Like everyone else, I was not happy to read the hedge fund billionaire-Andrew Cuomo supporter and head of the Eva Moskowitz Success Academy Board compare the teacher unions to the KKK. However, I was pleased to see our Union respond forcefully.
This is from Gothamist:
Cuomo/IDC donor Daniel Loeb, who was already in trouble after comparing state Senate Democratic Conference Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins to a Klan member last week, has found another group of non-KKK members to compare to the Klu Klux Klan: teacher's unions.
Someone who has probably been unfriended by Loeb by now sent Dealbreaker a screenshot of a comment left by the Success Academy executive and hedge fun manager/Cuomo-IDC donor in which he dragged out what appears to be his favorite metaphor.
In the 2016 comment, Loeb wrote that teachers unions were "the biggest single force standing in the way of quality education and an organization that has done more to perpetuate poverty and discrimination against people of color than the KKK."
"Dan Loeb has a history of making disgusting and racist comments - usually to deflect attention from his own actions and that of his hedge fund pals to destabilize and privatize public schools and make a profit off of students," United Federation of Teachers president Michael Mulgrew told Gothamist in a statement.
Great comment President Mulgrew. I stand with you 100% on this one.
I also saw in the NY Teacher where the UFT is strongly against the instant certification for charter school teachers.
Good job UFT.
Finally, the UFT is out there in public defending the majority of the staff of a charter school who were terminated. This is from NY Teacher:
The UFT is seeking an injunction from the National Labor Relations Board against the Charter HS for Law and Social Justice in the Bronx after the school fired 11 of its 15 UFT-represented employees, including the entire UFT bargaining committee, in the middle of negotiations for a first contract.
“The administration’s actions are a lesson in hypocrisy,” said UFT President Michael Mulgrew. “A school that claims to teach law and social justice summarily fires most of its teachers because they had the nerve to advocate for their kids and for their own rights as employees.”
Bravo President Mulgrew!
Now why can't the President say something out loud about his members in the public schools who are under attack from abusive principals?
How many public school teachers were discontinued this year unfairly? Some were not even rated Ineffective. Where is the Union President to say something?
Where are the NY Teacher articles defending beleaguered teachers in the public schools?
How about a big NY Teacher piece to lift the morale of the Absent Teacher Reserves by countering the misinformation we read in the press?
Perhaps a major feature will be in our Union's newspaper exposing the lack of competitive bidding at the Department of Education instead of it being left to others to publicize?
Am I the only one who sees something wrong with our Union President's public silence regarding those of us in the public schools who most need his help?
16 comments:
The UFT newspaper mentioned the ATR severance deal (tiny article in the back of the newspaper hoping people will miss it) and made no mention of having ATRs placed come October 15th. This is all crap that is why there's been very little publicity about it. Although we are all happy to have our jobs, there's a lot of slimey things going on which has set NYC public school education back many, many years, even decades if you want to get technical. It's truly a sad time when veteran educators, educators that try to do their jobs with dignity and honesty, and educators new or relatively new to the profession are scared to speak up. Getting caught up during the time of rampid school closures created this ATR problem. Schools are no better now - just smaller with a lot of corruption, hiding of facts, inflation of grades, a lot of stress/anxiety, backstabbing, etc. Not a very healthy environment. Small schools are infested. DOE is infested. There needs to be a cleanse.
Small schools are no better and have a lack of funds. What a mess!
Drain the swamp.
My cats read the NY Teacher every month - I place it under their kitty litter. They tell me there is rarely anything substantive for their reading pleasure (they seem to prefer the NY Post) but I have noticed especially foul bowel movements if they come across a picture of Mike or Randi.
Atlas O'Rourke
My parrot uses the NY Teacher in his birdcage. When he sees Mulgrew he just says like me, "Mulgrew sucks." Your cat and my bird should become buddies.
Our union wants to expand the union dues! Why worry about teachers? We are taken for granted! UFT thinks we will blindly follow because we have no real choices!
UFT you are mistaken! Listen to the rank and file now!
It is good Mulgrew is publicly speaking out against Charter schools even if he is not publicly speaking out for union members. It's up to the members to unite even if there is no strike. Can do after work hours demonstrations, not stay late or do work beyond our contractual hours, etc. There needs to be better workplace environment. Without that, this profession is going to go down hill (it all ready is on that spiral).
The UFT should be screaming for a return to centralized funding. A principal I know told me doesn't have enough money for copy machine paper. He has no books. He told me he was going to ask every staff member to donate $100 from Teachers Choice. Otherwise it's daily visits to Staples for his entire staff.
It's not a good fight when you fight only half the battle and withdraw from the rest. Mulgrew is not speaking out against the idea of charters but of "bad" charters. People are turning against charters as a concept -- ie - imagine of we call for competing police, fire, sanitation, US army -- libraries, etc --- all public services.
Charters must be fought on all grounds not just the choosing of the union.
Fair Student Funding is causing staff to be excessed, vital services to be cut, 6 periods of teaching for most teachers and classes of 40 or more students. All this while there is a tremendous surplus. Mulgrew says nothing other than the schools always find the money. Who is he working for? This is pure Bloomberg shit. No teacher or principal wants Fair Student Funding. Get you nose out of Carmen ass Mike and do your job.
That Mulgrew nose line is just too awful to contemplate and just made me lose my lunch. Could some of you be a little more high class?
@2:22PM - When administrators and DOE are up to no good, they have no class and it smells like you know what.
That what I was trying to do! I could up with a hundred times worse stuff, you should be more concerned with getting the Brown nose to change FSF.
I am quite old. Don't know what FSF stands for. In English please young person.
Fair Student Funding , where schools get individual budgets usually at an amount that is unsustainable for the school. Before when we were both young there was centralized funding. Bloomberg set this up so teachers with higher salaries (experienced) wouldn't get hired. What has happened this year is the schools have excessed the newly expensive teachers (10 plus years) and turned us all into 'lemons, perverts, pedophiles, and drunks' in other words Absent Teacher Reserves - shufffled from school to school weekly, monthly, bi annually or annually. Also the cut in individual budgets has really impacted marginal schools - that have limited resources and now brand new cheap teachers. Mulgrew should be working on changing this - Bloomberg has been gone for a long time.
I thought it stood for fucking stupid fools who vote for Mulgrew. Thanks for enlightening me.
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