UFT Delegate Assembly--We Are Visited by the Mayor

Mulgrew calls us to order. 4:20

Mulgrew mentions we have one snow day this year. Says it’s a likely school day. If we have more than one snow day we will extend the year.

Mulgrew says let’s have some fun, plays Melissa McCarthy as Sean Spicer on video.

4:31 President’s Report

National

We now have most unqualified ever Sec. of Ed. Goal was to make sure everyone knew who DeVos was. Thinks we’ve accomplished that. Thanks two Senators from NY. Says they want to be strategic and have a long few years, but will try to let people know who DeVos is. Says she’s helped us by showing who she is.

We laugh, but it’s sad and terrifying. That we got two GOP to switch….says colleagues pushed. Senator from Alaska took 300K from DeVos and voted no. Says parents are beginning to think this is not good. Says she’s given word not to go after neighborhood schools, but President Numb Nuts and VP something won’t abide by it.

We need to use this process to portray her as unqualified. We did that, and state two is Public School Proud. Mulgrew asks who attended Women’s March, many hands. Shows photos of placards at march.

Shows photos of schools with Public School Proud, says hashtag popping up all over US. Shows tweets.

Says we are working with locals all over US. Says they want to move forward with this. Says no matter what your political POV is that you want to protect public schools. Says we wanted to give people a positive message to run with.

Asks for input on insignia. Black or white? Asks if we like pencil in insignia. One lined, one unlined. Shows designs for various groups. social workers, paraprofessionals.

Says schools have contacted him about making videos, will send videographers if there are large enough groups. Speaks of showing love for public schools on Valentine’s Day. Says it is not one-day event, but rather long, tough campaign.

Speaks of immigration, craziness, talk of safety from Trump. Likes that press is asking whether or not craziness is intended to distract. Says it isn’t fake news, but that’s he’s lying. Have not yet heard him say Trump’s name.

For us, DeVos has paid dividends in NY. Only Flanagan supported her, but he also came out against constitutional convention.

Mulgrew says one thing that would stop DeVos plans is anything about transparency. Says we will try to protect our state and city first, and focus on education. Says everything we believe in is on the line.
Why are GOP against transparency for charters? Because of funders.

State

Assembly has come out very strongly for complete funding of CFE, major expansion of millionaire tax. Says extension of millionaire tax will be tough, but we will need more revenue as we wait to see what feds do. If they mess with health care—he finally says President Trump—whether he likes it or not he is President. He says they aren’t repealing Obamacare so fast because they have no replacement. Says it’s done a lot of good to get people health care.

Lobby day March 14th.

Contract for Excellence—governor’s proposal wants to call it foundation aid, which has never been fully funded. Some ideas from Cuomo are good but we need other formula. Mulgrew will testify in Albany on Valentine’s Day. Says it’s not true NYC doesn’t fund schools and state is doing funding. Says this mayor has funded schools well.

Constitutional Convention—we cannot lose this issue. Cites commercials favoring it, appealing to cleaner environment, ethics, women’s rights. New talking point is we are going to change constitution without convention, and that it’s faster. Legislature will vote on pension forfeiture for elected officials. It will pass and go to general vote in NY.

Did we need convention for this? No. Do we need one for any of these issues? No. That is our strongest argument. Estimates 400 million cost for convention.

City

Mayor giving state of city address on Monday. Says he’s been positive on education. We still continue to struggle? Who likes their principal? More than normal, and that’s positive. Surveys for lukewarm and negative. Says we are seeing changes. From now on when principals says they’ll call legal, ask if it’s Karen Salamondo, who is now in labor relations. We have three grievances about paperwork and OPW we expect to win. Please let us know if it’s happening in your school. One school makes teachers teach during C6 assignment.

We have to make sure we’re doing right thing at local school level. Use paperwork grievance as tool if it’s problem in your building. We like paperwork process. Over 150 schools resolved unreasonable mandates. We cannot stop being vigilant on this. C6 not teaching period. Even Bloomberg didn’t do it.

Asks if anyone ever did cafe or hall duty. Says it used to be required. Says in 1995 it said we no longer had to clean up cafe or monitor halls. In return, we got C6. Is this happening elsewhere.

Last but not least, Mulgrew was very proud at AFT Executive Committee last week. Says he presented Public School Proud, and that other locals adopted it. He said they lit up with things to go back to in their states. Says they didn’t want to ask for another petition against DeVos, but rather something else. Says he wishes he could film it so we could see what’s happening outside the city.

Says we aren’t just fighting a governor or mayor, that these are really bad people, but we are nimble and move quickly. Says we will produce a storm of parents and teachers across country. Says this is the work that will make a difference. Says mayor is champion of public education, and to imagine Bloomberg and Klein under this scenario. Says Arne Duncan wasn’t that bad, and he’s surprised to be saying it.

Says what you’ve done already is important, we’ve reached goal number one, we now have friends picketing Senators saying you are responsible for DeVos. Goal two is to spread this energy and bring it across US. Ends report 5:05.

Staff Director Report  Leroy Barr—UFT Black History film series, two more films, 13th on Monday, Rising from the Rails coming. Says discussion has been great. NYS Black and Puerto Rican Caucus on 18th. Paraprofessional awards March 18, deadline March 3rd. High schools future and focus March 9th for 10 and 11 grade students. Early childhood conference March 11th. Labor seder, March 28. School secretary luncheon May 6. Next DA March 22.

Questions

CL—How can we involve members in endorsements?

UFT controls city endorsements, NYSUT state, AFT national. Uses politically active teachers. Let political action department know. Exec. Board recommends to DA, DA decides.

Delegate—Can we get buses to DC to welcome Betsy?

I think we will wait to see what she does. Is she as good as Cathie Black? I wouldn’t let her speak publicly. If there is a need, we will go.

Exec Board member—What happens when principals don’t want to deal with CL?

You need intervention. If it rises up in DOE, they cannot sustain it’s a good idea. Contractual obligation to confer. If supe won’t stop action, will go from borough rep to central. Some CLs don’t want to deal with principal, feels that’s a disservice, lapse of responsibility. Says we have fun with that.

CL—After many notifications about paras not doing lunch duty, principals still scheduling it. What are we doing to ensure that IEPs, notifications are kept.

Principals were notified recently that principals have to arrange for paras to have duty free lunch. We sent it out again after supes reinterpreted it from last year. Said obligated didn’t mean we couldn’t do it. Paras may not be in lunchroom unless IEP calls for it.

CL—Our acting president proposed national right to work law. How do we protect pensions, collective bargaining, dues checkoff?

Unless there is a big shift…things can change…we will all be right to work sooner or later. Will it leave states to decide when 1975 decision is overturned? We have legal people and strategists thinking about it. 27 RTW states. NY and CA, MA union strongholds. Believes it will happen, and we have to organize. At AFT exec. committee, we help RTW states organize. Says elections matter.

CL—Charters use space as leverage to get into buildings. Is there anything union is doing that’s similar? My school utilized at 186% and we aren’t co-located. We have portables. Is there an arbitration, and if not, how can we get more construction for schools that need it?

Schools do not fall under OSHA regulations. Otherwise, would kick in, Mayor has upped school seats by 35k. We are winning argument as more people move to NY. Populations go up and down in neighborhoods. Will they build seats in right places? We will be part of process. We propose that if you aren’t transparent and accountable you can’t get free space—OR if you have assets of over one million—you should not have access. This is where DeVos is important. She did this in Michigan. Overcrowding destabilizes schools.

Q—We do a lot of advertising. We have great art and music teachers and should have a marketing department to have jingles or commercials people will talk about, like Super Bowl commercials. Let’s market aggressively. Any progress on ESL teachers scoring? We've seen fake news under Reagan, was called misinformation.

We want to move with public school proud. I would be good with jingle.

Motions 5:26

For this month, not enough copies, on Chancellor’s letter on immigration. We need to take action now to protect our students and their families. Seconded.

Voted down, after people on dais indicated they were against it.

Mulgrew says we’ve passed more resolutions on this topic than anything but education.

Dave Pecoraro—one line reso—resolved that UFT oppose Judge Gorsich and that senators filibuster against. Says seat was stolen, vacated during Obama admin, says he founded fascist club, ruled on Hobby Lobby.

Carmen Alvarez—supports energy but says we must be judicious. We shouldn’t react, but we should build and keep momentum building our unity.

Voted down. Mulgrew says he will reach out to AFT and Senators to see how they want to handle it.

Resolutions 5:33

Mulgrew moves to do 2 and 3 first. So moved.

City council endorsement—Paul Egan—special election Valentine’s Day. Recommend Bill Perkins, has been great for UFT.

Passes overwhelmingly.

Mel Aaronson—recommends we endorse Tom Brown. We will vote on Constitutional Convention that could jeopardize retirement benefits. Wants someone to lead fight. Mulgrew forgets to hold vote, is called.

Endorsed unanimously.

Moves to go to number 4. Passes.

Howard Schoor—Children we teach in danger of being deported. We want to make sure students safe from outside forces. Urges support. Hopes no speakers against. Mulgrew forgets to have us vote on resolution, is reminded.

Passes

LeRoy Barr—speaks of mayoral endorsement. Says we decided to endorse Democrat, that GOP was largely against us, based on past 20 years. Said we needed to endorse now, as other unions have endorsed. Wanted UFT endorsement to mean something. Voted unanimously to endorse de Blasio. Said we remember where we came from, 20 years prior to his being mayor. Mentions years without contract. Said if you have to wait two or three years for retro you’re getting every dime.

Mulgrew moves to allow committee members to speak. Passes.

Antoinette Offucio—Says they looked at positives, all he did, preK, economy, 98% of all unionized contracts done fairly—ours ends in 2018. We looked at affordable housing. Standing against Trump in sanctuary city status, even if we lose money. Says de Blasio is a friend of unions, good for us.

Grier Hanson Velasquez—After surviving Bloomberg and Giuliani, to be recognized and respected, valued—didn’t happen until de Blasio. Says he’s stood against charters with us. Feel it’s in our best interest to endorse now.

Marjorie Stamberg—Says we absolutely do not need a Democrat, particularly de Blasio, Dems and GOP twin parties of capitalism. Trump is misogynist racist, pig. Democrats brought every imperialist war. Record of dems on deportation is 3 million. De Blasio has not supported us against charters, fell apart against Eva Presided over police acquittal in Eric Garner. We need our own worker’s party.

LeRoy Barr takes chair—calls Mulgrew.

Mulgrew— disagrees with speaker. Appreciates committee. Says it was bipartisan. Says it’s easy to forget what happened for two decades. This is someone whose soul and spirit is with us. We had horrendous battles. Mayor tried to do everything in venal way, and Giuliani crazier even than we thought, Bloomberg though education should be privatized. We fought him in streets. Big story was how de Blasio would settle contracts—settled with us first. PreK for all, literacy push, sound educational policies based on research.

We survived, battled governor, our new friend. Have never had battle like this. Blessed to have this mayor who will stand with every single public school teacher. So many people don’t have that. He will get bad press from Post for this endorsement. Bill de Blasio has always said public education is key, and we must respect those who’ve dedicated lives to it. That’s why UFT should do this today, right now. He’s going to war, standing with us, as we go to war in United States.

Point of order—James Eterno—says there should be speaker against.

LeRoy Barr says Robert’s Rules say body may call and end debate. Says chair would be out of order if I called to end debate, but body may call. We want to be judicious and hear speaker against, there was a speaker for quite some time against. Body doesn’t choose who goes next, calls on Gregg Lundahl.

Lundahl calls question.

Note: UFT leadership didn't follow Robert's Rules and allow Eterno to present his opinion, but you can see it right here.

Mulgrew asks applause for Barr.

Endorsement passes. 6:01 PM.

Mulgrew says we are not adjourned. Bill de Blasio is here. Crowd chants four more years. De Blasio says he and his families have been to public schools. Talks about what it means to have teachers who help kids reach potential. Disgusted by political sport of denigrating teachers and unions. Says we saw it for years. Remembers tuning into conventions where denigrating teachers was part of program. Tolerated for years. No more. We’ve proved over last three years it’s morally right to respect teachers.

We’re going to fight for soul of public education. You saw what happened in DC. We were teetering on brink until VP intervened. Will we commit to public education as a nation? Or are we going to slowly slice it apart, degrade and undermine it? That’s what’s at stake.

Education matters more than ever. It determines destiny more than at any point in human history. If you want a middle class life, you’d better be educated. Public schools hold the key. How can we denigrate people who uplift our children. Public schools core of democratic society.

I want to thank you for work that you do. 1% trying to destroy rights of working people. This union will fight that.

Very proud of what’s happened, but proud to have joined you in creating pre-K for all. You had to do work to raise grad rate. Proud it’s highest ever, and we’re moving away from obsession with high stakes testing. We believe in multiple measures. But test scores go up as result of people in this room.

We can innovate, we do teacher training because people deserve support. We need to support those who do this essential work. We achieved this together in contract. Those who’ve done work well should run the schools.

We are proving how powerful this is, and how dangerous to our opponents that we keep achieving together. Opponents were sure it would go wrong. What did we do together? We’ve moved forward in ways they couldn’t even imagine.

Now when you look to Washington, we will fight and look at NYC as proof positive. We are held accountable by public and parents. We keep performing and holding up. Some don’t want to be accountable. Some charters have been hoisted on own petard. But we all have one standard here. This debate in this country will be about that if we prove what traditional public schools can do for all. Everyone has to be inclusive. We don’t turn away handicapped or ELLs. No one here would kick a student out for not testing well. We believe in reaching those students We prove privatizers, anti-unionists wrong every day. Why don’t we keep succeeding together?

Thanks us.

Adjourned 6:16

Due to expected significant snowfall all @NYCSchools will be CLOSED tomorrow, Feb 9.

— Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) February 8, 2017

We Designed Evaluation This Way, Says UFT

I was pretty surprised at the answer I got to my question on MOSL the other night at UFT Executive Board. When I have questions, I write them down in advance because I cannot take notes while I myself am speaking. I prefaced my question by saying I would understand if UFT tried but could not negotiate a reasonable settlement with the DOE. Yet that's not the answer I got.

I had been to a MOSL committee meeting that day, and I was pretty surprised that we were expected to make an irrevocable decision about how teachers were rated without having all the relevant information handy. Here's most of my question:

Why are we supposed to make the course level irrevocable MOSL decision independent of the teacher level with no current knowledge of what choices or mandates will be available for teacher level decisions? Wouldn’t if make more sense if we knew what both factors were at the time of the first choice? Wouldn’t that help us to make the best possible decisions for our members? 

I had expected to hear that we did the best we could, but that the DOE was intractable and unreasonable. Yet I heard that it was designed this way deliberately, perhaps so as to give more time to make decisions. Yet we don't have a whole lot of time to make decisions. In fact, we have just a couple of weeks.

Maybe my notes aren't so good, but I also recall hearing a defense of the single measure on which we're now judged for the course level. For the last few years there have been the much ballyhooed multiple measures, state and local, but now they're gone and our sole course level measure is the state test. I heard how this was somehow an improvement, and how this was simpler and somehow tied into the matrix.

I don't see that, though. The junk science measure could just as easily have been an amalgam of state and local measures, and could just as easily have translated into the miraculous matrix. In my school, last year, we tied everyone to group measures wherever possible. We tied as few people as possible to groups of their own students. We did this for several reasons.

One reason, of course, is that there is no validity to tying teachers to test scores. This theory is supported by thinkers like Diane Ravitch, Carol Burris, and Leonie Haimson. In case that's not enough for you, it's also supported by the American Statistical Association, which says teachers affect student test grades by a factor of 1-14%. And for my Unity friends, it's also supported by AFT President Randi Weingarten, who famously declared, "VAM is a sham."

You never know about groupings. Some teachers may be particularly good at teaching repeater classes, but students who've already proven capable of failure are not necessarily a fair measure of how good any teacher is. And as many of us know, there may be a supervisor or two out there who will assign classes out of sheer malice and vindictiveness. None of this, evidently, influenced leadership when it negotiated this system.

So now, if you teach a course that terminates in a Regents exam, there will be nothing to mitigate your course-level junk science measurement. This is a significant change. In my school, for example, we tried to balance the junk science with large group measurements. We were successful in that there was minimal teacher-to-teacher variation in the junk science portion of our ratings. While many of us went from highly effective to effective, some of us went from ineffective to developing. I may have bitched about moving down from HE, but I came to see the benefits of being drawn to the middle.

Me, I'm an ESL teacher. I will therefore be judged on the NYSESLAT exam, a mishmosh of nonsense that changes each and every year. While I have learned a lot about Hammurabbi's code by asking a whole lot of students a whole lot of questions about it, I question whether this test measures the language acquisition it's my job to promote. And I certainly do not teach to this test. First of all, I generally have no idea what will be on it. More importantly, I know it was revised to be more Common Corey, for reasons that baffle me utterly. The fact is my kids have distinctly different English needs than those of kids born here. That NY State willfully chooses to ignore this does not mean I will neglect teaching kids the nuts and bolts of American English.

Last year, along with the rest of my department, I was rated well on the NYSESLAT, but I have no earthly notion as to why. It's ridiculous that we are expected to simply sit around and hope for the best on measures that are pivotal in whether or not we get to keep our careers.

There is a fundamental unfairness in this system. That is, everyone who does NOT teach a course attached to a state exam may be rated on group measures. Now we could make it "fair" by, say, tying an art teacher to the results of some random Regents math class, but just because the system sucks for me is no reason to make it suck for everyone. In my building, it's likely we will continue to attach teachers to group measures wherever possible. At worst, we'll perhaps attach teachers to their own departments where it's appropriate. That way, maybe, science teachers have a stake in whether or not they choose to tutor science students.

Me, I find multiple errors in the UFT negotiation process. I rate leadership ineffective. Thankfully for them, they don't spend one single solitary moment fretting over member opinion, as everyone with whom they speak has signed a loyalty oath and reaffirms the notion that everything is wonderful no matter what.

Ironically, for the future of our union, therein lies the fundamental problem.

Mike Pence Casts Tie-Breaking Vote for Billionaire BFF Betsy DeVos

Betsy DeVos confirmed. What is also confirmed is that there is not one single man of courage in the Republican Congress.

— Seth MacFarlane (@SethMacFarlane) February 7, 2017

UFT Executive Board, February 6, 2017

Secretary Howard Schoor welcomes us

Open Mike:

Jerry Fronhoffer, retired from Aviation—reports or organization, with teachers, students and professors—on homeless crisis. 105K children in shelters or doubled up with friends or neighbors. Many are enrolled in public schools. Effects both immediate and longterm. 40K foreclosures in NYC right now. Many 2-3 grade levels behind. Absenteeism, lateness common. Evaluation is useless.

But can be solved—all we need is political will. We have the money to build. The money is there. 1.2 billion a year given to condo owners and developers. We’re spending 1.6 billion a year on homeless shelters. With that money we can build at no additional cost, 57K new housing units to cover 90% of our homeless. Public housing has bad name, but many living there work every day.

Let’s pass a resolution at the DA that states what is needed. Let’s
send a message.

Schoor—email us and we will send you a copy of a resolution we’ve already passed.

Approval of minutes—approved.

President’s Report—6:10 Mulgrew is not here.

Staff Director’s report—LeRoy Barr—

Was resolution regarding immigration—proposed we collect lesson plans—we looked up AFT lessons on that which already exist. We have included that in your folders.

Middle school conference was held, thanks to Rich Mantel. We have an event 2/11 with 4 hours of CTLE. Black history film series started, was great discussion. Will be more, 13, and Rising from the Rails. African Heritage Dinner Dance last Friday. Evelyn de Jesus honored. Lobby day March 14th. Ex Board the 27th DA this Wednesday.

Questions—

Carmen Alvarez answers ICT question from weeks ago—Discusses various percentages of special ed. complaints.

Mulgrew arrives—-6:20, interrupts report from Alvarez

Says he’s happy about energy with DeVos, thinks VP will have deciding vote, but glad country knows who she is. Now we have credibility, will see where it goes, will keep pressure on, NY Senators fantastic.

Now are locals countrywide who have adopted Public School Pride campaign.  We have to show people we can use this. It’s in Houston, Cleveland, St. Louis. Lot of energy toward Valentine’s Day to show love for public schools. Bumper stickers soon.

Wants to thank people who worked on mayoral endorsement.

Mulgrew leaves—6:25

Alvarez continues—tells us which districts had most violations.

Mike Schirtzer—MORE—Last week JHS 145 spoke—Can we have an update?

Rich Mantel—going to school to meet with staff and help organize. Will do all we can to support.

Ellie Engler—Story he told was compelling. We knew this was kind of a setup. Brought to highest level at DOE, supposed to give us an answer. We have found some shady stuff going on at Success Academy, we are checking, and we are prepared to bring it up at Tweed. We are buying sweatshirts for schools supporting them

Tricia Filomena—March 20th replacing which date?

Schoor—13th.


Arthur Goldstein—MORE  We had our MOSL committee meeting today and I was pretty surprised at how it went. As an ESL teacher, my score is linked to a test that changes each year and does not appear to test the language acquisition it’s my job to promote. Why are we supposed to make the course level irrevocable MOSL decision independent of the teacher level with no current knowledge of what choices or mandates will be available for teacher level decisions? Wouldn’t if make more sense if we knew what both factors were at the time of the first choice? Wouldn’t that help us to make the best possible decisions for our members? Won’t this system cause conflict among members who may prefer not to teach courses that terminate in state exams, and who may find it advantageous to be judged by broader measures?

Schoor—Regents are tied to eval, we can’t change.

Jackie Bennett—Teacher level and school level have always been made separately. We want schools to clearly make those choices. We want teachers to pay more attention. We are doing this midyear. If we absolutely wanted to we could release all rules at same time. But if we want to address questions, they would take more time and discussion. We would prefer to thoroughly discuss those rather than just do it. Discussions ongoing for your sake and for whole system. We advocate for best we can.

Group and single measures have always been case. We want lower stakes. If we wanted to continue that it would continue. Across state common decision is to go for matrix that takes away higher stake.

Reports from districts

Dave Kazansky—Labor seder March 28th.

Rich Mantel—4th annual middle school conference—260 people, workshops, 3 ctle hours.
May 6 UFT 5K Coney Island.

Anthony Harmon—Thanks for African Heritage event, over 300. Feb. 18 Black and Puerto Rican legislative weekend. March 16, 7th annual faith based breakfast.

Pat Crispino—principal removed from Harlem Ren—can’t hurt people anymore


Arthur Goldstein—MORE--I report that UFT came to our school and Christine Rowland offered PD, that it was very well received, and that our members are all very happy to get two hours of CTLE credit.

Janella Hinds—Thursday, hosting a college and career fair for HS students around city. Fliers available at DA.

Wendy Walker Wilson—Thanks to everyone who contributed to Helen Dowdy Scholarship. Raised over 5K.

Legislative report—Paul Egan—Finished YTD at COPE, cards coming in, 71 from Lewis. Constitutional Convention is serious. We will have 250K increase in COPE from last year. First preference on Lobby Day buses to COPE contributors.

Jonathan Halabi—New Action—IDC big in NYC. Are we looking at how we relate to 6 state senators asking for our endorsement>

Egan—IDC is breakaway, yet all run on Democratic line. Some are well-accepted members of Democratic committees. 32 elected Democrats but GOP in charge. This was answer to dysfunction. They will claim results for constituencies. May be buffer. We at least have dialogue. Will we run people against them? No one will run against Jefff Klein or Diane Savino. May be some places people step up, but not because of IDC. Depends on what they do over next 2 years.

Endorsement—Manhattan committee endorsed 7 candidates for seat vacated by Inez Dickens in city council. Recommends Bill Perkins to that seat.
Speaker says Perkins spoke against colocations, is active in district. Staunch supporter of UFT.

Passes.

Janella Hinds—Moves resolution in support of juvenile justice reform. NY treats all youth offenders as adults after 16. HS students get caught in this. We have young people in justice system with hardened adult criminals. NYS should do better. We know this costs them opportunities.

Ashraya Gupta—MORE—moves to amend—Whereas, police presence in our schools as well as punitive zero tolerance discipline policies have contributed to the disproportionate, criminalization of students of color,

Resolved, UFT will support the work of community partners like Dignity in Schools Campaign to encourage DOE to increase staffing for and provision of restorative practices in our schools.

Dignity in Schools is national coalition of parents students, educators, working against school push out. Want increase in counselors and fewer police in schools.

Kuljit Ahluwalia—New Action—first whereas could be misconstrued—there is youthful offender status in NY.

Schoor—How would you change that.

Kuljit Ahluwalia—Not all teenagers are treated as adults. Should say some, not all, because that’s legally correct.

Hinds—Youthful offender is after arrest, but initially they are treated as adults. Will take out all.

LeRoy Barr—Against amendments.  Safety agents are NYPD. If we don’t want police presence is problem, but we work closely with police dept. in training. We don’t want to live in an armed camp, but we aren’t saying we don’t want any safety agent presence. We need to use options, as in metal detectors. Sometimes they are needed, sometimes not. We want safety agents to have different relations with our students.

Second point—We’ve worked with this group, and they don’t necessarily believe in suspensions or classroom removals. We think the power should be in hands of teacher. We think there should be suspensions where necessary. Should be last resort, but a resort nonethelesss.

Not in favor of armed camps or police disrespect. Want presence, training.

Jonathan Halabi—New Action—Heartened by main motion. Glad Cuomo was pushed. Likely this will happen. Intrigued by questions about restorative justice. Discipline code changed, good to reduce suspensions, but we shouldn’t say no you can’t do it anymore. Would like to continue discussion and come up with something to increase training.

Gregg Lundahl—Has problem anytime program brought up I don’t know about, but would like to look at it. DOE did major number on our school, were no consequences for any infraction. Got to point where we were no longer in control. School erupted in violence. We did need police. We tried and did get that school back. I don’t want to say we believe all police are not productive for students.

Carmen Alvarez—Supports initial resolution. We have to understand behavioral literacy. Not about one program over other. How do you create school that understands all behavior. We have used things that worked. Supports Jonathan’s idea that we provide framework of how to move forward.

Marcus McArthur—MORE—Supports amendments. Supports debate. It’s OK for us to acknowledge complexity of issues. More guns than citizens in USA and we know about violence. We understand it can spill over. Remember that often times progress we want to see requires imagination and different way to deal. I support restorative justice because it’s a solution. Shows promise in moving away from punitive discipline. OK if we challenge our members on issues. We understand we want authority, or may need it. Sometimes we can be wrong, though, and we need to be brought along.

Sterling Roberson—Speaking for resolution. Cannot say there is magic bullet. Union has history of holding DOE accountable. We have lobbied for expansion of counselors. We have provided training in prevention. Conversation must be broader. We have discussed discipline, and intervention, mediation. We appreciate amendments but our scope has to be wider. We need more services.

Stuart Kaplan—calls question.

Amendments fail.

Main resolution—passes

Mayoral committee report—LeRoy Barr—recommends endorsement, discusses committee process, recommends endorsement of Bill de Blasio.

Things are not perfect, but remember what it used to be like. As bad as things seem, we know it’s not as bad as it used to be. We have a lot of work to do. Is the mayor someone we can work with, or is someone out there who wants to move the other way? I say we need to stick with someone who’s made a commitment to improve things.

Dolores ?—very much in favor. There are things he’s already done to show he is the choice. Personally, universal pre-K important. Voiced concern against charters. Stopped school closings. Also we know political climate. Must know that here someone can support UFT positions. Asks you endorse.

Antoinette Offucio—Many same points, but when Bloomberg left we had no contracts. De Blasio made contracts with 98% of unions. Made fair contracts. Helped with evaluation system. Now we need pro-union Democrat. Refuses to drop city as sanctuary.

Marcus McArthur—MORE—Also in favor. Echoes points made. De Blasio campaigned as progressive, tried to deliver. Taxing rich, affordable housing, reforming stop and frisk. City needs this right now. Ally of public ed. against charters. We need to hold him to fire to continue that fight. He’s the person who can help with things like family leave. This is opportunity to organize and engage members. Going forward we need to engage members in discussion of these issues and involve more people, raise awareness of what members think and what our priorities are. We need to organize and rally people. We need to make sure these people speak to our issues. We didn’t hear much about ed. in last presidential campaign. Now we can have that discussion.

Resolution in favor of endorsing de Blasio—passes unanimously.

We are adjourned.

Calling a Trump a Trump

We are facing an existential threat right now. It's not really anything new. Last year we dodged a bullet when Scalia died before he could rule against us. But it looks likely that the next Friedrichs case will be more successful, and if that's not enough, Congress is introducing so-called right to work legislation.

I look at the Public School Proud campaign, and I see echoes of two past campaigns. The first is the one with Mulgrew running around with some UFT bus showing how wonderful some school or other is. The second is the "Union Loud and Proud" campaign that produced many buttons no one wears anymore and a signature line on UFT email.

Sadly, neither will really do the job for us. What we need is a different kind of organization, an organization that makes people stand up from the bottom up. I have seen zero effort from UFT to inspire members to rise up, and a large number of people I see at the rare street events we sponsor are on the UFT payroll in one form or another.

We have an entire generation of leadership that's never been active in organizing anything or anyone beyond dispensing patronage. We have an entire layer of patronage employees who mistake marching orders for activism, and for whom independent thought places their patronage gigs at risk. We have people who feel empowered to babble any nonsense that enters their heads as long as they are pushing the UFT leadership program.

So this campaign is just the most recent iteration of the same thing they trot out at times like these. Hey, I'm proud of my public school. We do incredible things under challenging circumstances. And of course we aren't alone in that. I'm sure there's something or other happening in most public schools that we could put up and be proud of. I'm not sure, though, that UFT will be able to do much with such stories. Placing them in NY Teacher is not going to reverse the druthers of those who hate us and everything we stand for.

Maybe UFT can find one or two stories and get them placed in local papers. I'm not sure. I do know that when I've worked to get things in the papers all I got from UFT were cautions on how things may not work out. I always thought things would've been a lot easier with the support of such a large organization, but what do I know? Still, even with positive stories about schools dotted through local papers, something I've yet to see any hint of, the publicity issue is not local.

There's a national movement against Donald Trump and his thugs and the United Federation of Teachers remains, at leadership's behest, fraidy-scared to even utter his name. We may alienate the Trump voters, they say. Are the Trump voters so ignorant they don't know their hero is virulently anti-union? Or are they themselves anti-union?

Either way it's hard to see how failing to mention the Trump name helps. Leadership needs some new tricks. Leadership needs to start organizing as though it's the nineteenth century, because that's exactly where Trump and the most unqualified and incompetent Cabinet in our history want to push working people. I don't guess Michael Mulgrew will be driving a taxi anytime soon, but we're gonna have to raise our standard higher than that if we want to thrive and represent vibrant unionism in the Trump era.

A bunch of photographs in the union paper, while we may feel good about them for a spell, just ain't gonna cut it.

New Evaluation System--Is It Happy Dance Time?

I've been to a lot of events in which the beauty and wonder of the new evaluation system has been placed in my face. It's now, it's wow. And it's so much better than the old one, because the matrix will make everything better. Now, you can just match up this rating to that rating, and there are no more nasty numbers and averages to fret over.

And here's the thing--now you don't have to worry if your principal tells you to do some crazy nonsense. If you and he don't agree, it goes to the default option, which is everyone getting rated by schoolwide measures. This makes the junk science more valid because the larger the sample, the more valid it's likely to be. For example, if your sample is small, say, just a few classes, who knows how they are composed?

You could, for example, have a group of repeaters, and who knows why they're repeating? Maybe they have learning disabilities. Maybe they don't know English. Maybe they just don't like studying. Maybe they hate the subject you teach. Maybe they just hate you. Who knows?

But here's the thing--it appears to me, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that anyone who teaches Regents classes is going to be rated by the Regents classes. Common Core? Too bad. No moratorium for high school teachers. That's for 4 to 8 English and math only, last I looked. Can you go school wide for the Regents scores? No. Can you go department wide for the Regents scores? No.

You're on your own. The American Statistical Association says that teachers affect test scores by a  factor somewhere between 1-14%. But that's too bad for you, pal. If that small group of kids you teach doesn't do as well as you need them to, you could be screwed. Now of course there is the possibility that your supervisor could rate you well, and that could save your ass, or at least keep it from getting rated ineffective.

But wait a minute--isn't the whole advantage of this thing, the one I've heard Michael Mulgrew praise on numerous occasions, that it's supposed to save you from the unfettered power that the principal used to wield? Haven't we been told at meeting after meeting how those horrible principals used to write S or U and there was nothing we could do about it until we added this valuable junk science to the equation? Oddly, I don't remember anyone being freaked out under the S and U system. I see everyone freaked out over this one.

But I'm just a lowly chapter leader working in a school every day. I'm sure from the vantage point of the 14th floor at 52 Broadway, where no one teaches more than one class and everyone is rated S or U if at all, things look different. The only thing that really puzzles me is why they aren't up in arms clamoring for the right to be rated by this fantastic new system.

Now here's a thought. Since there are indeed one or two small-minded, vindictive administrators out there, what on earth is to keep them from making teachers they can't stand teach Regents classes full of students who won't do well? Were they to do that, they could sink their prey by observing things that didn't happen and failing to see things that did. I've mentioned before that I've seen video evidence of one such observation. This leads me to wonder how, exactly, we've improved on the old S/ U system. This is particularly true because under that system the burden of proof was always on the DOE.

Now it's possible that if you don't have all Regents classes you will be evaluated by some sort of blend--your Regents classes and whatever measure non-Regents teachers get. We shall see. And you may say, "But hey, NYC Educator, the issue is not so much the system itself as its abuse by crazy supervisors." Now, you may be right.

But here's the thing--union leaders think the supervisors are so crazy that adding junk science to evaluations makes them better. Supervisors are so bad that this is an improvement, evidently. And of course, with the burden of proof on the teacher and the possibility of rigging the game with unfavorable Regents classes this could give supervisors more, not less power.

Perhaps we could've addressed the problem of supervisory incompetence head-on. Instead, leadership is subjecting teachers to this nonsense, painting a happy face on it, and dancing as fast as they can trying to tell us how happy we should be. When I talk to teachers about it, they're just not feeling the love. And neither am I.

Easy

I was with a UFT employee the other day who decided to let me know what my problem was. Evidently I just sit around all day writing, and anyone could do that. This is easy, he said. Also I regularly post inaccuracies and mislead people. Who would've thunk it? I had no idea.

I asked for examples, but the person could not provide any. The only thing the person offered was a denial that there was a loyalty oath. I suppose you could say there is no loyalty oath. There is only this document, with which prospective Unity Caucus members agree to the following:

• To express criticism of caucus policies within the Caucus;
• To support the decisions of Caucus / Union leadership in public or Union forums;
• To support in Union elections only those individuals who are endorsed by the Caucus, and to actively campaign for his / her election;
• To run for Union office only with the support of the caucus;
• To serve, if elected to Union office, in a manner consistent with Union / Caucus policies and to give full and faithful service in that office;

In other words, you can only disagree with them in private, you must support them publicly, you must vote for the candidates they endorse, you will only run for an office with their blessing, when in that office you will do as you are told to do.  

So maybe it isn't a loyalty oath. Maybe it's a simple agreement that you'll speak when you're told, do what you're told, and sit down and shut up otherwise. To me, there's not much difference. But hey, everyone interprets things differently. Let me know how supporting charter schools, common core, mayoral control, the ATR, and getting paid ten years late helps represent members. Let me know how opposing opt-out and failing to oppose Cuomo and Bloomberg helps too. Maybe I'll join.

I will tell you, though, that writing every day is not easy. That's why so many people choose not to do it. In fact, I have no idea how I do it. You might be surprised to learn that being a full time teacher as well as chapter leader of the largest school in Queens is not precisely a walk in the park either. Now I'm not complaining. I choose to do this, and I've learned that I actually love having a job so full of surprises it borders on insane. I'm not insulted when people, my students included, call me crazy. I pride myself on being the craziest person in the classroom.

But easy? I don't see that. Easy is signing the Unity card, doing what you're told, and going on all-expenses-paid trips. It certainly beats the hell out of paying out of pocket, like I do when I go. And please, don't tell me about all that work you do at the conventions. I sat in Minneapolis and listened as a guy told everyone in the national version of the Unity Caucus how to vote on each and every measure. There was no discussion or debate.

Easy is not being judged by Danielson, and having at least four drive-bys a year. Easy is telling people who work under the shadow of Danielson that you know what's best for them and they ought to stop complaining. Easy is getting a nice gig working for the union, spouting absurdities that sound good to you, and getting paid more than any working teacher in New York City. Easy is having a reliable after school gig in a nice borough office, giving advice that may or may not be valid, and not worrying about it at all. Easy is when your chapter dumps you as leader and the UFT keeps you on all your perks regardless. 

Easy is going to the DA and the Executive Board, waiting to be signaled how to vote, and voting that way regardless of what you may believe (if anything). It's a lot less easy when you're outnumbered by a factor of ten to one. Easy is going to the Executive Board, taking your sandwich, and sitting with your phone in front of you navigating Facebook and ignoring absolutely everything that goes on, while quietly cursing the seven people who show up and ask questions, making you wait an extra 30-60 minutes before going home. 

As for me, I certainly make mistakes. Sometimes people point them out to me and I correct them. Sometimes people send me things and I add them. Sometimes people ask me not to write things and I don't. But to simply tell me I have it easy, and that I write fake news?

Hey man, that's the stuff I hear and read in the media. We're flush with cash and doing nothing. Go ahead and talk like that. But when you do, you may as well be Donald Trump. And honestly, if you want to get face to face with me, start petty fights over facts you haven't got, and essentially tell me to shut up and sit down when we can just as easily find common ground and work together, it not me who's taking it easy.

And that's a pity, because we are in crisis, my brother.  I'm doing things I never thought I'd do before. If you're doing the same old nonsense, you are taking it easy. It's frightfully obvious to me that the option of doing the same old thing, the only option of which your caucus can seem to conceive, is sorely hazardous to our health.

UFT Executive Board January 31, 2017

 I was late for this meeting as I was coming from another.

6:05 Public comments-- Chapter leader from JHS 145 in Bronx talking about his school, and conditions, including no or one ESL teacher for large group of ELLs. Describes awards students have won despite disadvantages. Says students are on track for graduation at rate of most city students, that they are not failures. Says dirty pool was played by DOE in closure tactics. Says Success Academy is already advertising and measuring their classrooms.

Asks that UFT demand closing proposal be pulled, that UFT resources speak out, that UFT move PEP vote to JHS 145, or provide bus for community members to PEP, that Mulgrew participate in march next week. Says they have garnered a lot of community support.

Howard Schoor—suggests contact with Rich Mantel.

Approval of minutes—passed

President's Report—Mulgrew not here.

Staff Director’s Report—LeRoy Barr—UFT Black History Film Series starts tomorrow, with Chisolm 72. Friday, African Heritage dinner dance, Saturday middle school conference. People at PEP wanted to put out a resolution against DeVos, were 70-100 people. UFT spoke in support. If vote was 11-12 we have 2 votes and we need one more. Keep it up and engage others as she will be a disaster for public ed.

Questions

Jonathan Halabi—New Action—Congratulates chapter at Townsend Harris for delaying C30. Person who shouldn’t be principal likely will not. Superintendent and deputy showed horrible behavior. Have we raised that issue?

Schoor—Was investigating of C30 process, but is now reposted and going forward. We have criticized behavior of deputy superintendent. They say they can pick who they like.

Arthur Goldstein—MORE—Are ATR teachers scheduled to stay at next school in which they are assigned? I’m hearing a lot of rumors about that.

Schoor—We will check that out. New person in charge of ATRs We are talking and looking to get to an agreement. May be true. Will try to get you an answer. (NOTE--Ellie Engler later denies rumor.)

Mike Schirtzer—MORE—Was hearing in ed. committee about retaining teachers. What happened? Who can we speak with about grassroots organizations looking to do day of action around immigrant rights? What about immigrant liaison

Schoor—See Anthony Harmon

Karen Alford—DOE reps punted on fair student funding. Were there solely to talk about retention, didn’t have purview and hence no answer. They brought up parking, we said teachers should get spaces. Their numbers of teachers leaving do not align with ours.

Ashraya Gupta—MORE—Previous reso about immigrants in support of DACA. Who is planning town hall event?

LeRoy Barr—Don’t have reso in front of me, we are looking for date. Will likely be here.

Ellie Engler—ATRs will continue to rotate. Rumors are being spread by principals.

Kuljit Ahluwalia—New Action—Just finished marking Regents—How are teachers chosen? Is it systemic, haphazard?

Janella Hinds—DOE Office of Assessment responsible for deciding. We have proposed a resolution because we don’t believe that is the way to go.

Arthur Goldstein—MORE--Can we move that high enough on the agenda so it gets voted on?

Schoor—If we get to it we will bring it to deputy superintendent.

Marcus McArthur—MORE--Trump will nominate someone to SCOTUS. Have we done internal assessment about Friedrichs style ruling, and how can we and membership fight it.

Schoor—Intensely involved in that along w state and national union. We need to keep as many members as possible and you are now on that committee. CTLE—UFT is a provider of approved courses, as is UFT Teacher Center. DOE told us this week they will become approved, but they may not allow principals to give PD for CTLE credit.  May open up for vendors, like us, to give PD in schools.

Report from Districts

Tom Murphy—Retired teacher chapters have meetings, are nervous about Friedrichs and also constitutional convention.

Karen Allford—New teacher initiative. We have a spring workshop series which offers CTLE credits. Created PTE partners through education to match new teachers with retirees. Now a monthly event, perhaps.

LeRoy Barr—UFT will hold a Town Hall in 2017 on immigration policy. Groups not named but we will keep you posted.

Schoor—Film 13 featured because of questions at this board.

George Altomare—Social studies conference—hard to get people to come out on Saturday, but this will be Feb. 11th with CTLE approved workshops.

Dave Kazanski—amazing turnout of UFT members at womens’ march. Never seen anything like that in size and scope and purpose. So many of us were there to support. Tips hat to UFT.

Schoor—Won’t be the last either.

Legislative report—Paul Egan—Last night legislative reception in Albany. NYC and Senate delegation in attendance. March 14 Lobby Day.

Fair Student Funding—Liz Crowley has resolution calling on DOE to move back to old way when school hiring was sum zero game. Only issue was who was best for school as opposed to cost. Hoping that will be passed. Likely to go through, but members can make phone calls, thank Liz Crowley and push city council. But resolution not enforceable on DOE.

Two GOP Senators not clear on how they will go on DeVos. Now accused of plagiarism. This is what happens when we lose elections. Very little we can do on SCOTUS. We don’t have Senate. Another election in two years, but even this year 48% of Americans stayed home. Mayoral election likely decided in primaries—4 years ago was 18% turnout. If we reverse those figures maybe we won’t have so much to worry about.

Resolution endorsing Tom Brown—Mel Aaronson—Says UFT should endorse Tom Brown for election to three year term. Brown is excellent fiduciary, watching funds. Advocate for teachers with problems dealing with bureaucracy. Educator of teachers by going to schools. Protects public employee pension plans. Asks for support.

Passes

Paperwork report

Debbie Poulos—online reporting process, currently at 202 reports filed, 143 resolved. District with most is Queens High Schools, but they are getting resolved. 17 cases went to central committee. Can go to arbitration. One on OPW, where principals are mandating instead of giving a choice, activities that are non-contractual. One requiring leadership binders. Another doing two report cards, an extensive one in addition to regular. Many issues on curriculum, massive unit plans, pacing calendars. When reported to us they can be resolved. Also grading platforms about number of required grades. Bulletin boards an issue.

Resolution—Rich Mantel—supporting immigrant New Yorkers. Hard to believe we need this today. Last month’s DA resolution was presented. We took it and are presenting it to protect immigrant New Yorkers. Odd in country of immigrants.

Ashraya Gupta—MORE—Proposes three new resolveds—UFT will consolidate curriculum developed by teachers that embraces our values as multicultural and multilingual community.  UFT will hold a free legal intake screening open to members, students, and families in concert with legal advocacy groups. UFT will mobilize members for a citywide day of action in support of our immigrant and Muslim students, members and families.

Love this resolution, it’s important to affirm support, but would like to make sure there are ways UFT can actively provide support. We can use this space for intake screenings. I’ve done this before with other groups. Several schools already planning solidarity actions.

Anthony Harmon—Second resolved we’ve already participated in. We hosted big event in Bronx last year. Better in community than downtown.

Schoor—Can we say UFT will continue to hold them?

Gupta—OK.

LeRoy Barr—Asking to strike first resolved, amend third. When we say UFT will consolidate curriculum, how do we make it work? Teacher center does this. Are we starting a database? AFT does Share MY Lesson, so maybe AFT can speak to this. Speaking against it because it would be difficult for UFT to do this. Asking to add, “in conjunction with our Public School Proud Campaign” to third resolved. Not a day of action but an ongoing thing.

Mike Schirtzer—MORE—On second resolved, you say we’ve done it, but are there plans to do more now?

Anthony Harmon—Not immediate, but committees and other unions are getting together now. I will check for next meeting.

Schirtzer—On third resolved, I see your point, but what we’re asking for is day of action centered around immigration. Many students are insecure, would like show of support. We will do a day of action in our school. We need to get message out.

Barr—We can do something for a day, but this is greater than any day. It’s about being proud of who we are and our schools. We need to allow schools to do what resonates for them. Some schools immigration is front and center, some not.

Jonathan Halabi—New Action—Rising in support of resolution and second amendment to it. As for third, I read CL update. Strong piece looking for people to be interviewed. Maybe that could be one thing your school is proud of.

Ashraya Gupta—MORE—What is current language?  Are legal intake screenings in every borough?

Schoor—We will vote one at a time, and look at third.

Harmon—Last year was first time, in April. Over 100 registrants. Several on path to citizenship.

Schoor—First resolution fails.

Second—passes

Third—Point of order—LeRoy Barr—Asks for amendment—Strikes “for citywide day of action.”

Passes.

Whole resolution—passes

We are adjourned.

The 28 Day Week

Hi folks, it's me, Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States. I'm a little peeved this week, what with the CROOKED media telling LIES about me, and making it look like I'm NOT, like a smart person. Because I AM like a smart person, believe me.

And let me tell you, I am sick and tired of the haters and losers at the FAILING NY TIMES saying that I am full of baloney. They should STOP reporting FAKE NEWS and get with the MISSION of reporting whatever I say. SAD!

Now sure they can get on their TV stations and say, like, whatEVER, but the thing is, they are the lyingest liars in the history of lying. They will say things like no one from the countries I'm banning has committed an act of terrorism, and that thousands have done so from other countries, like Saudi Arabla. But they're looking at the PAST. I'm looking at the FUTURE, and I know what will happen in the future, believe me.

Now Nicole here, pictured at right, she supported me, and I thank her of course. I also am moved by her statement that her husband cannot get back into the country. But that's what happens when you marry a foreigner. Except for me, because I marry the best foreigners, believe me, and I do it so well that sometimes I get tired of marrying foreigners. But let me get to the point here.

I know 28 days is a long time to wait. It's four weeks, and no one should need to wait four weeks for anything. That's why I'm issuing an executive order to raise the acting week from seven to 28 days. This will help on multiple levels.  First of all, someone like Nicole's husband ought not to have to wait four weeks to see her. Under my executive order, he will have to wait only one week.

Another benefit will be increased productivity. Think of all we can get out of workers with a 28 day week. And before you even say it, we have left the weekend exactly as is, and everyone who now gets the weekend off will continue to do so, believe me.

This will also answer the whiners and losers who are always bitching about minimum wage. With a 28-day week, they will QUADRUPLE their salaries instantly, and there will be NO MORE of this fifteen-dollar an hour nonsense. In fact, perhaps we can lower the minimum wage so as to create more jobs, except for foreigners, because screw them.

This is the kind of out-of-the-box thinking America needs. Do you think Crooked Hillary would have had this idea? Of course not, because the only thing she cares about are her pals in those teacher unions. And let me tell you, it's teacher unions who are limiting the opportunities of our youth. Sure, they'll say that they fight for reasonable wages and decent working conditions, but with my new 28-day week, each and every American will get a 300% raise instantly. When have the losers in the Democratic Party proposed ANYTHING like THAT?

Anyway, America, today is the day that I expect Betsy DeVos to be nominated as Secretary of Education. Betsy comes to the job with a CLEAN SLATE and is proof that I want to DRAIN THE SWAMP. Betsy has never gone to public school, she has never sent her kids to public school, and she has never taught or worked in any capacity as a public school. In fact, Betsy has never even had a job before. This makes her uniquely qualified to get right to work without any prejudices or biases except for that of making things profitable.

We will run public schools just like businesses, and we will do away with all that vacation nonsense. The 28-day week will be a win for all Americans, and anyone who says otherwise is a purveyor of FAKE NEWS! SAD!

The Man in the High Castle (and Us)

Unlike my daughter, I'm not prone to binge watching TV shows. But upon seeing ads for season 2 of The Man in the High Castle I felt it my duty to check out season one. I have no idea why. But once I started, I couldn't stop watching. in fact I resented having to go to work because it was interfering with my viewing priorities.

The series imagines that America had lost the war against Germany and Japan, and that the US had been apportioned between them, with a neutral zone in the middle. Evidently the neutral zone is a place where people hang out in bars and listen to country music. It sounds like a better place than the rest, even if country music is not your thing.

The east coast is the property of the Nazis, who have heartwarming family get-togethers like the one pictured above before tossing their guests in prisons or threatening their lives. The west is under Japanese rule, and we see the revised America through the eyes of Juliana, an everywoman who happens to have convenient skills in martial arts.

I guess the reason it grabs me so much is I'm having a lot of trouble distinguishing from the fictitious American leaders and the real ones. You know Donald Trump wants a compliant media, one that will tell the country how wonderful and handsome and smart he is, and refrain from criticizing him when he spouts outrageous lies. You know he hates it when those troublesome courts reverse his selective travel bans. He was just being celebrated by his voters for keeping out, you know, those people, and if he broke up families and left green card holders in the lurch, well, too bad for them.

It's interesting to see how the Japanese on one side have disdain for the Caucasians, while the Nazis on the other side see the Japanese as savages. It's interesting how they kind of play against each other and plot against each other. Evidently once insane bigots mostly wipe out the one group they need to hate, they easily find another. It's always easier to get through life when you have one particular group you can blame for all your issues, and when you need not take responsibility for anything whatsoever.

When you're a despot, though, and you still have a free press, that's pretty discouraging.

Somebody with aptitude and conviction should buy the FAKE NEWS and failing @nytimes and either run it correctly or let it fold with dignity!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 29, 2017

Doubtless Hitler and Stalin didn't have those worries. Truth means nothing to Donald Trump, or Adolf Hitler, or any power-mad lunatic. No doubt Trump would be delighted to establish a state-run press and dispense with all those inconvenient folks who report the truth. The thing is, though, it's kind of on us. We need to keep standing up to him and his thugs. Because in Trumptopia, the truth is just an inconvenience, and Donald J. Trump can tweet petty nonsense to the cheers of his potential brownshirts. Make no mistake, that's what it's about. Just saying this stuff is false is not enough.

I'm happy to see Americans rising up against the nonsense in major cities across the country. I was proud to participate in the Women's March, and I'll be proud to continue to stand up against Donald J. Trump anywhere and everywhere I can. I hope you'll join me.

The thing about  The Man in the High Castle is it's  frighteningly real. You watch the show, you read the news, and it's hard to tell where the show ends and reality begins. I haven't found a TV show so compelling since The Wire. If you can find time to watch only one show this year, make it this one. If you haven't yet determined why it's so absolutely urgent to take a stand against Trump and his goons, a few hours of this will lead you to the answer.

We have to be really careful how we approach this. Trump doesn't love it when we ridicule him or call him stupid, because he's got a 7th grade mentality. But to his supporters, when we call them stupid we become the enemy. One of Hillary's worst errors, aside from running in the first place, was labeling voters "deplorables." This gave them a rallying cry, and I saw, "I'm a deplorable" posted on lawns of Trump supporters.

Hopefully the press will stand tall and do their job. If not, our job is going to be a whole lot harder in the weeks, months, and years to come. 

Schools Flush With Cash, Says Donald Trump

I'm sitting in an office at 7 AM by myself writing this. I do this because there's no one here at this hour. Sometimes I do planning at this time. No one bothers me because almost no one has to be here until 8. I keep ridiculous hours and may fall down and sleep at 8 PM. As chapter leader I actually have a shared office, but it's in a pretty noisy part of the building and kids are always walking in and out to talk to my office mate.

I spent 12 years teaching in a trailer. The first time, I got dumped there. But I couldn't help but notice it was a full-size classroom. This was an improvement from the half classrooms I'd been dumped in, and also from the bowling alley shaped converted custodian work spaces. It was an improvement on my room in the music wing where the guy next door blasted Flight of the Valkyries every single day. It was tough teaching English with that going on.

My school is now at 214% capacity, the most overcrowded in the city. That's because, believe it or not, community residents like us. I'm certainly grateful for that, because were that not the case, Bloomberg would have closed us down first chance he got. I'd be a wandering ATR, visiting schools all over the borough and reflecting on what it's like to be a teacher without a class. For the record, I love teaching but hate subbing. I would be one very unhappy ATR, even though it would give me a whole lot of primo blogging material.

Our PE teachers are gladiators, teaching up to 500 students a week. Some genius in Albany wrote a new requirement that makes it very tempting for principals to offer PE half time, and we of course are doing it. I have no idea how the teachers even learn anyone's name. I have no idea how on earth, other than who shows up, they are supposed to assess these kids. I'm sure there's some idiotic rubric somewhere with instructions for them to follow. I'm also certain it's written by someone who doesn't teach ten classes of fifty students a week.

In our school, what with being at 214% capacity and all, we can't actually fit all our PE classes in the gyms. So a whole lot of them are outside. Unless of course, it rains or snows, or is too cold to hold classes. In fact I've seen classes out there on very cold days. I've seen them out there in the dark. I wonder how many times Donald Trump Jr. had to run around in the dark. I'm guessing never.

Then there are the facilities we are forced to use. I've already mentioned the trailers and the odd shaped classrooms. I forgot the converted bookrooms with no windows, the half rooms in which cheating becomes a virtual national pastime, and the ones with windows overlooking the fragrant dumpsters.

And let's not overlook the oversized classes. Let's first establish that NYC has the highest class sizes in the state already. Then come to my school, bursting at the seams, where new kids walk in each and every day and administration simply cannot figure out how the hell to come into compliance. I'm trying to help, and I am getting very good support from UFT right now.

There's probably more to say, and I'm sure I'm living in the lap of luxury compared to Detroit, but I'll leave it at that. For Donald Trump to say schools are "flush with cash," I'd say he's delusional, but it's more likely he's just telling another ridiculous lie to justify his agenda, one in which reason and common sense play no part whatsoever.

Rubric's Cube, or How Uniform Grading Policies Saved Western Civilization

Rubrics are perfect, or so you'd think if you heard the nonsense I do at meetings. And teachers have now lost quite a bit of discretion over how students are graded in city schools. There was a memo that went out from the chancellor, there was a meeting of the principals, and evidently this memo is tantamount to the Ten Commandments. Thou Shalt Tell Students Exactly What Basis Marking Has. Thou Shalt Not Have More than 49% in Subjective Measures.

I've always taken a holistic view of grading. Even as we entered an electronic age of grading, I was able to adjust percentages by counting some things more than others. For example, I am not unaware there is a whole lot of copying of homework. By assigning short answer homework a weight of 1, and written homework a weight of 2 or 3, I've been able to compensate a little for that. I also didn't think it was that bad that kids could earn high grades for simple completion. After all, if they failed tests and failed to participate, they simply didn't pass the class anyway.

My layout for grades has been 50% tests and quizzes, 25% participation, and 25% homework. I gave participation grades each semester. This has now been expressly prohibited by the geniuses at Tweed, who of course know better than those of us who fritter away our time actually teaching New York City's 1.1 million schoolchildren. So I will now have to give these grades more frequently and maybe write a rubric expressly explaining what it is for. This will result in more work for me and exactly the same grades. And frankly, short of posting Bill Gates-style perpetual video surveillance in the classroom, there will be no way to ascertain whether or not I am just making stuff up. (You know, like there's no way to determine whether or not supervisors make stuff up about the Danielson rubric.)

Our new department policy, if I recall correctly, is 50% tests, 10% quizzes, 20% participation and classwork, 15% graded homework, and 5% non-graded homework. This will help me not at all. This will help my students not at all. However, it will put uppity teachers like me in our place. How dare we presume to assess our students ourselves? Discretion is for professionals like Carmen Fariña, who made a brilliant success our of her school by hand picking all the students in a process nearly selective as that of Harvard. Me, I teach whoever they put in front of me. I try to do the best I can by them, my system worked fine, and now it's complicated for no good reason.

Why can't I make tests and quizzes one category and simply give tests more weight than quizzes? What if I think frequent quizzes are more important than tests and give me a better picture of where my kids are at any given point? Do I now need to test more frequently? And how can I do that when the school now says I can only test on certain days every week? And since supervisors are always quacking about formative assessment, why do tests now need to count for 60%? Isn't language, which I teach, largely about oral communication? Aren't there abundant tests in my students' home countries, don't they pass them and yet arrive here with little or no ability to communicate in English? Doesn't that argue that a test-based standard is not optimal? Do you judge the English ability of people you meet by how well they score on tests?

And let's go a little further into the woods now--do you think that I teach the same as everyone else? Do you want me to? If so, why not just stick a computer in front of the class? If not, why on earth would you think that assessing students subject to my voice is exactly the same as assessing students subject to another? Is it possible that I might, perish forbid, take the tack that actual day to day communication and survival are more important than how you do on the preposterous NYSESLAT exam about Hammurabi's Code? And if I actually do go the Hammurabi's Code route, how can you make sure the tests, quizzes, and whatever I give will make my students really know Hammurabi's Code?

Another argument I've heard is that teachers keep poor records and therefore need a tight rein so as to correct that. Let me tell you something--people who keep poor records do not need a more complicated and/ or convoluted grading system. If people keep poor records, under this system their records will get even worse. My nature is a little sloppy, but I've had college professors who sat on tests for 6-8 weeks, and then tested us on things without letting us know whether we understood the basis for them. I hated those teachers. For that reason, and also to cover my proverbial keester, I overcompensate. If I give a test, it's like a hot potato. I have to get it graded immediately, no matter what, and I almost always get it back to students the next day. I know if I don't do that they'll probably never be returned at all.

It's too bad that teacher discretion is given such short shrift. I very much believe teacher voice is a thing like writer voice, and that it varies teacher to teacher. Do some teachers work better for some kids than others? Yes, of course. But doesn't it benefit kids to learn how to deal with a variety of influences, even some they don't necessarily like?

Why does everything and everyone have to be exactly the same? How on earth does that help anyone, particularly in these times of "alternative truth?"

Stronger Together Brings a Stop Watch to a Long Game

One of the most exciting incidences in NY unionism was our hookup with what became Stronger Together three years ago. I was heavily involved, as I ran for Executive Vice-President of NYSUT against Andrew Pallotta. I ran all over the state to forums. It was really exciting. Of course it would have been even more exciting if we'd won, but that's how it goes.

Three years later there is a new election. Stronger Together sent out an email canvassing for candidates in October. I missed the email, but discussed it with James Eterno in November. I had in fact recruited another UFT member interested in running by that time. I guess we assumed that ST would reach out to us, and that's on us. Maybe I thought that all the work I did three years ago meant someone would reach out to me personally, and that's on me. In any case, no one ever did. So we screwed up.

Next I heard, Stronger Together was trying to make a deal with NY State Unity. They were hoping a few reps from their org would run with a few from Unity, and that there would thus be no conflict. Now for my money, the most powerful union leader in NY State is Michael Mulgrew, and I don't envision him making that deal. Stronger Together leader Mike Lillis is really, really smart, and on the right side of just about every issue I can think of, except one, and that is my union, the UFT.

Mulgrew let New Action go, and Mulgrew let us have a voice in the Executive Board. While I'm sure that wasn't his intention, I'm glad it worked out that way. If only Mulgrew attended his own Executive Board meetings, he'd be reminded of that twice a month for the next three years. Michael Mulgrew doesn't engage us at all, and I don't anticipate him engaging Lillis either. Even if he were to surprise us, we know exactly what he wants of people in high positions--a loyalty oath.

My best guess right now is that Stronger Together doesn't wish to be mixed up with weirdos like us in MORE, because we are pretty much one of the last bastions of vibrant resistance to top-down unionism. Being mixed up with us would hurt ST's chances of a deal with Mulgrew, who didn't send us Christmas cards this year. in fact, I even hear there was a UFT Christmas party we didn't get invited to, being the only Executive Board members who didn't sign the oath.

James and Jia Lee and I, along with PJSTA member Brian St. Pierre met with Lillis and another ST rep at a Colombian restaurant near Francis Lewis High School. We talked for a long time, but didn't say much. I had already told both of them that I would not consider supporting any ticket that did not include UFT representation. I am opposition, but I am UFT.  Of course, like every one of almost 20,000 city high school teachers, I have no voice or vote in NYSUT. That's not the fault of ST Caucus, but I won't support any ticket that prolongs that arrangement.

At the meeting, they suggested we run for at large seats. They then told us they thought such seats were not valid and that they would not, therefore, be endorsing any of them. It felt a lot like, "Feel free to step up to the bar and buy yourself a drink." That's not my vision of hospitality, particularly when Jia Lee picks up the entire restaurant bill. (Thank you, Jia!) 

So maybe Lillis and ST are right. They don't need us. They won't gain a single vote from our participation. But if they are indeed a movement, they no longer have the support of anyone from the largest local in the state, or in fact the country. If they were to win, they would be as illegitimate as Donald Trump. Here's the thing with that, though--they are not going to win. Not this time. Me, I'm okay with losing now and building a movement long term. I can't explain what their long-term goal is.

My long term goal is to return control of the union to the union members. My long term goal is to establish a democratic union that's responsive to member needs rather than leadership caprices. I don't regret a single moment I spent running against Pallotta, or doing anything I've done to accentuate the voices of my brothers and sisters, and I'd do it again at the drop of a hat. On the other hand, I also don't regret not having to run statewide again this year. I'm pretty busy already.

Stronger Together has some really good people. They sorely miss Beth Dimino, who gave them an overarching vision that they now lack. But they don't understand what UFT/ NYSUT leadership is all about. They don't understand that this is a long game. And they don't understand that ignoring the largest teacher local in the country is not a good idea.

They will either learn in short order or rapidly disappear altogether.

Group Work, and the Surprising Story of an Assistant Principal Who Supports a Teacher

Charlotte Danielson loves her some group work, and pays a whole lot of attention to how students are grouped. You can't just group kids. You need reasons for doing it, and you gosh darn better get those kids together for a good reason. I'm a simple guy, and I can't help but notice my classes are dominated by Chinese speakers. What I generally try to do is find enough people who don't speak Chinese to place at least one in every group, and then hope that there might be some motivation for them to speak English. Sometimes I can't even do that.

Of course there are other ways to group. I recall a group I was in back when I was picking up my Master's degree. We had a course in testing, and we were a group of four. There were three women and me. One woman designed the test, I wrote the report, and another typed it up on her Commodore 64 computer. I had never seen a word processor before and I was amazed she could type and edit. I had to have one of those things, and it wasn't too long before I got one.

Our fourth member? She did nothing. The group consensus was that was what she did best. And it worked out pretty well for us, as we all got As. Of course in our classes it isn't so easy. If some kid is sitting around doing nothing, it's entirely possible some high-minded supervisor could blame the teacher. You didn't motivate that kid. Your lesson wasn't stimulating enough. Your DO NOW didn't make the kids jump and down enough, and that's why the kid isn't participating. Who knows?

But I spoke to a supervisor the other day who had a different idea. A teacher had complained about a number of group members who didn't participate, and this supervisor had a solution---place them all in the same group. The teacher followed this advice, and it didn't sit well with the kids in the group. They knew they would either have to do something or fail. This was not good, since several of them were not all that keen on that whole attendance thing.

Mondays, for example, are hell to come in.  How can you do that after a whole weekend of relaxing? It's a shock to the system. Tuesdays are almost the same thing, especially if you hadn't come in on Monday. Wednesday is Hump Day! Thursday is almost Friday. And Friday, well, that's almost the weekend, and who the hell wants to sit in some boring classroom where you can't even check your phone on Friday?

Now not all kids cut every day. Let's say you're one of the ones who didn't, and you just hope to not do any work in your class. Let's further imagine that you were unceremoniously tossed into the group of lazy folk. Where does that leave him when the cutters, you know, notice it's one of those off days?

Well, in this case, it landed him in the office of the assistant principal, where he lamented loudly that his partner didn't bring the display board. The display board! How can anyone possibly give a presentation without it?

The assistant principal told him that was no problem. Show me the work you did, and I will assess that only.

And José was supposed to bring a report! He didn't bring it!

Show me the work you did, and I will assess that only.

And also, we had a poster! Kenya was supposed to bring a poster, and she didn't even show up!

Show me the work you did, and I will assess that only.

Well, I don't know. I helped, you know. We talked about a lot of stuff...

Show me the work you did, and I will assess that only. If you haven't got any work, I can't give you credit. I will have to give you a zero for the project.

But there was no work. Will the student get away with doing nothing in the next class? Maybe, but not in this one, and not with this teacher.

Where Do We Go From Here?

I had an amazing adventure yesterday at the NYC Women's March with my brother ESL teacher/ UFT chapter leader Patrick James Walsh. We met early on, and wandered over to where we thought UFT would be. Usually UFT gives a t-shirt or something so that we can be seen and identified as a group, but for the first time in my memory that didn't happen. I certainly hope that wasn't part of the "Let's Not Name Trump" campaign. It's foolhardy for us to stand around and pretend, say, that it's Pence making decisions so we can just drop Trump's name from everything and that no one, therefore, will suspect we oppose him. Do we oppose him? Judging by leadership, who knows?

Patrick and I got stuck in a crowd and it got pretty scary pretty quickly. Forty-five minutes after the march was supposed to begin we were crammed in like sardines with no movement in sight. This looked to be potentially dangerous. Eventually, this being a women's march after all, we followed some brave women and spent maybe twenty minutes extricating ourselves from the crowd. We attributed these issues to bad planning, but in retrospect it's more likely because turnout was so massive. Even as we were no longer part of the directed march, the march was everywhere, on every street and avenue. Neither of us had ever seen anything like it in our lives.

Whatever else may have happened. I'm 100% sure Saturday was not a good day for the incredibly thin-skinned Donald J. Trump. Millions of people all over the world marched, and none were doing so to thank him for grabbing pussies, for offering to deport Muslims, for adopting anti-Semitic
slogans, or even for the ever-popular vilification of teachers and public schools. Upping his meds might be in order though I've seen little evidence he takes them  as needed, or even at all.

I am in awe of the volume and power of people who came out to send a message to this tyrant in training, and my sincere hope is that it continues both in volume and frequency. Nonetheless, while we have the quantity, we're going to have to make sure our message keeps up with quality. It's not entirely the fault of Donald Trump that he managed to take the White House. There are, of course, the swing state voters. And there's Putin and his wacky antics. There's that guy Comey, who saw fit to publicly bandy about unsubstantiated allegations during a Presidential campaign. There's Hillary herself and her decision to use that server, whatever that may or may not imply.

But the most important part of this last election, for me at least, was none of the above. The most important factor was our decision to run an underwhelming and uninspiring candidate, one whose
primary message was More of the Same. More of the same mediocre policy that ignored the needs of the American people. More of the "best we could do" nonsense that leaves millions of Americans without health care. More of the "Oh well," philosophy of shrugging your shoulders when Americans can't make a living or send their kids to college.

Even now, the same people who called me crazy for supporting Bernie Sanders muster the audacity to lecture me about 1972. How long will those folks heed the lesson of 1972 without learning the lesson to 2016--that the same warmed-over nonsense no longer flies in this country? While Hillary Clinton is not as flawed as Donald Trump, she was simply no prize. Americans don't want someone to be President simply because she doesn't foam at the mouth when she speaks. We want a leader who will help us leave a
better country for our children. We want someone bold and inspiring. A lot of American's mistook Donald Trump for that person, and a lot of Americans will soon suffer from buyer's remorse if they haven't begun already.

Our own United Federation of Teachers is a microcosm of America. Our leadership still fumbles around, terrified they'll offend people by the mention of the Trump name. This, even as millions of American's rose up against him. They had no message for this march, nothing to distinguish us. When we, the teachers, stand up and demand improvements they tell us we improved things five decades ago and that ought to be good enough for anyone. They give us messages so mixed that we have no idea what they stand for, what they stood for, or what they plan for the future. They criticize top-down thinking and demand transparency from others, but operate in complete secrecy and share little or nothing. They know better than us, and it's our job to sit down, shut up, and follow.

And in that, they embody the very worst qualities of both Clinton and Trump. We need to do better all around, for both our union and our country.

DA Takeaway January 2017

This month's DA was notable for several reasons. One is the positive campaign Mulgrew intends to run. It's a great idea, but I'm skeptical because it's only words. I regularly approach the Executive Board with the argument that it is us who represent New York City's children, and it is us who should stand for them. They roll their eyes. Last month they rejected a class size resolution that certainly had input from public school parents. They did this on the basis of our having sacrificed to place class sizes in the contract.

That's an absurd assertion, since it happened 50 years ago, and we still haven't shut the holes in it, which are so large you can drive a Mac truck through them. Maybe we'll get that the "plans of action" cannot be used indefinitely, and maybe the new negotiation process will help a little, but the ultimate decision is with the arbitrators. For my money, they don't give a crap about the real issues of class size and until they do, there's no evidence UFT does either.

As to the DA itself, it was remarkable that James Eterno could be treated with such contempt by leadership. James stood and asked that we work toward a minimum of two rather than four observations, and also mentioned that many state locals work under that understanding. He cited discontent among rank and file with the number, and my experience suggests that he's dead on. He also cited the fact that his wife Camille is currently being railroaded over at Humanities and the Arts Magnet High School. He concluded by asking that the person who speak against his suggestion be someone who is actually rated by the system.

UFT Secretary Howard Schoor got up and angrily told James he doesn't get to pick who speaks against his motion. Schoor, who is not rated by Danielson, who has never been rated by Danielson, and who will almost certainly never be rated by Danielson then proceeded to signal the Unity Loyalty Oath Signers that they were to vote this proposal down. Of course he couldn't just do that; he had to also give an argument.

Here's the argument--There are fewer people rated ineffective now than were rated unsatisfactory under the previous system. Here's what's wrong with that argument. For one thing, it treats those rated developing as though they were rated satisfactory. As someone who's spent a lot of time meeting with, representing, and counseling people rated developing, I can say with 100% certainty that's not how they feel. Sure they don't face the consequences of an ineffective, but that's cold comfort for them.

Another problem with that argument is, as always, leadership conveniently forgets that two ineffectives means the burden of proof is on the teacher at 3020a. That's a hell of a mountain to climb, and no one had to do it before the advent of this system. But the very worst problem with Schoor's argument is this--No matter how few people are rated ineffective, there is no argument whatsoever you can possibly make that will make a single one of them feel better. I do not tell people who are rated ineffective, "Well, it happened to far fewer people so you might as well feel good about it." That would be, and is, idiotic. Remember that Schoor made this statement directly to James, whose wife, again, is currently facing these ratings and being raked over the coals by Danielson.

But the overarching problem with the argument is that making it at all underlines just how out of touch leadership is with membership. It's amazing that people who are not even touched by Danielson can muster the audacity to lecture those of us who are. And this imperious and preposterous attitude bodes ill for the next coming of Friedrichs.

And despite all this, that was not the most striking thing I heard at the DA. The most amazing thing I heard was the statement by Michael Mulgrew that UFT asked for two observations. This shocked me for several reasons. One is that I've been to chapter leader training and the Executive Board, and I've heard about the new system from the best experts the UFT had to offer. The argument I heard, not once but several times, was that more observations give teachers a better chance of doing well. I also heard that CSA, the principals' union, wanted fewer observations.

Now if UFT had asked for two and was rebuffed in negotiations by the DOE, why the hell didn't they just say so? And why on earth would anyone give James Eterno a nasty answer to a very real problem when they could've just said, "You know, we wanted that too, but we couldn't get the DOE to agree to it." If that's the truth, it's a hell of a better argument than any I heard, and I've heard the arguments on at least three occasions, including the DA.

So what's the truth? Is Mulgrew telling it? And if so, why don't all of them tell it? Why haven't they told us before? Have they been lying to us to make us think that they controlled negotiations better than they did? If so, doesn't that suggest that's what they do as a matter of course?

With leadership like that, is it any wonder we're facing DeVos, ready to dismantle public education but ever vigilant about protecting us from grizzly bears? It's amazing that we had to listen to Mulgrew talk so much about transparency, and that leadership nonetheless sits up there on that 14th floor posturing as though they're on Mount Olympus, talking down to all us non-deities below.