UNITY DOMINATED DA SAYS YES TO SIX MORE YEARS OF “MODIFIED” MAYORAL CONTROL

News and Editorial by James Eterno; UFT Chapter Leader; Jamaica High School

The February 2009 Delegate Assembly overwhelmingly endorsed the UFT Task Force on School Governance Report that favored a continuation of a "modified" version of Mayoral control of the schools for the next six years. The current State law on NYC school governance sunsets in June and must be renewed or altered by the State Legislature or the system would revert back to a seven person Board of Education. (The Mayor would only have two appointees and that Board would pick a Chancellor who would answer to the Board and not the Mayor if we return to the old system.)

If the UFT proposal becomes law, the Mayor would still select the Chancellor and the Chancellor would still control the day-to-day operations of the school system. There is only one major difference in the law as compared to what we have now. The Mayor under the Task Force proposal would only appoint five members of the new 13 member Board of Education, or whatever they are going to call it, as opposed to the eight he currently appoints. However, since the Board of Education (called the Central Education Policy Council in the UFT Report) would have no say on who the Chancellor is, the new Policy Council could easily be ignored by a Chancellor the same way Chancellor Joel Klein simply disregards the local Community Education Councils under today's governance system.

The UFT report correctly points out on page 22 in describing the local districts under the current law: "CECs have not been able to exercise the powers and duties afforded them under the law, including the ability to have a say in a district's budget and policies as well as school zoning and closings." What makes anyone think that under four more years of Mayor Bloomberg and potentially Joel Klein, they wouldn't just disregard a Central Board in the same way they now spurn the local boards?

The UFT says not to worry because their proposal has an appeals process in it, but in reality it isn't much of a change from what we have now. Under the proposal, there could be an appeal to the State Education Commissioner if the Chancellor does not obey the education law. Also, a monitor can be appointed by the state if the Chancellor continues to violate the law. The monitor would have to issue a report within 30 days and then someone could go to court for relief based on what is called an Article 78. It should be noted that under current law someone can go to court and file an Article 78 or can make a complaint to the State Education Commissioner.

To pull out all the stops to get this through the Delegate Assembly, Randi had the minions prepared and oh did they come through. First, Staten Island Borough Representative Emil Pietrmonaco was called on by Randi and he presented a Power Point highlight show on how wonderful the Governance Report is. Then, Vice President Carmen Alvarez stepped in to say some positive points about how the report impacts on special education. This was followed by Randi calling on Unity stalwart and full time Staten Island Special Representative Jackie Bennett to sing the Report's praises and then Randi called upon Bronx Borough Representative Jose Vargas to add his one and a half cents worth of support. Four speakers in favor and none against; now that's a democratic union.

At this point the magnanimous Randi allowed Michael Fiorillo from ICE to give his minority presentation. Michael did a great job. First, he thanked Emil and Carmen for the way the governance committee was run. Then, he spoke about how Mayoral dictatorships over schools are occurring in many cities and the real agenda is to attack teacher tenure and teacher unions with a goal of reorganizing schools and privatizing and charterizing schools. He went on to say that the people who suffer the most under this type of system are the students with the greatest needs in special education and Limited English Language learners. Michael also talked about a lack of democracy in the UFT proposal as the public at large would not vote under any part of this new system and he presented the ICE proposal for a more democratic governance structure from the school level on out, including School Leadership Teams selecting administrators and no waivers of education requirements for anyone who wants to be an administrator. Only experienced teachers need apply for Chancellor. Michael was received fairly well.

One speaker against was enough so Randi followed Michael by calling on UFT Chief Operating Officer Michael Mulgrew. Guess where he stood on the issue? He said that we would have to fight for funding if we had a democratic governance system. He added Mayoral control means more money. Randi then called on New Action's Michael Shulman who basically said the report had mostly excellent proposals in it but he opposed it because it called for renewed Mayoral control.

Then, Randi pointed to Tom Bennett who spoke in favor of the report and then yet another Unity speaker was summoned who praised the report. This was followed by Randi calling on Middle School Vice President Richie Farkas who said that we can't have democratically elected school boards because they might not do the right thing. He gave some extreme examples from District 24's past. Randi then called on Bronx High School District Representative Lynne Winderbaum who of course praised the plan for having a high school district. Then Randi called on another speaker in favor of the report and when this one was finished I couldn't take it any more and raised a point of order saying that Roberts' Rules says the President is supposed to try to alternate between those in favor and those opposed to a motion in selecting speakers in a debate.

Randi had the audacity to say that she doesn't know which side people are going to be on when she calls on them. This was a tall tale of epic proportions that shows how naive she thinks the delegates in general and me specifically are. Emil, Vargas, Farkas, Mulgrew, Winderbaum, the Bennetts are all known members of Unity Caucus and many people know that caucus obligations require Unity members to support Caucus policy in union forums.

Furthermore, Farkas and Mulgrew are on the Administrative Committee as well as on the Executive Board so they already voted in two other bodies in favor of the Report. By then I was enraged and simply read the following from Roberts' Rules in a section called "President and vice-president." It says under the duties: "To try to alternate between pro and con when conducting a debate on a motion." Randi heard me read this and ruled me out of order! UFT democracy in action!

However, I won the point in reality as two of the final three speakers she called on were not in favor of the Governance Report, including Peter Lamphere who Randi confused with Kit Wainer and Marilyn Voight Downey who said that we are settling for next to nothing in this report. Peter then made a motion to table the Report so we could discuss it in our schools. That motion was defeated and the Governance Report then passed with very little opposition.

Winning an argument with Randi Weingarten is not that difficult but getting the word out so our members understand that six more years of Mayoral control will be a disaster for us will be much tougher. We urge everyone to read the ICE Governance Report and also to read our latest leaflet to see what might have been if we had a union that believed in democratic school governance at all levels. It would be wise for us to pick up this battle in other more receptive forums.

In other DA news, I must admit I was a little late but I did catch the monthly, "The Sky is Falling" speech from Randi about the economy, the need to take action in support of the federal stimulus plan, lobbying the State and the giant rally for our fair share on March 5. Randi compared it to the 1999 rally where a coalition of unions put 100,000 people on the streets and showed that then Mayor Giulliani was unfair to city workers. I'll be there and please join me but as we said in our special report last week, it's not going to be easy to mobilize demoralized members in many schools. Do you think the teachers at Brandeis, which was closed yesterday, are going to want to support a UFT rally?