Mulgrew's Explanation On The Thompson Endorsement Is Just Lame

Here it is - the rationale for the UFT's endorsement of Bill Thompson for mayor:

Mulgrew said that “If you look at most of the candidates, their policies on education are quite similar.”

But he said Thompson was “clear in saying, ‘The city is going in the wrong direction.’”

You'd think if all the candidates were offering similar education policies to Thompson, then the UFT would have gone with a candidate who has talked about making sure teachers get a fair contract, including the money they got screwed out of when Bloomberg broke the last pattern.

That candidate would have been John Liu.

But that's not what the UFT leadership, such as it is, decided to do (and let's dispense with the myth that this was some "democratic process" the UFT went through in choosing Thompson - there's is nothing "democratic" that the UFT engages in ever.)

Nope, the UFT leadership instead went with the candidate who said Bloomberg did the right thing by screwing teachers out of the 8% pattern.

Uh huh - you heard right.

The UFT leadership endorsed the candidate who said "I'm glad Bloomberg @#$%ed the teachers!"

You can bet that a candidate who once said "I'm glad Bloomberg @#$%ed the teachers!" will say it something similar the next time contract negotiations come around and he is running them.

Now I dunno about you, but if all things were equal in how the candidates approached education policy (a position which I dispute, in any case), I wouldn't have gone with the guy who was happy to see Bloomberg screw teachers out of their 8% raise.

I would have gone with the candidate saying that teachers should receive a fair contract, including the money they got screwed out of last time around.

As I wrote last night, this Thompson endorsement is just the latest ed deform collaborationist sell-out from the UFT/AFT.

You can be sure if Thompson is elected, he will turn his back on teachers and pursue the ed deform policies his co-chair, Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch, and his DFER/charter buddies want him to pursue.

Another UFT/AFT-devised disaster in the making.

Heckuva job, Mike. 

Heckuva job, Randi.