Fiorillo!

Michael Fiorillo, in his wonderful speech at the Delegate Assembly yesterday, punched numerous holes in the UFT leadership's position on mayoral control. Unfortunately, the Unity boat still floats as the body overwhelmingly endorsed a continuation of mayoral control, albeit with some checks that will do little to balance the equation the dictatorship by one person, no matter who that person is or will be, over the schools.

Michael made the point of tying the concept of removing entire schools systems from public control as being part of the national assault on teacher unions with the concurrent push toward privatization.

The UFT leaders, who know full well Michael was on target, prefer to mislead the members into believing it is all local. All about Klein and Bloomberg and if we only get rid of him them – even though we will do nothing to try to interfere with Bloomberg's 3rd term – things will improve.

I'm going to try to get some of Michael's notes so I can give a more complete report of his speech, which received great applause from all sides of the aisle, though not many seemed convinced enough to vote against the UFT/UNITY Caucus leadership plan.

I'll be back later with more on this DA, which had so many interesting angles. In the meantime, check out James Eterno's excellent report on the ICE blog.