Gates Foundation cash-flushed Randi Weingarten is advertising a "Day of Action" to save public education tomorrow.
As I told Randi on twitter (a conversation you can see here), she's full of crap over this "save public education" stuff since she's done so much to wreck it herself - from signing off on the Race to the Top reforms, caving on tying teacher evaluations to test scores, carrying water for the Common Core Federal Standards, and doing business with education reform criminals like Chris Cerf to agree to voodoo VAM measurements like the infamous Teacher Data Reports in NYC that saw teachers have their names splashed in the papers under headlines like "Worst Teacher In NYC."
The other heads of the unions - Van Roekel, Mulgrew, Iannuzzi - are full of crap too, so this is not just aimed at Weingarten.
But she's the most visible of the union leaders, the one who makes it to the Andrew Cuomo education reform commissions and MSNBC panels on education reform, so I reserve extra special disdain for her.
This Day of Action is all about Weingarten - just like so many other things involving the AFT and the UFT when she was the head (remember when she grabbed the microphone from a nine year old boy at the commemoration of the 1963 March on Washington so she could take back the spotlight?)
If Weingarten wants to save public education, she can start by stepping down from the AFT, getting the hell off the reform committees, cease doing the reform panels that frame teachers as the problem in schools and dropping the Gates Foundation cash that makes the AFT into a subsidiary of the Bill Gates reform movement.
Perdido 03
Showing posts with label solution-oriented unionism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label solution-oriented unionism. Show all posts
Sunday, December 8, 2013
Wednesday, December 4, 2013
I Have A Twitter Conversation With Randi Weingarten
This was fun.
Had a little conversation with AFT President Randi Weingarten on the Twitter.
Randi wrote yesterday:
To which I replied:
To which Randi replied:
To which I replied:
I could have gone on, but she - and you - get the point.
She's talks a good game about supporting workers.
But time after time, she - and the heads of so many other unions - have made deals that have sold workers and union members down the river.
She likes to make believe this stuff never happened.
But we - the people who have been sold out by her "solution-based unionism" policies - are not going to let that happen.
Had a little conversation with AFT President Randi Weingarten on the Twitter.
Randi wrote yesterday:
This is a dark day 4 the people of Detroit who worked hard,played by the rules & are at risk of losing everything: http://t.co/5hZmQlyj1k It
— Randi Weingarten (@rweingarten) December 4, 2013
To which I replied:
@rweingarten @BAT_teacher Illinois too. Maybe labor should forgo seat at table, fight neo-liberals?
— realitybasededucator (@perdidostschool) December 4, 2013
@rweingarten @BAT_teacher But that would take a union leadership not on take from neo-liberals
— realitybasededucator (@perdidostschool) December 4, 2013
To which Randi replied:
@perdidostschool @BAT_teacher-just fyi-ALEC has found ways to create this kind of friction in unions-so we don't have the unity we need..
— Randi Weingarten (@rweingarten) December 4, 2013
To which I replied:
@rweingarten @BAT_teacher ALEC isn't creating friction - your "solution-based unionism" policies are
— realitybasededucator (@perdidostschool) December 4, 2013
@rweingarten @BAT_teacher Remember the Teacher Data Report deal you signed off on w/ Chris Cerf? That's one...
— realitybasededucator (@perdidostschool) December 4, 2013
@rweingarten @BAT_teacher then there was signing off on RttT, agreeing to use test scores/VAM for evals - that's two
— realitybasededucator (@perdidostschool) December 4, 2013
@rweingarten @BAT_teacher Allowing the insanity of Danielson to be used for observations - that's three
— realitybasededucator (@perdidostschool) December 4, 2013
@rweingarten @BAT_teacher pushing merit pay Baltimore, Newark and elsewhere - that's four
— realitybasededucator (@perdidostschool) December 4, 2013
@rweingarten @BAT_teacher You fool nobody by blaming ALEC, Randi - your record of sell outs is remembered in NYC
— realitybasededucator (@perdidostschool) December 4, 2013
I could have gone on, but she - and you - get the point.
She's talks a good game about supporting workers.
But time after time, she - and the heads of so many other unions - have made deals that have sold workers and union members down the river.
She likes to make believe this stuff never happened.
But we - the people who have been sold out by her "solution-based unionism" policies - are not going to let that happen.
Saturday, November 30, 2013
Leadership Of AFT Are Full Of Crap As Usual
This tweet from the AFT set me off:
My response:
I added another tweet asking just what the AFT leadership promised to the Gates Foundation in exchange for all of that cash (as a commenter on a Common Core story earlier noted, Gates Foundation money ALWAYS comes with strings attached), but it really was a rhetorical question.
We know what Randi and Company promised in exchange - undying fealty to the Common Core, tacit agreement to not fight too hard to overturn teacher evaluations tied to test scores, and other concessions to the corporate education reform movement.
An important component to fighting the corporate reform agenda is calling the union leadership on their lies, deceptions and propaganda.
Sure, Bill Gates, Eli Broad, the Walton Family and a host of lesser education reform luminaries helped bring about the mess that we have now and sure, they did it by buying off many of the politicians in both parties to promote their agenda.
But they got a lot of help from the union leadership - from Randi at the AFT to Mikey at the UFT to Iannuzzi at the NYSUT to Dennis at the NEA.
They got help from union locals from New Haven to Baltimore to Newark.
Other than Karen Lewis and the CORE braintrust running CTU and some of the locals fighting the Common Core mess here in NY State, most of the union leadership has sold out.
A Day of Action to Reclaim the Promise of Education cannot be authentic and productive without calling Weingarten, Mulgrew, Iannuzzi, Van Roekel and the other union sell-outs on their horse@#$# that helped steal the promise of public education in the first place.
December 9th is the Day of Action to Reclaim the Promise of Public Education: http://t.co/m4hlAgtUPs #reclaimit
— AFT (@AFTunion) November 30, 2013
My response:
@AFTunion @gailDrich Start w/ not taking $11 million in Gates Foundation cash into AFT coffers http://t.co/Ut8GINitDA
— realitybasededucator (@perdidostschool) November 30, 2013
I added another tweet asking just what the AFT leadership promised to the Gates Foundation in exchange for all of that cash (as a commenter on a Common Core story earlier noted, Gates Foundation money ALWAYS comes with strings attached), but it really was a rhetorical question.
We know what Randi and Company promised in exchange - undying fealty to the Common Core, tacit agreement to not fight too hard to overturn teacher evaluations tied to test scores, and other concessions to the corporate education reform movement.
An important component to fighting the corporate reform agenda is calling the union leadership on their lies, deceptions and propaganda.
Sure, Bill Gates, Eli Broad, the Walton Family and a host of lesser education reform luminaries helped bring about the mess that we have now and sure, they did it by buying off many of the politicians in both parties to promote their agenda.
But they got a lot of help from the union leadership - from Randi at the AFT to Mikey at the UFT to Iannuzzi at the NYSUT to Dennis at the NEA.
They got help from union locals from New Haven to Baltimore to Newark.
Other than Karen Lewis and the CORE braintrust running CTU and some of the locals fighting the Common Core mess here in NY State, most of the union leadership has sold out.
A Day of Action to Reclaim the Promise of Education cannot be authentic and productive without calling Weingarten, Mulgrew, Iannuzzi, Van Roekel and the other union sell-outs on their horse@#$# that helped steal the promise of public education in the first place.
Thursday, February 28, 2013
The Next UFT Contract
The Philadelphia school district's contract offer to teachers:
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.
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.
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Union Members Get Fired, Non-Union Members Get Hired
This story from the Washington Post is about manufacturing, but make no mistake, it's what the boys and girls in power want to bring to education too:
Shed union jobs, add non-union jobs.
It's happening in manufacturing, and it's happening in education.
That's what charter schools are all about.
That's what teacher evaluation systems based upon test scores are all about.
That's what the anti-teacher media movement is all about.
They're putting into place the climate and the tools necessary for unionized teachers to be fired and non-unionized teachers to be hired.
It would be nice if teachers unions like Randi Weingarten's AFT actually fought this trend instead of aiding it with their "solution-oriented unionism" garbage.
But we have seen no coherent or coordinated messaging from the teachers unions telling the public what the anti-teacher movement is all about.
Instead we get collaboration and "a seat at the table."
Which is why the teachers unions are losing tons of members - more charter schools means fewer teachers union members.
Somebody better put a stop to this trend soon or we're going the way of the UAW.
But the current teachers union leadership surely are not the people to do it.
Last July was a good month for factory workers in Anderson, Ind., where a Honda parts supplier announced plans to build a new plant and create up to 325 jobs. But it was a grim month in the Cleveland suburbs, where an industrial plastics firm told the state of Ohio it was closing a plant and laying off 150 people.
Nearly all of the Ohio workers belonged to a labor union. Workers at the Indiana plant don’t. Their fates fit a post-recession pattern: American factories are hiring again, but they’re not hiring union members.
U.S. manufacturers have added a half-million new workers since the end of 2009, making the sector one of the few bright spots in an otherwise weak recovery. And yet there were 4 percent fewer union factory workers in 2012 than there were in 2010, according to federal survey data. On balance, all of the job gains in manufacturing have been non-union.
Shed union jobs, add non-union jobs.
It's happening in manufacturing, and it's happening in education.
That's what charter schools are all about.
That's what teacher evaluation systems based upon test scores are all about.
That's what the anti-teacher media movement is all about.
They're putting into place the climate and the tools necessary for unionized teachers to be fired and non-unionized teachers to be hired.
It would be nice if teachers unions like Randi Weingarten's AFT actually fought this trend instead of aiding it with their "solution-oriented unionism" garbage.
But we have seen no coherent or coordinated messaging from the teachers unions telling the public what the anti-teacher movement is all about.
Instead we get collaboration and "a seat at the table."
Which is why the teachers unions are losing tons of members - more charter schools means fewer teachers union members.
Somebody better put a stop to this trend soon or we're going the way of the UAW.
But the current teachers union leadership surely are not the people to do it.
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