Posted on January 28, 2014 by thepjsta

UFT Guest Post #3: Reality-Based Educator

Today we will continue our series designed to give you a look inside the leadership of the United Federation of Teachers . On Sunday we began with James Eterno of the ICEUFT blog and yesterday we continued with Arthur Goldstein of the NYC Educator blog. Today we will be featuring a post by a man who goes by the moniker Reality-Based Educator (RBE) on his blog Perdido Street School. Regular readers of this blog will recognize Perdido Street School as a blog that we refer to quite a bit as Mr. RBE does an extraordinary job blogging about education and politics in New York City, New York State, and beyond. If you are on Twitter you certainly will wanna give him a follow, @perdidostschool.

Today’s post will take a somewhat different format. Due to a previous commitment today’s guest blogger is unable to write a full fledged post for us today. However he shared that, “You are welcome to use anything off Perdido Street School you think would be appropriate” and later added, “You’re doing a great job educating people around the state, so I think this is a great idea to use PJSTA blog as a resource and reference for people looking to get info about the cancer that is Unity. Thanks for asking me to be a part of it!” So today’s post will feature parts of different blog posts RBE has written over the last several months, sharing his insights and opinions on the leadership of the local union of which he is a member of the rank and file, the UFT.

Back on August 22, 2013 RBE wrote about Mulgrew Frightened by Opposition to Common Core…

From Gotham Schools:

The opposition has alarmed many who say they continue to support the idea behind the standards, which is to teach students to think more deeply and critically, even as they have criticized the state’s implementation.

“This debate about whether Common Core is good or bad … is what frightens me,” United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew, another panelist, said this morning.

Why should a debate over Common Core frighten you, Mike?

Oh, right – I remember now.

You head the UFT, an organization which eschews debate, shuts down opposition within the ranks and otherwise works to quell anything and anybody that isn’t AFT- and UFT-leadership approved.

Well, get ready for a frightful year, Mikey.

Because as teachers start to deal with Common Core lessons on top of the Danielson framework on top of 4-6 observations a year on top of evals tied to state test scores on top of evals tied to city tests and/or other locally-selected measures of teacher effectiveness, there’s going to be a lot of debate within the UFT rank-and-file over the Common Core, the new Common Core tests, Danielson, APPR and all the other reforms you and your boss, Randi Weingarten, helped bring about for NYC teachers.

On April 5, 2013, when discussing MORE’s case against Mulgrew, RBE shared…

Can you imagine a UFT leadership that actually cared about its members, that actually came from the membership to rise to the union leadership positions not so they could get out of the classroom and live off the perks and double pensions but so they could protect teachers in a time of historic attacks on public education and provide a positive alternative to restore dignity to teaching and compassion to students?

If you can imagine such a leadership, you should vote for MORE.

Because the current leadership is just going to continue taking us down the path of destruction via APPR, Danielson, VAM, SLO’s, and growth models.

After all, this is leadership that has decided education corporatists John King and Andrew Cuomo can be the independent arbitrators between the union and the city on the evaluation negotiations and impose whatever system they want upon us.

That, dear reader, is a failed leadership.

On March 28, 2013, RBE wondered Why is Mulgrew Afraid to Debate?…

Via ICEUFT blog, we learn that even the NY Post is wondering why UFT President Michael Mulgrew won’t debate opponent Julie Cavanagh:

Brash-talking teachers-union boss Michael Mulgrew is a chicken and a hypocrite, union critics charge.Mulgrew is ducking a debate with his United Federation of Teachers rival before next month’s union elections, The Post has learned.

Special-education teacher Julie Cavanagh is challenging Mulgrew’s re-election bid and has personally asked him to participate in a “town hall” debate.

“To this point you have ignored outreach regarding your participation in a debate or question-and-answer town hall with me,” Cavanagh said in a March 14 letter to Mulgrew.

And a top aide to Mulgrew confirmed that the incumbent would not debate Cavanagh. Instead, Mulgrew’s political handlers offered to have one of the subordinates from his Unity Caucus debate her.

The contempt with which Mulgrew and his leadership are treating Cavanagh and the MORE caucus is not new to how they treat people within the union who do not swallow the party line 100%.

What is different is that the news of that is showing up in the newspapers.

Why won’t Mulgrew debate Cavanagh?

Understand that a 90 second spot for Cavanagh at the DA does not count as a debate.

I mean a real, honest 90 minute “Here Is How I See The Future Of Public Education, Teaching And Unionism” debate between Mulgrew and Cavanagh moderated by an independent third party.

That would be a great opportunity for both candidates to explain to UFT rank and file just how they plan to handle a very dicey future for teachers, schools and the UFT.

What is Mulgrew afraid of that he won’t have that debate?

Finally, here is RBE on June 20, 2013, talking about Democracy UFT Style in Regards to the Thompson endorsement…

I called this Thompson endorsement by the UFT leadership a long time ago.It wasn’t difficult to see that this was the candidate they would eventually endorse.John Liu is tarred by scandal, so he wasn’t going to get the nod.

Bill de Blasio was seen as too lefty (as noted by one of the Unity slugs in a comment at Gotham Charter Schools a few weeks back), so he was out.

Quinn, had she still been polling strong, might have been their pick because the most important objective the UFT leadership wanted from this endorsement was to pick a winner.

But Quinn has fallen in every poll taken since February and is no longer the presumptive frontrunner in this race, so the UFT leadership could take a chance and go with somebody other than Quinn.

That somebody was Al D’amato’s, Merryl Tisch’s and Randi Weingarten’s favorite candidate, Bill Thompson.

The sham of all of this is that the decision was made weeks ago, but the UFT made believe like they were going through some “democratic process” to come to the endorsement decision.

But as with every other decision the UFT makes, from the sellout on the Common Core to the sellout on APPR, the fix was in and the decision was made by the union elites and handed down to the rank and file.

That’s why they had Thompson ready to go yesterday right after the endorsement announcement, that’s why they had the posters already printed up.

The good news in all of this is, as I noted yesterday, winning the UFT endorsement doesn’t give Bill Thompson much juice other than a day of headlines and some extra cash for the campaign.

Mulgrew can preen in the papers about the vaunted UFT GOTV machine, but the truth is, this is a paper tiger union with most of its power base residing on the golf courses in Florida.

Most members I spoke with yesterday, both in my school and at Regents grading after school, said if Mikey Mulgrew wanted them to vote for Bill Thompson, then there must be something wrong with Bill Thompson.

I think that’s EXACTLY right.

Any candidate who enjoys the support of Al D’amato, the hedge fund/charter school contingent, Merry Tisch, Randi Weingarten and the UFT is a candidate who should not be trusted.

Just like the “democracy” the UFT engaged in to anoint Bill Thompson their candidate.

By now, if you have been reading our posts this week about UFT leadership, you should have serious questions about whether or not you can support the Revive NYSUT slate of candidates. After all, remember what they proudly display on their site…

“We support the Revive NYSUT Unity slate. We have heard the voices from locals across the state and agree with their call for change.”

Michael Mulgrew

5 Comments

Posted on January 27, 2014 by thepjsta

UFT Guest Post #2: Arthur Goldstein

Yesterday we shared with you the details of our series that gives our readers a look into the United Federation of Teachers, how it is structured, and how it impacts locals across New York State and the country. Our first post in the series was from James Eterno of ICEUFT. Today’s post is from prolific blogger Arthur Goldstein. Arthur has blogged regularly at NYC Educator since 2005. He is an ESL teacher at Francis Lewis High School in Queens. You certainly will want to follow him on Twitter at @TeacherArthurG.

Reviving Unionism

by Arthur Goldstein, ESL teacher/ UFT chapter leader, Francis Lewis High School

It’s funny to hear people in NYSUT complaining about democracy. I’m chapter leader of one of the largest schools in NYC, and neither I nor anyone in my school gets to vote or participate at all in NYSUT or AFT. Though I’ve been elected twice, that means nothing. The only way a city teacher gets to be part of NYSUT is to be part of Unity, an invitation-only caucus that has run the union for over 50 years. I’ve never been invited.

The reason for that, I suppose, is my public point of view. I’ve been published in the Daily News, at Huffington Post, at Gotham Schools, on Schoolbook, on multiple blogs, and in local Queens newspapers taking positions contrary to those of UFT leadership. For example, I wrote a column labeling mayoral control mayoral dictatorship. Though giving Michael Bloomberg absolute power was a bad idea, the UFT supported it. After he used it to close schools all over the city, aiding no one but privatizers, we supported it again.

I also oppose value-added ratings for teachers, since they have no basis in science, and since great teachers have lost jobs as a result. I can’t support Common Core, no matter how many millions of dollarsBill Gates pours into it, as I don’t believe it helps the students we serve when we fail most of them and use said failure to label working teachers as defective. Brilliant education historian Diane Ravitch shares my positions, and it’s ironic to be excluded from not only UFT, but also NYSUT and AFT for the crime of sharing her opinions.

Lest you think I’m delusional, below is part of the pledge you must sign to join Unity, as the overwhelming majority of UFT chapter leaders have done.

To express criticism of caucus policies within the Caucus;
To support the decisions of Caucus / Union leadership in public or Union forums;
To support in Union elections only those individuals who are endorsed by the Caucus, and to actively campaign for his / her election;
To run for Union office only with the support of the caucus;
To serve, if elected to Union office, in a manner consistent with Union / Caucus policies
and to give full and faithful service in that office;

Had I signed this, I’d have been unable to advocate for causes important to my members. In fact, I fail to see how we grow advocacy when our school leaders are prohibited from fighting the corporate reform that threatens to turn us all into Walmart associates. As in any group, some people in Unity are wonderful, and others not so wonderful. Some, I think, understand the need for change. But they can’t stand up, or they’ll be expelled. This is, sadly, another UFT tradition. According to David Selden, Unity members were expelled in the sixties for opposing the Vietnam War. History has proven those dissenters right, and will prove us right as well.

Our local, to many UFT members, is just a number you call when you need a pair of glasses. This worries me. I’m surprised to read NYSUT is what needs change. We are by far the largest component of NYSUT and we are in need of something well more than a revival. I’m ready and willing to help, and all UFT need do is ask.

Unfortunately, UFT finds my viewpoints too extreme, and prefers to exclude not only me, but every single teacher who shares my opinions. I don’t personally know a single teacher who supports corporate reform. But many expect little from the UFT, which has failed to procure us a contract in four years or a raise in five. In fact, only 14% of working teachers voted in our last election, and 52% of votes received were from retirees.

Revival is something we surely need. But it needs to come in the form of something inclusive, something that respects those of us who feel the need to fight corporate reform and the junk science that accompanies it. I’m encouraged that AFT President Randi Weingarten has seen the light about VAM, and that NYSUT has rejected the preposterous policies of John King. Why on earth has it taken so long?

Now it’s time to respect the viewpoints and interests of working teachers, and to utilize and encourage those of us who choose to be active. Unfortunately, any revival that willfully ignores what’s been going on in New York City for half a century is no revival at all.

8 Comments

Posted on January 26, 2014 by thepjsta

UFT Guest Post #1: James Eterno

Earlier we told you about our upcoming series on the leadership of the UFT. Our first post is from James Eterno of the UFT’s MORE Caucus. We have admirably mentioned MORE on this blog for quite a while now. This post has also been published at Mr. Eterno’s blog, ICEUFT.

MAKING SOME SENSE OF THE NYSUT LEADER SPLIT

Many New York City teachers view New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) as the group that offers UFT members discount insurance. It is so much more important than that. NYSUT is all of the local unions in New York State combined into a state-wide union. NYSUT matters as a great deal of educational policy is made at the state level.

These days there is an internal rift among the leadership at NYSUT. How this feud plays will have a large impact on UFT members and just about every education stakeholder in New York State.

It is strange how the press has only paid scant attention to this NYSUT leadership dispute. Full coverage has been provided by Education Notes, the Port Jefferson Station Teachers Association website and Perdido Street School. Outside of these online union sources, onlyNew York State of Politics has touched on the story.

Here are some of the basics:

There are five officers in NYSUT. One of them has split from the other four. Who is the rebel? He is Vice President Andy Pallotta, a former UFT District Representative from the Bronx. Pallotta’s job in NYSUT in large part deals with which politicians get our voluntary COPE money. Apparently, Andy encouraged a lot of COPE money to go to Andrew Cuomo recently.

Dick Iannuzzi is NYSUT’s President. He is from Long Island but in the past he was supported by the New York City UFT. Lately as the internal rift has exploded, he has taken aggressive positions in opposition to state education policy driven by Governor Andrew Cuomo, the State Legislature and State Education Commissioner John King.

Do you think the UFT by itself would call for a no confidence vote on State Education Commissioner John King as NYSUT did yesterday? Just last year UFT President Michael Mulgrew was asking the State Legislature and Governor to allow King to arbitrate our dispute with former Mayor Bloomberg over the NYC teacher evaluation system.

Who is really behind the row in NYSUT? You probably guessed right if you said it is our own UFT leaders. Mulgrew is supporting the so called insurgent slate called Revive NYSUT. This is ironic as he won’t give dissidents in his own union the time of day. I think he has responded to one email I have sent him over the past five years.

As for the NYSUT election, it is basically as rigged as UFT elections. The election for NYSUT President and many other positions is in April in NYC. Most NYSUT members won’t be permitted to vote, however, as only NYSUT Representative Assembly Delegates are given the franchise to elect the five NYSUT statewide officers and the 82-member Board of Directors. To be a NYSUT Representative Assembly Delegate from New York City, by far the largest union in the state, one has to win the position in the general UFT election that takes place every three years.

In the most recent UFT election in 2013, less than 20% of active teachers voted. Members received a booklet in the mail with over a thousand names on it. Most people who did vote chose a slate, which means they voted for all of the candidates from one caucus (political party) with one mark.

The party that has controlled UFT politics for around half a century is the Unity Caucus, the Michael Mulgrew-Randi Weingarten faction of the UFT. Their huge base of support is among retirees, who now make up a majority of the UFT voters.

There is no way for dissidents (the Movement of Rank and File Educators in the last election) to reach those retirees who live all over the place, other than one ad in the New York Teacher newspaper every three years. Union officers, on the other hand, have complete access to the retirees.

A major union leader told me that when they visit schools during campaign season, they don’t campaign officially but everyone knows that they are there to run for office. How is it that UFT officials manage to visit Florida retirees during the election season? Challengers, who have to teach here in New York City, do not have any access to the masses of voters.

The opposition MORE slate and quasi opposition New Action slate combined won a majority of high school votes in the last UFT election. That netted the two groups zero representation in NYSUT’s RA.

Membership to the Unity Caucus in New York City is by invitation only. To be accepted into the caucus, one must sign a statement pledging to support the decisions of the caucus in union and public forums (the so called Unity loyalty oath). There is no public dissent allowed. In exchange for absolute loyalty, Unity members get all expense paid trips to the AFT Convention and the NYSUT Representative Assemblies where they vote as an enormous bloc. I very much doubt that the smaller locals in New York State have the funds to pay for their Delegates to travel to the RA and stay at the Hilton.

The party discipline Unity has would make Mao envious. I can just about guarantee that those 800 NYC Unity representatives at NYSUT (around 40% of the total) will be supporting Andy Pallotta and the Revive NYSUT “insurgent” slate. They would vote for a bologna sandwich if Mulgrew told them to.

My read is that current President Dick Iannuzzi, whose vastly improved policies have ironically been strengthened by the internal row, has as much chance of winning as real insurgents do in UFT elections. For Iannuzzi to prevail, the upstate and suburban locals would have to rebel en masse against Mulgrew’s endorsed team. (Wouldn’t that be cool!)

The UFT has always been the tail wagging the NYSUT dog. This insurrection at the top just confirms that status. We can only hope that Iannuzzi and company have something up their sleeves that we don’t know about to make this a truly competitive election.

Iannuzzi’s slate might not be perfect but I would place a wager that if we brought the President of NYSUT the resolution that we introduced earlier this month at the UFT Delegate Assembly not to support Andrew Cuomo’s reelection, we might get a sympathetic ear. Mulgrew’s Unity voted to turn our resolution down and leave open the possibility of a UFT Cuomo endorsement.

9 Comments

Posted on January 26, 2014 by thepjsta

What’s the Deal with the UFT?

As the NYSUT Civil War rages on over social media, a big topic of conversation has become the role of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) and their president, Michael Mulgrew. Many people engaged in the debate of the future of our statewide union’s leadership have been critical of the Revive NYSUT slate’s connection to the UFT. They received an endorsement this week from Mulgrew and former Executive Vice President Alan Lubin who came up through the ranks of the UFT. They also include former UFT member Andy Pallotta and current UFT Vice President Catalina Fortino on their slate. While the Revive NYSUT slate has taken heavy criticism for these connections, others wonder, “what’s the big deal with having UFT connections?”

We’re going to try to clear a lot of that up in the coming days. The first thing we should clear up is that the PJSTA fully supports the members of the UFT and recognizes their rank and file as being on the front lines in the war against public education. Great numbers of them have done tremendous work fighting the corporate reformers. Many of us have friends and family who have been a part of the UFT or are currently a part of the UFT. The PJSTA is proud to call the UFT’s rank and file our brothers and sisters in the labor movement.

Where our problems with the UFT begin and end are with it’s leadership. In particular Mulgrew and the Unity Caucus, the party which has a death grip on control of the local. The UFT’s Unity Caucus has been the only caucus to control the UFT for half a century now and has created a structure of government that makes it nearly impossible to ever lose control. As a result their is a startling absence of democracy within their union and their rank and file are left without a true voice. Instead they are stuck with Mulgrew and his cronies who have refused to rule out a Cuomo endorsement (or financial contributions), have shown support for NYSED Commissioner John King, and claimed to be “frightened” by opposition to the Common Core.

The problem, of course, is that when the UFT’s leadership take stances like this it doesn’t only spell trouble for UFT members. As a local that controls approximately 40% of the NYSUT delegate votes, the UFT also controls NYSUT. With NYSUT making up the majority of the AFT, the UFT also controls the AFT in this way as well. So Mulgrew and company are able to extend their tentacles of reforminess far beyond the boundaries of New York City and into classrooms across the country. With this thought in mind it is highly disturbing when you see a slate such as Revive NYSUT claim to be “grassroots” slate working for the rank and file when they have Mikey Mulgrew’s fingerprints all over them.

To give you a more in depth look at how the UFT’s leadership operates we will be running a series of guests posts over the next few days from members of the UFT’s rank and file. The first post is from the MORE Caucus’ James Eterno. The MORE Caucus is an opposition caucus to Unity. Eterno unsuccessfully ran against Mulgrew for UFT President in 2010.

NYSAPE Reacts to NYSUT

Via New York State Allies for Public Education, of which the PJSTA is a member…

New York State Allies Reacts to NYSUT’s Vote of No Confidence in Education Commissioner John King

New York State Allies for Public Education (NYSAPE) supports New York State United Teachers’ (NYSUT) board resolution declaring “no confidence” in the policies of State Education Commissioner John King. For many months, parents, educators, and communities across New York State have raised voices of concern and outrage regarding Commissioner King’s lack of responsiveness and transparency. Republican and Democratic legislators alike recently escalated serious concerns regarding Commissioner King’s leadership. Parents and educators from all corners of the Empire State have simply lost faith and trust in the New York State Education Department and Commissioner King.

NYSUT’s call for John King’s removal by the NYS Board of Regents echoes NYSAPE’s call for the Commissioner’s resignation in October of 2013. Tim Farley, a Principal and parent of four school-aged children said, “NYSUT’s call for the removal of Commissioner King only confirms what we have known all along; parents and teachers are united in their belief that the Commissioner of Education has failed in his duty to responsibly oversee public education in NYS. It is time for new leadership; leadership that puts students first, and that is exactly what parents and teachers want.”

While NYSUT’s resolution is a welcome turn of events, many wonder if it goes far enough. Jessica McNair, a New Hartford parent of two children said, “It is not enough to call for a ‘moratorium’ or ‘delay’ in the practice of attaching high stakes consequences to Common Core-based state tests. High stakes for students and teacher evaluations tied to those scores create unhealthy school cultures.” Also, on the negative impact of using high-stakes tests on children and linking the score to teacher evaluations, Katie Zahedi, a Mid-Hudson Principal said, “This is a corrosive practice that needs to be abolished. No amount of professional development or funding will correct the inherently flawed process of using these test scores for teacher evaluations.”

Chris Cerrone, a Western NY parent and educator, said, “What we really need is an immediate suspension to all Common Core testing, and that means for the 2013-2014 school year. We need to take a critical look at what value the Common Core holds for NYS and ask, ‘Why did we adopt standards that were created without sufficient input of New York State educators?’ We know that there are problems with the Common Core. Therefore, we need to question the wisdom of calling for a delay in implementation rather than a screeching halt.”

New York State Allies for Public Education represents forty-five grassroots parent groups from every corner of the Empire State. These organizations are proud to stand with the parents, community members and fellow educators in NYSAPE to call for a change in direction and policy beginning with new leadership at the New York State Education Department.