Mulgrew planned it so well and played it like a fiddle.
He knew that having this APPR negotiation before the union election would have cost him his election.
It
is so obvious the Kabuki dance of not meeting the deadline of January,
of giving this so called two-year sunset that Bloomberg would reject,
and dragging this APPR negotiation with King until after the election.
Mulgrew has won the election for another 3 years. He has let down the members. He has followed in Randi's footstep.
Shame on him. He should have never signed up for the Race to End a
Teacher's Career.
Indeed, it's not an accident that all of this comes after the UFT election.
Dunno exactly how it was engineered, but it was engineered.
The powers that be want Mulgrew and the Unity/New Action sell-outs in power.
They do not want to deal with an insurgent leadership.
Michael Mulgrew, the current President of the UFT, represents the Unity and New Action caucuses.
New Action has made an agreement to back Unity’s top leadership in
exchange for officer/executive board positions. This agreement dates
back to 2003, predating when Michael Mulgrew replaced Randi Weingarten
in the UFT presidency.
We cannot and will not differentiate between these groups. Unity and
New Action have exchanged seats and cross endorsed each other. This is
the type of back-room deal that epitomizes the dirty politics that has
come to define this union leadership.
What has been gained for the supposed alternative agenda of New Action in this time?
Similar to the way that Mulgrew signs onto deform policies, and then
cries foul when the effects become detrimental, New Action has
criticized some of these moves. Yet, this critique becomes disingenuous
when it has supported the leader that took these actions, and then
criticizes these policies. When the leader’s core policies are so
fundamentally detrimental to the membership and our students, we must
ask, how is this stance a credible opposition?
In 2009Unity/New Action’s Mulgrew signed onto the Common Core; Mulgrew endorsed the extension of mayoral control.
In 2010UnityNew Action’s Mulgrew signed onto the Race to the Top;
Mulgrew made public lies that the rubber rooms were closed –in fact,
detainees have been merely dispersed from large ones to district
offices.
In 2011Unity/New Action’s Mulgrew signed onto the weekly rotation of ATRs
and the observation of ATRs in substitute assignments. (This was
approved by the Delegate Assembly at an emergency meeting held after
school on the last day of school, June 28, 2011. No ATRs were involved.
The ATR pool itself was created by loss of senority excessing rights
from Unity’s 2005 contract.)
In 2011Unity/New Action’s Mulgrew, without a membership vote, endorsed the Danielson Framework for evaluating teachers.
2012 and 2013, in defiance of a rising clamor for a membership vote on the issue, Unity/New Action’s Mulgrew has endorsed the use of high-stakes tests as the basis for teacher evaluation, a methodology proven to be junk science.
In 2013 Unity/New Action’s Mulgrew has reaffirmed his belief in the failed policy of mayoral control which has led to the closing and/or privatization of our neighborhood schools and has left thousands of teachers as ATRs
Unity/ New Action endorsed Race to the Top
In 2010 Unity/New Action’s Mulgrew said that New York’s Race to the
Top (RTTT) application had teachers’ support. But just where did that
race take us?
RTTT expanded the leadership academies; it took New York
City’s burdensome data systems and network models state–wide, proving to
be a failure everywhere.
RTTT mandates constant assessment and data management, spiking
administrative costs and depriving teachers of proper preparation time.
RTTT pressured New York State to have high-stakes test-based
educator evaluations, resulting in more testing and less learning for
our students.
RTTT pushes districts to have destructive turn-around programs, school closings, and increases the number of charter schools.
Unity/New Action didn’t have to endorse RTTT.
13 states did not participate in the last round of Race to the Top applications.
The California Teachers Association criticized RTTT because its “One
Size Fits All Hurts Students” and it said that RTTT requirements hold
school systems “hostage by their purse strings.”
RTTT – Not worth the costs.
RTTT – Wrecking our working conditions and our children’s learning conditions.
Vote the MORE slate to improve working and learning conditions.
In each of the years of the tenure of Unity/New Action’s Mulgrew, the
UFT has failed to stop dozens of school closings and even greater
numbers of charter school co-locations. The privatization of our schools
has led to fewer resources for our public schools, inequality in
learning conditions, and the loss of union protections.
While New Action claims that it supports Mulgrew on some points and
opposes him on other points, one must ask oneself: how could New Action
be considered an opposition caucus when it will not challenge the
fundamental betrayals of leadership that brought about the conditions
that they complain about in their literature?
Unity claims they are “seasoned leaders in troubled times”, yet they
are years removed from the classroom and their willingness to sign onto
failed profit-driven reform is proof-positive that Unity has been the
cause of these “troubled times”. They claim to fight school closings and
co-locations, but cannot hide from their record of lack of mobilization
against these policies (for the antithesis of Unity, please see the
Chicago Teachers Union/Karen Lewis’ response) and agreeing to run their
own charter school. Unity has allowed our members to go without a new
contract for over four years; this is not leadership.
MULGREW/NEW ACTION/UNITY - disastrous management in a time of historic attack on teachers
CAVANAGH/MORE - positive alternative leadership to restore dignity to our profession and compassion for our students
They make a great case against the current UFT leadership.
Can you imagine a UFT leadership that actually cared about its members, that actually came from the membership to rise to the union leadership positions not so they could get out of the classroom and live off the perks and double pensions but so they could protect teachers in a time of historic attacks on public education and provide a positive alternative to restore dignity to teaching and compassion to students?
If you can imagine such a leadership, you should vote for MORE.
Because the current leadership is just going to continue taking us down the path of destruction via APPR, Danielson, VAM, SLO's, and growth models.
After all, this is leadership that has decided education corporatists John King and Andrew Cuomo can be the independent arbitrators between the union and the city on the evaluation negotiations and impose whatever system they want upon us.
After yesterday's cave-in to Cuomo, Tisch, King and the corporate education reform interests, the unions in NY State no longer serve any useful purpose for teachers.
They have allowed state tests to account for 40% of the new teacher evaluation system.
They have further allowed teachers to be declared "ineffective" overall as teachers if they come up "ineffective" on just that 40% measure.
In other words, the other 60% of the evaluation doesn't mean squat.
They have caved on appeals, allowing the chancellor to decide 87% of appeals of "ineffective" ratings.
They are allowing the city to add new standardized tests in every subject in every grade - not to measure student performance, but to grade teachers.
Indeed, the NY Times reported last year the city doesn't even plan to count the city tests for students.
They will only count for teachers.
Tell me, what exactly are these people at the unions doing for us?
I mean, other than collecting their paychecks and second pensions and collaborating with the corporate pols to destroy teachers?
The abomination that is yesterday's teacher evaluation deal becomes even clearer in the light of day this morning.
Neville Chamberlain and Michael Collins would be proud of Michael Mulgrew and Dick Iannuzzi.
They gave away everything and yet are declaring victory.
Heckuva job, fellas.
Starting next year, students will do nothing in school but prep for tests and take tests.
Principals will do nothing but observe teachers (since each teacher has to be observed at least twice a year - in my building, that means 240 observations a year.)
How will teachers who teach subjects that have no state or city tests be graded?
Who knows?
What kind of value-added measurement will the state use to grade teachers who teach subjects that are tested?
Who knows?
How will teachers know what other teachers they'll be compared to on the new evaluation bell curve?
Who knows?
The only thing we do know is that the UFT and the NYSUT both caved on EVERYTHING.
On the surface, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Gov. Andrew Cuomo would appear to be in synch on the need to get rid of the city’s “last in, first out” system for teacher layoffs. Bloomberg has pushed relentlessly for the repeal of the law, and Cuomo, on the heels of a Senate vote to replace LIFO with a more merit-based layoff system, announced he would introduce his own bill to reform the policy.
But in a hastily called evening press conference, Bloomberg sounded none to pleased by the governor’s eleventh hour maneuver.
“I have not seen the details,” Bloomberg said, standing in the lobby of the Museum of Modern Art, on Cuomo’s bill. “But I think the bottom line is we need legislation that allows us to lay off teachers this year using merit, and that’s the legislation the governor should put in the budget, and anything else just doesn’t help us right now.”
He added, “It may be good down the road, but doesn’t help us now.”
Several sources close to the mayor were more blunt, though, describing the governor’s bill as “a diversion” designed to placate the powerful teachers union rather than a real attempt to better manage teacher layoffs.
“Saying that just by changing the evaluation law you’re some how allowing a better means than ‘last in, first out’ of laying off teachers is just false,” said one City Hall source. “And that’s what they’re trying to say.”
“It’s a diversion on behalf of the union,” said another, “in exchange for [UFT President Michael] Mulgrew standing down on the governor’s budget cuts.”
A spokesperson for the governor declined to comment.
...
Cuomo’s bill would accelerate efforts already in process to overhaul the existing evaluation system in legislation passed last year for the Race to the Top program. The new teacher evaluation system would include a new rating system--"highly effective," "effective," "developing," or "ineffective”-- which the governor says would play a role in a wide array of employment decisions, including layoffs.
But City Hall sources charge that the governor is really stalling for more time.
“The governor proposes something fundamentally different, which may be a perfectly positive advance and may approve our teacher evaluation system,” one source said, “once Mike Mulgrew signs off on it in 2017.”
From the details of the proposal, the new evaluations standards go into effect in 2011-2012 instead of 2012-2013. As NYC Educator points out, 40% of these teacher evaluations will be based upon value-added assessments of student test scores.
I don't see how that is a win for teachers or a stalling tactic by the governor.
Unless you're the Mayor Of Money and want your way by Thursday (which is what Bloomberg said he needs), I don't see how this proposal doesn't give districts and Little Mayors of Money all the power they need to fire teachers pretty much at will.
If the UFT did finagle this "compromise," as NYC Educator says he was told up in Albany yesterday, then this is just another example of the UFT offering dirt and calling it gold.
As NYC Educator wrote this morning:
The official UFT rationale, that value-added is only 20-40% of the evaluation, is nonsense. The argument that some states have 50% based on value-added, and that we therefore made a better deal, is also nonsense. That we accepted less crap than some other state does not mitigate our acceptance of crap. That we accepted additional crap in 02, and a ton of it in 05, means that there simply is not room to handle much more of it.
Here is the stance we should take on this new "reform"--we refuse to discuss it until and unless we get the 4/4 raises all other city employees got.
As Modern School points out here, two weeks ago Secretary of Collaboration Arne Duncan praised the Rhode Island teachers union for all the "collaboration" they have done with the districts in the state.
Last week, the mayor of Providence FIRED EVERY teacher in the city.
Ironically, Obama's Secretary of Collaboration Arne Duncan was silent on the Rhode Island firings.
Perhaps that was because, despite all the collaboration the unionized teachers in Providence have done on issues like Race to the Top, school closures and teacher evaluations, Duncan SUPPORTS the FIRING of EVERY teacher in Providence.
I think, considering his (and his boss's) cheerleading of the FIRING of EVERY teacher up the road in Central Falls, Rhode Island last year, a pretty good argument could made that both Duncan and Obama SUPPORT the FIRING of EVERY teacher in Providence.
Perhaps somebody could ask the Secretary of Collaboration the next time they see him about this?
Or perhaps somebody could ask his boss, President Obama?
I think their silence on this issue is more telling than any jive ass words they could utter, but let's hear those words anyway.
The future of American public education has been happening in Rhode Island these days.
In Central Falls, Rhode Island, teachers were all fired this week last year because their school was "failing". These firings were a DIRECT result of the Obama administration's Race to the Top policy which promotes firing teachers at the "worst" schools in America, closing those schools and reopening them as charters.
Eventually those teachers were rehired when they agreed to concessions like a longer work day, a longer work year and extra professional development.
But the point had been made - GIVE the administrations in Washington, the states and the municipalities what they want or you're gone.
In the year since, the teachers union in Rhode Island has gone out of its way to be collaborative with reform - agreeing to a new teacher evaluation process, signing onto Race to the Top without any reservation (and hrlping the city get $75 million in federal funds), agreeing to other concessions in school turnarounds to make the districts and state happy.
And what have the teachers of both Central Falls, Rhode Island and Providence, Rhode Island gotten for all this "collaboration"?
PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, considers it "shocking" that Providence may send dismissal notices to the city's 2,000 teachers.
"What makes this even more stunning is that the district and the Providence Teachers Union have been working collaboratively on a groundbreaking, nationally recognized school transformation model," Weingarten said in a statement released Wednesday night. "A mass firing, announced in the middle of a school year, does not help solve a budget problem -- the purported reason -- but, rather, disrupts the education of all students and the entire community.
"The mayor claims he needs flexibility," she said. "We looked up "flexibility" in the dictionary, and it does not mean destabilizing education for all students in Providence or taking away workers' voice or rights."
Weingarten said that mass firings are not fiscally or educationally sound. She urged the mayor and the school superintendent to resolve their issues by working in a collaborative way.
"For the past two years,'' she said, "that's what they have been doing when it comes to work on improving low-performing schools, developing an innovative hiring process and revamping the teacher evaluation system."
Yes, for the last two years the teachers have been collaborating with the state and the districts, giving them the "reforms" they wanted, even when those reforms seemed short-sighted, badly designed or just plan wrong, and what have they gotten for all that collaboration?
They ALL got FIRED.
So much for the collaboration on the part of the state and the districts, eh?
As the fall-out from Obama's Race to the Top continues to spread nationwide, you can be sure that what happened in Central Falls, Rhode Island last year will happen all across the country in the next few years.
And just as the Providence, Rhode Island mayor decided to fire EVERY teacher in the city to plug an alleged hole in the budget, you can be sure that many mayors and governors around the country will do the same if they can get away with it.
This Rhode Island mass firing is in many ways WORSE than Scott Walker's trying to end collective bargaining rights for public employees in Wisconsin.
The mayor of Providence just said "F--- you, I don't care what rights you have or what union you belong to. You're all fired and I'll hire who I want to hire. What are you going to do about it - complain to Obama? Ha!"
Okay, so what have we learned from the last two years of collaborating with Barack Obama and Arne Duncan, with the ed deform movement and with the corporatists who insatiably ask for more, more, more from teachers and teachers unions.
That collaboration gets you fired.
Collaboration gets you screwed.
There is NO amount of collaboration that will save you when they want to fire you.
In fact, if you've collaborated with them in the past, you might be first on the chopping block because they KNOW what a stupid sap you've been, that you've given them EVERYTHING they wanted and gotten NOTHING in return.
I don't want to take this analogy too far, but really, Weingarten and the union leadership act like Neville Chamberlain in these aggressive, anti-teacher and anti-union times.
They declare we need to do more collaboration with the ed deform movement and hail past collaborations even as the end result of that collaboration is that EVERY TEACHER IN PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND HAS BEEN TERMINATED.
View the tape of the fired teachers above and then read Randi's words and tell me she doesn't sound like Chamberlain?
We have collaboration in our time.
Uh, huh.
And a whole swath of fired teachers and a broken teachers union in Rhode Island.
It is time to end COLLABORATION - with Obama, with Duncan, with the mayors and governors, with anybody in the ed deform movement, especially the rich oligarchs like Bill Gates.
They ARE the enemy and until every teachers union local in the country realizes this and bands together to STOP them, they are going to keep squeezing, keep scapegoating, keep firing.
PROVIDENCE — After two hours of contentious discussion, the School Board voted 4 to 3 Thursday night to send out termination notices to each of the city’s 1,926 public school teachers.
More than 700 teachers jammed a high school gymnasium to tell school officials that their hearts were broken, their trust violated and their futures as teachers jeopardized.
“How do we feel? Disrespected,” said Julie Latessa, a special-needs teacher, before the vote. “We are broken. How do you repair the damage you have done today?”
Every teacher received a certified letter from the School Department on Thursday informing them that they might be terminated at the end of the school year. It also said the School Board would vote on the proposed dismissals at Thursday night’s meeting, which was moved to the Providence Career and Technical Academy to accommodate the huge turnout.
Many of the teachers were caught off guard by Mayor Angel Taveras’ decision to terminate teachers instead of laying them off. Last night, speakers questioned the mayor’s rationale: a $40-million school budget deficit and a March 1 deadline by which the School Department must notify teachers if their jobs are in jeopardy.
“This is a quasi-legal power grab,” said Richard Larkin, a teacher at Classical High School. “You want to pick and choose teachers. Well, we will not be bullied.”
...
Speaker after speaker demanded to know why they were being fired. Didn’t the teachers union sign on to the federal Race to the Top initiative? Hasn’t the union collaborated with Supt. Tom Brady on new curricula? Isn’t the union working with the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers on a new teacher evaluation?
“I’m feeling disrespected, devalued and marginalized,” said Ed Gorden. “Termination is a career-ender. You are putting a scarlet letter on every one of us.”
Teachers begged the School Board to issue layoffs rather than fire them outright because, under the layoff provisions, teachers are recalled based on seniority. There is no guarantee that seniority would be used to bring back any of the fired teachers. School leaders have been vague about exactly how seniority will play out in the case of terminations.
It's very simple - Providence, Rhode Island just busted the teachers' union.
They can hire the cheapest teachers now, dispense with the more expensive vets and save the district millions.
So what if the school system is destabilized beyond breaking?
Hey, Randi, haven't you noticed the oligarchs have been doing this pretty easily already?
So now we're down the the end game. Hundreds of thousands of teachers will be fired across the country this year, evaluation rules have been changed so that in the near future most teachers will be graded using value-added systems tied to test scores with huge margins of error, setting up perhaps a million teachers to be fired in the next few years.
And that's not hyperbole - that's reality.
Hell, they just fired nearly two thousand in Providence alone.
Oh, and those teachers in Central Falls, Rhode Island who were fired as a result of Obama's RttT policy who got their jobs back because they collaborated with the ed deformers to add time, days and other goodies to the school?
