NYS Legislature Hands Giant Gift to Charter Schools, Escalating the Unfair Bias Against with Public Schools

Last week the New York State legislature handed a great gift to charter schools. It implemented a separate system of rules for charter schools, institutionalizing a practice already in place in many municipalities.

From Diane Ravitch's blog post, "New York Legislature Frees Charter Schools of Regulations and Oversight"

In late night negotiations, rushing to finish the legislative session, the New York Legislature reached a package deal to extend mayoral control by only one year. Part of the package creates a parallel system for charter schools, which can switch authorizers and choose one (either the State University of New York or the Board of Regents) that will give them freedom from any regulations and standards that apply to public schools. In other words, there will be one set of rules for public schools, and no rules for charter schools. This will be the first time in New York state’s history that the Legislature has officially established a publicly-funded dual school system: One sector is subject to democratic control, the other is not. One must accept (or take responsibility for) all students, the other is free to accept and reject whichever students it wants.

A one-year extension, with few or no caveats, had seemed all but cemented when lawmakers went to bed on Thursday evening. But the morning found Mr. Flanagan [Senator-R] pushing for the funding transparency requirement, followed by the charter-school provision in the afternoon. It would effectively create a parallel system of charter schools within the city, allowing “high-performing charter schools in good standing” to switch to join the State University of New York umbrella or the Board of Regents of the State Educational Department.

Not since the era preceding the Brown decision of 1954 has a state legislature so brazenly established a two-tier system of K-12 schools.

NYC DOE Continues the Target the Teacher Madness, Carrying Over from Bloomberg/Walcott Days

The New York City Department of Education's prime credo is to harass and intimidate teachers. This way, teachers will not assert themselves.  This has worsened in recent years, as the old style administrators have left the city school system, and Leadership Academy administrators have taken the positions. We see with the case of Todd Friedman of Brooklyn.
The New York Chief, a teacher-friendly newspaper, a rarity in this city, reported last week on his troubles with the DOE. He was following a tradition in his school, a tradition that had been followed for decades with no problems. Then, a Leadership Academy administrator with the philosophy of hatcheting the teachers makes a federal case out of it, putting the teacher's career in jeopardy.
In Midwood High School the tradition was that Advanced Placement (AP) English students were encouraged to buy their books for class. This way, they could mark them up, in preparation for college, when students often mark up books. And there was no problem if the student could not afford the book the teachers would provide the book, free of charge. The prices were very modest. The charge in question was only for $2 per book, a very low price. In fact, even with the students paying this price the teacher took a loss in his buying the books from the publisher.
What happened was a student remarked about this practice to the relatively new administrator. And this administrator is pursuing this all the way to the 3020-a hearing.

Friedman's status? He has had mixed help from the union. And his fate looks dire. The city is taking this case to the highest punishment. It is pursuing the hearing to take his license away. This is rather rash. If the new administrator wanted to be a stickler for the city regulations ishe could have written a counseling memo or she could have just had a warning conference with him. But this is the vindictive DOE. Punish quickly, with no discussion. In Friedman's case we see that there has been no post-Bloomberg/Walcott housecleaning. The most nasty positions of the DOE have been continued. Farina may have sought more years of actual teaching from principals, but she is allowing principals to continue the harsh Bloomberg era rules.
Friedman suggested that the ulterior motive in all this was to punish him for dissenting from a particular curriculum. If this was the case, this would show that the city is attacking academic freedom and freedom of speech. (For more details on the curriculum and other particulars of the case, get yourself a hard copy of "The Chief." The newspaper is probably the fairest to workers, of all the different newspapers of the city. Make sure to support the newspaper with your dollars.)

MORE/New Action Win HS Seats on UFT Executive Board; Jia Far Ahead of Francesco

BREAKING NEWS: The ICEUFT blog reported that the seven MORE/New Action candidates for the executive board exceeded the votes for all if the Unity Caucus candidates.

For the presidential race, these figures are available: Michael Mulgrew (Unity), 39,176; Jia Lee (MORE/New Action), 10,743; Francesco Portelos (Solidarity), 1,456. This was the first time that an opposition caucus presidential candidate had broken 10,000 since 2001. And Lee's vote was 7.4 times the vote for Portelos. This is testimony to the growth of a caucus that is building at the school level, district by district, and a group that mainly organizes via online projects.

The high school vote was certainly a vindication for MORE-New Action over Solidarity. Coming into the vote, Solidarity looked ready to play the spoiler. It didn't field candidates for the at large executive board seats, but it did field many candidates at the high school level, creating the potential for a three-way split, helping Unity. Yet, MORE beat Unity and Solidarity across the board at the high school level.
In terms of turnout, perennially a problem for the UFT, which occurs by mail, instead of in the school (as happens in the Chicago Teachers Union), turnout improved for all the school division levels, including the functional sections. And compared to the last election, this time the number of active teachers voting exceeded the number of retirees voting, in contrast to what happened in 2013.

How You Should Cast Your Ballot and Why You Should Vote for the MORE and New Action slate

Here are images of how you should cast your ballot. First, here's the one page view, presenting how you should cast your ballot.

Here's how the process in a few practical steps. Find the envelope indicating that it contains the official UFT ballot. Check off the ballot box that is marked for the MORE/New Action slate. Put the ballot in the envelope, and then put that envelope into the final envelope.
Still needing guidance? Here are some FAQs from the MORE Caucus UFT website.

WHY YOU SHOULD VOTE FOR THE MORE/New Action SLATE
When you vote for Michael Mulgrew and the Unity slate you are voting for the evaluations based on high stakes and Value Added Modeling, or VAM (rebuked by a judge last week in the Shari Lederman case). Furthermore, remember that Mulgrew has consistently supported Gov. Andrew Cuomo and his ill-minded policies. (Mulgrew took his support so far that in 2014 he threatened to defund the Working Families Party if it endorsed Zephyr Teachout for governor over Cuomo).
A major negative development under Mulgrew's tenure has been the change to the new evaluation system used at the city level. The evaluations have increased in number and have followed the absurd Danielson model. Mulgrew endorsed every worsening step of the evaluation Advance Evaluation system. He even asked for the DOE to evaluate teachers along more areas than even the DOE first sought in the negotiations.

And remember that Cuomo has supported the regressive education reform forces that led New York State education: John King and Merryl Tisch. And remember that Cuomo failed to listen to parents and educators that Common Core was an inherently flawed set of standards. (See this analysis of how Mulgrew endorsed Cuomo's New York State-level evaluation dictates.) Yet, Mulgrew has aggressively supported the standards, at one union function, threatening violence to anyone who dared to take them away. Mulgrew perpetuated the fiction that teachers had a role in writing the standards, when the truth is that no K through 12 educator wrote them.

Locally, Mulgrew has continued the Unity tradition of liking for a friendly mayoral candidate, and then failing to criticize the mistakes of that politician's policies once they are in office. Witness his continued support for mayor Bill DeBlasio whose chancellor Carmen Farina has proven to be no better than Bloomberg's chancellors. He has not challenged the DOE administration to part from the Bloomberg ways, and he has ignored the continuing problem of charter school encroachment on community schools and other district schools. By contrast, Jia Lee and the MORE caucus have challenged the administration on this enduring problem.

NYC Eye Endorses Jia Lee and the MORE slate for UFT's election in May

Vote for MORE & New Action. Elect a new leadership for the UFT. Leadership that's actually working in the classroom.
https://morecaucusnyc.org/uft-elections-2016/
https://morecaucusnyc.org/2016/01/02/our-2016-platform/
Hear WBAI interview Jia Lee (Presidential candidate), Camille Eterni (Secretary) and Jonathan Halabi (High School seat on the Executive Board) on the issues facing New York City teacher. Tune in to the "Building Bridges" show, Monday, April 25, 7:00-8:00 pm at 99.5 FM. If you're out of the broadcast area, catch the live stream at www.wbai.org.

Another Big Storm Hitting Northeast Next Week: NYC Teachers, Put a Snow Day Out of Your Thoughts

Another big storm is hitting the northeast next week.

You know the drill: the governor will solemnly intone: STAY OFF THE STREETS AT ALL COSTS.

And New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and Schools Chancellor Carmen Farina will say that it is business as usual and all New York City Schools staff must show up to work.

Never mind that Public Advocate Letitia James and an ever growing chorus of critics are questioning the No School Snow Closure policy.

Never mind that roads and sidewalks are often treacherous.
We have this eerie and tragic story from Mahwah, New Jersey of a woman caught dead in the snow:

YOUNG CHILDREN DISCOVER WOMAN'S BODY IN SNOW IN NEW JERSEY
How will it sit in de Blasio or Farina's conscience if such a perished person is a student on their way to school?

De Blasio will read this from Accuweather and say, "Great. Just rain next week. I'll keep schools open."

UFT Chapter Leaders Had to Go to Members For Dues? It Happened More Recently Than You Think

There is much nervous chatter that the United Federation of Teachers eventually will have to go to its members for dues.

Here is a link to a news report from three decades ago, on how the UFT had to do just that, albeit as a residual penalty for a five day strike seven years earlier.

By Damon Stetson, in the New York Times,May 23, 1982:

U.F.T. STARTS DRIVE TO GATHER ITS DUES

Myra Entenberg, a slim and energetic teacher at Public School 116 on East 33d Street, is playing an important role in keeping the United Federation of Teachers afloat financially. She is one of the union's 1,000 chapter chairmen working to assure the payment of dues following the union's loss of the right to deduct them automatically from paychecks.

''I've been talking to my group before class, during my prep period, at lunch and after school,'' she said. ''If support of the union is not solid, I've been telling them, they'll have no bargaining agent, no contract, no working conditions or benefits and no machinery for handling grievances. But most of the teachers and paraprofessionals here in P.S. 116 want to keep paying their dues because they've been getting service. And so far about 80 percent have agreed to make individual payments.''

The union's $15 million-a-year dues collection problem stems from a penalty imposed by the New York State Public Employment Relations Board for the illegal, five-day strike of the city's teachers in 1975. The penalty called for the suspension of the right to have dues automatically deducted from paychecks for up to two years.

The union went to court immediately to challenge the ruling. But the issue dragged through the courts for nearly seven years until last month, when the State Court of Appeals upheld the suspension order, forcing the union to begin direct collection of dues from its 70,000 members this month. 'Pretty Devastating' Loss

Albert Shanker, president of the union, said that implementation of the penalty could not have come at a worse time and that the loss of dues checkoff was ''pretty devastating'' financially. He said the union is now fighting budget cuts by the Reagan Administration that could mean the loss of $180 million for schools here and with it the jobs of thousands of teachers and paraprofessionals. The state-aid picture, he said, is unclear. And now, he added, the union has to devote a lot of time, energy and money to collect dues. Will the union be able to survive?

''That depends on the response of our members,'' Mr. Shanker said. ''If everybody pays, the union will survive and function on all cylinders. Even better, we will have shown those who'd like to destroy us that they can't.

''On the other hand, if any substantial numbers of our members don't pay their dues, we could go under - and very quickly.'' The union, he pointed out, does not have cash reserves. He said all dues money was spent on services to members: on negotiations, grievances and arbitration, on legal services and on lobbying at City Hall, in the Legislature and in Congress. Other money is spent, he said, on pension workshops, publications, curriculum guides, special courses for licensure, for help in the classroom, and for public relations. Union Makes Cutbacks

As a result of the loss of dues checkoff, the federation has let some staff members go, canceled plans for new hiring and stopped contributions to such causes as the American Cancer Society, museums, Boy Scouts and various foundations.

To counter the impact, the union has mounted an aggressive and sophisticated drive to collect dues and maintain services. By this week, the first in which dues have not been deducted from paychecks by the Board of Education, the union said it had received commitments from 28,573 members for payment of dues during the extended penalty period. At 40 schools, teachers and paraprofessionals are 100 percent pledged to continue their dues payments, according to the union.

For the full New York Times article, click here.