members were united by a common cause. Members knew they were UFT, and that they had stood up for something. I'm not at all sure members know that anymore.

Times have changed. For example, I doubt UFT President Michael Mulgrew thought he'd need to sell union to every working member when he got up and said he'd punch Common Core opponents in the face and push their faces in the dirt. You have to wonder whether he's regretting having shown no punchiness whatsoever when we went years without a contract. You have to wonder if he's regretting having helped negotiate junk science evaluation, or thanking the Heavy Hearts Assembly for having passed an even worse version of it.

You have to wonder about a leader whose vision for fighting back entails mounting a Twitter campaign in which he himself does not participate. You have to wonder about a leader who refuses to take on the high-stakes testing noose around our necks because of the claim civil rights groups support it. (If they do, they're wrong and it's our job to let them know why.)  The opt-out movement is more important than our leaders realize, and merits more than lip service. The SCOTUS case is even more important, and should worse come to worst, we'll need someone who can envision something more than a Twitter campaign he himself can't be bothered with.

Here is a golden opportunity for leadership to embrace democracy rather than absolute control over everything no matter what. Here is a chance for them to utilize the voices of those who oppose VAM, mayoral control, school closings, charter schools, high-stakes testing, privatization, and the entire more-work-for-less-pay thrust of the hedge-funders and billionaires who've been setting the agenda of American education.

In short, here's a chance for them to preclude disaster, at least to some extent. They can say yes, we hear you. They can say yes, we will represent you and we will allow you a voice in the UFT. They can say yes, we will not only collect dues for NYSUT and AFT, but also we will give you a voice and a vote, even if it means disappointing some of our reliable rubber stamps.

I advise you to sit while you wait for that. 

Troglodytes

The United States Supreme Court made two important decisions yesterday. First, they decided that employers need not fund health care decisions that conflict with their religious views.

So if you want your health care to entail birth control but your employer doesn't believe in it, too bad for you. Some religions have other reservations about medicine. Let's say your employer doesn't believe in antibiotics or blood transfusions. Maybe he doesn't believe in surgery or routine medical checks. That would really be tough, wouldn't it?

I wouldn't be surprised if the CEO of Exxon Mobil were forming a new religion right now. Think of how economical it would be for a business required to insure the health of people whose boss didn't actually believe in health (for strictly religious reasons, of course).

But this court believes deeply in individual freedom. That's why it took up the case of some health care workers, who were apparently so offended by a raise of over 50% they went to federal court. They don't believe in union. How awful. I wonder why they didn't return their raise in protest. But as long as people believe in more work for less pay, they have the right to insist on it.

The court decided this decision was valid because the health workers were only "partial" public employees. Maybe it's because the public just pays their salary but doesn't actually fully participate in their services. Look for them to determine teachers are only partial public employees because they only teach some kids rather than all of them.

This is essentially the same court that gave us GW Bush in 2000, deeming it too dangerous to count votes. As long as it's 5-4 on the wrong side, they won't come out in favor of working people any time soon.

Of course I'm not a Supreme Court Justice, and I don't understand all the intricacies of rationalizing anti-woman and anti-union nonsense. I'm just a lowly teacher.

But I'm very proud to be one nonetheless.