ATRs Push Union on Rally: Teaching Fellows Firing Date Upcoming

UPDATED LEAFLET

Click to enlarge

Phew! Things are still rolling along on the ATR issue.

The firing date of Dec. 5 for the new Teaching Fellows who are still ATRs is coming up fast.

Lorri Giovinco-Hart at the NYC Education Examiner has an excellent post The Strange Mess of the NYC Teaching Fellows:

I have some serious doubts about alternative teacher certification programs like Teach for America and The New York City Teaching Fellows. I think it is a serious injustice to send teachers who have been given a few weeks of training to work with needy populations of students for a short period of time.
....
Despite my misgivings about such programs, I cannot help but feel compassion for the 100 or so Teaching Fellows who are being threatened with termination.

They are promised training and support and are often attracted by recruiting techniques which appeal to their desire to make a difference. They instead, often find themselves struggling to work in rough environments in which the promised support does not come.

Now, many of them are learning that what was promised to them has has not materialized and they may be unemployed in a very expensive city to which they have relocated.

...the situation has turned into a large mess, and The New Teacher Project may find themselves in the position of answering questions by a pretty angry group of people who have been organizing their efforts.

The entire piece is here.

The amendment calling for a rally at Tweed passed by the October Delegate Assembly in spite of the UFT leadership's attempt to subvert it has not resulted in a date being set for the rally yet. What a surprise. That hasn't stopped the ATR Ad Hoc Organizing Committee.

They're pretty hocked off at how the NY Teacher presented what happened at the DA. I'm reprinting their letter to the editor, which they published today on their blog:
http://www.supportatrs.blogspot.com/

To the New York Teacher:

New York Teacher Distorts ATR Citywide Rally Amendment

The latest issue of the New York Teacher asserts twice in its October 15th DA Report that our ATR amendment calls "to hold a citywide rally demanding the DOE reduce class size through assigning added positions to ATRs."

HERE IS THE ACTUAL AMENDMENT THAT WAS VOTED ON AT THE DELEGATE ASSEMBLY. AN ADDITIONAL HARD COPY OF THE AMENDMENT WAS FURNISHED UPON REQUEST BY ASSISTANT SECRETARY ROBERT ASTROWSKY.

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the UFT will organize a mass citywide rally to show our unity and strength, calling on the NYC Department of Education to reduce class size and give assigned positions to all teachers in the Absent Teacher Reserve who want assignments before any new teachers are hired.

Your report misrepresents the amendment, as it fails to communicate to UFTers the grave importance of not allowing the DOE to hire new teachers until ATR teachers who wish to be are assigned. This is a crucial demand of the rally, not simply "added positions." It fails to recognize that many of our most talented and experienced colleagues yearn for permanent positions after being arbitrarily deprived of those positions by any number of circumstances including, class size reduction, school restructuring and the opening of new schools.

The next Delegate Assembly is scheduled for November 12.

How can you help?

Share the leaflet with your colleagues. You have the right use the mailboxes and UFT bulletin boards, as affirmed by the recent federal court ruling.

Join the other 103 schools by signing petitions of support.

The latter action is a major button to push to spur the leadership into action (believe me, if not for these petitions, Randi would have made sure the rally vote never lived). Imagine if it were 500 schools. The sidebar on the right has these ATR links.

• The Real Facts About ATRs
• ATR Motion for DA
• ATR Call for Action at the Delegate Assembly

Some ATRs at Lafayette HS are urging teachers to write the UFT directly:

Dear UFT Members:

On October 15, the Delegate Assembly of the UFT passed a resolution to hold a citywide rally to support the ATRs by demanding that the DOE freeze hiring of new teachers until they provide programs for the ATRs (highly qualified teachers, now 1400 +) and RTRs (newly enrolled Teaching Fellows (about 140). No date has yet been set for the rally.

If you are a union member, please email Leroy Barr of the Action Committee of the UFT and ask him to set a pre-Thanksgiving date for the citywide rally (presumably to held at Tweed). He can be reached at lbarr@uft.org.

ATR Report from the Front Lines of the Delegate Assembly

With momentum building and over 100 schools signing petitions supporting ATRs, Unity tried its usual tricks at Tuesday night's Exec Bd meeting by removing provisions from the ad hoc committee tying the ATR issue to class size and calling for a UFT rally at Tweed supporting ATRs.

The large number of ATRs that consisted of experienced teachers and first year Teaching Fellows had an impact. With the usual one hour plus Weingarten filibuster squeezing a massive agenda into a short period of time, the ATR debate finally came up around 6PM. HS VP Leo Casey started the ball rolling with one of the phoniest speeches in the history of the DA. Full of false emotion about how an injury to one was an injury to all. Tina Fey will be doing Casey pretty soon.

Then John Powers, Chapter Leader of Liberation HS who has burst upon the scene in the last year with his push to stop the GHI/HIP merger, made one of the great speeches I've heard at a DA. In amending the Unity motion he called for the provisions they took out the night before –the rally and the tie to class size reduction.

John knew how to throw some praise the union leadership's way to keep the Unity dogs from chewing at his leg as he spoke. John was so effective that just as he was cataloging the 2 previous motions on ATRs passed by Unity over the last year which have had no impact, Randi jumped in to interrupt him - her usual tactic designed to throw effective people off their game. (In fact she has no right to do that unless you are way over the time limit.) But John handled even this well and finished up his speech with a great summary. It was one of those times I wish I had a recording. (Maybe Elizabeth Green's supposed "spy" has a copy - see previous post.)

Randi then tried another maneuver. At first she ruled it was a friendly amendment that could be included with the Unity motion to be voted on as one. But a little bird whispered in her ear and she then tried to separate it from the rest because of the way John had motivated it which had implied criticisms of the leadership.

James Eterno and others called out they were voting on the amendment and the motion, not the method of motivation. I actually was looking forward to having Randi signal the troops to vote against John's call to reduce class size by assigning ATRs. But she thought better of it, knowing full well she could hold the usual UFT rally like she did the rubber room rally last year to mollify people and then forget the issue. I mean there was a real threat the ATRs would hold a rally without the UFT and that is just too dangerous for Unity.

So when the vote was taken, a number of people in the Unity crowd weren't sure what to do. Did Randi signal up or down? Obviously they were prepared to vote the amendment down of she had separated it. Randi is certainly good at sensing the political wind and she made it clear this was a "go." It passed overwhelmingly, a victory - sort of. Now the ad hoc committee needs to get people from those 100 plus schools while getting more schools to sign the petition and bring people from these schools out to the rally since the UFT Leadership will only bring out the usual 1000 people.

Marjorie Stamberg the key organizer of the ad hoc ATR teachers sent the following report on the DA and the ATR's.


We Got the Rally
by Marjorie Stamberg

We got the rally! They changed gears over night from the e-board. Now the hard work begins to build it in the schools and bring out everyone to make a strong statement that the whole union stands with the ATRs, and we will not allow our colleagues to be victimized.

Due to the hard and dedicated work of so many people, we were successful tonight at the Delegate Assembly. We had a great presence outside the meeting, of ATRs, RTRs (the teaching fellows who face termination) and quite a few of us union activists who have been working on the issue. I think this really had an effect, and made clear to the leadership how teachers across this city are outraged over the disgraceful way the ATRs have been treated.

We handed out hundreds of copies of our motion calling for a mass rally, the fact sheet entitled "The Real Facts About ATRs" and a reprint of the dramatic scene at Canarsie HS when teachers were excessed en masse. I reported yesterday about how the UFT exec board had come up with a counter motion that paralleled ours, but omitted the key issues of smaller class size, and the city wide rally. After the e-board last night, we had decided that we would present an amendment to put these two points back in, because that way we could get a discussion on the floor. So that's what we did

John Powers spoke passionately to motivate the amendment. He talked about the 2005 contract which gave up seniority. He made the point that there have been two previous motions passed on ATRS that didn't have any teeth to them and kind of faded away while....the ATRs multiplied. Even before he started talking, Randi Weingarten said she considered the amendment to be "friendly" and "within the four corners of the original motion" -- quite a change from the reception we got last night. So obviously, the leadership decided that they better get out in front of this, rather than just opposing it. Good!

So now we have to continue and double the hard work we began. We can't count on the leadership building this. For it to be effective, we have to continue the grassroots work we've begun. We have reached more than 103 schools, and gotten hundreds of signatures. Now we need to get back to the people who signed and tell them that they're support had an effect. Now we need to reach others in the schools and build the rally.

One important thing that happened was getting to talk to so many teachers, in the big high schools, but also the "small schools," and the elementary and middle schools. We are also working with the teaching fellows, who are actually in more peril at the moment than anyone. So we showed we won't be divided.

I think we're going to want to have a meeting to start organizing this, and it will be important to get as many different schools represented as possible. I'd like to canvas people as to when might be a good time. Sometime next week? Tuesdays or Thursdays are out, unfortunately. On the weekend?

We have to talk with the leadership about setting a date for the rally. The place we want is in front of Tweed courthouse-. I think in those schools that have been hard hit, like Lafayette, Tilden, Canarsie, etc, it would be great to really bring out those schools, including students and parents. And we'll want some sizable groups from some of the other big high schools.

So let's brainstorm ideas and come up with a plan, Sam. Doggone it, we're gonna do it. You betcha. (sorry, couldn't resist)

Also, please talk to the ATRs in your school-- this is everyone's fight!

--Marjorie


Thanks to all who worked hard the last few weeks to bring the ATR issue to fore. There are many unsung persons who stepped forward to voice their opinions and galvanize support, and let's give special credit to the Ad Hoc Committee to Let the ATRs Teach and to Marjorie for initiating and coordinating the campaign.

We should not underestimate the significance of our success in getting the rally nor the difficulty of the task to make it a successful demonstration. I believe this campaign can bring out the latent energy of hundreds of teachers to fight in their interests and the interests of their union. One example: When I got to the DA today, a Lafayette teacher (not an ATR) who had decided to come to the DA for the first time was already out in front passing out the ATR motion.

Robert

Weingarten Attacks Green at DA

UPDATED

In a typical attempt to put up a straw man - or woman- as a way to distract delegates from the attempt to convince than that 4 more years of the hated BloomKlein gang would be tolerable, Randi Weingarten suddenly turned on former NY Sun reporter Elizabeth Green who is now reporting for Gotham Schools.

"Liz Green is reporting this meeting blow by blow as it occurs," Weingarten bleated. Liz, this is a private meeting and what you are doing is unethical. You are a better reporter than that." She went on to talk about how there are always leakers. Usually she looks my way when she says this but I was lurking way in the back of the vistors section after being banished there by Weingarten a few years ago. Speaking of leaking, I went out to pee, so I am not guilty of leaking (to Elizabeth). But I did call Elizabeth to leave a message that she was under assault.

Weingarten in an extraordinary show of demagoguery, left an impression that Green was somehow listening into the meeting. A number of delegates thought Green was in the room blogging live when in fact she was in front of the building interviewing ATRs at the time.

Green was outside inteviewing ATRs and had gotten a call from a delegate that the meeting was overflowing and about to discuss the term limit question. That was what appeared on the Gotham Schools blog.

Below are excerpts from Green's post at Gotham Schools that Weingarten referred to, clearly purely on hearsay. Green wrote, "It’s standing room only!” my source at the meeting just said via cell phone."

That's it? Calling Green unethical for telling the world it's standing room only? Maybe the real story is that DA's are held in a room that holds a max of 850 when there are over 3000 delegates (about a thousand showed up and many will not return after this wonderful experience.) Was Weingarten worried the fire marshalls would read Green's blog and rush in with hoses and axes?

No reporter has consistently pointed out the holes in the Tweed cheese and reported the point of view of teachers over the past year than Green.

Weingarten owes Green a public apology.

Right now at 52 Broadway, pressure to stand firmer on term limits by Elizabeth Green

The teachers union will vote on its final stance on term limits this afternoon, at a meeting of the union’s delegate assembly that is beginning now. (”It’s standing room only!” my source at the meeting just said via cell phone.) The expectation is that the delegates will support the resolution passed last night by the executive board, which urged a voter referendum rather than Bloomberg’s proposed City Council route for changing term limits.

But new amendments could be added, and whatever debate occurs will likely turn on how strongly the UFT should oppose Bloomberg. The resolution passed last night does not state a position for or against term limits, and it does not challenge the mayor on any points; rather, it projects, as president Randi Weingarten’s first statement did, a sense of the seriousness of the economic crisis — and keeps open a door for supporting a third Bloomberg term through a referendum. The idea communicated last night, according to one source who was there, is not to spend too much “political capital” on fighting the mayor on term limits, when other fights (such as the budget) are around the corner.

Not everyone at the union wants to play this safe route. Among teachers, there is a lot of animosity toward the Bloomberg administration, especially among the veterans who are the most active in UFT politics, and some are voicing that. Today, an opposition group that often pushes Weingarten, the Independent Community of Educators, will push its own resolution, which would have the union cut off funding from City Council members who vote for changing term limits, a member of ICE’s steering committee, Jeff Kaufman, told me. (The union’s PAC, UFT COPE, gives thousands of dollars to Council members each cycle.)

So far Weingarten has tended to angry members by drawing a line between him and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein: Klein is the bad guy, and she agrees he’s bad; Bloomberg is okay. But it’s hard to imagine Bloomberg tossing Klein, so supporting Bloomberg will be very difficult for Weingarten.

We’ll keep you posted on how the union votes.

Here is the link: http://gothamschools.org/2008/10/15/right-now-at-52-broadway-pressure-to-stand-firmer-on-term-limits/

Note Green mentions Jeff Kaufman, who was not at the DA (for those Unity huckleberries who look to blame the 10 plagues on Kaufman).

UFT Seeks to Coopt ATR Issue at Delegate Assembly

They sit practically silent on issues crucial to teachers. But when people get so fed up with UFT leadership's inaction and start to organize themselves, they jump in and coopt the movement. The goal? To subvert, undermine, obfuscate, divide. (Add any other words that fit.) Prime Example (amongst numerous ones): rubber room protests coopted by the UFT.

Now things are repeating themselves with ATRs, who have begun to meet and organize outside the UFT structure and are becoming a strong lobbying group. So the UFT seeing their resolution being handed out at this afternoon's DA and with over 100 schools signing their petition, came up with their own emergency – for the leadership – reso to try to undercut the growing anger and militancy.

What's interesting about the mostly senior teachers organizing the campaign is that they are allying with some newbie Teaching Fellows who are also ATRs. I received this last night.

Mr. Scott,
I am a first year teacher. I have an issue getting assistance from the UFT. NYC Teaching Fellows hired ~1900 new teachers. 220 were unhired by schools on opening day. Those of us were assigned to the "teacher reserve" and loaned out to schools the program says we have a contract that allows them to boot us by Dec. 5th I have contacted the UFT many times about negotiating this issue working on helping us, etc.

Some 56% of the 220 were hired in the meanwhile (according to the NYC Fellows program who will not supply that data for us). So we have roughly 100 dues-paying members asking the UFT for help (I have an organization of almost 25 of them-- can't reach the rest of them.)

The UFT has ignored, stalled, and wasted our time.

It hasn't taken this new teacher much time to "get" the UFT.

Here is Marjorie Stamberg's report from yesterday's Exec Bd. meeting.

Robert and I went to the E-board tonight, as well as three other teachers who have been supporting the ATR issue. Robert and I both spoke at the open mike, and submitted the petitions -- which have come in from over 103 schools at last count, and a list of high schools that run off the page. I said it was good the NY Teacher finally had a spread on ATRs, but how come we had to learn from the NY Post that there are more than 1,400 ATR teachers. And how we're sick of hearing how well the open market works, when teachers are sending literally hundreds of resumes and never even getting a call for an interview.

Robert spoke powerfully on the situation of ATRs at Lafayette. He ended, saying, "Let the DOE eliminate the anti-ATR New Teacher Project consulting contract, counter-productive testing programs, and high executive salaries. Let them consolidate some schools. But Let ATRs Teach and keep all teachers in the classrooms."

Unity's plan for the D.A. tomorrow:

The ATR issue is so hot, and there is such strong feeling that the union has not been fighting on this issue, so now that we're building a movement, the UFT leadership is rushing to get out in front. Thus, their tactic tonight was to put up their own motion, as a counter to ours. It is signed by five of the top officers and Unity people (Casey, LeRoy Barr, Mike Mendel, Mike Mulgrew and Karen Alford). They passed it at the E-board and will put it up for a vote tomorrow night at the D.A. as a "special order of business."

I scanned their motion and am attaching it here for those who want an advance look at it. [Ed Note: I'm not including it here. Email me if you want a copy. You can see the Ad hoc committee motion, their petition, which all of you should pass around your schools, and their fact sheet by clicking on the links at the top of the sidebar.]

Many of the points they raise piggy back on ours in a soggy way. Other points pat themselves on the back for what they've been doing for ATRs (!). Most importantly, however, two elements are not there. They do not make the link to smaller class size, which is our link to the parents and community. And the key element missing, of course, is the centrality of the petition and our motion -- the call on the UFT to mobilize the membership and hold a mass rally outside the DOE to say there be no more hiring till all ATRs who want positions are placed.

Naturally, they don't want to make any powerful statement that would challenge Klein or Bloomberg. That is clear from the discussion they had on term limits.

Their own conclusion that they are going to deal with this issue by talking about it on blogs and on the NY Teacher is so empty that even some of their own supporters can see how hollow it is.

I think tomorrow we have to make it clear to everybody that what's happening to the ATRs is not going to be solved by soft-soaping the issue. If the UFT is not willing to go into the street over this, it will get a lot worse--they'll just keep on closing schools with abandon.

I think we need to insist that teachers at over 103 schools at last count signed petitions calling for action and that this represents a widespread feeling among the membership. A mass mobilization of the whole union would be a powerful show of support for the ATRS--that we are all behind them!And we need to link this to the issue of lowering class size by assigning teachers to classrooms.

We may end up amending their motion. That way we can for sure get our call for a mass mobilization on the floor, whereas presenting a new motion requires support of two-thirds of the delegates to even get discussed. In a way, amending their motion makes the counter-position even clearer. The fact that they feel obliged to present something highlights the situation and the fact they are not putting any muscle behind their demands, and we are calling for mobilizing union power. But when this is put forward we need a real vocal show of support.

We need people to help pass out the motion and the ATR fact sheet, contact lists tomorrow night, and help talk to the press outside --so please come as early as possible.

--Marjorie

Well, off to do battle at the DA armed with a hard copy of Ed Notes, the ICE leaflet, the anti high stakes NYCORE testing leaflet, some ATR stuff and copies of our review of the Kahlenberg Shanker book "Al Shanker: Ruthless Neocon."

The mule is loaded and ready to go.

ATR Urgent Campaign: Gather Outside the UFT Delegate Assembly

Update from the ATR ad hoc committee
If you are an ATR or know of any or if you want to support ATRs please circulate their petition around your school and post their fact sheet. Also urge your delegate and chapter leader to support their motion at the Delegate Assembly. Every teacher is potentially an ATR. The DOE can manipulate just about any school into being closed by packing it with kids and withholding resources.


On Wednesday, October 15, we will gather outside the UFT Delegate Assembly, starting at 3:30, 52 Broadway. Please join us outside and stay for the D.A. if you can. We'll be there with press packets, petitions, fact sheets -- we need to get out the ATRs real story.

We're calling on the UFT to hold a rally in front of the Department of Education and demand all ATRs who want positions be placed before any new teachers are hired. We also need to advocate for teaching fellows who have been told they will be "terminated" if they are not placed in positions by December.

Here's the update:

We're starting to push back against the slanderous ATR teacher-bashing in the media, as well as the wall of silence from the UFT on the "invisible" ATRS. It looks like several reporters are working on stories for the NY media. And after months of near-silence, the New York Teacher finally has a two-page spread on ATRs, including personal accounts from the teachers themselves.

Petitions are coming in from many schools--both the big high schools, and also, importantly, from some of the new "small schools". This is important because we need unity between us union-savvy veteran teachers and the newer teachers whom the DOE has tried to separate out in the small schools.

Some teachers will also present the petitions at the UFT Exec Board meeting on Tuesday October14, 6 pm, at 52 Broadway. Come if you can!

There's still time to petition at your school.

Here is the petition, the motion that will be presented at the D.A., and a fact sheet entitled "Not the NY Post -- The Real Facts about the ATRs."

----Marjorie Stamberg, ATR Ad hoc committee

View pdfs
The Real Facts About ATRs
http://a.nnotate.com/php/pdfnotate.php?d=2008-10-13&c=yUucG6w9#page1

Petition to UFT: Let ATRs Teach
http://a.nnotate.com/php/pdfnotate.php?d=2008-10-13&c=LoVTXkJZ#page1

ATR Motion for Delegate Assembly
http://a.nnotate.com/php/pdfnotate.php?d=2008-10-13&c=yUucG6w9#page1

SICK OF THE TESTING MADNESS? Come out with NYCoRE to fight testing!

Get involved!

Come out on Wednesday, October 15th to the UFT delegate assembly. Justice-not-just-tests is going to be leafleting and talking to UFT delegates from schools all over the city about the problems with high stakes testing. We need to get our union on the right side of this issue. Meet us outside the UFT building, 52 Broadway, near Exchange place, anytime after 3:30 till 6:15-6:30.

Please RSVP to sam_p_coleman@yahoo.com if you plan to come or have questions.

NYCoRE

Justice Not Just Tests

Ed Note: Education Notes and ICE members have been working with NYCoRE and its subgroup JNJT on a number of projects. A number of us attended last week's "Get to Know NYCoRE" meeting and it was a pleasure to see a group of committed younger teachers who are prepared to go beyond the classroom to create a movement for change.

We support this initiative, which is coming from younger teachers who entered the system recently and are now taking a good hard look at how the UFT has been operating. Future activities will be the distribution of the JNJT pamphlet opposing merit pay, focusing on schools that have voted for merit pay and reinforcing those schools that voted against.

We have also been working with Teachers Unite on some of their initiatives in getting teachers to work in their communities and also to get them more active in the UFT.

This is not about caucus politics or running in UFT elections. It is about building a broadbased movement for progressive change in education, a big component of which includes changes in the UFT, the elephant in the room.

Is Clinton Strategy Designed to Undermine Obama Chances to Win?

What role will the UFT/AFT play if Obama is the nominee?

On Feb. 12, in part 2 of our post on Randi's Succession, we wrote:

[Randi's] plan being to use a national forum [as AFT President] to help Hillary get elected. Ooops! Actually, if Obama is the candidate and loses to McCain, Hillary becomes very viable in 2012, so think long-term. Who do you think the Weingarten/Clinton forces will really be rooting for?) An Obama loss and AFT HQ becomes Hillary Central.

If Obama gets the nomination and loses to McCain, Hillary gets to say "I told you so" and becomes the instant candidate for 2012. At the time, I read the piece to my wife, upon which she, basically a Hillary supporter at the time, said "WHY? HOW COULD THEY WANT McCAIN?" I responded because for the Clintons and their supporters it is about them, not the party. I told her we would be watching the true level of enthusiasm Randi Weingarten and the AFT/UFT have for Obama – oh, there will be lots of surface stuff, but with Randi's star so hitched to Hillary, an Obama win, leaving Hillary in Siberia, would not be part of the plan.

Today, Maureen Dowd ("Hillary or Nobody") raises this same point (has she been reading my blog?):

Even some Clinton loyalists are wondering aloud if the win-at-all-costs strategy of Hillary and Bill — which continued Tuesday when Hillary tried to drag Rev. Wright back into the spotlight — is designed to rough up Obama so badly and leave the party so riven that Obama will lose in November to John McCain.

If McCain only served one term, Hillary would have one last shot. On Election Day in 2012, she’d be 65.

Why else would Hillary suggest that McCain would be a better commander in chief than Obama, and why else would Bill imply that Obama was less patriotic — and attended by more static — than McCain?

Why else would Phil Singer, a Hillary spokesman, say in a conference call with reporters on Tuesday that Obama was trying to disenfranchise the voters of Florida and Michigan. “When it comes to voting, Senator Obama has turned the audacity of hope into the audacity of nope,” he said, adding, “There’s a basic reality here, which is we could have avoided the entire George W. Bush presidency if we had counted votes in Florida.” So is Singer making the case that Obama is as anti-democratic as W. was when he snatched Florida from Al Gore?

Some top Democrats are increasingly worried that the Clintons’ divide-and-conquer strategy is nihilistic: Hillary or no democrat.

(Or, as one Democrat described it to ABC’s Jake Tapper: Hillary is going for “the Tonya Harding option” — if she can’t get the gold, kneecap her rival.)

A few days ago, David Brooks ("The Long Defeat") estimated Hillary's chances of getting the nomination as at best 5% and he wondered why she would be risking the party's chances by undermining Obama to such an extent he can't win.

When you step back and think about it, she is amazing. She possesses the audacity of hopelessness.

Why does she go on like this? Does Clinton privately believe that Obama is so incompetent that only she can deliver the policies they both support? Is she simply selfish, and willing to put her party through agony for the sake of her slender chance? Are leading Democrats so narcissistic that they would create bitter stagnation even if they were granted one-party rule?

We've speculated (here and here) on the lack of democracy in the way Randi Weingarten went about steamrollering the UFT into supporting Hillary Clinton (Are there NO Obama supporters in the UFT, in particular amongst Black UFT'ers and in particular Unity Caucus?) by not allowing the Delegate Assembly to even discuss the endorsement, denying Obama supporters at least the sense of fairness.

Unity Caucus discipline will take care of their Black members. It is hard to believe that not even one Unity Caucus Black member would not be for Obama, with polling numbers around the nation showing a massive drift of Black voters moving from Hillary to Obama.... But in the "democracy" in Unity Caucus, democratic centralism will suppress any sense of support for Obama.

It's all about how to manage the membership. The UFT payed [Hillary advisor] Howard Wolfson to advise them on how to use massive UFT resources in Hillary's campaign without having to go through an endorsement by the members or even hold a discussion where Obama supporters might get to raise a stink.

With the end-game approaching, let's see if members of Unity Caucus are freed to express their enthusiasm for Obama. Randi, hedging her bets as usual, did do some gentle trashing of Obama's positions on education at a recent DA. The UFT (it will take Randi a bit of time to turn over the top level of the AFT in her image) will make it look like they support Obama, while undermining him. This is where Weingarten is at her most brilliant. Feinting left while going right. Or is it feinting right and going left? Actually, it's both at the same time.

There is sure to be some resentment of Black members within Unity Caucus if the UFT slacks off. Mike Mulgrew, Michelle Bodden and other supposed Weingarten successors will have their work cut out for them avoiding cracks in the machine.

I will miss the daily obfuscation show in the UFT when she starts racing around the county this July after her election as AFT president campaigning for Hillary – in '12.

The UFT Delegate Assembly

Early reports on the March Delegate Assembly was that the UFT passed a resolution in support of the Puerto Rican teachers. Considering info coming in as recently as last Friday, this did not seem very likely and we look forward to getting the full story. Can this be a sign of an opening move on Randi's part to offer an olive branch to FMPR in an attempt to wool them back to the AFT? Can it be that Change to Win and Dennis Rivera have opened up a border war and Randi has decided to put up a fight for the 45,000 members as a sign of the new leadership in the AFT to come?

On other issues at the March DA, which I didn't attend due to my being in London meeting with the Queen, who has asked me to manage the Crown's financial affairs on the recommendation of Michael Bloomberg (thanks for the biz, Mike), we will soon be hearing from a gaggle of people - check the ICE blog for the latest.

In the meantime, Marian Swerlow was kind enough to share her extensive notes from the Feb. DA and even though the March DA is already passed, it is worth reading these to get the full context of what is going on. For many years when I published the hard copy of Ed Notes, Marian's DA reports were a regular feature. Marian's analysis is her own and not that of TJC of which she is one of the leaders.

One point I would add to her report is the almost insane reaction of Unity to ICE's attempt to place an item calling for a motion on reopening the contract on letter in the file over an increase in U-ratings (which the UFT denies.) Since we published the reso on our blogs and Randi is one of our main readers (maybe the only) Unity rushed out their own toothless version (oh, the poor trees that die for their hubris) and unveiled it at around 6pm when Randi filibustered the New Motion period to that time (she said she HAD to do the new motion so she would not have to read about her cancelling the time (as she did a few times this year) on this blog. Shouldn't she be spending ALL her time trying to get Hillary elected?)

This all got me into some hot water with some of my ICE colleagues because I was the one who is always in favor of putting out stuff out there in advance but my buddies argue that Unity is so weak in thinking on their feet, we should just bang them with the stuff the day of the DA. I used to do some of the same stuff at DA's, hiding behind someone bigger and just holding my card up. Then I used to move around the room but they seemed to have spotters. I was ready to come in drag but luckily retired.


UFT February Delegate Assembly Report
February 6, 2008
by Marian Swerdlow
UFT Delegate, FDR High School, Brooklyn

(The views expressed in these notes are those of the author alone. They do not necessarily reflect the positions of any caucus.)

Perhaps the best part of the lamentable D.A. experience is that when you walk in the door, almost a dozen UFT members are handing out caucus literature, individual screeds, resolutions or proposed amendments. Since the discussion on the floor is almost completely controlled by Weingarten's rigid chairing, this is the freest part of the D.A.

On Feb. 6, the lit being distributed included Norm Scott's half-page of Ed Notes, asking such trenchant questions as "how [could] the UFT [have] supported Clinton without going through an official endorsement process" and "Did [New Action] mention how many of the NA leadership are on the UFT payroll?" New Action, the Unity-caucus sponsored "opposition" had a leaflet, too, which (no surprise) "asks you to support all resolutions on today's agenda." Another UFT member was giving out a "Resolution Protesting Repression Against Puerto Rican Teachers." The FMPR, which represents teachers there, broke several years ago with the AFT (the UFT's parent union, controlled by the national counterpart of the Unity caucus). It violated Puerto Rico's version of the Taylor Law by authorizing a strike after two years of working without a contract, so the government decertified it (took away its legal right to represent the teachers). My own caucus, Teachers for a Just Contract, was there with the rest, handing out a leaflet calling on members to organize to "defend the rights Weingarten and Unity haven't gotten around to giving back yet." And, of course, Unity was there with a leaflet boasting about its "achievements": the 55/25 retirement option they've wringing mileage out of since 2005 and the right to remove letters from the file after three years (which in 2005 replaced our previous, much more useful, right to grieve "unfair, inaccurate" material immediately).

President Weingarten began her "President's Report" by talking about the NY Times' story on January 21 exposing the fact that as many as 2,500 teachers in 140 schools were being rated by the DoE by their students' progress on tests. The DoE was considering how to use the data collected this way: "While officials say it is too early to determine how they will use the data, which is already being collected, they say it could eventually be used to help make decisions on teacher tenure or as a significant element in performance evaluations and bonuses. And they hold out the possibility that the ratings for individual teachers could be made public. ‘If the only thing we do is make this data available to every person in the city — every teacher, every parent, every principal, and say do with it what you will — that will have been a powerful step forward,' said Chris Cerf, the deputy schools chancellor who is overseeing the project. ‘If you know as a parent what's the deal, I think that whole aspect will change behavior.'"

The most shocking part of the story for some of us, however, was that "the United Federation of Teachers, the city's teachers' union, has known about the experiment for months." Weingarten tried to spin this, claiming, "I told you I was worried about it." She hammered away at the message that it could not be used for tenure decisions. But if it were, all the UFT would do is bring a lawsuit. And that could help only when est scores were explicitly cited when the teacher was refused tenure. What if other pretexts were given for denying tenure, when test scores were the real reason? The UFT could do nothing then. And, perhaps more galling, the DoE is threatening to "make this data available to every person in the city": a shaming technique which would have a powerful negative effect on the teachers. Weingarten said nothing about stopping the DoE from doing this, because it can't be done with a lawsuit. It would take the kind of militant pressure she's spent her years in office downplaying. Perhaps she did tell the D.A. she was worried about this experiment, but she should have made it clear to the DoE that the union opposed this, and mobilized us to prevent it.

At Weingarten's wish, the agenda was shifted so that two resolutions she wanted would be "rolled into" her president's report, one on this "value added" testing pilot program, and the other on the across-the-board cuts to the budgets of each and every school - 1.75% immediately and another 5% in September - that had been announced suddenly to principals that week. Kit Wainer, who was our ICE-TJC candidate for UFT President back in the spring, commented to me that these cuts, "are the City's answer to the court's decision in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity case ordering more funding for schools. They show the complete failure of the UFT's strategy of using the courts to increase school funding, and that only a militant strategy can succeed."

"There is a real worry about the economy," Weingarten began, citing a "stress on schools. Politicians are doing budget cuts. On the state level, Spitzer did not do a budget cut. CFE equals contracts for excellence. They all said it was solved. The amount to New York City schools was $4.3 billion over the next five years. This is what Spitzer did: contracts for excellence, $2.3 billion this year to be used for smaller class sizes, middle school reform, the rest is operating expenses. Plus the mayor pledged $2.2 billion, of which $1.5 billion is for ‘fair student funding.' In December, contracts for excellence were done, and the most important feature was that in K to 3, average class size was supposed to be twenty, 4 through 12, 23, in the next four years.
"So, what happened?" she continued, "January was a big setback, budget wise. The state, Spitzer has pledged not to put in a tax increase. So he said, we aren't going to cut the budget, but we cannot give you everything we promised. Three hundred instead of five hundred million dollars. We said, yes, we understand, there is a downturn, but the money has to be restored. Number two, building, how to lower class size if we don't have the buildings? That is why we supported Bloomberg's $13 billion capital plan. The second thing the governor did was say, ‘the deal you made with Pataki is not my deal.' He doesn't want the second part. We say both parts have to be kept. The last piece is the city piece. I'm sure principals ran to you, ‘What is the UFT going to do about this?' The mayor never before made the schools a part of the cuts. The midyear cut: the principals have bought a pig in a poke. They are in charge. How is it that $100 million in cuts can come immediately out of schools? How could they tell them -? How are they ‘in charge'?"
She argued vehemently that there was a great "difference" between our plight with regard to the value-added testing situation on the one hand, and the budget cuts on the other. She claimed that when it came to the value added testing "we have a tremendous arsenal: by the contract, the evaluation system is closed. This is a slam dunk. The contract is closed. Unless we make a mistake . . ." To me, that seems like a big loophole in light of the recent past. Of course, Unity calls its mistakes "victories."

On the budget, she went on, "There's no legal way" to stop the cuts. That's exactly the problem. The Unity leadership has moved further and further away from even the window dressing of the tame demonstrations it once used to clothe its courtroom and lobbying strategy. It has shed even the pretense of relying on the members' activism to gain its ends. As thin as that veneer was, its abandonment actually does coincide with the deplorable and relentless string of losses we have endured as members - we are working harder, working longer, under worse conditions, with fewer protections and rights, and our real wages have barely kept pace with the skyrocketing costs of city housing, transportation, and tuition.

"The only way we can help," Weingarten continued, "is to form a coalition, be out on the streets, make a lot of noise, fight the budget cuts on behalf of the children. We have to have ten thousand members out." It isn't on our own behalf, she said, since "because of the 05, 06 contracts, they can't fire anyone. No one can say we are protecting our jobs, because our jobs are protected." But hundreds of our members have become ATRs through no fault of their own, an awful predicament. They are denied the most basic professional rights: they can be sent to any school, given any program, and their program and session can even be changed day to day. So we need to protect our members against becoming ATRs. And we should make no apologies for doing what a union should do: protect the rights of its members.

The first speaker Weingarten called from the floor was Michelle Bodden, V.P. for the Elementary Schools. She told Weingarten she was "wonderful." Then Jonathan Lessuk from the Museum School proposed an amendment to set a date for the rally for Thursday, February 14. However, he and others who supported his amendment made it very clear it was fine with them if some later date was substituted. Weingarten called on a string of members of her Unity Caucus, who all found various pretexts to oppose this resolution, simply because it came from an ordinary, school-based chapter leader. Three of these Unity Caucus speakers in a row identified themselves as "Executive Board" members, because they do not work full-time in any school, they work for the UFT, i.e., their jobs depend on Weingarten's pleasure. Naturally, they found any flimsy pretext to support Weingarten. One objection they raised to the amendment was "the proposal for a date for the rally should come from the coalition." This disingenuously ignores the fact that any action the coalition calls will most likely be initiated by its strongest, most organized member: the UFT. One supporter of the amendment, Joan Heymount, offered, "Let's take the Feb. 14 date off the books (i.e., out of the resolution), and take it to the coalition" as a proposal. But the Unity speakers against the rally, in their drive to score points with Weingarten, simply ignored this offer. Because the amendment also proposed involving older students in the rally, Unity speakers ridiculously accused the amendment's supporters of "using students as shields."
Randi Weingarten then called for a vote on the amendment, cynically noting that Feb. 14 was too soon and that "no one actually changed the date," although so many speakers in favor of the amendment had made it clear the specific date was fluid. Since a rally date for March 19 was announced less than a week after this, it's obvious the amendment was rejected mostly because of the Unity leadership's hostility to grassroots initiatives rather than a genuine opposition to the substance of the amendment. The unamended resolution carried.

The next resolution was on the value-added testing. Leo Casey, VP for the Academic High Schools made the presentation. "The DoE told us last spring they wanted to do a study of value added testing. You saw as we saw" the NY Times article, he said, without acknowledging that he was contradicting the claim in that story that the union was aware that individual teachers were being rated. "It is important to understand how intellectually dishonest what DoE is doing is," said Mr. Casey, a man whom many in the UFT opposition would say was quite an expert in intellectual dishonesty. This led to a series of speakers all deploring the inadequacy of this method of rating teachers.

But the union itself has lent legitimacy to the idea of rating teachers by test scores, by agreeing to bonuses for teachers in schools where students show progress in testing. If the union accepts the idea that a school's teachers are responsible and should be rewarded for student test progress, it makes it a lot harder to argue that they are not individually responsible. By accepting the bonus scheme, we've shot ourselves in the foot as far as making a case against evaluation by test progress.

However, we are much more seriously handicapped by a half a decade without even the tamest kind of union-wide mobilization in the streets. We are not weak because we cannot win the intellectual argument about rating teachers, We are weak because we don't have the muscle to pressure the politicians. It is clear to them that the UFT leadership won't defend members' rights, and the DoE can push us around with impunity. We languish as ATRs or in rubber rooms, we work long unpaid hours in school because we fear our bosses, our sabbaticals are rejected at the last minute, we are reduced to yearning for one thing: to reach retirement sooner. Thus the powerful attraction of 25/55, which Weingarten has dangled before us as an imminent victory for more than two years now. "It is now clear sailing," she said, regarding 25/55. Perhaps this time it is finally true.

Weingarten then told us we were going to hear "a rubber room story," from Deborah White, a teacher from Stuyvesant. The rap against her was not disclosed, but Ms. White said it "had to do with a medical disorder." She was in the rubber room for two years. "One of the worse things is the amount of time . . . " she said, "and the conditions. My case should never have been brought to 2030a (process to revoke tenure), and that is true for many people there. The D.o.E. legal department is trying to impress Joel Klein with their statistics. A lot of people end up paying fines. I had a private attorney," she said, "who filed a human rights case for me on the side. I had a good attorney, and an inexperienced, new D.o.E. attorney." She also mentioned that the D.o.E. attorney got sick at a crucial moment in her case. "They have a backlog of four hundred cases, so they really want to settle. They are using 2030a hearings to get older teachers out." Both Ms. White's fine and her U-rating were revoked. "I was lucky."

Weingarten tried to spin this as victory the union won for a member. The story even appeared later in the UFT's New York Teacher newspaper, which said, "The due process tenure system worked in her case."

However, looking at what Ms. White actually said, it reveals her to be a fortunate exception who had much more than the due process system going for her. She happened to have one of the better NYSUT attorneys. Not only that, how many rubber room people are prosecuted by a new and inexperienced D.o.E. attorney who gets sick, to boot? Finally, note that she hired her own attorney, also, who filed a suit on her behalf. Ms. White's case is the "exception that proves the rule," and the rule is that hundreds of UFT members are the victims of an unjust punitive system, and our union gives us no effective protection. The fact that a single person triumphed over the system makes us happy for Ms. White, who fully deserved her complete exoneration. But it should also make us even angrier and more indignant over the vast majority of our colleagues equally deserving of vindication, who suffer without effective recourse.
At this point, it was almost six p.m. and - after almost an hour and a half - the president's report was finally over, and the Staff Director's report was next.

By leaving at this point, I did miss the motions directed to the agenda, but I knew the "Resolution to Ensure Letters in the File Rights" would pass, since it was signed by four of the UFT Vice Presidents and the Secretary. This resolution addresses the possibility that there "has been a disproportionate increase in the number of letters in the file since 2005," when the union leadership negotiated and supported the passage of the contract that took away our right to grieve such letters when they are "unfair" or "inaccurate." If the UFT finds that there has been such an increase, the resolution says the UFT will use a provision of the 2005 contract to "sit down and negotiate the impact of that issue." I'm not sure what it means to "negotiate the impact" of an "issue." We never should have given up that right in the first place. In my school, people have gotten letters for the file for ridiculous petty reasons, or that are inaccurate, since the contract changed. Sometimes my Chapter Leader has been able to informally prevail upon the Principal to remove these letters, immediately or in a given space of time. But there seems no doubt that losing this protection has emboldened the worst supervisors and administrators to follow their inclinations. Weingarten and the entire Unity Caucus should be held accountable for making us all more vulnerable to injustice and harassment.

Rally to Oppose Budget Cuts or Another Sell-out?

Excuse my cynicism, but is this the same coalition that sold us out in the Keep the Public in Public Education Coalition?
- a NYC parent on the nyceducationnews listserve.

My God! can't we get a weekend off? Things keep popping up like a faulty toaster. I'm trying to get a handle around different coalitions forming to fight the budget cuts, competing rallies at Tweed, and all kinds of other goodies. As usual, there is an historical context to everything and that's the place we always go so as not to leave you guys out there in the cold.

I'm on deadline for a short story I'm writing for my fiction writing group so I may not get to all of it, but check back for updates to this post (I'll leave a permanent link on top corner on the right hand side and add to this post as info comes in.)

For starters here's a time line, all of which has been covered in Ed Notes (I'll get links up later):

Feb. 28, 2007: Coalition of groups led by UFT holds extraordinary rally in Manhattan. Decides to hold a rally in May to protest the policies of BloomKlein.

April, 2007: Most of the groups make a deal with the Mayor and agree to call off the rally.
(Note: aspects of The Deal are violated, in particular class size agreements. Other parts of the deal, possibly the Lead Teacher - see our recent post on this angle a few days ago - will be violated in the budget cuts announced in January.)

May, 2007: Manhattan High School chapter leaders vote 19-1 to call for the rally to be reinstated because Twee cannot be trusted. They bring the issue to the May Del. Ass. UFT Leadership opposes and they lose by a large margin.

Jan./Feb. 2008: Bloomberg announces budget cuts which Klein admits Tweed knew about since November but never told the principals. They are more pissed off than just about anyone. Empowered, indeed!

Feb. 6, 2008: At the UFT Delegate Assembly, a UFT Resolution on budget cuts calls for the UFT to participate in the reinstitution of the coalition to fight the cuts and announces a meeting will be held the next day. Randi asks if people will support a rally if they decide to call one. The audience, already numb from her President's report, with some saying they would prefer water boarding, nods/mumbles assent.

Jonathan Lessuck from Progressive Labor Party (PLP) offers a series of amendments to strengthen the resolution and calls for a rally to be held on Feb. 14. Another PL speaker talks about how important it is to bring students into play. (This is a common PLP theme, something I'm not always comfortable with, but more on that another time.) I should point out that some PLP members also work with ICE but while ICE agrees with some PLP positions, it does not endorse all the actions of PLP. ICE had no involvement in the PLP amendments.

Randi and Unity Caucus speakers oppose the amendments, mostly on the Feb. 14 date, saying it is too short a time. Lessuck says the date is not crucial but doesn't make a formal amendment change. Randi takes a vote with the Feb. 14 date included, to PLP's chagrin. She shrugs and smiles a disingenuous Cheshire Cat Smile.

Feb. 7, 2007: The coalition meets with 150 people present and there are reports that it is very successful. A decision is made to hold a rally in mid-March,prompting the comment on cynicism from the parent that we lead this post off with. Reporters are banned but Elizabeth Green posts the most comprehensive story for the NY Sun. Read it here: http://www.nysun.com/article/70970

Feb. 10 (Sunday): The Coalition will hold a press conference on the steps of City Hall at 12:30. I'm going to my niece's daughter's baby naming in Philadelphia, so if anyone has a report send it along.

In the meantime, the Feb. 14 date has resurfaced for a rally at Tweed in this email:

Hey Folks,

You don't need to be told how outrageous these budget cuts are.
What are we going to do about it?!?!?!?

Next Thursday, February 14th at 4:00 PM we are taking it to the steps of Tweed.

BRING PARENTS, STUDENTS, TEACHERS, PRINCIPALS!

We demand an immediate return of the money taken from school budgets for this year and next.

Bloomberg needs money? Eliminate the $400 million in homeowner rebates.
We demand economic justice and democracy in our school system!

Tell king Bloomberg: Give back what you are stealing from our kids!
We want as many parents and students as possible to come on Thursday and be heard. Talk to your students about it, get them to organize and bring their parents.
My third graders are already MAD!

Sponsors so far include:
State Senator Eric Adams, Time Out From Testing, NYCORE, district 15 CEC, PS 24 Teachers for Equity in Education.

A group of students from Brooklyn called Students Against DOE Budget Cuts are leading the way with the support of the groups above. They are organizing a march on Tweed for Thursday, Feb. 14th and need all of our support.

LET'S MAKE THIS BIG!!!
Sam Coleman
PS 24
sam_p_coleman@yahoo.com

Should they back off and support the March rally? Or are they correct to mistrust the coalition which in April backed off a tremendous opportunity and killed the momentum for the May rally? Will Randi Weingarten (who everyone knows is the mover and shaker behind this coalition) play Let's Make a Deal again if Bloomberg puts 10 cents on the table?

You can follow this soap opera (Call it the Coalition of Our Lives) on the ednotes blog. I will try to attend the rally on Thursday as part of my Valentine Day celebration (can you spell "divorce?") and get some pictures.

Get a LIF

The UFT leadership will do everything it can to disparage the ICE campaign to reopen the 2005 contract provision that doesn't allow teachers to grieve letters in files (LIF) even though Randi Weingarten told people back in 2005 this would be possible if there was a spike in LIF's. But we all know that was part of the selling of the '05 contract. They will attack the ICE proposal by denying there has been any such increase (check the numbers of rubber room denizens who haev been written up and removed.)

How will the leadership manipulate people at the Delegate Assembly this Wed. Feb. 6 to keep a full discussion of the ICE resolution from taking place? Make sure to avoid calling on an ICE person to speak during the New Motion period? Shift the agenda so the New Motion period is pushed to the end of the meeting? Or just ignore the NMP altogether, as Weingarten has done so often (her legacy will be taking an already undemocratically-run union and making it even more undemocratic.)

You might be asking why the LIF issue is important? The atmosphere in so so poisonous in so many schools run by dictatorial/abusive principals who, with their new "empowerment" - which is limited to power over the teachers and parents in their schools - have all too often gone hog wild.

Here is a story I heard at yesterday's Super Bowl (Yea Giants, even though I am a Jets fan) party:

A principal is throwing a dinner to honor herself. Besides the high cost, the teacher who I spoke to at the party dislikes this principal intensly - a short, trumped up rubber room visit didn't help - and doesn't want to go. Many of her colleagues are, only half-jokingly, telling her to expect an observation and a letter in her file the morning after the party.

This is the mental state of so many teachers. And for the usual teacher bashers out there, NO, we are not talking about lousy teachers who are afraid. I am hearing this from some of the finest teachers I have known. I have so many of these stories, I could devote an entire blog to them.

When the UFT gave up the right to grieve LIF in the 2005 contract, it was more of a blow to teacher morale as much as a loss of a right that many people never used in the first place. But at least those who wanted to felt they could at least get their day in "court" (a court stacked against them) and force the principal to explain themselves to a higher up. ("The teacher didn't come to my party, so I wrote her up.")

In my 4th year of teaching (1970) I transferred to a new school. I was just becoming active politically and the word was out from the higher ups to "get" me. I was lucky in that the tyrant principal was on terminal leave and the AP who was acting in his place was a milquetoast type. But he gave it a shot and wrote up a U-observation for me.

I may have been stupid, as I was not yet tenured, but I couldn't let this pass. Now, I wasn't necessarily the greatest teacher, but I had just come off a very successful year and a half of teaching and thought I was a hotshot. I hand-wrote a 7 page response and not only attached it to the observation, but posted it over the time clock. Crazy! But it worked and I was never bothered again.

Now I hear that the UFT is telling people not to even bother writing up a response, as what they say could be used against them. I still think in the right situation a teacher should consider doing what I did and go public. If you're a target, maybe going public will serve notice you are not going down without a fight and a principal might move on to a different target. Imagine if everyone banded together and supported each other?

Here is a version of the Leaflet ICE will distribute at the Delegate Assembly, February 6, 2008.

It repeats our points numerous times, but we feel we have to do that to get our points across. Urge your chapter leader and delegate (if they're not Unity Caucus) to support this resolution on Wed. Email me if you want a pdf to share with your colleagues.

After the meeting, the usual suspects are gathering at a local watering hole to celebrate - getting through another DA without snoring. I'll be there handing it out. Stop by and get the secret password for entry.

Independent Community of Educators – ICE

Phase One of ICE’s Plan to Fight Back Against the Givebacks:

Win Back the Right to Grieve Negative Evaluations & File Letters

Since December, ICE has been trying to raise a motion at the Delegate Assembly calling upon the UFT to reopen the Contractual provision so we can win back the right to grieve material in our files. Unfortunately, in December we didn’t get called on and in January there was no new motion period.*

*In the past 10 years, the New Motion time, the only opportunity for non-leadership positions to be presented, has been moved around the agenda or ignored altogether. Throughout the history of the Delegate Assembly under Al Shanker and Sandy Feldman, the New Motion time was always the 3rd item on the agenda after the President’s report and the Question period. Let’s preserve that long-standing UFT tradition. Roberts’ Rules of Order calls for members to have an opportunity to bring new motions before a body. Support our efforts to uphold Roberts’ Rules.

We urge every delegate to support our call to win back the right to grieve material in our files and to have the right to challenge supervisory judgment. We intend to bring this up at today’s new motion period. It would need a majority vote of delegates to be placed on the UFT DA agenda in March.

City Labor Relations Commissioner James Hanley wrote to the union stating that the city agreed to negotiate on the issue (reopening the letters in the file provision) “if there is a disproportionate increase in the number of letters to the file.”
– NY Teacher, October 20, 2005

If you hear the argument that it is dangerous to reopen the contract, let’s make it clear: ICE is asking for this one provision to be reopened as per labor commissioner Hanley’s written agreement with Weingarten, not the entire Contract.

Randi visited our school before the ‘05 contract and stated that she spoke with the mayor about a possible spike in LIFs, and he told her that they would renegotiate that provision.
– Comment on the ICEUFT Blog

Letters in the File Grievances: Resolution to Reopen the Contractual Provision

WHEREAS, in selling the 2005 Contract to the members, UFT President Randi Weingarten answered objections to the removal of the right to grieve letters in the file by claiming the Contractual provision eliminating grievances for unfair and inaccurate letters could be reopened if there is a spike in letters to the file; and

WHEREAS, The Chief Leader reported recently that there was a 36% increase in teachers receiving unsatisfactory ratings in 2006-07 (the first full year under the 2005 Contract), a 39% increase in tenured teachers receiving U ratings, a fourfold increase in the number of teachers forced to extend their probation and a doubling of teachers denied tenure; and

WHEREAS, the UFT reported that there has been a dramatic increase in the number of teachers resigning compared to just a few years earlier; and

WHEREAS, it is reasonable to conclude that the spike in unsatisfactory ratings and resignations would not have been possible without a huge increase in negative letters to the file; be it therefore

RESOLVED, that the UFT reopen the Contract provision on letters in the file as per James Hanley’s 2005 agreement with Randi so this provision can be modified to allow members to grieve negative material in a timely manner and include the right to contest supervisory judgment to an impartial party, in addition to demanding that any material removed from a file can never be used in any proceeding of any kind against any UFT member.


Why Support Our Resolution?

The NY Teacher stated the following in the October 20, 2005 issue: “City Labor Relations Commissioner James Hanley wrote to the union that the city agreed to negotiate on the issue (reopening the letters in the file provision) ‘if there is a disproportionate increase in the number of letters to the file.’”

The evidence on increased discipline of teachers is in and for the first year under the 2005 Contract it is not a pretty picture:

1,333 Unsatisfactory ratings in 2006-07 compared with 981 in 2005-06. U rating increase of 36%;
(Source: Chief Leader)

918 tenured teachers rated U last year up from 662 the year before. U rating increase of 39%;
(Source: The Chief-Leader)

The number of teachers denied tenure more than doubled last year compared to the year before. (Source: The Chief-Leader)

The number of teachers forced to extend their probation increased almost fourfold in 2006-07 compared to 2005-06. (Source: The Chief-Leader)

The UFT’s own figures show that 4,606 teachers resigned last year, up from 2,544 who resigned just a few years earlier; it is sensible to conclude that many of those 4,606 were forced to resign.

Chancellor Klein in 2007 created a “gotcha squad” of lawyers and retired administrators to help build cases against tenured teachers.

There had to be a disproportionate spike in negative file letters to support all that increased discipline. We have to fight back now. The November 26, 2007 candlelight vigil was a good start but it was not enough. Let’s demand a letter in the file grievance process that is better than what we had before so we can challenge supervisory judgment. This Delegate Assembly should take a giant leap toward winning back our rights by putting this resolution on the DA agenda for March. Tell Hanley and Klein we mean business. Klein’s “gotcha squad” makes it “open season” to hunt teachers; we say close the hunt down now!

We are fully aware that if a letter stays in the file for three years, it can be removed if disciplinary charges haven’t been filed. However, the DOE keeps a copy and can still try to use it against you. Three years is too long to wait. Material that is over three years old is not normally admissible in 3020A cases against tenured teachers, but the DOE doesn’t have to wait three years to go after us. Finally, non-tenured teachers can easily be terminated at any point in their first three years of service and having a grievance procedure for unfair letters is their only hope for fighting back against abusive administrators.

If you hear the argument that it is dangerous to reopen the contract, let’s make it clear: ICE is asking for this one provision to be reopened as per labor commissioner Hanley’s written agreement with Weingarten, not the entire Contract.

School Chapters Signal Support

I informed my school and chapter leader at a meeting we held last Friday. I asked for a vote of support and everyone raised their hands (thank g-d).

I’m going to make copies of the resolution and hand it out at our chapter meeting on Friday.
–Comments on the ICEUFT Blog

UFT Delegate Assembly Run Like 3 Card Monte Hustle

Guest Column by

Mary Theresa Lynn, Delegate from Newcomers High School

The January 16 Delegates' Assembly compels me to write to you:

Who wouldn't agree that the city's current mandatory testing policy is a nightmare? At the January 16 Assembly, The UFT Resolution on Assessment-Related Paperwork and Data Collection seemed like a good idea--until I closely examined the wording of the first WHEREAS (emphasis mine):

"WHEREAS, the data generated by these tests and assessments can be useful to teachers as a tool to enhance teaching and learning, the collection, collation and interpretation of this data can be time consuming and require specific skills, technology and resources often not available to teachers...."

Unless we agree that "test-prep" is now synonymous with "learning," which is just what the highlighted section of the resolution implies, we should find this clause in the resolution most disturbing. These tests are not reliable and the data generated by them is not useful to teachers and certainly not conducive to learning. In fact, these tests have had a disastrous effect on both teaching and learning.

I immediately raised my card to call for a friendly amendment to the resolution to omit the offensive clause. However, Randi seemed determined not to see me. In fact, she deliberately filibustered until my raised arm went numb. When I took my arm down to switch my card to the other hand, one of her minions called the resolution to a vote, even though at least two of us still wanted to voice our opposition and were still waving our cards frantically. A staffer who had seen me with my hand up from the start and had even approached me to politely wait for her to finish her rant stood nearby, but as I yelled, "Point of order," I was drowned out by Randi's, "Let's call the question. All in favor raise your cards" and the amens of others who were eager to move on after her filibuster. I was artfully--but very intentionally--ignored. She dodged my objections and steamrolled on.

My biggest concern on this one is that we will be "hung by our own words" somewhere down the line. Basically, the wording of the resolution that passed gives credence to the DOE's tests as "tools to enhance teaching and learning." What a public relations fiasco for us if proponents of high-stakes testing get their hands on the UFT's own words! How could the UFT validate these tests when we know the disastrous effect all of this test-prep has on teaching and learning?

Randi seemed like she was in an awful rush to call this one to question--she even started the meeting on time for a change, no doubt to leave room for Hilary's "surprise" call--which means she was well aware of the wording, and eager for others not to notice it. As a first-year delegate, I was surprised that there was so little vocal opposition to the wording of this resolution. And obviously, I was disappointed that the "Artful Dodger" had, once again, dodged her opponents. Her tactics at these meetings are becoming increasingly deplorable. Sometimes I feel like I'm being hustled in Three Card Monty.

Puerto Rico, My Heart's Devotion

I was singing "America" from West Side Story all week while on my first trip to Puerto Rico, most of the time spent at a resort lounging at the beach, snorkeling, reading book after book and eating (a lot). One of the great things about retirement is the ability to travel whenever.

Color War
There were many corporate groups meeting there and we got to see first hand the "business" model of team building - expensive retreats and competitions with loud speakers and annoying noisemaking. One group wore tee-shirts that said their goal this year was $75,000,000.
This is the aspect that has been missing from BloomKlein's attempt to bring the business model to the schools (except maybe at KIPP where spending $70,000 on retreats to the Caribbean is acceptable.) It looked like one of those old camp Color War games where learned all about competition. I was such a lousy hitter when I was 10 years old, my teammates told me to go into the woods and pee when my turn at bat came. (My hitting didn't get much better over the years but I can pee on demand now.)

Coming soon:
Get those scores and grad rates up trips and tee-shirts with logos - 80% grad rates or bust.

I felt real comfortable in PR - lots of good feelings connected to working with mostly Puerto Rican kids in Williamsburg - and we hope to return. Maybe drive around the entire island stopping at beaches.

Next trip is to London in March for the 40th anniversary concert of The Zombies - (INSIDE JOKE FOR ZOMBIE FANS - I hope they're there. Or not there. Or maybe she won't be there.) And then on to Japan in April for the Asian Invitational FIRST LEGO League tournament. And maybe Iceland in June. Phew! I'm tired already.

In the meantime, I haven't been too active in local ed politics recently, with the Privatization Forum the week before last and the big FLL tournament coming up next Saturday (check the norms robotics blog for robotics in NYC for news) and my working for the past month on the FLL program guide (modeled on the old Ed Notes format - see, they were worth more than just using as ballast under the tires when it snowed) which, thank goodness, was just sent to the printer (a pdf is available for those interested, here.)

Last week's Delegate Assembly was the first I missed in a long time and I hear my buddies from ICE actually got something passed. We had a pretty good ICE meeting on Jan. 11 with a lot of people attending and discussed some strategy behind making amendments to a UFT resolution on school leadership teams.

I wouldn't attach too much significance to the fact that Leo Casey supported it, but you can read all about it at the ICE blog. I'll have some comments on the Hillary call later.

Ellen Raider from ICOPE did a presentation at the ICE meeting on their governance plan and we had a rousing discussion that ranged from "Their bottom-up governance plan is just pie in the sky" to "We need to start somewhere and work from that place." I personally support the bottom up concept where the school is the basic unit of power and urge people to take a look at the ICOPE model.

No one other than ICOPE seems to have come up with much of an alternative. Leonie Haimson always points to the "Who controls the money" argument whenever we talk about decentralized plans. But in reality, I feel we will still have some form of mayoral control because the UFT and just about every politician supports it. The UFT is doing its phony baloney Governance road show (tomorrow, Tuesday, at Martin Luther King HS in Manhattan at 6 if you are interested) to make it look like they don't really know what they'll do. They will issue a report to give venting to what people have to say and then do what's in the best interests of the leadership - which guess what, is mayoral control with a few tweaks since they are expecting to get Bill Thompson (who also called into the DA to show Blacks support Hillary) as the next mayor.

Smoke on your pipe and put that in.

Weds: Protest for Teachers' Rights

TAG has put out a call for teachers to join us in a demonstration to tell Randi that the UFT is here to support and defend the right of teachers to be the competent professionals that we are.

We will bring this message to the Delegate Assembly:

October 17, 2007
UFT HQ: 52 Broadway, Manhattan
3:30 - 6:00p.m.

Media attention is now on the Rubber Rooms. That is good but TAG wants attention on the reasons why the Rubber Rooms are so full: Bloomberg-Klein's empowerment of administrators to remove teachers by unfair U-ratings, tossing them thereby into the Rubber Rooms.

We want media attention on the plight of the ATRs. Why are there ATRs when the City is hiring thousands of new teachers?

We want media attention on how the new funding formula is creating the ATR situation and the elimination of senior/experienced teachers.

We want media attention on the plight of the whistle blower.

We want media attention on the fact the the UFT has done nothing to stop this harassment of teachers until the "sexy" issue of the Rubber Rooms exploded.

This demonstration wants answers from the UFT.

Why aren't you representing us?

Merit Pay, the UFT, TJC, and NCLB

At one point I did not understand how the UFT and Weingarten could support merit pay in any form. But after reading the Kahlenberg book on Al Shanker, it all makes sense. For those who think Randi has taken the union in a different direction than Shanker, take a look at the book and you will see just about all of the union's current policies in there from the early 80's on.

The UFT is against the individual merit pay provision in NCLB but will accept (even if they don't say so openly) building merit pay as not being as onerous. Sure. The UFT/AFT should be calling for the total abolition of NCLB, which has been so onerous to teachers, students and parents. But much of the NCLB law could have been written by Shanker.

I spent months in 2002 trying to get a resolution at the DA urging a fight against all forms of merit pay but was stonewalled by Weingarten. That frustrating experience gave me an insight into where she was really coming from and led to a break with her that moved me to change direction from trying to use friendly persuasion on Randi to open opposition.

Marian Swerdlow and others in TJC were totally supportive of my efforts at the time despite being mildly critical of Ed Notes for trying to play ball with Randi for the 5 previous years. They were so right.

My bone to pick with this resolution is that if there would be a nationwide demo, it should address the core issues of joining with others around the nation to fight against reauthorization of the entire NCLB Act and not limit it to such a narrow focus as merit pay. But this is a specificly targeted resolution that also addresses the building merit pay issue and if passed (snowball in hell territory here) it could be expanded in the future. Urge your reps to support it at Weds. DA. If they are Unity Caucus, ask them to explain why they are opposed.

To be presented at the UFT Delegate Assembly, Oct. 17 by Teachers for a Just Contract.

THE UFT MUST LAUNCH A REAL FIGHT AGAINST MERIT PAY
The reauthorized No Child Left Behind Act is heading towards the inclusion of a provision forcing school districts to implement individual merit pay to teachers as a condition for receiving important federal funding. Individual merit pay is not only intrinsically unfair, the competition among colleagues it engenders destroys our ability to act together as a union. It is also destructive to the mutually helpful cooperation that goes on among teachers all the time: comparing and sharing experiences, methods, lesson plans, etc. (School based merit pay is equally unfair and carries its own set of problems as well.) What this would mean is that part of the pay package we negotiate, instead of going to across the board raises, would be dedicated to this unfair and destructive scheme.

Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, Weingarten and the union leadership have no credible plan to protect us from this threat. Teachers for a Just Contract will be proposing an effective launch for a serious campaign to defeat this threat at the Delegate Assembly on Wednesday, October 17, by proposing the resolution below. It calls for a nationwide demonstration by teachers in Washington D.C., to publicize the dangers of merit pay to education, and put our representatives - Democrats and Republicans alike - that we will take this fight to the mat.

Resolution Against Using the Threat of Defunding Schools to Impose Merit Pay

Whereas: Merit pay is intrinsically unfair and detrimental to professionalism and union solidarity among teachers;

Whereas: Any provision of federal law making Title I funding to a district conditional upon its imposition of pay for performance (a.k.a.merit pay), whether individual or school-based, as measured by testing, as proposed for the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Law, virtually imposes this unfair scheme on nearly all of our nation's teachers;

Whereas: We cannot depend upon writing letters and lobbying Senators and Congresspersons to be enough to stop this strong and serious threat to our students, our profession and our unions;

Whereas: holding mass demonstrations in the nation's capital has proven an effective tool for pressuring Congress and winning public support for past social causes, including peace, civil rights and women's rights;

Therefore, be it resolved, that the UFT will initiate, organize and build among our sister teacher union locals a nation wide demonstration and protest, to be held in Washington, D.C., at the earliest optimal date for the dual purpose of focusing public attention on our powerful arguments against merit pay based on testing, and demonstrating to our elected representatives the strength and resolve of our opposition to this provision.