WEEK IN REVIEW ON SCHOOL CLOSINGS

Ed Notes reported extensively on the UFT agreement with the DOE that I refer to as a stab in the back where two new schools are going to be allowed to start in Jamaica's building in the fall. This illegal change in school utilization has ramifications for the entire city and beyond as it illustrates the sorry state our union is in. The UFT won the lawsuit on school closings and then was victorious again in the appeal. A little over a week later the UFT was back collaborating with the DOE to give away half of the schools by letting DOE invade our space with new schools so we can't properly run comprehensive programs.

At Jamaica, the community has reacted strongly. Community activist Kevin Forrestal has written a second letter to UFT President Mulgrew (a copy is below or follow this link; Ed Notes has the first letter). Members of the School Leadership Team met with community activists and it was covered by Jamaica Times reporter Anna Gustafson.

Then, this past Monday we were once again at the Panel for Educational Policy standing up for ourselves and our students. Seven of us from Jamaica attended, four spoke and my public comment is copied below (I didn't finish because my two minutes were up). One of the great unpublicized stories on school reform is how many students are casualties. The pupils who are in a school have their education compromised to make way for the "flavor of the day" schools that are pushing the downsizing school out. The impact of the de facto phase out is appalling as programs and classes are dropped like flies.

It is also interesting to note that on Monday Joel Klein admitted that the UFT and DOE merely agreed on how to implement the lawsuit and that there wasn't a settlement of the case. We think they are both now violating the law.

On Thursday, Public Advocate deBlasio had a press conference in front of Tweed where he released a report that calls for a moratorium on school closings and co-locations until an independent study can be done assessing its impact. Sounds like a good idea that will probably never get off the ground under the current regime at Tweed and City Hall, but it's a start. Ten of us from Jamaica attended this event and we saw people from Maxwell and PS15 as well as many others.

We are now in the process of reaching out to Jamaica's school community to decide how to proceed.





Queens Tribune


Illegal Collusion
To The Editor: Open Letter to Mr. Michael Mulgrew, President, United Federation of Teachers:

This is in follow up to an e-mailed letter to you dated June 11, 2010, with the subject line, "Justice for Jamaica High School." (See Ed Notes) With that letter, we forwarded a copy of a letter to a student admitting the student to Francis Lewis High School rather than to the student's choice of Jamaica High School.

Today we write in response to the agreement made yesterday between the United Federation of Teachers and the Department of Education. The plan submitted to the Panel for Educational Policy in January was for a phased closing of Jamaica High School combined with a phased opening and growth of three new small schools. Accompanying it was a flawed Educational Impact Statement. This plan, approved by the Panel for Educational Policy, was presented as one integrated resolution. The Supreme Court of New York State, upheld by the Court of Appeals, has found the PEP votes for the approval of that resolution null and void and annulled the votes.

New York Education Law - Article 52-A, § 2590 - clearly gives the procedure for the co-location of new schools in an existing school. See also Chancellor's Regulation A-190, "Significant Changes in School Utilization", which clearly outlines the procedure which begins with a filing six months before the start of the school year and calls for an EIS, hearings, and a vote of approval by the Panel for Educational Policy. The announcement of the UFT and the Department of Education's agreement to allow the placement of new schools at Jamaica High School in violation of New York State Law is reprehensible. It sends a terrible example to the students and staff. The action pairs the UFT with the DOE as co-collaborators to circumvent the letter and the spirit of community-based decision making.

I call upon you to reconsider your decision and extricate yourself from a course of action that is a flagrant act of defiance of the new Mayoral Control Law passed last summer.

Kevin J. Forrestal,President, Hillcrest Estates Civic Association

James Eterno
Panel for Educational Policy Statement
July 19, 2010

Iam James Eterno, a social studies teacher at Jamaica High School. Those of us from Jamaica did not plan on being here tonight in the middle of July but last week’s events where the UFT and DOE agreed to hand our school a de facto death sentence compelled us to act once again and speak here.

I am not a lawyer but it appears to me that the new school governance law was broken by DOE and now UFT too with your new agreement. There is a significant change in Jamaica High School's usage, the co-location of two new schools in the Jamaica High School building, that will virtually kill Jamaica HS and probably result in fewer high school seats in crowded Queens that is being allowed to move ahead without a proper educational impact statement or a joint meeting of the School Leadership Team.

How will our school be impacted? Teachers are being thrown by the score into the Absent Teacher Reserve Pool where teachers do not want to be so of course we are being affected. But now let’s talk about the students. It is supposed to be children first always but once again children are getting treated horribly.

The following courses and programs were announced as being done away with in June at Jamaica because of the possible co-locations of two new schools in our building. AP US History dropped, a new AP Government class gone. Also phasing out is the Finance Academy program, the Virtual Enterprise program and the Freshmen Law classes. There will be no African American history, no pre-calculus, no psychology class, no environmental science, no Latin American literature elective or African American literature elective, no more visual basic classes, no music classes at all and we are down to two very overcrowded health classes. There will be no social studies ESL classes for grade nine and no native language classes for Spanish freshmen. In fact there are no classes scheduled at all for our incoming ninth graders.

Even if you were to restore all of these classes today, there would be no room for them because you gave away the east wing of the third floor and the east and west wing of the second floor to the two new schools and a third school, Queens Collegiate, which is expanding to include a grade six class.

Even if you gave us our teachers back and said ok you can teach those classes, with so few rooms left it would be a nightmare to try to program all of this where students would get the classes they need and their programs would fit. Even if you give us back our staff, you would be asking us to do the impossible: run a full comprehensive high school program with honors level and Advanced Placement classes, regular classes, self contained special education, and English as a Second Language programs in half a building. Please help us instead of defacto killing us.

Committee At Jamaica Vows to Fight on After UFT Gives us Away

The following is an excerpt from something sent out to the Jamaica email list. Help us if you can as this is positively a call for assistance. Jamaica was the only one of the nineteen schools originally slated for closure, that were saved by the courts, to have two new schools started inside its building in September in this latest giveaway from the UFT to the DOE (we already have another school inside that is growing).




Hi Everyone,

We suffered a setback today when the DOE-UFT agreed to co-locate the two new schools in our building for September and the UFT agreed not to sue. It is hard to believe how we were stabbed in the back by the UFT. They didn't even have the decency to consult with us before they allowed the DOE to move new schools into our building.

I must admit that I was caught off guard. I thought the whole process to significantly change the usage of a building was supposed to be done with full community input. Isn't that what the new governance law and the lawsuit the UFT just won were all about? That seems to have been ignored. It appears our union will ignore the law when it wants to just like the DOE.

Let's understand that we are still open as a school but we are much smaller now with three small schools taking over our building. DOE promised support but not money.

Seven of us: four teachers, a retiree, PTA President and a community activist met tonight to discuss our options. Our work was covered by a local reporter. The sentiment of the meeting was to be defiant and not give up the fight for our school.

Right now we need incoming students to fill seats or else the DOE will continue to insist there is room in our building for new schools. We plan on continuing to pursue our attempt to get contact information from the DOE of students in our zone so we can publicize Jamaica as an alternative to overcrowded Queens High Schools.

After the meeting, I contacted important people who might be able to assist us legally. Any strategy will not work, however, unless we have full support of the Jamaica High School community!

Link to Gotham Schools piece.

Appellate Court Stops City’s Attempt to Discipline Through the Conflicts of Interest Board

In an apparent case of first impression the Appellate Division, First Department, has unanimously affirmed a lower court's determination that the only way to discipline a tenured pedagogue was through the 3020-a process and it was improper to utilize the Conflicts of Interest Board for such employees.

The case, In re Stephen Rosenblum, the DOE declined to bring 3020-a charges against a tenured Assistant Principal (acting as a principal at the time) for allegedly using his influence to call the principal at another school where his son was a teacher to save his son's job. The son's principal reported Rosenblum and the DOE referred the matter to the Conflicts of Interest Board.

The Conflicts of Interest Board is a City agency which rules on issues where, among other things, city employees are alleged to utilize their city employment in improper ways. The COIB attorneys offered Rosenblum a $10,000 fine and he brought a lawsuit declaring that, as a tenured pedagogue, the COIB had no right to discipline him since the exclusive method for disciplining tenured pedagogues was through the 3020-a process.

The lower court and the Appellate Division agreed. There have been many tenured pedagogues who have been disciplined by the COIB. Under COIB rules the case goes before an OATH Administrative Judge (a city employee) who makes factual findings and disciplinary recommendations to City Department heads after an administrative hearing. Under 3020-a rules, arbitrators, jointly picked by the DOE and the Union, make final disciplinary determinations.

A NEW DAY IN TEACHER UNIONISM

Take a look at Gotham for a link to the speech that newly elected Chicago Teacher Union leader Karen Lewis gave last week upon taking office. She won an election where her Caucus of Rank and File Educators defeated Chicago's version of Unity. Dissidents taking over a union isn't a pipe dream. It can happen.

http://gothamschools.org/2010/07/07/chicagos-aggressive-new-union-leader-introduces-herself/

I will have more to report on the school closing decision here in NYC soon. Thanks to Jeff for keeping this issue alive while I was away.

Closing School Litigation: Pyrrhic Victory?

After a long anticipated period the Appellate Division, First Department has upheld Justice Lobis' decision to enjoin the DOE from closing 19 schools. In their decision the Appellate Division found, as the lower court did, that the DOE failed to follow the newly drafted law which required parent and community input in school closing decisions. The law requires, among other things, the preparation and dissemination of an Education Impact Statement whenever the DOE wants to close a school. In the 19 schools case this was found to have been done improperly.

The Appellate Division also dealt with the DOE's main argument in the case wherein the City claimed the Union (and other plaintiffs) had no standing or right to bring the lawsuit. This was rejected summarily when the Appellate Division found that the union had designated persons (Chapter Leaders) on each School Leadership Team and the SLTs were an indispensible part of the law.

Before we start dancing in the aisles it is still unclear what impact, if any, this decision will have on the actual closing of the schools. The DOE has technically complied with the decision by admitting a small freshman class. (Jamaica is reported to have only 22 students enrolled for this September). And of course, there is nothing in this decision which prevents, deters or any way prohibits the DOE from trying to close the schools (or any other school) again. This decision only dealt with the inadequate procedural requirements that the law requires for closing a school.

Additionally there may be other schools, like Rikers, which close without any Impact Statement or notice and because of their lack of parent or union support get little media coverage.

When all is said and done we do have a lot to be proud. In schools like Jamaica students, teachers, staff and in some cases even the union, got together and registered their dissatisfaction with DOE unilateral decision making. Our work is not done. We will continue to sound our voices even after this administration can no longer buy its way into office.

DOE To “Close” Rikers’ Schools: Students and Teachers Left Holding the Bag

The DOE plans to announce the closing of the two remaining schools on Rikers Island tomorrow in a meeting called on the last day of school. According to DOE and union sources the two schools, Island Academy and Horizon Academy, which service 16 to 21 year old incarcerated youth on Rikers Island will undergo a restructuring leaving most teachers as ATRs and the future of incarcerated education uncertain.

The Rikers schools are part of the Alternative High School district, District 79, which has gone under restructuring almost every year since Cami Anderson became superintendent in 2006. In past reorganizations the move was done with Union blessing. (See, e.g., http://www.uft.org/member/contracts/teacher/appendix_i/ )There appears to be no union-management agreement for the Rikers schools.

District 79 had been criticized for being too big and too expensive to operate. In one restructuring over 750 teachers became ATRs when it was decided that the GED schools were not cost-effective. Many of those teachers are still ATRs.

When a school reorganizes or restructures teachers are forced to reapply for their jobs or risk being placed as ATRs. Non-tenured teachers also face possible dismissal. While our contract does allow restructuring this cannot be done without consultation and when done must follow the procedures of Article 18 of our contract.

PRESS DISCOVERS CLOSING SCHOOLS HAVE VIRTUALLY NO INCOMING NINTH GRADERS

A high school needs freshmen to keep going but the Department of Education has basically starved the closing Queens High Schools of new students. You can read all about it at these links. We are quoted extensively and are still fighting this injustice. Please help us if you can.


http://gothamschools.org/2010/06/16/saved-from-closure-a-queens-high-school-faces-phase-out/

http://gothamschools.org/2010/06/17/after-ruling-kept-schools-open-city-discouraged-enrollment/

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/few_kids_at_rescued_schools_vxSPjS8F8YGNBZHWITK5MM

http://www.queenstribune.com/deadline/Deadline_061710_SavedSchools.html

http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20100616/FREE/100619875

ICERS ON THE RADIO TONIGHT

If you are near a radio or computer tonight, please tune in to WPAT, 930 am between 7:00p.m. and 9:00 p.m. as Joan Seedorf and I will be on the Teddy Smith show. It's a music-talk format. We will be talking about education. Please call in if you can.

Here is a link to the station.

DOE Decides That It Is Better Not to Show Layoffs on Open Market Screen

Just as quietly as it appeared the layoff and retention section of the open market screen has disappeared.

It is unclear why the DOE deleted these two references but we are glad it was done.

We wish it were that easy to take layoffs off of the table.

Change to Open Market Screen Hints of Lay-offs

Without warning or explanation the Open Market System has been changed to reflect "Current Status" which indicates whether the DOE employee is laid-off, excessed and current assignment. For those of you who do not have access to the system an example is reproduced above. (Click on the example to enlarge it).

MAYOR UNILATERALLY DECIDES TO FREEZE OUR WAGES TO STOP LAYOFFS

Contract negotiations between the UFT and the city are at impasse and a state mediator is attempting to bridge differences. In the midst of this process, Mayor Bloomberg on his own decided yesterday that in order to plug part of the Department of Education’s budget gap that he would be imposing a two year wage freeze on teachers. To me this is merely an accounting trick that will have little bearing on actual contract negotiations. With the so called savings, however, Mayor Bloomberg has decided that there will be no need for layoffs of teachers at this time. Other cuts to education will still go into effect unless we can restore funding from Albany and DC. Step and longevity increases will continue; these are not raises.

A close look at the city’s budget the last three years shows that two years ago the city set aside money for UFT raises for 2009 and 2010 of four percent each year since other city unions had already been awarded those same increases. The city did this based on pattern bargaining where one city union settles on a raise with the city and that sets a pattern for other city workers.

The pattern of two years worth of four percent increases was set by DC 37 in 2008 at the height of the financial crisis. Last year the city lowered the projected increase for UFT members in its spending plan to annual raises of two percent and now they are decreasing the projection to zero. Can they get away with this? For now the answer is yes as we have no recourse other than to go to fact finding arbitration which is non binding and did not serve us well in 2005. Sadly, our union is not strong enough to have the leverage to stop the mayor. On the other hand, the city has argued for years that pattern bargaining should prevail as the best way to settle labor contracts so they seem to be completely abandoning their traditional bargaining position. This will play out over the long haul so nothing here is set in stone.

In terms of the publicity campaign, the Department of Education for now has backed off their threat to lay off senior people but they still put out a deceptive statement with their no layoff decree. The DOE stated that since step, longevity and education increases are still in effect, teachers will still get salary increases that will average 3%. Talk about misleading information. I have never heard other city agencies that have experience steps, such as the police, talk about advancing up steps as raises. Also, since the steps and longevity increments for teachers only go to 22 years, anyone who is more senior, like me, is truly frozen. There are thousands of us that fit this category and we are once again being treated with disrespect by our employer.

In the end, we are relieved that there won’t be layoffs but UFT members have not had a real salary increase since May 19, 2008 (the date our last contractual raise went into effect) so we have already had a two year wage freeze. We will keep you posted as more details emerge.

The New Classroom Teacher (and Principal) Evaluation Scheme: What Was Our Union Thinking?

With the recent passage of the new rating system for classroom teachers and principals (nothing in the law about other titles) a thorough review of the new provisions is in order. Additionally we must examine why our duly certified bargaining representative agreed to this (and more than doubling the Charter cap) on the hope that our application for $700 million from the feds will win this ridiculous competition.

First, some general observations.

The most important, if not the only, reason for a union's existence is to provide protection to its members that individually any single member could not provide. Seniority rules and tenure were developed to protect teachers from administrative discrimination by giving administrators enough time to evaluate new employees and recognize that employees become more valuable (and should be paid more) as they become more experienced.

Nothing could be more anti-union than the erosion of these basic rights. Yet, time and time again our Union, in order to protect its own interests, has sacrificed ours as experience becomes a liability and in this recent legislation the protections from arbitrary dismissal are significantly weakened.

The New Rating System

Within the next two years our current system of Satisfactory and Unsatisfactory ratings will be replaced by a scheme that will include "measures of student achievement." While much of the details will be forthcoming in NYSED regulation-making and UFT-DOE labor negotiations it is clear that decisions for employment, promotion, retention, tenure, termination and merit pay must be made on this student data. (UFT Q &A erroneously states that this new law does not impact tenure). This data, depending upon the availability of tests, is based on "student growth" which is defined as the change in student achievement for an individual student between 2 or more points in time.

Teachers will now be rated "Highly Effective," "Effective," "Developing," and "Ineffective," with the bottom two ratings making the teacher subject to a "Teacher Improvement Plan," which will be unilaterally imposed by the DOE. (The UFT Q&A erroneously states that this plan will be negotiated between the teacher and the principal but that language was not in the law).

The Teacher Improvement Plan must be implemented within 10 days of the start of the new school year and identify needed areas of improvement, a timeline, the manner in which the improvement will be assessed and differentiated activities to help the teacher to avoid termination.

The law provides for an appeals procedure which appears to be a mirror of the current appeals procedure yielding little, if any, substantive rights.

After two consecutive "ineffective" ratings and appeals affirming those ratings the DOE must bring an expedited termination hearing where the fact of the two consecutive ineffective ratings will be treated as "very significant evidence of incompetence" constituting "just cause for removal." While the Teacher Improvement Plan can be raised as a defense the DOE need only show that the plan was "developed and substantially implemented."

The expedited hearing requires that the hearings be completed within 60 days and must start within 7 days of the pre-hearing conference.

An Additional Tidbit (Where Did This Come From?)

Although nowhere mentioned in the media the new legislation includes a provision to permit private, profit and non-profit, organizations to take over the role of superintendent over failing schools. The new law allows the school district to enter into 5 year contracts to allow these organizations to turn around failing schools. While there are minimal protections to teachers in these failing schools (the collective bargaining agreement is still in effect and the teachers still work for the school district) it is unclear what these outside organizations will do to the schools and their staff to turn them around.

Questions Remain

Without the regulations and the results of the negotiations it remains to be determined just how this new litigation will impact teachers. The UFT website heralds the new law as replacing a system that "doesn't work for us" with one that "embeds professional development."

How doesn't the present system work for us?

When a small percentage of employees are dismissed for incompotence you either have a competent group of teachers, an effective and protective union or both. The fact that there are not large numbers of teachers being fired means that someone is doing their job. Why do we want to fix this system? It doesn't appear broken.

Embedding professional development?

What happened to all of the peer intervention programs and the failure to negotiate meaningful terms. Does the Union believe that they will do better now after we have given up these rights?

Student Data

Measurement of student data is not only a slippery slope it is the entrance to a cesspool. Despite the evidence demonstrating that short term individual student data does not correlate with teacher effectiveness we have bought, hook, line and sinker the notion that this is a proper measure of our abilities. While many teachers are rightfully concerned about the low achievers the higher achievers have to reach new heights in order not to get you fired as well.

Just Cause

Despite the hype in the media, tenure is a protection against arbitrary and discriminatory DOE action. The hearing that tenure provides requires the DOE to prove that a teacher charged with incompetence is, in fact incompetent. Teachers so charged are permitted, through counsel, to test every aspect of the charge. Our new rating scheme creates a statutory presumption (a legal term meaning there is nothing to prove) and shifts the burden to the accused teacher of establishing that their ineffective rating was not very substantial evidence of their incompetence. With the tightened schedules the teacher rating will be given almost dispositive proof of the teacher's incompetence; a significant change from our current system. Currently U ratings are only one factor to be considered by the arbitrator. This is perhaps the most egregious part of the new legislation.

Our Union, Once Again, Knows What's Better For Us Than We Do

The UFT has the audacity to spring this new system without membership, DA or other meaningful consultation and approval. Perhaps they know as well as we do that this scheme is a significant erosion of a previously well protected right and no one in their right mind would agree. It is the height of arrogance and hypocrisy to shove this legislation down our collective throats.

Yes, the present (er, former) system is subjective. And yes, in some instances, it has worked to hurt some teachers, but in the final analysis this system does not change the fundamental nature of subjective evaluation and only provides a quicker and more certain route to the unemployment line.

Oh, by the way, if we lose Race to the Top do we get our rights back?

Early Retirement Law Passed

Yesterday, the governor signed into law a measure which would allow an incentive for teachers to retire early. Under the law the City must agree to the plan to participate which the City has given no indication that it will.

If the City decides to participate it must choose either or both parts of the incentive. The first part (Part A) allows teachers to retire without penalty at 55 with a minimum of 25 years teaching. The second part (Part B) provide an additional month of member service credit up to 36 months, for each year of service. Only those over age 50 with at least 10 years of teaching are eligible for this part of the retirement incentive. (Early retirement penalties will still apply).

The DOE has until July 1, 2010 to "opt-in" to the plan for 55 year old teachers and August 30, 2010 for the additional month up to 36 month plan and must provide a 3 month window for teachers to apply when they do.

UFT at PEP MEETING: OH THE IRONY

The Panel for Educational Policy held their monthly meeting last Tuesday at Long Island City High School. It turned out to be a meeting that was filled with irony as Unity Caucus leaders of the UFT watched in vain as their excellent points were completely ignored by the majority of eight Mayoral appointees on the Panel. Those eight kind of operate like a mini version of the UFT's ruling Unity Caucus where you know in advance exactly what they are going to do before an issue is raised. A sort of parallel universe of phony democracy.

The big issues were co-locations (invasions) of charter schools in public schools and ridiculous expenditures.

As usual, the majority of the PEP ignored what the public school teachers said and voted to co-locate several new charter schools in public schools. In addition, Gateway Secondary School to Health Sciences will also expand to include a grade 6 against the wishes of the Gateway School Leadership Team and the community. This expansion will probably mean even fewer high school seats in Queens as this school will be capped around 800 but the PEP couldn't be bothered with this triviality. Next up on the agenda was expenditures.

The DOE asked the PEP to approve an allocation of $5,000,000 to recruit new teachers while at the same time they are threatening to lay off thousands of us. The excuse given was that DOE has to have teachers for our most needy special education students ready on day one as this is a shortage area. This is a laugh as I pointed out to the Panel when I spoke as Jamaica has special education classes that in May still don't have a regular teacher.

The UFT was in the house and they made a great case on the issue of this ridiculous expenditure. The best speaker was clearly UFT Secretary Michael Mendel who spoke for two minutes of the folly of the DOE's spending 5 million dollars to recruit teachers during these tough fiscal times when they are talking about layoffs. When the PEP chair tried to shut off Michael's microphone, Mendel resisted and refused to leave. He told them they would have to have him removed.

The auditorium, which was pretty much filled with UFTers from Queens and other supporters, howled their approval for Mendel and disapproval for the PEP. The PEP did not want to set a precedent of giving someone more than two minutes of speaking time but after hearing the raucous crowd and an appeal from Manhattan PEP representative Patrick Sullivan, they relented and gave Mendel an extra minute. Michael rose to the occasion talking about the horror of his own experience of being laid off in the seventies and saying how awful it was to pit teachers against teachers as the Chancellor is doing.

Speaker after speaker followed. They lambasted the $5 million DOE boondoggle but in the end it didn't matter. The four Borough President Representatives voted no (Staten Island was absent) and the eight mayoral representatives voted yes. There's another $5 million of our money that will go down the drain.

The irony was hearing the Unity Caucus people decry the undemocratic nature of the PEP by yelling "Shame on you" and "Rubber Stamp" after the PEP voted.

If anyone would know what it's like to be a rubber stamp, it's the UFT's elected Unity Caucus leaders who as a membership obligation require their members to sign an agreement to abide by the decisions of their caucus in public and union forums. They vote lock step to support every misstep large or small that the UFT leadership comes up with. Unity argues if you don't like it you can vote them out once every three years in UFT elections the same as the mayor says you can vote him out once every four years as if these citywide elections justify the day-to-day undemocratic governance structures.

At least the PEP allows members of the public two minutes to vent; the UFT seldom calls on more than one of us dissidents in debate at the DA.

OK, so Unity received a dose of their own medicine but in the end none of us are any better off.

Evaluation Agreement Another Step Backwards

People have asked us to comment on the recent agreement between NYSUT and the State Education Department on teacher evaluations. Basically, the deal is another loss for UFT members and teachers across the state because as of 2011 40% of our rating will be based on student progress. Since there are so many variables that go into pupil progress, most over which the teacher has little or no control, this looks like a terrible way to rate teachers.

UFT spin says that Joel Klein wanted to make 100% of our rating based on student progress on standardized tests and we stopped him. This is ridiculous. It's like saying someone wants to steal $1000 from us but we only gave away $400 so this is a victory.

As an opposition representative said at last week's Delegate Assembly, this agreement is a terrible precedent. It takes us down a road we don't want to go down and is ripe for abuse by unscrupulous administrators.

The new rating system will provide us with four grades and rewards and sanctions will be based upon how we are rated.

At least at the DA Unity/UFT leaders admitted that U ratings and discontinuances are way up. They are way up in large part because of the 2002 and 2005 contracts. In 2002 we allowed arbitrators to rewrite letters to our file and in 2005 we gave up our right to contest the accuracy and fairness of file letters thus opening the door to the full scale attack on our profession.

Basically, last week's May DA was a summary of this agreement with Unity spin and then there was a discussion with mostly Unity people dominating it. The only other subject talked about was the budget.

Here is a link to the State Education Department so you can read about the rating agreement yourself.

TWEED MESSAGE TO ALL: IGNORE ARBITRATORS AND JUDGES WHO RULE AGAINST YOU

Sometimes I feel as if schools in danger of closing are fighting alone with the DOE for basic fairness but tonight I read a story that makes me feel that we are not the lone voices that aren't being heard.

Arthur Goldstein, Chapter Leader at "A rated" Francis Lewis, has explained over at Gothamschools.org in his unique style why the UFT Contract is basically useless at the current time. Even after an arbitrator ordered the DOE to lower class sizes at Lewis, they did not comply and there are no consequences for them.

In a similar situation at Jamaica, the secretaries recently won a grievance that school aides were doing their work and administration just marches merrily along as if nothing happened. Who cares that our data is in disarray and our school was closed based on faulty data?

Speaking of that closure, a judge ruled in March that nineteen schools including Jamaica must remain open and the DOE acts as if the ruling didn't occur and continues to open new schools in our buildings.

I'm guessing there are many parallel stories all over the city of administration outright ignoring decisions that are supposed to have the force of law.

The message to our kids is that laws are there to be broken by Tweed.

Where is the mighty, mighty union that our former president used to refer to as an 800 pound gorilla?

Philip Nobile on the Rubber Room Agreement

Out of the Rubber Room, into the Pyre
By Philip Nobile

The ballyhooed rubber room agreement between the city and the teachers union proves the adage: For every advantage, there is a disadvantage.

Surely, abolition was the only way to go. Wasted millions, wasted labor, wasted careers. The heat was too much. The overpopulated rooms and trailers were a fiasco overdue for oblivion.

But what appears to be a win-win for the DOE and UFT may be a loss for hundreds of teachers, counselors, psychologists, nurses, social workers and secretaries now banished to Orwellian-named Temporary Reassignment Centers waiting for their hearings.

There is no guarantee that emancipation won’t evolve into Jim Crow, a change of venue without a change of policy and punishment.

Despite the apocalyptic publicity in the tabloids, TRCs were never the real issue. Rather they are the rear end product of the DOE’s discipline system that can reassign a ham sandwich.

Under Chancellor Joel Klein, every teacher was and is a secret misconduct complaint away from sudden job removal followed by a one-sided investigation topped off with prosecution by a bulldog city attorney whose purpose in life is to maul union members. The
agreement merely accelerates these procedures.

Last May the UFT Delegates Assembly condemned the Chancellor’s Ministry of Fear in a resolution accusing the Office of Special Investigations of making inquiries “in a biased manner” and principals of “target[ing] members who show independence or otherwise are perceived as threats to authority.”

True enough, but the resolution was ignored in practice. The UFT has done nothing in the past year to stop the DOE from railroading troublesome teachers. Special UFT Representatives sit in on OSI interviews, but say little and advise clients to keep quiet lest investigators twist their statements. Whatever notes the reps take, even if they include exculpatory material, are withheld from teachers until their hearings. The union’s lack of advocacy in the crucial early stages of investigation has left teachers at the mercy of OSI, not to be confused with the ACLU.

While heavy on deliberate speed and strict deadlines, the purported breakthrough agreement is light on protecting teachers from the frame-ups that flooded TRCs in the first place. For every bona fide oddball, and I’ve met some beauts in my room, there are ten model educators guilty only of having a hostile supervisor who inflated or invented an incident to justify reassignment rubber stamped by OSI. Since the Chancellor’s Javerts remain unmentioned and unchecked in the agreement, the UFT’s passivity seems like a sellout.

The agreement has other serious flaws, all stemming from UFT President Michael Mulgrew’s failure to consult with us, the least of his members, the casualties of this bureaucratic Bay of Pigs.

The UFT’s contract negotiating committee has three hundred members providing diverse input. In contrast, the rubber room pact was completed in total secrecy without consenting intercourse with the people directly affected. A survey of three TRCs in Manhattan, Queens, and Brooklyn, where I resided without charges for my first thirty-three months, revealed deep skepticism about the agreement. Asked whether they were happy or unhappy with it, 140 said unhappy and 50 happy. Asked further whether they wanted to meet with Mr. Mulgrew, who has not set foot in a TRC, and discuss the agreement, the response was almost unanimously affirmative.

Here are some of the queries that Mr. Mulgrew needs to answer:

¶ Will you meet with current rubber roommates and seek to renegotiate terms deemed unfair by them?

¶ Do you concur with Brooklyn Borough Representative Howie Schoor’s claim that “most” members have been reassigned “on trumped up charges?” If so, how did the union let this happen?

¶ To guarantee fairness in the future, will you insist that the UFT have the right to conduct inquiries parallel to the DOE’s, assuring equal access to evidence and witnesses before being charged. And will you reverse UFT policy by ordering Special Representatives to vigorously defend members during OSI and OEO interviews and to give copies of interview notes to members?

¶ Why did you grant the DOE 60 days to investigate and charge members with misconduct after reassignment (in addition to unlimited time limit before), but consented to restricted us to just 25 days to prepare our defense (match up with a union lawyer, discover evidence, line up witnesses, etc.) before the hearings begin?

¶ Why hasn’t the UFT demanded that administrators be penalized
for false accusations?

¶ As for misconduct hearings, how can due process be secured
when unprecedented deadlines now govern every step of the way
and all favoring of management? Don’t you think that the Chancellor’s and your joint meeting with hearing officers to pressure them on deadlines can be construed as interference with the legal process?



Philip Nobile was a Social Studies teacher and UFT Chapter Leader
at the Cobble Hill School of American Studies. He was reassigned
to a Brooklyn rubber room in 2007 in retaliation, he says, for blowing
the whistle on Regents cheating.

College Journalism Student Article on Jamaica Picked up at Gotham Schools

For those interested in our fight to keep Jamaica High School open, Shaloma Logan, a journalism student at SUNY Stony Brook, has written a fairly extensive piece on Jamaica that Gotham Schools has picked up. If you haven't yet figured out how passionately we care about our 118 year old school, Shaloma catches the flavor pretty well.

http://logan490.wordpress.com/2010/04/29/jamaica-high-teaching-against-the-odds/

DA REPORT FROM JULIE WOODWARD

Pres. Mulgrew (MM) said he's wanted to close the RRs from the day he took office and "got it done" with the Major, who he said finally understood it was in his best intrest to close them. MM said he was tired of people in schools always telling him that they were afraid to stand up to principals because of fear of trumped up charges.
[Note 1: Norm Scott put up a post on MM's sleazy comments at the DA on the RR and politicians. I heard every one of them, and I thought he sounded like he was talking to a teamster's union. More important in this post is the list of SEVEN QUESTIONS that no one at the DA would ever get to ask him about the RR agreement, and that is a shame.]
[Note 2: MM himself, in the Huffington Post.]

MM: "Privateers shouldn't be in the state of New York." He wants to push the point that if the state gets Race to the Top grant, "not a penny can be used to fill a budget gap." His main concern is the budget itself.
He gave updates on Florida (the Gov. Crist was able to veto what MM calls the "disgusting bill" that had been passed in both houses there), NJ (the public bought its governor's campaign that teachers are only out for themselves; Paterson is doing the same thing in Albany, setting parents against parents and younger members against vets), DC (they removed seniority layoff protections 5 years ago and Rhee's been trying to to destabilize the system since then; DC loses 60% of their new teachers every 2 years, 75% leave in first 5 years).
On the UFT/NAACP lawsuit against the DoE for closing those schools, MM says the city is appealing this, but he doesn't think they'll win.
MM applauds the bill of Sen. Harkins bill for a $23 billion bailout for public education, but says he's already been hearing some legislators at Albany saying good, then the state won't have to find the money.

MM is calling on the membership to attend the "Good Jobs Rally" that the AFL-CIO is mounting against Wall St. on April 29th. Begins at City Hall, then a march down Broadway to Wall St. to give them "a piece of our mind." 4 - 6 pm. "We don't want the children to pay the price for what other people did."
Another rally, he says, is set for October 10th in Washington, DC. The labor leaders want 2 million people to show up for that.
As for our contract. They had the first mediation session.
Regarding the Diaz and Bing bill on getting rid of seniority, he says it's not going to pass but it's out there. Klein is trying to split the members (newest against vets), UFT is fighting to protect all members. MM said all our UFT energy is to make no layoffs. "Can you imagine leaving [firing] it to the discretion of the principal?" UFT is picketing Bing's office, and will do the same at Diaz's soon. MM asked the Municipal Labor Union to write Bing and Diaz to tell them to withdraw the bill; a letter was sent to both on 4/21 saying "Your efforts and ours should be devoted to making sure the layoffs do not occur."
MM actually is looking to run candidates against these senators. (MM: "[We have] two idiots who have been living off our support for years...."). He says the UFT has to make a major statement - Seniority is "absolutely the issue." Wants citywide leafleting. He says: "When we protect all members, they will protect children."
[Note: Finally he sounds like he's fighting for our members. I've complained more than once that he and Randi always claim they're fighting for children. I see this wording as a very small shift.]
The Municipal Labor Council, he said later, now has a sub-committee to deal with the city - like their $3000/hr consultants (I think that was a joke) and the use of non-unionized contractors. But he said the UFT is trying to hold back until they're at the city budget time, "so if they want to to cut us, we could say: Here's your spendthrifts."
On the budget: He says it's the most dangerous thing in 35 years. The UFT faxes [mentioned above] and picketing are having an effect, and there are ads running in the rest of the state for keeping the education budget. Albany is starting to move a bit. Keep the pressure on the "electeds." "If this goes to June, we got problems." After pressuring the state, the union will have to go after Klein. Nobody's done anything about actual funding for 6 years. No-bid contracts are up. DoE has upped their lawyer headcount to 73 (from I think he said 4 -- could that be right?). The UFT foiled the headcount at Tweed, and it doubled this past year.
Question period was tame.

RUBBER ROOM AGREEMENT: AS USUAL DOE GETS THE BETTER OF UFT

Everyone is hearing about the agreement to eliminate the rubber rooms for teachers and other UFT members who are reassigned. Let’s analyze the agreement very carefully to see how once again the DOE totally outwitted the UFT.

ON THE SURFACE IT APPEARS TO BE A STEP FORWARD
3020A cases, where the DOE is trying to terminate a UFT member, should move along faster now as the number of arbitrators has been increased from 23-39. In addition more arbitrators will be added for less serious cases where the DOE doesn’t seek a penalty greater than a four week suspension. Some of this looks good at first glance. I think all of us can agree that justice delayed is justice denied so having more arbitrators seems like it is a positive move. In addition, trying mediation for current people reassigned is a move in the right direction.

WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?
If we are adding sixteen arbitrators to expedite teacher discipline (and more to hear less serious cases), then sixteen arbitrators should have also been added to expedite our grievances against the DOE.

There is a member in my school who has been waiting since 2006 to have a grievance heard at arbitration. I don’t see the NY Post, the Daily News or the NY Teacher complaining about our stalled grievance process being delayed justice. I am quite sure that there are many other UFT members waiting for years to have their cases resolved while the DOE continues to blatantly violate the contract. If the DOE wants to expedite cases against us, then a fair deal would have been for them to expedite grievances against them. That didn’t happen. The UFT once again gave in without getting equal value in return.

Here is our prediction on how all of this will go. As there will be many more arbitrators hearing disciplinary cases and extra hearing dates, there will likely be more members than in the past charged with incompetence or misconduct. Add to this the fact that the DOE will have sixty days after removing someone from a school to charge them, or put them back in school and charge them later, but UFT members only get 15 days to respond (I have been told we don’t even get a NYSUT lawyer until we are charged.). Therefore, DOE will most probably attempt to overwhelm the system with 3020A cases.

Incidents that a few years ago would have generated a letter for file will now be brought before 3020A arbitrators and the ranks of teachers who will be fined, suspended, or terminated will increase. Meanwhile, our grievances against DOE will continue to languish for years. I hope my forecast is totally wrong.

WILL THE RUBBER ROOMS BE CLOSED?
The new agreement will give the DOE four options as to what they can do with a UFT member they want to reassign. The DOE will be able to suspend someone with pay. More than likely they will use this option very sparingly. Other options will include suspending someone without pay for an expanded number of causes until their case is finished.

Another choice for reassigning people will be for someone to be reassigned within their own building to administrative duties. Imagine the indignity of coming to work in your own school and being removed from the classroom to sit on hall patrol all day. I foresee this choice will end up being very popular with the DOE as they try to wear people down and convince them to quit.

The final option for the DOE will be to send a member to “a DOE administrative office to do work consistent with law (an ‘Administrative Office Assignment’).” Sounds like the “rubber room” before Joel Klein’s days. Calling it a gain to have our members “alphabetizing paper clips” or doing other such administrative tasks is a huge stretch. If someone still can be removed from a building and reassigned to an administrative office based on the whim of a principal who gets a rubber stamp approval from above, it still is essentially the rubber room.

To put it all very succinctly, I saw Joel Klein interviewed on MSNBC last Friday. He was lauding the rubber room agreement while criticizing the governor’s veto in Florida of the bill that would have ended teacher tenure in that state. The UFT is also hailing the rubber room agreement but I have seen nothing yet at UFT.org or in the Chapter Leader Update about how teachers took matters into their own hands in Florida and emerged victorious. This tells you something.

The Rubber Room Deal: Breakthrough or Missed Opportunity

By now most of the NYC Board of Education community has received news of an 8 page agreement in which our Union has ceded to the City's contract demands for few, if any, concessions and entered without membership approval.

In the wake of his electoral victory our newly elected president has determined that membership consultation or approval of DOE contract demands is not necessary. As widely reported the DOE has sought a way out of the embarrassment that the rubber rooms have caused. News reports on almost a daily basis have highlighted long-term rubber room detainees waiting for long periods with nothing to do but read or sleep while they remained on payroll. Despite contractual guarantees, approved by the membership, grievances challenging the long delays were either never brought or abandoned as the grievances were delayed.

Now, on the eve of the premiere of a highly anticipated documentary, The Rubber Room Movie, our union comes to the aid of Klein and Bloomberg in what is sure to be a public relations nightmare. And our new president is proud of it.

To be sure the Rubber Room issue needed to be resolved and contract negotiations are the perfect place to deal with it even though it might not be a mandatory subject of bargaining. But in the context of negotiations what did we, as union members, get for this agreement that our leader has unilaterally agreed to.

We got the right to be suspended without pay for an expanded list of charges.

We got the right to perform a full day of cafeteria or bathroom duty if the DOE thinks we are not a danger to students.

We got the right to sit an office and do who knows what (perhaps sleep and read) if the DOE deems we are a danger to students.

We got the right to "expedited hearings" which currently were reserved for time and attendance issues for any case that the DOE wants a suspension for more than 4 weeks. This means that cases which might involve the need for a full and fair record but could "only" cost a teacher a one month's fine can be performed in the kangaroo court of time and attendance arbitration.

While theoretically hearings should proceed in a more expeditious manner and that is generally a positive aspect of this negotiation it is clear, as always, we gave up way too much and received little in return just to allow the Mayor and the Chancellor to answer the Post and other critics of our rubber room.

PEOPLE POWER WORKS IN FLORIDA!

Florida governor Charlie Crist vetoed the despicable bill that would have ended tenure in the sunshine state. We could learn a great deal about how teacher and student outrage turned into action can influence even a Republican governor.

People have asked us to comment on the NYC rubber room deal. We will have something to say after we study it. For now, we should all be pleased with what happened in Florida. Maybe the push back in support of teachers that started there will spread around the country.

Klein has Sponsors in State to Kill Seniority & More from Florida

Joel Klein is looking to change state law so we can be laid off even with seniority. He has sponsors for this legislation in Albany according to the NY Times.

Meanwhile, the sickout in Miami, according to the Miami Herald, was more like a pandemic as teachers in Florida took action without union support to fight a bill that was passed and is awaiting the governor's signature that would end tenure.


Here is the actual bill.

Wake up everyone we are fighting for our lives.

MIAMI SICKOUT

The Miami Herald is reporting a sickout among Florida teachers today. All the best to our colleagues in Florida. There was no union support for this wildcat action.

We are so thrilled that some of the teachers who called in sick today used their names when talking to the press. That's real courage. Tenure in florida is hanging by a thread; it will be gone if the governor signs a controversial bill.

DAILY NEWS SAYS MULGREW HAS A MANDATE FOR US TO KILL OURSELVES

The completely outrageous interpretation over at the Daily News of Michael Mulgrew's UFT election win should show everyone that many in the media are not backing down at all in their attempt to destroy us.

How do you interpret our future now that it's three more years of Unity?

The threat to us is national. In Florida a bill was passed by the legislature that is ready for the governor's signature that would mean the end of tenure and would basically destroy the teaching profession as we know it. The reaction from the teachers is wildcat actions. Let's see if they go through with their threat of a sickout.

Send Charlie Crist, the governor of Florida, an email to veto the bill. His email is charlie.crist@myflorida.com

Court Reverses “U” Rating: Failure to Follow Contract Cited as Reason

In a sharply worded decision Justice Marcy Friedman of the Manhattan Supreme Court ruled last Thursday that a Bronx Regional High School tenured teacher did not deserve the "U" rating her principal had given her because the principal failed to follow formal observation procedures.

The teacher, a 42 year veteran of the system had been "U" rated for the 2006 to 2007 school year for the first time in her career. During the next school year she was observed three times; twice without a pre-observation conference and once with a pre-observation conference. The observation she had with a pre-observation conference was rated satisfactorily and the others were "U" rated. She was given a second "U" rated annual performance review.

After the teacher appealed the second rating and lost she hired private counsel and brought the matter to the Manhattan Supreme Court. Justice Friedman found that the contract required that "U" rated teachers be evaluated only by formal observations which require pre and post observation conferences. Since the only one that followed this procedure was "S" rated it was irrational to "U" rate the teacher for the full year and ordered the Board to reverse the rating.

Justice Friedman also noted the need to file grievances where procedural safeguards are not followed. She noted that the Bronx Regional High School teacher could have grieved the observations held without pre and post observation conferences but her failure to do did not waive her right to contest the "U" rating based on these observations.

A copy of the decision can downloaded here.

Mulgrew Wins Election Overwhelmingly

Congratulations to Michael Mulgrew on his overwhelming election victory.

Yes, the turnout was low and apathy is still high among teachers, who mostly did not vote, and of course Unity has every advantage in the world so UFT elections are not played out on a level playing field but 91% of those voting voted for Mulgrew and that cannot be discounted.

For the thousands of members who voted for us, particularly in the high schools where we had most of our support and finished a strong second, we say thanks but we still haven't found a way to reach the vast majority of teachers to get them involved in our union.

As we move ahead, we will work as hard as we can to build a strong union. I think that is a goal all union activists can agree on.

ICE'S Candidates for President and Treasurer Sway UFT Members to Vote ICE on Radio Spot

Here is the original radio spot which was broadcast over WINS last Sunday.

Great job!!

Click on the small arrow on the right side of the player.

JUDGE GIVES CLOSING SCHOOLS A STAY OF EXECUTION

We are quite pleased with the decision of Judge Joan B. Lobis to declare null and void the January 26 Panel for Educational Policy vote to close nineteen schools. We applaud Judge Lobis for her courage in standing up to the Bloom/Klein empire.

The city says it will appeal. According to everything we have read so far, the DOE is going to try to dance around the decision. Why don't they support the schools instead and make all of them excellent places to learn?

Here is a link to Gotham where you can read the decision yourself.

Have a great vacation everyone.

DA REPORTS

Julie Woodward wrote a succinct report on the main points of the Delegate Assembly. It is copied below.

Then, everyone needs to head over to Education Notes to read ICE-TJC elementary school VP candidate Yelena Siwinski's commentary on UFT inaction today compared to the days of wine and roses that the UFT will be celebrating this evening at the 50th anniversary bash.

Also, please keep working through Friday to get out those votes. You will be surprised by how many members still have not voted. Word of mouth is our best way of lifting our vote total.

The CUTS
by Julie Woodward
Truman HS Delegate

Today's big message at the DA (and at other UFT meetings, not to mention the Chapter Leaders Weekly) was to get everyone to call or fax state assemblymen and senators regarding the budget cuts. They say we're "faced with staggering cuts to education coming from Albany totaling $1.4 billion to the state, more than $600 million to the city, and an average of more than $11,000 per classroom."

Here's an easy link to an online petition form which when submitted, coughs up another email you can send to others to get them to write in as well. State Assembly 518-455-4100 Look up State Senate 518-455-2800.


Mulgrew announced today, as Weingarten used to, that the union's "core belief and motivation" has always been fighting for children. That's not exactly the position I'm looking for the union to take with my dues money. It's like saying the most important job of the of the police union is to fight for the man on the street, or the teamsters for the companies they service. To me it's a bit disingenuous for a union to adopt a child advocacy stance to further its own agenda, but if you're comfortable pushing that line up at Albany – as Mulgrew is encouraging you to do and which you might want to do if you have kids going to NYC schools – go with it.


An interesting thing Mulgrew told us at the D.A. today was that Albany is telling him they're not doing any more funding for NYC because Klein will waste it all.


He also said that the State Ed Dept is "broke." They eliminated positions by attrition and the offices are empty. Now they want to do away with Regents Exams this year because there's no money for them. Mulgrew advocated to make sure they do process them on the grounds that "you have to have standards." I'm not sure the reasoning behind that. The Regents system has changed a lot since my kids were of college age. At that time they were told that many colleges outside of NYS didn't care if you took a Regents or not. Maybe someone who knows more about the current Regents exams can tell me whether these tests are totally necessary these days.

UNITY CHANGES THEIR NY TEACHER AD; WE MUST WORK HARDER THAN EVER TO GET OUT THE VOTE

If we really want to do well in the UFT election, NOW is the time to really start to work.

ICE wrote a brand new leaflet at our last meeting which was in part a response to the Unity campaign ad that was in the March 4 NY Teacher. The campaign to distribute our current leaflet has been fairly successful. We are reaching schools we have never been to before. We have received very positive feedback.

Meanwhile, Unity has taken the unprecedented step of changing their ad from one NY Teacher edition to the next.

We were not given the option to change our ad but Unity has a brand new one in the March 18 edition. They will do anything to maximize their vote including changing the rules in the middle of the election. We must now do what we can to get our vote out.

Word of mouth publicity can't be beat. We need to talk to everyone we know and tell them to vote for the ICE-TJC slate. Many UFT ballots are probably underneath the census in the mail pile at people's homes. Members are busy people; they may need some encouragement to vote, particularly since the ballot looks so complicated. Tell everyone you know who is a UFT member to vote ICE-TJC and ask them to call all of their friends to do the same. It's up to all of us now to make this work.

Inform them that all they have to do vote for all ICE-TJC candidates is put an X in the box for ICE-TJC, make no other marks, put the ballot in the secret ballot envelope and then place that envelope in the return envelope. Then mail it.

If someone hasn't received a ballot yet, they need to call 1 (800) 529-5218 by 5:00 p.m. on March 30. The ballot must reach American Arbitration Association by April 6.


Quote from our leaflet if someone needs persuading. You might be surprised by how many people haven't voted yet if you walk around your school or make some phone calls and ask.

A strong ICE-TJC get out the vote drive could make all the difference in the world.

ENDORSEMENTS AND A SHOUT OUT FROM GERMANY

There is great stuff on the web concerning ICE-TJC in the election and also Jamaica High School being one of the top 500 education protest stories worldwide for 2009.



Enjoy some endorsements and links.



http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/2010/03/dont-forget-to-vote-by-arthur-goldstein.html



http://chaz11.blogspot.com/2010/03/vote-for-jsmes-eterno-since-michael.html



http://pissedoffteeacher.blogspot.com/2010/03/another-example-of-why-you-should-vote.html



http://nyceducator.com/2010/03/was-it-worth-it-and-did-we-even-get-it.html

http://nycityeye.blogspot.com/2010/03/vote-for-james-eterno-and-ice-tjc.html

http://emancipating-education-for-all.org/content/overview-education-protests-2009

Jamaica High School on Free Speech Radio

More evidence that Jamaica HS hasn't given up as teachers (Julia Shlakman and I) and students (Rachael Ali and Mehjabeen Hassan) along with others are interviewed by Free Speech Radio. The interviews took place within the last two weeks.

Response to Unity

After seeing the Unity Caucus election ad, I emailed Michael Mulgrew. I said to him in part:

"I understand elections are a tough business and you can attack me all you want, but to take a quote from the NY Times where I was criticizing the DOE and use it to say that I appeared defeated and then ask the members if they want a president who had given up is quite a stretch.

In reality, as you know from the email I sent you the weekend after the PEP school closing vote, I asked to be part of the lawsuit opposing the closings and then I said, 'We want to be involved in any ongoing struggle to keep our schools open.' This hardly sounds like giving up."

I also told Mr. Mulgrew that at the February High School Committee Meeting, I called for a three point plan to stop school closings in addition to the court case that I have strongly supported.

I said we should picket the work places of the Mayor's PEP appointees.
We should also lobby Albany to take the Chancellor's school closing authority away and maybe his waiver from educational requirements too. Why wait until the law sunsets to change it? It isn't working now.
We should also have a tougher advertising campaign.

You can read the entire proposal on this blog if you wish.
3 POINT PLAN TO STOP SCHOOL CLOSINGS

I also informed Mulgrew about how after the PEP vote on Janaury 27, people from Jamaica, including me, were still talking to the press and we had speakers at the February Panel for Educational Policy meeting and the City Council hearings on school closings in early March. It hardly sounds like we quit in any way at Jamaica.

I made other points on the election and Jamaica High School and I concluded by saying that a great way to increase turnout in the UFT election would be to have a presidential candidate forum between us.

I have not heard back from the president and the email was sent to him on March 9.

What is Unity afraid of? A fair fight apparently is the answer.

Mark Your Ballot-ICE-TJC

Click images to enlarge
(Please print and distribute)

CHAPTER LEADER FROM FRANCIS LEWIS EXPLAINS WHY HE'S RUNNING WITH ICE-TJC

UFT High School Executive Board Candidate Arthur Goldstein's message to the staff of Francis Lewis HS:


Dear colleagues,

I’m running with ICE/TJC for the UFT High School Executive Board, and I’m asking for your vote. Given events of the last few years, like the disastrous 2005 contract, the union’s support of mayoral control, the erosion of seniority rights, the advent of perpetual lunch duty and hall patrol, and the inability to grieve letters in a file simply for their being incorrect, I’ve determined there’s a need for a new voice in the UFT.

I’d like to be that voice.

Unity is an invitation-only caucus that’s controlled the UFT since its inception. When people join, they agree not to vary from Unity positions in public. Whatever Unity tells them to say, they say. Essentially, it’s a loyalty oath. In recent times, many of Unity’s decisions, like those listed above, have not benefitted working teachers.

There is another caucus called New Action. It supports the top of the Unity ticket, pretty much guaranteeing more of the same. It was once an opposition party, but in 2003 Randi Weingarten bought them off with patronage jobs and a few seats on the UFT Executive Board. With your help ICE/ TJC can claim those seats and bring real independent voices and thoughts to our union leadership.
If elected, I will be your voice not only here, but also on the UFT. I will not support measures that hurt working teachers, or any UFT members. I will vigorously oppose measures that appease Bloomberg and Klein with vague promises of benefits to come. Such measures have not served us well.

I will fight for a fair contract, for professional treatment, the retention of tenure, and the concept that a raise means more pay for doing the same job—not for extra time, extra duties, and fewer benefits and privileges.
Please check ICE/TJC on your ballot. Vote for a change in the UFT.
After 50 years, it’s time.

Best regards,
Arthur Goldstein, UFT Chapter Leader
Francis Lewis High School

LONG DAY BETWEEN DA & PEP MEETINGS

UFT President Michael Mulgrew informed delegates last Wednesday, February 24 that the UFT has a very, very strong case in our lawsuit to stop school closings. That was the main highlight of last week’s Delegate Assembly meeting. There was also a Department of Education Panel for Educational Policy meeting on 24th Street in Manhattan that same evening so I rushed up to attend and speak there.

Mulgrew’s lengthy report covered the teachers in Rhode Island who were all fired, our contract struggle, the “rubber rooms,” closing schools and more.

On the lawsuit to stop closing schools, it appears that Mulgrew is confident because clearly the DOE did not follow the process outlined in state law when they closed nineteen schools including Jamaica High School in January. He added that there was a major public reaction to our rally at the January 26 PEP meeting where all of the schools earmarked for closure were represented. He then said that the lawsuit will proceed with all legal vigor. As soon as we have any further information, we will bring it to you.

To show that the friendship between the UFT and the NAACP is solid, Mulgrew asked for a special order of business to allow an NAACP representative, Dr. Anna Lee Martin,( I think that was her name but I am sorry if I am wrong) to address the DA. She told us that if someone were chancellor for eight years and twenty of the schools he is responsible for are failing, then the chancellor should be unemployed. This was received by a rousing ovation from the Delegates. Dr. Martin also talked about the history of the strong bond between the two organizations.

Mulgrew told us that the DOE contract demands were leaked to reporters by the DOE and not the UFT. The demands are awful.

The President also informed us that Chancellor Joel Klein is purposely emphasizing the rubber room so he can get the state to change the law on teacher due process. Mulgrew then stated that we can try to fix this. He asked if there was approval for fixing the problem and he also said things would be much better if the DOE would just adhere to the law.

There was a resolution in support of the NAACP that passed unanimously, a Staff Directors’ Report followed by some questions. I stuck around to hear the new motions. One was passed for next months agenda saying that the UFT should be involved in any GED program changes. The annual motion to make May Day a national holiday was rejected as was a motion for next month to support the March 4 demonstration at the Governor’s midtown office and other actions to stop school closings. However, after this was voted down, Mulgrew emphasized that the UFT will be on board for the March 4 day of action in support of public education.

(UFT support or not, I will be out there on Thursday, March 4 at 4:00 p.m. after school at 40th Street and 3rd Avenue to protest school closings, charter invasions, the end of free metrocards for students and more. The more we show that we will not accept the closing of schools, the better chance we have of keeping this issue alive with the public. There are also City Council hearings Tuesday on school closings at City Hall where we should send representatives.)

After the new motion period ended, there were political endorsements that I didn’t really hear as I decided to rush to Chelsea to attend the PEP meeting and to try to get speaking time to talk about Jamaica High School. The agenda for the PEP revolved around charter schools being placed in public school buildings. I made it a little after 6:00 p.m. and the auditorium that seats well over 1,000 was packed with mostly charter school advocates. These people were well organized and enthusiastic as they praised their charter schools that were taking more space away from traditional public schools.

I do not understand how charter schools can be called public schools. They are selective as in general they take a lower percentage of special education and English Language Learners compared to public schools. To me this makes them basically private schools that use public funds. I will admit I was moved by their spirit but to hear stories about how selective some of these charters are and then hear about how public schools that teach everyone are so bad was unsettling. Any school that can select its students and then throw them out easily cannot be compared to traditional public schools. It’s not an apples to apples situation. We teach everyone.

I had to wait a long time to speak. I was able to take the mic at close to 10:30p.m. I told the Panel about “How the Other Half Lives” our lives at Jamaica High School where we are still starved of resources while we continue take in “Over the Counter” students even after we have been marked for closing. By that time the place was nearly empty as most of the elementary charter school pupils and their parents had gone home. Klein obviously supports the charters as their invasions into public schools were all accepted by the PEP. I left but it was reported to me that placing an Eagle Academy into IS 59 was rejected.

ICE Election Leaflet

Forward to your friends. Make a donation to the campaign. Make copies for your colleagues at schools. Stop by nearby schools to put some in the mail boxes (you have the right in the election season.) If you wish we will send you copies. Email ICEUFT@gmail.com with the number of copies you need. Or call Norm at 917-992-3734. ICE UFT Election Flyer http://www.scribd.com/full/27389047?access_key=key-1v1201we990j0wsemxwo

Dueling Rubber Room Op-Eds Fail to Protect Students and Teachers

The New York Post has decided to become the cheerleader for Rubber Room reform and while the paper has publicized some of the more egregious cases they have left up to Mulgrew and Klein to come up with solutions. Predictably both miss essential points.

First, the record needs to be cleared.

Remember when the words "Rubber Room" were too awful to say and we were cajoled into renaming this area as the teacher reassignment center? Well, it is obviously ok for everybody to go back to calling it the rubber room because Mulgrew calls it that. In any case the Post has highlighted six claimed abuses of the rubber room system which both Klein and Mulgrew agree is a symptom of a complex, evolved system that needs to be changed.

Where does the abuse lie?

For years the DOE has removed teachers from their classrooms based solely on unsubstantiated allegations and forced students to be taught by day to day substitutes. As principals were given greater authority over hiring and firing thanks to UFT contract complicity the rubber room, predictably, became a dumping ground for teachers and other staff that principals and other administrators simply did not like. The numbers grew and the UFT stood silent.

The UFT refused to hire investigators or supplement teacher defense strategy except to assign a couple of untrained people to act as a liaison to an already overwhelmed and under-funded NYSUT attorney defense team. As a result new rubber room occupants know as little about their case and are ill-prepared for arbitration hearings as they have always been.

The DOE hasn't done much better either. Knowing that UFT attorneys will gladly delay cases there is little pressure on them to move cases along. Both Mulgrew and Klein cite the lack of arbitrators as one of the main causes of rubber room expansion but the dirty little secret allows both DOE and UFT incompetence to delay cases. DOE attorneys have no authority or discretion, unlike other agency prosecutors, to withdraw cases and are generally forced to, at least, seek some plea agreement so that principals don't have to take the removed teacher back. The pleas, for the most part, involve monetary fines, but almost always require the agreeing teacher to become an ATR. Even totally exonerated teachers are forced to become ATRs.

Who is in the rubber room?

Klein wants you believe (and Mulgrew tacitly, by his silence, agrees) that the rubber room is made of totally incompetent teachers. Nothing could be further from the truth. The vast majority of teachers in the rubber are senior teachers with misconduct allegations, with a sizeable portion of the allegations coming from outside of the school system. Administrators have known for a long time that removing allegedly incompetent teachers from the classroom via charges of incompetence was extremely difficult because it required that these administrators actually prove their incompetence. While it easy to "U" rate a lesson thankfully most arbitrators recognize that 3020-a incompetence is not just a series of bad observations.

The Klein/Mulgrew Solution

Reading their op-eds you would think the rubber room "problem" (as they term it) could be easily solved. They want to suspend the accused (they already have this power in sexual allegation and felony cases conceded to by the UFT), hire more arbitrators or make them full time and put them to work doing administrative assignments (we will finally get those lunch forms in).

Just how would these "solutions" have changed the Post's so-called dirty dozen? Almost imperceptibly. They can't be suspended because they all had their hearings…just the DOE didn't like the outcome. More arbitrators would do nothing as they had timely hearings (unless you mean more arbitrators that didn't bother to listen to the facts) and putting them to work in administrative assignments is something that is routinely done for certain removed teachers and except for DOE ineptness could have been done for the teachers cited by the Post.

It is clear both the DOE and the UFT don't really care about the disruption to students' education or due process for tenured employees. The removal process is too swift and effectively unchallengeable. As long as the DOE permits principals to remove less favored employees and as long as the UFT refuses to effectively represent them the rubber room or whatever you want to call it will remain. It's a shame and we all lose.

 

3 POINT PLAN TO STOP SCHOOL CLOSINGS

At the February High School Committee meeting, UFT Academic High School VP Leo Casey asked for ideas about how we should proceed in the school closing fight after the Mayor's rubber stamps on the Panel for Educational Policy voted to shut down 19 schools on January 27 at 3:00 a.m., despite enormous public pressure opposing the closures.

I introduced a three part plan that could keep the mobilization efforts moving ahead in defiance of that vote. It was received positively but as of today, I have yet to hear any follow-up from the UFT so let’s see what the readers of this blog think of these proposals. Of course you are welcome to add ideas but understand that this is a public blog and the Department of Education does read this cite. If you have a confidential idea, email Jeff, Norm Scott or me privately.

To begin, I totally support the lawsuit that the UFT, NAACP and others filed earlier this month saying the school closures did not follow the school governance law. We hope it succeeds but people with knowledge of history are aware that a legal strategy on its own without a supporting mobilization plan has less chance of success.

For example, the Campaign for Fiscal Equity suit that said New York City kids are shortchanged by New York State was filed in 1992 and was won years ago. We are still waiting for the lower class sizes promised in the settlement and will probably not be seeing them in the near future. While the courts can be a good place to go, Joel Klein and the DOE basically try to work around court decisions or grievance losses so the legal strategy must be one part of an overall strategy. Here are three ideas to start.

1. Change the tone of the UFT advertising campaign
I know the cynics are out there saying that the UFT put on commercials the last few weeks because it’s election time and they want to show how wonderful they are to increase Unity Caucus (Michael Mulgrew’s party) vote totals in the upcoming UFT election. Even if that is true, the commercials must change. The tone of the cartoon advertisement that has been on the air is way too friendly. The UFT tells us we are at war with the Department of Education but you wouldn’t know it by these ads.

They should be replaced with hard hitting spots showing video from the recent protests in the schools that followed the DOE's announcements that they wanted to close 20 schools and their pronouncement that charter schools would continue to be allowed to invade public school space. This footage is out there already on You Tube and it is powerful stuff. If anyone wanted to see the public outrage with the way the schools are run on display, look at some of the video. It could be edited into a strong 60 second commercial showing real rank and file union activity along with parent, student and community activism. A tough ad would show the public and our members that we are outraged and we are not going to lie down and accept what is being done to our schools.

If the UFT would like, they can take some of the footage from Jamaica High School. We are not at all ashamed of the fight we have put up, with UFT support, to save our school . Show it to the world.

2. PICKET THE PEP MAYORAL APPOINTEES AT THEIR PLACES OF BUSINESS
Targeted picketing of these “rubber stamps” might make them realize that there is a price to pay for their vote at Brooklyn Tech on January 27th to ignore the will of the public and close schools. Virtually nobody during the nine hour public comment period spoke in favor of closing the schools while thousands of people at the public hearings and the PEP meeting on January 26th-27th came out in support of the keeping the schools slated for closing open. Let’s take the fight to where the Mayor’s appointees make their livings. Let them know that we are not going away quietly and that they must be held accountable for ignoring the will of the communities. A roving group of protestors should shadow them at their places of business and other public appearances.

3. LOBBY THE STATE TO CHANGE THE LAW TO TAKE SCHOOL CLOSING AUTHORITY AWAY FROM THE CHANCELLOR
Let’s make our number one state legislative priority this year a change in the school governance law that would take the Chancellor’s power to close schools away from him and compel the state to review the current list slated for phase out too. Many people at a number of schools claimed that the DOE was misrepresenting state statistics so the state legislature should step in to reclaim state power over the schools. If the DOE won't follow the will of the people and their elected representatives, the politicians need to assert their authority. Education has been a state function since the 10th Amendment was added to the Constitution in 1791. New York State has basically ceded the power to the mayor in 2002 and again last year; there is no need to wait six years to reclaim some of it when the will of the people is being ignored.

For those who want to take it a step further, maybe now is the time to try to convince the state to no longer allow a waiver from state certification regulations for a Chancellor who lacks proper education credentials.

Just as with a legal battle, a legislative campaign needs to be supported with huge actions. Let’s mobilize the UFT, the parents, the students and the community groups behind this lobbying campaign to amend the school governance law.

To move ahead we should then start to merge the campaign against school closures with the fight for a contract that will hopefully improve teaching and learning conditions.

This is just my three cents. What do you think? All ideas are welcome.

NAACP MAKES THE CASE AGAINST SCHOOL CLOSINGS

Benjamin Todd Jealous and the legendary Hazel Dukes wrote a fantastic op-ed in the Daily News against school closings. It is powerful stuff. Everybody involved in the fight to stop school closings should read it closely.

UFT Election: Victory won’t be Easy

Gothamschools.org and Ed Notes are reporting on the upcoming UFT election. UFT Elections 2010 blog is also reporting on the issue. As the ICE-TJC presidential candidate, I would like to put out a call for assistance to everyone who reads this blog.

At the January Delegate Assembly meeting, I couldn’t understand why it was so crowded. There was standing room only in the auditorium at 52 Broadway and the overflow had to go on the fifth floor to watch on closed circuit TV.

The main resolution to pass at the DA said that we would support relief for victims of the earthquake in Haiti. That one was an obvious no brainer to pass. Building for the January 26th rally at the PEP meeting was also discussed as was the usual reminder of how bad the budget is. A resolution from the floor to support the march at the Mayor’s home on January 21st was defeated and some questions were asked but there was nothing on the agenda that would account for such an unusually large turnout. Alas, looking around the back of the room I discovered what was so important: multitudes of Unity Caucus members were circulating their nominating petitions for the UFT election.

For those who are new to this blog, Unity Caucus (Michael Mulgrew’s faction of the UFT) is the closed, invitation only group that has controlled the UFT since the sixties. They rule the UFT with a top-down corporate style system that one time AFT President David Selden said made the union function more like an insurance company rather than an organization that is part of the labor movement. His book, The Teacher Rebellion should be required reading for anyone who wants to become involved in UFT politics. Selden’s description of the UFT under Unity rule forty years ago is as applicable today as it was then.

The Unity machine is one of the last huge political machines to remain potent in the US. Here is how it works. The leadership (Mulgrew, Randi Weingarten or whoever) dispenses patronage to its followers in exchange for complete loyalty. If a UFT member wants a free trip to AFT and NYSUT conventions or a UFT job, one has to join Unity Caucus or their wholly owned subsidiary since 2003, New Action. Unity makes a big pitch for newly elected chapter leaders to join them. After someone is accepted to the caucus, they have to drum up 100 signatures to get on the ballot for the UFT election to win those free trips to conventions.

A friend informed me that the leadership is asking that Unity members submit an officer petition along with their own petition. Therefore, the Unity faithful will circulate a petition for Mulgrew along with their personal one. They are able to link themselves with Mulgrew so he gets school level recognition and support. In return, he dispenses the patronage. The system works very well for Unity and it explains why so many of the Unity believers were at the DA in January. They were exchanging their nominating petitions.

For a Unity member, showing loyalty to the Caucus is the main goal. Caucus obligations require that Unity followers support the decisions of the caucus in union and public forums. People who dissent are liable to be thrown out of the caucus and lose their perks. These perks include the aforementioned convention trips as well as part time union jobs after school and the ultimate goal which is a full time UFT job with a salary well over a senior teacher coupled with a union pension in addition to the DOE pension. The main requirement for the jobs is that one stay loyal to Unity and not the membership in the schools. They must sell the party line in their schools.

This breeds cynicism and mistrust among the rank and file in the schools as when the Unity crowd sold the awful giveback laden 2005 Contract (longer day, extra small group class, return to cafeteria and hall patrol, loss of ability to grieve letters in file, loss of seniority rights which created the ATR situation and more). Most UFT members respond by not voting in UFT elections. This is a mistake.

Norm Scott and I have written extensively about how the Unity machine operates. To watch them function at the DA last month was something I observed with a combination of grudging admiration mixed with frustration as so few UFT members are aware of how their union really operates.

How can we beat this well oiled political machine? It won’t be easy. We need your help.

If the UFT rank and file really wants to see change within the Union, members should help ICE-TJC. This means voting for us of course. It also involves distributing literature (you have a right to distribute in letter boxes) in your school and in neighboring schools. We also must spread the word on line and through word of mouth that there is an alternative to Unity Caucus. Please get in touch with ICE and become involved in our campaign. Without organizing from the bottom up, we will have no chance and the Union will more than likely continue on its current downhill trajectory no matter who the leader of Unity is.

ICE stands for a democratic union with an involved membership. We will go back to union basics if elected. Our people running for office have proven track records of activating their chapters. If we had the resources of the UFT at our disposal, we know we could activate the members throughout this city. Our public relations campaign on day 1 will be much more hard hitting. No more cartoon commercials; we will show the public the protests that have been occurring at closing schools. Elected officials and PEP members will also be held accountable for what they are doing to us.

This election is too important to sit out. Please join our campaign.

UFT SHOWS ITS TRUE COLORS AS IT CONTINUES TO ABANDON OUR MEMBERS IN THE RUBBER ROOM

With the recent smearing by the New York Post of Alan Rosenfeld, a teacher assigned to the rubber room since Levy was Chancellor, the UFT has demonstrated, once again, it has abandoned any sense or responsibility of being a labor union and is content to cash our dues but afford no real protection to us.

As reported in Sunday and Monday's Post Rosenfeld was charged almost 10 years ago while teaching at IS 347 in Queens, a school which was sharing space with other schools in District 75. The allegations concerned statements that certain female students made about him that were considered lewd. Rosenfeld went through a 3020a hearing and the arbitrator threw out all of the allegations as not credible with the exception of one double hearsay statement relayed to the arbitrator in an investigator's memo.

The arbitrator found that Rosenfeld may have made the one student uncomfortable, dismissed the other allegations as not credible and refused to discipline him except for a one week suspension. Rosenfeld "served" his suspension by staying out of the rubber room for a week.

What was left out of the Post story was the fact that Rosenfeld, at the time of the allegations was supervising Teach for America teachers and had been provisionally appointed as an Assistant Principal. His promotion was blocked and it was decided, according to Klein in Monday's NY1 interview, that "he didn't belong back in the classroom."

So the story breaks in the Post and now the Chancellor and the Mayor team up to make Rosenfeld the poster child of what is wrong with the teacher termination process. The UFT remains silent.

Since Rosenfeld has been in the rubber room he has been instrumental in helping teachers in the rubber room get their jobs back and advising them how to proceed while the Union and NYSUT lawyers ignored them. Several years ago when ICE and TJC had elected members of the UFT Executive Board Rosenfeld was invited to speak to the Executive Board about teacher maltreatment by the DOE and neglect by the Union. Rosenfeld brought other rubber room teachers to address the Board and has continued to argue on behalf of them at most meetings.

You would think that a person who remains in the rubber room through no fault of their own; who regularly fights for and advises accused teachers; and is well known by Mulgrew and Howie Schorr and the UFT top brass would get some kind of help, some communication…a phone call, some defense in the media.

How does one teacher counter a concerted press, Mayor and Chancellor lynching?

Mulgrew..at least SAY SOMETHING........I guess your silence says it all.