Blog or Dog?

For me, it's not much of a choice. Dog before blog, of course. I'd been dreading this week, because I was scheduled for meetings four nights in a row. Monday was the 400-member Contract Committee. Tuesday School Leadership Team. Tonight is the UFT Delegate Assembly, Thursday is the ELL Focus Group.

However, my wife came down with the flu, and is really floored by it. If I don't go home, my noble little dog will suffer. Toby is a survivor of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, and how this little guy pulled that off I have no idea.

Monday morning I took him out in the miserable wind and rain, and he decided to Be a Tree. Probably he has bad memories, or maybe even PTSD. I dragged him around a little, but he would not move at all on his own volition. After a few minutes I gave up and brought him back inside. After not having been out since 7 the previous night, he declined food and drink and waited until I got home at 4 PM. I surely would have exploded or something, but he's made of stronger stuff than I.

Tonight is the DA. They're going to talk about the new UFT app. I've actually downloaded it. (Correction--I now realize I'd downloaded another app they offered to promote recruitment.) I followed the directions given me and it simply does not work. I wrote back and it turns out you can't yet follow the directions. You need further directions, which I presume will be given tonight.

I hate to miss the DA, not because it's such great fun, but rather because I can usually get two blogs out of it--first the actual notes, and then an analysis. Sometimes it makes people crazy, and part of my role as blogger is to make people crazy. But I can't allow Toby to suffer so I'm giving it up and going home. My New Action buddy Jonathan Halabi has agreed to take notes in my absence, and I will post them here as soon as I get them.

I'm glad, though, because I get to walk Toby. Toby is crazy to walk. He will walk anywhere and everywhere, and he doesn't care how long it takes. Walking him has become my Zen, my center, and half the things I write come to me while I'm talking to him. Good walk Toby. No, don't eat that thing. No, we're not visiting that big dog. He might not scare you, but he scares me.

Toby is amazingly friendly. He wants to greet every human and every dog we come across. It's good because my tendency is to keep to myself. I now have multiple regulars I see on the Nautical Mile in Freeport, both canine and human. Alas, I don't allow him to chase random felines, but he loves them too. When I adopted him, he was living with a cat who was bigger than he was. I wonder whether or not she gave him orders.

He's become my constant companion. No matter how boring I get, even if I spend all day writing, he will hang out with me. In fact, he'll guard my laptop until I get back to it. Lots of dogs will sleep on your clothes, or your bed, but he's the first I've seen who's become attached to a piece of metal.

On the brighter side, like many people, I'd really rather walk the dog than go to meetings. But there's a balance somewhere. Maybe you have to go to a whole lot of meetings before you appreciate what a luxury it is to walk the dog.

Anyway, I hope my wife gets well soon, even if it means more meetings for me. The flu is terrible. I used to get the flu shot most years. Whenever I forgot, I got the flu. Ten years ago. I got the flu shot, and almost immediately thereafter was diagnosed with  an oral cancer, which was no fun at all. Out of sheer superstition I haven't gotten another shot since. My wife, who is generally smarter than I am, got the shot this year, but also got the flu. Go figure.

Toby is with her right now, urging her to stop being sick and to come play with him instead. He hasn't got a medical degree, but he knows what he likes. 

The Last Straw

Mr. Green was excited about how his class was going. He had never taught English Language Learners before, but they were great. The kids were enthusiastic and eager to learn. He was surprised at how much he liked teaching them. Many of them picked things up as quickly if not quicker than the native English speakers he'd been teaching for most of his career.

He co-teacher was young and smart. Not only that, but she knew all the new stuff that he hadn't paid particularly strong attention too. Danielson? Who knows from Danielson? Well she did, and she was always making little suggestions that would get you extra brownie points when the muckety mucks surprised you with a visit.

"Whatever you're doing, when they come in, ask some question and then make them turn and talk. Make sure you do it at least once or twice a week so they know what you're talking about."

Well OK, he thought. That makes sense. It doesn't really, but hey, if it gets a few points and you can easily pull it off, why not?

"Make sure after you ask a question you make the kids hold up those red and green things to say whether or not they understand," she said.

"Do you think they will really tell us?" asked Mr. Green.

"No, of course they won't," she said. "But after the supervisors leave we can walk around, look at their work, and find out whether or not they really understand." 

This didn't make much sense. But she was keyed in and he wasn't.

"Make sure you don't spend more than three minutes on the DO NOW," she instructed. "I'll bring in an egg timer."

This didn't make sense either. If there was good conversation going on, why should he stop it? What if one thing led to another, and something really spontaneous happened? He spoke to his co-teacher about it.

"I'll bring the egg timer tomorrow," she said.

Well, that was that. Three minutes for this, eight minutes for that, and you're a highly effective teacher. At this point, Mr. Green wanted nothing more than to be a highly high teacher. Of course you don't get Danielson brownie points for that. On the other hand, a principal at a school three miles away just got caught snorting meth in his car. Maybe it's OK for principals. Mr. Green decided not to find out how it was for teachers.

The next day, Mr. Green decided to alter the aim.

"Yesterday we covered metaphor. Today we are covering dramatic irony."

"You can't write that," said his co-teacher.

"Why not?" asked Mr. Green.

"Well, we have the Common Core goal on the lesson plan. If you write about what you did yesterday, it doesn't jibe with what we're doing today."

That didn't make any sense to Mr. Green. Why couldn't he remind them of what they did yesterday? Certainly it would come up again in conversation, on a test, in their lives, or in any random combination of above. He decided to go to his supervisor and ask about it.

"She's right," said his supervisor. "If someone were in your classroom and rating you via the Danielson rubric, you could certainly get an adverse rating for that."

Mr. Green still wasn't satisfied. He went to his co-teacher's supervisor. She was pretty smart. She would know for sure.

"Well," she said, "If you really wanted to refer back to yesterday's lesson you could do it orally, and not write it on the board. That way, if someone came in, they wouldn't know you had done it."

That was one way to do it, thought Mr. Green.

That was when Mr. Green decided, on the spot, that this would be his last year teaching. He retired in June. He adopted a dog, joined an acting group, dropped 25 pounds, and never once looked back.

Discontinuance

One of the most despicable practices in the city is that of discontinuance. In case you're unfamiliar with it, it applies only to untenured teachers. A myth about tenure is that teachers have jobs for life. The truth is that teachers have jobs until and unless charges are brought and sustained. That process is called 3020a, and that process is due process. However you may feel about it, that's what has to happen in NY State to fire a teacher.

Untenured teachers don't have due process. They may be fired for a bad haircut. Of course no one really wants to be fired for a bad haircut, so untenured teachers have to be very careful about where they get their hair cut. Beyond that, they have to somehow please their principals, who may or may not be insane.  It's a tough path to walk, considering what I see.

If you're not cutting the principal's mustard on your tenure year, there are a number of options the principal can pursue. One is extension of tenure, which is always big fun. Your best friend is getting tenure and you aren't. What can you think about that? I suck and she doesn't, for whatever reason. Maybe there is something you have to do. Ask more questions. Ask fewer questions. Be nicer. Stop being too nice. Who knows? And you may or may not find out.

Of course, if you suck so much that, in the principal's view, there is no viable remedy for said suckiness, you will be discontinued. That means, for one thing, that you are fired. For another, you lose your health benefits. You'd think that would be enough. But in NYC, it isn't. There is also a mark, or a code, or something, that basically alerts anyone who thinks of hiring you that you suck. I have heard of one or two people overcoming the Scarlet Suck, but it's rare. A principal would have to really go above and beyond for that. What are the chances of you walking into a school with a Scarlet Suck on your chest and persuading a principal to hire you?

I'm thinking: not good.

There are things you can do. For example, if you have the Scarlet Suck on your chest for math, you might get an English license. I mean, just because you suck at math (like I do, for example) it doesn't necessarily follow that you suck in English. (I endeavor not to suck in English but we all have good days and bad.) Still, I have to think any new principal would see your work history and note that you sucked in this subject. That doesn't bode well for your chances of getting hired in another subject.

Now you could go out of district. I'm not sure how easily you'd get a gig in Long Island with a crappy history and no good references from NYC, but I wish you luck. You could get a charter school gig. Maybe you like hanging around the house with a school cell phone on weeknights waiting to give homework help. Maybe you like being told you will travel around and visit every student's home. For some reason, charters always need people. If you're suspended for six months without pay, or if you're discontinued, your prospects are still good at charters. Of course there's a high burnout rate, but there you go.

Here's the thing, though--discontinuing someone is draconian and unnecessary, always. Different schools have different needs. Just because I suck at this school (which, given the percentage of insane administrators, may or may not be the case), it doesn't follow that I would suck at another. Maybe one has smaller classes. Maybe one has an accent on whatever I'm good at. Maybe I learned something from experience. Who knows? Many things could happen.

But placing a mark on a teacher forever is never a good idea. School culture varies from building to building, from department to department, and from class to class. We have a Danielson rubric but if you think this means every administrator sees everything in the same way, I can easily find a bridge to sell you.

Maybe it's time we find a better way to deal with struggling teachers than ruining their lives.

Cynthia Nixon, Andrew Cuomo, and the UFT Learning Curve

I've got mixed feelings about actress Cynthia Nixon and her foray into politics. On the one hand, I'm really excited to see a true progressive looking at the governorship of my state. I have to say, though, that I was not happy with some of her remarks about unions.

“With the deals that [unions] have now, you can’t hope to make improvements to the trains in a fiscally responsible way,” Nixon told amNY, not specifying the unions to which she was referring. “Everybody’s got to pull together, and everybody’s got to make sacrifices.”

I don't know what deals the unions have now, so I can't comment on that. I was sorely disappointed, though, to hear a nominal progressive criticize union. It reminded me of no one more than Andrew Cuomo himself, whose first campaign platform entailed going after unions. This opened my eyes a lot, and made Cuomo the first Democrat for whom I declined to vote. I voted for Green Howie Hawkins for Governor these last two rounds.

Nixon, though, is very good on education. Unlike Cuomo, who takes suitcases full of cash from charter folk, she won't be doing that. She has an entirely different POV.

Too many corporate Democrats like Andrew Cuomo are taking charter school hedge fund money.

We have to stop diverting education funding into privately run charter schools, and put the focus back where it should be: on strengthening our public schools and keeping them public.

— Cynthia Nixon (@CynthiaNixon) April 13, 2018

Now here's the thing about Andrew Cuomo--he's making an effort to look good to us, and has been doing so over the last year or so. Cuomo observed the 2016 election, and read the tea leaves. They told him that America wants a government that fulfills its needs. Some of those needs are universal healthcare, affordable college, and a living wage. I repeat that often. Another, of course, is a decent  K-12 education for all of our children.

Cuomo has indeed made concessions. He's moderated his tone over firing all of us because of highly flawed test scores. He's created a program that will make it easier for some New Yorkers to go to college. He's stepped back on the IDC, which kept the Senate in GOP hands even though Democrats held the ostensible majority. Even though that thwarted a whole lot of improvements for New Yorkers, Cuomo can now say he's stopped it so as to disassociate himself from them.

The problem with Andrew Cuomo, of course, is that he has no moral center. He sways whichever way the political wind blows. He is for sale to the highest bidder, so long as whatever the bidder is buying will aid him toward reaching his Prime Directive--the advancement of Andrew Cuomo.

And that's when we come to our own union leadership, clearly poised to endorse Cuomo this time around.  A NY Times headline declares key unions are leaving the Working Families Party, which has now endorsed Cynthia Nixon for governor. You have to scroll down quite a bit for specifics, but when you do, you see this quote from UFT President Michael Mulgrew:

“My only concern is some reckless behavior that will have an unintended consequence of us ending up with a Republican governor,” Mr. Mulgrew said. “When these elections are over, we will judge any decision we have to make off your behavior if you caused bad things to happen — even though it was not your intent you are responsible for them.”

Let's focus a little on reckless behavior. Our parent union, the AFT, endorsed Hillary Clinton well before we saw any teacher voice at the polls. There was a kabuki dance of deciding the endorsement, but we ultimately got behind a candidate who did not support universal health care, a living wage, or affordable college. We got behind a candidate who mustered the audacity to lecture AFT about what we could learn from "public charter schools," whatever the hell they may be.

And just in case you hadn't noticed, Hillary Clinton lost that election. So by Mulgrew's logic, even though it was not our intent, we are responsible for Donald Trump. That's quite an albatross to hang around our own necks. You'd think we'd learn something from that, but you'd be wrong.

Rather than embrace a progressive candidate who holds causes dear to our hearts, we condemn her for one thoughtless comment. We might try to talk with her, negotiate with her, but instead we dismiss her out of hand, back a man with no integrity whatsoever, and hope the progressive wind that's blowing him this week will not change direction any time soon. We ignore mountains of evidence that Cuomo will do whatever is expedient for Cuomo, and brush away Nixon just as we brushed away Bernie Sanders.

This is an egregious error. I'm sure that UFT leadership will disagree, since they know better than me, they know better than you, and making a potentially fatal error in the 2016 Presidential campaign has done nothing to persuade them they are fallible in any way, ever. But it's not a huge leap of logic to say that Cynthia Nixon's philosophy more closely resembles that of working teachers, just as Bernie Sanders' did.

The blanket condemnation of Nixon is precisely the same as that of Sanders. The blind support of sure thing corporate Democrat Cuomo is precisely the same as that of sure thing corporate Democrat Clinton. Now I'm reading that union leadership may set up their own ballot line to make sure Cuomo wins and the progressive gets no traction whatsoever.

What has leadership learned from the debacle that was the 2016 election?

Nothing I can determine.

The Christmas Call

Mr. Fisk had a very good class in general. They cooperated and he had a good rapport with them. In fact, they often took him off on tangents that were as interesting, if not more so, than whatever he'd prepared. He figured if he ever got observed at one of those moments he'd be highly effective for sure, but alas his boss was always observing his other classes. They were okay too, but they didn't quite do what this class did. It was the day before Christmas break and he was going to surprise them by giving no homework whatsoever.

So you can imagine his surprise when all of a sudden, out of nowhere, one of his best students started behaving like a 14-year-old. In fairness, the boy may have actually been 14 years old, but he had not really achieved the stereotype until this very day. What precipitates a cry for attention like this? Mr. Fisk tried talking directly to the boy, in a friendly tone, but the boy was simply not having a friendly day.

On this particular day, Mr. Fisk could achieve very little. Though interruptions came largely from this one boy, when they were directed at other students they responded somewhat less diplomatically than the teacher. This caused multiple conflicts, because some of the students who weren't being directly insulted were amused by the show. Now things were coming to a head.

Mr. Fisk didn't want to call a dean or anyone because he never called a dean or anyone. He thought doing that made him appear weak. Still, why were they all gathered in one place if all they were going to do was insult each other? It was getting as though they were all on Twitter and Donald Trump was one of the students.

Mr. Fisk suggested that the student in question might be more comfortable sitting in the department office and cooling off for the day. But the student was not happy with that suggestion.

"Why should I have to leave?" he asked.

Mr. Fisk suggested it was a good idea. He didn't want to call the boy's house the day before vacation.

"Go ahead," said the boy. "My father won't answer the phone."

To underline that he meant business, the boy took out the phone, set it to dial his house, and handed it to Mr. Fisk.

Mr. Fisk was a little nervous. He wasn't in the practice of calling homes in front of the students whose homes he happened to be calling. But he was up for a challenge. He figured if the boy directly asked him to call, he couldn't effectively complain about how bad he felt when it actually happened.

Mr. Fisk began talking to Dad. The boy's face changed completely. He listened as Mr. Fisk spoke. No, he couldn't send him home right now. No, he was just hoping that Dad could give him some good advice. Well, Dad knew best what to do. Yes of course he could come in for a meeting whenever he liked.

It turned out the boy was from a multi-religious home. Dad was Catholic and Mom was Jewish. They made a big deal out of celebrating both Hanukah and Christmas and Dad had decreed that not only would there be neither for his son this year, but that also the boy was grounded for the entire break.

Mr. Fisk hadn't actually wished anything bad for the boy. But he didn't feel particularly guilty about it either.

Can UFT Leadership Wake the Sleeping Giant?

Yesterday I heard someone speak on how we need to be activated. I heard about how we are powerful, and capable of much more. On that I agree absolutely. We are large in numbers and could be a force to be reckoned with.

And yet we are afraid. We are all afraid. Why is that?

I'm a bad example, but that's only because I'm not afraid. I'm not sure when I lost my fear. When I first started this blog, it was anonymous. Though I haven't specifically attached my name to it, you could now click on the Twitter button and find out who I am in less than a minute. I don't remember when I changed my mind about this, but even when I was anonymous it seemed to me that anyone who really cared knew who I was anyway.

What is it that causes us to be this way? I think a lot of readers will argue that we're following in the footsteps of leadership. NYC Educator actually appeared a little before the 2005 Contract. My goal in putting this up was to counter the anti-teacher spin I saw so frequently in the NYC papers. But the 2005 Contract, full of extra time, goodies for Bloomberg, and particularly the ATR, made me turn a critical eye toward leadership.

What happened to militant unionism, or even speaking up? It's not simple, but it's largely attached to 2005. I remember 1986, when as a new teacher with a temporary license, I drove to work one day in September only to find I didn't have a job anymore. I decided to look for a job in Queens rather than the Bronx so my next stop was the Queens hiring hall. A secretary there showed me a room full of teachers in folding chairs and told me she needed to place every single one of them before she could place me.

I called the union. A rep told me there was nothing they could do for me, but that when I was a more senior teacher I'd be glad of this policy. Of course, that changed in 2005. Now, if my principal puts me up on nonsensical charges, I'm not terribly likely to be fired. But there is this DOE policy of splitting the baby, which means I'll almost certainly be found guilty of some minor thing or other and be fined a few thousand bucks. When that happens, the principal who brought the crazy charges can generally make you an ATR.

I would hate to be an ATR. Teaching is a big part of my life, and I take it seriously. I would have a lot of trouble doing that if I were a wandering sub. I see this do bad things to people, and I understand completely. I see people who've found ways to cope. Blogger Chaz has decided to acknowledge and celebrate the oddness and humor in his situation and is the healthiest-minded ATR I know. I hope, were I ever to be in that position, that I'd find the courage to meet it the way he does. I have no idea, though, whether or not I could.

I find myself in conflict with some of my ATR friends, in that I'm absolutely keen on preserving union. For all my complaints about leadership, they hung tough against Bloomberg and declined to sell out the ATR for the raise other unions got. This was the right thing to do for multiple reasons. One is solidarity with our brothers and sisters in the ATR. Another is we're all just a school closing or 3020a from being ATRs ourselves. Opening up the ATR with a time limit would mean DOE could manipulate the system to fire almost anyone.

This notwithstanding, teacher morale is in the toilet. Few are inclined to take a stand. Why is that? One factor is certainly the ATR. We used to be placed in schools when we were bumped. Another is the evaluation system. Leadership can talk till they're red in the face about how few teachers get rated ineffective. That's a thing. Another thing, though, is how working teachers feel, and they feel afraid. There are a lot of crazy vindictive supervisors all over the city, and uprisings here are not happening spontaneously, despite what we see happening in Oklahoma, West Virginia and elsewhere.

I have a supervisor who is not remotely insane. I don't expect to get bad ratings. But I certainly understand the feeling of hatred for this system. I know and I feel that it was borne of a desire to fire my brothers and sisters. I heard Cuomo say so. Later, I heard him call it "baloney" because so few teachers were fired. I watched him and the heavy-hearted Assembly vote for his new system. Like all teachers, I know and I feel what this system is intended to do. Though it's a large failure, as would be any system conceived in junk science, it's hanging over my head, and all our heads, every moment of our lives.

Of course there are powerful forces right now trying to destroy our union. They absolutely wish to push us into the same corner in which WV and OK find themselves. Maybe if they're successful, they can ruin us. Maybe, at that point, we'll take a stand city or statewide. But there's one big impediment to activism, and that impediment is leadership.

It was leadership that told us we must be smoking something if we thought we could do better than a contract that raised maximum to 25. Back then we had a streak of self-preservation, voted it down and got it reduced to 22. It was leadership that told us we needed to accept the crap we got in 2005, and we no longer had it in us to say no. It was leadership that posted an idiotic piece suggesting the crap 2005 contract "scraped the skies."

It was leadership that sold the last contract via fear, telling us if we didn't accept it we'd move all the way back in line behind 200 unions, and that there was no "God-given right" to retro pay. It is leadership right now loudly telling us we do not make public demands. Leadership tells us there is a 400-member negotiating committee and only they have the sacred right of negotiating the contract. In fact, the last such committee passed the leadership proposal before even having seen the Memorandum of Agreement. My expectations for rank and file voice on the current committee, of which I'm a member, are not high.

It was also leadership that sold us Danielson and junk science with the question, "Do you want to go back to the bad old days when principals controlled 100% of your evaluation?" For one thing, no, no one's ever said that. It's a strawman. For another, the days were not so bad when the principal also held 100% of the power to leave you alone if she so chose. But mostly, it didn't feel so bad back in those bad old days. These days, the fear is palpable.

Leadership manipulates us with appeals to fear and is shocked when teachers are fearful. I'm not. Leadership can maintain we need not be afraid because of union, and that's potentially accurate. This notwithstanding, I'm not afraid, but I feel it's mostly in spite of union leadership. I've developed my own voice and I've had to think out of the box to do it. Meanwhile, almost all the people UFT considers activists have signed  loyalty oaths. These people, on pain of losing perks and jobs, will not utter a public word that contradicts leadership. Some of them are outright ridiculous. But guess what? They're acting out of fear too.

Hey, if leadership wants to groom and build an activist membership, I'm all for it. I'll help. But to do that, they themselves will have to stop indulging in fear tactics. I'm up for it.

Now show me.

A Whole Lot of Nothing on UFT Contract

That's what you'll find inside this piece in Reformy Chalkbeat. Evidently the UFT is going to ask for parental leave and money. Also, they did a survey. We don't know the results of the survey, and neither does Reformy Chalkbeat.

Once again, if it isn't about Eva Moskowitz or E4E, Reformy Chalkbeat can't be bothered to seek out even the most basic information.

That's what passes for journalism in these United States, and that's why Donald Trump is President. If I were Bill Gates, I'd ask for my support money back. Except if I were Bill Gates I'd probably be happy to know every time Eva sneezed or E4E collected 100 signatures demanding more work for less pay.

As a living, breathing, NYC schoolteacher, I hope for better. Actually the city tabloids often offer that. It's hard to come up with something to say each and every day, I guess. Still, if I can do it with no budget and no staff, you'd think Reformy Chalkbeat could get someone to do it for money.

We're Negotiating a Contract, and Therefore Cannot Discuss Anything Whatsoever

That's about the sense I get from leadership.

Every few weeks I go to the UFT Executive Board. It's extraordinary, after all these years, to be able to direct questions to leadership. Now I don't always get an answer, but nonetheless it's extraordinary. It's also kind of sad that, in order to directly pose questions to leadership, you have to run for Executive Board and win. I spent a lot of time with Long Island locals a few years ago, and union leadership is much closer.

Before the last meeting I asked here, and also on Facebook and Twitter what people would like me to ask. I got an awful lot of responses about what people wanted in the contract. Here's the thing--all questions about the contract will be answered with, "That's the province of the 400-member negotiating committee."

That's not precisely the first answer I'd give if I were presiding over Janus. And we are not blameless in Janus. By jumping on board so early to endorse Hillary, which many of us saw as a fait accompli anyway, we may have affected the outcome. I don't know how many AFT people reminded me of 1972 in telling me why we couldn't endorse Bernie. In 1972 George McGovern opposed the Vietnam War and was considered a wild-eyed radical. In 2016 Hillary Clinton, the sure thing, lost the election and make no mistake, that's why we're facing Janus.

We, the AFT and UFT, declined to endorse a candidate who believed in universal health care, a living wage, and affordable college. Instead, we endorsed a candidate who was Not Donald Trump. While I'll freely admit that beats the hell out of Donald Trump, it wasn't enough to motivate enough Americans to get off their asses and vote in key states.

These are the same people telling us to rely on the good judgment of the 400-member committee. I can't tell you what goes on at that committee, but neither can I tell you what goes on in Unity Caucus meetings, and the overwhelming committee majority is Unity Caucus. Unity Caucus has brought us contract after contract, giveback after giveback, and we're still waiting for most of the money NYPD got back in 2009.

The city, according to PBA, is demanding draconian health givebacks. I can understand why they don't even wish to bother sitting down and discussing the insulting proposals. Bill de Blasio, if you read the NY Post, is some kind of hippie commie weirdo, but by a whole lot of standards, he negotiates far tougher than Bloomberg ever did. Take a look at the miserable pattern we imposed on our brothers and sisters--10% over seven years. As far as I know, that's the lowest pattern bargain in city history. And if that's not enough, take a look at your copays.

I'm glad it isn't my job to tell you everything, without exception, is wonderful. It is my job to tell you that we are certainly better with than without union. I know a whole lot of charter teachers and hear stories where they click their fingers and you jump, no matter how stupid the request is. I know exactly where each and every ATR teacher would be without a union. I have not been an ATR, but I once worked for a principal who'd certainly have fired me for having told a NY Times writer about two students in my ESL classes who actually knew English but were illiterate.

I have a friend who used to work for a charter, was treated in an unconscionable fashion, and now works in a public school. I criticize leadership a lot, but I do not take what I have for granted. We stand to lose an awful lot if we fail to support our union. To save it, we will all have to become active. That means, just for starters, we will all have to vote in union elections.

Should we do that, we may be able to seriously improve on leadership

UFT Executive Board April 9th--Over 36 Minutes

6 PM—Secretary Howard Schoor welcomes us.  Only one other person at dais right now.

No speakers tonight.

Minutes—approved.

President’s report—Mulgrew not here.

Staff director not here.

Arthur Goldstein—MORE—You may or may not have seen an open letter from High School of Art and Design. signed by eight teachers including the chapter leader. This appears to involve another case of a principal in need of improvement, which unfortunately we tend to see too much of. A lot of us would love to see principals in need of improvement back in NY Teacher, and perhaps here’s a candidate.

Meanwhile, I’m hearing that teachers from this school will come to our next meeting. I’m hoping that we can get perhaps ahead of the curve and make things a little better before that happens.

Can we specifically send Art and Design some conversation and support before our next meeting?

Schoor—We’re already ahead of the curve. Have had several meetings with DOE. Have spoken at three chancellor’s meetings. Have reached out to CL and others, invited them in to devise a strategy. Have refused to come. Refused to allow legal intakes. We’re ready, willing and able. Without teachers telling us firsthand we’re not prepared to do anything.

Jonathan Halabi—New Action—On ATRs—In a school where some teachers work compensated 6th class, can ATR be assigned a six period schedule? Also, in unbalanced days where teachers teach six and four do they teach six?

Mike Sill—A person can be asked to do six periods, but should be paid a coverage each and every time. We should advocate teachers get paid for period 6 and should grieve if denied.

Halabi—Can ATRs be observed teaching out of subject area?

Schoor—Yes.

Eliu Lara—Any time a teacher is working he or she can be observed. However, if teacher gets bad rating we can fight that.

Schoor—can’t stop members from observations, even if they are out of license.

Sill—In past, when field supervisor observed we didn’t have whole lot of success having observations reconsidered. But we want to know about it because we will advocate for that person.

LeRoy Barr—Next week is negotiation meeting. Please come out April 16. Friday 13 is high school awards at 5:30. April 21 social studies conference. May 5 UFT 5K run at Coney Island. Next EB April 23. April 18 DA.

Dais is now pretty full.

Schoor—Another union was in Chief about health negotiations. Health care issues will be part of our negotiations, along with other city unions. Weighted vote by members. If they want to come to an agreement have to go through Municipal Labor Coalition. No one union will do this alone.

Report from Districts

George Altomari—Mentions social studies conference. Needs union members to come. Empty hall looming before us. Asks us to come or tell people to come. Leticia James will be there.

David Kazansky—running for teacher trustee, NYC teacher retirement board. On March 27 annual labor seder. 100 in attendance. Story of passover and labor tie in together. Was huge success. Please come next year.

Pat Cristino—members at building want to move school from one floor to another, give no space and add charter. Meet with students and members each week. PEP panel impressed. Please come to PEP April 25th. Space is key to their success. Will hurt them to aid charter.

Paul Egan—1-1 to Westham. European dreams are shattered. Biggest news this week is IDC has come back to Democrats, but will not change anything except Jeff Klein’s office and vanity plate. GOP still in charge because of Simka Felder. Special election April 24, please vote for Shelly Mayer. GOP has put 2 million into race for 79K job, that will run again in November.

Door knocking, have hit 25K. Still many more to go. Over 5K long conversations, Mostly productive. People see need for union.

Trying to repeat at workplace with membership teams. Starting training this week. Hope that people will realize importance of union. Trump makes it clear every day.

Schoor—How much money are charters giving to this race?

Egan—Over a million—some set as IE and we don’t know yet. Airtime bought. Will go over 3 million.

6:24 Mulgrew arrives

Trying to tally budget—close to a billion. 14.3 million for teacher center, pivotal for CTLE.
Janus legislation for NY State—says what employer has to do for us, talks about Taylor Law and what fair representation is. We will keep NY State’s ability to have one union for a worksite, not multiple. NY Post hates it.

This is it—membership team training starts this week. We launch our new IT platform next week. Membership cards go out next week. App next Wednesday.This will be all UFT members, not just DOE. By June we should be able to communicate more rapidly.

Met with new chancellor. Very nice. All nice at first. Everyone says he is very nice. Do you want him
to come to EB or DA first?

EB seems to be answer.

Mulgrew will ask him to next meeting, 23rd. After that we will invite him to Spring Conference.

We understand our focus. Our business with him is DOE and middle management. Will he be working partner or same old same old?
We will tell him what and who works and what and who doesn’t.

Federal spending plan was a miracle. Won’t happen again. Didn’t think this would get done, but it did.

Thanks us. 6:31, Mulgrew leaves.
Janella Hinds—Reports on commemoration of assassination of Dr. King and sanitation workers strike. Randi Weingarten and other leaders were there. Others from UFT attended. Other unions from across the country acknowledged Dr. King’s commitment to working people. Sanitation workers just made whole a few months ago. Rallied and marched on April 4th. Acknowledged civil rights and labor movement work of Dr. King.

Shelvy Abrams—also attended rally. Had labor seder on Wednesday night, at church where workers went to do mailings. Was closed for 50 years, now remodeled. Will be memorial for all sanitation workers. Will be part of history when they finished. It’s beautiful. Great that three surviving workers spoke well and strong. Randi spoke—what happened 50 years ago hasn’t changed. Poverty is worse in richest country in world. People starving. Boarded up homes. Everything he fought for—it’s the same way it was the day before he was killed. His voice says, “Our weapon is our vote.” Our mission is 2018. If we don’t do it, we can forget it.

We are adjourned. 6:37

If You Were Me...

...what question would you ask leadership at UFT Executive Board tomorrow night?

No One Likes Danielson

It's kind of funny to hear leadership say that our evaluation model ought to be emulated statewide. They appear to base this on percentages, and if percentages are all you examine, their conclusion might be sound. If the only factor that's relevant is which percentage of teachers get ineffective ratings, then let's have a party. We're in the best of all possible worlds. That appears to be leadership's contention.

So why, then, does almost every single working teacher hate this system? Of course, there are exceptions. There are teachers on the union payroll whose jobs depend on loving everything adore this system. Also E4E, paid off by Gates, seems to like it, and leadership seems to have become soulmates with them over restorative justice. This notwithstanding, I hear complaints about it each and every day. It doesn't even matter if you get decent ratings. I hate it. My colleagues hate it. Even the more reasonable supervisors hate it.

People tell me stories about changing their plans the moment a supervisor walks into the room. I was gonna do fractions today but it looks like I better do Danielson today. I can do fractions tomorrow, but today I'll ask a bunch of broad questions and have the kids put up their red and green cards to indicate whether or not they understand. Tomorrow I'll walk around the room and check their work instead, because we're having a test next week and I need to really know whether they understand. I'll have to put it off one day because I've lost another day to Danielson.

I see supervisors hunched over computer screens. Sometimes they put gatekeepers outside their doors. They have no time to help anyone who needs it because they have to finish another 20 reports by the end of the week. Leadership says that's great because it keeps them busy. Yet in my world, at least, supervisors still find time to write disciplinary letters over baseless nonsense. Who knows how they do it? Maybe they teach it in principal school.

I don't buy the premise that if supervisors are kept busy writing endless observation reports they don't have time to be petty and vindictive. If I spent each and every day writing redundant reports I might need to be petty and vindictive too. What if I'm thirty years old, I don't actually know how to write anything whatsoever, and yet my job entails writing 180 reports a year? I must be pretty pissed off.

Over at 52 Broadway, there's no APPR, and not one single officer has ever been Danielsoned, ever. Yet many UFT employees  (who've also never been Danielsoned) will tell you to your face that being observed four or six times a year is no big deal. They should know. They've seen the stats. But they have no idea how demoralizing it is when some 30-year-old Boy Wonder supervisor says you are developing or ineffective because you did this or that. It's particularly dispiriting when you did neither this nor that, and the fact that it's utterly false gives you no basis for an APPR complaint.

No matter how few double ineffectives there may be, having the burden of proof on the teacher at 3020a is unacceptable. How do you prove a negative? A sitting Executive Board member argued with me on Twitter that it was great the burden of proof was on the teacher. That way the teacher could own it. This was one of the stupidest arguments I've heard in my entire life. Doubtless this person is bound for glory in UFT. I wonder how much money it costs to buy people off so thoroughly they'll utter nonsense of that magnitude.

As if that's not enough, week after week I hear from teachers who work under Principals from Hell. In extraordinary circumstances, communities are awakened and the media jumps in, but often Principals from Hell sit unchallenged for years. Sometimes even after the press covers them nothing happens. You read about a principal falsifying observations at Banana Kelly, and I know a person who suffered that who's as of yet been unable to reduce her negative rating. How many more such stories are there that we haven't yet heard? Who knows?

When we stand and ask leadership to require fewer observations for people who do well with them, they argue that people do better with more. Yet we only asked for fewer observations for people already doing well. They have no notion of the stress this system causes day to day. Let's face it--the entire system is predicated on the assumption that teachers suck and need to be fired. The most recent iteration was, in fact, based on Andrew Cuomo's public outcry that plenty of teachers suck and not enough were being fired.

UFT leadership needs to step out of its self-imposed cone of silence. It needs to speak more frequently to rank and file who aren't on the payroll. I don't understand why Janus isn't a wake-up call. Everyone hates Danielson except those who have never experienced it and those who are paid to say everything is wonderful and we are in the best of all possible worlds.

Were I in leadership, I'd make it priority number one to hear and respond to the prevailing point of view otherwise. This would be a win-win for sure. Have they got the courage to open their ears?

Only time will tell.

Mariachi Chancellor Thinks Opt-Out is Extreme

I was pretty surprised to see that incoming NYC Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza deemed opt-out an extreme reaction to the standardized testing that has plagued and poisoned our educational system. First of all, this implies the parents who mounted a statewide protest to resist making widgets of their children are somehow taking the wrong approach.

Carranza probably doesn't remember when Reformy John King announced that very few New York children met his exacting standards, and almost immediately thereafter fewer than 20% NY children rang the big Common Core bell in Albany. He probably doesn't recall the statewide protests of these tests. He must not remember even the Great and Powerful Andrew Cuomo shrinking at the sight of Jeanette Deutermann and Beth Dimino. He probably doesn't remember that there is a moratorium on actually using any of these test scores for much of anything.

In a way, you can't blame the guy, He wasn't around when any of this was happening. On the other hand, if Carranza wants to be el rey, the king, he's gonna have to do a little bit of homework. Specifically, he's gonna have to educate himself on what opt-out is, who was in it, and exactly how powerful the tsunami of parent power was that accompanied it. Kings get to sit on a throne, but only so long as no one topples it. Andrew Cuomo was comfortably ensconced in his reformy castle until opt-out raised its formidable head. Now he acts like he's our good buddy, and he pretends to be a Democrat instead of going after unions.

A key rule in writing and teaching is know your audience. I can't give the same lesson to an AP English class as the one I present to a group of newcomers from El Salvador and China. I mean, I could, but it would fall on deaf ears a good portion of the time. Carranza, by talking off the top of his head, has failed to consider his audience. I hope he's a quick learner, but thus far he's shown no evidence he is.

This is not necessarily a fundamental or irreversible error. Here's a guy who's learned how to play a violin. That's not an easy process. You have to endure sounds no human ought to before you coax a sweet tone from this instrument. We have to hope the tortured sounds we're hearing now are only practice.

Still, if Bill de Blasio scoured the country for the best, it's hard to understand why he couldn't find someone who, you know, read a few articles about opt-out before venturing toward such an outlandish comment. It's possible that Carranza thinks, as el rey, that any questioning of his actions is beyond the pale. I certainly hope not.

Opt-out remains one of the great hopes for quality education, as opposed to the reformy slice-em, dice-em, rigor and grit crap that Broad, Gates and Walmart would impose on our children.

Which side are you on, Mr. Chancellor?

Single Dog

I teach a lot of students from China. Sometimes I learn things about Chinese. A lot of the materials I choose are designed for college, so sometimes there are questions about whether or not students are married. Sometimes the boys say, "No, I'm a Single Dog." When I ask what they're talking about, they say that's what single guys are called in China. I think that's hilarious, and now I notice the expression when it comes up.

China's a Confucian society, and there's still this thing about having sons. People want to carry on the family name. There's been this one child per family rule in China. While it's phased out nowadays, the effect of preferring male children has been one of a country in which there are more men than women. So there are an awful lot of Single Dogs out there in China. I sometimes think that's why the Chinese boys come here, but I must be wrong because the girls come too.

My classroom is dominated by Chinese speakers. My second largest group is Spanish speakers, but they're outnumbered maybe four to one. It's problematic in that my goal is to get them to speak English, and it goes against all natural tendency. I mean, imagine we, native English speakers, are grouped together in China and some crazy teacher is standing in front of the room insisting we speak Chinese. What a ridiculous demand.

Yet that's essentially my job. A good friend of mine once asked a student, "Who's the craziest teacher you know?" He was quite confident the student would say he was, but he counted me out too soon.

"Mr. Goldstein," said the student without hesitation.

"Why?" asked my disappointed friend.

"We came here, the first day, and none of us could speak any English. The first thing Mr. Goldstein said to us was from now on we would speak only in English."

I'm always proud of that, particularly because my friend is pretty crazy on his own terms. But it is a crazy thing to ask. It's a little tougher this year because I now have four or five Single Dogs with pretty active senses of humor. I'm pro-humor, actually, but it's problematic when it's in a language a fair group of us don't understand. It's particularly problematic when it's used in an unfriendly way.

One day we were talking about animal sounds. Dogs say bow wow in English, but guau guau in Spanish. One of my Single Dogs told me what cats say in Chinese, I repeated it, and it turned out to be a pretty vulgar word. The Chinese girls are a little more mature than the boys, they didn't find that amusing, and they let me know. I verified it with the Chinese teachers and called his house.

Usually their banter is not that offensive, but it's still rude to cut out so many people. One day, after they had a hilarious in-joke, I started speaking Spanish, which is something I never do in class.

I looked at the boys and asked them how they liked being left out of the conversation. What did they think I was saying? Do they like it when we have conversations and exclude them? I don't remember exactly what else I said but my Spanish speakers were very happy about it. Several of them came up and told me so. It looked like they were feeling much what I was feeling.

The boys were visibly stunned. They didn't expect that and had no way to react. My Single Dogs have slowed down their private conversations since then. But they will surely pick it up, and having used that trick once, I can't rely upon it again. I'll have to come up with something else.

I'm Sisyphus, pushing the boulder up the hill, and every time they make a joke in Chinese I have to push it even farther. But I'm making progress despite all reasonable expectations otherwise.

I can't put pictures of my students on the blog, so pictured is my dog Toby. While he's not technically a Single Dog, he is nonetheless both single and a dog.

Justice League and UFT Unity

Last night I watched Justice League with my young nephew. I spent my misbegotten youth reading comic books, so I love superhero movies. There've been some great ones lately--Wonder Woman and Black Panther. There've also been some really awful ones. Batman vs. Superman was abysmal, except for the five minutes when Wonder Woman showed up.

Justice League is really not very good. It tries to tell too many stories and introduce too many characters, and doesn't develop any of the new ones sufficiently. Superman returns from the dead and still has no evident personality. If we're gonna have an overweight Batman, it should probably be Kevin Smith instead of Ben Affleck. At least he'd be interesting to listen to. Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman is great, and the director often showed her face for no apparent reason, just so you could say, "Look, there's Wonder Woman."

Nonetheless, as a UFT member, I was struck by the bad guy with the big horns. I don't remember if he had a name, but his goal was to put together three boxes of some kind of power and therefore create Unity. (Evidently no one had advised him that Al Shanker did that years ago.) Not only that, but he had an army of flying monkey/ insect creatures to support him. These creatures bled green slime when wounded, and there was more than one scene of superheroes being slimed by them upon their demise.

The thing about the flying monkeys was that they had no loyalty. They may or may not have signed loyalty oaths, but once they smelled fear on the guy with the big horns, they were ready to turn on him with no hesitation. This is problematic. I mean, think about all those people in Unity whose job it is to sit around and write lies about people like me. How many of them does it take to create a handout at the DA saying people who don't tow the party line are disloyal? If you can write lies about us, you can pretty much write lies about anyone. That's just one reason not to depend on people who lie.

In a union, who or what merits your loyalty? If you're part of the Unity Caucus, you've signed an oath to support whatever positions the caucus supports. This opens up a world of free trips and patronage gigs. You might find yourself working after school giving advice on pensions of something. If you hit the jackpot, you might find yourself with a full time job in some office or other. You'd hope this would be by merit, but the primary qualification is signing away your opinions to the Unity Caucus.

If you do that, you agree to support Common Core. You agree to support junk science evaluation. You agree to support the Danielson Rubric and oppose any reduction in observations until and unless UFT leadership does the same. In fact, despite vocal protests from a Unity Caucus member at the last Executive Board meeting, you agree to support the ATR. This is required, because it was part of the 2005 Contract, and you supported that too. So when you get up there and complain when we demand elected representation for the ATR we're supporting the ATR, you're being disingenuous. It wasn't us who supported it--it was you. You probably don't know that, because the likelihood of this coming up at Unity get-togethers hovers around nil.

Now here's the thing--should the gravy train slow down, and should the budget call for fewer flying monkeys, someone's gotta go. Will they turn on leadership? Probably not. That would require independent thought, and that's something you need to suppress or avoid if you're gonna support punching the faces of anyone who opposes Common Core. Nonetheless, the problem is people who don't think things through suffer from lack of vision.

It doesn't really matter whether you have no vision or have chosen to consciously shut it down. Regardless, you're just along for the ride and you aren't a leader. Thus you get people in positions of authority who observe Barack Obama pursuing the most anti-teacher agenda in history and they say, "Hey, let's unconditionally support this guy." You get people who look at Hillary Clinton's unwillingness to embrace universal health care, a living wage or affordable college. They decide, "Hey, let's support her way ahead of time. That guy Sanders is a wild-eyed fanatic, what with his crazy ideas about universal health care, a living wage, and affordable college."

When Clinton stands in front of the  AFT in Minnesota and declares we can learn a lot from public charter schools, whatever the hell they may be, these folks applaud. They lecture you online and to your face that you're crazy to support Sanders. "Remember McGovern in 72?" they ask. Yet even now, none of them are asking, "Remember Clinton in 2016?"

You can love America without loving Trump. You can love the union without loving Mulgrew. You now face a turning point, though. Do you give up on America altogether? Aren't you part of it, and if Donald Trump is President, isn't that partially your fault? If you don't love UFT leadership, what are you going to do about it? Are you going to quit the union and say screw everyone else, I'm keeping my 1400 bucks? That'll certainly weaken union, us, and make the Koch Brothers happy with a job well done.

Of course, if I were running the union, I'd want to reach out to rank and file. I'd want to show them that I'm listening. Instead, we get the same old imperious nonsense, sitting up on their 14th floor Mount Olympus looking down upon us as though their omniscience were beyond question. High schools? They voted the wrong way. Screw high schools. The ATR? They're lucky to have a job. Screw the ATR. Class sizes? We negotiated them 50 years ago and that should be good enough for anyone.

I believe in union. I will work to maintain it. But this isn't a one-way street. UFT Unity owes us their ear. While they may be totally unfamiliar with this concept, it's their job to represent us, not to do any damn thing they feel like and send flying monkeys out to tell us why they are right and we are wrong. UFT leadership has woken up to the fact that, due to their utter failure (among others) to mobilize the electorate, we are in crisis.

But they've still failed to take even baby steps toward doing what their prime directive ought to be--listening to their members. If I were them, I'd be taking serious stock of how to do that. Otherwise teachers will have to wait for members to rise up on their own a la West Virginia or Oklahoma. Given the culture of complacency that has three of four UFT members failing to even vote in union elections, that could take years, decades, or centuries.

We haven't got that kind of time anymore.

Suspensions Up in NYC, UFT and City Fight for More Singing of Kumbaya

I'm not surprised to see that the suspension rate has risen this year. I'm not surprised either that the cited article interviews not one single UFT member. Fortunately, they ask Mona David her opinion. David runs some parent group which, as far as I know, consists of at least her and some guy from Staten Island who wish to kill teacher tenure. Why bother asking teachers what they think?

The article cites reasons suspensions are given, though:

Students are suspended for such infractions as attacking staff or other students, destroying school property or bringing weapons to campus.

Fortunately, the city is looking to take a "restorative justice" approach to these matters. So if you or one of your students get the crap kicked out of you at school, the attacker will get to sit around and talk about just why he hit you over the head with that two by four. When we finally discover the root cause, you and your assaulter can hug it out. What's better than that?

Let's say that some student offers to kill your entire class. Doubtless he's misunderstood. You should talk to him, and find out why he feels that way. Let's say you respond, and he once again signals his intention to kill everyone. Clearly he's had some childhood trauma that put him in this unfortunate situation. There's a conflict between him and the entire class. The only thing to do is set up a mediation. He can explain why he wants to kill everyone while you and the rest of the class explain why you don't want to die.

Hidden and buried feelings are simply unhealthy. So it's important that you get them right out there in the open. As educators, it's important that we not just skim the surface. Now sure, this is not 100% effective. I mean, sometimes students actually show up to schools and kill everybody. But don't you want to be absolutely sure you've exhausted all restorative means at your disposal before you resort to something as drastic as suspension?

I'm kind of old school, so you can't really go by me. Once, I was teaching a class, and a student I'd never seen walked in. I told him he'd have to leave. He was offended by that, and thus he announced to the class that he was going to blow my head off with a 45. Clearly it was my fault. I should've taken the time to ask him why he felt he needed to come into my classroom, as opposed to whatever one he belonged in. Had I taken the time to understand him, perhaps he wouldn't have felt the need to threaten my life in front of 30 witnesses.

But that's not all I did. After the class, I ran around the whole building and sought to ascertain the identity of the kid. When I finally did, rather than apologize face to face for failing to understand his needs, I wrote him up to the dean. Not only that, but I followed up a few days later. I asked what happened, and the dean told me they had called the kid's parents. I asked why he wasn't suspended. He had problems, they told me.

Now here's how callous I am--I said if he had problems that caused him to threaten people's lives in public, he did not belong in the same building as my students. Can you imagine my level of insensitivity? Even now I feel wracked with guilt over my unreasonable requests.

Statistics show that students who are suspended graduate at lower rates than students who are not suspended. Clearly the suspensions are damaging to student self-esteem. Now I know there are Doubting Thomases out there who will say, "Hey, NYC Educator, don't they graduate at lower rates because they bring weapons to school, or run around assaulting people and threatening to kill them?"

To you doubters, I say this. Last Wednesday UFT passed a resolution for more restorative justice and less suspension. And they must be right, because E4E also supported it, and they're endorsed by Bill Gates.

What more evidence could anyone ask?

UFT Executive Board Takeaway, March 26, 2018

I'm hard-pressed to discuss what goes on at the Executive Board. Its primary function is to rubber stamp whatever. There is no virtually debate or discussion, ever, unless you pretend things whose conclusions are pre-ordained are not so.  Nonetheless, our presence there means UFT leadership has to publicly discuss things like class size and reasonable representation of ATR members. Our inclusion of a few groups has managed to help as well.

I remain flabbergasted at their inability to formulate credible arguments. I'm no genius, but every time I hear the things they say I think I could argue the other side better. I don't mean once in a while, but rather each and every time. In fact, I spoke to one former ATR teacher the day we proposed representation for them, and she made arguments that did not cross a single Unity mind. She made me consider withdrawing our resolution, but most ATR teachers I know favored it. I'm not going to write the argument here. Unity will have to figure it out themselves.

We heard several ATR teachers speak. You won't see their comments in the official meeting minutes because guest speaker comments are not recorded. Nor are questions. I have no idea why this is. I have no idea why the UFT president doesn't engage in these meetings. The only conclusion I can reach is that meetings are intended to be pro forma and of no actual significance. We're not supposed to discuss the upcoming contract, for example, because there's a committee of 300 400 talking about it.

Mulgrew stressed the importance of teams at schools encouraging union. I agree on that. If we don't have a union, we pretty much have nothing to discuss, and principals have carte blanche to do any damn thing they feel like. Of course many already do that, with the support of the Bloomberg holdovers in "legal," but we are still able to fight back. Teachers without unions are teachers without contracts. If you want to know how that goes, try working in a charter school.

I have personal struggles with this, because even as we fight for the union, Unity publicly paints us as traitors and liars. They decline to work with us at all, even as they publicly declare otherwise. I was unable to get anyone in leadership to discuss class size with an eye toward writing a resolution, even though they publicly and privately offered to do so. Instead, they simply cut out all references to actual class size changes and placed a line in that indicated they are already working on class size. I'd argue that when you work on something for 50 years and fail to improve it, it's time to reconsider your approach.

Last year Unity unilaterally decided they needed advance notice of resolutions. I presume this was so they'd have time to develop better arguments to reject our requests. Let's examine some of the arguments they came up with on March 26th, in opposition to our resolution ATR teachers elect leaders who'd actually represent them.

The first argument was that this came up three years ago. I suppose this suggests either that nothing can change over three years, or that any decision the Executive Board made based on loyalty oath could never be wrong. I'd agree that little has changed over three years. Still, UFT Leadership did not just come down from Mount Sinai carrying the Ten Commandments, and they are more fallible than they acknowledge.

As for the second argument, that the Chapter Leader represents ATR teachers in schools, that's true, at least theoretically. I have represented ATR teachers in my building. I have also heard horror stories from ATRs who did not get anything like adequate representation, and who have been told to put up with things they should not. However, that's not even the point. The point is these ATR teachers do not get to vote for anyone who actually represents them. This point was ignored in every single Unity argument.

The next person said that this would be a big mistake because it would be saying we want to have the ATR forever. That's what you call a strawman. First of all, no one who signed this resolution wants to have the ATR at all. In fact, the ATR was the single most egregious thing in the awful 2005 Contract, and is largely what turned me to have the beliefs I now hold. In case that's not enough, our resolution specifically asked that the chapter exist only until the ATR was eliminated.

The most interesting argument was the last one, where a member got up and said that he was an ATR when he first started in 2003. This was particularly curious because the ATR was not even established until 2005. Even if you accept the premise that this person was an ATR two years before the ATR existed, how does someone get hired as an ATR? Most ATRs have either left closing schools or been placed after disciplinary hearings. Why would the DOE actually hire someone for whom they had no position? I don't imagine even Klein doing something like that.

I was also put off by the notion that ATRs left a school feeling like they were part of the family. A lot of ATRs I know leave feeling like they've been booted from the family. This was the same person who argued he'd met two ATRs delighted by the severance package. Oddly, my school is much larger than his, I speak with ATRs from all over the city, and what I mostly heard was outrage.

I was glad that KJ Ahluwalia got up and spoke reason. He came from a closing school and while he landed on his feet, many of his colleagues didn't. I have no idea how so many Unity people can stand up and say to ATR teachers that they don't merit a vote in who represents them. That's unconscionable.

As usual, Unity is behind the curve. In America today, the trend is depriving people of their vote altogether. Unity has merely allowed ATRs to vote for someone who, once elected, will not actually represent them.

E4E Sets Agenda at UFT Delegate Assembly--Screw Class Size, Ignore Poverty, and Hope for the Best

There are few things that upset me more than the pernicious influence of Bill Gates. Gates is why we have junk science as a regular part of our evaluation. Gates is why we moved toward small schools, which even he now admits was a bad idea. Gates is why the entire evaluation system was scrapped and why it's repainted and refurbished every year or two.

Of course leadership doesn't see this quite so clearly, and that's how Gates became a keynote speaker at an AFT Convention. Randi Weingarten seemed to embolden the troops as they ridiculed teachers who protested him. The Gates offshoot in the UFT is called Educators 4 Excellence, and it's run by a couple of newbies who gave up teaching almost immediately after forming it to do whatever it is they do on the Gates dime. If you want to know more about them, read Chalkbeat. E4E is their go to for quotes from teachers, or in the case of their leadership, ex-teachers.

Leadership got together with an E4E member and whipped up a resolution about incorporating innovative reactions to discipline as opposed to suspension. You see, a lot of people of color are suspended. A lot of homeless students are suspended. And in typical Gates fashion, we turn away from the root cause of of school issues, poverty.  Gates deems it too complicated to bother with, and focuses on school issues instead. Last night, we followed his lead and did the same. The fact that Gates has never done anything that actually worked is neither here nor there.

I'm all for using whatever works to solve issues. But the resolution we passed last night continues our longstanding policy of ignoring the issues and playing along with the reformies. This policy is precisely why teacher morale is so very abysmal. You don't really see that if you're spending all your time sitting around 52 Broadway.

I'm not E4E, and I wouldn't be in a million years. I'm merely one of half a dozen people elected by the high schools to represent them. Leadership's attitude toward the high schools, essentially, is go screw yourselves. I'm not particularly sure how they expect that to win members come Janus. For example, an issue near and dear to my heart is class size. While we alone can't address poverty, we could improve learning conditions for those who suffer from it. In stark contrast with the outlandish ideas Bill Gates pulls out of his wealthy ass, we know that more attention from teachers can actually help children.

I brought this up months ago. Howard Schoor said they'd be happy to meet with us. Despite reaching out multiple times, they were never happy enough to actually do it. A few weeks ago, at the Executive Board, we decided the hell with it and put up our resolution. We proposed that we push to follow the C4E law mandating smaller classes, as opposed to placing numbers in the contract.

UFT Unity chose to strike down the clauses in our class size resolution that focused on class size. The guy they sent up to propose the changes didn't appear to even understand what he was reading. They then voted, lockstep as always, as per loyalty oath, to remove those clauses. Why bother with voting your conscience, if you have one, or repping the members, as though they matter, when there are gigs to be had and conventions to attend?

Mulgrew was in a huge hurry to get through 7 resolutions in 20 minutes, and that's probably why he didn't even give me enough time to stand up when he was looking to debate the anti-suspension resolution. After I walked, they may have done the class size resolution. This one was last on the list, I believe. I'm not sure whether or not they considered it the least important, but I certainly did. Toothless as it was, it made no difference whatsoever. Maybe I'm going about things the wrong way. My approach was to run in a David and Goliath election for a seat I thought we had a shot at winning. When we won, I thought we'd be able to make a change.

One thing we do is stick member issues in their faces a few times each month. It's quite clear to me that Unity would sit around and do nothing but rubber stamp the leadership if we weren't there. Nonetheless, maybe running in democratic elections isn't the way to go if you want to influence leadership. Maybe, instead of fighting for rank and file teachers, we should just join E4E. Evidently, that's who leadership listens to these days.

UFT Delegate Assembly March 28, 2018--E4E Member Introduces Revised Resolution at Last Minute and No One Speaks Against

President’s Report—Michael Mulgrew

Second snow day is the last to which we’re entitled. Next year there is only one snow day. We have the most recognized holidays in the US. Some districts are having classes on Saturday this year.

National—Gun control story phenomenal. Students taking lead and shaming adults. Walkouts, march last Saturday very successful. Great issue but will be a long haul. Students recognize when elected officials do nothing and call them on it. Thanks all who made sure students were safe when they used their political voice.

Spending—DeVos targeted funding for high poverty children, special education, community learning schools, and PD. Wanted to put it into “school choice.” Work done in spending package phenomenal. DeVos got no cuts and we got 6% increase, as did all her targeted areas. Thank Senator Schumer. This helps us this year. We won’t have to backfill from state and city. This is about coordinating activity, and that’s what Janus targets.

DeVos thinks she can change work rules for unionized employees, but cannot. She tried to unilaterally issue a “collective bargaining agreement.” This was stopped.

Lobby Day—over 1100 people, NAACP, had great feedback.

W. Virginia and Oklahoma—Believe Oklahoma will settle this week. These and other “right to work” states have no collective bargaining rights. Teachers in these states have nothing to lose. Haven’t gotten raises in years, benefits taken away more and more. Didn’t care about consequences, were ready to leave state. These are AFT states but wildcat strikes.

Janus wants us all in same position, so we have nothing left and nothing matters anymore. We will not let them do that to us. These won’t be last two states. Oklahoma recognized they had to do something.

State—Budget still going on. Our lobbying and strategy should work, especially with feds. Nothing in policy we are fighting against. We need to deal with moratorium sunset next year. GOP Senate will give money to charters while Assembly will give to teacher learning centers. Movement to stop Yeshivas from being audited to give proper education by Simkah Felder. Some Yeshivas opposed, saying they teach appropriate material already.

If education aid is done correctly, we have to look at tax code. If we don’t change it, we will have huge hole in state budget next year. We will pay for services in states that don’t tax.

New chancellor comes in on Monday, Richard Carranza. Will try to meet with him. Priorities are—we like policies, each other, but people in between not so much. If they aren’t here to help school, we don’t need them. Too many lawyers. We win because lawyers are morons.

There’s also money. We lobby. DOE doesn’t stand with us. Mayor goes. It’s sad, when we’ve had close to 4 billion increase. We don’t see it in our schools. How much longer can we count on DeVos making mistakes? Chancellor needs to know work force doesn’t feel respected by DOE, and we have all this money that doesn’t get to schools.

We believe teacher evaluation is the way to have people stay in this profession and understand how tough the work we do every day is. We don’t think DOE understands.

Congratulates schools that have fought off closures. Still, many schools have fewer than 100 kids, remnant from Bloomberg.

Negotiations—congratulates nurses and NYU Brooklyn, New Visions charters, and providers.

Our negotiations—April 16 next meeting. Negotiating committee directing where we go. 400 people on committee. Every chapter represented. Surveys helpful. We have a clear understanding of what people think is important.

After break, we will push for incident reporting. You have a right to report incidents. Can do it on UFT website. When you have discipline issues school culture not in right place. Safety and discipline is an issue. Principal said he got in trouble for reporting incidents, but now has fewer. Has a positive learning collaborative, swears by our program.

Did anyone get a letter saying you had no incidents in your school? We can’t have hundreds of schools that haven’t had an incident. If that’s the case no one is in your school. We have to call BS and report incidents.

Door knocking over 21K. We have 8,000 activists participating in membership teams.

SBO season here. Don’t do SBOs if you complained about principal all year. This is our process.

CL elections will take place in May and June. Asking that you do them as early as possible. Would like that settled and done with before Janus. If you are running, you may not be on election committee.

Janus—Doing research now. Clear that attacks have already started. People have tried to hack our communications systems, set up Twitter in my name. In NYC, NY State, NJ, we had 17 incursions from people who posed as members and secretly taped union members and officials. Project Veritas is a group that does this. They smear unions and try to get teachers to drop union. We are taking legal action because they use false names. Illegal in NY.

Freedom foundation most successful model for union busting. These are front groups. They FOIL and try to get union member info. They mail and knock doors, do paid media, social medial attacks. Funded by Koch, Broad, etc. We’ve been planning for two years. Manhattan Institute has a little money, but Empire Center has over 6 million from Kochs. Stated goal disrupt, destabilize, weaken UFT and NYSUT.

Membership teams will ramp up. Educational campaign on Janus. We have tighter communication among members. They want 20% drop in UFT membership. We won’t let it happen. We are at lowest # of agency fee payers in history of union. Could be everyone has to sign a card. We would have to use all summer to do that work.

We assume we will have to get to each and every new teacher. Usually we take our time. We usually get 1500 last week of August and take time with thousands more. That will be gone. We will have to get to every one of them, at minimum. Working with DOE to try to get info in June. Fewer agency fee payers each and every week.

We will have to deal with people saying give yourself a raise, quit union. Before next DA, every union member will get a card. Expiration dates short. Only sending to union members, not agency fee payers. We will also have a mobile app. Will have discounts on things. Building them. Stores coming to us, food chains, other things. Will go live at next DA.

We know our people will be lied to. This is a part, but you cannot substitute for face to face conversation. People now thank me for home visits instead of calling the cops. Right to work people are coming to lie to you, as they’ve done in state after state.

As for chancellor, we wanted an outsider. After getting rid of Bloomberg we got more bureaucracy. DOE can’t explain positions because they make no sense.

Thanks us, wishes us great break and holiday. Says we have to have each other’s backs.

LeRoy Barr—mentions March for Our Lives and our participation. Sent buses to DC. Student walkout. Had education forum, functional CL training. Sunday HERstory month celebration first annual. 4/11 wants us to wear blue, show solidarity for students with autism. 4/21, social studies teacher conference. Prom event great success last year. Doing it again all five boroughs. Next DA 4/18, wishes good holidays.

Mulgrew—working with city council, will have to amp up family leave campaign. Hopes city council does hearing.

Questions

CL CS 42—Thanks for support for CS 42. Has UFT considered contractual provision so CLs wouldn’t have to ask principals about Lobby Day or NYSUT?

Mulgrew—Every year we have issues with AFT conference. NYSUT problems, let us know if you are elected. Some don’t want to go during testing. In Principal’s Weekly it said CLs released for Lobby Day. Would be up to negotiating committee.

Q—Discrepancy between amount of work teachers in different schools do. Some places teachers seem like they are on vacation.

A—Teachers need to work in environment they think best suits them. I taught AP classes. Was okay, kids were great, but not for me. Spent last 12 years working with average children in Brooklyn. We cannot look at other people and think they aren’t working at same level we are. I used to think little kids were easy, as HS teacher. Spent a day in elementary school, in first grade classroom, would never, ever do that. I can’t do it. Never seen anything like that. HS gives us breaks between class. Elementary exhausting. No idea how you do it. If someone doesn’t like setting they should transfer. We need to recognize we work differently. Need hazard pay depending on principal.

Q—Bennett Fisher—Confused over family vs. parental leave. I see it mention in lit as parental. Are we fighting for family or only newborn children?

A—I want both. No way to cost it so city wants crazy amount of money. State doesn’t qualify us for programs automatically. We need agreement of municipality. We don’t know where it’s going yet. Soon we will have data on what it costs. Doing parental, not giving up on family. Mayor could agree we have right to go into state program. You don’t stop, you keep trying. Their issue is they don’t want to cover classes. Moral question of whether you believe this or not. Governor agrees, believe it or not.

Q—One objection to signing electronically if problem. Door knockers should have cards.

OK.

Q—In order for us and functional chapter members to keep licenses we have to take courses. Some therapists have been denied use of these funds.

A—Bring that to us. Admin sometimes automatically say no. Depends on situation. Probably problematic administrator. Need to show us why they do it.

Q—Principal in our school says custodial budget cut. Will radically affect school. Said they may not have enough toilet paper for year. Principal will try to get CSA involved. Can UFT be involved.

A—Heard of this this week. Part of our budget process, and frustration with DOE. Head counts of employees grow and we don’t have toilet paper.

Motions

Place item for next meeting—Whereas DA is for elected reps to discuss, want 50% for motions questions and discussion.

Have been attending for two years. Excited to hear reports. This is democratic body. We need more time to discuss and debate.

On agenda.

Resolution to oppose, not endorse IDC. IDC prevents progressive legislation, Dream Act, Universal health care, more. Gives majority to GOP.

Against—Paul Egan—Opposes because GOP is in power because of Simka Felder. IDC has been stopgap to having GOP run roughshod, has worked with us. This is internal Democratic Party fight. Need to flip Senate. Waste of time and money to fight now. Already a deal that if Dems get extra seat IDC will come back.

Fails.

Resolution #1


On Safe Schools, criticizing suspension and encouraging alternates,

Mike Loeb—Points out substitute resolution. Moves to amend and substitute resolution.

Mulgrew—Not now.

Loeb—Motion for sub.

Mulgrew—will vote.

Loeb—disproportionately suspends homeless, students of color. Resolution calls to expand pilots to all districts. Asks for educator voice in programs. Arm us with resources.

Passes. I am not called on to speak against. No one speaks against this resolution, which was introduced by an E4E member.

Janella Hinds—Speaks of MLK. Assassinated in Memphis. Supporting strike. 49 of those workers made whole only this week.

Passes

Mel Aaronson—Speaks of UFT birthday. Says we have several people here who were here 58 years ago. Has them stand.

passes.

At this point I walk out disgusted I was not able to address the resolution introduced by E4E members.

Here is what I did not get to say. However, the resolution would certainly have passed anyway as Carmen Alvarez supported it:

I’m a great believer in unintended consequences. Of course I believe in safe and secure schools, but I question whether this will move us that way. In fact, I think it will have the effect of giving us fewer, rather than more options. Teaching is a demanding job, and we don’t make it any better by removing options from the teacher toolbox.

We all know that principals don’t see things the way we do. They think the contract is a list of suggestions, they don’t understand the difference between three months or three years, and they have to call legal to have it explained to them. This would not be so bad if legal knew the difference, but of course they do not.

Sometimes the city tells principals to report everything, Principals then go out of their way to report every time someone breaks a pencil, and pivotal community schools, like Jamaica, are closed. Then principals see schools closed, decide to report nothing, and chaos ensues. This, in fact, is mentioned in the resolution, and for all I know the reduction in reported incidents cited is a result of changes cited in the discipline code.

I don’t see how this resolution helps make principals report more freely. Having fewer options will more likely push them toward reporting even less.

Of course students should receive the most appropriate responses to whatever their actions may be, and if suspension isn’t called for, they shouldn’t receive it. However, when students offer to murder entire classes, I don’t want to be tied to an option of sending them to talk it out and have them return the next day to my class.

Let’s move, if we need move at all, to place judgment in the hands of teachers. I’m sure we can all agree that teachers, in contrast to principals, tend not to be insane.I don’t know what they teach at principal schools but it most certainly isn’t logic. That’s our province, so let’s move options in our direction and keep them in our hands.

Working teachers want and need more, not fewer options.

Fort that reason, I urge you to vote no on this resolution.