Question To Randi Weingarten: Is This Campaign Rhetoric From Cuomo?

Via ICEUFT blog, here's Cuomo's latest threat to take on teachers and schools:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo in a radio interview this morning reiterated that he will tackle an overhaul of education in his second term, a sign that he is not letting up on his battle with the state teachers union.

Cuomo, on The Capitol Pressroom this morning, said he wanted to make his education reform measures part of his overall legacy as governor — linking it to his other legislative successes.

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What those reforms will be are likely to include new performance evaluations and raising teacher standards, along with tying pay raises to merit.

At the same time, Cuomo has been pushing for strengthening charter schools in his second term. For the New York State United Teachers, Cuomo’s push on education reform measures is meant to appease his donors, many of whom are wealthy hedge-fund managers who are supportive of charter school initiatives.

Cuomo’s education plans aren’t just academic. A number of tangible issues are coming to a head next year in Albany, including the expiration of mayoral control of New York City schools.

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Cuomo in his interview today said he was willing to expend some of his political capital in order to get changes to the state’s education system.

“If you’re not willing to pay the price for change, get out of the business, because the status quo is the worst outcome of all of this,” Cuomo said, adding, “When I am done I’m going to be proud of these things that have caused the most heartburn.”

He's proudest of things that cause the most heartburn.

He's going to push for new evaluation standards for teachers, even though the current system he touts as the best in the nation is a mess, he's going to push for merit pay and he's going to either increase the charter school cap dramatically or eliminate it completely.

Finally, he says he's willing to expend political capital on this attack on teachers and public schools (though I dunno if he knows that he's got a lot less political capital these days than he had after 2010 when he pushed through his first slate of education reforms.)

Before the election, Randi Weingarten defended his earlier threat to "break" the public school "monopoly" by calling it "campaign rhetoric."

Hey, Randi, are these post-election comments from Cuomo "campaign rhetoric" too?

Randi Weingarten Writes Another Letter

Randi Weingarten writes more letters than the characters in a Samuel Richardson novel.

First she wrote a letter to TIME Magazine telling them how bad their "Rotten Apples" cover was.

Then she wrote a "private" letter to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo after he promised the Daily News he was going to "break" the public school system "monopoly" in his next term.

Now she's written a letter to the AFT membership that Diane Ravitch posted a bit ago with a headline along the lines of "Randi Is Not Voting For Cuomo."

That caused some uproar on Twitter, as people started to read the letter and say "Hey, where does it say she's not voting for Cuomo?"

The headline's now changed on Ravitch's post, probably because nowhere in the letter does it say explicitly that Randi's not voting for Cuomo.

Here's the letter in full:

The difficult choices New Yorkers face at the polls

As I head back home to vote on Nov. 4, I’ll be casting my vote for the candidates endorsed by NYSUT, my statewide union, starting with Eric Schneiderman for attorney general, Thomas DiNapoli for comptroller, Tim Bishop for the U.S. House of Representatives, and a strong pro-public education, pro-worker majority in the state Senate and Assembly. And I’ll be voting on the Working Families Party line. If I lived in another state, I’d be starting with the governor—but not in New York.

It’s heartbreaking to see what’s happening in New York, especially after campaigning across the country for gubernatorial candidates who unequivocally support public education, respect teachers and will fight for the investment our schools need.

But in New York, the decision is painful. I am deeply disappointed and appalled by Gov. Cuomo’s recent statement that public education is a “monopoly” that needs to be busted up. (Frankly, it’s only hedge fund millionaires, right-wing privatizers and tea partiers who would use that terminology.) Public education is a public good and an anchor of democracy that is enshrined in our state constitution. Public education needs to be nurtured and reclaimed.

At the same time, the other major candidate, Rob Astorino, would be no day at the beach for New York’s students, educators and working families. His letter was a needed salve to teachers, but his embrace of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s politics of destruction, public education funding cuts and attacks on workers’ voices is not a model for New York.

Whichever candidate is elected governor on Nov. 4 needs to know that I (and so many others) will hold his feet to the fire to strengthen public education. Our public schools and our students are a sacred responsibility, and our educators are national treasures. It’s well past time to fund our schools, care for our children, support our teachers, and stand up for workers and working families everywhere in our state.

Randi Weingarten

It's Talmudic in its text, that's for sure.

She's criticizing Cuomo for making the monopoly comment, but she already did that in an interview with Jessica Bakeman at Capital NY.

She's using a bit Cuomo's line of attack against Astorino, characterizing him as an extremist who shouldn't be in power in a state like New York.

She did that with Bakeman too.

She writes that she's voting the Working Families Party line, starting with the AG and going down the line.

I guess we're supposed to take that as a gesture that she's not voting for Cuomo.

But she never actually writes those words.

Intead she writes:

And I’ll be voting on the Working Families Party line. If I lived in another state, I’d be starting with the governor—but not in New York.

What does that mean?

She's not voting for governor at all?

She is voting for governor, just not for Cuomo?

She's voting WFP because she lives in NY, but if she lived in another state she'd be voting Dem?

Who knows what it means because it's classic Weingarten - it's inscrutable and could mean just about anything, depending upon the weather, the phases of the moon and how the Dow Jones ended up the day.

In the end, I don't particularly care whether Weingarten's voting for Cuomo or not and I frankly am not assuaged by the letter in anyway.

When Weingarten spends a tenth of the time, resources and energy she put into the TIME Magazine boondoggle or the Pearson protests to fighting Andy Cuomo when he tries to raise the charter cap or revise APPR to make it more punitive (as he has promised to do) or "break" the public school "monopoly" by underfunding public schools and giving that money to charters, that's when I'll start caring about something Weingarten does or says.

Until then, this is just more Randi jive.

Her track record of giving in to deformers - from Michael Bloomberg and Joel Klein to Bill Gates and the Gates Foundation to Andrew Cuomo and John King speaks louder than any words she posted at the AFT website.

FireDogLake: Time To Fight Corporate Democrats Who Shill For Education Privatization

DS Wright at FireDogLake:

While President Obama’s former spokesman, Robert Gibbs, manages a national public relations campaign against teachers unions, the National Education Association (NEA) has finally decided it has had enough of Team Obama’s union busting. The NEA has now called on Education Secretary Arne Duncan to resign.

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Duncan may have made a misstep when he publicly supported a court decision in California that destroyed teacher tenure and job protections, a shill too far?

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Though it is unlikely Duncan will resign, the call for his resignation from the NEA may be a turning point for the teachers unions who have largely refused to substantively push back against the privatization agenda that Obama has been pushing for five years. Unions typically go light on Democrats which is one of the reasons privatizers do everything they can to use them in their fight to wreck public schools.

The policies of “education reformers” – charter schools, merit pay, vouchers, drill and kill testing to evaluate teachers – that Duncan has promoted have consistently proved not to work. Though the reformers/privatizers constantly point to America’s poor rankings compared to other developed countries, none of those superior countries have adopted the policies the privatizers are promoting, in fact, most have strong unions and lots of public investment and control. So it is a rather strange argument to make, isn’t it?

Nonetheless, it is well past time for teachers to start educating corporate Democrats as to what happens when you try to destroy public education.

It is well past time to take on corporate Dems like Obama, Cuomo, Emanuel, et al. - unless you're Randi Weingarten, of course, in which case you send out a strongly worded letter, then appear at the next Duncan "Teacher Bash" fest to shill for "Excellent Educator Equity".

Yeah, that'll show 'em, Randi.

Randi Weingarten Stands With Arne Duncan (UPDATED - 3:45 PM)

From Politico:

Education Secretary Arne Duncan has brushed off a call for his resignation from the National Education Association.

The NEA adopted the resolution last week at its representative assembly in Denver, where the air was charged with anger and members buzzed with frustration at Duncan and other education reformers — especially their emphasis on high-stakes testing.

The resolution blamed Duncan for a “failed education agenda” consisting of policies that “undermine public schools and colleges, the teaching education professionals, and education unions.

...

  

But Duncan couldn’t be baited.

“Secretary Duncan looks forward to continuing to work with NEA and its new leadership,” spokeswoman Dorie Nolt said over the weekend. And at a White House press briefing Monday, during which Duncan outlined a plan to ensure all students have access to highly effective teachers, Duncan said he was “trying to stay out of local union politics.”

“We’ve had a very good working relationship with NEA in the past,” he said and congratulated President-elect Lily Eskelsen García on her win.

Duncan also noted that the president of the other major teachers union, the American Federation of Teachers, was joining him Monday for the rollout of the teacher equity proposal. He said had NEA members not been at their convention, “I think they would have stood with us on this” today, too. The AFT is not expected to consider a resolution calling on Duncan to step down at their convention, which starts Friday.

In the week after the NEA membership call for Duncan's ouster, AFT President Randi Weingarten is helping Duncan and the Obama administration in their efforts to make sure that every child in every zip code has access to an "effective teacher".

Of course those of you out there who understand reformy speak know that "access to an effective teacher" means giving states and districts the power to fire teachers they consider "ineffective".

Given that the mechanisms for measuring so-called teacher effectiveness are half-baked at best (i.e, the Voodoo VAM, the Danielson rubric), by joining Duncan in his "Teacher Equity Project, Weingarten is giving aid and comfort to the enemies of teachers who wish to fire them and replace them with cheaper (and younger) hires.

No wonder the AFT isn't expected to consider a resolution calling for Duncan's firing.

Weingarten's on his team.

UPDATED - 3:45 PM: Education Week reported Weingarten's response to the NEA's call for Duncan's ouster:

When asked whether the AFT joined the NEA in calling for Duncan's resignation, Weingarten said, "I understand the sentiment." She pointed to the letter she sent to the Secretary immediately after his commentary on the Vergara decision.

Yeah, that's telling them, Randi.

Like they give a shit about the letter you sent over the Vergara decision.

You know that they care about?

When a large teachers union stops joining them for the reformy programs like the "Teacher Equity Project" and calls Arne Duncan what he is - the Secretary of Education Privatization - at every opportunity they get.

Sending strongly-worded letters doesn't cut it when you're undercutting whatever sentiments you put into them by standing with Duncan at his events and failing to put all the pressure you can on getting him fired.

Randi Weingarten Grabs Microphone From 9 Year Old So She Can Speak

Asean Johnson, a 9 year old boy, was reading a speech about attacks on public education at yesterday's 50th anniversary March on Washington commemoration.

Before Asean could finish his speech, AFT President Randi Weingarten grabbed the microphone from him so she could do what she does best - put the spotlight back on her and talk.

See for yourself:



There was a strict time limit on speakers yesterday, so Weingarten can claim she was just telling Asean he was out of time and she had to move on.

Plus this first got reported by Michelle Malkin's blog, Twitchy, so Randi and company are claiming that it's just an anti-union attack by wingnuts.

But you know what?

Let the kid finish.

Seriously.

He is 9 years old and it was a good speech.

Also, Weingarten sure spoke for a long time after she grabbed the microphone from Asean and left him standing there next to her.

This is classic AFT/UFT leadership behavior.

Give people a strict 2 minute time limit to talk, then grab the microphone from whomever is speaking and silence them.

Happens every DA.

Randi can claim this is a misunderstanding all she wants.

The fact is, it plays into her reputation.

She says it's about the kids, she says it's about the membership, but it's always about her.

This video is the perfect emblem for Weingarten and the UFT/AFT leadership.