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.

Will NYSUT Re-Announce Support For John King & Common Core After Mike Mulgrew And The UFT Oust Iannuzzi?

The NYSUT board of directors announced a vote of no confidence has been issued against SED Commissioner King and support for the Common Core State Standards has been withdrawn until a set of demands around the implementation, testing and budgeting of the CCSS are met by the state.

This sounds all well and good, but there is a civil war going on within the NYSUT between the Dick Iannuzzi wing of the state union and the wing run by the UFT and as Brian from the PJSTA noted in a comment here at Perdido Street School, with the Mulgrew faction expected to win an April vote and wrest control of the NYSUT from Iannuzzi and his faction, official NYSUT policy will change back to pro-John King/pro-CCSS:

Many believe Mulgrew to be behind the insurgency slate challenging Iannuzzi for NYSUT presidency. That slate, dubbed "Revive NYSUT" and being billed as "grassroots" (even though an incumbent exec vp is on the slate) just received an endorsement from Mulgrew this week (shocking!). Because of the split with Mulgrew and the UFT/Unity crew, many believe Iannuzzi is now moving further away from what had been the party line of support for CCSS. The belief is that without being beholden to Mulgrew and UFT leadership, a new term for Iannuzzi would look drastically different. Of course we likely won't find out, as UFT/Unity holds 40% of the NYSUT delegates and the other 60% is largely unorganized. So Mulgrew's slate of Andy Pallotta, Martin Messner, Paul Pecorale, and Catalina Fortino will likely win. That is the crew who seems to want to endorse Cuomo. It's a very nuanced situation for those unfamiliar with NYSUT inner-politics. Norm Scott has done a great job at Ed Notes Online keeping track of the story.

The State of Politics blog covered this story yesterday, so you can go there or to Ed Notes Online for more background.

But as Brian wrote, the NYSUT vote of no confidence and withdrawal of support for CCSS is meaningless if and when Mulgrew and Company - supporters of CCSS, APPR, Cuomo and all things reformy, including NYSED Commissioner John King - take over complete control of the NYSUT in the spring and change the NYSUT party line back to the pro-reform, pro-CCSS, pro-APPR one they pursue here in NYC.

Calling Randi Weingarten Out On Her Bloomberg Criticism

Randi Weingarten on Twitter:

Bloomberg closed 160 schools, disrupting #edu of students while we are no closer to closing achievement gap #BloombergLegacy
— Randi Weingarten (@rweingarten) December 16, 2013

My response:

@rweingarten @TeacherArthurG True, but you helped him along the way to destroy schools in NYC http://t.co/3jvgTJ2n9I
— realitybasededucator (@perdidostschool) December 22, 2013

Here was Bloomberg back in 2008 on the help Randi Weingarten gave him for his education reforms:

“Chuck, thank you and good morning to everyone. I’m delighted to see such a big turnout. Usually, Randi is a proponent of no more than 20 listeners to every speaker. She even tries to write that into our contracts. But now that she is here in Washington, she’s adopted the policy of our senior Senator from New York – ‘Leave no microphone behind.’”

“So if you think that this is the last time you’re going to hear from her, I’m sorry, I’ve got news for you, we in New York don’t have to listen but you here in Washington do. Anyway, we are here to discuss the outcome of this year’s historic election, one that Washington is still buzzing about and the transition teams are working so hard on. It really is bringing ‘change that we can believe in.’ So Randi: Congratulations on your election.”

“I really am happy for you, all kidding aside. It’s the perfect job. It calls on all of your amazing talents and your wide experience. It also means that I won’t have to negotiate directly with you anymore. At least once you stop being both AFT president and head of the UFT. Isn’t there some kind of violation of holding two jobs at the same time? I mean, after all, I’m just trying to hold on to one job.

“The truth is that Randi can be a really tough negotiator. For example, about a year ago, when New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein and I put our proposal for school-based bonuses on the bargaining table with the UFT, Randi told me, ‘Well, in New York City we’ve already got performance pay and that’s why the Mayor makes a dollar a year.'

“The fact is, we did come to an agreement on that bonus plan and it’s one, I think, that really does set a precedent for school systems across the country for rewarding good teachers for working in high-needs schools. And I think it is an example of how, by labor and management working together in New York, we’ve not only increased teachers’ salaries by 43 percent since 2002, we’ve also charted a course for giving our students the best big-city schools in the nation. And in my opinion, the relationship between our City government and the UFT – press coverage notwithstanding – shows just what can be achieved by working together.

“Unions have to be willing to be flexible and cities have to be willing to treat teachers like the professionals that they are – including paying them well. And I think that is the key to making progress; both things have to be true. In 2002, Randi provided critical support for our efforts to achieve mayoral responsibility for the City’s schools. And what we’ve accomplished in our schools since then: from work rule reforms to lengthening the school day for students who need it; to, for the first time, giving all our schools a fair budget deal to launching the school-based bonus plan that I mentioned earlier. All these measures show that, while the interests of school management and teachers’ unions aren’t always the same, and we won’t always agree on everything, we can find ways to work together and that includes our ability to find common ground on matters that have long been considered so-called ‘third rail’ issues.

“Schools everywhere need a big infusion of that kind of cooperation. This morning Randi is going to discuss ‘making the right choices about education and the economy.’ These choices really are critical to our nation’s future. Our schools are the engines that drive our economy but for too long, that engine, I think, has been stuck in neutral. And that’s why we’re losing high-skill jobs to nations that are more aggressively sharpening their competitive advantages through education.

“If we’re going to change that, we must have the courage to take a bold new approach to reforming education – a willingness to take good ideas from every part of the political spectrum, to address such issues as fundamentally improving the attractiveness – and the accountability – of the teaching profession. And I believe that the kind of innovative changes that we’ve achieved in New York City can be a model for the new Congress and for President-elect Obama – and such changes have to be a top priority.

“There’s a compact between teachers and government and that is the public has to be willing to reach into their pocket and tax themselves to pay our teachers fairly. We want the best and the brightest and I’ve never been ashamed about saying people that work hard and really make a difference deserve to be compensated, and I think compensated better than those who don’t. We all want the better things in life. None of us go into education, or into public service, to get rich; they are two professions where you cannot do that. On the other hand, I’ve always wanted the person at the front of the classroom to be worried about how to improve the educational experience for the students in front of him or her and not worried about how they’re going to pay their mortgage or whether they can afford a vacation this year.

“So this morning, I am pleased to introduce someone who really is ready, I think, to put educational reform on the front burner. She and I have worked together. We share breakfast every couple of weeks at the same Greek diner, although I will say she reached into her pocketbook to pick up the tab once. And she does make an awful lot more than I do. She’s someone who has already shown the vision and the willingness to help lead our nation’s schools in new directions; she’s done it in New York City.

Weingarten is so full of crap every time she opens her mouth in criticism of Bloomberg.

She was integral to the Bloomberg Reform Agenda when she was leading the UFT and later when she moved over to the AFT.

She's not the only labor leader to "collaborate" in the destruction of schools or the teaching profession.

The heads of the NEA and the NYSUT come to mind too, as do various locals around the country, from Baltimore to New Haven to Newark.

But Weingarten is by far the most prominent and attention-hungry of the labor leader sell-outs.

Weingarten MUST not be allowed to rewrite the history of the Bloomberg Era.

The destruction of the Bloomberg Years could NOT have played out the way they did with Randi Weingarten's and the UFT's complicity.

Sure, she got teacher raises for her "collaboration" with Bloomberg.

But the salary increases teachers received for conceding on seniority and other givebacks has in the end turned into blood money.

It's Time To Fire "Bad" Union Leaders Like Randi Weingarten

Randi Weingarten led the attack on firing "bad teachers" yesterday, giving more ammunition to the "Bash Teachers" movement by saying that teachers who are ineffective at their craft do not deserve to be defended and should be fired.

She said teachers should turn on each other in schools and hound out the "bad" educators, further helping the "Bash Teachers" movement by setting up a divide and conquer atmosphere in public education.

And yet, as NYC Educator points out here, the new teacher accountability mechanisms Weingarten champions are error-riddled garbage, so essentially any teacher can be labeled "bad" or "ineffective" under these systems.

Theoretically, this is the kind of thing the head of a teachers union ought to be protecting her teachers from, but instead Randi Weingarten has fully embraced not only the frame of the "Bash Teachers" movement on this issue but also the rigged accountability mechanisms the movement plans to use to fire as many teachers as they can as fast as they can.

We've seen this kind of thing before from Randi Weingarten.

Weingarten, after all, is the union leader who gave us the Teacher Data Reports, accountability mechanisms in NYC that had margins of error as high as 87% for ELA teachers, as high as 75% for math teachers. 

Teachers rated "failing" under this system had their names published in the papers and were hounded by the tabloid press.

Both the NYCDOE and the New York City press labeled these teachers as "bad" and "failing" and Weingarten did little to protect them, so busy was she basking in the love of the corporate education reformers whose love, support and, most of all, money she craves.

Sure, she mouthed some platitudes about respecting teachers and not exposing them to humiliation in public, but ultimately those teachers were indeed exposed due to Weingarten's TDR deal with the DOE and Weingarten was unable or unwilling to stop that exposure.

There are few figures in education today as damaging to the teaching profession and teachers as the corrupt, self-serving Randi Weingarten.

Isn't it time we fire a "bad" union leader like Randi Weingarten, the kind of union leader who sells teachers out on high stakes testing, value-added measurements, Teacher Data Reports, tenure and other cherished work protections for her own political and financial expediency?

Maryland Teachers Union Sues Over Teacher Evaluation System

From Gates Foundation Education Week:

The Maryland State Education Association, the largest state teachers' union in Maryland, plans to seek a court injunction to stop state-approved teacher evaluation systems from being imposed on several county school districts. They plan to argue that the state has usurped what should be the districts' power to decide, along with local teachers' unions, which tests are included in the portions of evaluations tied to student growth.

The association, along with several school districts, say that the Maryland School Assessments (MSA) and the upcoming assessments from the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) aligned to the Common Core State Standards carry too much weight in the state-approved teacher-evaluation system. They also say the system itself, slated to be fully online next year, isn't ready for prime time, and that the department has confused districts throughout the development of the evaluation system. At least two school districts, in Charles and St. Mary's counties, have submitted final evaluation plans that don't comport with what the state wants.

"The refusal to include all stakeholders in these conversations is detrimental to the progress we've made," MSEA President Betty Weller wrote to Maryland Superintendent of Schools Lillian Lowery in a June 5 letter.

Here in NY State, the NYSUT actually dropped a lawsuit against the state for putting too much weight on test scores, a lawsuit they won in an early round in the lower courts (though it was being appealed by the state.)  The NYSUT agreed to give Governor Cuomo everything he wanted in the teacher evaluation law, including changes to the test component of the law that increased the weight of scores AND forced a teacher to be given an "ineffective" evaluation overall if she/he came up "ineffective" on just the 20% test score component.

Here in NYC, the UFT actually bragged that they helped develop the nightmare system imposed by NYSED Commissioner/rookie teacher John King.

Too bad we have company unions here in New York who do as much damage to teachers as the state and the feds do.

Wouldn't it be nice if they went back to the courts and sued over the "unworkable" NYC evaluation system instead of bragging how they helped bring it to fruition?

A Way Forward For NYC Teachers

From a commenter:

The efforts of those who justly oppose the UFT leadership must begin at once. The disastrous results of this agreement will become quite evident by June 2014 and the wheels will come off in June 2015. The only chance to oust the Mulgrew caucus will be to win enough delegates to remove retirees from the election process. There is a chance for a removal ala Chicago if enough teachers are affected by this agreement and they will be.

It will only take a year for many of the rank-and-file - even, perhaps some of the Educators4Excellence - to realize how badly rigged this system is against teachers.

The question is, what will the rank-and-file do after that realization.

At my school, there is already a big contingent of anti-Unity/anti-Mulgrew people ready to hang this albatross around the leadership's neck.

The CL used to be an apolitical guy when it came to caucus politics, but over the last year he has grown increasingly politicized by the lack of help he has gotten from 52 Broadway with a swath of "u" ratings.

After a year of APPR, I would bet John King's 90's goatee a lot more people join the anti-Unity/anti-Mulgrew contingent and I don't see the CL waving Mulgrew pom-poms any time soon.

The more schools this can happen at, the better the chance that we can take this union away from the crooks and the hacks in Unity/New Action.

It's a tough road but it's better than sitting still and silent with this catastrophe.

How Bad Will King's Evaluation System Be?

The sham testimony for the APPR system for NYC teachers takes place today and tomorrow between Commissioner King, the UFT and the DOE.

King will announce something this weekend.

You can bet the system is already a done deal and the "testimony" is nothing more than a formality.

How bad will it be?

Since the UFT happily abdicated negotiation to an "independent" arbitrator who is anything but independent (the head of the NYSED and a former charter school hack/pro-testing champion), it's going to be pretty bad.

The good news is, Mayor Bloomberg is out of office in a little over seven months.

The bad news is, he may be replaced by somebody who will keep whatever system King imposes in place rather than negotiating changes with the UFT.

If there is a bright side to all of this, it's that the more unworkable and insane the system is, the more likely the whole thing falls apart under it's own unworkability and insanity or is successfully challenged and killed in court.

Still, it's going to be a rough time for students, teachers, and schools under this insanity.

Weingarten And Her Years In The Teaching Trenches

Some commenters in this thread discuss whether Randi Weingarten should actually be called an "educator".

Norm Scott gives the history:

 Once the decision was made to make Randi Sandy Feldman's successor (sometime around 1990 - when Shanker was still alive and no doubt helped make that decision) Randi needed to get some teaching creds (and courses -- find someone who took ed classes with her and you'll find Jimmy Hoffa) so she was handed a position as a teacher at Clara Barton HS -- near Bklyn Bot Gardens so she could be near her home in Park Slope. Casey was the chapter leader there to protect her. She technically taught there for 6 years but only 6 months full-time. She coached the debating team for comp time and reports were that she taught 2 periods a day. But she was also negotiating the 1995 contract (which we turned down the first time - a major defeat for her) while supposedly teaching. The Village Voice did an expose on her. Question that came up since she never got a regular appointment -- did she sit for the exams? -- was whether she was on leave all those years she was president and the UFT was reimbursing her salary so she could get pension credit? All was muddled. When she became pres she took Leo with her.

Another commenter writes:

Randi was in the trenches for one period a day with the best students; I think AP students at Bard HS Early College. This is a school where the principal and the majority of the teachers have a PhD and the students are highly motivated. Leo Casey was a teacher there fore many, many years.

My understanding was that she taught that one class a day, not a large class, for 6 years. Leo Casey was her mentor, showing her how to write lessons, the technique of presenting the lessons, and asking questions that assesses the students' understanding of the lesson.

How can she call herself a "teacher in the trenches" when teaching one class a day does not make you an experienced teacher? What about those teachers who teach 5 periods a day, for 180 instructional days a year, for over 20 years? Those are teachers in the trenches! She was a politician and union hack in the making using the classroom and those students as stepping stones. Wait a minute. This sounds exactly what TFA does to our students.

It is time for someone to FOIL her year-end evaluation rating sheet and find out the amount of time she spent in the classroom.

When Randi talks about spending seven years in the trenches as a teacher, she's talking about a part-time gig that was created specifically so she could call herself an "educator" at a school that was atypical of most schools in NYC.

Quite frankly, Weingarten is an "educator" the way Dennis Walcott is an "educator."

Of course, Michael Mulgrew really was an "educator" and he's been selling us down the river too, so perhaps it's a moot point whether Randi really should be considered a teacher or not.

But it does stick in some teachers' craws the way she throws that so-called teaching trench experience of hers around - experience that is nothing like the experiences of real working teachers in NYC public schools.

Weingarten Talks Out Of Both Sides Of Her Mouth

@ The Chalk Face:

 It’s something I could never do: talk out of multiple sides of my mouth. I try not to have it many ways, but one, the way I know and feel is right. Granted, we all do things that run counter or contrary to that of our employers. We seek a balance. Many of us do that quite well.

The president of the AFT does it best. Her connections to the power players, the profiteers in education reform, are numerous. Now, we are seeing connections to the roundly criticized firm inBloom. Are the members of the national AFT aware of this? How is this conflict of interest not entirely inappropriate? Well, it is, but it does not seem anyone cares, least of all Ms. Weingarten.

Now, I can already anticipate the defense. We need to be at the table, perhaps. We as educators need to be at least in the room when decisions are made. I have two responses to that. One, where has that gotten us? And two, it will allow them to say they’ve consulted teachers when in fact all they’ve consulted an executive who seems more interested in preserving her own employment and that of close allies than effectively serving the long-term interests of members.

Beware, my friends. Brakes on stakes, a staged arrest in Philly, all part of this triangulation. You’re just an acute angle. Nothing more.

All a show, made to fool you if you're not paying close attention.

But her act is growing stale and tired and many of us have seen her diversionary tactics before.

She and her fellow sell-outs at the AT fool fewer and fewer people these days.

Is Randi Feeling The Pressure From Karen Lewis And CTU?

Gates Foundation Education Week wonders:

One of the reasons this situation bears watching is because of how the rise of Lewis and CORE have had reverberations throughout the American Federation of Teachers, CTU's parent union.

AFT has played the card of being the more accommodating of the two national teachers' unions with respect to national policy movements, such as teacher evaluations based partly on student achievement. But Lewis has shown that outright resistance and opposition can work in some contexts, too, and that has proved to be an attractive option for some.

Opposition groups modeled on CORE have sprung up in the AFT's affiliates in New York City and Newark, among other places. And they seem to be having an effect on AFT, which has taken a much more strident tone on standardized testing and school closures lately.

Norm Scott says no:

Don't leave out the connection to the Chicago 80% victory by Karen who is leading the battle against ed deform while Randi once again defends Common core in the NY Times. The AFT I believe gave the CTU money to support the CC or something like that. But from what I hear they are ready to take on that battle. At the AFT convention in LA in July 2014 many of these issues will be fought out with the local 800 Unity slugs just elected will still be pulling back from the battle.

Ed deform will not fall until we drag the UFT/AFT into the battle. The Chicago election was a referendum on the Randi collaboration strategy and that took a beating.

I take a hardline on Randi.

Having watched her here in NYC, I can tell you that all Weingarten cares about is advancing her own career.

This is a labor "leader" with no core beliefs, no principles, no standards of conduct other than "How do I get on television more?"

She maneuvered herself into the "reform-friendly labor leader" slot because that was the place that would personally enrich and benefit her the most.

Until she has her power stripped from her or is carted out on RICO charges, Weingarten will not abandon her chosen role in the education reform war - the collaborator who works from within to destroy teachers and teachers unions.

I am glad that Karen Lewis and CTU are putting some pressure on the AFT leadership.

Winning with 80% of the vote after winning a fight with Rahm Emanuel is, I believe, making the AFTers a little worried that other locals will clamor for the same kind of pushback from their union against the deformers.

So their making some noises like they're pushing back.

But make no mistake, just because the AFT leadership is feeling a little pressure from a local doesn't mean their core collaborator policies will change.

They'll make it look like they're changing their policies without actually, you know, changing their policies.

Kinda like calling for a moratorium on high stakes attached to the Common Core tests, but not pushing for the end of high stakes attached to the Common Core tests.

Sure, Weingarten made headlines, but in the end, she did nothing to halt the education reform steamroller about to crush teachers with value-added measurements based on the Common Core tests that were added before the Common Core curriculum was taught.

That's the stuff Weingarten is made of - getting headlines for herself while doing nothing to help teachers (or worse, actively harming them.)

The Mulgrew Sell Out On Evaluations

Via Francesco Portelos, here is a MORE Caucus You Tube video of the UFT and the NYSUT leadership selling teachers out on an evaluation system based upon high stakes testing:



A damning tape.

MORE Has A Good Case Here

The MORE caucus has posted their case against UFT President Michael Mulgrew and the Unity/New Action leadership of the UFT on their blog:

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 2009 Unity/New Action’s Mulgrew signed onto the Common Core; Mulgrew endorsed the extension of mayoral control.

In 2010 UnityNew 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 2011 Unity/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 2011 Unity/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.

That, dear reader, is a failed leadership.

The Next UFT Contract

The Philadelphia school district's contract offer to teachers:

The School District wants teachers and other Philadelphia Federation of Teachers members to take pay cuts as high as 13 percent, work a day that is an hour longer, and then get no raises until 2017, according to documents that union officials have circulated to members and were obtained by the Notebook.

The documents are presented as summaries of the initial proposal the District has put on the table in contract negotiations, which began last week. The teachers’ contract expires this summer.

The summaries say that the District also wants union members to start contributing to their benefit costs. Both the pay cuts and the employee contributions for benefits would range from 5 percent for lower-paid employees to 13 percent for employees earning more than $55,000. In addition to the wage and benefit cuts, the District wants to eliminate the union-run Health & Welfare Fund that provides dental, prescription, and optical coverage, the documents say.

Also, schools will no longer have to have librarians or counselors, teachers lounges will be a thing of the past, there will be no more salary step increases, and future salary increases will be "performance-based" once they kick in 2017.

This is the kind of contract Randi Weingarten and Michael Mulgrew love.

Randi loves this kind of contract because it allows her to jet in and get some of the most odious provisions off the table, leaving the performance-based pay measures, the longer school day, and the end to salary steps.

Those provisions are what Randi likes to call "solution-based unionism concessions."

As for Michael Mulgrew and the UFT leadership, they love this kind of contract too because it means whatever crap they get in NYC, they can point to a place like Philadelphia and say, "Sure what we negotiated sucks, but compared to Philadelphia it scrapes the skies..."

It's bad enough that the oligarchs are in the process of dismantling public education systems in urban areas all over the country.

What's worse is that the union leadership are not trying to stop them and in the case of Randi Weingarten, are actively collaborating with them.