The truth is, these tests were designed to create a narrative of failure, and the trends are not so different from those we saw on the old tests: we are failing our children with special needs, our English language learners, our children who live in poverty, and a disproportionate number of black and Latino pupils.
It is no surprise that the results mirror the struggles and deep flaws in our society. Of course, the goal was never to actually fix our schools — there are no profits in doing that. There are no profits in providing small class sizes, experienced educators and services like counseling, tutoring and family support — proven reforms that would benefit all students.
Instead, the focus is on unproven standards and the tests that supposedly measure our student’s competency — written by the very people who profit from their use.
Julie Cavanagh says the Common Core was designed to create a narrative of failure.
So it is extremely telling that there is a problem with the UFT and NYSUT elections when you consider the fact that a teacher and activist of Cavanagh’s caliber has, not once but twice lost elections to Michael Mulgrew. She lost an election to him for UFT President in 2013 and then lost to him this past April when she ran against him for an at-large position on NYSUT’s board of directors. You saw Cavanagh’s well stated opinion on the Common Core above. Contrast that with Mulgrew who talks about punching people in the face and then pushing their face in the dirt if they take away his Common Core. Keep in mind the UFT President is likely the most powerful teachers union position in the country. Wouldn’t we be so much better off with someone like Cavanagh representing us in that position?
Two different takes on the Common Core, two different takes on unionism. It’s a shame our leadership is on the wrong side in both cases.
Mike Mulgrew will punch you in the face and rub it in the dirt if you take away his Common Core.
A lot was made in the lead up to the NYSUT election in April about the Revive NYSUT slate’s apparent fondness for Governor Cuomo. This parent’s account of events at NYSUT’s “Picket in the Pines” earlier this month would seem to back that up…
At NYSUT’s rally at Lake Placid, it became painfully obvious that NYSUT was not there to challenge Cuomo — all the rhetoric was directed at DFER and the Walton Foundation. None of the rally speakers said anything about Cuomo (or even Gates!). The most obvious giveaway that NYSUT had completely sold out came when the NYSUT photographer wanted to take a picture of a child who was wearing a sign that said, I “heart” public school, but he wouldn’t take a picture of the child’s brother whose sign said, No Mo Cuomo. The photographer explicitly stated that NYSUT wouldn’t publish anything against Cuomo! If all this is true, union leadership is even more effed up than I thought….
Barbara Madeloni won an election to become the President of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, an NEA affiliate. Congrats to her. Like Chicago’s CORE Caucus, NYSUT’s STronger Together, and the UFT’s dissident MORE Caucus, Madeloni represents a more aggressive, progressive, and militant form of unionism.
We have a few links on the UFT’s controversial contract agreement. Our friends from MORE are urging a NO vote…
Our features this week (intro, James Eterno, Arthur Goldstein, Reality-Based Educator) that have shown how the leadership of the United Federation of Teachers operates may understandably leave you with a bad taste in your mouth regarding the state’s biggest local. Today’s post is meant to highlight some of the extraordinary work being done by rank and file UFT members, in spite of the leadership of the Unity Caucus. While a great deal of their members do the “every day hero” work that so many teachers across the country do, still others do tremendous work blogging about education (see our guest bloggers at NYC Educator and Perdido Street School). However one group in particular jumps out for their activism. That group is the MORE Caucus (@MOREcaucusNYC).
The MORE Caucus, standing for the Movement Of Rank And File Educators, bills itself as “The Social Justice Caucus of the UFT”. Anybody who knows them knows that there is no finer example of grassroots unionism in New York. Not the faux grassroots that the Pallotta/Mulgrew Revive NYSUT slate is touting, but real bottom up, member driven unionism. So who exactly is the MORE Caucus and what do they stand for? Via their mission statement…
1. We are members of the UFT and members of school communities and their allies.
2. We insist on receiving professional dignity and respect, and we insist on a strong, democratic union emerging from an educated and active rank and file. We oppose the lack of democracy and one-party state that has governed our union for half a century. It has conceded to our adversaries’ agendas and has collaborated with their attacks on us, leading to the terrible situation we find ourselves in.
3. We insist on a better educational environment for ourselves and for the students whose lives we touch. Because of this resolve, we have established the MORE Caucus, which will educate, organize and mobilize the UFT membership.
The onslaught of high-stakes testing, privatization, weakening or elimination of job protections, school closings and charter co- locations threatens the very existence of public education as we know it. Unionized teachers in particular have been singled out for demonization. The strategy put forth by our union leadership to take on these challenges is inadequate. UFT officials rely primarily on lobbying, media blitzes and procedural lawsuits. When occasional mobilizations are called, they are organized without a long-term plan for escalating actions or increased membership involvement. The union leadership takes a concessionary stance in order to maintain its “seat at the table” with politicians and corporate forces like Bill Gates, who turn around and attack teachers and the union at every opportunity. Union leadership then sells serious concessions to the members as victories claiming – “It could have worse”.
Some of the key policy failures of the UFT leadership:
• Supporting mayoral control even in the face of the devastating impact
• A weak stand against closing schools
• A compromising position on charter schools and co-locations
• Giving up on the fight to reduce class size
• The acceptance of rating teachers based on high-stakes tests
• Agreeing to merit pay even though every single study shows the failure of this policy
• Steadily deteriorating working conditions and power in the workplace
• Erosion of job security and tenure protections
• A one-party undemocratic system that shuts out the voices of the members
We need something different. A union that fights for the rights of students, teachers and communities.
A union that fights for racial and economic justice inside and outside our schools.
Like the PJSTA, the MORE Caucus is an official member of the New York State Allies for Public Education. MORE was formed in 2012, modeled in many ways after the CORE Teachers who only a couple of years earlier wrested control of the Chicago Teachers Union and have since become the model for how teacher unionism should be the United States.
Last spring, for the first time, MORE participated in the UFT elections as challengers to the Unity Caucus. They were led by their candidate for UFT President, Julie Cavanagh, who was known for her tremendous work fighting for public education, including co-narrating and co-producing The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman. While they did not win the election, MORE garnered significant support considering their status as newcomers and, more importantly, the hurdles that stand in the way of fair elections within their local. In his guest post earlier this week MORE member James Eterno detailed some of those hurdles (emphasis mine)…
In the most recent UFT election in 2013, less than 20% of active teachers voted. Members received a booklet in the mail with over a thousand names on it. Most people who did vote chose a slate, which means they voted for all of the candidates from one caucus (political party) with one mark.
The party that has controlled UFT politics for around half a century is the Unity Caucus, the Michael Mulgrew-Randi Weingarten faction of the UFT. Their huge base of support is among retirees, who now make up a majority of the UFT voters.
There is no way for dissidents (the Movement of Rank and File Educators in the last election) to reach those retirees who live all over the place, other than one ad in the New York Teacher newspaper every three years. Union officers, on the other hand, have complete access to the retirees.
A major union leader told me that when they visit schools during campaign season, they don’t campaign officially but everyone knows that they are there to run for office. How is it that UFT officials manage to visit Florida retirees during the election season? Challengers, who have to teach here in New York City, do not have any access to the masses of voters.
The opposition MORE slate and quasi opposition New Action slate combined won a majority of high school votes in the last UFT election. That netted the two groups zero representation in NYSUT’s RA.
For a more detailed analysis of the election turnout visit Kit Wainer’s piece here.
Unfortunately the power hungry Unity Caucus has set up a system that shuts out opposition voice within their local. As a result, NYSUT members do not get to enjoy the benefit of having members from the MORE Caucus participate in higher levels of our statewide union. There will be no MORE members with a vote in April’s NYSUT election. Outside of Andy Pallotta, Mike Mulgrew, and the Revive NYSUT slate of candidates I can’t think that this makes any teacher in New York State happy.
The contested election in this year’s NYSUT elections have, at the very least, brought a number of important issues to the forefront. Hopefully that results in meaningful changes within the next three years so that together we can build a stronger, member driven union. Unfortunately, as currently constituted, this is NOT what democracy looks like!
I’ll leave you with this video of MORE’s Brian Jones speaking about teacher unions…
The NYSUT drama continued to roll on this week. It is quite a nuanced debate, particularly for those people who aren’t familiar with the inner workings of the statewide union. We’ll try and connect some dots for you…
Earlier this week former Executive Vice-President Alan Lubin wrote a letter backing Pallotta. Lubin clearly made a significant attempt to put to bed the notion that this is a “UFT take over of NYSUT”. He made the point that the UFT would only hold two of the five officer positions. He failed to make the point that all of the officer positions would be hand picked by UFT/Unity hack Andy Pallotta. For those people who have believed that Lubin has always been the one pulling the strings of Pallotta, this did nothing to silence them.
Yesterday Revive NYSUT posted an endorsement from UFT President Michael Mulgrew. “We support the Revive NYSUT Unity slate. We have heard the voices from locals across the state and agree with their call for change.” Two days earlier, in a love letter to Governor Cuomoletter to his members addressing Governor Cuomo’s budget proposal, Mulgrew said “The governor’s budget proposal is a good start for the legislative process, one that puts the needs of New York’s children and educators at the center of the debate.” This is the same Mulgrew whose UFT DA last week refused to rule out a Cuomo endorsement. For people who believe that Pallotta’s slate wants to endorse Cuomo, the Mulgrew endorsement was more fuel for the fire. Revive NYSUT claims to promote “grassroots unionism”. I wonder how they felt about Mulgrew’s refusal to debate his opponent last spring, a true grassroots unionist, Julie Cavanagh.
Today, over at Ed Notes Online, Norm Scott continued his brilliant coverage of this topic. Scott received a copy of a letter sent from UFT rank and file members to NYSUT President Dick Iannuzzi. In it they say…
The influence that the UFT has on the decisions of NYSUT must be countered. Andrew Cuomo is not a friend to teachers. Andrew Cuomo isn’t even close to being fair to teachers. If Michael Mulgrew wants to support Andrew Cuomo, he should do so by writing a personal check. We are certainly not the only UFT members who feel abandoned by the UFT. It is time for NYSUT’s locals to unite against the useless behemoth of a local called the UFT and take steps to protect the hardworking teachers of NYS.
One of the teachers who sent that letter, Roseanne McCosh, also had this to say…
I worked with Andy Pallotta when we were both Dist 10 chapter leaders and I continued as chapter leader while he was the Dist 10 rep. I am no longer chapter leader but I was replaced by someone strong and on the right side of the issues.
On a personal level I have a lot of good things to say about Andy. But this UFT/NYSUT situation ain’t personal— it’s business, and I completely disagree with Andy on how vehemently we should be fighting those looking to eliminate teachers’ unions and wreak havoc on the day to day conditions under which we must try to teach. I spoke with Andy this past summer and expressed my frustration with the lack of leadership on tackling Albany and the DOE head on. Andy’s a peacemaker. I’m a fighter. We disagree on tactics. He had a VP from the UFT call me (For the life of me I can’t remember her damn name) and I was given lip service that the UFT was on top of this whole eval system. I knew I was being placated and ended the conversation noting that time would tell how ahead of all of these issues the UFT would be in the months to come.
To get an in depth look at the evaluation system that the UFT was “on top of” you can take a look here.
“The ‘bad teacher’ narrative as a way of explaining what’s wrong with our school system gets really old,” Ms. Cavanagh said. “Our union has taken a stance that we will collaborate and compromise and that is shortsighted when the other side seems bent on destroying you.”
Julie Cavanagh during her appearance on MSNBC this fall.
More news from Seattle where Garfield High School teachers have decided to boycott standardized tests that they were to be evaluated on…
Superintendent Jose Banda has issued a warning to teachers who fail to administer the tests, threatening them with a ten day suspension. The insistence of the teachers to go through with the boycott in spite of such threats makes their actions even more heroic.
NEA President Dennis Van Roekel, president of those Seattle teachers’ parent union, has finally broken his silence on the matter with this statement of support…
“Today is a defining moment within the education profession as educators at Seattle’s Garfield High School take a heroic stand against using the MAP test as a basis for measuring academic performance and teacher effectiveness. I, along with 3 million educators across the country, proudly support their efforts in saying ‘no’ to giving their students a flawed test that takes away from learning and is not aligned with the curriculum. Garfield High School educators are receiving support from the parents of Garfield students. They have joined an ever-growing chorus committed to one of our nation’s most critical responsibilities—educating students in a manner that best serves the realization of their fullest potential.
“Educators across the country know what’s best for their students, and it’s no different for our members in Seattle. We know that having well-designed assessment tools can help students evaluate their own strengths and needs, and help teachers improve. This type of assessment isn’t done in one day or three times a year. It’s done daily, and educators need the flexibility to collaborate with their colleagues and the time to evaluate on-going data to make informed decisions about what’s best for students.
“If we want a system that is designed to help all students, we must allow educators, parents, students and communities to be a part of the process and have a stronger voice in this conversation as they demand high-quality assessments that support student learning. Off-the-shelf assessments that are not aligned with the curriculum or goals of the school are not the answer.”
The anti-union, anti-public education propoganda film “Won’t Back Down” recorded the worst opening weekend of any film in wide distribution (more than 2,500 screens) in 30 years.
Someone needs to launch an investigation into what combination of crimes, dares, alcoholic binges and lapses in judgment got Viola Davis and Maggie Gyllenhaal into this movie. Neither of them seems likely to sympathize with its thinly veiled labor-bashing agenda and, way more to the point, I thought they had better taste.
The Official Website of the PJSTA 