Updated: Mulgrew to Teachers: Drop Dead / 5/16 Chief: NYC Unions Don't Heart Mulgrew

*UPDATE: "Uniformed Unions Can't Get Past 0 in UFT Deal."
Where do we begin with United Federation of Teachers president Michael Mulgrew's chutzpah? First, we have the matter of his arrogance at the delegate assemblies, and his patronizing, sexist treatment of alternative caucus (MORE) delegates.

Next, we have his contract, which famously got its first attention as an ATRs under the bus contract, garnering an early denunciation as such from a top activist at MORE.

Yet, the controversy over the union's abandonment of the ATRs has overshadowed other objectionable aspects of the contract.  There is the head-scratching stimulating plan to stretch out increased pay and retro over several years, so that the repayment is not settled until 2020, two years after the contract has expired. Note this MORE leaflet of the pay schedule, which sways members that initially supported the contract to a no vote. In chapter and borough-level meetings members are putting the details together and are calling this a cynical plan to improve teacher retention; rank and filers and vets alike are calling this a no interest loan to the city (and are pointing out that in past instances, 1976, 1991, of union loans to the city we got interest).

Perturbed union heads
Even more close to home for Mulgew, he is burning his bridges with other New York City labor leaders. The poor retro repayment issue has many union heads upset at Mulgrew and his apologist Unity caucus lieutenants. The Unity caucus is the dominant caucus of the union, and it is the group that actually produced this contract. You know things are bad when other labor union leaders are openly criticizing another union's contract deal. Indeed, the May 16 Chief issue is rife with stories of union heads upset with Mulgrew because of the UFT offering a weak contract. The issue carries a stinging, long editorial column, extending over the better part of two pages, "Uniformed Unions Can't Get Past 0 in UFT Deal." The column echoes Captains' Endowment Association President Roy Richter statement, "I go back to the classic 'no zeroes for heroes'" referring to Giuliani's two-year wage freeze.
The other New York City municipal union leaders fear that weak contract elements will set a precedent, making it more difficult for other union leaders in the other trades to seek acceptable contracts.

In particular, attention has been drawn to how the Transport Workers Union got a better deal on their members' retroactive payments.


Stretched out retro, ignoring the phenomenon of interest, ignoring the past precedent of interest collection from the city
The UFT's give-away will alienate the other local labor leaders from Mulgrew as they now have to negotiate with the city, which will take advantage of the UFT's weak precedent-setting contract. How can other unions get good pay terms when this disaster precedent is established?
Thus, The Chief reports, "They noted that this would likely fail to keep pace with the rise in the cost of living, and police-union leaders were at least as unhappy that an 18-month period of the UFT deal--which would potentially constitute the very start of their own contracts--features a wage freeze, although a $1,000 bonus would be paid."


Tongue-tied district reps and other contract promoters
It is rather pathetic to see the parade of cheerleaders for this contract. Way too often the reports are that the various promoters are stumped when it comes time to answer specific questions about retro, pay increases and undisclosed health premium increases. The confused reps are left having to tell the confused members that they'll have to get back to them after talking with the union's experts downtown. We should however, applaud one long time Unity chapter leader for breaking with the no-dissent tradition and opposing the contract.

You doubt this? Take a look at Urban Ed blog's latest installment where he points to how the anxious Unity gives the impression that they have to sell Yes even to their loyal flock. The Urban Ed blogger recounts anecdotes of confused Unity reps having to consult issues of NY Teacher in order to answer some questions about the contract.

A desperate rush to pass the contract
The presenting of the contract bore repeated hallmarks of a desperate leadership, unconfident of trusting even its leading cadre with contract details. The contract was announced, May 1. President Mulgrew got the Executive Board to vote May 5 to approve the contract, in spite of the fact that the Executive Board had not even read the contract's preliminary Memorandum of Agreement (MoA). The MoA was only released at the close of business May 6, 24 hours before the Delegates Assembly had their special May 7 meeting at the Hilton to vote on the contract. The final MoA was not released until the close of business May 15, and for days the initial MoA was online, instead of the new, expanded MoA. Why cannot the leadership trust the membership with reading the contract? By contrast, in Chicago, teachers were able to pour over and discuss the contract. Here, even the top representatives seem confused by the contract.
To get a sense of just how the Unity caucus -the secretive job machine that runs contract negotiations and everything else in the union-- operates read this piece from ICE. To understand why Unity minions fall into lockstep behind the decisions of the group's elite, one must understand that every member of the caucus must swear by the Unity oath to brook no public dissent. Watch this video of a speech at last month NYSUT assembly by one of MORE's Lauren Cohen, where she cites the Unity loyalty oath (and the union's insistence on winner-take-all elections) as reasons for the UFT's lack of authentic representation of the members. Note the raucous response by the Unity stalwarts, embarrassed that the truth is out.

Deceivious talking points
So we get these incredible talking points that are sounding increasingly desperate. For days the union has been trumpeting the fairy tale myth that a no vote meant going to the back of the line, behind 150 other unions. This is forgetting the fact that the city was simultaneously negotiating several contracts prior to May 1. "We don't want to bankrupt the city." But prior to release of this contract it was known that the city had an ample surplus. Yet that was before this bombshell from the Daily News, "City faces larger budget surpluses in next two years than Mayor de Blasio projects: Independent Budget Office." Then there's this laughable doozy: "The choice is between this deal and no deal. There is no second choice being offered." This opinion never heard of a renegotiated contract, such as in 1995 when the UFT members voted down the contract. Read at the MORE Caucus site, "Some Lessons of Previous Contract Struggles." Part 1 and Part 2.

Lost labor head allegiance; lost member allegiance
Mulgrew with his precedent setting delayed retro and his open door for medical give-backs (the potential for health premium increases is an issue only recently gaining attention, see this story in Capital New York) has burned his bridges with labor leaders that now must negotiate their contracts with this weak precedent. He's burned his bridges with his peers with this contract.
There may be too many bowled over members that already voted Yes for the contract. Yet, when UFT members notice that their paychecks fail to keep pace with inflation then they will realize that their union's Unity leadership sold them a terrible bill of goods. Then over the next two years this contract will be the unraveling of the Unity caucus' stranglehold on the United Federation of Teachers.

Countdown to a Vote on NYC Teacher Evaluation Agreement?

TEACHERS' CAREER CLIFF IMPENDING - WILL THE UFT'S DA ALLOW A VOTE?

This Wednesday, the United Federation of Teachers Delegate Assembly is meeting.

Will the UFT members have an opportunity to vote on the teacher evaluation system? Will the DA authorize such a vote? (The NYSUT's statement on Annual Professional Performance Review (APPR); the UFT's statementand its factsheet.)

The system is based heavily on standardized tests. Yet critics in the education community, as opposed to the fly-by-night education entrepreneurs of the last ten years, have been criticizing the proposed New York State evaluation and similar programs with increasing frequency.

Speaking of a fiscal cliff, teachers are facing a career cliff with the evaluation system.

Note just one of the latest contributions from Bruce Baker at Rutgers University, School Finance 101 from December 5, 2012, cited in Diane Ravitch's blog. (This follows as the third piece of a series critiquing the evaluation system.)

Previously Dr. Ravitch has written other posts, under the theme, "Why VAM is Junk Science," on July 16, October 29 (She noted, "Remember: no other nation in the world is judging teacher quality this way. This is our own nutty idea. It’s main accomplishment: demoralization of teachers." and linked to Los Angeles Times' Teresa Watanabe on Los Angeles' system.), November 5 ("Linda Darling-Hammond and Edward Haertel of Stanford University explain why value-added assessment doesn’t work and how inaccurate it [value-added-assessment] is.), November 27 ("Here, we have a technically proficient author working for a highly respected organization – American Institutes for Research – ignoring all of the statistical red flags (after waiving them), and seemingly oblivious to gaping conceptual holes (commonly understood limitations) between the actual statistical analyses presented and the concluding statements made (and language used throughout).” “The conclusions are WRONG – statistically and conceptually.")

All of the juggernaut for the evaluation system is for getting $300 million. Yet, most indications are that the money would not go to the classroom, but for more dubious assessment or evaluation software. Read this contribution at New York City Public School Parents.

Shouldn't the UFT members have a vote on this system, as they do with DOE-UFT contracts?

Sign the MORE caucus' petition on the evaluation system.

From the DOENUTS blog:

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2012

Three Things You Should Know About the City's Upcoming Teacher Eval. System Let me just get right to it.

1. The rubric is too difficult and VAM is too unproven. The city's rubric (for observations and teaching artifacts) is tougher than many other Danielson-based rubrics. To be rewarded as an excellent teacher, based on observations and paper work, you'd have to move heaven an earth in your class -and then get lucky. The rubric that is worth 60% of the grade is designed to lump teachers into the middle two categories of 'developing' and 'effective'. As for value-added measures, they're calling it anything from 'Junk Science' to 'unreliable'. It is at best not yet ready for prime time and worst will ruin the careers of more than few colleagues. Certainly, it doesn't belong on a teacher's evaluation in its current form and will require a few years of improvements before they can even try calling it reliable. Yet it's coming and your job (and mine) will depend on it.

2. It's going to drastically increase our workload. Working to hit those points on the city's Danielson rubric is going to be the most difficult part.

[Ed.: Read these blog posts on the Danielson Framework for in actual application, the formula for administrators' micro-managing, expectations of perfectionism and teacher burn-out (who could really prepare to meet all the rubrics perfectly, make all the home contacts, and still have a normal personal life and decent rest?), this one on the misuse of the rubrics, this ICE-UFT post, which carries a link in the comments to the UFT Delegate Assembly's fall, 2011 resolutionteacher evaluation and endorsing the Danielson Framework, and this realistic Robert Rendo cartoon reproduced at EdNotes. As these references indicate, Danielson is deeply intertwined with the education entrepreneur community.]
(Rob Rendo cartoon from Truth on Education Reform blog.)

But the 'artifacts' for teachers will be a real pain. They'll count for almost 30% of our grade and they'll be comprised of things like our phone logs, PIP, student interventions and unit plans from throughout the whole year. Multiple measure from the local 20% (or local 15% if you're grades 4 - 8, ELA or Math) will mean we'll be spending more time observing peers (or being observed), grading mid term baselines (for HS teachers) and developing performance tasks than we've ever done before. It's going to be a lot more work.

3. That workload will come with no raise and no new contract for city teachers. If you just read that claim for the first time here, then you haven't read this blog ... or this one ... or this one ... or this one. Although the union hasn't said anything about it, it's seeming fairly clear to many people, including me, that the teachers' union won't actually fight for a raise for their teachers as they move to agree to this evaluation system. I won't spend a million words describing the analysis here, but if you read this post from Chaz's School Daze or this one from Accountable Talk or this one from Perdido Street Blog or this one (originally entitled "...I Smell a Sellout" based on the URL) from NYCEducator or this one (including the comments) from the ICEUFT Blog, you'll get the same sense that I do; no raise with this new increased workload.*

And those are the three things I think you should know about the APPR.

*And why would you have to hear that from a blog? Because your union doesn't particularly care to communicate that with you. That's why. So if you did just read that claim for the first time here, just remember; you had to hear it from some dude name (feggin') doenuts before your own union would tell you. "...dark day for teachers", indeed.

It is just incredible how the UFT leadership has not openly thought through the ramifications of the ways that the system that the evaluation program's reliance on test leaves open avenues for administrators' abuse and vindictive personal biases. As blogger Chaz writes here and here, it is really a teacher termination program:

I can just see how a vindictive Administrator would push some of the worst preforming and behaving students into a class which will disrupt the learning environment for the teacher he or she does not like or want and switch higher achieving students into a class of a teacher she likes. The potential for abuse is very real and the teacher evaluation system would be the nail in the coffin of the targeted teacher. Remember, only 13%^ of those teachers rated "ineffective" would have real "due process" while the other 87% should be looking for another job. Therefore, the teacher evaluation system is really a termination program that an Administrator can manipulate to remove a teacher he or she wants out of the school.