Bloomberg Compares UFT To NRA

From NY1:

ALBANY - An recent ad from the United Federation of Teachers that attacks Mayor Michael Bloomberg is a reminder that with less than two weeks to go, there is still no deal on teacher evaluations.

"It just doesn't seem like the teachers' union wants to come to a teacher evaluation deal," Bloomberg said on his radio show Friday. "I am told they are starting running ads against me today. If you want a contract, that's not the kind of body language you'd think that would get you one."
...

During his weekly radio show, Mayor Bloomberg was also critical of the UFT's leadership.

"Teachers want to work with the best, and most of them are not in sympathy with the union," he said. "The NRA is another place where the membership, if you do the polling, doesn't agree with the leadership."

Oh yeah - very nice, comparing UFT rank and file with gun owners and members of the NRA.

Mulgrew responded this way:

"The mayor comparing us to the National Rifle Association is clearly inappropriate, especially considering all that's happened in Connecticut," said UFT President Michael Mulgrew. "It also, it shows you how difficult he is to deal with at times."

Indeed, it is inappropriate to compare UFT members with NRA members and indeed it does show how difficult Bloomberg is to deal with.

Why don't you take to the airwaves with that message, Mike, instead of the lame ad you put up?

You might point out how the evaluations Bloomberg has used on teachers in the past had a 52% median margin of error, an 87% maximum margin of error, but he STILL published the names of those teachers in the papers with all that inaccurate data attached to them.

You can then point out how the mayor defended gun owners in NY State who had their names published in the papers last month and ask why it is the mayor thinks it's okay to publish the test-scored based teacher evaluations with the 87% MOE in the papers.

You could finish up by pointing out that Bloomberg doesn't want to fairly evaluate teachers, he wants a system that is error-riddled, needlessly complex, and puts ALL of the onus of education on teachers for student performance when it is clear there are many other factors involved in how well students do in school.

That would be a better ad than this piece of garbage.

As for the UFT rank and file not agreeing with the leadership, Bloomberg's increasingly right about that.

More and more of us think the UFT leadership is doing a terrible job of protecting students, teachers and schools from the ravages of corporate education reform.