On Wednesday night, if you stayed up later than I did, you could have seen UFT President Randi Weingarten on Charlie Rose. I TIVOed it, though. Ms. Weingarten grabbed my interest immediately by referring to her mom, who was a teacher. Ms. Weingarten, referred fondly to her experience as a teacher, but explained that education was not her first choice:
“I went into law first, because we watched how my mother worked, and we thought that teachers worked all the time.”
Ms. Weingarten likes to say that city teachers are now paid on par with their suburban counterparts. Regrettably, that isn't true at all. However, Ms. Weingarten has succeeded in bringing us the longest school year in the area. Remember that, because when you bring up the fact that we have not actually achieved salary parity, UFT bigshots like to claim that suburban teachers work an extra 10 minutes a day. If you actually consider we work five extra days, that argument weakens considerably.
The show also featured an interesting quote from Mayor Michael Bloomberg:
"We’ve instituted merit pay, we’ve gotten rid of a lot of the seniority rules, the teachers are teaching longer... "
“It’s not merit pay.”
It's certainly nice to hear that merit pay is not merit pay. This statement dovetails nicely with the UFT's assertion that the sixth class is not actually a class.
If I had a magic wand I would try to instill a sense that schools have to be able to be a big tent where we listen to what parents need and what teachers need to do a good job.
Ms. Weingaten praises inclusion. It's odd, then, that Ms. Weingarten and her monopoly party do everything within their power to stifle and crush any and all voices of dissent within the union itself. They restructure voting so that high school teachers, who once dared to choose a non-Unity VP, can never make their own choice again. They make sure Ms. Weingarten hand-picks district reps so those nasty chapter leaders won't choose anyone not to her liking. They buy out opposition parties with patronage gigs if they'll only agree to endorse Ms. Weingarten for re-election. In true Joseph McCarthy style, they call their opponents reds.
In any case, Ms. Weingarten needs no magic wand. As the head of the largest local in NYSUT, which is the largest state union in the AFT, she's pretty much guaranteed her long-awaited promotion to President of the AFT. And Ms. Weingarten need not quit her UFT presidency, as it's only a part-time job anyway.
Kind of like what Ms. Weingarten's teaching job was.
The rest of you teachers, get off that computer and go find a hall to patrol!
(Extra credit to anyone who names the TV stars pictured above)
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