Are You Better Off with Mulgrew?

Ten Years After was a band that played at Woodstock. They had this flashy guitar player who used a lot of triplets. It's also what Mulgrew's one and only contract, the one that hasn't even been placed in writing, gave us. We get paid Ten Years After everyone else.

This was hailed as a Great Victory, because everything the Unity Caucus does is a Great Victory. When we gain something, it's a Great Victory. When we lose it, it's another Great Victory. When Mike Mulgrew eats a grilled cheese sandwich, it's a Great Victory.

Think about the teachers with whom you work. How do they like the Danielson Regime, in which your supervisor walks around, godlike with a little iPad to take low inference notes about what he sees, what no one else sees, and what the voices in his head whisper to him? How do they like being rated on the tests of their students, even though there's no validity whatsoever to judging them that way?

I've been teaching thirty years and I have never, ever seen morale so low. Maybe Mike Mulgrew thinks things are better, but teachers I know who've been rated ineffective over test scores are not jumping up and down over it. In fact, teachers who got decent junk science ratings but were trashed by their supervisors aren't jumping up and down over it either. Particularly disinclined to jump up and down are 700 UFT teachers with back to back ineffective ratings. Mulgrew celebrates this number, but since the burden of proof will be on them at 3020a, they're likely to lose their jobs. Do they deserve it? Who knows? Michael Mulgrew hails it as another Great Victory.  And why shouldn't he? He's got every single delegate at NYSUT and AFT bound by loyalty oath to support whatever the hell he feels like supporting.

Our most recent Great Victory is ESSA, the Every School Sucks Act that, the more I read about it, looks like another bonanza for privatizers. I don't trust anything celebrated by Arne Duncan and E4E, and to tell you the truth, I'm beginning to question the string of Great Victories we've enjoyed under our illustrious leader.

I can't wait to vote for Jia Lee and strike a blow for science, reason, and union. If you, like me, think we need a straight-talking leader who isn't insane, Jia is your choice.