How Rigged Was The AFT Endorsement Process?

Gadfly on the Wall:

The manner in which this endorsement was reached is somewhat mysterious.

This much seems certain:

1) The AFT executive board invited all of the candidates to meet with them and submit to an interview. No Republican candidates responded.

2) Democrats including Bernie Sanders, Martin O’Malley and Clinton were interviewed in private.

3) The executive committee voted to endorse Clinton.

4) NOW the interviews are scheduled to be released to the public.

This is a perplexing timetable. Why would the AFT endorse BEFORE releasing the interviews? Ostensibly, the executive council used these interviews to help make its decision. Shouldn’t that same information have been available to rank and file members of the union before an endorsement was made?

Nahh - because given Randi Weingarten's relationship with Bonnie and Clyde, er, Bill and Hillary, the endorsement was always going to be Hillary Clinton.

The interviews were a sham, the polling the AFT claims to have conducted around the endorsement was a sham, the timetable was a sham and the endorsement was a sham.

AFT leaders just happened to make it even more of a sham by announcing the endorsement so far out.

More from Gadfly:

Which polls produced which results? The press release says AFT members prefer Clinton 3-1. But even if Clinton came out on top consistently, surely the results weren’t identical on every poll. Maybe she got 75% on one and 65% on another.

The AFT hasn’t released everything, but the organization’s website gives us a memo about ONE of these phone surveys. This national survey of membership planning to vote in Democratic primaries found 67% picked Clinton. However, only 1,150 members participated! That’s a far cry from the more than 1 million cited in the press release.

...

But that’s only one survey. Where is the rest of the data? Where is the raw information from this survey? Where is the data from all these other outreach attempts and on-line activities? How many took phone surveys? How many took on-line surveys? And what were the results in each case?

If union members really did endorse Clinton, that’s fine. But many of us would like to see the proof.

There is no other data - the union conducted one poll, geared the questions to an outcome they had already decided upon, and used this as "proof" that 1.6 million AFT members wanted Hillary Clinton endorsed.

The process was rigged for an outcome Weingarten wanted.

The Hillary Clinton endorsement 16 months out from the actual election is just the latest example of how the AFT is a sham union run by sham union leaders who see the union as a vehicle for their own ambitions, aggrandizement, and financial benefit.

Arthur Goldstein: The Cuomo Teacher Evaluation System Is A Sham

Arthur Goldstein on using test scores to rate teachers:

Starting in the fall, for the third year in a row, New York City teachers will be judged by a new evaluation system. Gov. Cuomo suggests we don’t want to be evaluated like professionals, but that’s wrong. What we want is to be evaluated using a reasonable system that will help us improve.

There is no evidence that evaluating teachers based on gains in student test scores will improve teacher quality. The American Statistical Association estimates teachers affect test scores by a factor of 1% to 14% , and that evaluating teachers by scores may actually reduce quality.

Another problem is the way New York’s tests are scored. When John King announced 70% of students would fail new Common Core-based tests before they were given, the state Education Department took the graded tests and set the cut scores so they did.

These tests are rigged to produce whatever results the pols want — and right now they want public schools and teachers to look bad. It is absurd that the governor finds these tests unsuitable to rate children but acceptable to rate teachers.

Arthur Goldstein on using outside observers to rate teachers:

As for outside observers — another supposed advance in the new system — will they know that I’m not calling on Jenny in the back because she just arrived from El Salvador in the last week, has missed six months of instruction and I don’t wish to humiliate her? How will they know that, though I’m incredibly busy, I’ve offered to teach an additional class to help newcomers catch up?

They won’t. They will take everything out of context, which is the worst possible way to judge an educator’s work.

A sham system indeed.

But of course, that's by design.

Governor Cuomo was unhappy that his previous redo of the teacher evaluation - which he bragged was "state of the art" early on - didn't produce as many fired teachers as he wanted.

So now we have the latest iteration that he has imposed in the state budget.

The aim here is to rate more teachers "ineffective" and fire them.

Alas, no one knows exactly how this will be achieved because the internals of the system have yet to be designed or revealed - NYSED has until the end of June to work that out.

This is going to be another half-assed rush job, just like a previous iteration that got shoved through under the pressure of the Race to the Top money.

This one's got little support outside of Cuomo himself and his charter school supporters (who won't actually be a part of the evaluation system!) so when the system falls apart (and make no mistake, an evaluation system that is half-baked and rushed into implementation will fall apart), we'll be back here again in a couple of years looking to find a way to evaluate teachers.

By that time, I hope we have some politicians of conscience (ha!) who will push to develop a system that is like the one Arthur Goldstein says he wants - one that is fair and meant to drive improvement, not one that is a "gotcha" system meant to fail (and fire) many.

Meritocracy, American Style

Everybody who makes a lot of money or enjoys great wealth worked very hard to get that - everybody knows that.

Take the example of Chelsea Clinton, for example:

Chelsea Clinton earned an annual salary of $600,000 at NBC News before switching to a month-to-month contract earlier this year, sources with knowledge of the agreement told POLITICO.

Clinton, who joined NBC News as a special correspondent in November 2011, was up for renewal or nonrenewal this year. Instead, the sources said, the network decided to keep her on the payroll on a month-to-month basis so the two parties could sever ties if Clinton’s mother, Hillary Clinton, runs for president.

...

When Clinton joined NBC, many media critics chafed at the network’s decision to employ a former first daughter with no experience in journalism. The New York Post referred to Clinton as “just another spoiled, aimless child of rich, successful parents chauffeured through adulthood by Mommy and Daddy’s connections.”

Yet Clinton’s appointment did not mark the first time NBC Universal had hired children of high-ranking politicians. In 2009, it hired George W. Bush’s daughter Jenna Bush Hager to serve as a correspondent on the “Today” show. In 2011, it hired Sen. John McCain’s daughter Meghan McCain as a contributor on MSNBC.

According the Daily News, Clinton is considered "demanding" and not very talented as a journalist by her fellow NBC journalists.

Though the network said she was “warmly welcomed” to headquarters at Rock Center, others described Clinton as demanding and underwhelming in her journalistic chops.

“There were ground rules, what she could and couldn’t report, only good news, no politics,” one NBC insider told BuzzFeed in 2012 about the process of bring her onboard.

I wonder how many stories she did for $600,000?

Nice work if you can get it.

But you can't.

Unless your Chelsea Clinton, Jenna Bush or Megan McCain.

While I'm sure Luke Russert isn't making anywhere near what the above three are from NBC, there's another fine example of “just another spoiled, aimless child of rich, successful parents chauffeured through adulthood by Mommy and Daddy’s connections.”

Meritocracy, American-style.