Perdido 03

Perdido 03

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Mulgrew "Frightened" By Opposition To Common Core

From Gotham Schools:

The opposition has alarmed many who say they continue to support the idea behind the standards, which is to teach students to think more deeply and critically, even as they have criticized the state’s implementation.

“This debate about whether Common Core is good or bad … is what frightens me,” United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew, another panelist, said this morning.

Why should a debate over Common Core frighten you, Mike?

Oh, right - I remember now. 

You head the UFT, an organization which eschews debate, shuts down opposition within the ranks and otherwise works to quell anything and anybody that isn't AFT- and UFT-leadership approved.

Well, get ready for a frightful year, Mikey.

Because as teachers start to deal with Common Core lessons on top of the Danielson framework on top of 4-6 observations a year on top of evals tied to state test scores on top of evals tied to city tests and/or other locally-selected measures of teacher effectiveness, there's going to be a lot of debate within the UFT rank-and-file over the Common Core, the new Common Core tests, Danielson, APPR and all the other reforms you and your boss, Randi Weingarten, helped bring about for NYC teachers.

There is a lot of anger out there already.

Wait until the ---- hits the fan this year for many teachers in many schools and see how much more anger there is.

And a lot of that is going to get directed at you, Mikey.

After all, APPR and Common Core are your babies.

You were, God help us all, in at the conception of both.

17 comments:

  1. Michael Mulgrew's APPR stand is the Civil Rights Issue of our time!

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    1. I love the name - "From Under The Bus".

      That's what the union has done to us.

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    2. Yes, Mulgrew's APPR stance, and staunch support for Race to the Top, which brought in APPR and transcript from Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch, interviewed by WNYC's Brian Lehrer, as she weaves a web of Orwellian confusing double-think, are the tests going to be used against teachers or are they not? Where are the cut scores as to how the students will be affected? She never got around to addressing why the news of students' test scores is kept secret from families until the last minute of 8/26?

      Another awesome post, RBE! How will the UFT spin the wonderprogram of Common Core now?
      Why does the UFT sugarcoat over how it holds a quota of 50% for fictional literature?
      Why does the UFT lie about "teachers" writing the Common Core, when ZERO teachers wrote it, and only one was allowed in, at the review or validation stage? Why did so many validators refuse to sign off on the Common Core? --and these were stalwarts from the standards movement, like James Milgram and Sandra Stotsky.

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  2. Why be frightened when you're so far removed from what all classroom teachers are going through, you not only agreed to this crap, you pushed for it?

    Useless and complicit.

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    Replies
    1. Absolutely. I would change "Useless" to "Harmful", however.

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  3. I predict he starts growing hair again by Thanksgiving.

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    Replies
    1. I knew they must be paying him something for the sellout!

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  4. The sad reality is that there is only a very small number of teachers who are actually aware that Mulgrew and UFT are the ones responsible for the mess that we are in. Ask any NYC teacher if they know how the new evaluations came to be in NYC. They have no idea that it was the UFT/NYSUT who helped craft the law to begin with. Hardly any NYC teacher knows that it was Mulgrew and the Unity crew who shut down a delegate vote via fear mongering at the delegate meeting last year. The fact is the UFT is massively responsible for the mess that we are in. The apathy will continue until teachers "in the know" share the facts of what is going on behind the curtain.

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    1. Last year, more teachers at my school were willing to vote against Unity then in any other election I have been around for. I bet after two years of APPR, even more will be ready to do the same. Especially because in my building, the "U-rated's" have essentially been abandoned by the UFT leadership. The CL feels like he is on his own and so do the people targeted for "U's."

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  5. Teachers in the know, chapter leaders in the know, all try to inform the members. Most members don't grasp that they have the power to change the status quo. Members do not fet that the union is theirs, as long as they take it back.
    That accounts for the low voter turnout in the uft election. Most members are unaware that their union dues pay $150,000. salaries for most of the full time ufters. They are not aware that UFT full time reps get two pensions upon retirement. They are unaware of the gross extent of the two class system the uft is enthusiastically running.

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    1. Ignorance is bliss....you would think that being
      paid the least for actually working in classrooms would enrage us. I figure it's like the military..the generals always sit in an office watching on a monitor while the grunts get shot at.

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  6. As dumb and clueless as he is, he did put lackey Campbell Brown in her place on a Gotham School link I viewd RBE.

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    1. I saw it - I was going to give him props for that until I read the Common Core crap. Then I decided the sellout over the CC is far worse than the little props he should getting for putting Brown in her place. Not to mention that the moderator did a good job of putting her there too by moving on from her instead of letting her prattle on.

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    2. The CC is more insidious than anything.

      The violation that it does to a classical education (and I mean that in a modern diverse way, give us Hansberry, Wright and Piri Thomas along with the older scribes) with its 50 percent quota on literature, its forcing social studies documents to be studied without background context, its forced math constructivism, these are things that are deeply contestable and challenge the integrity of the work that we do in the classroom.
      Talk about an issue that can galvanize broad sections against the bipartisan corporate behemoth pushing this!

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  7. The only counter is to build a wide range communication network of our own to counter the Unity propaganda machine. MORE will be putting out a hard copy newsletter to go into as many schools as we can but this not being an election period we need people in the schools to do this. We want to regularize wide-ranging network so we can reach as many teachers as possible with info on the real world. So sign up to distribute and also get emails of your colleagues so you can pass info to them. right now this world of bloggers and the readers is too insular -- the UFT election results is a sign that not enough UFT people were reading the blogs which backed MORE. Remember -- Unity vote totals dropped a lot -- by 8000 votes I believe. NA dropped too. MORE held the ICE/TJC totals and raised them a bit. So let's keep pushing the boulder up the hill. MORE needs everyone's help -- and if there are things you don't like about MORE -- jump in and try to change them.
    I am in the minority at times and I keep plugging.

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  8. Perhaps Mr.Mulgrew might want to save hjmself the time and trouble later and just cha.ge his name to Quisling now.

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