Telling Tall Tales of Thompson

Though I support COPE and actually pay for this stuff, though I get out and work for UFT-endorsed candidates in whom I believe, I'm more than a little disappointed when I read things like this. A UFT mailer suggests that Bill Thompson supports retro pay for teachers, who haven't had a raise in five years. However, the Thompson campaign denies it. It's hard for me to forget that Thompson told the Daily News editorial board he opposed it.

So what are we to believe? Has Thompson made a backroom deal with Mike Mulgrew? And if he has, has he made contradictory backroom deals with his anti-teacher pals Meryl Tisch and Al D'Amato?

I'm a little torn. A UFT rep came to our school and told us that UFT leadership was very smart, and that the new evaluation system could not happen without the raise for which we'd waited years. Yet months later, we had the junk science ratings, no raise, and Bloomberg was boasting he'd achieved the most anti-teacher rating system in the state, and that he'd given up absolutely nothing to achieve it. In fact, he was correct.

I'm not really happy to write about these things. But it's pretty clear our leadership is getting desperate. In fact, they're praying for Thompson to win, and urging chapter leaders to survey members one on one during school hours. UFT leadership took a big gamble on credibility by getting out front and endorsing Thompson early. For a while, I thought they'd made a good judgment. But circumstance and polling have proven both UFT leadership and me wrong.

There is no defense for outright lying to us. If I'm mistaken in any way, if anyone from UFT leadership would like to set me straight on this, I'm all ears.