I suppose if all the guests have enough of Sandra's drinks, the ones that match the tablecloths, there will be ample time to discuss politics. Hey, Andy P. wants to know why Andy C. just screwed us again. Why did he do that? Why can't Andys just get along? Didn't we buy all those $5000 seats at your fundraiser? Aren't we best buds? Can't we be Andy's Gang again?
Andy Pallotta didn't really mean it when he called you clueless. After all, we're here, aren't we? Didn't we each eat a Spam Kebob? No of course that wasn't us tossing them out the window. No, we didn't feed them to the dogs. Look at all those kebobs on the floor that the dogs refuse to eat. They couldn't all come from us.
But here's the thing--if Revive NYSUT leadership really thinks Cuomo is clueless, and if they really find him remotely as self-serving, self-important, and reformy as we do, why on earth are they going over there at all? What does Andrew Cuomo need to do, beyond taking money, changing laws and initiating rallies, before we realize that he's just another front for Eva Moskowitz? What the hell does he need to say before we realize we haven't got enough loose cash to buy him over to our side?
It's time to be consistent. Our friends are our friends, and we haven't got nearly enough of them. But those who wish to set arbitrary benchmarks to fail our children and fire us are not our friends. And when people hate you and everything you stand for, it sends an odd message when you go to their parties.
Here's the message I get. I get the message that we are crawling on our hands and knees begging the guy who just broke a promise, reneged on a deal, stabbed us in the back, to please be nice to us and let us keep our seat at the table. It doesn't matter if you smash it over our heads. We'll gladly paste it back together and sit in it again because no matter how many times you screw us we never learn anything at all.
What's sad about that is learning is perhaps the most important aspect of our job. If we refuse to do it, how can we teach anyone else to do it? Fortunately, the leaders of NYSUT aren't teachers anymore. So what if we're fired because of the invalid use of an invalid test? They're still up there in Albany making over triple a teacher's salary for buying seats at fundraisers and hanging at Cuomo's wing-dings.
Nice work if you can get it, I suppose. But I'd feel much better about paying those salaries if they were doing something just a little more serious. I mean, if my employer demands that we be effective, why can't we demand the same of those who are supposed to work for us? And make no mistake, that's what the union leaders are supposed to do, despite frequent behavior that tends to indicate otherwise.
Update: This is did not not happen exactly as my source reported it, as NYSUT protested, and claimed to have organized the protest before the governor's veto. But Andy Pallotta did indeed attend the soiree.
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