DA REPORT ON IMPASSE, SCHOOL GRADES AND MORE

President Michael Mulgrew at yesterday's Delegate Assembly convinced the DA to approve, by the usual large margin, a resolution to give the UFT the authority to declare, if necessary, that there is an impasse in bargaining. Our contract expired without fanfare on October 31. (Anna Phillips' piece at Gotham Schools.org sums up the resolution fairly well.)

If the UFT seeks an impasse declaration, the state Public Employees Relations Board would then have to agree that there is an impasse and then they would appoint a mediator to try to help the parties settle differences. Fact finding and non binding arbitration would come next if mediation fails.

Many UFT members, including me, are very skeptical about fact finding because of how badly we did in this process in 2005. At that time, the fact finders set the framework for the horrible giveback laden 2005 contract that gave us the whole ATR mess as they had the UFT give up seniority and SBO transfers among many other concessions such as a longer day, weaker due process and a return to hall and cafeteria patrol for teachers.

Do we want to go down this road again?

What are the alternatives? The answer is to organize and mobilize.

In other DA news, we heard a report on organizing the community; we heard about special education complaints and there was a passionate plea from somebody speaking in support of Honduran teachers and the Honduran people. A resolution in support of their cause passed unanimously.

Welfare Fund Director Arthur Pepper told the delegates that the UFT will be improving welfare fund benefits.

One last item that is of great importance to those of us who work in D graded schools. President Mulgrew said that the progress reports that were just released don't mean crap. He didn't show up at the press conference where Klein announced them. Mulgrew explained a number of factors that proved the progress reports are unreliable measures of schools. We agree with the president here.

We hope that the UFT will follow our 2007 resolution and not allow any school to be closed based on the progress reports.

Finally, time ran out at the DA without there being a new motion period. We hope this is not a trend that will continue.

JAMAICA TELLS PEP ABOUT BUDGET CUT IMPACT

We appeared before the Panel for Educational Policy (replacement for Board of Education) last Thursday night to complain about the impact of severe budget cuts on Jamaica High School.

This was the third time that we have addressed the PEP. Our first appearance before the Panel was back in 2008 when 89 people from Jamaica went to advocate for our school. The second time was in June of that year when three of us went back trying to get more favorable funding for our school. This time, I was accompanied by a colleague as well as my wife and daughter. The meeting was held at an elementary/middle school in Maspeth Queens.

Our main focus was to tell the Panel that it is November and yet we are so short of money that ten of our classes do not have a regular teacher. We find this to be incredibly unsound educationally. Even as we can’t cover our classrooms, the DOE will allow us to hire a replacement assistant principal for one who recently retired. We questioned their budget priorities. We also told the Panel about how records have piled up in the general office as our records’ secretary was excessed and there is no money to replace her. We called it a dire situation.

Our friend Arthur Goldstein, the Chapter Leader from Francis Lewis High School, also addressed the PEP objecting to severe overcrowding that will eventually break his school. We closed our presentation by asking for help for Jamaica so we can alleviate overcrowding in neighboring schools such as Francis Lewis. Hopefully, we will hear a response.

The meeting started at 6:00 p.m. but we were not able to speak until around 9:30 p.m. because the PEP was handling a very heavy agenda. Patrick Sullivan from Manhattan is now joined by Anna Santos from the Bronx in questioning much of what the DOE is doing.

The part of the meeting that was covered by the press was the ravioli controversy. The DOE is paying $3.8 million for a contract with a company to provide beef ravioli to the NYC schools, an increase of 40% from last year. They were the only company who bid for the ravioli contract. Panel members questioned the $3.8 million deal. Go to NY 1 to see video of this.

As for Chancellor Joel Klein, he spent some time outside of the auditorium and hit it off very well with my four month old daughter Kara. If only I had Kara’s personality, Jamaica might actually receive equitable funding from the DOE. We will keep trying.

PARENTS REJECT BLOOMBERG

The surprising closeness of the mayoral election (Bloomberg 51% -Thompson 46%) has to be studied closely. Many people missed seeing how much anger is out there directed towards the mayor.

The UFT passed up on a real chance to influence the outcome by staying out of it. My colleague at Jamaica put it best when she stated, "The UFT never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity." If the unions and the Democratic Party establishment rallied behind Thompson, Bloomberg could have been defeated in this very Democratic town.

The most interesting statistic for us to view is how parents with children in New York City public schools voted last week. According to a NY Times exit poll, parents voted for Thompson over Bloomberg 55% to 43%. That's a huge twelve point spread that proves that those who have kids in the schools know what's going on and they don't buy the mayor's education spin.

Will Tweed get the message and at least consider changing course? I know you think not but let's push them anyway. Now is the time to speak up.

NO SCHOOL LEFT BEHIND

Jamaica High School and Francis Lewis High School are featured in an amazing Sunday OpEd piece by Angela Montefinise in the NY Post. What a pleasant surprise that this was published in the Post.

UFT CONTRACT EXPIRES EXTREMELY QUIETLY

Having an on-time contract used to matter. The deadline for when our contract expired used to mean something to the UFT back in its early years. I will concede that the UFT worked beyond the expiration date of the contract twice in the nineties and then again in 2000 and 2003.

However, as recently as after the disastrous giveback filled contract in 2005, then UFT President Randi Weingarten talked about us returning to a no contract=no work policy. Those days seem like long ago as yesterday the contract expired and the UFT didn't seem to even take notice.

I just looked at the current UFT Chapter Leader Update. There is not a word about the contract ending on October 31, 2009. We don't even get lip service any longer.


Of course the old contract continues in full force until we have a new agreement because of the Triborough Amendment to the Taylor Law. However, to not even note the expiration of a contract and have some kind of mobilization ready to put pressure on the city and the DOE for a new one shows just how weak the UFT is.

STATEN ISLAND NON-ENDORSEMENT MAY HINT AT CHANGE AT UFT

The following piece was written by ICE activist Loretta Prisco and may give a real hint about changes at the UFT under Michael Mulgrew.

Remember the massacre of the PEP folks who dared to challenge the Mayor about the 3rd grade retention policy? One of the conspirators was Jim Molinaro, BP of Staten Island, who fired Joan McKeever Thomas. Joan now works for the UFT.

Four years ago, John Luisi ran against Molinaro and got 42% of the vote - no money, few volunteers, little help from the party, term limits not an issue, and little name recognition. UFT President Randi Weingarten interceded in the SI Political Action Committee and got John an endorsement. John is running again.

This time he has greater name recognition, took a leave from his job and is getting all over the Island, raised more money, and has more support from the party. Molinaro is well known to the UFT as a pro-charter, pro-private school cheerleader who appointed the owner of a lingerie store (with no commitment to public education) to the PEP, and is a leader in the Conservative Party.

John Luisi is the product of the toughest neighborhood school on Staten Island. He is committed to neighborhood public schools. This Island is getting worse and worse. John, who is with us on all of the education issues that matter, and has a real shot of taking Molinaro down, is not getting the support of the UFT.

The committee interviews were short a few key people. They are going "neutral", which is exactly what Molinaro was hoping to achieve. Does this sound like the old neutrality of the Nixon-.McGovern race?

And they want COPE money?

Parity for Music Teachers: The Time Has Come

by Julie Woodward, UFT Delegate

Anyone who’s read our contracts for a decade or two will know that the UFT continues to throw high school music teachers under a bus.

By agreeing to 50 kids in each class, the union has tacitly accepted the notion that music teachers can achieve the same kind of results with 50 students that other city HS teachers can get with 34 and teachers in the suburbs can get with give or take 25. They have also tacitly agreed to allow abusive principals — or even nice ones just following abusive chancellor directives — to find fault with us when we cannot achieve their notion of classroom management, data input, differentiation, home contact, personal interaction and the like.

General music teachers do the same kinds of things all other subject teachers do.

A chancellor’s directive in 2003 or earlier told all teachers to focus on math and literacy. Music teachers can, of course, do this in spades. What are quarter-notes and eighth-notes but simple math, and what are lyrics if not poems set to music. If Klein had told everyone to teach social studies or science, we could have done that as well: plantation songs speak the history of the heart and human cruelty, and the study of sound at its most basic level is nothing but the study of acoustics.

Why, then, do we continue to get 50 kids per class?

Maybe it was thought “general” music is the same as “performance” music. It’s not though, and everyone knows it. Most music teachers actually want a nice big orchestra, band or chorus — the larger the group, the grander the sound. The numbers don’t matter if the kids want to be there and are willing to practice.

More likely, the DoE is trying to get state graduation mandates on the cheap, and 50 per class is certainly cheaper than 34 (or even less for more specialized arts classes like photography).

I repeat: the union has complied: “Yes, we’ll agree to stick it to the GM teachers. They're lucky to have a job anyway.”

I have brought this up on more than occasion with Ms Weingarten, notably at the Delegate Assembly two years ago when the crowd groaned at what music teachers have to put up with. Her response was something like: “Hmmmm. Maybe we could get some non-contractual relief for music teachers.” That “non-contractual relief” bit was her words, which I thought might mean they'd arrange for us do the extra marking and paperwork as a Circ. 6-R duty, one that principals could not override. But, even if you got those extra 5 periods a week to handle the workload, it wouldn’t be enough. Multiply 147% (50 ÷ 34) times 25 periods/week and you get 36.75 periods a week, 6.75 periods more than the 5 you'd get by letting us do the extra work during 6-R.

Here is what I wrote Michael Mendel just after Labor Day, to which he responded recently: “I am going to push this.”

As always in more than 20 years of teaching music, I have my doubts they even care.

PS: I know that phys ed teachers also get 50 per class and would like a reduction as well. But mostly they're not doing written work or having to worry about behavior when teaching sound or silence.

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I meant to write you earlier, but the overload is enormous.

HS Music teachers can be given 50 kids per class. Of course they all do not show up each and every period, but some things are constant:

1. You have to take attendance on a weekly bubble sheet IN ADDITION to keeping your own attendance records. This usually involves Delaney cards because you can't memorize so many kids (250) without a seating plan.

2. If one of these classes is your "homeroom," which requires a daily attendance sheet, that's a third attendance effort.

3. These lists are complicated because (a) they have to be accurate, and you can't do it quickly. Let's say you turn over the Delaney cards to save time. You still have to do the bubbling in your lunch or prep for 250 names per day. And they're not just absent or present. They can be late. They can also be late halfway through the period, which means you have to go back and annotate those too.

4. Talking about differentiation: you get in the same class: grades 9 - 12, spec. ed (learning disabled plus behaviorally challenged), regular ed, self-contained class members (their IEPs allow them to be mainstreamed for the electives), hearing impaired, and ELLs.

5. Absenteeism is erratic. There is little consistency, so some kids are up to date with the work, and lots and lots of others are missing a day here or there each week.

6. Grading: if you care about your job, you give classwork, and it needs to be graded. Grading so many kids is a nightmare.

7. Report cards are another nightmare, because even if they don't show, they all have to get a grade and a comment. This can only be done on a PC, not a Mac, and many music teachers use Macs at home because it was traditionally the best computer for music and art.

8. When they ask us to CALL HOME for every single person absent, try doing that kind of volume. It's only possible to do this on your lunch hour and in your prep. You should not have to do this kind of work at home or on your own time, but one is forced to under these conditions.

9. Now they're asking for PROGRESS REPORTS: they have to be done on a computer for each and every one of the 250 students, even if they aren't coming to school.

10. This leaves no time whatsoever for lesson planning, collaborating with other teachers, fixing your room, making your music tapes and/or class materials. It all has to be done on your own time — which is normal for teachers, but so very much more for us.

11. On top of this you get a Circular 6 duty taking up a period.

Please can you to do something about this terrible disparity. A spec. ed teacher or a RR teacher has 14 kids max each period, gen ed has 34, and we have 50 — that's half again the reg ed class. But admin makes no exceptions in the obligations we must fulfill as subject teachers.

Failing a contractual class size change, please can you get someone to say that Music teachers with these numbers should be given NO other circ. 6R duty than to finish up the attendance, calling home, grading, and school marks.

The remarks above are for GENERAL MUSIC and small music classes like Keyboard. They are not for CHORUS, BAND or ORCHESTRA, which are "performance" groups and many music teachers want as large a group as they can get for better sound. I was most happy in MS with a performance group of 80 or 90 (though I rehearsed them in groups of 32 or so, as well as some lunchtime kids 3 times a week, then combined them all for concerts).

I brought this up two or three years ago at a DA. RW's response was to see if there could be some "non-contractual relief." That never happened.

Best regards,

ICE Statement on the Nov. 3, 2009 Vote for Mayor

by John Lawhead

The election on November 3rd will have lasting consequences for public education and the city. It deserves the attention and involvement of all New Yorkers. The UFT has a long history of candidate endorsements made without any regular process of consultation with the membership and often contrary to members' interests. The decision to sit out the contest between Michael Bloomberg and his opponents speeds us to the brink of more disasters. If appearances are real and the UFT leadership's passive support for the mayor's reelection is a deal for a new UFT contract by deadline, our union is deeply complicit in another landmark defeat for the teaching profession.

Nearly eight years of direct control over the schools have provided Bloomberg with an unchecked opportunity to implement numerous policies premised on distrust and contempt for teachers, students and school communities. Early on with his rush to implement grade retention policy he put the blame on 8-year olds for low reading scores and further worked to make standardized testing a year-round concern. “Weekend, vacations, summer -- time off is a luxury earned, not a right,” he told a radio audience in 2002. Chancellor Klein went to work making testing an obsession for all schools by hanging their fate on it.

His administration accelerated the wholesale closing of neighborhood high schools. Together with a successful assault on teachers' contractual rights this led to the creation of an excess teacher reserve force in the thousands. The result of dozens of school phase-outs deepened the gulf between the two worlds children in New York encounter at the high school level. One consists mostly of large neighborhood or selective schools and is increasingly filled with white and Asian students An entirely different realm awaits black and Latino students consisting mostly of new small schools, stripped of both enrichment programs, IEP services and bilingual programs and plagued with teacher turnover.

The new schools have been staffed with discriminatory hiring through privately-run programs. Just as tens of millions in funding by Bill Gates went to school reorganizations, Eli Broad's millions were used to train principals to see teachers as antagonists. In recent years Bloomberg and Chancellor Joel Klein have extended the agenda of privatized education by embracing charter schools, displaying a marked preference for the chain operators. Their favoritism towards the charters has allowed them to invade neighborhood schools and shrink them.

For educational activists the past eight years have meant not only palpable damage but also lost opportunity for positive and progressive change. The Bloomberg monopoly of power has excluded local participation in decision making, eliminating a common entry into politics by Black and Latino New Yorkers. It has also preempted meaningful discussion around educational goals and policy. What should be the goals of a public education? How can schools do more just provide an exit from the poorest communities? How could schools be part of a collective effort to improve neighborhoods and increase democracy?

Bill Thompson has played an important role as city comptroller in exposing Bloomberg-era fraud and mismanagement. His supporters are waging a spirited fight against a billionaire mayor with lopsidedly less resources. It is difficult to offer Thompson unqualified support when he has thrown support to mayoral control and supports much of the underlying corporate agenda for education. The mayoral race this year also attracted Tony Avella (who Thompson defeated) and Billy Palen who is running as the Green Party candidate. Both advocated a more grassroots response to the current mess and it's a shame Thompson didn't adopt some of their policies in his campaign against the mayor.

Despite these differences anything other than energetic rejection of the Bloomberg monopoly is the wrong choice for our union. We urge all readers to vote against Bloomberg!