Perdido 03

Perdido 03

Saturday, November 17, 2012

Weingarten Must Go

Mike Klonsky covers the Christie/Weingarten lovefest that took place on Morning Joe over the sellout Newark teachers contract that brings merit pay to a New Jersey school district for the first time.

He notes:

I was sickened to see Randi Weingarten and Tea-Party Gov. Christie on Morning Joe, fawning over each other and over the deal they cut on the Newark teachers contract. It was the worst display of seat-at-the-table unionism I have seen in years. Both are hailing the deal as a "model" for the rest of the country. I hope against hope that it isn't. Christie called it, "the most gratifying day of my governorship, by far." That should tell you something about the deal right there. New Jersey Education Commissioner and chief privatizer Chris Cerf (not be be confused with Che Guevara) called the contract "revolutionary." Union President Joseph Del Grosso was a little more restrained, calling it “a step in the right direction for the teaching profession."

Klonsky also writes that Christie threatened the NJEA with the NTU contract, saying they can either agree to similar contracts in NJEA districts or become "dinosaurs" who are "run over" by the future of merit pay-based teacher compensation packages.

Did Weingarten bother to push back on any of this nonsense, did she point out that the value-added measurements that they're going to use to evaluate teachers and pay them/fire them are unstable over time and rife with error?  Did she note that the tests many of  these evaluations are going to be based on are also rife with error, that the districts are going to have to add hundreds of new tests to the curriculum so that every teacher in every subject in every grade can be evaluated using test scores?

She did not.

Instead she glowed in the attention afforded her by the neo-liberals on the Morning Joe set and the praise of Chris Christie and Chris Cerf.

It is time we rid the AFT of Randi Weingarten.

She is selling the teaching profession down the river time and time again with these contracts.

I cannot get in her head to understand why she is doing that.

Perhaps she believes in the merit pay fairy, believes in the charterization of the school system, thinks test-based education is the best.

Or perhaps she doesn't care one way or the other other and simply loves the attention she is afforded as the "reform-minded," "solution-based" union leader.

Whatever the reason for her actions, it is past time that we rid the AFT of Weingarten and her cronies.

The CTU strike was a blow against this kind of sell out, against test-based education, against FEAR-based policies, against the divisive reforms that pit teacher against teacher and school against school.

But this Newark contract is just the opposite.

In that, it is no different than the New Haven contract Weingarten pushed, the Baltimore contract she railroaded through, some of the "reforms" she brought here to NYC.

Remember, Weingarten is the sell-out leader who made the Teacher Data Reports agreement with Chris Cerf when he was a deputy chancellor here in NYC.

Now she's helping Cerf and Christie bring the merit pay fairy and FEAR-based education policies to New Jersey and helping them attack the NJEA for not selling out to the same kinds of contracts.

I will say again, it is past time that Randi Weingarten and the rest the AFT leadership around her be sent packing.

Forget the DUMP ARNE DUNCAN movement.

It is time to DUMP RANDI WEINGARTEN.

11 comments:

  1. check out the Professional developmant company officers of Brienza Educatiotnal Advantage on google, you will see a familar name that should create some interest and direct ties to uft aft leadership.

    tired of randi

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    1. Thanks - just saw your post on another comment thread how Mulgrew's sister is on the board for this company. I'll check that story and see if I can post about it.

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  2. I'll "get into her head" for you...it's call "Ka-Ching."

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  3. Thinking it's time to stop bothering and blogging and whatever and trying to write a book that I can get rich off of and walk away from all of this bullshit. Open up my own one roomer in the country and teach whatever the hell I want to a roomful of my own kids.

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    1. Sean, let me know when you open up that one room schoolhouse. I might join you. I see now why more and more parents are moving to some alternative to the public system. I really get the home school and free school movements.

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  4. Randi's agenda is Randi. That means power,money, influence and a lifestyle of comfort for Randi. Everyone else step aside for Randi and she races to the top. Down the toilet bowl goes the teaching profession, fairness, union benefits, dignity for teachers and the truth.Randi is a highly narcissistic, self-serving egoist.

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    1. I agree with you - it's always about her, about her career, her fame, her success.

      She sucks.

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  5. She should have gone a long time ago.

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  6. Weingarten is an obvious mole for the "reformers." What better way to destroy unions than to be part of them and destroy them from within. She's had ties to the Broad Academy in the distant past.

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  7. Randi was a "faculty" member of the Broad "Academy" back in 2002 when it was just getting started.

    She shouldn't be trusted as far as you can pick her up and throw her:

    http://www.broadcenter.org//newsroom/full/the-broad-center-for-superintendents-graduates-inaugural-class

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    1. Thanks for that link, Susan. I agree that she is a mole for the reformers, although given how obvious she is in doing her dirty work, she's not much of a "deep, undercover" mole.

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