Michael Mulgrew and the present city and state emergency

Yes, it is time to appropriate language of the late 1970s/ early 1980s Cold Warriors:

We are suffering from a "present danger," "present emergency."

Let us get it straight, despite appointed United Federation of Teacher's (UFT) Michael Mulgrew' occasionally blustery delivery, Mulgrew's leadership has not been "genius."

William Thompson was far from the ideal candidate. But he is not engaged in a holy war against the teaching profession that Bloomberg/Klein have.

We are enduring a crisis, one that would look different had Mulgrew had taken a proactive position immediately from his entry into his job.
UFT LEADERSHIP AND THE BEATEN WIFE SYNDROME
Except for the lawsuit that --for immediate period-- has saved 19 schools threatened with closure, Mulgrew's posture has been an inheritance of the Randi Weingarten posture for the union, which has been the beaten wife syndrome: don't raise your voice, don't speak out, don't oppose, just oppose the beatings, just hope that they don't get worse.

The UFT leadership needs an aggressive, broad ranging campaign that not only addresses city power forces and Albany (New York State legislature and governor), but also directly engages the public. We bloggers have all addressed the outrages of the city. We should also address the misguided path of the New York State government which will force draconian cuts upon the schools.

We need more than the cute animated TV advertisements for the UFT. We need the UFT to use its hundreds of officials to transform into a grassroot network that would go to the public on weekends or evening rush hours and inform the public of the terrible consequences of the planned cuts in funds from the state, the terrible consequences from laying off 8,500 teachers, the discriminatory inequity of the charter schools, the factual distortion of the small schools record.

Mulgrew has never spoken in this direction. James Eterno and the other activists of the Independent Community of Educators (ICE) and Teachers for a Just Contract (TJC) have already practiced much of this suggested strategy: speaking at public fora, walking at evening picket lines at schools under threat of closure.
VOTE FOR JAMES ETERNO FOR UFT AND FOR THE ENTIRE ICE/TJC SLATE.

75% failed to vote in the last UFT election. Don't let this happen. Download this ICE-TJC flier on voting.

Judge sides with education activists -halts closing of 19 NYC schools

Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Joan Lobis has heeded the arguments of many education activists and the NAACP in halting the closure of 19 New York City schools.

In the context of the current United Federation of Teachers elections, people should remember that it was the dissident community, activists from the Independent Community of Educators (ICE) and Teachers for a Just Contract (TJC) slates that fought long and hard, and early against the closure of city schools. The dominant UFT caucus, the so-called Unity caucus, only joined the struggle against the school closures in the last few months.
The Daily News broke the news Friday night: Tanyanika Samuels and Rachel Monahan, "Judge sides with teachers; halts city plan to close 19 schools" "Daily News," March 26, 2010

In a stunning blow to education officials, a judge halted the controversial closing of 19 failing schools that some teachers and students fought to keep open.

Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Joan Lobis's ruling Friday sided with the teachers union and the NAACP in their case against the city, which temporarily delayed the high school admissions process.

The surprising decision elated critics of the mass closures, who packed hearings to speak up for their schools, while city officials vowed to appeal.

"The principal made an announcement over the loud speaker and immediately cheers sounded throughout the school," said Christine Rowland, a teacher at Christopher Columbus High School in the Bronx. "We are thrilled. This is very exciting."

"Some people ran out into the hallways yelling 'yay,'" said Carlos Perez, 16, ninth-grader, at Global Enterprise High School, in the Bronx. "I think it's great. They should have just left the school alone."

The lawsuit charged that the city had not followed the requirement under the new mayoral control of schools law that officials must provide a full explanation of how the closings would affect school communities.

Lobis found the city "failed to comply with the requirements" of the law and ruled that the middle of the night vote that approved the closing schools in January is "null and void."

"We feel vindicated about our concern that closing these schools without a real process was problematic," said Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, one of the elected officials who sued.

City Corporation Counsel Michael A. Cardozo said the city is planning to appeal the decision immediately. "We are disappointed by today's ruling, which, unless it is reversed, requires the Department of Education to keep open schools that are failing our children," he said in statement.

"Contrary to the ruling, we believe that the Department of Education complied with the notice and public hearing requirements in the new law."

Lobis had temporarily banned the city Education Department from giving eighth-graders high school decision letters, which were slated to be handed out Wednesday.

But her judgment allows the letters to go out to all but 8,500 students who applied for admission to the closing high schools. The decision did not come in time for the letters to be given to students before spring break.

"As soon as possible, the Office of Student Enrollment will mail your child's high school admissions letter to the home address listed on his or her high school application," Chancellor Joel Klein wrote in a letter to parents.

There was no immediate indication from the city on whether they will appeal the decision, which will also affect at least 10 new school slated to take over space in closing schools next fall.

After a teachers union lawsuit last year, the city Department of Education backed down on closing three schools - Public Schools 194 and 241 in Manhattan and PS 150 in Brooklyn.

Those schools remained open and were not put on the closing list again.

"We're ecstatic," said James Eterno, a social studies teacher and the teachers union chapter leader at Jamaica High School, in Queens.

"The word is spreading like wildfire throughout the school. We feel like we're born again, like we got a stay of execution."

List of the 19 schools:

1. Academy of Environmental Science

2. School for Community Research and Learning

3. Christopher Columbus High School

4. Global Enterprise High School

5. Monroe Academy for Business/Law

6. Metropolitan Corporate Academy

7. Robeson High School

8. W.H. Maxwell CTE High School

9. Beach Channel High School

10. Jamaica High School

11. Business, Computer Applications and Entrepreneurship High School

12. PS 332

13. KAPPA II

14. Academy of Collaborative Education

15. Middle School for Academic and Social Excellence

16. New Day Academy

17. Choir Academy of Harlem High School

18. Frederick Douglass Academy III Middle School

19. Norman Thomas High School

Read more.

Vote for James Eterno and ICE-TJC slates for new UFT leadership

Vote for James Eterno for the new UFT (United Federation of Teachers) president.

Sure, the annointed, unelected UFT interim acting president Michael Mulgrew puts on confident talk on television, but on every point, Mulgrew and his predecessor's response to the multiple, successive crises that the city, the state and the national education secretary has been weak and ineffective.




Why vote for the ICE-TJC slates and not "for the woman" or "for the man" in this month's UFT elections?
--because the problems of the UFT today are not accidental. The problems stem from a lethargic, cronyistic, insular clique that is the Unity faction. The Unity caucus has entirely forgotten its fighting roots of the Albert Shanker era (yes, even withstanding his Cold Warrior-ism); it has forgotten that every gain was from an aggressive, pro-active posture, of waging strikes.

Read the above ICE-TJC campaign flyer. The Independent Community of Educators (ICE) stands for principles of a stronger contract, rather than the ineffective Unity clique that has made concessions that have allowed the most hostile working climate for teachers since the 1970s or possibly since the 1960s.

Click here for the ICE UFT election flyer, as presented on their blog.
ICE is joining ranks with Teachers for a Just Contract, which is fighting for a better contract, as well as fighting for a stronger rank and file participation for the activism of the union.
You can reach Teachers for a Just Contract by calling (212) 831 3408.

TJC's mailing address is
Teachers for a Just Contract
Post Office Box 545
New York, N.Y. 10028

Their email address is justcontract@yahoo.com.

TJC's flyer on the UFT, the ATR crisis and the mayoral election

The Teachers for a Just Contract has been doing good work as a caucus competing with the Unity Caucus which dominates officer positions in the United Federation of Teachers. They (along with ICE) have a competing candidate (James Eterno) for UFT president in next year's UFT president election.

They have offered serious critical analysis of New York City's Absent Teacher Reserve ("ATR") crisis, which the Unity Caucus conceded to with the 2005 contract. Before we share the TJC flyer on the UFT and the ATR crisis, let's discuss the ATR issue. The 2005 contract gave away seniority transfer rights. This was a dream-come-true for the city, for the city could pursue its ageist (or at long employment service)-cleansing of the teacher ranks. With the closing down and breaking apart of schools, the Department of Education was able to eliminate the people that it considered bad: the veteran teachers. The city not only preferred younger, cheaper teachers, it castigated the thoughts, teaching methods and energy of veteran teachers as out-of-date, old-school, un-progressive, worn, tired and so on.
The teachers that seemed too expensive or out of sync with the new ideas of pedagogy were rejected in the new pools of teachers in the restructured schools. The rejected teachers became the ATRs. Thus, the ATR scheme worked hand in glove with the restructuring of schools.

STRATEGY ON ATRs, THE LOCAL SCENE
The buzz on the web is that scorned teachers should alert the local chapter leader and petition for placement on the school's teacher rolls. This is a trap, for while the ATR teacher would be getting a bona fide position and would be on the good side of Joel Klein and media-fed public opinion, the ATR teacher that secured the teaching position would be on the principal's bad side from the start. The principal would have a potential grudge against the teacher: the principal would see the ATR as forced on him/her, as dislodging her choice for a newer, "fresher-thinking" teacher. And the older ATR teacher could find him/herself the target of principal wrath with letters-in-the-file, negative observations and the like.
HOW SHOULD THE UNION PROCEED?
Here is where the top-down power and a top-down strategy is safer: the union could demand an audit of the schools. The union, the city, the chancellor have put a public face that the ATRs must be placed, and that there must be a freeze on the outside hires.
Yet, we all know that the reality is that the principals (particularly those trained in the Leadership Academy), inculcated with seven years of Klein-driven anti-established teacher thought, have been hiring novice teachers, ahead of ATR teachers, often at schools where there are seasoned (ATR) veterans in the same license area that are working at office-work assignments instead of teaching actual classes.
Let's see if Interim Acting United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew has the moxie. Will he force an audit of the DoE's hiring patterns; will he force the placement of the seasoned veteran ATR teachers, or will he ignore the issue and let the city take the initiative?

HERE IS THE TJC FLYER ON THE UFT AND THE ATR CRISIS, which touches on the union's neutrality in the mayoral race.
CLICK ON THE FLYER PAGES TO DOWNLOAD THE FLYER.