AFT Discovers Bernie Sanders Two Years Too Late

I'm really astonished by the volume of tweets I see from Pittsburgh quoting Bernie Sanders. Two years ago those of us who supported him were "Bernie Bros," a bunch of thugs who had no regard for the sensible middle. Note that none of us were female, evidently, since "Bernie Sisters" doesn't connote the same threatening aura. That's actually sexism on the part of the group that was stereotyping us. Go figure.

But yes, two years after Donald Trump became President, Bernie Sanders is a mythical figure whose ideas are to be lauded.

Bernie Sanders speaks the truth at @AFTunion Convention #AFT18 @UFTUnity @UFT @nysut @rweingarten @UFT_Elementary @UFTTeamHS @UFTMS_Division pic.twitter.com/QUU24tSLjJ

— UFT Unity (@UFTUnity) July 15, 2018

Bernie was speaking that very same truth back on 2016. He had the same optimism and the same ideas. In fact, Bernie was advocating for Medicare for all back when Hillary Clinton was telling us it would never, ever happen. Hillary was ridiculing Bernie's ideas for free college, saying the Trump children would use it, as though Trump would send his kids to state schools. Fifteen bucks an hour was too much to ask, thought Hillary.

At the time, I thought well, there might be merit to their arguments. They pointed back to 1972, when the Democrats ran George McGovern and got crushed in a landslide. Of course, we now know that everything McGovern said about the Vietnam War was correct, and even Nixon seemed to get on board as he extracted us from that quagmire. More importantly, we now know what a horrible error it was to run a candidate whose strongest calling card was being "not Trump."

There are other things AFT is wrong about. Close to home, UFT is mistaken to exclude every single voice that saw what Sanders was saying was true back in 2016. While it's good that we're now applauding Sanders, every AFT rep in Minnesota was compelled to follow the company line that "Bernie Bros" were bad.

It's nice that Hillary gave a speech, but endorsing her was likely the worst decision our union has ever made. It was done early, and there was talk of a survey. Nonetheless I never saw the survey, I have no idea what it contained, and I don't know a single person who took it. It was supposed to be a smart decision to endorse early. I guess it was supposed to be a smart decision to extract no preconditions for said endorsement.

Yet teachers all over the country were then and are now reeling from the nonsense known as Race to the Top. That's what pushed all this unnecessary, ludicrous and hurtful testing. That's what enabled the junk science ratings taking place all over the country. Now I still like Sanders, and he's still saying things that need to be heard.

"There is nothing more important than quality public education for every child in this country." - @SenSanders #IamAFT

— CTU Special Ed (@CTUSpecialEd) July 15, 2018

But if we are to survive as unionists, we need to open up and pay more than lip service. We need to endorse and encourage politicians who support union and education. We need to stop settling for compromised mediocrity like Hillary Clinton. We need to stop saying this is the best we can do, so let's go with it.

Donald Trump is living proof that this is about the worst philosophy we could have espoused. Going forward, if we're going to embrace candidates, let's embrace those who support what Americans support, like universal health care, affordable college, and a living wage. And for goodness sake let's refrain from endorsing those who lecture us about "public charter schools," whatever they may be, which is precisely what Hillary did in 2016.

Should the State Pay Bargaining Fees?

That's what this piece contends. It's an interesting notion. Because Janus is a potential loss of bargaining power for unions, the state should pay it. This way, unions retain the same power they'd have otherwise, even when freeloaders choose to dump expenses on those of us who believe in community. This would neutralize the worst side effects of Janus.

I see issues with this. One is that in negotiations, we are adversarial. It's our job to maximize compensation, and the state's job to save money. It's kind of perverse for us to depend on our adversary for bargaining power. Also, who's to say the state won't just say, "Hey, we're giving you guys too much money. We're cutting the fee by 50% because, you know, we just feel like it."

I don't think that's far-fetched. Who knows who will control the state? Right now, we have a Democrat governor who ran on a platform of going after unions. That was fashionable, you know, because the big thing for Democrats that year was to triangulate and pretty much become marginally less insane Republicans. This year, of course, with Donald Trump as President of the United States, with Hillary a massive failure, he adores us and we're his bestest buds. Things change, especially with politicians who have no moral center who bend any which way the wind blows.

There is a marginal upside to Janus, to wit, union leadership that is more answerable to membership. I see that happening somewhat right here. Unity Caucus is entrenched, with some terrible habits, but the smarter members have opened their ears. I see that particularly in the fact that fewer observations now appears to be within our grasp. Months ago we were vehemently disagreeing over that at Executive Board. Now I think many in leadership are waking up and saying, "Hey, you know what? Teachers are not fond of excessive observations and maybe we should do something about it."

I see this in the negotiations for parental leave. A lot of people say this was a perfect storm and that's why it happened. I agree. But part of this perfect storm is the need for leadership to bring a victory to members. While there are detractors, and while our agreement is not perfect, no agreement is. For my money, and for those of members with whom I speak, this is a huge improvement.

I'll go out on a limb and say I think we have seen the last of giveback-laden awful contracts like the one we saw in 2005. Leadership now needs to worry about deals like that one. That's a good thing. Were we to partner with the state, not only would that end, but we'd run the risk of losing funding. The state could hold that over our collective heads. If every union in the state doesn't agree to these crap contracts, we'll pull your funding. Given all your deadbeat members, you'll be nothing.

I don't want to be dependent on notoriously fickle government for the funding of my union. We need to take a bad thing and make something good out of it. Specifically, we need a more responsive leadership. We should never be negotiating away fundamental seniority rights for a few extra bucks. We ought never to have created the ATR. We ought never to place ourselves in a position in which the state can say, "Hey, give us a time frame to fire ATR members or we're gonna pull all your funding."

Leadership now has to focus on organizing. While that reflects a lot of extra work, and while that work makes its way down to people like me, it's work we should've been doing for decades. Whatever happens with Janus, organizing reflects a substantive improvement. We need to build on that rather than finding shortcuts to avoid it.

An activated and informed union is a superior union. We can't just sit around and ask why Mulgrew hasn't solved all our problems. We need to be hands-on and face them ourselves. The notion of state funding for unions moves us backward. We cannot afford to move that way ever again.

Greetings from Not Pittsburgh

Today the AFT is holding a convention in Pittsburgh, PA. I'd very much like to be there, but decided not to go anyway. Everyone I wanted to go with is here in NY. They have all sorts of excuses. They're undergoing surgery, they have family emergencies, and all sorts of other trivial excuses. Mine is even more trivial--I'm not going because they aren't going.

It's too bad because I'd love to go there and write about it. This year they're featuring Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. I'd be really interested to see what they say. I saw Hillary in Minneapolis two years ago. She told us we could learn from public charter schools. It was one of the stupidest things I've ever heard, and spoke to just how compromised she really was. All charter schools are public in that they take public money. They are private in the sense that they do whatever they golly gosh darn please without community oversight.

It's also too bad because the fact is NYC high schools have no vote and no voice there. Not one single person we voted for is in Pittsburgh, not even on our own dime. Every single one of the reps there will vote as they are told. I know this because I sat through a meeting in Minneapolis where some guy instructed every single UFT rep to vote yes on this and no on that. Anyway, while it's a great honor to pay dues to the AFT, it's disappointing to have absolutely no representation there. I'm unequivocally pro-union but that's indefensible.

It's ironic because on the Executive Board we vote for virtually everything they propose. Support strikers somewhere? Yes. Oppose oppression? Yes. Mom and apple pie? Yes to both, even though I've personally been off sugar for a while. I guess we got lucky that this was not the year of voting for Common Core, junk science evaluations, or John King as an impartial arbitrator.

In fairness, there were a few roads on which we parted ways. There was one resolution where we condemned the racism encouraged and enabled by one Donald Trump. Leadership removed Trump's name and attributed everything to "the presidential election." In retrospect, they may have been correct. You can't dump blame for everything on Donald Trump. It appears to me that Hillary Clinton is the biggest reason he's President, though I don't suppose she will make that her theme when addressing AFT. I'd still argue that winning UFT Executive Board seats gives us more right to be there than losing the US Presidential Election to the Worst Person on Earth.

In fact, I'd go even further. I'd argue that Hillary Clinton, via her terrible campaign, via her failure to present ideas more compelling than, "I'm not Donald Trump," and via her refusal to support ideas the American people support, like universal health care, a living wage, and affordable college, enabled Janus. It wasn't her intention to do that. It was her intention to take the least risky path, put herself out as little as possible, and win the presidency. She didn't inspire me, but since she was running against Donald Trump I got off my ass and voted for her. Alas, many didn't.

When you're in a rigged system, full of interference from within and without, you have to do better. Given Janus, UFT has to do better too. I don't expect to see 2005-style poison pills in the next contract agreement. Still, a system in which our "activists" are solely people who've agreed to represent leadership whether or not leadership represents membership needs to be fixed. It's a mistake to build brick walls and keep out those of us who don't believe in reforminess. It's a mistake to invite Diane Ravitch to speak while not allowing those of us who support her ideas to have a vote.

It was a fundamental and egregious error for AFT to jump ahead and support Hillary with no preconditions. It's another to think you can sustain the organization while purposely disenfranchising intrinsically motivated activism. In 2018 and going forward we can and must do a whole lot better.

Observations and Elephants

Some of us have been quietly trying to persuade leadership that there needs to be an option for two observations. I'm persuaded they now understand, what with working teachers bearing the message and Janus hanging over all our heads We picked that number because that's the minimum under the state law. It's not ideal, and I'm honestly not sure what is.

Former principal and current head of Network for Public Education Carol Burris told me she generally only needed to observe once a year. She said if things went well and nothing else came up, that was sufficient. She suggested her time and energy would be better devoted to teachers who were actually in need of assistance. That makes sense to me, and I'd hope we could get as close to that model as possible.

Another thing that makes sense to me is hiring administrators like Burris. If you want to be in charge of teachers, you should be super smart and outright supportive of people who serve children. We all know administrators who don't speak as plainly or logically as Burris. In New York City we have the remnants of Michael Bloomberg at virtually every level of administration and alas, Bill de Blasio has done nothing to change it. Thus we have people like this in positions of authority.  I don't know exactly how you remove this level of sludge from administration, but having insane people run the system is not how you help children, let alone those of us who serve them.

Although Sue Edelman at the Post finds and exposes a lot of the corrupt administrators, the public has not made the connection. Also, vindictiveness and incompetence alone don't get you on page 6 of the paper. You have to not only be corrupt, but also get caught. Those of us who actually do the work know this is more far-reaching than most of the public knows. And the public, after reading years of stereotypes about us, continues to focus squarely on teachers. With all this, how do we correct the evaluation system?

I'd favor dumping the law, which is based on sheer vindictiveness on the part of Governor Andrew Cuomo. I don't envision that happening, and I'm not sure exactly how we make the case to the public. Many eyes are on the percentage of teachers with poor ratings. Leadership's best argument to maintain the status quo has been to tout the very low percentage of ineffective ratings. Our enemies use these same statistics to say the system is not vindictive enough.

A real teacher evaluation system ought not to be vindictive at all. An effective system will focus on teaching teachers how to better serve students. If will not be a ridiculous checklist that suggests physical education teachers ought to have the same instructional approach as science teachers. And though that's an extreme example, I could see how there would be disparity even between academic subjects.

For example, I teach English to newcomers. New York State does not feel English is actually a subject, saying the only reason we teach it is to prep students for core subjects, but I look around me and say, wow, we sure use English a lot. I mean, I do, I just walked my dog, and I spoke to people along the way. I want my students to be able to do the same, so I stress conversation. I also hope people won't say, "Hey, who's the idiot who taught you English? "so I teach and practice structure with them.

I guess that works, because Danielson likes interaction. I could imagine perhaps less interaction in a math class, and if students were learning the math I would not conclude the teacher sucks because there's less interaction. I mean, I love the way Carl Hiaasen writes, but unlike Danielson I don't conclude that anyone who doesn't write like Hiaasen sucks.

As far as observation reports go, it's pretty clear to me that the old observation method was superior to the current one. If you have a professional and competent supervisor, that supervisor need not be restricted to a checklist, That supervisor can observe the lesson, decide what helps the students, and decide what needs to be expanded upon.

Unfortunately, we have many supervisors who are neither professional nor competent. Now here's the thing--if you have supervisors like that it doesn't really matter what the observation method is. They see what they want to see, write what they want to write, and their decisions are utterly worthless. Because in some nether region of their icy cold hearts they know that, they tend to blame those they observe for their own shortcomings. Until we deal with that, whatever observation mode we choose will be fatally flawed.

Cutting down the number will be helpful on multiple levels. First of all, teachers will be marginally less terrorized. That will make teaching better all over. Second, competent administrators won't have to waste their time observing teachers who don't need help. This will free them to help those who need it. Alas, incompetent supervisors help no one, and will continue to help no one. They're the elephant in the room, and every thinking teacher knows the last thing we need in a classroom is an elephant.

We can make things a little better, and hopefully that will be part of our new contract. But I work in a school that's massively overcrowded, spilling out onto the streets, and even when we get an annex we won't have enough space. Of course we'd have more space if we didn't insist on keeping elephants in rooms. There needs to be a much-expanded look at incompetent supervisors. Now I have nothing against elephants. Real elephants are quite intelligent.

Here's my proposal--let's ship all the Boy Wonder supervisors off to game preserves, where they can learn from real elephants. Once they complete their studies, we'll leave them there. They can be regularly evaluated by the elephants. And because we are thoughtful, we won't force the elephants to use Danielson's rubric. We'll trust elephant judgment just as competent supervisors trust teacher judgment.

The Making of an Administrator

I was once in an assembly, and there were a couple of kids acting out and causing distractions for the students trying to listen. I asked them a few times to cut it out, and they ignored me. So I called the dean and had them removed. Fifteen minutes later they were back again. The then-principal was sitting near them and complaining about their behavior. He didn't choose to intervene, but rather gave them a few looks, which they ignored.

I went to the dean's office a little bit later. I found the dean who removed them. I asked her why she sent them back. She said she had given them a stern talking-to, or something. I told whatever she had done did not work, and that she had just taught those kids that there was no consequence for their actions. I told her if I'd wanted those kids to stay in the auditorium I would not have had them removed. I told her she'd undermined my authority and I didn't much appreciate it. She didn't have much to say in reply.

I didn't have any dealings with her for a while, as she was in a different department, and I almost never call deans for any reason. For my regular students, I generally figure there's not much deans can do that I can't, and if someone's gonna call mommy and daddy it might as well be me. The next time I saw her, I had just been elected chapter leader.

One of the first things I did when I became chapter leader was assemble an email list. I sorted it by department so I could send emails to the English teachers, or the social studies teachers, or whoever. It was really hard work collecting and recording all these addresses, so I asked people on my committee for help. One person immediately gave me all the non-DOE emails of a very large department, and I was pretty happy to have that.

When I sent out my first staff email, the amazing dean approached me with a pretty serious complaint.

"I feel like I've been raped," she said.

I was pretty shocked. I asked her what happened.

"I never gave you my email, and you sent an email to my private address."

"Oh my gosh I'm so sorry," I said. "Ms. Z. gave me your email. I'll take you off the list right away."

"No, that's okay," she said. "You can leave me on the list."

So what is this? You raped me, it's horrible, but feel free to do it again? I left her on the list. Of course I removed her when she became assistant principal, which happened almost instantly afterward.

The very first grievance I received was against her. She'd failed to give a teacher any classes requested. I met with her. She said there was no way that she could arrange the schedule to make that happen. She showed me classes arranged in a Delaney book. I looked at them for thirty seconds, and said, "Why don't you swap this class for that class?" I had solved the problem. I was a genius.

"Well," she said. "It's not good for the kids to change the teachers this late in the semester."

We were weeks, at most, into the semester. It was ridiculous. For some reason the teacher withdrew the grievance. It came up at another meeting, though. I don't remember why.

"Well, Mr. Goldstein never suggested a solution to that problem."

So there she was, lying to my face. I said something along those lines. Later, she confronted me in the hall about this, or maybe something else. I responded in kind.

A few days later, she called me into her office, closed the door, and started screaming at me. How dare I talk to her like that? I opened the door and walked out while she was still screaming.

I spent years fielding complaints about her from all sorts of people. Evidently she treated many others the same way she treated me. A lot of people seem not to like that. Now she works somewhere else, so my life is just a little easier. Of course I get complaints from the chapter leader at the new school, who blames me for sending her over there.

But it's a small price to pay.  Until she becomes superintendent, of course, when all of us will pay.

Unions Feeling the Pinch--but the Pinching Has Only Just Begun

The Chief ($) reports that union leaders are trimming their budgets in anticipation of Janus losses. NEA anticipates a 14% loss over the next few years. They're projecting based on losses in so-called right to work states. While the article doesn't provide figures, I'm sure AFT and UFT are doing the same. We've heard some talk about it at Executive Board, though I don't recall the exact details.

I'm not surprised by any of this, and I don't suppose regular readers of this blog are either. There are some details toward the end of the piece that grabbed my attention a little more. One is encouraging:

Though membership has dropped significantly in right-to-work states, those are also the areas where the union has experienced the greatest membership growth, thanks to a series of Teacher strikes earlier this year in five states, including West Virginia, Arizona and Oklahoma. The NEA added 2,000 new members in Arizona after its strike.

It's good to see that, having pretty much hit bottom, people are signing up for union and looking for ways to improve their lot. I've read and heard a lot about what hitting bottom means. It's going a decade without a raise. It's having your pay cut by $10,000 because some genius in the government decides they can give tax cuts to zillionaires by slashing teacher pay. It's paying $10,000 a year extra for health insurance because another genius in the government decides that's another great way to fund tax cuts for zillionaires.

Me, I'd prefer to fight now and avoid hitting bottom. But it's entirely possible we could. Many states that were union strong are now crippled by right to work, and that's exactly what they have in mind for us. The people who financed Janus are the scum of the earth and they aim to break us.

Right-to-work groups targeting Teachers isn’t the only attack the unions have to prepare for: there may be legal challenges as well. The NEA, along with the American Federation of Teachers, is facing a suit from California educators seeking refunds of past agency fees. Randi Weingarten, president of the AFT, noted that the Janus ruling did not mention back payments.

Imagine that. They want to retroactively enforce the ruling, against the old ruling, so as to empty union coffers. And the fact is, with the corporatist lunatics sitting on the Supreme Court, they could well pull it off. The entire notion of justice has nothing to do with what they do up there, and their tenure is a whole lot better than ours. Just because they don't remotely do the job of representing the American people is no reason for them to lose their lifetime gigs.

We already know what follows, because we've seen it in Wisconsin. They will surely come after collective bargaining next. You'll take what you'll get and you'll like it. Now in Wisconsin they allowed police and firefighters to keep collective bargaining. After all, they need someone with some degree of commitment to guard the state house when teachers come after Walker with torches and pitchforks.

I'm certain a Trump Supreme Court would entertain that. If the right-wing lunatics in Wisconsin passed it, the right-wing lunatics on SCOTUS would pass it too. Who knows what else they'll entertain? Wasn't it Newt Gingrich who talked about putting children to work cleaning up schools? Are we gonna repeal child labor laws?

We live in a country that rips young children from their parents, puts them in cages, and expects them to defend themselves in court without a lawyer. I couldn't make this stuff up. These same people have painted targets on our backs for the crime of teaching American's children and expecting to be compensated for it. It's on us to give them a fight like they've never seen before.

What's a Chapter Leader to Do?

It's a new world, post-Janus. No longer will all my colleagues be union brothers and sisters. Yet I'm chapter leader of over 300 people. It's a job I love, but things will be very different now, one way or another.

I'm assuming that it will be my job to recruit newcomers to my building. Though I could be wrong about that, I've prepared a Keynote presentation showing things that labor has won. (Keynote, if you don't know, is more or less PowerPoint for Mac.)

I'll also have to tell them about improvements we've made in our building. I'm fortunate in that there actually are a few. We are preposterously overcrowded, a victim of our own success, among other things. When I complained about it at Executive Board, Ellie Engler set up a meeting with the school construction authority. We're set to get an annex to handle our overflow. Construction has begun, and I'm hoping to live to see it. Should that be the case, I'm gonna demand a state of the art classroom, since I spent forever in the trailers and worked to get this thing started.

We've also had a few successful paperwork complaints. There was some insane memo floating around saying that we had to document student participation. I was flabbergasted, as were several members who'd never complained about anything before. I thought, I can record participation, or I can teach, but how could I do both? Our complaint, with the help of Debbie Poulos, killed the impossible demand.

There have been many, many sixth classes in our building. They're attractive because they pay pretty well in shortage areas, like mine. I've turned down extra classes for years. I'd always been told that sixth classes meant no relief from C6 assignments. One day James Eterno instructed me to actually read circular 6, and in fact it said otherwise. Unfortunately I was unable to get a single person with a sixth class to grieve.

Another thing we have in our school is a nine period day. We were able to negotiate a program that gives a lot more prep time to our teachers, and it's very popular. In fact, 100% of staff voted it in for a third year. We gave up one day of our regualar C6 assignment for a teacher team meeting, very much favored by our principal, and get one day for OPW. I was able to file a paperwork grievance stating, since our teachers with sixth classes were not required to do C6 assignments, that the paperwork involved in the teacher teams was excessive. We won that complaint.

When people get in trouble, I go around and ask questions. I try to find out what happened and what circumstances might mitigate whatever someone's being accused of. I also try very, very hard to find technical screw ups that might get a letter killed, if indeed there is one. I'm often successful, though the grievance process sucks and takes a long time. But I never give up.

What if you aren't a member? I mean, you may think you're the sort of person who could never get in trouble. You're probably wrong. CR A-421 says your screwups are in the eye of the beholder, to wit, the student. If you say, "Good morning," and the student doesn't like your tone, I see a disciplinary meeting in your future. If the principal is reasonable, she'll toss it out. If she hates your guts, however, you'll get a letter in file, at least. (I'm quite surprised at some people who've gotten in trouble. If you think you're invulnerable, you're laboring under a serious misconception.)

I also send out a weekly email. I scour education news and blogs on a pretty constant basis. Members get a whole lot of descriptions with links. I usually write the first part myself, leading with school issues and telling members whatever I'm working on. I send out emails when people we know pass away, along with whatever arrangements there may be. I send emails when rat bastard DOE investigators are in the building, telling members not to talk without representation, and to contact me so I can procure it.

When I first got this job, a piece of advice I got from several people was this--Whenever a member comes to you, say, "Put a letter in my box."  80% of them won't do it. That's certainly an effective way to reduce your CL workload, I guess. I've never said that to anyone. I have a whole network of people I can go to for answers, both within and without official UFT. I have a good sense of who can help with what. In fact, once in a while, I know the answer myself. When things happen more than once, I tend to remember.

What am I gonna do with people who think I should pay and they shouldn't? Well, there are a lot of things I'm not actually required to do. I don't get paid to send emails. So they're off my list. I don't need to spend time getting points of view about disciplinary matters. I could be writing a lesson plan, or a blog, or taking a nap.

And hey, if you have an issue, if admin isn't reasonable with you for whatever reason, I'm pretty good with the contract. I can tell you which article is violated, and why. If I don't have it on the tip of my tongue, I can look it up. I can ask any of a number of acquaintances how strong the argument is. I can write you a grievance within minutes. I'm a very fast writer.

On the other hand, I could also say, hmmm, that's interesting. Put a letter in my box. Then, after I deal with every issue union members have, maybe I'll look at it. I'm usually pretty busy helping union members, but you never know. I might get around to it. If I do, I'll have questions.

Why don't you check to see where in the contract that might be? Get back to me when you do.  And when you do, I can say, OK, go write a grievance. Bring it back to me. I'll look at it when I get a chance. Then I could check it when I get a chance.

I don't know whether I'd do things like that. I'd much rather not. But one thing is for sure-- members take precedence over the goons and the ginks and the company finks.

What would you do if you were me?

Labor Studies

Why on earth do we not teach our children about the history of labor? Why don't we teach them about how laborers organized, and how they organize worldwide? Why don't we teach them about how powerful unions are in Europe? Why don't we teach them about the history of labor in these United States? The story of labor is a long one, and there's been a new chapter attached to it within the last month.

That chapter, of course, is named Janus, for a scumbag government worker who turned on his brothers and sisters for thirty pieces of silver, or perhaps 15 minutes of fame. He claims to believe the very act of representing working people is political. It doesn't matter, supposedly, which candidates they support or that they need to have a dedicated fund to support them. I'm sure I wrote this before, but union tends to underrepresent those who favor more work for less pay.

So the court decided that from now on those who wanted more work for less pay would be able to stand up and be counted. No I don't want you to negotiate more money for me. No I don't want safer working conditions. No I don't want to be released from work when my kids graduate from high school. I'm not all-knowing, and I haven't taken any polls, but I've been teaching since 1984 and chapter leader of the largest school in Queens for nine years. I have never heard anyone make demands resembling these.

The truth is that five justices appointed by Republicans, who have not remotely represented working people since maybe 1959, ruled that people could opt out of union. After all, the rest of us could pay for them, so what's the issue? Of course, what we know is that this is the culmination of decades of work by an anti-labor group financed by billionaires.

Now maybe you think billionaires are our benefactors, who sit around and plot ways for working people to do better. But no reading of unvarnished history supports that. In this world, the one we actually reside on, people have had to sacrifice, fight and often give their lives for rights in the workplace. I don't recall ever having studied stories like this one in school, and the only reason I learned about the struggles in the coal mines Donald Trump claims to love so (despite never having set foot in one) is that they've been written about in films and novels. These struggles still go on today. No one in America should have to choose between working in a coal mine and unemployment. Coal miners are still victimized today.

Here in America, we have an entire network dedicated to fool working people that the rich, who keep all they can for themselves and throw the rest of us crumbs, are somehow looking out for us. Trump talks about "clean coal" as though it exists.  And though Trump has presided over a temporary uptick in miserable, dangerous unhealthy coal jobs, in the long run, they will decline.

I've spent much of the last thirteen years writing this blog and looking closely at UFT leadership. The 2005 Contract was a spectacular piece of crap. Its legacy has left teachers fearful and cynical. Add to that the insane regulations that Bill Gates's puppet Arne Duncan foisted on America called "Race to the Top," and you have a recipe to crush the morale of many working teachers. It's particularly egregious in New York City because years of Bloomberg have left us a legacy of vindictive, small-minded, self-serving, unimaginative administrators who wouldn't know what was good for children if it were banging them over their thick heads.

The best long-term fix for this would be education. People ought to know that weekends were not, in fact, handed down my God on Mount Sinai. People should know that paid sick days were not the idea of benevolent employers. There is just so much that we fundamentally take for granted I can barely begin to describe it.

If the union sucks, it's on us to fix it. It is fundamentally unethical for me to say, "Hey, I'm keeping my money. Screw the rest of you. You can pay for me." Yet that's precisely the sort of thinking the billionaires are going to encourage. We will soon be barraged by ads telling us how to opt-out of union. They'll say hey, we just want them to know their rights. That's nonsense. If they cared about our rights they'd be telling us how to unionize Walmart. In reality, the Walmart family financed Janus because they hate union. They're happy paying as little as they can to their workforce, and they're fine with having their employees rely on food stamps so they don't have to pay a reasonable wage. You and I subsidize Walmart just as we'll be forced to subsidize the lowlifes who opt out of union dues.

The bottom line here is that if you think any of these moneyed interests give a golly gosh darn about your welfare you are deluding yourself. Also, if you think withholding your dues is going to improve teaching conditions, I have a bridge in Brooklyn with your name on it. If you want to work to improve the union, you can do it. You can show up to union meetings. You can make your voice heard. You can tell leadership what we need.

As for me, as long as three of four UFT members can't even be bothered to vote in union elections, it's hard for me to make a case for pulling my dues. If leadership sucks, it's no one's fault but our own. I spend an awful lot of my time trying to influence leadership to improve things. I go to meetings. I talk to people. I write this blog, and have been doing so almost every day for over a decade. I write elsewhere and I do all kinds of small things I can't write about.

If you mostly sit on your ass and plot over how you can make a few extra bucks by withholding union dues, you are the problem. If we end up with another crap contract, it won't be Mulgrew's fault. It will be yours. And if you think the contracts suck now, wait until you see what they're like when union ceases to be a factor.

It's terrible that kids are not learning about organized labor. It's unconscionable that we call ourselves teachers and know as little as the kids.

Tom and His Five Co-Teachers

Things are tough all over, but few things are tougher than being an ESL teacher with a crazy principal in the new world of Part 154. I have a friend, who I'll call Tom, who works in a school with just such a principal. You see, many schools are not as gigantic as mine, and often they hire one ESL teacher for the entire building. This is because there are laws that say they have to have them. The fact that there are new students who need English instruction is neither here nor there.

So my friend got his program for the fall, and he has two classes of one thing, two classes of another, and one class of another. To the principal, that's three preps. However, in the instances he has two classes, he's co-teaching with two different teachers. Tom has filed a grievance. The principal, being a self-serving bureaucrat with no interest in the problems of teachers, let alone students, says Tom is overreacting.

For Tom to be overreacting, each teacher of the same class would need to do the same thing every day. There would be no variation whatsoever, and no possibility of one teacher going slower than the other. No students would ask different questions that required different answers. No teacher would stress one topic more than another. All differentiation of instruction would be done in exactly the same way.

Also, Tom would not need to consult with all five of his co-teachers. That's a good thing because consulting with all five co-teachers is not possible. First of all, there's no time for it. Second of all, even if there were enough time, the likelihood of six schedules permitting such a thing is zero at best.

Will Tom prevail in his grievance? It's tough to say. Principals are required by contract, for example, to give complete programs the day before school ends, including periods and room numbers. One year I grieved when admin failed to do that, and won at Step One. The following year, the principal simply handed every teacher in the building copies of their current programs. When I grieved again, he said that was the best way to predict the following year.

A $1400-a day arbitrator agreed with the principal and said that was fine. Just do no work, no planning, hand out old programs, and screw the teachers who want to, you know, plan because they have children, or lives, or any unusual situation whatsoever. I took it in stride and wrote specific language into our SBO that teachers would get real programs the day before school ended. We did, but that doesn't negate the fact that the arbitrator understood neither the letter nor the spirit of the contract clause.

Let's be clear--it's demanding to work with one co-teacher, it's very difficult to handle two, and it's simply impossible to handle more. Giving Tom five shows callous disregard for not only him, but also for all the children he's supposed to serve. He'll walk into classrooms with no idea of the vocabulary or structures that will challenge the children, and rely on hoping for the best.

This may not have been the intent of the Albany geniuses who wrote Part 154, but it's certainly the widespread result. I wrote to the chancellor, applying for the job of deputy for ELLs earlier this week.  To his credit, he responded with the job of Deputy Chief Academic Officer. Evidently, in his reorganization, there is no Deputy Chancellor for ELLs. The new person reports to the Chief Academic Officer rather than directly to the chancellor. That's too bad, because ELLs are more important than that, to me at least. Here's what I wrote back to the chancellor's secretary:

Thank you for your speedy response. I will not be applying for several reasons.

1. The first requirement is a credential I neither possess nor have any interest in pursuing, and
2.  My primary interest is correcting the situation I described in my letter, not changing my job.

I have been on Telemundo discussing this situation, and I have written about it in Gotham Gazette and El Diario. Please thank the chancellor for referring the letter to you, and please tell him Part 154 is doing great harm to the students I serve. If he ever wishes to discuss it further, I'm always available. 

I'll let you know if I hear back. I'm not holding my breath, but I'm always hopeful. Of course if I do, I'll speak up for Tom and the hundreds of ESL teachers in his situation. I'll speak up for the ELLs who are so poorly served by this terrible program and even worse execution.

Mark Twain wrote "Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't."

That's just one reason you can't make this stuff up.

On Independence Day

It's Independence day. I'm a little worried because I have a new dog this year, and I have no idea how he's gonna respond to all the noise. I'm heartened because last night there were some firecrackers, he looked around, barked a little, and then went to sleep. He's a good little sleeper.

A long time ago, we declared ourselves independent of the British. We were tired of taxation without representation. This year, our President is someone who got three million fewer votes than his opponent. He urged the scumbags in the Senate to delay the Supreme Court nomination in Obama's last year in office, and he succeeded. As a result, I'll be doing not only what I always do, but also signing up new teachers for  UFT.  Thanks for the extra work, President Trump.

Speaking of President Trump, I think it's time to declare our independence of him and his toxic policies. It's particularly disgusting that my students have to fear coming to school. His stormtroopers in ICE could be anywhere. Who knows how many of my potential students, and yours, don't come to school at all because they're afraid to be out?

There are some good signs. I'm really happy about newly minted rockstar Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. There's nothing quite like seeing someone young and brilliant speaking truth to bullshit and finally being appreciated for it. Maybe this is the year we'll declare our independence from bad ideas, like a health care system designed to produce profit rather than health.

Maybe this is the year we'll declare ourselves independent of the notion that people should work for wages they can't live on. I mean, it's great that the guy who owns the McDonald's franchise near you can find people to make burgers for minimum wage. Not so great is that the McDonald's burger chef has to leave that job and go work at Target to make ends meet, that his wife does the same, and that their kids rarely if ever see them. Fortunately, if there are issues with the kids, we can always blame the public school teachers.

Maybe this is the year we'll finally realize it makes sense to make college affordable for everyone, even that couple that works at fast food places. Maybe we'll have a country in which their children will have better opportunities. Don't we want to leave this place a little better for those who follow us? Don't we want a better place for our children and students?

I'm encouraged by a Paul Krugman column saying that so-called radical Democrats are pretty reasonable. What do these radicals want? Well, they want health care for all, a living wage, and affordable college. This is progress for Krugman, because when Hillary was running against Bernie, he portrayed Bernie as a frothing-at-the-mouth lunatic for wanting these things. Lots of people agreed with Krugman, for reasons that eluded me utterly, and what we ended up with was President Donald Trump.

It's pretty pathetic that our President is a bad joke, but the joke's on us. This President is happy to see our middle class slide into the ocean, as long as it doesn't wash up on Mar a Lago. Let's make sure he gets to hang out there with all his rich BFFs, and more importantly, that he leaves us the hell alone.

Have a great 4th, and don't forget to vote.

NY Is Not West Virginia or Oklahoma

A great priority for today's MORE caucus (aside from purging absolutely everyone who thinks teacher issues are a more immediate priority than the socialist revolution) is for us to become like one of the red states that hosted a wildcat teacher rebellion. I'm all for teacher rebellion. Not enough of us stand up, and not enough of us know what's going on. One of my ongoing projects is to correct that, little by little.

There is certainly a way for us to become like one of those red states, and it's within our immediate grasp. All we have to do is stop paying union dues, like Janus wants us to do. Then our unions will dissolve, we'll have no representation, and virtually no ability to fight for ourselves, let alone our students. They can dump 70 students in a classroom like Bloomberg wanted. They can arbitrarily ask for 10K a year back to help defray medical costs. They can cut your salary at will.

Once things like that start to happen, teachers won't have many alternatives if we don't wish to live in trees. We can drive Ubers before school and pole dance afterward. We can become the guy in Breaking Bad, working the car wash in the PM and having our students ridicule us as we detail their Camaros. They can push us until we can be pushed no more.

That's what happened in the red states. They didn't have unions who could go to bat for them, so they improvised. They managed to pull together diverse groups in the state and withhold labor until and unless conditions improved. That is a great achievement, and the fact that it's been replicated in so many places should be a message to our enemies. Of course it wasn't, or there would be no Janus decision.

Actually, the thing that holds New York back from becoming West Virginia is the fact that we have things a lot better than they do. Despite all my complaints over the dozen years I've been writing this, we are unionized. There are rules. We have options to fight back. They aren't ideal, and no one knows that better than I do. I'm still fighting grievances we brought last year, grievances that are black letter violations. And though we should win all, I've met my share of troglodyte arbitrators. God help people whose jobs depend on their judgment.

But there are always ways to do things. One hard part is figuring out what they are. The other part, the one that must precede actual strategy, is standing up to be counted, and that's a challenge in NYC. There are just not enough of us willing to stand up. What's really the point in working up an action plan if no one is willing to take action?

If indeed there is any upside to Janus it is not that we are now fighting for our survival, but rather that we are fighting at all. Hey, if the UFT, to you, is a pair of glasses every other year, then that's what you're fighting for. Hopefully you have a loftier goal in mind, but I'll take what I can get. The fact that this is your biggest issue means we've done better than WV or OK, but now we need to preserve and improve that.

We are the union. You are the union. And now is the time to take ownership. We will not rise up as a state and go on strike. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, we have not been painted into that particular corner. I think it's a good thing. I don't want to be without alternatives and doing the last possible thing left to me.

It's not about what leadership does. It's about what we do, and how we instruct them. They work for us and they have never been as acutely aware of that as they are now. We need to stand up and be heard. We start in our workplaces. If we can only cower in the corner, we are going nowhere. We need to talk freely with one another. We need to decide what we need and what we can do to get it.

Leadership is the second step, I think. If we are willing to do something then we can approach them. It's no longer going to work just calling them to fix things when we won't stand for ourselves. It never did, actually.

Now is the time for us to face the challenge of Janus, overcome it, and try to better our lot. By doing that, we'll be spitting in the faces of Trump, the Koch Brothers, and the Walmart family. This is where we are, and this is the point from which we rise up. Because make no mistake, they aren't finished. After this they're coming to make multiple representatives rather than one union, outlaw collective bargaining, and bring back slavery if they have half a chance.

These people are the scum of the earth and there is no depth to which they will not sink. We need to prepare to fight, and we must, must, dump them in November. We need people who represent us, and by us I mean a larger circle than the Trumps, the Kochs, and the Walmarts.

Dear Chancellor Carranza,

 We met at UFT Executive Board last month. It was a pleasure meeting you, and I was very impressed by your quick mind and instant recall.

I understand you no longer have a Deputy Chancellor for English language learners. I have no idea why that is, but I'd like to apply for the job. It is a very tough time for English language learners in New York State, and I'm sure you know that we have a great many of them here in NYC. I've been teaching ELLs here since 1984.

My sole interest in applying for this job is their welfare, and their welfare is at risk due to the latest revision of CR Part 154. I'm sure you know that the state feels the purpose of direct instruction in English is to prepare students for core content courses like math and science. It's hard for me to express the basic ignorance inherent in this assumption. 

The younger people are, the better language learners they are. This means my students are often tasked with helping their parents. They have to go to lawyers and doctors and act as translators. Aside from helping their parents, they need to help themselves. They need to know how to order a pizza, ask for directions, and hopefully make friends. They need to be happy. That's more fundamental than acing that math exam.

Of course, a better command of English will lead to better performance on all exams. In New York State, we've taken away direct English instruction by a factor of 33-100%. Despite this cut, students have received no extra time to compensate. In fact, when we cut direct instruction, we expect core content teachers to teach not only content, but also English.

Imagine that I am a social studies teacher and my goal is to have students understand the Battle of Gettysburg. Imagine that it took me 45 minutes to accomplish that with native English speakers. Under CR Part 154, in those same 45 minutes, I'm expected to teach ELLs not only everything I taught the native speakers, but also all the English that's required to comprehend and appreciate it.

That's an impossible task. It doesn't matter if I'm certified in both social studies and ESL, and it won't help if I have both a social studies and ESL teacher in the room. ELLs need more time to grasp both English language and concepts in core courses. We are giving them less. If our goal is to help them, this makes no sense. 

Another issue I'd address is that of ESL teachers doing impossible tasks, like working with five co-teachers. This may be convenient for some principals but it's impossible for teachers and counter-productive for ELLs. If a principal cannot manage to keep co-teachers down to two, already one too many, the rest of that teacher's day should be devoted to direct instruction.

New York State no longer appears to see the value of comprehensible input in language instruction. I'm not sure why that is.  Evidently, they're in the thrall of some studies that see test scores rather than comprehension as a goal. That was the flaw that sunk Common Core, and we ought to be able to learn from our mistakes.

Our job is to make students love English, not fear or hate it. If a student comes here this morning from El Salvador, or anyplace, it's not smart to hand that student a three inch thick science textbook, dump an ESL teacher into her class, and hope for the best. It's our job to support and encourage these kids. We shouldn't be sitting around in offices fretting over why they don't do well on tests. If you or I were to go to China tomorrow and take tests, we probably wouldn't do well either. We need to help these kids rather than blame them.

Learning a language takes time, and it's an egregious error that we cut direct language time. There are some in the state who see direct English instruction as a non-subject. The fact is that the structure of language is fundamental, and if you don't acquire it as a baby you need chances to learn and practice it. Were the notions behind this revision of Part 154 sound, we'd just teach social studies in Spanish, math in Korean, and science in Arabic, thus producing an entire city of polyglots. Of course that's ridiculous, as is Part 154.

This is a terrible time in our country. The first and best advocates for these children ought to be their parents, yet many of them live in fear. Someone has to stand for them, and that someone needs to be us. I'm prepared to do that, and I'm prepared to do it full time.

I'm available to come in for an interview at your convenience.

Psalm of Mark Janus (The Freeloader)

by Deadbeat Poet

 

The dues paying member is my shepherd,

   I shall not want.

He provideth me with rest days and vacations.

So that I may lie down in green pastures

Beside the still waters.

  

He restoreth my back pay.

He guideth my welfare without cost to me.

I stray in the paths of the non-righteous

For my money's sake.
  

Yea, though I alibi and pay no dues

From generation to generation

I fear no evil, for he protects me.

The working conditions which he provides

They comfort me.

  

He annointeth my head with the oil

  of worker's compensation.

Sick pay, holidays, and a pension.

He represents me in grievances.

  

And my cup runneth over with ingratitude.

Surely his goodness and loving kindness

Shall follow me all the days of my life

Without cost to me.

  

And I shall dwell in his house forever.

And allow him to foot the bill.

Thanks to Jonathan

Toby Goes on Strike

Things are tough all over. First Janus, and now this. Yesterday Toby just sat down, a block away from my house, and said, "That's it. I'm sitting here, and I'm not moving. I don't care what you say and I don't care what you do."

Sometimes Toby sits because when I tell him to sit I'll often reward him. These days, he doesn't feel like waiting for me to tell him to do it, so he'll just does it himself. He's trying to train me to dispense doggie treats on demand. Desperate at his refusal to move, I gave in and tried to give him one. But he wasn't having it.

"You think you can buy me off this cheaply? What's that, one of those Milk Bone Minis? Not even bacon flavored? Forget it."

I don't really understand. Toby's from Puerto Rico, and it's pretty hot over there. Yet he just hates hot weather. I tried to negotiate with him. I offered him larger doggie biscuit rations. He was kind of interested, but when I told him he'd have to come a little more quickly when called, rather than sauntering over at his own speed, he wasn't having it.

"That's a giveback," he said. "No givebacks."

"No it isn't. We're negotiating. You want more doggie biscuits and I want you to come a little faster.

"I'll think about it," he said, and we kept going.

When we got to the boardwalk, we started doing the training thing, where I ask him to sit, down, and come.

"Sit," I said, and he did.

I left him there and walked away, as I'd done a million times before. When I turned around he was standing.

"I thought I told you to sit."

"Come on man, it's hot out here. Can't a guy just turn around and look at the ducks or the beach grass once in a while?"

"Yeah but you're supposed to come. That's when I can give you a treat."

"Listen," he said. "I don't negotiate in public. You're gonna have to take that up with the 400-member negotiating committee."

I was beginning to feel outmatched. 

We arrived at Nawlins on the canal, which happens to be a dog friendly restaurant, I said let's stop for lunch.

"What's on the menu?" he wanted to know.

I told him it was a cajun place, and that they had things like gumbo and catfish.

"Can I get Freshpet Tender Chicken with Vegetables and Brown Rice, with a large bowl of water on the side?"

"No Toby, I told you they sell cajun food. It's not like that."

"Forget it," he said. "Let's just rest here for a while."

I didn't understand why he couldn't move a few feet and let me sit on the bench, but that's how it was.

"Also," he said, "I demand that cousin Julio come over to visit more often. It's always fun when cousin Julio comes to visit. We hang out, and run around in circles like we're insane. Who could ask for more than that?"

"I don't know, Toby. Julio lives with my daughter. She works and can't just come over here any time you want her to."

"You better make it happen," said Toby. "You're lucky I let you walk me at all. There are gonna have to be some big changes around here, or I can't promise what's gonna happen."

He's a tough little guy. I'm gonna have to seriously hone my negotiating skills if I want a win here.

Another View on Charters

by Someone Who Works in One

I’ve worked now in a number of charter schools. For people who’ve only worked in public schools charter schools seem like a mysterious, sinister world. Do teachers really have to work insane hours without a contract? Can your principal fire you for not liking your shoes? Are troublesome kids “counseled out”?

The answer is more complex than either “side” wants to admit. 

First of all, disclaimer: I’ve never worked at one of the “excellent” charter chains like Success Academy or KIPP. I have heard about the insane work hours at those schools. 7-5, or 7-6? I did interview at one of those chains where the principal cheerily said that “most teachers are here from 7-6.” I made a beeline out of that school.

Most charter schools have an “official” work time and an actual work time. The official work time is somewhere between 8 and 8.5 hours. The actual work time is almost always about an hour less, as most charter school days are not that much longer than the DOE school day. So after school when the kids are gone most teachers find themselves staring at the wall or watching Youtube vidoes. And then they inevitably sneak out. And there are DOE schools where the principals are crazy and your “official” work time is nothing close to your actual work time. Bulletin boards every three weeks! After school tutoring every day! I’ve seen it happen where a unionized DOE school has a bunch of young exhausted teachers there from 7-5 easily.

One thing about charters is for whatever reason (bussing, lunching in DOE buildings) many have a later start time than DOE schools. 9:00 is a pretty typical start time. This might or might not be to your liking. I’ve never been a morning person so I like it.

Now the thing about being fired. Yes it’s true — you can be fired for any reason or no reason at all. There’s an upshot to this though — in the DOE, being fired is, like, a big deal. There’s a permanent red flag under your name, your social security number is put on the ineligible list, and many teachers have been completely traumatized by the endless “PIP” plans, “support logs,” and scathing observations. You’re made to feel harassed, worthless, evil, a danger to kids, as you sit through that painful appeal hearing with the principal hollering into the phone about what a lousy person you are. 

At a charter school, everyone takes getting fired with a grain of salt. Each charter school has massive turnover every year. People come, people go, and who cares if you got fired because in the charter world, who hasn’t? And principals who hire you all know the deal. They know that they need a teacher, and it’s best not to inquire too much as to why it didn’t work out at ___ Charter School. It’s a short term contract. At my charter school a long-time beloved veteran guidance counselor is leaving. He’s been there three years, which in charter world is an eternity. I just attended a DOE retirement party where the people had been working at the school for over 20 years. Most principals when firing people at charter schools give very vague reasons. “Not a good fit,” “don’t see a place for you,” etc. Corporate speak. But as I said, most people leave with an attitude of “Bye Felicia!” I’ve rarely seen people get truly devastated at being fired in a charter school. A few times teachers and principals have had to be fired because they showed up in the NY Post as having been fired from the DOE for something really serious.

Now about charter schools “counseling out” students. I can say with 100% certainty that maybe they do that at Success or KIPP, but at most charters it’s actually the opposite problem. Enrollment is always a struggle. So charter schools get a high proportion of kids with special needs, with behavioral issues, with academic struggles. It’s how they recruit — many go to public schools and have some sort of agreement with guidance counselors that if a student is really struggling, the counselors will suggest a different setting. And still by September enrollment is usually low and then there’s a beeline to find basically anyone. Kid got expelled from ___ school for starting a fire? Call them ASAP.

Most charters, however, are much looser with actually following the IEP guidelines required for kids. I have read some IEP’s which say specifically “6:1:1” setting and instead they are in an ICT class with 25-30 students. “Needs a para.” No para. It’s an eternal complaint of teachers in charter schools that there are so many kids with severe learning/behavioral challenges and so little support for them. After awhile teachers tend to become burned out. Regents passing rates and graduation rates at the charters I’ve worked at have been stunningly low. There are few consequences — charters are afraid of angering parents as enrollment is a struggle. One girl finally got suspended when she brought bleach to school and bit a dean. But this girl had been running wild the whole school year. She harassed me during lunchtime, following me into other teachers’ classrooms and physically shoving me and saying “get up bitch and get me my work because I want to leave for the day."

Charter schools have an opposite problem —holding onto high performing kids. I’ve seen it happen too many times. A child comes in, does amazingly well academically, and then starts to get frustrated. Few extracurriculars. Staying in school later when their friends in another school are playing after school sports. The behavioral disruptions in classrooms scare them. And finally at the end of the year they find a better school and leave. And everyone is depressed. “____ was amazing, so sad she’s going to another school.” “But it’s better for her. She’s too good for this place.” This conversation happens over and over again.

One surprising thing I’ve learned about working in charter schools is that teachers are often closer than they are at DOE schools. First of all we spend more time together. But I think another thing is the shared frustration, the attitude of we the teachers vs. the clueless admins. In DOE schools I often found many teachers where their highest priority was being close to the admin. I once knew a lady who loved to march into the teachers’ lounge every day and announce that she’d just had breakfast with the principal. In charters there are maybe one or two people like that but most dislike the admin and what’s the point of being close to them, when you’re likely working there one year, maybe 2 or 3 at most? Plus admin turnover is so high that being “close” to admin can amount to absolutely nothing. Many people I’ve met working in charters I’ve remained close with long after leaving the school. The shared experience bonds us forever. 

And so here’s a hopefully more balanced look at working in charter schools. It’s neither as amazing as the NY Post would have you believe, nor as awful as some UFT bloggers insist. It’s actually just like your average job: crappy in some ways, okay in others, pay is decent, and if you don’t like it, well, just stick it out till June and go elsewhere.

Cynicism Is Our Deadly Enemy

Predictable though it was, it's disappointing to lose Janus. Those of us who pay union dues will now have to support freeloaders who benefit from our dues and work despite contributing nothing. It's ironic these self-serving individuals hold jobs as teachers. As role models, do we teach our children to get theirs and screw everyone else? In the Trump era, for a whole lot of people who watch government propaganda on Fox, the answer may as well be yes.

In New York, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez sees things differently. She says cynicism is the enemy of the people. A lot of people say, "Why bother voting? Why get involved?" This, of course, is a self-fulfilling prophesy. Ocasio stood up against her sitting Congressional representative, who spent most of the last 20 years in Virginia rather than the Bronx. She organized her community, and now her community has chosen her, one of its own, to represent it.

Her model is the one we win with. We are not without influence in our union. Yet a whole lot of members say, "Why bother?" In fact, three out of four of us could not be bothered to get off our asses and vote in the last union election. How can we, as teachers, be role models when we can't even bother taking part in our own community?

I look at Facebook and read people saying things like, "They killed the union." No they did not. They cannot kill the union. The union lives or dies by our hands, not those of Donald Trump, and not by those of his illegitimate Supreme Court. Despite the Janus ruling, the justices don't get to decide who stays and who goes. That's on us.

I've read a whole lot of comments about how the UFT sucks, how we don't have this or that, and how these people are going to pull their dues, because screw the union. It's funny, because they are the union, even though they seem not to know it. Funnier still is the fact that they are playing right into the hands of the moneyed interests that funded Janus. The Koch Brothers and the Walmart Family, among others, are dancing with joy that you're withholding dues.

If you think they care about your salary, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. The fact is they want to pay wages as low as possible. They don't want to cover your benefits. They're tired of paying for your medical insurance. They don't like work rules saying that you can't be compelled to teach four classes in a row, or do excessive paperwork, or clean the bathrooms. This is what the Janus case is really about. If you think Donald Trump, with a long history of stiffing people who work for him, really cares about people like us, you're either uninformed or under the sway of Fox.

There is a cure if the union sucks, and the cure is not destroying the union and leaving yourself at the tender mercies of Donald Trump and his thugs. No, the cure is getting off your ass and getting involved. I'm not just saying that. I'm chapter leader of the largest school in Queens, with over three hundred members. It's not precisely a walk in the park, but I'm not complaining. I've worked for years to expand my voice, and I've gotten it out not only here, but in a whole lot of other forums.

I'm not a genius. I'm just determined. You don't have to do what I do, and you don't have to be me. But you have to be someone. There is something you can do. You can get involved right in your building. You can spread consciousness of what it means to be union. You can fight to get your principal to stop doing whatever crazy shit she's doing. Look at CPE 1. Look at Townsend Harris.

What do those schools have in common? They have communities who stood up. They have union that wouldn't be silenced. They have union that expanded its voice and reach by becoming part of a larger community. In the case of CPE 1, that was largely the parents. I've seen and met the CPE 1 parents, and man, I would not want to be on their bad side. I would not want to be with Principal What's-Her-Name as she twiddles her thumbs at Tweed for full salary.

In the case of Townsend Harris, the students themselves were allies of the union. They looked at the principal's miserable history and wondered how the hell this person managed to get yet another gig at yet another school. They held sit-ins and filmed administrative abuse. They worked hand in hand with the union and wrote about their efforts.

The UFT is not magic. But our potential is endless. We can stand together. We can make alliances with larger groups in our communities. We won't always win, but it's our job to push the envelope as far as we possibly can. If you're a freeloader, you're nobody. You're not part of our community, and you're a terrible role model for our children.

We are what we make ourselves, and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez is the crest of a new wave. We need to grab that wave, ride it together, and move into the future. The GOP House and Senate disappear in November, and Trump follows them soon thereafter. That's the will of the people, and we will not take no for an answer.