SCORE ONE FOR RANDI'S HILLARY ENDORSEMENT BUT I AM STILL NOT CONVINCED

Hillary Clinton recently made a factual remark  about charter schools that is causing some controversy.  This is from Politico:

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sounded less like a decades-long supporter of charter schools over the weekend and more like a teachers union president when she argued that most of these schools "don't take the hardest-to-teach kids, or, if they do, they don't keep them."

The right wing press is all over the comment with the Wall Street Journal and New York Post blasting Clinton. The American Federation of Teachers backed Clinton for president early on. AFT President Randi Weingarten is now defending Hillary's statement. Here is what Randi said:

"Hillary Clinton looks at the evidence. That's what she did here, " Weingarten told POLITICO.  She called out that many charters don't take the hardest-to-teach kids or don't keep those with academic or behavioral issues."

Later, the Politico piece quotes the President of the National Education Association who is also supporting Hillary.

It all sounds good, right?

Well, maybe not as the Politico article goes on by outlining Hillary's long time advocacy for charter schools. Her campaign is then quoted as saying that Hillary has "been a strong supporter of both public charter schools and an unflinching advocate for traditional public schools."

Can you have it both ways?  Deciphering Hillary's real education positions, and Randi's sometimes for that matter, looks like a difficult task.

Some of you think it's all about what the donors want and this is just a bone thrown to the Democratic Party public school base. I get that cynicism but perhaps there's something more here.

PERUSING THE BLOGS

Without Perdido Street School to go to each day, some other bloggers are picking up some of the slack.

For some expert national and statewide analysis of the union and politics, I would head over to B-Lo Ed Scene where you get Sean Crowley's inimitable style. Sean has a very interesting take on the state and national unions and their lack of responsiveness to their members. He notes how presidential endorsements are made and if they come top down, the union usually endorses Hillary Clinton but if the rank and file are involved, they want Bernie Sanders.

Norm Scott joins in with some Randi bashing over at Ed Notes. Norm criticizing AFT President Randi Weingarten is like the sun rising in the east but here his analysis of Randi Weingarten working the ground game for Hillary Clinton in Iowa is worth thinking over even though I disagree with the conclusion from Mike Antonucci that Norm cites. Mike claims that having Randi and NEA President Lili Eskelson Garcia working for Hillary doesn't help teachers because Hillary won by such a small margin yesterday.

I think one of  the lessons to be learned from the Iowa Caucuses is that ground game really matters in politics. Donald Trump doesn't have one and he did not win. Having people going door-to-door for a candidate is very important to winning elections. Word of mouth publicity can't be beaten so Randi probably had an impact. Whether or not the early Clinton endorsement was wise is a different matter. I don't know of too many Hillary Clinton supporters at work and certainly she gets no love among my blogger friends who think of her only slightly more positively than the devil.

Speaking of ground game, in a union election this means having real live people in a school to spread the word about candidates in that election.  Mulgrew's Unity starts every UFT election with a huge advantage simply because of their huge reach in the schools. Whether or not these people are bought and paid for is irrelevant.

As for the Democrats, having the party establishment behind Hillary Clinton means Bernie Sanders will be fighting a huge uphill battle and will need to do more than come close to a draw, as he did in Iowa, to win the nomination. Don't forget those Democratic super-delegates will be overwhelmingly behind Hillary.  Turning them around requires Sanders to knock out the favorite.

The establishment has kind of rigged the process in a similar way that the UFT has fixed things so the retirees vote in union elections but nobody but Unity can get to them except in one NY Teacher ad every three years. Add to that the patronage Unity hands out for their people in the schools and you have a very non-level playing field.  Bernie Sanders is playing on a similar tilted field so I truly identify with him.  If he didn't vote for the Murphy amendment that continues test and punish education policy, I might be one of his enthusiastic supporters.

Switching gears totally, for some analysis on New York City healthcare for municipal employees, go to DOE NUTS blog. While almost every teacher he knows has GHI-CBP, plenty of teachers use the other part of Emblem Health called HIP. There are no co-pays for doctor visits in HIP but one must stay in the network and get referrals for specialty care. I do concur with most of DOE-NUTS analysis and think we are about to pay more for less healthcare.

Finally, it's always good to take a look at NYC Educator each day.  Today he is blogging about how teachers are overworked and evaluations are ridiculous.  Well worth a read.

So there are just some quick suggestions on where to look while we miss Reality Based Educator.

THREE EMAILS FROM UNION LEADERS TRY TO LIFT THE SPIRITS TODAY

Michael Fiorillo recommended in commenting at the always insightful Perdido Street School that we read the Thomas Frank piece in the Guardian on the election. Frank trashes the Democratic party and media establishment for basically giving us Donald Trump. He includes some tremendous links.  Frank's conclusion:

The American white-collar class just spent the year rallying around a super-competent professional (who really wasn't all that competent) and either insulting or silencing everyone who didn't accept their assessment. And then they lost. Maybe it's time to consider whether there's something about shrill self-righteousness, shouted from a position of high social status, that turns people away.

The even larger problem is that there is a kind of chronic complacency that has been rotting American liberalism for years, a hubris that tells Democrats they need do nothing different, they need deliver nothing really to anyone - except their friends on the Google jet and those nice people at Goldman. The rest of us are treated as though we have nowhere else to go and no role to play except to vote enthusiastically on the grounds that these Democrats are the "last thing standing" between us and the end of the world. It is a liberalism of the rich, it has failed the middle class, and now it has failed on its own terms of electability. Enough with these comfortable Democrats and their cozy Washington system. Enough with Clintonism and its prideful air of professional-class virtue. Enough!

From Perdido:

Clinton shills did a lot of mocking this year, first the Sanders people during the primary, then the Trump supporters during the general.

One thing Clinton and her shills never did - try and understand the real pain and terror many in this country feel over their economic futures.

A lot of those people sent a big "Fuck You!" to the elites last night, though I think that will come back to bite them in the end.

A Republican president with a Republican Senate and a Republican House is going to do a lot of damage in the short term.

Add in all the crazies Trump is sure to bring along - Rudy, Christie, maybe Palin - and it's even worse.

As for the Supreme Court, that strategy Obama pursued doesn't look so hot now either - the chance to transform the Supreme Court is now lost to Dems.

Remember that union case that ended up 4-4 after Scalia died?

You can bet another like that one is going to rear sooner rather than later and those automatic dues the union elites lap up will go out the window with Clinton's electoral map to victory.

It's going to be a very tough few years.

The "Fuck you!" sent last night, as with the one the British sent with Brexit, is going to be a costly one in the end.

But I blame the Dem elites for this mess - this loss is squarely on HRC and her neoliberal cohorts.

On the same day that I read these pieces I opened my email box and there were emails from UFT President Michael Mulgrew, NYSUT President Karen Magee and AFT President Randi Weingarten. All three of these esteemed Democratic elites wrote on the same afternoon.

I am printing each in its entirety below and asking you if our leaders at the city, state and national level hit the right chord after Tuesday's latest election disaster?

Will there be any acceptance of any responsibility?

James,

Both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton understood working families have been left behind by a changing economy, punctuated by the last recession, and that anger is reflected in the results. While Hillary Clinton seems on track to win the popular vote, more people in more states trusted Donald Trump to bring the change they need than trusted Hillary.

Throughout this campaign, Donald Trump promised to fix the rigged economy. He promised to restore America’s middle class, to bring back the country’s manufacturing and industrial base, and to restore dignity and opportunity for Americans—values that we as trade unionists understand intimately. He said last night that he would bring the country together—something that is essential, given the bullying and bigotry unleashed in this election. And as unionists, we will work tirelessly to ensure that all people can reach for their dreams, economically, educationally and otherwise.

We believe deeply in our democracy. We accept the will of the people, and, as Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday, we owe President-elect Trump the chance to lead. We will also hold him accountable for the promises he made to restore the sense of greatness and opportunity that too many Americans feel they have lost, while at the same time we will continue the fight for everyone’s liberties.

As Hillary said yesterday morning, the American dream is big enough for everyone, and fighting for what’s right is worth it. She called on us not to lose faith, not to be discouraged, not to lose heart. As we work to restore economic opportunity and dignity, we must—and we will—stand up to the tides of intolerance. We will ensure that the vulnerable, the bullied and the forgotten are not targeted or abandoned; that our rights are preserved for all communities; that our democracy is not eclipsed; and that our movements and values—like labor, public education, access to healthcare, a clean environment, civil rights and so much more—are not forgotten or devastated.

Though heartbroken at this result, this was about economic change and a yearning for change, not an undermining of all things we hold dear like public schools. Across the country in local races—from ballot initiatives in Georgia and Massachusetts, to school boards in New Orleans and Corpus Christi, to levies that will support schools in Cincinnati, Cleveland and the San Francisco Community College District, to Proposition 55 in California and much more—voters chose to lift up and protect the institution of public education. Our members across the country worked hard not just for Hillary, but for their local schools, their hospitals, their public services—and many prevailed.

We poured our hopes, our energy and our hearts into this campaign to elect someone we believed would bring the change we do desperately need. It breaks our hearts that the Hillary Clinton we know and love was not the person so many voters saw. But our deep belief in our democracy, in the power of people together, in the cause of opportunity and justice, will compel us to come together to move forward, no matter the odds.

We will do what Americans have always done. We will pick ourselves up, extend a hand to our neighbors and our colleagues, and recommit ourselves to the task of fighting for an America where everyone has a fair chance; where no one is demonized, no one is excluded; and where we lift each other up rather than let anyone—even a president—push any of us down.
In unity,

Randi Weingarten
AFT President

Karen's notes: Moving forward

On Tuesday, we exercised our privileged right to vote ... a right that has been secured and defended for us by generations of veterans. Today, as always, I stand in awe of their service and the many sacrifices they have made and continue to make in service of our country. Please join me in thanking all veterans for defending and protecting our beautiful democracy.

On Wednesday morning, we awoke to a very different world than the one we were anticipating. The outcome of Tuesday's vote was not what most of us expected nor hoped for, but it is our reality. Fortunately, it is a reality for which we have spent the last three years preparing, following our mantra of educate, organize and mobilize.

In the wake of the Friedrichs decision last March, I said: We may have dodged a bullet, but other attacks will surely follow. Now, we may not have predicted the results of this election, and we don't know the magnitude of the attacks that are to come, but our efforts to energize and mobilize our members leave us in a position where we are ready to stand in defense of students, parents and educators in New York State.

As my colleague, Executive Vice President Andy Pallotta, said on Wednesday morning, NYSUT stands by the same values we did before the election. We vow to continue to protect public education, quality health care, opportunity and equality for all. Here's more on NYSUT's election efforts from Andy.

Thank you to all who worked so hard on campaigns in New York, as well as NYSUT volunteers in battleground states. We will need all that energy and dedication, and more, in the future. As Hillary Clinton said so eloquently in her concession speech, fighting for what's right is always worth it. We will continue to do what we have been doing for the last three years: educate, organize, and mobilize our members, our friends, and our families. It is our right and our privilege to do so.

Dear James,

Given the import of this week’s events, I decided that instead of a Chapter Leader Update, I would send you this email addressing the election results and its ramifications on our schools, our students and our union.

I know the election results have left many of us shell-shocked. Many are worried about what the future holds for our families and our nation. And as public school educators, we are worried about the children in our care — the undocumented immigrants, the children in poverty, the Muslims, the LGBTQ kids.

As chapter leaders and union delegates, you can provide a safe place for members to talk and to lean on each other as we navigate the road ahead. As educators, we have to keep our own emotions at bay at school as we are called upon to answer our students’ questions, ensure that they feel safe and valued, and keep them inspired and focused on their education.

At our Delegate Assembly on Wednesday, you shared powerful and heartbreaking stories about your first day back at school. A teacher at International HS at Union Square relayed that an 11th-grader confided to him that her dream of going to college died the day before and her parents had started talking about moving back to their home country. A Queens teacher had to calm the fears of one 3rd-grader that World War III was coming. A Bronx high school teacher shared how she changed the topic of the Socratic seminar she had planned from Shakespeare to the election. 

In times like these, we have to hold fast to our core beliefs: that public education is critical to the future of this country; that all communities inside our school communities deserve respect and dignity; and that workers have a right to unionize and be treated fairly.

In the months and years ahead, we are going to face some of the greatest challenges that this union and its members have ever faced. There will be seismic policy shifts with Trump as president, both houses of Congress in Republican hands and the U.S. Supreme Court with a right-wing majority. We always try to work with people first but if they attack one of our core beliefs, we have no choice as a union but to fight. This is an opportunity for us to organize, both among our own members and with others in our communities.

How we fare in this battle will come down to the grit we have. We can draw strength from knowing that our fights have always been righteous fights. We will work with those who share our values — including parent and community groups and civil rights and immigrant rights associations — because we know we are more powerful when we stand together.

We must keep moving forward. Our families, our students and the communities we serve are depending on us. We will get through this together.

I thank you for all that you do.

Sincerely,

Michael Mulgrew

AFT HILLARY ENDORSEMENT NO SURPRISE

There is outrage on the internet over the American Federation of Teachers endorsement of Hillary Clinton for president.  AFT President Randi Weingarten's Executive Council coming out for Hillary was about as surprising as a 7-Eleven store having a slurpee machine. Everyone should have known this was coming.  This blog predicted it three days back and nobody here is related to psychic Edgar Cayse let alone AFT's Leo Casey. Yet the reaction on Facebook from some of my friends seems to be total anger.

Beth Dimino, leader of statewide opposition to Randi's Unity Caucus in NYSUT called Stronger Together said, "This is Bull***t... All the teachers I know do NOT support Clinton!" Beth is known for being direct.

Fordham professor Mark Naison stated, "The AFT's endorsement of Hilary Clinton is at the very least premature and at the very worst, disastrous for defenders of public education."

Jia Lee from the MORE-UFT opposition caucus in NYC and Change the Stakes commented: "Am I shocked that the AFT leadership announced endorsement for Clinton? No. Am I continually disappointed at the leadership for its lack of democracy? You bet! At the same time, an endorsement is meaningless knowing we teachers have control over our vote, and we will vote for a candidate who won't sell public schools down the river."

You get the idea.

To be fair to AFT President Weingarten, I was called and listened in on one of those telephone town hall meetings for AFT activists and at one point someone broke in, called me by my first name and asked if I wanted to ask a question.  I was taking care of my kids at the time and just monitoring the discussion.  I very much doubt my question about Hillary's negative baggage and disapproval numbers would have made any difference in the AFT endorsement process and my two children were keeping me very busy while I listened in on the town hall so I just helped take care of my two kids, continued listening and didn't participate actively.

Maybe I should have spoken up as I didn't realize until this morning that I seem to be one of the few Hillary doubters who had a chance to be involved in any way in the process.

On the other hand, anyone with a pulse who was listening to the town hall or knows anything about the AFT knew the Hillary nod was coming and I do believe the AFT did scientific polling of the membership.

According to Randi, an early endorsement is better than a later one because when a union is with a candidate early on, they show they are truly a friend and there will be benefits later on. She said a later endorsement, when everyone is endorsing a candidate who is clearly going to get the Democratic nomination, would not have as much impact.  She also claimed Hillary in her meeting with the AFT Executive Council talked much more about PreK-12 education than Senator Bernie Sanders or former Governor Martin O'Malley and she added that Clinton had an in depth knowledge of education issues.

Randi also stated that a candidate should be electable to get AFT support and she clearly felt Hillary could win.  There were callers in favor of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders who made very good points on why he should be endorsed.  Unfortunately, Hillary's negatives never came up while I was closely listening.   Randi also reported that not one of the many Republican candidates running for president wanted any part of the AFT.

This morning can anyone say they are even mildly surprised by the AFT endorsement? We all know that being a Democratic Party leader and having a seat at the table of the powerful is very important to Randi and that the AFT is a top-down organization.

In the final analysis, Jia Lee is right as we still have the power in our votes and ability to influence others.

WILL RANDI EVER MOVE ON FROM HILLARY?

Day one of the AFT Convention in Pittsburgh and guess who the featured speaker was? You get no prize for clairvoyance, even if you had not heard anything about the event, if your answer was Hillary Clinton.

Will AFT President Randi Weingarten ever move on?

A summary of some of what was said from Weingarten and HIllary is in coverage from WESA in Pittsburgh.

Hillary Clinton pulled few punches in a fiery 25-minute address to the American Federation of Teachers in Downtown Pittsburgh mid-morning Friday. Denouncing President Trump across a range of issues, she warned that “they are trying to rip the heart out of America. .. .They want to turn us against each other. They want to divide and conquer.”

And later on:

She spoke harshly of Trump’s policies on a range of issues like immigration. which have featured immigrant children being taken from their parents at the border, with little apparent thought given to their reunification.

 “The test of any society is how we treat the most vulnerable among us, particularly our youngest, our oldest, our people with disabilities," she said. "And right now, my friends, our country is failing that test. We have never seen such organized cruelty, disdain and contempt for those values.”

Speaking to an assembly that included teachers from the United States and 25 other countries, Clinton also called for opposition to the pending U.S. Supreme Court appointment of Brett Kavanaugh, who Trump has nominated to replace swing justice Anthony Kennedy. Kavanaugh is a staunch conservative whose fifth vote on the 9-member Supreme Court could overturn numerous legal precedents cherished by Democrats.

“This nomination holds out the threat of devastating consequences for workers’ rights, civil rights, LGBT rights, women’s rights, including those to make our own health decisions,” Clinton warned. “It is a blatant attempt by this administration … to reverse decades of progress.”

“I used to worry that that they wanted to turn the clock back to the 1950s. Now I worry that they want to turn it back to the 1850s,” she added. “These will be urgent fights.. … [E]verything that represents the progress we have made over the past 125 years, to make our country freer and fairer, to pursue the dream of a more perfect union, is at stake.”

Clinton urged teachers to educate their students and “keep standing up for the truth ... for evidence, for reason.” But she said voting in November was critical.

For those interested in hearing President Weingarten's views, read on.

The AFT, which boasts over 1.7 million members in education and health care nationwide, was an early supporter in the contested 2016 Democratic primary contest. So early, in fact, that union supporters of Bernie Sanders were upset at how quickly union leaders made their pick.

During her own speech prior to Clinton’s address, Weingarten seemed anxious to keep that in the past. She told members that in November, “We must be together, and we must be all in, which is why I am so glad that both Secretary Clinton and Senator Sanders are with us at this convention.”

On Saturday, another potential 2020 Democratic hopeful, Senator Elizabeth Warren, is expected to speak. Sanders is slated to speak at the convention on Sunday. 

In addition to lambasting Trump with remarks of her own, Weingarten laid out a number of challenges facing the union.

She spoke at length about the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in the Janus case. A 5-4 court ruled last month that government unions could not collect dues from employees who opted out of the union. (Employees cannot be compelled to join a union, but because the union negotiates for benefits and working conditions, the court previously ruled that non-members could be charged for the cost of that representation.) The ruling is expected to weaken unions -- especially those who, like teachers, work in the public sector.

Weingarten decried the ruling repeatedly, calling it the work of a “right-wing” court majority that “wants to destroy the aspirations and dreams of working folks.” But she also pledged the union would fight, boasting that its now counted 1,755,000 members – “the highest number ever.” Over a half-million members had “recommitted” to the union – agreeing to remain as members – since January, she said.  

For those who want even more, here is a video feed from AFT from Pittsburgh. I watched some of it and felt I was back at a Delegate Assembly. Scary.
For the record, I fully agree with Randi that the right wing has a three pronged strategy: 1-Suppress the vote, 2-kill the unions, 3-privatize public education. I just hope that she has better ways to stop them from being successful. In case you didn't know, I suggested a more militant approach to fighting Mayor Michael Bloomberg back before she sold us out in the 2005 contract.

HILLARY ADDRESSES NYSUT; SOME NOT IMPRESSED (UPDATED TWICE)

The AFT is doing everything it can for Hillary Clinton. As we said last summer when the AFT predictably endorsed Hillary, Randi Weingarten supporting Hillary Clinton is about as surprising as a slurpee machine in a 7-eleven store.

Last evening Clinton addressed the Delegates at the NYSUT Representative Assembly. I didn't hear about anything that Hillary said on Facebook but there was controversy.

Here is Beth Dimino's description: "They will not allow us to bring in Bernie Placards but there are Hillary Placards on every chair. Once again rules are for everyone except UFT/Unity/AFT. This is NOT what democracy looks like!"



Best comment comes from Anthony F Felicio Jr on Facebook:

Hillary, Randi and Karen...what a trio! God help us.

UPDATE: Hillary hears boos after mentioning Cuomo at NYSUT convention. Hard to tell who they are booing.

Update 2: For those who want to watch the whole speech, here it is so you can judge for yourself on the context of the booing.

UFT POLITICAL ENDORSEMENTS BECOMING A "KISS OF DEATH"

Our Union has had a uncanny history of endorsing losing candidates for political office (remember the last two mayoral elections)...and it continues. In an unprecedented effort to elect Hillary Clinton we may have finally thrown in the towel.

Our losing endorsements continued with the defeat of UFT endorsed Elizabeth Crowley, a candidate in a special election for City Council from the 30th District in Queens. UFTers spent long hours campaigning for her in a losing bid. While the absentee ballots have not been counted yet our UFT candidate has apparently lost to Anthony Como, a republican machine backed candidate.

Here is what Randi wrote to the Chapter Leaders about Clinton and Obama yesterday, including a statement from AFT President McElroy:

As you know, Senator Barack Obama yesterday sealed the Democratic presidential nomination after a final flurry of superdelegate endorsements and returns from the final primaries in Montana and South Dakota. I wanted you to know our union’s response to this latest development and where we go from here. Randi

AFT President Edward J. McElroy’s statement on the Democratic primary:Congratulations to Sen. Barack Obama on becoming the presumptive Democratic nominee for president. He ran an effective, well-organized campaign to win a competitive primary race that included several excellent candidates. We look forward to meeting with him as soon as possible.We also congratulate Sen. Hillary Clinton for her strong performance in the Democratic primaries. The AFT is proud to have supported her through our considerable member education and political mobilization program, and a grass-roots campaign that engaged members across the country. Our members’ votes and activism were crucial in many primary contests. Also, because of the extended primary season, we reached out to members in states that have rarely been in play in the presidential primaries. We will mobilize these members again in the fall, which means we will work even more effectively, and in more states, than in any previous election. The AFT’s endorsement in the primaries came only after a deliberative process that included face-to-face meetings with candidates, conversations with members about the issues that matter most to them, and direct questions to members about which candidate they believed would best address their issues. The AFT now will engage in a process to prepare to make an endorsement for this fall’s general election. The goal of the AFT in November, as in every election, is simple: to elect a candidate who will be a strong advocate for our members, their families and the communities where our members live and serve.

ST CAUCUS LETTER OPPOSING PROCESS AND TIMING OF AFT HILLARY ENDORSEMENT

ST Caucus is the statewide opposition group to Michael Mulgrew and Randi Weingarten's ruling Unity Caucus.  I am a member of ST which stands for Stronger Together.  Here is their letter in its entirety opposing the way the AFT backed Hillary Clinton for President. 

Dear ST Caucus Members,

ST Caucus Leadership stands in opposition to the process and timing of the AFT endorsement of Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Democratic Primary.  ST Caucus Leadership believes that the AFT Executive Board's survey of the membership was premature and not representative of the rank and file. Any survey this early in the process does not allow for members to  have sufficient knowledge of all the potential candidates and their positions and it precludes the fact that more candidates may enter the race.  

With 16 months to go before the election, ST Caucus Leadership believes that it is too early to endorse anyone.  AFT Leadership threw away its ability to advocate for the rank and file at a time when candidates should be sparring with each other to earn our endorsement.   Now more than ever, public education, teachers, children, and parents need a candidate who will champion their rights and include educators in all decision-making processes.  

The ST Caucus will be surveying its members to determine their degree of satisfaction with the process and the timing of the AFT endorsement. The survey results will be shared on the ST Caucus website, Facebook page, and Twitter, in addition the results will be emailed to all members of the STCaucus.

Chair: Beth Dimino—President Port Jefferson Station Teachers' Association

Treasurer: Beth Chetney—President Baldwinsville Teachers’ Association

Secretary: Laura Spencer—President Smithtown Teachers’ Association

Membership Chair: Michele Bushey—PAC, Saranac Teachers’ Association 

Vice-Chairs representing NYS by region 

1)   Central NY/Southern Tier: Angelee Hargreaves—President Port Byron Teachers’ Association

2)   Capital District: Megan DeLaRosa—President Shenendehowa Teachers’ Association

3)   North Country: Nate Hathaway—President Malone Federation of Teachers

4)   Tarrytown/Mid-Hudson: Mike Lillis—President Lakeland Federation of Teachers

5)   Nassau/Suffolk: Kevin Coyne—President Brentwood Teachers’ Association

6)   NYC:  Mike Schirtzer—UFT Delegate; MORE CAUCUS

7)   Western NY (Buffalo):  Joe Karb—President Springville Faculty Association

8)   Western NY (Rochester): Orlando Benzan—President Brockport Teachers’ Association

BERNIE OR HILLARY NEED TO LISTEN TO BERTIS DOWNS

Bertis Downs IV is the manager of alternative rockers and my favorites R.E.M.  He is also on the board of the Network for Public Education.  He has some advice for Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders on public education.  He wrote a speech that either one of them could give to show they are not for business as usual on education.  It is at Salon. Please read it.

Bertis says this speech could seal the nomination for either one of the candidates.  I am not holding my breath waiting for either Bernie or Hillary to give it. Hillary is the embodiment of the status quo and Bernie voted for the Murphy amendment last summer supporting the continuation of test and punish education.

However, we can hope one of them comes to their senses on moving public education ahead by working with real teachers,parents and students, not just top-down union leaders.

Bertis, in his proposed speech, sees of one of the candidates talking about the sorry state of public education today including the mentality that blames teachers for problems such as poverty that are way beyond our control.  He points out that this is leading to an impending teacher shortage.  Then, he makes the case that K-12 education has not been a major campaign issue yet.  His would-be candidate says:

Thus far, there's been very little campaign time devoted to public education policy.  I guess that's not surprising given the amount of money and power at stake.  Someone recently joked that on the Democratic campaign trail it's as if children go straight from pre-K to debt-free college and there's no such thing as K - 12 education in between.  Well, I want to change that mistaken perception.

Bertis goes on:

Well, in recent months, I have been quietly talking with teachers, principals, parents and students. These are the true stakeholders in this debate, after all.  Many of these true stakeholders are affiliated with groups like the Network for Public Education, the Badass Teachers Association, Parents Across America, Class Size Matters, Education Opportunity Network, National Education Policy Center, Journey for Justice, FAIRTEST, Save Our Schools, United Opt-Out and the growing movement of student activist groups in many of our major cities,  These are grassroots groups with smart, dedicated and hardworking people who believe in the value of public education and work hard every day to strengthen and improve the system.  Groups like these will have at seat at the table in my administration.

He continues a little later:

I am listening to educators and parents - the true stakeholders - and I will put some educators with actual real-world, real-school experience in positions of power in my administration.  For a long time now, we have pursued so many of the corporatized policies: test and punish, drill and kill, stack, rank and close. These practices are not helping our children learn.  And from my lifelong travels around the country and the globe, I know that no other country uses standardized testing the same way we do.  There's a better way.

He then describes community based schools and discusses how integrated public schools can succeed.

Are Bernie and Hillary listening? Or as many of us fear, Hillary will be a third term of the Obama administration's corporate driven education disaster and Bernie will be a national version of progressive Bill de Blasio, who has not exactly transformed public education in New York City.

Most of my friends are leaning toward Sanders as the best hope but didn't we hear about hope and change with Obama and were burned and didn't we listen to de Blasio promise real change on education in NYC and when elected he retained most of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's people in education and continued many of Bloomberg's anti-teacher policies?

By the way I write all of this as an educator who has two friends on Facebook who are relatively recent Jamaica High School graduates who are working for Bernie and regularly posting on Facebook about their experiences on the campaign trail.

January Delegate Assembly Report

Hillary Speaks to DA on the Phone
Teachers will Fight Excessive Paperwork
DA Calls for No Reduction in Parking Permits
UFT Fighting Principals in Need of Improvement
DA Unanimously Endorses ICE Amended Resolution on School Leadership Teams

By James Eterno, UFT Chapter Leader Jamaica High School

That last headline is not a misprint. In a move that surprised a great many people including the maker of the amendment: yours truly, the UFT Delegate Assembly voted unanimously to support an amendment we wrote asking the UFT to support a parent who has filed a class action appeal to State Education Commissioner Mills demanding that the Principals not be allowed to unilaterally make the final determination on school budgets on School Leadership Teams. Any chance of collaborative working environments was lost in December when Chancellor Joel Klein issued a new Chancellor's Regulation A-655 that gives principals the final say on the work of the School Leadership Teams, thus ending shared decision making. A parent appealed saying this violated State law and now with this amendment the UFT has joined onto the appeal. State law calls for shared decision making between parents, teachers and school administrators.

Hopefully, the teacher-parent coalition that came together last year will unite again so that we can bring to pass true shared decision making at the school level. We'll see what kind of mobilization the UFT puts forth to help the parents on this issue. Also, we would like to thank the UFT leadership for recognizing that this was a necessary amendment to add onto their resolution to make SLT's truly collaborative in every school. We've said it before and we will say it again: when the UFT leadership does the right thing, we have no problem giving them credit on this blog.

In other DA news, Hillary Clinton called Randi on her cell-phone and addressed the delegates from Nevada. Her call was played on a speakerphone at the main microphone so everyone could hear Hillary clearly. The technology was impressive. One delegate jokingly remarked that we were listening to god through those speakers. The Union is clearly making a strong pitch for their endorsed candidate: Hillary. ICE has not taken a position on the Democratic Primaries so further comment is not called for here. Comptroller Bill Thompson also spoke live to the Delegates in favor of Hillary .

Additionally, a resolution was passed calling on the DOE to eliminate repetitive paperwork and another was approved calling for the UFT to be able to find ways to increase the number of educator parking permits, not have them decreased as the Mayor wants. President Randi Weingarten reported that all issues with the 55-25 retirement bill have been worked out and she expects a bill to be passed by the State Legislature this month.

Finally, the Union announced its Principals in Need of Improvement program. This was introduced by new Staff Director Leroy Barr. He called up to the podium multiple members from three schools who told horror stories about principals from hell. The schools were Acorn High School for Social Justice, Susan Wagner High School on Staten Island and PS114 in Brooklyn where a remarkable forty UFT members showed up at the DA. We salute those UFT members for standing together and fighting back at the school level.

IF HILLARY WINS, THEN WHAT FOR K-12 PUBLIC EDUCATION?

I read NYC Educator's latest post closely. Arthur makes a strong case that the AFT and Democratic National Committee being joined at the hip is not necessarily in the best interest of working teachers who the AFT is supposed to represent. The Democrats have done very little for public school teachers or students during the Obama years at the federal level. I would add that they haven't done much for public education during the Cuomo and de Blasio years at the state or city level either.

Why then do we continue to blindly support Democrats?

Arthur and I have a mutual friend in Harris Lirtzman. Harris is someone we both respect who is a Hillary Clinton supporter. He commented on Arthur's blog and speculated on who Hillary might appoint as Secretary of Education. Here is part of his comment:

...if Clinton is elected, I don't assume that she'll appoint a Duncan-King to be Secretary of Education. She has to strike a very careful balance between the enormous support she's received by the AFT and NEA (yes, you don't like that) and reformistas in a way that Obama never had to. My guess is that she'd appoint a Hammond-Darling kind of secretary and steer very far away from D-K lite. Just a guess but I would make no assumptions that with Clinton we get any version of D-K.

I hope and pray Harris is correct. I am skeptical that we will see any substantive change nationally for teachers or public schools under Hillary. The Clintons are the embodiment of the establishment. They are part of a political class that has not been kind to public school teachers.

On the other hand, there is room for optimism in the K-12 education part of the Democratic Party Platform. I read it today and here is my favorite paragraph:

We oppose high-stakes standardized tests that falsely and unfairly label students of color, students with disabilities and English Language Learners as failing; the use of standardized test scores as basis for refusing to fund schools or to close schools; and the use of student test scores in teacher and principal evaluations, a practice which has been repeatedly rejected by researchers. We support enabling parents to opt their children out of standardized tests without penalty for either the student or their school. 

Have Democrats Barrack Obama or Andrew Cuomo been given a copy of this paragraph? How about Secretary of Education John King?

Platforms don't ordinarily mean that much in the USA but this one isn't bad on public education except for the support for "public charter schools." Public and charter school is an oxymoron. A public school needs to be accountable to the public. Charters are not accountable in so many ways as the Network for Public Education's Carol Burris pointed out. I oppose charter schools.

I am very worried about Hillary's foreign policy but on education the Democratic Platform at least is way ahead of the Trump Republicans who public school teachers would have to be kind of self-loathing to support.

For those interested in reading the full Democratic platform, it can be found at the bottom of a piece in Education Week.

Below are the parts on K-12 education in their entirety.

 Guaranteeing Universal Preschool and Good Schools for Every Child 

Democrats believe we must have the best-educated population and workforce in the world. That means making early childhood education and universal preschool a priority, especially in light of new research showing how much early learning can impact life-long success. 

Democrats will invest in early childhood programs like Early Head Start and provide every family in America with access to high-quality childcare and high-quality preschool programs. We support efforts to raise wages for childcare workers, and to ensure that early childhood educators are experienced and high-quality. 

We will ensure there are great schools for every child no matter where they live. Democrats know the federal government must play a critical role in making sure every child has access to a world-class education. We believe that a strong public education system is an anchor of our democracy, a propeller of the economy, and the vehicle through which we help all children achieve their dreams. Public education must engage students to be critical thinkers and civic participants while addressing the wellbeing of the whole child.

We also support increased investments in afterschool and summer learning programs, which help working families, keep kids safe, and inspire learning at a time when many students are left unsupervised. We must find ways to encourage mentoring programs that support students in reaching their full potential. Mentoring is a strategy to ensure that children living in poverty have the encouragement and support to aim high and enter the middle class. We will focus on group mentoring, which is a low-cost, high-yield investment that offers the benefit of building a supportive network of peers who push one another towards success.

Democrats believe all students should be taught to high academic standards. Schools should have adequate resources to provide programs and support to help meet the needs of every child. We will hold schools, districts, communities, and states accountable for raising achievement levels for all students—particularly low-income students, students of color, English Language Learners, and students with disabilities. 

We must fulfill our national commitment to provide a meaningful education to students with disabilities, and work towards full funding of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act so that students with disabilities can receive the extra resources and services they need. With an appropriate educational foundation, children with disabilities can thrive and become adults with greater opportunities and more meaningful life experiences.

We are also deeply committed to ensuring that we strike a better balance on testing so that it informs, but does not drive, instruction. To that end, we encourage states to develop a multiple measures approach to assessment, and we believe that standardized tests must be reliable and valid. We oppose high-stakes standardized tests that falsely and unfairly label students of color, students with disabilities and English Language Learners as failing; the use of standardized test scores as basis for refusing to fund schools or to close schools; and the use of student test scores in teacher and principal evaluations, a practice which has been repeatedly rejected by researchers. We support enabling parents to opt their children out of standardized tests without penalty for either the student or their school. 

Democrats recognize and honor all the professionals who work in public schools to support students' education—teachers, education support professionals, and specialized staff. We know that good teachers are essential to improving student learning and helping all students to meet high academic standards. Democrats will launch a national campaign to recruit and retain high quality teachers. We will ensure that teachers receive the tools and ongoing professional development they need to succeed in the classroom and provide our children with a world-class education. We also must lift up and trust our educators, continually build their capacity, and ensure that our schools are safe, welcoming, collaborative, and well-resourced places for our students, educators, and communities.

We will invest in high-quality STEAM classes, community schools, computer science education, arts education, and expand link learning models and career pathways. We will end the school-to prison pipeline by opposing discipline policies which disproportionately affect African Americans and Latinos, Native Americans and Alaska Natives, students with disabilities, and youth who identify as LGBT. We will support the use of restorative justice practices that help students and staff resolve conflicts peacefully and respectfully while helping to improve the teaching and learning environment. And we will work to improve school culture and combat bullying of all kinds.

The Democratic Party is committed to eliminating opportunity gaps—particularly those that lead to students from low-income communities arriving on day one of kindergarten several years behind their peers. This means advocating for labor and public assistance laws that ensure poor parents can spend time with their children. This means raising household incomes in poor communities.

It means ensuring children have health care, stable housing free of contaminants, and a community free of violence in order to minimize the likelihood of cognitive delays. It means enriching early childhood programming to prepare children in areas such as literacy, numeracy, civic engagement, and emotional intelligence. It means supporting equitable and adequate state funding for public education, and expanding Title I funding for schools that serve a large number or high concentration of children in poverty. It means ending curriculum gaps that maintain and exacerbate achievement gaps. 

We support policies that motivate rather than demoralize our educators. We are committed to ensuring that schools that educate children in poverty are not treated unfairly, which is why we will end the test-and-punish version of accountability that does no more than reveal the many opportunity gaps facing students from low-income communities. 

Democrats are committed to providing parents with high-quality public school options and expanding these options for low-income youth. We support democratically governed, great neighborhood public schools and high-quality public charter schools, and we will help them disseminate best practices to other school leaders and educators. Democrats oppose for-profit charter schools focused on making a profit off of public resources. We believe that high-quality public charter schools should provide options for parents, but should not replace or destabilize traditional public schools. Charter schools must reflect their communities, and thus must accept and retain proportionate numbers of students of color, students with disabilities and English Language Learners in relation to their neighborhood public schools. We support increased transparency and accountability for all charter schools. 


Here is a part of what the Republicans have to say on education in their platform:

Administrators need flexibility to innovate and to hold accountable all those responsible for student performance. A good understanding of the Bible being indispensable for the development of an educated citizenry, we encourage state legislatures to offer the Bible in a literature curriculum as an elective in America’s high schools. We urge school districts to make use of teaching talent in the business community, STEM fields, and the military, especially among our returning veterans. Rigid tenure systems should be replaced with a merit-based approach in order to attract the best talent to the classroom. All personnel who interact with school children should pass background checks and be held to the highest standards of personal conduct. 

More power for administrators? Are the Republicans serious?

I guess after reading some of the Republican Platform, I can understand a little more clearly why so many people blindly follow the Democrats.

NO TALE OF TWO DE BLASIOS

Reality Based Educator is reporting that Bill de Blasio, the overwhelming favorite to be the next mayor of New York City, has been meeting with the business and media titans of the city.  Should we be alarmed that de Blasio is just another Democratic politician who leans to the left during an election campaign and then leaves working people behind after winning?

The amazing Diane Ravitch, leader of the fight for public education and a de Blasio supporter, doesn't seem to think we should be that concerned.  She published on her blog de Blasio's speech to the business elite.

I understand the skepticism of many teachers and other supporters of public education.  Public school teachers have been beaten down for a long time and haven't had too many victories in the last twenty years. 

We've heard the politicians talk and talk about supporting the public schools but our working conditions (student learning conditions) have deteriorated steadily. We want to think de Blasio will turn the situation around but we have been fooled in the past.

The most extreme example is Vincent Gray.  Gray ran for mayor of Washington DC against Adrian Fenty in 2010.  Gray defeated Fenty.  One of the major issues in that campaign was Fenty's schools chancellor,  Michelle Rhee, the most high profile public school teacher basher in the country.  Rhee came out during the campaign and actually said that Gray wasn't committed to school reform like Fenty was. 

She even took the blame for Fenty's loss in this interview published at the Huffington Post.  "O'DONNELL: Let me ask you personally because a lot of people say that Mayor Fenty who took on the -- along with you took on -- along with you -- some of the teachers and the union in this that you were part of the reason he lost. What do you think about that?
RHEE: Well, I think without a doubt.
O'DONNELL: right.
RHEE: I just want to be real about this."

What did Gray do when elected? He hired Rhee's deputy Kaya Henderson to basically continue Rhee's policies in DC.

One could argue convincingly that Barack Obama defeated Hillary Clinton by running to the left of Clinton in the Democratic presidential primaries in 2008. Obama opposed the war in Iraq while Hillary voted for it. On the issue of education, supporters of the public schools were all excited after the 2008 election when educator Linda Darling-Hammond was chosen to lead the education transition team. However that elation was short-lived as Obama named Chicago teacher basher extraordinaire Arne Duncan to be Secretary of Education and it has been five more years of terrible times for the public schools.

After being elected, Gray and Obama stepped on the faces an important part of the Democratic base: public educators.  We never made them pay the political price for dismissing our needs. Democratic politicians have correctly figured out that, practically speaking, we have no place to go so they take us for granted. (Sorry but the Green Party and the socialist alternatives are not currently large enough to scare anyone. The Democrats are emulating Republican education policy so going right is not the answer either.)

Will de Blasio turn into another Gray or Obama after election day?

The odds of a sell out will increase significantly if we do nothing and just sit back and wait for de Blasio to do right by the public schools.

His platform calls for universal pre-k and after school programs for all middle school students.  These sound like fantastic ideas as does his plan to charge rent for charter schools using city buildings.  However, more fundamentally, the school system needs to reverse the nightmarish Bloomberg, Obama, Cuomo, etc... teacher bashing, closing schools agenda. Having us work in a climate of fear where we have to watch our backs consistently does not make us better educators and does nothing for children.

Educational activists need to be proactive in demanding a revamped school system that starts to value educators and views students and schools as more than data points.

Now is the time to attempt to convince de Blasio to appoint a chancellor who supports public education.  We need a clean  break from the Bloomberg years and the three disastrous chancellors (Klein, Black and Walcott). 

The new mayor should hire someone who can put Humpty Dumpty back together again as the system is now almost completely dysfunctional.  I would conservatively estimate that the education budget contains billions of dollars of wasteful items that do nothing to improve student outcomes.

The system before Bloomberg was certainly no educational paradise but parts of it actually worked.  A new chancellor could build off of that as we move forward.  First, he or she needs to clean house at Tweed by moving out the bulk of the lawyers, public relations people and numbers crunchers while moving in some professional educators.

De Blasio is a supporter of mayoral control.  He will have eight votes out of thirteen total on the Board of Education, now known as the Panel for Educational Policy.  Will he appoint a panel that respects the public or are we going to have to deal with a different group of eight people who come in with rubber stamps and ignore virtually everything the public asks for? 

Let's recommend strong public education activists for the PEP.  I would start with Class Size Matters leader Leonie Haimson.  Mayor de Blasio should also retain Manhattan PEP representative Patrick Sullivan.  Mr. Sullivan might actually have an opportunity to shape some policy under a de Blasio mayoralty.  I also believe NAACP's Ken Cohen, an education leader from Queens, would make an excellent PEP representative. In addition, the new mayor should seek out for the panel parents who currently have kids in the schools and are independent minded.

These are just a few suggestions.  I'm sure people much more knowledgeable than me can come up with others.  The point is we cannot sit back and expect the public schools, nearly destroyed under Bloomberg, to magically improve under de Blasio.  It's up to us to actively push to make positive change a reality.

IS ANYONE EXPECTING A POSITIVE FUTURE FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION UNDER DONALD TRUMP?

People are just so optimistic sometimes. By hoping for the best from President elect Donald Trump's cabinet picks, supporters of public education would seem to be either in a state of denial or delusional right about now.

Like many other rational public school educators and parents, I thought every time a new Education Secretary was going to be picked since the early 2000's that our situation in the schools could not deteriorate further. I didn't get those predictions right or maybe I'm just an eternal optimist too.

Rod Paige of the Houston miracle followed George W Bush to DC to give us the impossible requirements of No Child Left Behind (admittedly with Democratic support). Paige was replaced by Margaret Spellings who was succeeded after Barrack Obama was elected by Arne (Race to the Top) Duncan, followed by Clueless John King. Obama and Bush were complete bipartisan disasters when it comes to public schools.

Now let's face reality this time around: Donald Trump is ready to take office and privatizing education is now a top administration priority.

The next Education Secretary will almost certainly be be a pro-private school voucher, pro-charter school, anti-public education zealot. Mercedes Schneider and Diane Ravitch are speculating on who will be named and the choices look like they are bad, worse and worst for public education.

Our kids are scared and our future as public educators looks quite bleak so how is the mighty United Federation of Teachers reacting?

Of course our union is trying not to ruffle any feathers. The evidence is that the leadership wants to take out the words Donald Trump from a resolution calling us to action.

The time is right for us to be bold when our very existence is being threatened but instead it's looking like business as usual down at UFT Headquarters.

Here is how NYC Educator puts it:

What you see below the post is a resolution that targets "the presidential election" where it used to target "President-elect Donald J. Trump." The obvious implication is that leadership, after wholeheartedly endorsing Hillary Clinton, is fraidy-scared to directly criticize the new American Bigot-in-Chief. And from where I stand, that means we are pandering to bigots, racists and anti-Semites.

We are fighting for our schools and our profession. It will not be easy to save our schools or our livelihoods. You would think the UFT would be able to write that Donald Trump, and not the presidential election, is a problem for us.

UPDATE: I just opened my email and AFT President Randi Weingarten has sent a message that is more powerful. It is copied below the UFT resolution.

Read the resolution as well as Randi's email and tell us what you think.

Resolution Calling for Respect for All People

(Changes are in bold; original language is crossed out)

WHEREAS, President-elect Donald Trump the presidential election targeted communities on the basis of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity and religion, and displayed abusive behavior toward women, has threatened the nation's promise that all people are worthy of respect; and

WHEREAS, President elect Donald Trump the presidential election has outlined an education agenda overtly hostile to public schools and teachers, promising to prioritize vouchers and charter schools at the expense of public schools; and

WHEREAS, the recently-concluded presidential election has returned open racism homophobia and misogyny to the forefront of national politics and featured incendiary rhetoric with little precedent in modern history; and

WHEREAS, in the aftermath of the election, our communities have suffered hate-motivated violence and vandalism at a pace exceeding the wave of Islamophobic incidents in the wake of the September 11 attacks; and

WHEREAS, this divisive political atmosphere has given rise to fear and anxiety among students and inflamed racial and ethnic tensions in the classroom; and

WHEREAS, people are upset and feel that government has failed them, there's no reason to give into a climate of fear; and

WHEREAS, the UFT remains committed to creating a safe and supportive environment as well as stamping out bias-based bullying and harassment in all its forms by providing training for compliance with the Dignity for All Students Act and by operating the Building Respect, Acceptance and Voice through Education campaign, which includes an anti-bullying hotline, fairs and presentations in schools; and

WHEREAS, the New York City Department of Education Respect for All campaign considers harassment and discriminatory behavior, physical injury or threat of injury, harassment, teasing, taunting, peer rejection or exclusion to humiliate or isolate a person to be a violation of Chancellor's Regulations A-831 and A-443, and the Student Code of conduct; and

WHEREAS, the Dignity for All Students Act approved in September, 2010, by the New York State Legislature contains the following provisions:

• A policy that specifically prohibits discrimination and harassment in public schools based on actual or perceived race, national origin, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender, sexual or physical or mental disability, with procedures to ensure that the policy will be implemented and enforced; 
• Training of administrators, teachers, and other school related professionals and students on how to deal with diversity in schools and address incidents of harassment and discrimination when they arise;
• Documentation and data collection to determine just how prevalent the problem of harassment is in New York's public schools and where the needs are most profound;
• Funding to implement the principles above in a way that avoids unfunded mandates for school districts; therefore be it

RESOLVED, that the UFT affirms that public education is critical to the future of this country; that all communities inside our school communities deserve respect and dignity; and that workers have a right to unionize and be treated fairly, and that the UFT will aggressively fight the erosion of these core values; and be it further

RESOLVED, that the UFT calls upon every school to launch a series of actions to defend our communities and our schools and affirm our values, beginning on Monday November 21, with a Day of Action; and be it further

RESOLVED, that the UFT calls upon every school to form an action committee to plan and execute these actions; and be it further

RESOLVED, that the UFT will partner with and encourage the DOE to support the expansion of the Respect for All initiative, so that school communities serve as sites where all students and staff are safe from acts of discrimination because of ongoing positive and developmentally appropriate behavior and speech in and out of the classroom; and be it further

RESOLVED, that the UFT urges the DOE to require time during the school day for educators to engage in conversations and activities that will support learning communities that celebrate diversity while ensuring tolerance, respect and positive conflict resolution, and be it further

RESOLVED, that the UFT will urge the DOE to present professional learning to develop our abilities to design and implement learning activities during which differences are respected and celebrated.

James,
After a bitter campaign, and an election in which Donald Trump won the electoral vote but Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, our nation remains deeply divided. And the division seems to be worsening: In the 10 days since the election, the hateful rhetoric of the campaign has spread and even turned violent.

In his victory speech and during his “60 Minutes” interview, Trump urged Americans to come together as one united people to take on the challenges before us. But his actions tell a different story. By appointing Steve Bannon, Jeff Sessions and retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn—three men with long and disturbing records of bigotry and racism—Trump is only adding to the climate of fear.

It is our moral imperative to fight the normalization of hate, and while we will take actions in our schools, work sites and communities to protect our kids and fight bigotry and bullying, as so many of our members already have, Trump has a unique and moral responsibility to denounce these hateful and intimidating actions.

This morning, we sent Donald Trump a letter signed by the AFT and the Southern Poverty Law Center calling on him to speak clearly and loudly against the hate. More than 100 groups representing millions of people have also signed. Add your voice and name to our letter.

In the months leading up to the election, Trump’s campaign rhetoric found an audience with those who would use our differences to divide us. And in the days following the election, we have seen people—seemingly emboldened by his victory—committing harassment, vandalism, property destruction and even assault based on those differences.

We know that millions of his supporters would never participate in these actions, but the campaign rhetoric has created an environment that enables and encourages those who wish to harm others.

Personally, I am especially troubled by incidents taking place in schools and on college campuses—places where we do everything we can to ensure our children are safe and nurtured, and have the opportunity to grow and learn free of intimidation and hatred. But now we are hearing reports of disturbing behavior: children chanting “build the wall” at their Latino classmates, Muslim students and educators harassed for their clothing, male students intimidating their female classmates, LGBTQ kids threatened and harassed, and swastikas being painted on classroom doors.

There is no room for this in America. Donald Trump must step up and lead by denouncing the hateful rhetoric and violence following his election.

Many of these hateful acts have been carried out in his name. And while Trump may not condone this behavior, his silence gives tacit permission to those who carry out these acts.

As Americans, we are better than this. You can stand up against these attacks by adding your name to this petition.
Trump has said he will be the president for all Americans. We ask that he keeps that promise by loudly, forcefully, unequivocally and consistently denouncing these acts and the ideology that drives them.

We must all send a clear message that hate has no place in our public discourse, in our public policy or in our society, starting with our next president. Sign the petition now.

In unity,
Randi Weingarten
AFT president

P.S. The Southern Poverty Law Center is collecting data on the effects of this divisive climate, especially in schools. Complete its survey here.

RANDI HOLDING FUNDRAISER FOR MAYOR DE BLASIO WHILE AFT MEMBERS IN NYC INCLUDING MY WIFE SUFFER UNDER MAYOR

Class Size Matters leader Leonie Haimson sent out this piece from Politico.

Our national Union leader, AFT President Randi Weingarten, in early January will be co-hosting a fundraiser for Bill de Blasio's reelection. I kid you not. The fundraiser will be held while many of Weingarten's members here in New York City are being harassed, attacked unfairly, bullied, intimidated and unfairly rated by abusive administrators. Life in the schools in NYC is a daily miserable existence filled with fear for many, many UFT members.

From the article:
Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, will hold a fundraiser for Mayor Bill de Blasio’s re-election campaign in January, according to a copy of the invitation obtained by POLITICO New York.

The fundraiser will be held at AFT headquarters in Washington on January 5. Guest tickets are $1,000 a head, “supporter” tickets are $2,500, and “host” tickets are $4,950.

Weingarten's latest fundraiser is all the proof we need to show that the AFT has learned absolutely nothing from Hillary Clinton's recent defeat. It's top-down, don't bother to ask the rank and file because Randi knows what is best for you, unionism at its worst. At the very least, maybe Randi could do one of those polls she claimed the AFT did before endorsing Clinton to see how the members in NYC feel about de Blasio's reelection before raising big bucks for him.

As for the UFT, now we know why President Michael Mulgrew is in such a hurry to put together a committee to rubber stamp a de Blasio reelection endorsement.

We also now are fully aware why the UFT will not come out publicly against any of the multiple abusive administrators who are making life a living hell for many good teachers here in New York City including my wife Camille. Camille works for a principal and two assistant principals from hell at Humanities and the Arts High School. We have filed numerous union busting grievances, APPR complaints and for arbitration on the annual rating which was ineffective. To that extent, the UFT has been supportive. However, it has not been sufficient to stop the attacks against Camille and other members of the Humanities and the Arts Chapter by the administration.

To that end, we have repeatedly pleaded with the UFT leadership to take the next step by publicly condemning Acting Interim Principal Kayode Ayetiwa and Assistant Principals Moussa and Stergiopolous but to no avail. Why don't we plaster their names all over the NY Teacher? The answer on why we don't do this is the UFT wouldn't want to insult de Blasio/Farina's principals when the AFT President is raising major funds for the mayor's war chest.

The UFT is willing to sacrifice its members to de Blasio/Farina rather than really fighting for them.

What a travesty.

Who Should We Endorse For President?

(ICE, just like the UFT, has not formally endorsed a candidate for President. Unlike the UFT we have not been working, as a group, for a candidate without an endorsement. It appears that since Hillary is out of contention it may be time to begin the discussion of whether we should endorse someone and if so who we should endorse. Michael Fiorillo has started the discussion. We welcome further comments and blog pieces)

While it's impossible to underestimate the Clinton's compulsive will to power - which has a hint of the pathological to it - I find the idea of Hillary destroying Obama's chances of defeating McCain, so that she can be a viable candidate in 2012, a bit of a stretch. She already has a immovable bedrock core of people who intensely dislike her, for reasons valid and invalid, and a determined campaign to destroy Obama would send her negatives among Democrats and Independents off the charts. It's not that she, and certainly Bill, aren't capable of doing such a thing; it's that I think they are still sufficiently reality-based to see that it would likely forever poison the well against them. An honest cost-benefit analysis on their part would show that it would have only a remote chance of succeeding, while hampering their marketability as spokepersons for neoliberal trade policies, which seems to have been Bill's bread and butter in recent years.

As for Obama, appealing as he is on many levels, don't expect his election alone to successfully push forward a progressive, let alone radical agenda. Please keep in mind that since his election to the senate, he has:

- campaigned for Lieberman against Ned Lamont in Connecticut.
- voted for all funding for war in Iraq.
- voted to renew the Patriot Act.
- voted for the 2005 bankruptcy bill that was virtually written by the banks and credit card companies.
- voted to limit the ability to file class action lawsuits. (Hillary voted against this bill.)
- supported merit pay for teachers and the expansion of charter schools. I raise these points not to imply that we should refuse to work and vote for him.

I voted for him in the primary with - considering the political history of the past 35+ years - a fair degree of enthusiasm; I'll do so again in November if given the chance .However, don't think that a lot will happen unless he is pushed hard from, I hesitate to say it, the left.

Wall Street, and especially Hedgistan, is investing heavily in Obama's campaign, no doubt seeing it as venture capital investment to establish an equity stake in a possible Obama administration. Unless there is a surge of activism on many fronts, these people will continue to set the terms of debate.

As teachers, we've borne some of this, as Wall Street, corporate and foundation money has flooded into education, buying research and policies that undermine public education and teacher's unions in the "marketplace of ideas."

Fortunately, there's evidence that perhaps the tectonic plates are shifting somewhat. The May First ILWU strike explicitly protesting the war in Iraq on the West Coast docks was a profound event, underreported as it was. UAW members have been on strike against American Axle since February, fighting a two-tier wage system. There have been protests on Wall Street against the predatory nature of the credit system. Here in NYC, we may be seeing some cracks appearing in BloomKlein's PR fortress.By all means, let drive a stake through the Clinton's hearts - politically speaking, of course - and vote for Obama in November. Let's not just leave it up to him after that.

Best,

Michael Fiorillo
(Chapter Leader, Newcommers' High School)

POLL NUMBERS ON MAYOR, SCHOOLS

Many Americans are interested in poll results for the presidential election. We have little idea what a Hillary Clinton presidency will look like for public education (her foreign policy is hawkish), but the thought of Donald Trump with the nuclear codes might be too much for most Americans. This election is a lesser of the evils choice for millions (Hillary will pick better Supreme Court Justices) so why not take a look beyond 2016. 2017 will be a mayoral election year. Sorry but there's not much to look forward to next year either in NYC.

How is Mayor Bill de Blasio doing with the public? Not too well according to the latest from Quinnipiac. The mayor's approval rating is stuck at 42%, virtually unchanged from the 41% approval rating he had in May.

On schools by a 65%-23% margin, the poll respondents say the mayor should share control of the schools with other public officials. Mayoral control is not that popular these days.

From the press release on the poll:
Voters disapprove 66-27 percent of the way Mayor Bill de Blasio is handling public schools and only 25 percent are satisfied with public schools, with 60 percent dissatisfied, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) Unversity Poll finds.

Schools Chancellor Carmen Farina has a not so robust 33% approval rating according to Quinnipiac. Outgoing Police Commissioner William Bratton has a 57% approval rating by comparison.

On charter schools, 45% want more charter schools while 48% said the number should stay the same or decrease.

The scary number for us was when people were asked where they would send their children to school and by a 51%-37% margin poll respondents picked charter schools over public schools.

The first comment on a Chalkbeat article on recent test score results explains the charter school advantage: get rid of the kids who might bring down test scores


parent010203 • 2 days ago

" Success Academy CEO Eva Moskowitz dismissed the rising scores at traditional district schools since they mirrored the state’s more closely and could thus be explained by the test changes, she argued. To “find real improvement,” she wrote in the New York Daily News, officials should look to charter schools instead."

I wish some news organizations would take Ms. Moskowitz up on her insistence they should "look to charter schools" instead.

This year, Success Academy Bed Stuy 1 had 54 students who tested proficient in 5th grade, a DECREASE from the 57 4th graders who tested proficient last year in 4th grade. But their 5th grade class had a "passing rates" on the state ELA exam that was nearly 20 points HIGHER than the passing rate those same students had as 4th graders the year before

How could that be? Because 17 students -- 23% of the class! -- disappeared from that 4th grade testing cohort before they took 5th grade exams. 17 students go missing and the number of non-proficient students dropped from 16 to 2. Are we supposed to believe that's just a coincidence? Ignore the elephant in the room and pretend that despite having FEWER proficient students in the 5th grade, the school somehow has a secret sauce for turning struggling students into scholars?

It's a shame the press will never take Ms. Moskowitz up on her offer and ask her where 23% of the students went. And why - if she claims she just failed them all and forced them to repeat a grade - the class below would also have decreased in size instead of becoming much larger to accommodate all those 17 students missing?

And the press will most likely never ask her how it is that the 5th grade had only 56 students when at the start of 3rd grade 2 years previously, that class began with 93 students.

Chalkbeat writes: "Charter schools are part of the answer". Not if the "answer" is pushing their low-performing students back to public schools. In that case, they are part of the PROBLEM. And if there was reporting of actual attrition rates of at-risk kids at high performing charters over a period of years, that would be very evident to all.

We'll end this on a positive note for the mayor. While his poll numbers are low, potential challengers Christine Quinn from the right and the more progressive Scott Stringer would lose by wide margins to de Blasio according to Quinnipiac.

If the choice is de Blasio or a right wing Democrat like Quinn, we are once again facing the lesser of the evils as the mayor has certainly not done much to improve the schools.