ALBANY’S TOP LOBBYISTS—Capital’s Bill Mahoney: Driven by the spending of two adversarial education advocates, interest groups appear to have spent a record amount of money lobbying governments in New York State in 2014. Families for Excellent Schools spent $9.7 million, and the New York State United Teachers finished second with $3.2 million. Wilson Elser continued its reign as the state’s top lobby firm, and Al D’Amato’s Park Strategies finished second. http://bit.ly/1bRNNrK
You know when you see the word "powerful" in front of NYSUT in news stories about the union?
Can you really be "powerful" when your opposition can outspend you 3-1 lobbying for their interests over yours?
Shouldn't the word "powerful" come before Families For Excellent Schools" and the words "not as powerful as it used to be" come before NYSUT?
Haha, YUUUUUP. And NYSUT lost on an epic scale. End of story. Pack up the chairs and cooler. Game over. Story concluded.
ReplyDeleteNYSUT is a webpage, staff, and button manufacturer without a purpose at this point.
Someone should really tell them that they were executed already.
Good point: it's like "The Sixth Sense," they're dead, but they don't know it.
DeleteI know they can't lobby much without money from the rank and file teachers. Despite this, I have been reluctant to donate my money to them because I think their efforts have been poorly strategized. When I talk to people one-on-one about the mathematics of why test-based teacher evaluations don't work, they leave the conversation understanding what I'm saying. Why isn't the union having that conversation on a larger scale with the media and our representatives?
ReplyDeleteThe parents of NYS have done a far better job in getting their message heard. Maybe I should give my money to them.
I think we'd better start giving them money. They understand the core issue: that the billionaires are trying to get control of everything! Our union does understand the issues. They are choosing to respond sporadically. It's no accident. Read the parents message on NYSaPE.org and click on We have spoken...
DeleteNYSUT's failures over the last many years are the reason we lost so enormously recently. Their failure to predict (unlike every other conscious being on the planet) what the reform movement/Cuomo/etc. was really about, their failure to get in front of the message, their failure to see the reform movement as an existential threat and instead try for a "seat at the table," their failure to get in front of and dominate messaging, their failure to support Teachout, and their failure to maintain even a semblance of labor union priorities or ethos are the real reasons we lost.
ReplyDeleteNYSUT people will try to tell us that the rank and file backed off of VOTE-COPE and that is why our voices got drowned out. Bullshit. VOTE-COPE atrophied because NYSUT became less and less relevant to the rank and file with its failure to communicate effectively and represent us.
When the big histories of this are written, it will be less a story of the success of the corporate reform movement than a failure of teachers' unions to adequately respond to an existential crisis. The virus won because the white blood cells (unions...NYSUT) were nowhere to be found. With the UFT and people like Weingarten on our side, how could we ever win??
Now, the only membrane between us and complete professional collapse are parents. Lets hope that is enough.
I wouldn't give NYSUT one cent. In fact, I haven't contributed to VOTE COPE in decades. I feel completely vindicated after watching all the Heavy Hearts Club members that NYSUT endorsed over the years and contributed to stab us in the back on the evening of March 31.
ReplyDeleteVOTE COPE under Andy Pallotta could not have been run worse. They endorsed and donated millions of dollars to politicians that sold us out in record time. For years I would look over the endorsement list and just shake my head, knowing some of these people were certainly no friends of teachers.
I would not consider donating to VOTE COPE again until the entire initiative is overhauled from top to bottom and Pallotta is banned from having anything whatsoever to do with it.