By Marjorie Stamberg, Teacher, GED-Plus, Manhattan Hub
The merit pay proposal in GED-Plus has been solidly defeated--ballots were counted on March 6. Many chapter members worked very hard to express their opposition, at site meetings, borough meetings and chapter meetings. Since we are divided into 80 sites and borough hubs, it was quite a task to reach everyone so they could make an informed decision. I am very pleased that we can join the list of other UFT chapters who have had the courage to vote this down.
As a strongly advocate to vote down merit pay, I am personally very relieved that our chapter made such a strong statement. Merit pay is highly divisive -- it puts us in competition with each other, instead of fostering collaboration. It also hurts our students. In GED-Plus, as a D79 GED Program, we are particularly dedicated to working with the neediest students, and we are already working to the best of our ability. If our pay goes up or down, depending on which students come to school, or how well they do in tests, there would be a strong tendency not even to admit these students to the site.
However, our chapter leadership, and the UFT officials have stated they intend to float this again early in the next school year. It keeps on coming back like a bad penny, no matter how many times, and at how many meetings, we express our strong opposition. So we will have to keep up the struggle -- against merit pay, charterization, privatization, and all these schemes to chip away at public education for all.
26 comments:
Maybe it's your chapter leadership that needs to be defeated too?
Nope, Marjorie was defeated, the right leadership is in place.
Marjorie won the teacher vote. The veteran Unity person needed non teachers to barely hold on to his job.
And I'm sure you can prove that comment right?
No you can't, ICE made that up.
ICE didn't make it up; it's verifiable as there were different ballots for the different functions. Everyone knows the truth. The Unity candidate needed the non teachers to win.
From December 24, 2007
The official results from the Chapter Leader election:
Hi everybody,
We just got back from the vote count.
Michael Friedman won as chapter leader, with 77 votes.
I received 67 votes. Rigoberto Salcedo received 3
votes.
Teachers voted 56 for Marjorie; 50 for Michael.
The functional chapter members of paras, social
workers and secretaries voted:
27 for Michael
2 for Rigoberto
11 for Marjorie
The results of the delegate vote was
Mildred Rodriquez 65 votes
Victoria Clayton 57 votes
Jim Ferraiuolo 52 votes
David Suker 44 vots
Ed Hotto 19 votes
According to the UFT election people, 295 ballots were
sent out to chapter members. Of these, 149 ballots
were sent back in (a very high number). Of these, two
were eliminated due to being improperly filled out. So
the total number of ballots was 109 teacher ballots,
38 functional member ballots, or 147 altogether.
So it was very close, and we look forward to carrying
on our work advocating for chapter members, for the
ATRd teachers throughout the city, and our students in
the face of the NYCDOE privatizers, charterizers and
corporatizers who are particularly focused on cutting
back, if not eliminating alternative education
programs. Our struggle continues!
Thanks for all who supported me in the election
--Marjorie
________________________________________________
Monday, December 24, 2007 5:28:00 PM
So ICE is saying that the GED+ Paras, Secretaries, and Social Workers don't count?
Last I checked, the Chapter Leader at my school represented them too.
Yes, functional chapter members vote in every school's individual chapter leader election.
That really is a stupid argument as to why Marjorie didn't win.
She lost ICE, get over it.
Wow, the last two comments shut up the ICEsickles. Who would have thought that possible?
Marjorie lost fair and square. Have no fear though, she can run again in an another 2+ years...and she'll lose again.
Marjorie won the teacher vote which is all that ICE said. Now she won the vote to oppose merit pay. This seems pretty good to us. She is gaining on you Unity and next year if she runs, she will win the chapter. You heard it here first Unity.
"Marjorie won the teacher vote which is all that ICE said."
No, ICE implied that the vote of functional chapter members should be counted less.
"Now she won the vote to oppose merit pay."
Yes, Marjorie won that, she is Super Woman. [rolleyes]
More cool [rolleyes] info on Marjorie...
http://www.wsws.org/polemics/1996/oct1996/spart.shtml
http://www.spartacist.org/english/esp/index.html
BTW, what the heck is a Spartacist, and what was Marjorie doing running as their candidate for Mayor of New York in 1985?
Wow, that's bizarre.
Very weird.
Up to the old Unity trick of red baiting. Have you nothing better to do with your time. Why don't you help some members with grievances instead of doing opposition research all day.
I heard Randi, Sandy, Al and Leo Casey were all in Social Democrats USA. Isn't that a socialist organization?
The UFT when not red baiting is talking to business organizations about UFT school report cards so now the union can put its stamp of approval on a new way to go after schools.
With all of your talk about membership involvement, I want to know why you guys don't talk about the budget cuts and its affects on our schools? My school lost $106,000 and is set to loose an additional $500,000 in september. Why aren't you outraged about that and trying to get our members out in protest?
I jsut checked your link to ACT. Why is that there? He has no updates since Feb. 2007! That is lame.
The usual Unity whine. I will be there but so what? The rally should have been held in May when it would have had a better chance to have an impact. Randi is "shocked" that the DOE didn't keep to the agreement in April.
I think I'm watching Casablanca.
Remember how you voted against the attempt by the Manhattan HS chapter leaders to set up a rally at the May DA?
The kids rally we held on Valentine's Day with a few hundred people was more genuine and probably had more impact on the participants.
There will be a rally on Weds. The politicians will line up to make their speeches, Randi will gloat in her "power" and then it will be back to business for Unity.
Better to return calls to teachers in the rubber room (yes, they are calling ICE to ask them to put pressure on to get their calls returned) and try to put up anything more than a pathetic defense.
Rally or no rally, the UFT leaders have proven to people on this list and beyond that they are bankrupt politically and have nothing to offer in resisting the corporate attack on the schools (which they have been part and parcel too -- read how Rotherham praised Randi in last week's op ed in the Times on teachers) or in solving any of the day to day problems of the schools
NYC Educator commented on the same Unity post:
Thank you for sharing your thoughts, anon.
In fact, that was a typically sized post, not a "short blurb," I've written about the budget cuts on several other occasions, and I'll almost certainly mention them in the future. Your contention that I have "nothing to say" is baseless and preposterous.
My thoughts on this mayor are quite clear to anyone who reads this blog regularly. In fact, unlike Ms. Weingarten, I did not even invite him to speak at my birthday party this year.
I sincerely hope this rally does something toward reversing these cuts, as you seem to believe it will. Forgive me if I continue to mistrust Ms. Weingarten, Mr. Bloomberg's close and frequent collaborator. Along with her partner, the one at which she now feigns outrage, she severely abridged seniority rights, gave away every gain we exchanged for every zero we took, and supported mayoral control as well as the worst contract I've ever seen. She claims merit pay is not merit pay, and that a sixth class is not a sixth class. Furthermore, via NY Teacher, she long ago declared "Mission Accomplished" on the issue of class size.
She's also instrumental in importing a charter school chain that openly rejects both tenure and seniority rights. I can see why she's earned the admiration of Rod Paige, who deplores teacher unions.
While I’ve attended rallies in the past, pardon me if I now fail to jump when Ms. Weingarten whistles.
I actually voted for Ms. Weingarten once. But she won't fool me twice. On March 19th, I’ll likely be picking up my daughter from her after-school program and helping her with her homework. Regrettably, being a working teacher and parent takes up a lot of time, particularly since Ms. Weingarten and her partner increased the school day and year.
NYC Educator
Do you hear a word from the UFT about the Fed reserve $200 billion bailout of the banks?
That money can be found for this with a snap of the fingers while the UFT leads a phony rally to gain back crumbs in cuts (think the 2 arent' connected?) is part of the UFT's collaboration and part of the big betrayal of our interests.
Put 50,000 people in front of the federal reserve and there's a better chance of restoring the cuts than a rally at Tweed.
From Greg Pallast where he links the Spitzer downfall to this:
Carlyle Capital went bankrupt. Who? That’s Carlyle as in Carlyle Group. James Baker, Senior Counsel. Notable partners, former and past: George Bush, the Bin Laden family and more dictators, potentates, pirates and presidents than you can count.
The Fed had to act. Bernanke opened the vault and dumped $200 billion on the poor little suffering bankers. They got the public treasure. There was no ‘quid’ of a foreclosure moratorium for the ‘pro quo’ of public bailout. Not one family was saved – but not one banker was left behind.
Every mortgage sharking operation shot up in value. Mozilo’s Countrywide stock rose 17% in one day. The Citi sheiks saw their company’s stock rise $10 billion in an afternoon.
Read it in full at:
http://www.gregpalast.com/elliot...er-gets-nailed/
ICE supports the rally and so does TJC.
Where is TJC's blog?
Would anyone like to wager on Unity losing its chapter leader position in GED-Plus next time around? MF will be overwhelmingly defeated.
Stay Tuned!
I'll "KEEP MY PROMISE."
I'll bet on Marjorie.
Enjoy your twenty coffee breaks this week!
P.S. The next and each subsequent "personal" Unity attack on any ICE member or alternative member's perspective will result in a continuing barrage of damaging pieces of information regarding how Unity spends our money.
Stick to the topic. Disagree all you want. But don't slander.
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