UFT Spins The Evaluation System As A Win

NYC Educator has a post up this morning noting that  Peter Goodman, retired Unity hack extraordinaire, left a comment at Gotham Charter Schools on their post about the just released teacher evaluation results.

Goodman wrote the following:

On the just released state teacher evaluation 50% of teachers were "highly effective" and 41% "effective" with 1% "ineffective," these do include NYC, our plan just started, so, just maybe, teachers were overreacting .. On the grades 3-8 scores teachers in NYC scored considerably better than the rest of the state.
Take a deep breath, maybe the guys and gals who negotiated the plan on the union side knew what they were doing.

Coming from Goodman, that's the official UFT spin, but I can tell you in my school, teachers don't care to take a deep breath as they worry about the Danielson rubric, teach the same short story for 17 straight lessons as part of the NYSED curriculum module project, collect "artifacts" so that they can document they're not incompetent, grade thousands of "performance assessments" in September and worry how the June performance assessments are going to go when the kids are all tested out, and wonder just how the state plans to compare the Regents results to the PSAT scores and churn out a value-added measurement for them.

Goodman, as usual, is putting a friendly spin on a UFT sell-out, but given that he writes all this from the comfort of his living room and doesn't have to set foot into a classroom and worry about VAM, Danielson, lesson modules, et al., he has no idea what he is talking about.

If he got out of his living room once in a while and went to visit with the teachers who were not part of the Unity/New Action chorus line, he might even learn how little he knows about how teachers are receiving the new evaluation system with the 4-6 observations, the lost tenure protections and the 40% testing component.

The UFT leadership insulates itself from the rank and file and they shut down any dissent at their political functions.

That insularity and imperial way of running the union has kept the Unity people in power for a long, long time, but it also isolates them from what's going on with the rank and file, since they never really talk to any members who aren't already yes "guys and gals."

In the end, if the Unity/New Action leadership wants to think it can spin its way into making people like the evaluation system, go for it guys and gals.

You have no idea how much rank and file members hate it and how willing rank and file members are to take their anger and frustration out on the UFT leadership that signed off on Race to the Top and negotiated this piece of garbage.

As NYC Educator wrote:

With all due respect, comments like Goodman's don't reflect the remotest notion of what's going on out here with those of us who actually work for a living. While I'm beginning to see this as UFT party line, I hope for all our sakes they come up with something better.

I pity the chapter leader who has to tell members facing high-stakes evaluation, "Take a deep breath, the guys and gals at UFT did a swell job."

I agree with everything NYC Educator wrote except for that "with all due respect" part.

I have no respect for Unity/New Actions hacks - especially retired ones - who write how swell everything is from the comfort of their living rooms.

Why The UFT Will Never Go Back On The Teacher Evaluation System Sell-Out

Norm Scott posted the following:

This came in an email as a suggestion for MORE to take up the cause and I think it should. But I wonder if the UFT which supports and vehemently defends the new evaluation system will be calling for a waiver.

It is now possible for states to request a waiver from teacher evaluations for the upcoming school year.  Randi Weingarten and the AFT (parent body of the UFT) has asked for it and, in an astonishing about-face, Arne Duncan, US Secretary of Education and the person responsible for tying federal funding to teacher evaluations, has followed with the offer of a one-year moratorium.

This makes sense!  Many states have already applied for their waivers, but not New York.  Cities and districts throughout the state need time to make their way through the incredibly complex process (over 200 pages in NYC) of implementing a teacher evaluation system.  We need to rally behind Randi and the AFT. Unions upstate--NYSUT and Rochester, in particular--have been outspoken in their support for the moratorium.  In fact, there's been a lot of agreement among many different interests that a moratorium is needed.

Now is the time to call on our union and help make the request for a waiver an issue.  Speak to the mayoral candidates, let them know this matters to you.  Let your colleagues and friends know that an option is there for the taking, and New York has not jumped on the chance to give our school systems the time they need to do this right.

The UFT and NYSUT leaderships have already sold us out on APPR and they're not going back on that sell-out.

Mulgrew and Iannuzzi stood on stage with Cuomo back in February 2012 to announce they were dropping a lawsuit against the state for increasing the state test component of the evaluation system  - a lawsuit they had won in a lower court - and while Iannuzzi talks some about a moratorium, don't listen to what he says, watch what he does.  As for Mulgrew, there's been no talk of a moratorium from the UFT on evaluations at all - instead we've gotten reams of email propaganda from Mulgrew about how wonderful and fair the new system is.

When both of these unions file a lawsuit against the APPR system for being poorly designed and fundamentally flawed, when they argue that good teachers are going to get hacked up and destroyed in this system because it is so badly designed and fundamentally flawed, when they stop talking about how wonderful the Danielson rubric is and instead point out the absurdity of using it in practice four to six times a year for every teacher, that's when you'll know they're serious about protecting their members and putting a stop to the abuse that is going to come with APPR.

So far, the UFT is all on board with this piece of garbage.  They've spent more time attacking critics of the APPR system like Diane Ravitch and Carol Burris than acknowledging the flaws in the system that are going to lead to thousands of teachers getting "i-rated" next year.

Some have speculated that Mulgrew, whose sister helped run a company that made millions from business contracts with the DOE, may have family/financial reasons for selling his members down the river.

Michael Fiorillo has pointed out that the UFT and NYSUT leaderships have become co-partners with the NYSED and NYCDOE in the management system of employer/employee relations, with the unions playing the "good cops" to the NYSED's and NYCDOE's bad ones as they both lead us to a world with fewer work protections and less employment stability.

While the union heads often talk a good game and sometimes even take actions to make it look like they're fighting back against the powers that be, the overall trajectory of the last few years has been a downward spiral of power, prestige, work protections, benefits, and job autonomy for teachers.

Whatever words the union heads use and whatever small steps they take to "fight" the system have done little to mitigate the erosion of teachers' rights and protections.

You can bet the leaderships of both the state and local unions benefit from these circumstances or they wouldn't be happening.

Whether the corruption is as blatant as payoffs from the DOE to Mulgrew through his sister's education company or a little more nebulous - you help us bring your teachers to slaughter, we'll make sure you stay in power and keep sucking up those union salaries, double pensions, and other perks - the reality is that the union leaderships at both the UFT and the NYSUT have long ago sold us out on evaluations and they're not going to go back on that without an enormous amount of pressure coming from the memberships to force that.

With Mulgrew winning re-election handily through the corrupt UFT election process last May that saw more retirees vote than current members, you can bet he's not too worried about having any pressure from the membership this year and besides, whatever pressure does come from below, they can relieve that by making some essentially useless gestures like co-location lawsuits and the like that ultimately do not stop the ravages of the reform movement but do make it look like the UFT is trying to fight them.

Until New York teachers wake up a realize that the union leaders in both the NYSUT and the UFT have sold them out and will continue to sell them out until they throw them out of power, nothing is going to change.

Chicago threw the bums out of power.  Washington threw the bums out of power.  Newark almost threw the bums out of power.  Mulgrew won re-election with over 80% of the vote.

Throwing the bums out of power doesn't guarantee victory over the ravages of reform - witness the firings in Chicago this week - but it does guarantee real opposition to it as opposed to the phonied up opposition we get from the corrupt union heads in this city and this state.

Who Will The UFT Endorse And Why Should Anyone Care?

NY Teacher reports the UFT plans an endorsement in the mayoral primary:

“We are endorsing,” President Michael Mulgrew announced after the vote. He said that delegates will debate at their May meeting which candidate to back and will vote on their final choice at the Delegate Assembly in June. In the meantime, delegates and chapter leaders should discuss with members which candidates they prefer.

Mulgrew kicked off the debate by saying that the UFT could follow one of four paths in the mayoral race: endorse in the primary, wait to endorse in the likely event of a runoff between the top two primary vote-getters, endorse only in the general election, or don’t endorse at all.

One challenge to endorsing a primary candidate is that UFT members have different views at this point on who they want to win, Mulgrew said. The range of opinion is evident from straw polls he has taken of members at school visits.

“We have an extremely diverse union,” Mulgrew said.

That diversity of views on candidates was on the mind of some delegates who urged against endorsing in the primary.

I'm going to go out on a bit of a limb here and make a prediction about this endorsement.

It won't mean squat.

What makes the UFT leadership, who were just re-elected by more retirees who live in Florida than active teachers who live in the New York area, think the endorsement of the union will mean much in an election?

If this union actually tried to engage members on a consistent basis, so that rank-and-file members actually took part in union-generated activities, I'd say maybe a UFT endorsement might matter.

But this union leadership has actively worked to create a disengaged rank-and-file membership that is isolated from the leadership, kept in the dark about policy decisions and issues and discouraged again and again from taking an active role in the union (unless that active role is one already prescribed by the Unity caucus.)

Hell, when the UFT calls for members to come down and join protests at City Hall with other unions, they can only muster a few hundred people.

The UFT election turnout was an abysmal low, with just 25% of UFT members returning their ballots - only 18% were working teachers.

And back in 2001, when the UFT endorsed three times, the candidate they endorsed lost every time.

The UFT leadership engages in extreme hubris thinking many people outside of their own Unity/New Action cronies care about what they think or who they will endorse in an upcoming election.

In the end, the only benefits a candidate gets from a UFT endorsement are a little extra press (which could hurt as much as help), a minor league GOTV campaign (the UFT can't even get its members to vote in its own elections) and a bit of money.

Not all that earth-shattering a benefit, this UFT endorsement, in my opinion.

In any case, I am going to go out on a limb and say that the UFT endorses Bill Thompson for mayor.

Christine Quinn's candidacy is floundering, de Blasio has not managed to take off yet, Liu is terminally wounded by the campaign finance fraud trial, and Weiner is running simply to assuage his own ego, not actually be mayor.

Given the parameters of the race so far, I think Thompson make the most sense from the UFT leadership's perspective.

Thompson has made noises that he will run the school system differently than Bloomberg, has said he will put a halt to school co-locations and curtail closures, and has indicated that he will be much more open to parent and teacher input into how the system is run.

Because of those policy stances, I suspect Thompson will be the candidate the UFT will endorse.

They will figure that he's raising more than enough cash to be a serious candidate with a good shot to win and they will figure they can work with him once he is elected.

That Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch is helping to run his campaign, that Al D'amato is raising funds for him, that Thompson has made a bundle of money on Wall Street in the years since he left public office, are all red flags for me.

But the UFT leadership, despite paying lip service to having a "diverse union" with members holding many different opinions, doesn't actually care what I think.

They will do what they do and endorse who they want.

But in the end, I doubt anybody outside of the Unity/New Action caucus will care much.

Unity, New Action Lose Over 11,000 Votes From 2010 To 2013

More caucus has the final vote tallies from the 2013 UFT election up and they're extraordinarily informative:

CHART: VOTING SHIFTS FROM 2010 TO 2013

slate votes only * remainders are split ballots

Elementary Division

                                    2013                                                        2010

MORE                       1,140                                                 703 for ICE/TJC

New Action              534                                                    978

Unity                          5,111                                                7,761

Middle School Division

MORE                       398                                                  248 for ICE/TJC

New Action             161                                                     421

Unity                        1,185                                                 1,981

High School Division

MORE                       1,430                                              1,369 for ICE/TJC

New Action             452                                                   774

Unity                         1,592                                               2,595

Functional Division (non-teachers)

MORE                       951                                               708 for ICE/TJC

New Action              754                                              1,175

Unity                        5,167                                            7,337

Retiree Division

MORE                    1,490                                             1,037 for ICE/TJC

New Action           1,880                                            2,234

Unity                    18,155                                             20,744

Looking at these numbers, we can see that Unity lost 9,208 votes in 2013 from their 2010 tally, while New Action lost 1,801 votes from 2010.

The two UFT leadership parties lost 11,009 votes between them in 2013 from their 2010 tallies.

MORE, on the other hand, gained 1,344 votes from the ICE-TJC totals in 2010.

That's nowhere near enough to knock off the leadership parties, of course, but it is a positive trajectory for MORE that can be built upon in the next election.

And as I keep reminding people, MORE will have one inherent advantage next time around that Unity and New Action will not have - the MORE people didn't sign off on APPR, Danielson, and growth models as the current UFT leadership as run by Michael Mulgrew has.

Let's see how people feel about the leadership of the UFT after three years of APPR, Danielson and the mass "ineffective" ratings that are sure to sweep the system after John King imposes his own evaluation apparatus onto us (with Michael Mulgrew's support, to boot!)

There were 10,000 fewer votes returned in the 2013 election than in the 2010 election.

As you can see from the above analysis, those 10,000 votes came out of the Unity/New Action totals.

MORE has much room for growth and will need almost all of that to actually make a serious attempt at knocking Mulgrew and his Unity/New Action cronies off next time around.

With the advantage Mulgrew has with the retirees and the functionals (both reliable Unity voting blocs), he starts with a significant vote tally over the MORE candidate.

In 2013, Unity got 23,322 from the retirees and functionals alone on the Unity ballot line.  Add in the New Action ballot line totals for retirees and functionals (2,632) and you can see that Mulgrew started with 25,956 votes in his pocket before we even get to the elementary school totals.

The MORE candidate in 2016 will have to pick up a lot of support from active members to counter that advantage as well as try and turn some of those New Action/Unity votes into MORE votes.

With the retirees, that may be a difficult task.

That said, 75% of all UFT members this year did not vote.

There are plenty of opportunities for growth from that segment of what Norm Scott calls the Did Not Give A Crap vote and after three years of APPR, Danielson, and the mass "ineffective" ratings that are sure to sweep the system after John King imposes his own evaluation apparatus onto us, it's difficult to see those people, if they do vote, voting for either New Action or Unity.

So there is much to be feeling positive about here.

The news media, such as it is, may frame the Unity win as Mulgrew "cruising to reelection" (as Gotham Schools did yesterday), but an analysis of the numbers shows this was no easy cruise for Mulgrew and his Unity/New Action cronies in 2013 - not with a loss of over 10,000 votes from their 2010 tallies.

We have some difficult times ahead of us, with APPR and Danieslon and VAM and growth models and all the other ed deforms that are going to be used to bludgeon teachers and fire them.

Unless the UFT leadership changes course and starts defending teachers both individually and collectively from these ravages, 2016 is going to be a much different year than 2013 or 2010 for Mulgrew and his Unity/New Action cronies.

UFT Election Lessons

Norm at Ed Notes:

MORE increased the vote over the ICE/TJC totals of 2010 in every single division and outpolled New Action in every division except retirees.

I haven't seen the breakdown in functionary numbers from 2010-2013, but I can tell you that Unity lost support in every other division from 2010 to 2013.

As Norm notes, Unity had 3,000 fewer retiree votes.

Unity and New Action support is down in both the middle schools and the high schools.

MORE support is up slightly from the 2010 ICE-TJC totals.

MORE received about 60 more votes than ICE-TJC last time around in the high schools and received 150 more votes in the middle schools than ICE-TJC last time around.

Unity, on the other hand, lost 1000 votes from the 2010 vote count in high schools while New Action lost about 225. In the middle schools, Unity lost almost 800 votes from the last time around while New Action lost 260.

And remember, there were 10,000 fewer ballots returned this year compared to 2010.

So MORE increased the totals over ICE-TJC in 2010 even though the pool of votes cast was significantly smaller.

Unity support dropped significantly while New Action's tepid vote support exposes it as the Unity shell it really is.

This is no victory for MORE, that is clear.

But it surely cannot be spun as a victory for Mulgrew and the leadership either.

People will try and spin these numbers any way they can - but the loss of support for the Unity and New Action slates is plain to see.

The much lower participation rate is plain to see.

There are many dissatisfied teachers out there.

The MORE caucus has its work cut out to try and win over the vast majority of dissatisfied active UFT members next time around - especially with the inherent advantages Unity has with incumbency.

And even if they were to win over the vast majority of active members, Unity STILL has the functionaries and the retirees in its pockets.

That said, you can bet the Unity people are not celebrating these election results behind the scenes.

The headline number of 82% - the percentage of votes cast that Mulgrew won - looks good at first glance.

But underneath, the numbers for Unity are terrible.

A dramatic drop in support from 2010, an increase in support for MORE over ICE-TJC and voter apathy winning the day over everything.

With Danieslon and APPR coming at us next year, you can bet that the Unity hacks are going to have a hard time holding onto the support they had this year.

Let's see in a year's time, after the first mass of "ineffective" ratings sweeps through the system and the Danielson rubric turns everybody's work lives into nightmares what people are saying about Mulgrew and the UFT leadership.

And then let's see what people are saying about Mulgrew and the UFT leadership after the second year of Danielson and APPR when the second wave of mass "ineffective" ratings sweeps the system and Mulgrew's pal, John King, forces whoever runs the system at that time to fire teachers whether they want to or not - just as King is doing now in Buffalo and Rome.

Remember, Mulgrew and the UFT leadership are on record saying Danielson is the swellest thing since oxygen.

Remember too that Mulgrew and the UFT leadership are pushing growth models as an excellent way to evaluate teachers.

Remember as well that Mulgrew is happy that John King gets to impose an evaluation system on June 1.

The soil will be ripe for MORE in three years after the Danielson and APPR train wrecks run roughshod over people.

Again, there is no MORE victory here - certainly not a real victory and not a moral victory either.

There are no moral victories in elections.

But there is plenty of hope for the future when you look at these numbers and realize just how badly the Unity people are positioned for next time around.

They've promoted the very reforms - APPR, Danielson, growth models - that are going to be used to destroy teachers.

They will have to defend that next time around.

Good luck at that.

Mulgrew's Re-Election Victory Speech

Sure his Unity caucus lost lots of support in high schools and middle schools.  

Sure MORE garnered 40% of the votes in the high schools.

Sure voter returns in the election fell 10,000 from the last time around.

Sure more retirees voted than active members.

But the important thing is, Mike Mulgrew won re-election with 84% and now it's time to party.

Mulgrew issued a victory statement on ICE-UFT blog via his spokesperson, Raving Lunatic.

Here it is:

What's important here is we win, you lose. 40% of high school votes yields you nothing, yet earns me another three years at 52 Broadway. Tomorrow, while you're all teaching five classes, I'll be going out to lunch. I will remain out to lunch until you vote us out, at which time I shall retire, collect two pensions, move to Boca, and continue voting for Unity.

Actually this was his real victory statement:

 “I’m honored that thousands of UFT members have supported my reelection,” Mulgrew said in a statement. “I look forward to working with them for the next three years as we continue to fight for the best for our students, their families, and our schools.”

Those of us who teach our five classes and do our hall patrols and bathroom watches and sit through weekly Common Core PD's and have our preps taken for "common planning time" and worry about Danielson and APPR and getting VAMMED know that Raving Lunatic's victory speech, while not the factual one Mulgrew gave, is actually the more accurate one.

UFT Elections - Unity And New Action Support Drops Significantly From 2010 In Middle Schools And High Schools

James Eterno at Ice-UFT blog:

We have initial slate only numbers for the high schools and the middle schools in the UFT election and although Unity and New Action will hold onto their monopoly on power, the new Movement of Rank and File Educators (MORE) established itself as the main opposition group in the secondary schools by a wide margin.

Here are the slate numbers for the 2013 and 2010 elections in the secondary schools.

2013  High Schools   Ballots Returned: 3808   Votes Counted: 3595    
MORE: 1430 (40%)   NEW ACTION: 452 (13%)  UNITY: 1592 (45%)

The remainder are people who split their ballot.

2010 High Schools    Votes Counted: 5203
ICE-TJC: 1369                 NEW ACTION: 774             UNITY: 2595

2013 Middle Schools   Ballots Returned: 1879      Votes Counted: 17886
MORE: 398                NEW ACTION: 161                 UNITY:1185

The remainder are people who split their ballot.

2010 Middle Schools: Slate Votes Counted: 2881
ICE-TJC: 248                NEW ACTION: 421              UNITY: 1981  

2013 Functionals (non teachers)   Ballots Returned: 7704   Ballots Counted: 7113
MORE: 951                   NEW ACTION: 754              UNITY: 5167

The remainder are people who split their ballot

The retirees and elementary schools - reliable Unity voting blocs - have yet to be counted and Unity will win by a wide margin as usual.

But if you look at the returns from the high schools and middle schools, you see New Action and Unity losing a lot of support and MORE gaining a little more support in the high schools and a lot more support in the middle schools.

Not enough to win, of course, but enough to make it clear that many in the middle and high schools think something is rotten with the current leadership.

As James wrote:

In addition, Mulgrew's vote will more than likely drop in a major way compared to 2010 among active UFT members.  It appears many members did not vote for the opposition but they certainly didn't vote for the incumbent.  For the next election, those members need to be persuaded to vote.

He also wonders how it is that New Action can get 13% of the vote and get three executive board seats while MORE can win 40% of the vote and get none.

Of course that's a rhetorical question from Mr. Eterno.

The answer is obvious - because Mulgrew and the Unity/New Action leadership have the fix in.