AFT Leaders Say, You Don't Like The Hillary Clinton Endorsement, Too Bad (UPDATED)

UPDATED - 8:50 AM: Megan Moskop, the teacher with whom Leo was engaging, writes to say that Leo was talking about the caucus structure within the union, not the union itself. 

If so, he wasn't doing a very good job of it because it reads as if he was talking about the union as a whole, not the caucuses within.

No matter what Leo was talking about (and given Leo's convolutions, it's often hard to know), the dismissive attitude, the scorn for member concerns and the refusal to hear anybody else's critiques remains, as does the looming issue of what happens if the Supreme Court rules against unions in Friedrichs next year.

If the AFT/UFT/NYSUT leadership does not make a course correction in how it deals with members concerns and criticism, they will find fewer and fewer members as time goes in.

That would be an awful thing to have happen, but it doesn't seem the AFT leadership is too worried because they continue to treat the rank and file like serfs to be ruled from above.

Original Post:

AFT Leaders Say, You Don't Like The Hillary Endorsement, You're Free To Leave The Union 

A functionary of the American Federation of Teachers explains how AFT members have no right to public dissent of  AFT leadership decisions and if they don't like what the AFT leadership did by endorsing Hillary Clinton for president 16 months out, they're free to leave the union:

@msmoskop @BiancaTanis @nysut @AFTunion decision making becuz everyone goes & does what they want regardless. In democracy you respect the

— Leo Casey (@LeoECasey) July 13, 2015

@msmoskop @BiancaTanis @nysut @AFTunion democratic decision and abide by it. If you can't abide by it, then you always have right to leave

— Leo Casey (@LeoECasey) July 13, 2015

@msmoskop @BiancaTanis @nysut @AFTunion and join a different organization or not be part of any organization.

— Leo Casey (@LeoECasey) July 13, 2015

That's Leo Casey, Randi Weingarten's long-time propaganda guy, telling AFT member Megan Moskop why she has no right to complain about the "democratic decision" reached by the autocratic leadership of the American Federation of Teachers, with its "executive board" controlled by AFT President Randi Weingarten voting "democratically" for the endorsement of Hillary Clinton after the union used Hillary Clinton's pollsters to poll a little over a thousand AFT members and use this as justification for the endorsement 16 months out from the election.

It's interesting that Leo Casey would suggest AFT members who don't like the AFT leadership's decision on the Clinton endorsement leave the union, because that's exactly the thing that might happen next year if the Supreme Court rules in the Friedrichs case that teachers cannot be compelled to pay union dues and have those dues used for lobbying or other business they do not agree with.

If you go back through Perdido Street School blog here, you'll see various commenters talk about wanting to leave the union, decertify the union, start their own union and/or otherwise hope for RICO charges for the current union leadership because they feel disenfranchised by the AFT/UFT/NYSUT leadership.

The big complaint for many AFT/UFT/NYSUT members is that union leaders do not listen to concerns of the rank and file, that they make top-down decisions and attack anybody who disagrees with them.

The Hillary Clinton endorsement is just the latest "Hey, you don't like what we do? Too @#$%ing bad!" response from the AFT leadership, with the cranky Leo Casey dishing out the smack down.

You would think given the enormity of the Friedrichs case, the union leadership would be more amenable to member concerns, that they would be thinking, "Hey, we could lose the right to compel members dues, so maybe, you know, we should start to work with members instead of work on them...maybe we should be more member-responsive instead of member-dismissive when the rank and file raise concerns."

You would think they might react that way, given Friedrichs, but you'd be wrong - instead it's just the usual defensive response, part condescension/part insult, that if you don't like what the AFT does, leave it, if you don't abide by the top-down imposed "democratic" decision from the AFT leadership, you're an anarchist.

The next insult - usually the last one the AFT leadership and/or their functionaries level in fights with members - is that you're anti-union if you don't support the leadership's decisions, and you can bet that's coming next from Leo and Company (I know because I've had that leveled at me on Twitter when I've criticized AFT/UFT/NYSUT strategy or decisions in the past.)

Casey may just get his wish next year after the Supreme Court ruling on Friedrichs if teachers are given the choice to pay union dues or not, and while I think it would be a mistake for teachers to stop paying dues to the AFT because the union leaders run the union for themselves only and are completely unresponsive to members' concerns or criticisms, you can see why some might do it.

Who wants to pay the salary, perks and second pensions of autocrats like Weingarten and Casey as they make top-down decisions that members consider harmful to their interests, then dismiss member concerns with insults and "Hey, you don't like it, leave!" retorts?

I was hoping that the AFT leadership would start to become more responsive to members with the Freidrichs case looming next year, that they would feel the need to engage with members over concerns and criticism rather than just do the usual insult/dismissal game, but it seems, given the Casey pushback to the Clinton endorsement decision, this will not be the case.

Instead we are being told if AFT members don't like the decision, they can leave the union and go elsewhere.

It will be interesting to see how many take Leo up on his invitation if the Supreme Court rules against unions in the Freidrichs case.

I'm betting many will.

And then AFT leaders will call these people names, claim they are anti-union or whatever, instead of thinking, "You know, maybe we can't run the union the way we always have anymore, maybe we actually, you know, have to listen to members instead of just dismiss them and do what we want..."

It is a real shame that the AFT leadership does not seem to see the disaster that is coming down the pike if they continue to run the union for their own benefit, ambition and aggrandizement.

As I wrote earlier, I won't stop paying dues nor take Leo up on his invitation to leave the AFT but given the disenfrachisement many rank and filers feel toward the union, I would bet many others do.

The AFT leadership believes itself untouchable, what with the rigged election processes wherein loyalty oaths and dished out perks and privileges are used to keep the union functionaries in lie and continue to support the leadership.

But see how well that works if and when the rank and file are given a choice to pay dues or not.

Is Randi Weingarten REALLY Getting The Message?

Stephanie Simon at Politico reports the AFT convention that opens today in L.A. is not going to be as reformer-friendly as in years past:

The American Federation of Teachers will open its annual convention Friday morning with a startling announcement: After years of strongly backing the Common Core, the union now plans to give its members grants to critique the academic standards — or to write replacement standards from scratch.

It’s a sign that teachers are frustrated and fed up — and they’re making their anger heard, loud and clear.

The AFT will also consider a resolution — drafted by its executive council — asserting that the promise of the Common Core has been corrupted by political manipulation, administrative bungling, corporate profiteering and an invalid scoring system designed to ensure huge numbers of kids fail the new math and language arts exams that will be rolled out next spring. An even more pointed resolution flat out opposing the standards will also likely come up for a vote.

...

Policy analysts see this weekend’s moves as an escalation — a stark signal that union opposition has switched into high gear, potentially threatening an initiative that both conservatives and liberals have supported for years and that has become one of President Barack Obama’s key education priorities.

Simon writes that the AFT convention may also consider a "Dump Duncan" resolution now that the NEA has passed one and that Weingarten will set the tone of the convention by starting the festivities off with "a speech passing harsh judgment on Duncan."

Dunno about you, but I remain skeptical about this so-called change in tone and "escalation" of "union opposition."

Remember, Weingarten just stood with Secretary of Education Privatization Arne Duncan this week as part of his "Education Excellence Equity Project."

As in, literally stood with him - and when asked if the AFT would join the NEA in condemning Duncan and calling for his ouster, Weingarten demurred, saying she "understood the sentiment," but stopped short of saying the AFT would join the NEA in its call for Duncan's firing.

Clearly in the days since, the AFT leadership has taken the temperature of the AFT rank-and-file and decided this is not the year to trot out Bill Gates to sell Common Core and teacher evaluations, as they did a few years ago (including exhorting members to jeer other AFT rank-and-file who walked out of the convention in protest over Gates' invitation to speak.)

So we're getting some words out of the AFT convention that are made to fool us into thinking the AFT leadership is ready to escalate their opposition to the Obama administration's education reform agenda, the Common Core standards, the tests that go with them, etc.

But I've been around Randi Weingarten, Leo Casey et al. for 14 years now, first as a UFT member when they were running the NYC local, and now as an AFT member as they run the national union, and the one thing I can tell you is, watch what they do, not what they say.

Weingarten's standing with Arne Duncan earlier this week as he trotted out another teacher bashing initiative that utilizes the rhetoric of the corporate education reform movement to further weaken teacher professionalism, work protections and autonomy in the name of putting an "effective" teacher into every classroom is more telling than whatever jive ass bullshit she spews in L.A.

Had this "escalation" in "union opposition" to the Obama administration's education reform agenda and the Obama administration figure most prominent in pushing it been honest and true, Randi Weingarten wouldn't have stood with him as he put out another reform agenda proposal just four days before she was to unleash "a speech passing harsh judgment on Duncan."

The leaders of the AFT, like the leaders of the UFT, play fast and loose with the truth all the time and the best policy when dealing with them is to remain skeptical when they trot out a new tone and promises of fighting against the ravages of corporate education reform and say "Okay, how are they bullshitting me now?"

Because you can be certain that's what they're doing.

Still, to end on a positive note, the one thing that is important to take away from this is, even Randi Weingarten and the AFT leadership realize defending compromise with the corporate deformers and their education reform agenda won't fly anymore.

We are a long way from 2010 when Weingarten brought AFT rank-and-file this dog-and-pony show:

Solidarity Forever

Well, the results haven't been officially announced, but the pro-Andy Cuomo, Michael Mulgrew- and Randi Weingarten-backed Revive NYSUT slate has won the NYSUT election.

Given how many votes the UFT bloc of delegates had and how some smaller locals had fallen in line with the larger bloc, the results were not unexpected.

Despite her protests to the contrary, this was a Weingarten-engineered putsch from the beginning, a move to solidify her power in the NYSUT and ensure the state union remains pro-Andy Cuomo and pro-collaborationist with the forces of education reform, just as she maintains her hand on the UFT and ensures our NYC local remains Cuomo- and reform-friendly.

If you like the APPR teacher evaluation system, Race to the Top, the Common Core, Teacher Data Reports (with teachers' names named in the newspapers) - well, the same union folks who helped bring us all these "collaborationist" policies have taken back control of NYSUT just when the Iannuzzi leadership was beginning to fight against them.

The Revive slate has talked a good game about standing up to King and Tisch, not supporting Cuomo, and fighting the forces of reform that seek to destroy unionized teachers in NY State.

But even as they were talking that, the real power behind that slate, Mulgrew and Weingarten, did NOTHING of consequence to fight Andrew Cuomo as he ceded partial control of NYC schools to Eva Moskowitz and the charter school operators, gave more money to the privatized charters at the same time he starves traditional public schools of funding, and ensured charter schools in NYC will be 10% or more of total schools within just a few years by enshrining into law an absolute right of expansion with no independent entity to say no to them.

Watch what the new NYSUT leadership does rather than listen to what they say - there's a reason Weingarten engineered the NYSUT putsch just as the old leadership was getting aggressive against the state reform agenda, and you can bet it wasn't to make NYSUT even more aggressive against reform.

You'll hear lots of calls for "solidarity" from Weingarten supporters now that the election is over, but "solidarity" to these people means shut up and do what the leadership says and agree with what the leadership does no matter what.

We won't be following those calls here at Perdido Street School blog.

Instead we will be watching the new NYSUT leadership very, very closely and calling them out every time that they cave on an issue, that they take some action (or perform some inaction) that ensures Andy Cuomo remains governor, the state's reform agenda remains in place and the charter school privatizers continue to gain more power.

The solidarity I have is with my fellow teachers who toil under the burn and churn education reform policies brought to us through the "collaborationist" efforts of Randi Weingarten, Michael Mulgrew, Leo Casey and the rest of the crew at the AFT/UFT, not with the union leadership full of political expedients looking to maintain their power, privilege and "seat at the table" with Andy Cuomo so they can lap up the crumbs that fall from it.

NYSED Commissioner King Is Right About This

Hold onto your hats - I'm going to agree with NYSED Commissioner/rookie teacher John King about something:

In an interview that will air on Capital Tonight this evening, state Education Commissioner John King shrugged off the news that NYSUT President Dick Iannuzzi plans to ask his Board of Directors for a no confidence vote on King’s leadership, saying that in his opinion, the teachers union’s real beef appears to be with Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the Legislature.

King argued that what NYUST is really after is a renegotiation of the teacher performance evaluation deal struck in 2012, and not a delay of the implementation of the Common Core curriculum.

“I understand Mr. Iannuzzi is under a lot of internal pressure; I understand that may lead to attacking me,” King told me earlier today. “But it strikes me that that the real dispute he has is the with the governor and the Legislature.”

“I know he expressed his disappointment with the governor’s State of the State for not backing down on the evaluation law on which we all agreed,” the commissioner continued. “So, the question really for NYSUT is: They’re committed to the Common Core, they’re committed to the evaluation system; they have to explain why they think we should change the evaluation that we all agreed to that we all believed is in the interest of students.”

King's right, of course - NYSUT, along with the AFT, the UFT and the NEA, have all expressed support and continue to express support for the Common Core.

King's right that the NYSUT, along with the AFT and UFT, have also all expressed approval for the APPR teacher evaluation system - in fact, Iannuzzi stood on stage along with Mike Mulgrew to announce in February 2012 that they were dropping the lawsuit against the Regents for increasing the testing component in the APPR eval system and had come to an agreement with SED, the Regents and the governor that the system as devised by Tisch, King and Cuomo should go forward.

Finally King is right when he alludes to the fact that he real power behind him is Cuomo and the legislature (or more specifically, the campaign donors who buy Cuomo and the legislature, but you get the point) - NYSUT calling for a "no confidence" vote on King does nothing so long as the Regents Board remains constituted with a pro-reform power base, and it does nothing so long as the governor continues to support the reform agenda (as he clearly does) and the legislature takes no meaningful action to change the reform agenda in the law.

In short, John King called "bullshit" on Dick Iannuzzi and John King is right to do so.

The union leadership continues to support CCSS and attacks members who question or criticize it, the union leadership continues to support APPR and attacks anybody who questions or criticizes it.

By calling for a "no confidence" vote on King, Iannuzzi, like Randi Weingarten's "VAM is SHAM" sham this week, is simply trying to make it look like he's taking meaningful action to stem the harm done by the SED/Regents/Cuomo reform agenda while really doing nothing much at all to mitigate the damage or change the trajectory of the agenda.

If Ianuzzi were really taking meaningful action here, he would be calling for King's ouster, and Tisch's ouster, and telling Cuomo in no uncertain terms that if APPR remains as it is, if CCSS is not changed, if inBloom continues to go forward, the unions will cut 5% or more from his 2014 re-election totals by sitting out election day.

The same message should be sent to Legislators - unions work against Legislators who continue to promote or support the reform agenda.

But the union leadership does not send those messages out to the politicians of this state because they are still on the take from the Gates Foundation and the other ed deform "non profits" that hand out the cash in return for CCSS support and other reforminess backing.

You won't see this too often, but I agree with John King here.

Iannuzzi, like Weingarten at the AFT, is talking tough in public, but the action remains very, very reformy-friendly in reality.

If Iannuzzi really wanted to short-circuit the reforms, he would be aiming at Cuomo and the Legislature.

Michael Mulgrew And Leo Casey Just Like The Fonz

.@PSulliv yup, wonder if @LeoECasey will apologize to @carolburris now & admit she was right
— leonie haimson (@leoniehaimson) November 7, 2013

Mikey and Leo now criticizing the teacher evaluation system they helped develop and defend against criticism from Carol Burris and Diane Ravitch.

Mikey and Leo are criticizing the system for some of the very reasons Burris and Ravitch criticized it in the past.

But Mikey and Leo never admit they were wrong to help develop this system or defend it, of course.

That would be going to far.

They cannot admit they were wr- wr- wr- wro-wrong...

Leo Casey Explains Collective Bargaining To Us

Do you want to buy what Leo's selling?

I know I don't.

I remember when he sold us on the '05 contract that created the ATR pool and I remember when he defended the Teacher Data Report deal Randi made with the DOE and assured us that the data would never be used against teachers.

How'd those deals work out?

Then I remember how he assured us the APPR system would be collectively bargained in each district so we wouldn't have to worry about it and could safely ignore the criticism of the APPR system coming from naysayers like Carol Burris and Diane Ravitch.

Now he tells us that binding arbitration, as decided by the governor (otherwise known as "management"), is a swell kind of collective bargaining and that anybody who doesn't think so just doesn't understand the concept of "collective bargaining." 

Anybody wanna buy some of that land Leo's selling?

As I wrote earlier on another Assailed Teacher post:

Leo Casey is full of shit. As chief propagandist for the UFT, his job is to get you and I to think his shit is roses. He can try to jazz up his shit with jargon and legalese and, my personal favorite, that condescending tone of “Son, you don’t know what collective bargaining is…” crap, but the truth is Casey is still full of shit and the crap he’s selling us hasn’t turned to flowers despite his efforts.

They’ve given management the right to impose any system they want on us. That’s the reality, no matter what shit Casey is slinging.

Perhaps it’s the lapsed Catholic in me, but I really hold contempt for people who spend their lives lying to other people to fool them into thinking up is down, war is peace and surrender is victory. And that’s Casey’s JOB – to pull the wool over people’s eyes and fool them into thinking the various UFT sell-outs and concessions are in their best interests.

Just ask the ATR’s how Casey’s assurances over the odious ’05 contract worked out. Or ask the 4th-8th grade math and ELA teachers who had their names and ratings printed in the paper (complete with 52% margin of error) how Casey’s assurances over the Teacher Data Reports worked out.

Leo Casey’s the perfect emblem for a corrupt union leadership that serves its own interests and only its own interests. You should believe NOTHING he says, ever – not even the words “is” and “was”.

Close the door on him, send him back out into the rain, send him back to the UFT/AFT boiler room.

You don't want to buy what Lyin' Leo Casey's selling you.

Casey Blames Bloomberg, Walcott Blames UFT

Each side is pointing fingers over the lack of a teacher evaluation agreement.

Leo Casey wrote up his side at Edwize.

The Daily News gave Chancellor Walcott the space to publish his side of the story.

Just who do we believe?

The words of both of these men are just about worthless.

Leo Casey writes pro-Unity propaganda for a living and looks for different ways to explain how the crap the UFT often agrees to (like the odious '05 contract, the Teacher Data Reports, or APPR) is not actually crap but crap-encrusted gold if one can only scrub off the crap around the wealth beneath.

Let's just say that telling the truth is not high on the list of Casey' s job description.

Walcott, meanwhile, likes to say that teachers only care about themselves, don't really care about the kids, only he and his boss actually care about the kids.  He does this while knowingly sending students to schools laden with cancer-causing toxins, PCB's, and mold - often while hiding these facts from parents and staff.

Walcott is one of the most despicable people on the planet - anyone who knowingly sends children to buildings laden with PCB's, cancer-causing toxins, or black mold and hides that fact from parents can't be anything other than despicable. 

So truth be told, hearing these men tell you the other guy is lying is like hearing OJ Simpson tell you he's found the "real killers" - it's difficult to believe anything they say.

That said, Ernest Logan, the head of the principal's union backed up the UFT on this and said that Bloomberg essentially blew up negotiations with his union in the same way that he did with the UFT, so I guess we have to take Casey's side of the story as closer to the truth.

But make no mistake - it is not truth.

Casey is going to try and spin this so that when the inevitable sell-out comes and we get a horrible evaluation system with unfair scoring metrics that are rigged to "get" teachers, he can blame Bloomberg and Walcott for that rather than have himself and his UFT negotiators blamed for it.

I wish it were otherwise - I wish I could believe the statements made by my union leadership.

But to be frank, my 12 years of experience with these guys tells me I cannot believe them anymore than I can believe Walcott, Bloomberg, or the NY Post or Daily News editorial boards.

In Glengarry Glen Ross, a representative from Mitch and Murray downtown come around to tell the salesmen that they need to be following this formula:

ABC - Always Be Closing.  Always Be Closing.

With the UFT leadership the formula might be adapted to ABS.

Always Be Spinning.  Always Be Spinning.

And that's all we're getting from them now too.

They're looking to spin the inevitable sell-out that comes to their advantage and make the crap they agree to look more like crap-encrusted gold.

But when you scrape the crap off what they're selling us, there's nothing under it but more crap.

Mulgrew, Myths And Misinformation

UFT President Michael Mulgrew sent an email out to the membership yesterday, saying that while no evaluation deal has been made with the DOE, negotiations on the new system would continue throughout the weekend.

He laid out two possibilities for what will happen from here:

The second, and less likely one, is that the UFT and the NYCDOE will not come to an agreement and the union will have to go the mattresses and

"get out into our communities to make sure that parents and others know that we, as always, are fighting to make the school system better for the kids we serve."

The first possibility, and the one I would bet the mortgage on, is that the UFT and the DOE come to an agreement on some egregious and awful evaluation system, in which case Mulgrew says

"we will need to do a lot of work very quickly to stop the spread of myths and misinformation. Communication and collaboration between colleagues will be key. Every school will also need to have a clear understanding about how to proceed."

And you know what he means by "myths and misinformation," don't you?

He means teachers in individual schools telling their colleagues the truth about this system rather than parroting the Unity talking points over it.

When that happens, the UFT will have to go on the attack and push back against anybody explaining how awful the system is and how badly we're all going to get screwed by the VAM and the 57 page Danielson rubric checklist and the growth models.

They'll try and muddy the waters with the kind of jive that Leo Casey was spewing here when the UFT decided it needed to push back against Diane Ravitch and Carol Burris for pointing out the flaws in the new APPR state evaluation system.

You can be sure that the UFT talking points over this negotiated deal will contain some version of the following:

1. The bad things in the deal that you think you're seeing, you're actually not seeing and here is Leo Casey's moral and intellectual successor now that he's moved on up to the AFT to expand upon that point with 10,000 words of drivel that essentially say "Believe what we say, not your lying eyes!"

2. If you think this deal is bad, you should have seen the stuff the DOE really wanted to put into it - We saved you a whole bunch of other truly odious stuff, so be happy with what you got

3. The UFT actually took Bloomberg and Walcott to the cleaners on this, but the mayor and the chancellor need to save face in the newspapers over that, and we're letting them do so

They'll try their best to make this deal - with the added value algorithms, the Danielson framework and its 57 page rubric checklist, the 13% appeals rule, the test component that will count for every teacher who teaches a subject that ends in a state test or a Regents exam, the Student Learning Objectives process that may count for up to 20% of the local part of the evaluation and will take hundreds of hours a semester to complete and add tons of paperwork to every teacher's workload - seem like it's not as bad as it is and anybody who says differently about it, they'll attack as they did Ravitch and Burris last February.

The mythologizing and misinformation will come from Mulgrew and his merry men and women with the double pensions, not from teachers in schools who have been paying attention to the whole APPR process since the Race to the Top fight started and can see through the propaganda the UFT and the NYSUT are slinging around these issues.

So look for the hard sell to come as soon as this sell-out deal is announced and look for the UFT to attack anyone who points out the truth about this system - whether it's respected educators like Carol Burris, respected historians like Diane Ravitch or individual teachers like yourself.

Mulgrew and Company know they've given away the store, they know what happened in Chicago and there has to be some awareness, even from them, that if APPR plays out as badly as it looks like it is going to play out, with tons of teachers getting "I-Rated" every year and everybody else being driven crazy by the insane new mandates, they're going to be in trouble.

They've lived off manipulation, deception and the apathy of the membership for a long time, but a few years of APPR may change that.

The UFT spin machine will be in overdrive for quite some time trying to tamp down just how bad this evaluation system is.

Mulgrew Admits He Doesn't Think The State's Value-Added Model Will Be Any Better Than The City's VAM Model

Wow - check out this doozy of a statement from UFT President Mike Mulgrew today:

In their lawsuit attempting to stop the ratings from being released, United Federation of Teachers officials identified more than 200 such errors. UFT President Michael Mulgrew said today that the errors showed that the city had not been respectful of teachers in developing or releasing the ratings.

“This was a complete debacle in terms of how the DOE has handled [the reports] and the mismanagement of the data inside of the system,” he said.

Asked whether he thought the state’s model would avoid the pitfalls the UFT identified in the city’s reports, Mulgrew said, ”I’m not confident.”

But he said the state’s evaluation requirements are an improvement over the Teacher Data Reports because the new evaluations will showcase the value-added calculations alongside other measures of teacher quality.

Okay, let me get this straight - Mulgrew's not confident that the state's VAM model will be an improvement over the city's VAM model used in the TDR's - you know, the one with the margin of error as high as 75% in math and as high as 87% in ELA - but he STILL agreed to make it THE determining factor in a teacher's evaluation?

After all, come up "ineffective" on the part of the eval based just on test scores (40%) and you have to be declared "ineffective" overall as a teacher, no matter how you score on the other 60% based upon classroom observations and other measures.

Two consecutive years of that ignominious "ineffective" designation and you're fired.

And STILL Mulgrew of the UFT and Iannuzzi of the NYSUT agreed to that evaluation system even though Mulgrew's not confident that it will be any better than the one the city used with the high MOE's and the wide swings in variability?

Gee - that makes no sense.

Mulgrew better send out Lying Leo Casey to spin that doozy.

Leo is a master crafter of b.s., so perhaps he can spin this into something people support.

But on the face of the statement Mulgrew made to Gotham Schools today, the UFT president is saying he agreed to a teacher evaluation system based on student test scores that he lacks confidence in.

NY1 Mischaracterizes Teacher Data Reports

Here is how NY1 leads the story on the publication of Teacher Data Reports:

Parents will soon know if their children's teachers have been earning passing grades, as the city Department of Education is releasing the performance scores of tens of thousands of educators later today, but the teachers' union claims the scores are misleading and based on questionable data.

Notice how NY1 begins the sentence by saying the Teacher Data Reports will show if teachers are "passing" or not, then ends the sentence saying "but the union claims" they are not reliable, are misleading, etc.

The impression given is that these scores are indeed an accurate measure of a teacher's performance, regardless of what the union says, so come on back when we have the names and see where your kid's teacher ranks on the list.

Hell, even Dennis Walcott and Bill Gates say they're unreliable for an overall picture of teacher quality and shouldn't be published, but NY1 frames the TDR story as if it's only the self-interested union coming out against the TDRs

Ah yes - responsible journalism from the Time-Warner-owned NY1.

Expect even worse later today from the Post and the News.

And of course the Times and WNYC have created a "sophisticated tool" to put the data into "context."

As usual, the Times acts like a tabloid but tries to float above as some paragon of journalistic standards.

No word on whether the Times will have Judy Miller working on the accuracy of the Teacher Data Reports.

All horseshit - but remember, the reason these TDR's are seeing the light of day is because the UFT agreed to the pilot program that allowed for the collecting of the data and the creation of the reports in the first place.

Mulgrew can take out all the ads in the press he wants about the unfairness of the TDR's - it was the UFT leadership that brought us this mess by agreeing to the program.

And just as we got assurances back in those days from Randi that this data would never see the light of day in the press and would only be used to help teachers improve their craft, in the new evaluation system agreed to by the UFT and the NYSUT we hear the same assurances from the union braintrust.

You can be sure that the nightmare that these Teacher Data Reports are about to become for the teachers unfairly slandered by them will become a nightmare for EVERY teacher once the new evaluation system based upon value-added data is in place in the next few years.

Leo Casey can shill for the system all he wants at the UFT blog, Edwize.

We have evidence from this TDR mess where the teacher evaluation system is going to go in a few years.

No wonder the UFT, the NYCDOE chancellor, Wendy Kopp, and Bill Gates all don't want these reports to come to light.

They are afraid the "reforms" just agreed to last week that fundamentally change the way teachers are evaluated will be derailed by the TDR's and the way the newspapers and media outlets report on them (Chancellor Walcott alludes to that in his TDR opinion piece in today's Daily News.)

Because today is going to be ugly.

And the ugliness that comes today will make teachers less likely to want to "collaborate" on future "reforms" knowing just where these "reforms" end up and how they are used against them.

UFT Takes Ads Out Against Data Report Publication But Inexplicably Supports Using A Similar Method For Teacher Evaluations

What jokers we have at the UFT:

The New York City Education Department will release the ratings of thousands of teachers on Friday, ending a nearly year-and-a-half-long legal battle by the teachers’ union to keep the names confidential.

The ratings, known as Teacher Data Reports, grade nearly 18,000 of the city’s 75,000 public school teachers based on how much progress their students have made on standardized tests. The city developed these so-called value-added ratings five years ago in a pilot program to improve instruction and has factored them into yearly teacher evaluations and tenure decisions.

Even before their release, the ratings have been assailed by independent experts, school administrators and teachers who say there are large margins of error — because they are based on small amounts of data, the test scores themselves were determined by the state to have been inflated, and there were factual errors or omissions, among other problems.

The union, the United Federation of Teachers, is responding to the release with a $100,000-plus newspaper advertising campaign starting on Friday. With the headline “This Is No Way to Rate a Teacher,” the advertisements will feature an open letter from the union president, Michael Mulgrew, that displays a complex mathematical formula followed by a checklist of reasons why the ratings are problematic.

“The Department of Education should be ashamed of itself,” Mr. Mulgrew said Thursday. “It has combined bad tests, a flawed formula and incorrect data to mislead tens of thousands of parents about their children’s teachers.”

Mr. Mulgrew is absolutely correct on all three counts - the tests were badly designed, the value-added formula has a high margin of error and wide swings in stability, and some of the data attributed to individual teachers is incorrect.

Those are some damned good reasons to oppose the publication of the Teacher Data Reports.

They're also some damned good reasons to oppose the new teacher evaluation system that bases 40% of a teacher's evaluation on similar data and value-added measurements to the TDR's.

Somehow Mulgrew and Company can run an assault against the TDR's as flawed and error-riddled, but defend their agreement with Cuomo to let the state grade every teacher in New York with a very similar method without any irony.

The teachers quoted in the NY Times article understand the problem with basing a teacher's evaluation on test scores and value-added measurements, however:

The New York Times, one of a number of media organizations that had requested the records, plans to publish the ratings on its education blog, SchoolBook, and has asked teachers to respond online. On Thursday, several posters on SchoolBook called the reports deeply flawed and criticized the city as well as the news media for making them public.

Marie Kallo, a sixth-grade English and social studies teacher at Intermediate School 234 in Brooklyn, said that even though she had received an above-average rating, she was troubled by a significant error in her report: It said she had taught 120 students in 2007-8 when she had actually taught more than 200.

“That makes me question the accuracy of all the data reports,” Ms. Kallo said, adding that she also did not understand how the ratings were calculated. “How is it fair to be judged on information that is not accurate?”

Karen Fine, a third-grade teacher at Public School 134 in Manhattan who previously taught fifth grade, said she and her colleagues believed that the ratings were an unfair and inaccurate measure of a teacher’s performance because they used an unreliable methodology that had been criticized by many respected researchers and statisticians, and because they did not account for factors that could affect students on the day of testing, like being tired, nervous, or scared.

“For many of us who teach in N.Y.C., this has been our life’s calling,” she said. “We are constantly attacked on so many levels for what ails education in our country when we know that it takes a community to help children learn: principals, administrators, parents, lawmakers, and yes, teachers. The responsibility cannot lie solely on us.”

Indeed.

But the new teacher evaluation system agreed to last week by the NYSUT and the UFT will help politicians, so-called education reformers, media elites and others continue to attack and scapegoat teachers for all that ails public education.

What's worse, because the unions failed to make Cuomo impose this piece of garbage evaluation system himself and instead held his hand onstage when he announced it, they co-own the evaluation system along with Cuomo, the NYSED, and the Regents.

No wonder they're sending out Leo Casey, the UFT's resident shill and used car salesman, to fool people into thinking the new evaluation system will be nothing like the madness that is the Teacher Data Reports.

But Leo can sling his bullshit all he wants and Mulgrew can take out all the ads he wants on the TDR publication - in the next year when every teacher gets the memo that states 40% of their evaluation is based upon test scores (20% from the state tests, 20% from the city tests), that over 20 high stakes standardized tests are going to be added to the school year in order to pull the new eval system off, and that if a teacher comes up "ineffective" on the 40% based upon test scores, they will be declared "ineffective" overall and slated to be fired in a year, the UFT won't be able to hide their capitulation.

Same goes for when teachers discover that they can be declared "effective" in all three components of the evaluation system yet still come up "ineffective" overall as a teacher and thus be slated for firing in a year, or come up "effective" in all three components and still come up "developing", which means hours of garbage PD to "improve" before the next eval.

Just wait, fellas.

You can fool people with bullshit for a long time, but eventually even the blind notice the overwhelming stench of fecal matter with the moniker UFT stamped on it when they're up to their necks in it.

How Badly Will The UFT Cave In The Next Contract?

Very badly, according to the Socialist Worker:

-- Health care and pensions: These are usually big contract topics. But this time, the UFT has made concessions already. In 2009, the UFT joined with other municipal unions in agreeing to $400 million in health care concessions by New York City public employees unions and accepted an inferior pension scheme for incoming teachers, disguised as a victory by winning after 25 years and 55 years of age (at little cost to the city) for the in-service membership.

-- Evaluations: The UFT and New York state agreed--as part of negotiations around the state's Race to the Top application last May--to an evaluation scheme that based up to 40 percent of teacher evaluations on test scores, including 20 percent value added on state tests and 20 percent to be negotiated by districts, with 60 percent on a rubric based on principal evaluations and other documentation. This is to be combined with a four-step evaluation scale. Teachers with two consecutive years on the bottom rung will face automatic proceedings for firing.

The UFT trumpeted the fact that nothing could move forward on evaluations until the details were worked out between the district and the union, a process mandated by state law. However, such a deal could be a major side agreement to a contract deal, and might not be able to be voted on by the membership, because the evaluation process is legally required. Given the union's pathetic response around the city's attempt to publish teacher data reports--a lawsuit, but no action--the UFT appears prepared to cave on the test-based evaluation issue.

-- Seniority: The city made a large public campaign last spring of trying to get rid of state laws requiring that teachers be excessed in order of seniority. The legislative effort was defeated, but served a useful PR purpose in the fight over potential layoffs.

But the elimination of this provision would quickly destroy any remaining shreds of shop-floor organization left in the UFT, as a principal could simply remove an active union member from the school on any pretext. Worryingly, the UFT has not made any promises to hold the line on this issue.

-- Job security The centerpiece demand by the city has been the right to lay off excessed personnel (numbering 1,800 at last count) after four months outside of a job at a school. Such a concession would dramatically accelerate the school-closing onslaught and give principals an incentive to trim costs by excessing teachers (currently, teachers who are excessed stay on the school budget).

The union has vehemently and consistently said that it would not cave on this particular issue. But given the AFT's retreat on this issue in other cities, a concession is quite possible.

-- Wages The union's demands are for 4 percent raises for each of two consecutive years, which is exactly the pattern awarded to the biggest municipal union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees District Council 37 (DC 37), in a deal negotiated before the financial crisis hit, in exchange for DC 37's quiescence and an endorsement of Bloomberg in the last mayoral election.

Since then, Mayor Bloomberg has scaled back the money allocated for raises from 4 parcent to 2 percent to 0 percent--supposedly to compensate for canceling layoffs in November 2009 and June 2010. However, the $200 million in federal education jobs money allocated to New York City could be used to pay for these raises. Getting that money will take a fight, however. More state budget cuts are guaranteed when Andrew Cuomo takes office.

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WHAT KIND of deal for the UFT might emerge in this environment?

There is potential for an agreement in which Bloomberg comes up with cash to pay a substantial raise--say 3-4 percent--in exchange for some of the major concessions that the city is after. The UFT would dress this up as a victory (as they did with the evaluation deal), and say that it is the best that they could get.

And Leo Casey will write over at Edwize that the above concessions are a "noteworthy victory" given "these times and under these conditions" or some such jive like that.

Or maybe he'll just repost the blather from this apologia for the hideous '05 contract.

Either way, we'll hear that whatever cave-ins the UFT agrees to are the bestest thing since butter and bread.