They say they are there for us, they are listening.
Here's what I wrote them:
I want NYSUT to fight Governor Cuomo's plans to "break" the public school system.
I want NYSUT to fight to keep the charter cap where it is.
I want NYSUT to fight against Cuomo's plans to make his APPR teacher evaluation system even more punitive and instead roll back this system so destructive that Lower Hudson Valley Superintendents want it shelved immediately.
I want NYSUT to back the teacher suing NYSED and Commissioner King over her "ineffective" rating.
I want NYSUT to stop shilling for Common Core.
I want NYSUT to stop trying to cozy up to Governor Cuomo in order to garner more teacher/school-friendly policies from him when this strategy clearly has not worked.
I want NYSUT to stop selling out members for a kickback from the governor in the form of a double pension.
Finally, I want NYSUT to work with the AFT and the UFT to coordinate an effective PR campaign for public education that counters the anti-teacher PR that emanates from deformers and their politicians, one that lays out a positive, student-centered humanistic vision of education instead of the utilitarian, test-based nightmare the deformers offer.
You should send a letter too.
Go here and do it.
O.k after reading Norm's blog I am monitoring and adjusting my original premise that NYSUT management and local presidents need to be full time classroom people. Norm says we need full time organizers. The let's hire them the way everyone else hires lobbyists to do their bidding and they can work hand in hand with union management who will be on a .5 teaching schedule at very least. I think I am showing some extremely Weingartenesque collaborat.... errr, I mean... compromise here. On a .5 schedule you're done by 10:30 in some places and you've got a big chunk of the day left to take care of business. The idea that ex teachers somehow remain tied to the angst of the practicing classroom grunt in any significant way has proven untrue. But the person who is still getting up and getting in before the Principal starts making red dots on the sign in sheet at 8:20 (ever seen that trick?) who might have a homeroom or breakfast duty and have a stack of corrected papers in their case is certainly feeling what the pinch that nobody in current management feels. Imagine the horror of the Revivers if they got a memo telling them they were headed back to the grind. I'd love to have a camera rolling...
ReplyDeleteHere was what I wrote back in June... http://thepjsta.org/2014/06/06/what-i-want-from-nysut/
ReplyDeleteI've been so concerned about the state of education in New York that I e-mailed several times to former NYSUT president Dick Iannuzzi before he was voted out. And, to his credit, he would write back to me. I really appreciated that.
ReplyDeleteI did write recently to new NYSUT president Karen Magee...but still haven't heard anything back from her. It's probably that feature from NYSUT you mention above....
I don't know what to make of all this.
As I mentioned to Dick Iannuzzi, I know that states that don't have unions are in even worse shape. I know teachers who work just over the borders in Mass. and Penn. And, I'm glad when I drive back over the line into NY, that's for sure. NYSUT has to get credit where credit is due for that. I have known some great people who have worked for NYSUT and have devoted their careers to helping students, schools.....me.
What next? I'm sort of curious as to what Mr. Iannuzzi thinks about all this now?
Regardless, Perdido Street, THANKS for all your reporting on the Kremlin-like quality of politics in Albany.
I was up there doing my volunteer lobbying one time. And, I swear I saw a NYS Senator walking through that God ugly concourse leaving a slime trail behind him in his wake.....sort of like he was a human SLUG. Like Jabba the Hut in Star Wars! I mean, have these people ever looked at some of Nast's cartoons of fat cat machine politicians from the 1800s? Have they no sense of irony or shame?? Boy, our state deserves better.
This is John Ogozalek, by the way. I don't know how to work the "select profile" thing on this page etc....etc...on this page below. Yes, part of me is still firmly rooted in the 20th century. LOL