Andy Pallotta Has The Sads Over A Blog Post

Yesterday somebody told me that NYSUT leadership is upset about this post from Sullio that succinctly and devastatingly explains how the NYSUT leadership runs things at the union.

The gist of the post is that leadership doesn't care what rights and protections teachers have lost, doesn't care how the rank and file feel about these lost rights and protections, and doesn't care to do anything to rectify these lost rights and protections because membership dues are required by law so why should they care?

Apparently NYSUT Executive Vice President Andy Pallotta, who was never once mentioned in Sullio's post, is upset because he says the post compares him to a gangster - this despite the fact that the mob is never mentioned in the post either.

The only reference to the mob is a brief clip from the film Goodfellas that explains how, when you're paying protection money to the mob, it doesn't matter what happens during the week that might make those payments inconvenient - you've got to come up with the protection money no matter what.

You know, kinda like how teachers have to pony up their union dues every month no matter how many rights and protections disappear because the NYSUT leadership is either complicit with the education reform movement that seeks to destroy the teaching profession or is totally incompetent to stop them (take your pick on which but I lean toward Choice #1.)

Pallotta wants the state attorney general to look into the blog post and filed a discrimination complaint  because, you know, what better things can NYSUT spend time, money and energy on then attacking a blogger who accurately depicts how NYSUT runs its operations.

NYC Educator took on NYSUT leaders over this here.

Sean Crowley did the same here.

Here's my take:

With the Friedrichs case to be heard this year by the Supreme Court and the likelihood coming that the U.S. will be made into a "right-to-work" nation where union dues cannot be compelled from government workers after that case is decided, you'd think NYSUT leadership would be busy re-thinking their "Top-down/Fuck the rank and file cuz' I got mine" way of running things, but given Andy Pallotta's concern over a blog post, that's apparently not the case.

I dunno, perhaps Pallotta has the sads because NYSUT leadership is about to lose a few cars off their union gravy train post-Friedrichs, perhaps he's not a fan of Goodfellas and prefers Casino instead (though I dunno why, since Casino seems so derivative of Goodfellas.)

Either way, Pallotta ought to grow up and worry less about blog posts and more about what's going to happen to NYSUT once the Supreme Court says members no longer are compelled to pay dues.

If I were him, I might be thinking, "Hey, maybe we have to start serving our members and actually protecting their interests," but given the nonsense we've seen from NYSUT so far this year, it doesn't appear that's where the leadership's heading.

Instead they appear to be going down the road of "We'll try and exert even tighter control and destroy any opposition and/or criticism" even as their political House of Cards comes tumbling down around them.

I'm no professional political strategist like Andy Pallotta, but something tells me that strategy will be about as effective as NYSUT's strategy against Andy Cuomo's toxic education reform agenda.

Should The Buffalo Teachers Federation And NYSUT Go To Court Over Union Busting In Buffalo?

It has been reported in various places that the Buffalo Teachers Federation, with the help of NYSUT, are looking at taking the state to court over the powers that were granted to the Buffalo schools superintendent to break the union contract in five "struggling" schools.

Here's Keshia Clukey at Politico NY with a statement from NYSUT on that:

“At this point in time, NYSUT’s attorneys are looking at every available option and we’ll take any action that’s needed to ensure we defend our teachers’ and our parents’ voice,” NYSUT President Karen Magee said Tuesday. The Buffalo Teachers Federation falls under the umbrella of NYSUT.

...

“The thing that concerns me the most about the commissioner’s decision is it basically mirrors the rushed implementation of the Common Core,” Magee said. “You would think that the engagement process and the right to collectively bargain would be one of the most respected pieces to turn around a school.”

A Perdido Street School reader worries about the outcome of such legal action:

It's clear that taking this to courts has risks that are simply beyond reasonable. The decision to take it to the courts is a reflection of the lack of creativity of ALL NYSUT LEADERSHIP, as well as their lack of knowledge and understanding about some of the most basic and essential history and thinking regarding union organizing and action.

We are, in fact, already losing. That is correct. However, at this point, we must not fully lose our ability to think clearly. If we do lose the case, and it seems fairly clear that its stacked in favor of that, we will not only have lost in Buffalo, but the entire process of placing schools in receivership and tossing union contracts is then part of the jurisprudence of the State of New York, and therefore ESTABLISHED LAW. That's not just losing....that's escalating, magnifying, and putting your loss on steroids. That's how things happen that take generations to undo.

This thinking that the courts are where we need to be are a particular symptom of a total lack of understanding of the labor movement and labor history. Unions, organizing, and labor action exist because of the ASSUMPTION that the courts can be and in fact ARE a reflection of the power structures they exist in and offer no "unbiased" look at such cases. Unions exist to organize and take action precisely to avoid courts for the most part....BECAUSE IT IS THERE, IN COURTROOMS, THAT AWFUL ANTI-WORKER POLICIES CAN BE EMBEDDED INTO LAW WITHOUT GOING THROUGH THE USUAL AND MORE PUBLIC PROCESS OF CREATING LAW IN LEGISLATURES!!

Elia and Cuomo and all the reformers would love all this to go to the courts.....its their home territory. They can get law written without all the fuss! Why do you think basically all the reformers love taking things to the courts??

Harris Lirtzman thinks a political solution might be the better course of action here but doesn't think we have the union leadership required to carry such action out:

Our "grievance" is, indeed, a political one.

Whatever one thinks of Elia she is simply doing what the amendments to State Education Law in 2014 proposed by Andrew Cuomo require her to do when there is a conflict between the receiver and the union over CBAs for receivership schools.

Because we live in a state with the Taylor Law, we cannot legally strike. Yes, of course, we can "strike" but at the cost of potentially ruinous financial penalties against NYSUT and "two days per strike day" charges against individual teachers. Yes, again, many of us might like to ruin NYSUT financially but it's hard for me to believe that NYSUT or the membership would authorize and support a strike over receivership schools--the days of "union solidarity forever" and "we shall not be moved" are long gone.

The Transit Workers Union went on a ten day strike in December 2006 which had no, nada, zip public support and it collapsed with nothing to show for it except huge penalties against the Local, loss of dues check-off for two years and fines against members--most of those eventually reduced by the judge.

Unless the "Heavy Hearters" really screwed up the drafting of the legislation for the receivership provisions it's hard to see how this case turns out well for us.

Seems to me two choices:

1. Work politically to get the legislation changed or to defeat in 2016 members of the legislature who voted for it.

2. Take action--perhaps even non-violent direct action--to bring about a crisis in the local political structure sufficient to cause elected officials to change education policy.

Either one of these approaches will have required our unions, specifically, and our members, more generally, to have done the hard, sloggy, unpleasant organizing work to mobilize the members and to educate parents and the general public about the issues involved.

What do you think will happen? I used to believe that the political system could be changed or that direct-action, creatively done, could create the sort of "crisis" that leads to change. I no longer do and I especially no longer do if any of that involves NYSUT, the UFT or the membership-at-large.

Lastly, a reader points out the abysmal rep the NYSUT legal team have:

WHAAAAAAT????????

There is a reason anybody who knows tells you to NEVER use NYSUT legal if you get jammed up...always hire someone yourself. On the micro level of dealing with teacher legal issues, they are known to suck.

On the macro level of shepherding a case of this magnitude through the courts successfully they have NO (zero, 0, none) track record of success.

NYSUT legal is a huge part of our problem. Talk about cushy jobs....NYSUT legal is made up of elite educated lawyers pretending at having a hardcore lefty union gig. They have offered no help, advice, or anything to our cause.

NYSUT legal is beyond a joke and deeply part of the problem.

So many ways a legal case here could go wrong - it's almost as if the union leadership at both BTF and NYSUT are double agents, trying to make it look like they're fighting for the rights of their members while for all practical purposes extending the power and policies of the deformers.

On second thought, check that.

There's no "as if" - as Sean Crowley noted in this comment:

I fear any direct union action will have to be taken without the support or benediction of the double retirees of NYSUT's so called leadership. They don't want to jeopardize one drop of their own precious fat by involving themselves in anything that could be construed as a job action. As noted above the legal dodge they have made into an artform will satisfy whichever box they have to check off on their rubric that proves they demonstrated interest in the rank and file. I think maybe some more phone calls to the White House, another dozen Nae Nae videos and a strongly worded letter or two will be about the most NYSUT can be expected to contribute. This one is going to have to be rank and file driven.

The best course to me here is to have the receivership law changed through the legislative process but given that NYSUT didn't fight Cuomo's imposition of the law much in the first place, I am under no illusions that they'll work very hard to do this.

Rather, they might just take the worst possible action imagined so as to, as the first reader quoted above said, make "the entire process of placing schools in receivership and tossing union contracts is then part of the jurisprudence of the State of New York, and therefore ESTABLISHED LAW."

Indeed, with the tenure/seniority lawsuit already here in the courts here in NY coupled with the receivership suit BTF/NYSUT may take forward, you can see a point in the near future where tenure, seniority protections, and local school control are all abolished and union contracts not worth the paper they're printed on since the state and/or the district will have the power to supersede and/or circumvent them.

Randi Weingarten Touts Access To Voting

AFT President Weingarten on Twitter:

Voting is the cornerstone of our democracy. Elected officials shld encourage, not block access to the ballot #NCVotingRights #ThisIsOurSelma

— Randi Weingarten (@rweingarten) July 14, 2015

Voting is the cornerstone of democracy says Randi - oh, the irony, coming after the furor of the last few days.

She's right, of course.

Voting is the cornerstone of democracy - it's the way we get to have a say in how we are governed.

Would have been nice to get some say in the AFT endorsement process for the 2016 election.

Instead, like everything that the AFT and/or UFT does, the process was tightly controlled and kept in the hands of a select few beholden to Randi Weingarten.

If Weingarten were honest, she'd tweet something along the lines of "Loyalty oaths are the cornerstone of AFT democracy - we control everything via the loyalty oath and patronage system."

Because that's how this endorsement went down, despite the leadership protests to the contrary about polling members.

Thing is, the curtain was pulled back a little with the Clinton endorsement and the backlash - many people were able to see how the union is run by the leadership with little regard for what the rank and file members think, feel or want.

The counterattack from the leadership to the backlash - which amounts to, too bad if you don't like the Clinton endorsement - has only underscored how little the leadership thinks or cares about the rank and file.

But reckoning is coming, you can be sure of that.

The Supreme Court has taken up the Friedrichs case and is widely expected to rule that people cannot be forced to pay union dues.

Let's see how well the AFT leadership strategy of "You don't like what we do, too bad!" works in a post-Friedrichs world where union dues can no longer be compelled.

You'd think the AFT leadership would be concerned about this and be adjusting their strategy now, treating the rank and file with courtesy and concern instead of with their customary disdain and contempt.

But you'd be wrong if you think that they might adjust pre-Friedrichs.

Instead it's same old same old, with Weingarten talking democracy and voting rights and all that good stuff on the Internet and in speeches while continuing to run the AFT like a Stalinist.

Perhaps Weingarten and the cronies and yes people around her are incapable of adjustment.

Perhaps the arrogance they suffer from does not allow for adjustment.

Whatever the case, they're simply doubling down on how they run the union, calling all the shots, insulting and/or shouting down anybody who doesn't agree with them, and continuing down the road to extinction.

Like I wrote earlier this week, I'll continue paying my dues because I think it's the right thing to do - but you can bet a whole bunch of other people will quit paying the minute they can.

Let's see how "powerful" the AFT leadership is when the dues money these parasites live off of gets cut in half.

You Can Say That Again

Tweet of the Day:

I will say it again. Andrew Cuomo is a much greater danger to teachers and public education than Time Magazine
— Mark Naison (@McFiredogg) November 1, 2014

That's why Randi Weingarten takes on TIME over an anti-teacher cover while giving Andrew Cuomo a pass for saying the public school system is a "monopoly" he plans to "break" in his next term.

The TIME cover, while not innocuous, certainly doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot in the grand scheme of things.

It's the not first anti-teacher cover they've run.

It probably won't be the last.

And I'm not sure outside the already anti-teacher Beltway circle how much influence the thing will have anyway.

Cuomo's promise to break public schools is a serious threat and one a labor leader for a teachers union ought to be pushing back against rather than defending.

But that's AFT President Randi Weingarten for you.

There's never a windmill she won't fight and a real battle with a deformer she won't run from (or worse, aid in.)

Quick Poll On UFT

This "Quick Poll" is on the UFT website:

Which classic television show most accurately portrays the high school experience?

Fame

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

The Wire (Season 4)

Freaks and Geeks

My So-Called Life

I don't really care about that poll, so I didn't respond to it, but it did give me the idea for our own little "Quick Poll" here at Perdido Street School blog:

Which classic film most accurately portrays the experience UFT rank & file have with the UFT leadership?

Rocky 

The Godfather

On The Waterfront

Double Indemnity

Invasion Of The Bodysnatchers (1956 version)

We'll tally up responses and let you know the winner.

Cuomo Signed NYSUT Leadership Pension Giveaway At Same Time Evaluation Deal Was In Works

When I first learned about Governor Cuomo signing the NYSUT leadership double pension giveaway, I figured there was some quid pro quo going on between the governor and the union leadership to get him to sign off on it.

Tonight we learn from Jessica Bakeman that there was indeed a quid pro quo:

ALBANY—Under a law approved in the final days of this year's legislative session, New York State United Teachers' elected officers will, for the first time, be able to simultaneously accrue time toward their state and private union pensions.

The law, signed by Governor Andrew Cuomo last month, allows NYSUT officers to accrue time toward their pensions through the state Teacher Retirement System while serving as union leaders. More specifically, it lets school districts offer paid leaves of absence to teachers who vacate their classroom positions to work for the union, while NYSUT reimburses the district for the officers' salaries and benefits.

After NYSUT officers serve for five years, they become vested in the union's private pension system, spokesman Carl Korn said. Therefore, officers could eventually be earning time toward both—a benefit former NYSUT president Richard Iannuzzi said is inappropriate.

...

The Legislature considered the bill at the same time Cuomo and lawmakers were negotiating changes to the state's teacher-evaluation system. The bill was introduced in early June, when Cuomo's office was engaged in closed-door negotiations with NYSUT over changes to the rating system. The Assembly passed the pension bill on June 19, the same day Cuomo announced he had reached a deal with the union, and the Senate passed it the next day.

Rather than fight the APPR teacher evaluation system, NYSUT leaders agreed to a lame change to APPR, then got Cuomo to sign off on their double pensions.

Last week I said here's another case for Preet Bharara to look into.

Now after it's revealed the pension giveaway came at the same time as the evaluation deal was getting done, I'll double down on that:

Bharara needs to look into the Cuomo/NYSUT double pension deal.

New NYSUT Leaders Revive Their Own Pensions

Norm Scott at Ed Notes Online reported this story last night:

NYSUT officers got their pals, Klein and Skelos, to pass this law giving them leaves of absences at full pay, all of it pensionable, and get Cuomo to sign it at the speed of light - for the NY State legislature.

AN ACT to amend chapter 675 of the laws of 1984 relating to providing fringe benefits for certain employees of school districts and boards of cooperative educational services, in relation to leaves of absence...

Oh, who may these "certain employees" be?

The salary paid shall be the salary the employee would have earned and received had THE EMPLOYEE remained in service in the position

A. 10019 2

1 which THE EMPLOYEE held as a full time employee at the time
2 THE EMPLOYEE was first elected as an elective officer, prior to the granting of the leave of absence based on the salary schedule in effect for the negotiating unit during each year of the leave of absence.
This act shall take effect immediately.

Why the newly elected NYSUT officers - of course, this is a priority matter. They will now get their full salary they from their old local (with pension credits) while they are state officers in NYSUT - the union reimburses their locals, but may not be asked too if the NYSUT state leadership sells out at a fast enough clip.

The law can be read in full here -

http://openstates.org/ny/bills/2013-2014/A10019/ -- if you have the stomach.

The NYSUT leaders also failed to announce this news at recent state meetings, and given passing any legislation at all would call for a victory party, there are some thoughts Karen Magee, Andy Palotta, and gang were pulling a coverup.

The bill was introduced on June 9, passed by the Assembly on June 19, passed by the State Senate on June 20 and signed by Cuomo into law on July 22.

Wondering why NYSUT decided not to endorse Teachout and stay neutral in the governor's race?

Well, Cuomo signed this pension giveaway to the NYSUT officers into law swifter than you can say "Common Core!"

Wondering why NYSUT endorsed the mobbed-up, pro-charter, pro-voucher Jeff Klein for re-election (as I was wondering)?

Well, IDC head Klein did let this come up for a vote (and then voted for it.)

Wondering why NYSUT is pushing Common Core even when the current NYSUT leadership ran against Common Core in last spring's election?

Well, Cuomo loves Common Core and NYSUT officers love double pensions and, well, you can see how all this works.

There are of course other reasons for the shenanigans around the NYSUT endorsement of Klein, the neutrality for Cuomo and the support for Common Core, but don't underestimate old time corruption like this quid pro quo giveaway to the NYSUT leadership.

These people are crooks, the crookedness displayed here is as bad as any under investigation by Preet Bharara now that he took over the Moreland Commission files and quite frankly, this ought to be one more case the US attorney should be looking into.

Just how did the pension giveaway to the NYSUT leadership get fast-tracked through the legislature and signed into law by the governor and what did the politicians involved get in return for fast-tracking it?

OPEN THREAD: What Is The UFT/AFT Strategy To Counter Attacks On Teacher Tenure/Due Process Protections?

The NY Times published an attack on teacher tenure earlier in the week in an editorial and today the NY Post followed up with a sensationalized PERV TEACHER story that is meant to drive the "Reform Tenure" narrative and bring about political action.

The attacks on teacher tenure/due process here in NY State have begun in earnest.

What is the UFT/AFT response to these attacks?

Do they have any?

I have an idea or two as a response that I'll write about at length in coming days, but they're nothing you haven't heard before.

It's important for teachers unions and teachers groups to partner with parents and parent groups to engender good will and understanding within the state, the cities and the communities.

Attacks on teachers and due process protections are less likely to work, no matter how well funded they are, if teachers unions and teachers groups are partnered with parents and parent groups on issues in which they have mutually shared interests - like calling for lower class sizes, like fighting for more funding for education, like opposing Common Core, like the fight against Endless Testing.

Alas, our union leadership doesn't do the best job of outreach to even its own members, let alone parents and others outside the union.

On some of those issues - like CCSS and testing - they're on the other side from many parents and parent groups (and teachers, for that matter!)

So I don't see a whole helluva lot coming from the union leadership that gives me confidence that we can fight the coming attacks against tenure and due process protections here in New York.

What say you?

Any ideas how the unions should counter the coming attacks?

Any ideas how teachers can do it even when they're union leadership is either too inept, incompetent or uncaring to do it for them?

Mulgrew's Sister Hit With Conflict Of Interest Warning

From the NY Post:

The sister of teachers-union President Michael Mulgrew was wrist-slapped Monday for operating a booming tutoring company that was awarded $40 million in work from the city while she was employed as a public-school teacher.

The overlapping gigs got Kathleen Mulgrew-Daretany a warning letter from the city Conflicts of Interest Board, after it determined that her work for Brienza’s Academic Advantage violated city conflict-of-interest rules.

While Mulgrew-Daretany was technically on an extended unpaid maternity leave from 2001 through 2012, she was still barred as a city employee from working at a firm that conducts business with the city.

Mulgrew-Daretany served as COO of the firm from 2008 to 2012, at which point she resigned from her teaching gig.

Officials launched a probe following inquiries by The Post about Mulgrew-Daretany’s employment.

Brienza, which also trains teachers, has raked in nearly $40 million from its work for the Department of Education since 2002.

A message left for Mulgrew-Daretany, who formerly taught at Lafayette HS in Brooklyn, wasn’t returned Monday. A UFT spokesman declined to comment.

Just how did a company that barely had any business with the city start to rake in millions of dollars after UFT President Mike Mulgrew's sister became it's COO while she was on leave from her teaching position with the DOE?

At the same time Mulgrew's sister's company is raking in the bucks, the UFT is caving left and right on teacher evaluations tied to test scores, Danielson, Common Core and all those other swell education reforms that have been used as bludgeons against teachers and schools.

Sure, maybe these two things are just coincidental, the UFT cave-in's would have happened without the Mulgrew-Daretany company raking in millions in DOE contracts.

But surely were you or I to become a COO of some tutoring company start-up, we would not rake in $40 million over our first ten years in the business.

The whole thing stinks and is just another example of how our political and union elites are nothing more than WWE wrestlers, putting on a show for us in the public ("Them's Fighting words!") while behind the scenes it's all one big pig trough of corruption and cronyism.

Leadership Of AFT Are Full Of Crap As Usual

This tweet from the AFT set me off:

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.

What The Testing Game Is All About

Norm Scott:

Well, we know what the testing game is all about and it ain't children. It's about using tests to go after teachers, close schools, end tenure, de-unionize the teaching force so they can lower salaries, and create massive turnover in a temporary teaching force so they will never have to pay pensions.

Is that enough of a mouthful for you?

So will all the sturm and drang over the "failures" of the Bloomberg admin I would disagree. Bloomberg has accomplished exactly what he intended. Sure he may take a temporary hit over the low scores but he can manage the media well enough while keeping his eye on the big prize: undermine public schools (these low test results will provide some assistance) so people will want to leave in drives and head to charters which will glom onto the higher performing students and toss the remains back into what is left of the public schools.

And I don't trust one mayoral candidate to truly resist this trend, even Di Blasio or Liu. Neo-liberalism reigns.

And of course the only thing to add to this is how the union leadership at the AFT, the NYSUT, the UFT and the NEA have "collaborated" with Bloomberg and his fellow deformers to bring us to this moment.

The education deformers and their compatriots in the media are declaring the public school system a failure in New York State today, folks.

The media is not reporting how these new Common Core tests, aligned with the NAEP scoring methodology, are rigged to show 50%-70% failing rates.

They're not reporting how the NAEP scoring methodology is controversial, as Diane Ravitch noted yesterday in this post, with many researchers finding the performance levels "fundamentally flawed" and "unreasonably high."

Nope - they're just reporting that the standards were raised, the scores fell and most New York students, teachers and schools are failures.

This is the end game - to declare the system a failure and call for drastic and disruptive "change" to solve the imaginary crisis the deformers themselves engineered.

You can bet that solution will enrich many of the deformers themselves - from Rupert Murdoch, the owner of a for profit education technology company, to Joel Klein, his henchman who runs that company, to John King, the purveyor of charter schools who no doubt will go back to the sector after he's done with his dirty work at NYSED, to Merryl Tisch, whose family sold their cigarette business and went into the for profit online education company to go along with their other interests.

It's all rigged - and our union leaders, rather than fight this, rather than expose the chicanery of the reform movement, have instead collaborated with the deformers and corporatists and privatizers to negotiate the terms of exploitation and, ultimately, surrender.

To repeat - it's all rigged.

UFT Gives Finger To Rank And File Membership With Its New Bill Thompson Ad

Yeah, I mean literally - look:

Now take a closer look:

See what I mean?

Now it's possible the guy in the ad is simply adjusting his sunglasses rather than giving the middle finger, but really, if you're the UFT and you're looking for a photograph to use for an Educators for Thompson ad (or whatever they're calling their front group for Thompson), is this the one you go with?

In an ironic twist, given what an awful comptroller Bill Thompson was, given the work he has done for the labor-busting Kurron Shares of America, given his hiring of teacher bashing Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch to co-chair his campaign, given his stance that teachers shouldn't get the 4% raises every other city worker got back in 2009, given that crooked Al D'amato is one of his biggest supporters and Mayor Bloomberg steered $43 million to $51 million to Thompson's wife's museum at the very time he was running a lackluster campaign against Bloomberg for mayor, I think this ad photo expresses perfectly what the UFT has done to its rank and file membership by endorsing Bill Thompson for mayor.

It's Mikey Mulgrew's way of saying "@#$% you!" to the membership.

More will follow for teachers if Bill Thompson wins his race to be mayor.

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?

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.

Errol Louis: Here's Why The Elites Hate Spitzer

Just about the only "pro-Spitzer" piece I've seen in the tabloids or Times:

Eliot Spitzer’s return to the electoral arena as a candidate for city controller has triggered a competition among New York’s political, media and Wall Street elites to see who can heap the most ridicule and contempt upon him.

There’s been a fair amount of religious-sounding moralizing by those who think adultery and/or hooker-hiring are deal-killers for anyone seeking or holding public office. Others employ a secular version of the same puritanical instinct, subjecting Spitzer to dime-store psychoanalysis and concluding he is too emotionally troubled to wield public power.

Here’s a reality check: A lot of the condemnation you hear is actually resentment and panic by elites who have been on the receiving end of Spitzer’s various crusades. Many of them have deep attachments to institutions that deserved every bit of the grief Spitzer caused them.

(Disclosure: My wife used to work for Spitzer, and he was a guest “Wise Guy” on the NY1 show that I host.)

I’ll get to Wall Street in a minute. Let’s start with Spitzer’s long-running battle against employers who cheat low-wage workers.

Back in 2004, a community organization called the Urban Justice Center brought to light a scandalous situation in Central Park, where a company called M&T Pretzel had vendors — mostly immigrants from Bangladesh — illegally working long shifts without overtime and in some cases without being paid minimum wage. Then-Attorney General Spitzer went after the company and secured $450,000 in back pay, plus an agreement to obey labor laws.

He did something similar in Southampton, L.I., where a contractor was forced to pay $75,000 in back wages to 18 immigrant day laborers.

Here in the city, he settled with Gristedes supermarket for $3.2 million after finding that hundreds of deliverymen, mostly African immigrants, were being paid well below the minimum wage.

The list goes on.

There is a type of New Yorker who doesn’t mind a bit if thousands of miserably exploited folk are quietly selling them pretzels in Central Park, cutting the grass at their Hamptons estate and delivering groceries in Manhattan. That type of New Yorker is probably not a Spitzer fan.

But there is another kind of New Yorker who was proud of every one of Spitzer’s wage crusades against companies like Duane Reade and Food Emporium. And when he went after Wall Street, they cheered even louder.

Spitzer forced Merrill Lynch to pay a $100 million fine — to New York and other states — for the practice of having supposedly neutral analysts tout and promote stock in companies so that another branch of Merrill could land the same company’s investment business.

It was part of a pattern: Spitzer went hard after places like Smith Barney, Morgan Stanley and AIG, exposing widespread patterns of financial firms giving favored treatment to insiders while duping the broader investing public, the ordinary people relying on mutual funds and pension payments for a comfortable retirement.

Spitzer also rang the alarm, early and often, against the financial house of cards being built on Wall Street, taking institutions to task for creating and selling all-but-worthless mortgage securities as if they were reliable investments.

The elites will never forgive Spitzer for shining a light on the insider deals. The fact he is a son of privilege — a graduate of Horace Mann, Princeton and Harvard Law and the wealthy scion of a real estate empire — makes their hatred more acute.

It’s just as well, then, that Spitzer has no intention of groveling before the Wall Streeters and political bosses for help in getting elected. He is relying on a different kind of voter — the clerks and security guards, deliverymen and laborers, small investors and retirees who benefited most from his time in public office.

Remember that the next time you read about why the notion of Spitzer as controller is supposed to be unthinkable. Unthinkable to whom?

Louis is host of the “Road to City Hall” on NY1 News.

Now you can see why Kathryn Wilde and the business criminals in this city would want to end a Spitzer campaign for comptroller before it gets started.

Question is, why do the union leaders like Michael Mulgrew and Hector Figueroa want to do the same?

It doesn't take too much of a leap of faith to wonder just what the union people want to keep hidden away from the public and their members that they're willing to pony up tons of cash to stick a stake into the heart of the Spitzer campaign.

Cuomo, Mulgrew Patronage Stories Show How Nepotism, Corruption Runs Deep In The System

Two separate stories showed up in the newspapers today showing how big a problem nepotism remains in the political system.

The NY Times revealed that Governor Andrew Cuomo uses jobs at New York State’s economic development agency to pay off political friends, associates and donors for favors and/or contributions.

The NY Post revealed UFT President Michael Mulgrew's sister, Kathleen Mulgrew-Daretany, has been hired by the NYCDOE for a $75,828 a year management position after an 11 year absence from the DOE.

Mulgrew-Daretany had been in English teacher but left the DOE on child care leave and worked as the chief operating officer for "Brienza’s Academic Advantage, a Brooklyn-based company that sells teacher-training seminars and student tutoring."

The company went from making $5,109 from the DOE in 2002 to $10.9 million in 2012 when they received an after school tutoring contract with the city.

In both the Cuomo patronage story and the Mulgrew-Daretany DOE gig story, you see that connections and political favors, not experience or expertise, were the primary drivers for employment.

For example, the Times found:

the agency hired 23-year-old Andrew Moelis, a University of Pennsylvania graduate, for another new position, strategic planning associate, at a salary of $75,000 a year.

Shortly before Mr. Moelis’s first day of work, his father, Ron Moelis, a prominent real estate developer, gave $25,000 to Mr. Cuomo’s re-election campaign, according to the records.

Could it be coincidence that a 23 year old just out of UPenn receives a $75,000 a year gig at the New York State economic development agency a few days before his daddy gives Sheriff Andy Cuomo $25,000 so he can get re-elected governor and keep cleaning up the corruption in Albany?

Probably not.

And could it be coincidence that the company Michael Mulgrew's sister helps to run receives $10.9 million from the NYCDOE in 2012 just as Mulgrew is selling his membership out on APPR, Danielson and a host of other reforms the city and the state want?

Probably not.

The quid pro quo is built into the system and these are hardly the only people engaging in this kind of stuff.

But given how Sheriff Andy was busy accusing the Buffalo teachers union and district of "borderline ethical and legal fraud" for making a memo of understanding that no teacher would be fired under the APPR evaluation system for the first year because it is untested and unproven, I find it interesting that he is engaging in real fraud by soliciting campaign funds and favors from donors and handing out jobs to their family members in return.

Similarly, given how Mike Mulgrew plays in public like he's fighting the good fight against the DOE, I find it interesting that his sister's company received a $10.9 million dollar contract from that same DOE at the same time Mulgrew is agreeing to all kinds of reforms that the people at the DOE want.

Just two more indications of how corrupt and nepotistic this political system in NYC and NY State is and how selective the enforcement of rule- and law-breaking is.

Cuomo Hands Out 0% Salary Increase, Furlough Days To SUNY Union

Why would any union agree to this contract?

Gov. Andrew Cuomo has reached a contract deal with the one of last major public unions.

The 35,000 State University of New York employees represented by United University Professions have worked without a contract since 2011. The tentative agreement calls for a zero percent wage increase from 2011 to 2013. It also calls for nine furlough days, which are referred to as a “Deficit Reduction Program.”

“This contract agreement continues the state’s commitment to fiscal discipline while recognizing the vital role our university employees play in a strong SUNY system,” Governor Cuomo said in a statement. “I am pleased that through collaboration and working together the state has been able to reach a fair agreement with United University Professions.”

United University Professions President Phillip H. Smith said, “This contract meets the unique needs of our members and meets the state’s need to achieve savings in these difficult economic times. It’s a fair contract for our union and the state.”

Sure Cuomo threatened layoffs, but a 0% salary increase and 9 furlough days is a brutal contract agreement.

If I were a member of that union, I would vote against that contract and work against that union president.

I don't give care how bad the economic times are supposed to be - that's a garbage contract agreement.

Especially when the money just went to lower the taxes of the hedge fund managers and Wall Street criminals.

I can't wait to see how Cuomo independently arbitrates the evaluation dispute between the UFT and Bloomberg.

If the outcome is anything like the contracts he's forced onto the state unions, it's going to suck wind bigger than the blasts that come out of Cuomo's mouth and Twitter account.