A Chicago Observer's Analysis of DOE-UFT Evaluation Talks Collapse

From Fred Klosky, an ally of real education reform in Chicago, cites the MORE caucus in "Watching from a distance. NY teacher evaluation blows up. Updated.", January 18, 2013:

Watching from a distance, I responded with a smile when I heard that the negotiations over teacher evaluations between the UFT and New York’s Mayor Bloomberg blew up yesterday.

Governor Cuomo had put a deadline for an agreement to evaluate teachers based on student test scores, a stupid idea to be sure.

We’ve covered that territory before.

Cuomo threatened that without an agreement the city schools would be denied $250 million.

Now some in the NY press [the NY Post] are screaming that the teachers (read the Union) cost the schools all that money.

Not that $250 million is chump change. But really it is.

It’s probably not much more than the total value of all of Bloomberg’s homes.

Here’s a question: Why should adequate funding of New York’s public schools be dependent on an evaluation agreement between Bloomberg and the teachers?

NY teachers have been without a contract since 2009, before Bloomberg’s re-election.

Many of my NY friends were justifiably concerned that UFT President Michael Mulgrew and the UFT leadership would cave to the bully-boy Mayor on this.

You can read UFT leader Leo Casey’s description of the bargaining here.

Maybe we can thank Bloomberg for being too big a jerk for even that to happen.

NY’s Movement of Rank and File Educators (MORE) which organized a street protest of the deal yesterday, said:

The passing of the January 17 deadline for a new evaluation agreement is not an ending but a beginning. Now the DOE will work overtime to spin doctor the failure to reach an agreement on new teacher evaluations, mandated by New York State’s version of Race to the Top, as the fault of Michael Mulgrew and union leadership. This despite the fact that every indication shows it was Bloomberg who failed to negotiate in good faith.

While we applaud the UFT leadership for standing their ground, the MORE Caucus has no intention of giving up the fight to prevent our teachers and students from being given over to the standardized testing regime. We know there will be efforts in the future to convert our schools into low-level thinking factories and our teachers into low-skilled, low-paid bureaucratic functionaries.

UPDATED: One Thousand Evaluation Petition-Signing Teachers Can't Be Wrong --The Real Story Behind the Evaluation Talks Collapse

UPDATES AT END: GOTHAM SCHOOLS LINKS WITH MORE ANALYSIS OF EVALUATIONS TALKS COLLAPSE - MULGREW CONTINUES TO MISS POINT - SPITEFUL NYC GOV'T SENDS INSPECTORS AFTER THE UFT The New York City are news was abuzz since 2:00 pm with news that talks between New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg and United Federation of Teachers Michael Mulgrew over teacher evaluations had broken down.

Some main points lost in the discussion:
UFT president Mulgrew has basically changed his posture on the question of the teacher evaluation system.

Developments seemed all pointed towards go for the high-stakes test based evaluation system (20 percent of a teacher's rating from state tests, 20 percent from local --read, city-- assessments). Then in a mid-December delegate assembly of the union, the MORE caucus advocated a democratic vote by the rank and file members of the union. The Daily News was rare among news outlets to catch the significance of the action, albeit, in a December 29, 2012 editorial, and without naming the active party involved:

Far more pertinent, at a union delegate assembly, a motion opposing Mulgrew’s authority to reach an evaluation deal with Chancellor Dennis Walcott — demanding instead that the matter be put to the membership — won a stunning 30% of the votes. A union president accustomed to 95% support then ran scared. Before that, by some accounts, Mulgrew and Walcott appeared to be progressing toward a deal even though Mulgrew veered far and wide, wanting to discuss even next year’s school closures.

But then, last week, he demanded that the city and the union must first settle how the new system will be implemented and rolled out, and how teachers will be trained in it . . . .

(Read more at the Daily News.)
Published yesterday morning, January 17, 2013, before the early afternoon announcement of the evaluation talks breakdown, "Potent Mix of Politics Shapes Current Education Debate" in the New York Times Schoolbook, Tim Clifford, a New York City teacher penned another distinctively accurate representation of the MORE strategic position in Mulgrew's changing posture. He pointed out that MORE's activities around the evaluation have Mulgrew nervous, as his Soviet-style 91 percent victory could be difficult to replicate unless he make some moves to co-opt the mass energy pushing back against the value-added test-based evaluation system. Truthfully, the hand-writing was clear at the start of the week, with MORE's announcement of a rally (for a membership vote) outside UFT headquarters, set for half an hour before the delegate assembly. Here is the latter part of Clifford's Times article, with the crucial election year elements included:

It’s likely that both the city and the UFT want an evaluation deal. For Bloomberg, this could be his last chance effect a major change in how teachers are hired and fired after several failed attempts to get rid of LIFO (Last In First Out) rules for excessing and layoffs. Yet he has insisted that the deal must include a means of holding teachers’ “feet to the fire” by making evaluations public, which is not required by state law. For its part, the UFT had a hand in crafting the new Annual Profession Performance Review (APPR) in the first place, helping limit efforts to make standardized test scores count for more than 25% of a teacher’s grade.

But there are other underlying political factors that may hinder an agreement. Foremost among these is the upcoming UFT election. Last time, Michael Mulgrew, then basically an unknown among teachers, won a staggering 91 percent of the vote as the protégé of outgoing president Randi Weingarten, facing no meaningful opposition. This time around, a new caucus has been gaining traction. This caucus, called MORE (Movement of Rank and File Educators), opposes any teacher evaluation agreement based on standardized test scores, which critics argue have a wide margin of error and other problems.

MORE’s candidate for president, Julie Cavanagh, is a well-spoken, well-regarded educator who is beginning to make a dent in Mulgrew’s hold on leadership. MORE’s recent resolution to have members vote on any evaluation deal, rather than union delegates mostly loyal to Mulgrew, garnered a significant amount of support. Said Cavanagh: “It is unacceptable that he (Mulgrew) does not recognize the truth: That the highest decision-making body of this union is its rank and file members. We should decide if ‘we as a union’ accept this: Because we are our union.”

Membership unrest in Chicago due to evaluations led to the ouster of the leadership there and conferred near hero status among unionists to Karen Lewis, who stood up to education reformers; the same could happen here if teachers are dissatisfied with the evaluation deal. And lest the potential mayoral candidates feel too sanguine, the story of Adrian Fenty, who was booted out as mayor of Washington, D.C. due largely to his support for test-obsessed Michelle Rhee, should act as a cautionary tale.

Complicating matters further is the teachers’ contract. The current deal expired in October, 2009, and the UFT did not receive the 4 + 4 percent over two years that other city workers got at the time. There is pressure on the union to settle a contract right away by tying evaluations to a new contract with higher wages, but there is also considerable sentiment that the UFT should wait out the Bloomberg era and try to get a favorable deal from the next mayor.

If Bloomberg and Mulgrew fail to come to terms on a contract, pressure will brought to bear on the current crop of mayoral hopefuls as to what kind of contract, with what kinds of wage increases, they’d be willing to sign. Democratic candidates are sure to vigorously court the UFT’s endorsement but by doing so they may risk losing financial support from Bloomberg, who will likely try to keep his reforms intact.

Other issues face the schools as we enter a new year. A bus strike is upon us. The city is looking to close 26 more schools, and is certain to be met with a fight. Governor Andrew Cuomo stepped into the fray in his State of the State address, calling for a teacher “bar” exam, as well as a longer school day and year that could add 300 hours to the school year without a clear means of financing those initiatives, which easily would cost billions of dollars in an age when school budgets have been cut every year for the last four years.

While the outcomes may not be certain, one thing is: 2013 promises to be a contentious year in education in New York. Whoever wins their political battles this year will likely affect the city’s schools well into the foreseeable future.

This writer is pleased that Mulgrew is speaking truth to power, calling mayor Bloomberg's assertions lies, however, the wish remains that he would directly and comprehensively reject the illogic undergirding these tests. Click again to the original, now classic, Gary Rubinstein statistical analyses of New York student test performances.

Why critical thinking is important: (Critical thinking ... something missing in the Common Core and the other new trends ... hmm.)

This chart of Value-Added Measures, from an article by math instructor Gary Rubinstein, demonstrates how no real correlation can be drawn between the scores of students in one year with generally the same students in another year. (Actually, good fortune of down servers preventing access to the original Rubinstein post brings us to another mathematician's quite scattered plotting of test results. See below.)

* * *

Moreover, this writer points out that Mulgrew is still enthusiastically defending the indefensible: see "MULGREW TELLS DELEGATES SCUTTLED NEW EVALUATION SYSTEM WOULD BE GREATEST THING SINCE SLICED BREAD" at the ICE-UFT blog.

This blog said the following last week: "The UFT is willing to concede on almost everything but Bloomberg's people may make it so humiliating that President Mulgrew would not even get a fig-leaf out of this. On the other hand, the Union could demand real safeguards (a right to grieve any unfair evaluations) so the DOE would reject any agreement." We were almost completely right except it looks like it was the mayor and not the DOE that inserted the poison pills. The fig-leaf was the two year sunset clause and the expedited arbitration if procedures weren't followed.
Trust me these were not great gains.

What happens next? I see the UFT going over the mayor's head to the state to try to get the system into law. What should people be doing? Call, email or talk to your union representatives, particularly Unity Chapter Leaders, and tell them you want no part of this and the real fight in Albany and Washington DC is to change the law so that no part of any teacher's rating is based on junk science.

* * *

UNITY-UFT STANDING IN THE WAY OF A MEMBERSHIP VOTE

Yes, there is no new evaluation system. But the UFT leadership remains tarnished for blocking a membership-wide vote on the system. For, contracts are voted on by the membership. The evaluation system has contract-like effects and significance.

Additionally unsettling is that the Unity leadership used its staff director lecture the delegates back in December about what the democratic representation scope is for the delegates. Certainly, a great error in principal. This excerpt from the ICE-UFT blog's report of that earlier Delegate Assembly:

Leroy Barr was called on to refute Kit's points. Leroy said that the membership elects Delegates and Chapter Leaders to represent members and the DA has a proud history of these duly elected representatives doing their job.

UPDATES:
Back to the analysis of the talks breakdown, Mulgrew still won't own up to the reality that his tentative evaluation agreement --yes, it is debatable as to whether there was some deal ready in the middle of the night-- was morbidly flawed, given that it was resting on illogical premises of the VAM testing models. His complaints have been around secondary, yet still important, side-issues. (The same can be said for Leo Casey writing at EdWize. He still has not rejected the fundamentally flawed VAM basis for the evaluations.) It's understandable that they will not own up to the essential core flaw of the high-stakes test-based evaluation system, for they has to save face.

The MORE caucus on its website, "Post-Mortem: The Non-Deal Between the UFT and DOE," has cited three critical reasons behind the failure of the evaluation deal, with discussion of each reason:
--Reason #1: Race to the Top is Bad Policy
--Reason #2: A Growing Backlash against Education Reform
--Reason #3: High-Handed and Un-Democratic School Leadership

We cannot entirely rest and must be watchful. There are rumors that the UFT might try to squeak in a deal in the next few weeks.

THE PERSISTENT PROBLEM OF THE UFT'S TOP-DOWN, UN-DEMOCRATIC MANNER
It is being argued, and rightly so, that the UFT ought to release the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), so that the UFT members may see what teacher evaluation agreement almost was agreed to. And just as the Great Powers' problem of secret negotiations and World War I, there is a major problem for democracy when the issues in the MOU are being kept from the members, as though we are young children.

New York City sends inspectors after the United Federation of Teachers after the breakdown of evaluations talks, UFT president Mulgrew tweets.

Right-minded teachers ought to oppose this harassment, this intimidation of our union.

UPDATED: NYC School Bus Drivers on Strike Wednesday - No Support from the UFT

NYC SCHOOL BUS DRIVERS STRIKE WEDNESDAY - NO SOLIDARITY STATEMENT FROM UFT PRESIDENT MULGREW - MORE CAUCUS (UFT) ISSUES SOLIDARITY STATEMENT - TEAMSTERS WILL HONOR PICKET LINE, SAY STRIKE IS ABOUT AUSTERITY - TEAMSTERS LOCAL PRESIDENT BLASTS BLOOMBERG - THE NATION: STRIKE IS ABOUT PRIVATIZATION
SCROLL TO END FOR UPDATES
New York City School bus drivers and matrons, represented by Local 1181 of the Amalgamated Transit Union voted today, Monday, January 14, to strike on Wednesday, January 16. New York City mayoral Michael Bloomberg and Chancellor Walcott have already issued a statement against the strike.

(Contact the Mayor today at 1-888-833-7428. Also click this link to sign the AFL-CIO's solidarity petition with the school bus drivers, under the slogan "Who do you want driving your child’s school bus?")



Andy Newman of the New York Times reports:

New York City’s school bus drivers will go on strike on Wednesday, the head of their union said Monday afternoon.

“While we remain optimistic that we can reach an agreement,” said Michael Cordiello, president of Local 1181 of the Amalgamated Transit Union, the strike is to begin on Wednesday morning.

“This is not a decision we’ve arrived at lightly, but an action we must take,” Mr. Cordiello said.

A strike would require as many as 152,000 city public and private school students to find another way to get to school. The city has said it would provide parents and students with MetroCards and reimburse cab fare for those without access to public transportation.

The central issue in the labor dispute is job protection for the drivers. Last month, the city’s Education Department announced that it would accept competitive bids for 1,100 of its routes — about a sixth of the total — for children with disabilities. If the vendors who employ some of the most experienced yellow-bus drivers lose their city contracts, the drivers could lose their jobs.

The Raw Story reported Bloomberg's statements:

Mayor Michael Bloomberg called the strike “regrettable” and said the union was “abandoning” the tens of thousands of students and their families who rely on school buses on a daily basis.

Schools Chancellor Walcott upped the ante, New York Magazine reported:

"If there is a strike, it's a strike against our students."

However, United Federation of Teachers Michael Mulgrew has issued no statement of support for the school bus drivers, no statement to counter Bloomberg and Walcott's scolding of the bus drivers. A shame, as the issues facing the bus drivers, mainly job security of veteran drivers, parallel the issues facing New York City public school teachers. Whatever happened to union solidarity?

MORE CAUCUS IN SOLIDARITY WITH SCHOOL BUS DRIVERS AND MATRONS The MORE Caucus' website Wednesday carried a statement of solidarity with the ATU and the striking school bus drivers and matrons.
The MORE site carries the link with the picket locations.

For its part, the AFL-CIO has this statement of support at its website:

Who do you want driving your child’s school bus – a highly skilled, trained, and experienced driver who knows our children and community, or someone learning on the job? At the end of the day, that is the only question that truly matters to parents regarding the busing of their children to school, and it is why it is so important that we support our New York City school bus drivers and matrons.

For the first time in over 30 years, New York City issued bids for school bus service without inclusion of the Employee Protection Provision (EPP). Although this may simply sound like a labor safeguard, make no mistake, this provision is directly linked to the safety and security of our children by ensuring that the City’s most qualified, skilled, and experienced school bus crews remain on the job.

The EPP helps create industry wide seniority and ensure an experienced workforce – union and non-union. This is critical. Although new drivers may receive training, training does not replace years of experience driving on New York City Streets in the third largest transportation system in the country.

This move would particularly impact New York City’s special education children – children who are most in need of the steadiness, reliability, and consistency that an experienced workforce offers.

We all want to ensure that the City operates as efficiently as possible. The EPP has never been shown to increase costs, but its absence will certainly come at the cost of our children’s safety.

Tell City Hall, our children deserve the best. Keep the EPP.

UPDATES: TEAMSTERS WILL HONOR PICKET LINE - TEAMSTERS LOCAL PRESIDENT BLASTS BLOOMBERG
FROM TEAMSTERS' BLOG

Teamsters Local 854 represents 1,000 bus drivers, matrons and mechanics for the NY Department of Education. Danny Gatto, Local 854's president, said the Teamsters cannot strike under their contract and will not. However, they will honor picket lines.

Gatto excoriated Mayor Michael Bloomberg in a scathing statement:

There is only one party responsible for the possible job action by unionized bus drivers represented by the Amalgamated Transit Union: Mayor Bloomberg and his administration. For weeks now, City Hall has refused to discuss the job-killing provisions they are insisting on as part of new contracts with bus contractors. It’s almost as if City Hall wants this strike to happen for some perverse reason. The Mayor has shown callousness and a disregard for the working men and women of the ATU that would be surprising from any elected leader other than Mike Bloomberg, who has shown time and again that he has a tin ear when it comes to the needs of working men and women. The best way to avoid a job action is for all sides to negotiate face to face, but City Hall would rather throw the entire system into disarray than sit at a table with the ATU. The workers deserve better, the parents deserve better and the children deserve better.

The Teamsters, which represent about 1,000 drivers, matrons and mechanics, will not go on strike. Our contracts do not allow for it and we will honor those contracts. However, we believe our contracts also allow us to honor picket lines from members of the ATU, and we will not cross their picket lines. In addition, many of our members work in garages with members of the ATU, and without those workers on the job, those garages will not be able to function properly or safely. We trust the City will recognize those safety concerns and not put children or drivers at risk.

We urge Mayor Bloomberg and his administration to work with the ATU to resolve this dispute before a job action is required. Find a solution, Mr. Mayor. That is your job; that is who you claim to be. The children of the City are waiting.

Local 854 is asking parents of New York City school students to call the Mayor's office by dialing 311 and The Schools Chancellor at (718) 935-2000 and demand that they put the Employee Protection Provision back in the bid.

The New York State AFL-CIO points out the mayor is lying when he said the job-protection provisions are illegal. New York City Labor Council President Vincent Alvarez said city officials,

... defended the cost and the legality of including the Employee Protection Provision (EPP) in contracts in Court. The simple fact is the EPP ensures that the best drivers and crews are responsible for transporting our children to school, and is thereby directly related to safety.

Molly Knefel, writing in Alternet, ["What the Looming NYC School-Bus Strike Can Teach Us About the Real Impact of 'Austerity': Those who claim to care about our children's safety often refuse to invest in it,"] argues the dispute is all about austerity:

The battle between the city and the bus drivers represents the supremacy of budgets over quality of life. It illustrates what happens when communities, jobs and families are devalued, marginalized and destroyed while the language of austerity reigns, infallible. And it illuminates the hypocrisy of those in power who claim to care for our children’s safety but refuse to invest in it.

Read the whole thing here.

THE NATION: PARENTS TRUST THE DRIVERS, MAYOR BLOOMBERG IS A HYPOCRITE

Valdes-Dapena, the mother of a 10-year-old, told the AP, “I’m concerned about what happens if the drivers lose their seniority, if they’re less experienced. You can teach someone to drive a school bus, but what happens when all hell breaks loose behind them?” She added it takes experience to deal with situations like bus breakdowns, medical emergencies of kids with special needs or traffic, when kids get frustrated or unruly. “The drivers we have now—I’d trust them with my own life,” she said.

Any time a labor dispute like this arises, leadership from the top-down rushes to blame selfish workers for putting children in jeopardy rather than addressing issues of job security, privatization and how children are far more likely to suffer under budget cuts and teacher layoffs, while trying to learn in hostile education environments monitored by overworked, under-paid educators, than they are to suffer during a hiatus to settle a labor dispute.

Mayor Bloomberg perfectly demonstrated the “think of the children!” concern trolling when he remarked, “We hope that the union will reconsider its irresponsible and misguided decision to jeopardize our students’ education.” (Note: This concern for the children was missing when Bloomberg cut millions from after school programs.)

Herein lies the false choice. It’s not the children versus the bus drivers, but a choice between living wages and jobs with dignity, and the forces of privatization threatening workers everywhere.

For more on less-than-stellar job standards, check out Josh Eidelson’s post on Walmart’s “benefits” for veterans.

The New York Times' Schoolbook claims that mob ties are a major factor in keeping school bus costs high. If this is so, why doesn't New York City tackle that issue instead of harangue school bus drivers and their union? Where is the 1980s era Rudy Giuliani, the prosecutor of mobsters?

Donate money to Hurricane Sandy relief | United Federation of Teachers

Donate money to Hurricane Sandy relief | United Federation of Teachers
Dear colleagues,
Hundreds of UFT members have suffered devastating losses and had their lives shattered by Hurricane Sandy. We’ve received over 800 requests so far from members seeking urgent assistance. The stories they tell us are heart-wrenching. Many have lost their homes and most of their possessions.
We’ve set up a Hurricane Sandy drive to help UFT members in desperate need. Please consider assisting them with a monetary donation to the UFT Disaster Relief Fund today. Only through the generosity of our members who have been more fortunate in this storm will we be able to begin to address the magnitude of the need.
Donations can be made with a credit card or via PayPal at www.uft.org/donate or by check payable to the UFT Disaster Relief Fund at UFT Disaster Relief Fund, c/o Vice President Karen Alford, UFT, 52 Broadway, 14th Floor, New York, NY, 10004.
Please donate now »
We know many members have also been asking for volunteer opportunities to help the storm-stricken neighborhoods, which suffered another blow yesterday with the nor’easter.
We are organizing Saturday Days of Action starting this Saturday and through the coming weeks. If you are interested in volunteering, please fill out our Hurricane Sandy volunteer form and we will alert you about opportunities as they arise.
Our members have been tremendous in this time of crisis. We appreciate each and every action you’ve taken since the storm struck to help those in need. I thank you for all that you’ve done for our students and our communities under these difficult circumstances.
Sincerely,
Michael Mulgrew

United Federation of Teachers • A Union of Professionals
52 Broadway, New York, NY 10004 • 212.777.7500 • www.uft.org

UFT is Being Weak and Naive to Pursue PERB Contract Arbitration Now with Bloomberg

The United Federation of Teachers is acting too prematurely: most reasonable observers would recognize that New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg is out for blood with the New York teachers and that it is best that the union wait until after the election of his successor to seriously pursue a new contract. The most common phrase appearing in conversations is "after Bloomberg," not just among teacher union members, but members of other municipal unions. The following is another one of the UFT's tragically naive mistakes, because it suggests it is seriously planning to settle on a new contract with Bloomberg. Note, ironically, one of the stories with a sidebar link touches the very topic of Bloomberg's pioneering anti-teacher zeal, "Mayor attacks pensions, ATRs and teacher layoff rules."

Mayor Bloomberg took us for suckers with the 2005 contract; could he sell us this bridge as well?

Press release on the UFT's site, UFT.org:

PERB appoints fact-finding panel for UFT/DOE contract dispute
October 3, 2012

The New York State Public Employment Relations Board has appointed a three-member fact-finding panel that will take testimony, hold hearings and issue a report and recommendations in an effort to resolve the contract dispute between the New York City Department of Education and the UFT. The UFT contract expired Oct. 31, 2009.

The factfinders, all labor arbitrators, are: Martin F. Scheinman. Mark Grossman and Howard Edelman. Mr. Scheinman was named chairperson of the panel.

In a letter to the parties, PERB said: “Whereas, the New York State Public Employment Relations Board has determined that an impasse exists in the negotiations … a Fact Finding Panel is hereby appointed for the purpose of inquiring into the causes and circumstances of the dispute.”

The panel has the power to subpoena witnesses, documents, and other material; to administer oaths and take testimony; and after hearings will transmit “findings of fact and recommendations for resolution of the dispute” to the parties and the public. The recommendations, while not binding, are expected to help provide a framework for a final settlement.

UFT President Michael Mulgrew said: “For nearly three years we have been unable to reach a new contract with the Department of Education. In the past a review of the issues by independent fact-finders appointed by the state has helped break this kind of deadlock, and it is our hope that PERB’s intervention this time will help lead to an agreement.”

Potential names were provided by the Department of Education, the UFT and PERB. Both the DOE and the UFT were permitted to strike a number of potential appointees, and PERB named the panel based on how the DOE and the UFT ranked the remaining candidates.

The UFT and the DOE have relied on fact-finding panels to help resolve previous contract disputes.
Read more: Press releases
Related topics: contract negotiations

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Why Post-Scooped Mulgrew Sex Story has Political Relevance --UPDATED

(Go to the bottom of this post for UPDATES; these updates also deal with the political ramifications.) This New York Post salacious story, "UFT ‘sex coverup’: Union chief caught in act at school: lawsuit", is just another media outlet's union-bashing attack on a powerful union official who helps the less fortunate. Not so fast.
The Post's story this morning of United Federation of Teachers president Michael Mulgrew does indeed have great significance.  It moves beyond the level of a salacious tee-hee story to one of great importance.  For the first half of the article it justs reads as sour grapes gloating over an embarrassing story of improper behavior.
However, the story matters a great deal for the integrity of UFT president Mulgrew.  If the facts are indeed true, they raise highly disturbing concerns for the membership.
First the details: an aggrieved teacher at the Frank Sinatra High School of the Arts in Queens alleges that Mulgrew engaged in a sexual act on a shop table in a wood shop of the school campus of William E. Grady Vocational High School --Mulgrew's last teaching assignment, and that he was caught "in flagrante delicto" [Latin, "in blazing offence"] by a school janitor. His alleged partner in the act was a school guidance counselor. So far, just a sleazy story of misconduct and more than a little bad judgment.
Then come the political details. The article reveals that his act partner received a nice union office job on the side. (For the uninitiated, the union office jobs generally come with a second pension and a token appearance at the school.)
One former staffer at Grady High School made comments that cut to the core of the issue:

“The sex thing, it’s between them and nobody’s business,” one said. “The thing that upset me is the patronage job to Mendez — rewarding her with a high-paying job with my union dues.”

Coincidentally, soon after the alleged encounter, Mulgrew ascended to the position of UFT Vice President of Vocational Schools.

In 2005, soon after the alleged incident, Mulgrew became UFT vice president for career and technical high schools. Around the same time, Camacho-Mendez transferred to the HS of Telecommunication Arts and Technology in Brooklyn, but got a part-time job in Mulgrew’s union office.
She was later given the full-time position of UFT liaison for special education. She gets two paychecks — $22,000 in UFT compensation on top of her $85,000 city salary, although she’s no longer a guidance counselor. In 2010, Mulgrew presented Camacho-Mendez with a UFT award.
“No one ever heard of this woman until Mulgrew brought her on board,” said a longtime UFT rep. “She had no union credentials.”

WHY THIS MATTERS POLITICALLY
This article alleges that the school's administration, the principal, participated in the hush-hush. Here's where the story gets political. You cannot be a strong union advocate of teachers when the principal, and now, by extension, the Department of Education (DOE) higher-ups, "have the goods on you." This is why Mulgrew is caught literally, in a compromised position. Compromised positions affect integrity and the ability to fully serve out duties. This is why military and security agencies are expected to treat this issue with vigilance.
Mulgrew demonstrates a profound weakness with his handling of several high-profile matters. First, he has sold out the union by agreeing to the tying of teacher performance evaluations to student test scores. He himself has conceded that the tests are statistically inconsistent. The New York State Department of Education's Meryl Tisch publicly upbraided the makers of the latest test, Pearson, publishers of several tests recently administered to elementary school aged children, for rampant test errors. Yet, scholars have often cited poverty as a greater factor in the appearance of low test scores. For example, see former principal Mel Riddile's "PISA: It's Poverty Not Stupid."
Second, there is the Absent Teacher Reserve matter. ATR teachers are senior teachers. The city Department of Education, under mayoral control --which Mulgrew and Weingarten in principle agree with, only allots so much to particular schools. Thus, the city encourages principals to hire down the pay scale. So, while the media excoriates Last In, First Out, the reality is that principals hire new or relatively new teachers over experienced ones. Where does this leave excessed teachers? The ATR pool. The DOE will create hundreds of ATRs in June with the shuttering and the immediate reopening of the schools with new names and new budget numbers. The UFT's mantra was that it would protect ATRs. Now, some teachers will question this with talk of a buy-out.
We wonder why the lack of real strength on cutting edge issues? Could it be that the DOE had the goods on Mulgrew and this restrained him from going further on some of the most pressing issues for teachers? Could it be that Mulgrew is now of the two percent with his "$250,400 a year [salary], plus benefits," rather than the 98 percent?
Interesting: both the evaluations cave in announcement in February and the ATR cave in this Thursday, came in 24 hours after the Delegate Assemblies, where trouble could brew, in the absence of rehearsed, scripted opponents of statements by those representatives truly defending members' interests.
THE REAL MYTH OF MULGREW
Many UFT members are snow-under by Mulgrew's scowl when interviewed and by his grandiose acts such as dissing New York Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott to his face with his D rating of the Department of Education's performance. They and UFT-friendly outsiders are saying that "Mulgrew is better than Randi" [Weingarten, Mulgrew's successor]. This Post article furthers the myth, giving Mulgrew the "fiery" label.
But these gestures by Mulgrew are comparatively tame. He needs to go beyond the nyeh-nyeh-ing to Walcott and show the real potency of the union, and have mass rallies.
All of this is why many union members are viewing the union leadership as a royal fiefdom insulated from the mass of the membership, why some members are looking for a UFT caucus with MORE action, real defense of members, rather than empty bluster, to give deeper analysis of the issues, not the Mulgrew clique's brief soundbytes.
Read more of Susan Edelman's story at the Post: UFT President Michael Mulgrew accused of sex-scandal cover-up in federal suit - NYPOST.com
UPDATE
See Betsy Combier's Parents Advocate blog for 2005 principal lawsuit query: http://www.parentadvocates.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=article&articleID=8300
She closes her contribution with the clincher,

So, what's the truth, Mike? Why did the Principal of Grady sue you and Ellie Engler in 2005? What was the settlement? The public does need to know.
And why are you on the payroll of the DOE through 2010?
Did you hide your affair and other actions at William Grady, then decide you would not help members put into the same situation? If so, perhaps you should resign.

We go now to the 2005 lawsuit, by a principal against Mulgrew for defamation.
It appears to be retaliation against Mulgrew and other union officials for complaints over alleged principal misconduct in asbestos removal. Mulgrew and company complained of the principal's asking teachers and students to work on the site: [he] "directed students and a teacher to tear down library walls and shelves even though he knew the room contained asbestos, then tried to cover up the incident".Here is the substance of the case between Mulgrew and Grady HS principal Ivor Neuschotz. This lawsuit? It was settled out of court the next year. Was there an I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine quid pro quo, agreement between Mulgrew and Neuschotz to keep hushed about each other's scandals?
2005 a special year for Mulgrew. As we noted before, he had the on-campus fling with his colleague. And in the same year UFT president Randi Weingarten chose him as vice-president of the vocational school division of the union.
So, Mulgrew had the goods on the principal, who kept hush-hush. Again, this cuts to the core of how this is a valid political story. Just how can you go toe-to-toe with opponents when the opponents have you in mutual agreements to keep hush-hush?
Back in 1993 president Bill Clinton was searching for an attorney general. His first two appointees had minor legal problems stalling his appointment for the office.
That episode should be an object lesson that you thoroughly vet candidates for high or sensitive positions. We wonder, why did Randi Weingarten fast-track Mulgrew to the Presidency when he had the Camacho-Mendez affair in his closet? Were there not any Janet Reno-clean candidates that she could have considered?
[This story reeks of double standards. The alleged classroom tryst of two language teachers at James Madison High School, like Mulgrew were caught by a member of the custodial staff. These teachers, in 2009, the year of Mulgrew's moving to the UFT presidency, got assigned to a "rubber room." Mulgrew, when he was supposedly caught in an improper intimate act was on his way to Vice President. The end of their story: termination. The end for Mulgrew: the insulated presidency. The question some teachers might at this point ask: do we have a rubber room president?]
* * *
Finally, the Rubber Room Reporter has linked Gotham Schools' page on Grady H.S. It got a D rating for 2009-2010. It is a mostly male school; yet the top graduates are female. The graduation rate is 49 percent. That is not exactly the model of success in the DOE's eyes. It is the kind of school that might head soon for transformation. Mulgrew's old peers at Grady HS could soon be out of their positions and find themselves ATRs. Don't you think that Mulgrew is relieved that he is a mere mortal teacher?
His track record as a union leader, looking out for his fellow teachers shows a failure of compassion and understanding. The settling for a test score-based evaluation program. The abandonment of teachers whose school becomes a turnaround or transformation school to excessed status. Does he ever imagine if his fate was more like the hapless teachers at James Madison or dozens at Grady?
As Combier asks, "What was the settlement? The public does need to know."
* * *
Our brotherly blogger at Ed Notes added these observations about the story:

For those of us who are challenging his leadership for NOT battling the ed deformers and protecting teachers, this story is meaningless other than it exposes the level of Unity Caucus corruption and how they protect their own while leaving most teachers to hang.
--------UPDATED with comment from Michael Fiorillo
I agree with Norm that UFT collaboration with Bloomberg predates Mulgrew, and is predicated on much deeper corruption and deception, which also includes the self-deception of the leadership and its patronage recipients.
If the UFT/AFT didn't already accept or agree with the outlines of the neoliberal project on education, would this (alleged) tawdry episode be enough to maintain it? Not likely.
On the other hand, John Kenneth Galbreath said that all revolutions are the kicking in of a rotten door, and we all know the UFT structure is rotten, despite the presence of decent, hard working people in the union. That's the destiny of every entrenched, single party state, and that's the potential significance of this story: at a certain point, the superstructure is so internally compromised that it can no longer support itself, and crumbles before a gust of wind.
If this is that gust of wind (doubtful in my mind, but you never know), the question then becomes, who will benefit from the resulting crisis: an invigorated rank and file fed up with years of lies and abuse, or the Overclass, which seeks to use it for its own avaricious ends?

Can You Afford Not to Join the State of the Union [UFT] March 10 Meeting?

The United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew made a historic capitulation to the city, ceding the ground on evaluations, instead of challenging the flawed thinking behind them. This catastrophe sell-out will mean that Mayor Michael Bloomberg will realize his dream of eliminating half the teaching force. Members looking at Mulgrew's agreement with Mayor Michael Bloomberg are scratching their heads, asking questions, like who will decide who will be among the 13 percent of unsatisfactory ratings that get appealed? Unity clique cronies?
The UFT under the Unity caucus has pursued flawed strategies of agitating via court cases, instead of mobilizing its members or educating the public as to the realities behind education policy controversies. The UFT leadership has not countered the ideological yellow journalism or the privatizing objectives that it serves; instead it has conceded the agenda, and at times has incorporated the ideology. The result: the members are isolated, without leadership on arguments versus the ideological trends. And especially in the past two weeks, with no outlet for regular expression or action, the members are likely demoralized.

Members can act and can avoid dejection. Teachers of different viewpoints are uniting to save the union and save the profession. For, the UFT's capitulation actions jeopardize the viability of teaching as a profession beyond a two to three year stint after college.

A new blog has gone live at sotuuft.blogspot.com. Check it out for regular updates and info on the State of the Union conference, photos from Fightback Friday, and beyond.
But do not merely read blogs, liking something on facebook or signing an online petition. ACT!!! Do not mourn; act to change the union: organize and mobilize.

As EdNotes online astutely wrote Monday,

*The UFT/Unity leadership's prime directive is to hold onto power at any cost.
*Understanding this basic fact is crucial for any potential opposition.
*If there were a real opposition force within the UFT to challenge Unity, the UFT would not be taking the positions it has.

The progressives' prime task ahead is to say NO to these dictates.

STATE OF THE UNION

Part 2: NEXT STEPS

MARCH 10: 10 AM - 4 PM
Address: Graduate Center for Workers Education, 25 Broadway, New York, NY
1 or R trains to Rector Street, or 4 or 5 trains to Bowling Green

On February 4, over 200 people attended State of the Union – Part 1, featuring 15 workshops focusing on issues facing the UFT in the age of ed deform.

That was only the beginning.

Join us on March 10 to help plan the next steps in moving our union forward, and unite those who came together on February 4th into a common organization.

As the UFT and NYSUT agree to an evaluation system that requires 40% of evaluations to be based on state or local high stakes tests, mandates unannounced observations, and allows for an independent appeal on only 13% of first time ineffective ratings, it becomes even more urgent to discuss how we can build a movement in our union to fight for an alternative to the concessionary approach.


We are asking for a $5-$10 contribution at the door to pay for expenses incurred for this event.

Childcare available upon email request before Thursday 3/8: sotuuft@gmail.com

For more info, find the State of the Union-Part 2 on Facebook or email sotuuft@gmail.com

Flyer for distribution at your school: email sotuuft@gmail.com.



Here are some questions that will be discussed:

What should the organizing priorities of union activists be right now?
What are some basic points of unity that bring us together?
What strategies and tactics can achieve the change we want to see?
What is a union caucus?
How could one be democratically structured to include the diverse political and pedagogical views among our membership?
How can our rank and file chapters be more organized?

Polls Could Suggest Militants are Winning War vs NYC Mayor

The United Federation of Teachers (UFT) basks in the glory of polls showing more public trust in the UFT than in New York City's Department of Education.
Has the UFT leadership ever considered that those that did the ground-breaking work to expose the DOE's lies and policy outrages have been the dissidents outside the Unity clique controlling the union?
The union is winning the war of public opinion; and the dissidents are probably the ones that spurred this turning of the tide.

The wrath of school communities: At a Feb. 9 PEP meeting at Brooklyn Tech HS, over 2,000 teachers, students, parents and supporters from 23 closing schools packed the room to the rafters, putting the city on notice that it is failing its communities.

A round-up of the mayor's F rating in the public opinion polls, as reported in New York newspapers:
See in the NY Times (http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/08/poll-finds-strong-disapproval-of-mayors-handling-of-schools/) re Quinnipiac poll: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/08/poll-finds-strong-disapproval-of-mayors-handling-of-schools/
in Daily News: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/city-voters-trust-teachers-union-mayor-poll-article-1.1018778

NYC Rubber Room reporter, drawing from a January 17, 2012 New York Post story: "Mayor Mike Booed...NYC Just Doesn't Like Him (With Good Reason): He’s Mayor Boo!berg"

Students revolting vs Walcott at Bronx School meeting, from the Daily News:

School organizers were forced to abruptly end a meeting at a Bronx high school Tuesday night when it was interrupted by angry students, causing Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott to leave. Students at Evander Childs in Williamsbridge jumped from their seats, yelling about the city’s “failed education policies.” The students disrupted the meeting about a half-hour after it began, saying it was payback for a meeting last week at Herbert H. Lehman High School, where students were only allowed 30 seconds to speak about their closing school. “They don’t even care about what we say,” said student Jesse Aponter, a junior at Lehman. After a five-minute attempt to calm the rowdy crowd, the meeting was adjourned and Walcott left.

Read more: "Dennis Walcott leaves meeting at Bronx high school after angry students interrupt him: Students yelled about city’s 'failed education policies'," Daily News, February 1, 2012.

Giant story ignored: Bloomberg @ MIT: I'd 1/2 the Teachers and Increase Class Size

Another monstrous outrage by our autocratic mayor (Cambridge. MA, 11/29).

Another outrageous stratagem calling for a mass mobilization; WHY DIDN'T UFT'S MULGREW LEAD CHANT ON THIS DURING YESTERDAY'S MARCH?

MISTAKE BY UFT: CHANT-PREVENTING NOISE MAKERS
At yesterday's labor solidarity march alone among unions, the United Federation of Teachers gave out thumb-sized noise makers, whistles without the whistle ball.
A mistake or a cynical attempt to prevent chants from forming.
Kudos to those that did attempt to chant "Save Our Schools" among the din.

The United Federation of Teachers, the New York City teachers union needs to have a coordinated media campaign and mass march against the latest outrages uttered by City-state Prince-Mayor Michael Bloomberg:
Cathie Black, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Michael Mulgrew, NYC schools, United Federation of Teachers
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — It’s a jaw-dropping prescription for fixing city schools.
“Professor” Michael Bloomberg said Thursday he would accomplish more with less by slashing the tea ching staff in half — and that’s just the beginning, reports CBS 2’s Marcia Kramer.
He looked like he was from another planet when he dressed as a hippie for a political show, but the mayor’s blueprint for fixing city schools have some asking “what was he smoking?”
“If I had the ability to just design the system and say ex cathedra this is what we’re going to do you would cut the number of teachers in half and weed out all the bad ones,” Bloomberg said.
That’s right. The mayor told people at a Massachusetts Institute of Technology conference it would be far better to run city schools with way fewer people. And, by the way, on the billionaire’s perfect planet that would mean cramming more kids into each classroom.
“And double the class size with a better teacher is a good deal for the students,” Bloomberg said.
Andrea Spencer is dean of the School of Education at Pace University.
“When I heard the statement I was really shocked,” Spencer said. “There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that half of the teachers in any system are ineffective. What there is evidence to support is the fact that larger classes really place detriments in the way of learning.”
But “Professor” Bloomberg is sticking to his views.
“The best thing you can do is put the best teacher you can possibly find and afford in front of the classroom and if you have to have fewer because there’s only a certain number of dollars to go around, I’m in favor of that,” Bloomberg said.
United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew s aid he put the mayor’s latest views on teaching in the same category of his decision to appoint a former magazine editor with no teaching experience to be schools chancellor.
“So the mayor thinks this is a good idea, in high schools to have class size in high schools of 70 kids. Clearly the mayor has never taught,” said United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew.
“And probably the mayor’s having another Cathie Black moment.”
The mayor also said he’s given teachers a 105 percent raise since he took office. Mulgrew said maybe the mayor should have stopped in at a math class while he was at MIT.
In lamenting the quality of teachers, the mayor claimed they come from the bottom 20 percent of their class and not the best schools.

Bank Street Conference on Helping Schools, Not Closing Them

This last weekend, Saturday, September 24, 2011:
Rachel Cromidas, "Event aims to teach city to help schools instead of closing them" Sept. 23, 2011 at GothamSchools.

The city official in charge of closing schools and the union chief who has sued to keep schools open are both set to speak at a conference tomorrow about what can be done to help schools without shuttering them.

The conference, “Effective Alternatives to School Closings: Transforming Struggling Schools in NYC,” was organized by the Coalition for Educational Justice, the Alliance for Quality Education, and the Urban Youth Collaborative, all advocacy organizations. The event is meant to send a message to city policymakers that there are ways to reform failing schools without shutting them down, according to Ronnette Summers, a parent and CEJ member who helped organize it.

The city Department of Education has closed 117 schools since 2002 and Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott said this week that he plans to close additional schools, particularly middle schools, that do not meet the department’s standards.

“Every year there’s more and more schools on the closing list and that seems to be the only reform strategy that the Department of Education uses to improve schools,” Summers said. “People in places where they know [closure] is not working felt that it was important to bring it to New York City to let them see that there’s other ways to improve schools.”

Click to this link, to get full article, and six page Scribd document.

Window on Weingarten's, Mulgrew's treatment of UFT reporter Jim Callaghan

In the course of reading GothamSchool's review of Steven Brill's "Class Warfare," we read some testimony into the context of the United Federation of Teacher's firing of Jim Callaghan. This summer is the one-year anniversary of the dismissal of one very intrepid reporter for the UFT's "New York Teacher", a reporter who was distinguished in tackling many important, unaddressed issues in New York City schools and teachers' rights. (Readers will remember that Callaghan's articles were removed from the New York Teacher online archive.)

What follows are key quotes from the discussion at the GothamSchools site. (Minor format edits, added):

For her own personal and political reasons, Weingarten  allowed the rubber roomers to languish for years because she refused to  file grievances when Bloomberg and Klein violated the contract which calls for the D.O.E. to file charges within six months. Everything else she and Mulgrew say is rubbish- they are the Vichy leaders of the UFT After much fanfare, she ditched the rubber roomers , preventing writers at the Weingarten Times (formerly known as the NY Teacher) from doing dozens of exposes. what happened to the three people [writers] assigned to the rubber rooms?
-I was fired in August 2010- in the middle of trying to organize a union for union writers which Mulgrew said would happen over his dead body---  after 13 years at the union during which time Weingarten called me: the conscience of the union; her ace investigative reporter; one of the best historians in New York; her co-revolutionary. -Betsy Combier was fired in June 2010.-Ron Issac spends his days whining that he has nothing to do- at $70,000 per year plus his DOE pension). Issac told Weingarten this three years ago- I was there -yet she defended her tyrannical  editor Deidre McFadyen in harassing Ron and myself. ..why would Weingarten hire someone and then give him no work?
Clearly, Weingarten wasn't serious about  justice for the rubber roomers. It was one big farce. Not one suggestion- out of dozens---  I made to her, and staff directors Ellie Engler, LeRoy Barr and Garry Sprung was ever followed up. Weingarten  had Barr remove me from a rubber room while I was in the middle of a story that the security guards were shaking down our members.  Her Brooklyn Borough Rep Howie Schoor was sending copies of my emails I sent to him - I have them- to D.O.E.! I did one major rubber room story in October, 2007- and that was it for almost three more years! Is that the mark of a serious union leader?
Of course, Weingarten was distracted. She was also busy cleaning up her own mess by hiring Combier after she filed freedom of information requests for the time records for one of Weingarten's closest friends in the union. D.O.E. sent copies of the FOIL [Freedom of Information Law] requests to Weingarten. Within weeks, Adam Ross, lawyer for the UFT, was writing to Combier - I have the letters- offering her a job... Her confidentiality agreement is bigger than a Manhattan phone book. Prior to her hiring, I was told in writing that I was not allowed to even talk to Combier! 
As for Klein, Weingarten talked to me on the steps  at PS 45 in Staten Island  the day after the story broke that Klein was keeping "files" on her and others. I told her to FOIL them. She never did. Why?  And she told me that Klein had previously leaked her personnel file to Wayne Barrett of the Village Voice, who was writing a  story challenging the way she qualified for a D.O.E.  pension.
Much later, she emailed me that David Hickey, the CFO of the union whose main job is harassing UFT workers, (except his "favorites" )  accused me of leaking her pension file to Barrett- which I had no access to! In a sarcastic tone,  she emailed me that she knew I would never do that.....her email- which I have- said Barrett obtained her file "illegally," but she refused to ask for a [Special Commissioner of Investigation Richard J.] Condon inquiry or to refer it to the District Attorney. I demanded that Hickey put up or shut up and then Randi accused me of being "defensive."
She also accused Barrett of "sneaking around"- in broad daylight-  her country  house in Amagannset talking to her neighbors; she claimed she was going to "out" her- a preposterous notion. In retrospect, what she clearly was worried about was that she was claiming to  be "working" at her country house which is how she collected $160,000 in unused vacation and sick time over a 24 year period- breaking Cal Ripken's record with plenty to spare.
The deal in the Communications Department, always with a wink and a nod, was to make sure she always got one fax  for every day  she was out there so she could claim she was working!  We all laughed- wouldn't we all like to be working from home in Amagansett. (Always a good hearted soul, Weingarten refused  to allow her editor  to work from home after she gave birth.) Weingarten  always had tools-legal ones and media- to defend herself, especially with the Klein "private files" but never did. After all this, woud'nt you too invite your tormentor to your 50th birthday party where UFT vendors were "encouraged" to buy ads in the Journal that made her sound like Norma Rae, Mother Theresa, Eleanor Roosevelt and Mother Jones all wrapped into one body? Well, there was Klein at the bash, yukkng it up with his supposed enemies! and why would she always sussssshhh the 3,000 UFT members  at The Spring Conference when Klein was booed and hissed? Instead of truly fighting Bloomberg and Klein  she was  guilty of the larger moral crime-  denying so many members [rubber roomers] the right to representation. She was as much a part of the cover up of corruption at DOE as anyone.................only Mulgrew, her hand picked fake tough guy - is worse.
There are so many cover ups to write about- including one where I had-and have-  a tape of a Klein confidante violating the HIPPA law by telling a writer on the phone and in an email that a teacher was  crazy and had been deemed so by D.O.E. doctors. Weingarten took that out of the lead of my story and told me to lose the tape. I also have the original  email -for when Weingarten starts her "woe is me" persona. Weingarten also emailed a UFT official that "maybe this is the time for (the Klein confidante)  her to step up," meaning to play ball when the union wanted jobs for their cronies. Weingarten saved her ass from being fired and expected her quo for the quid. Stay tuned, lots more about how Weingarten and Mulgrew have thrown teachers over the side, including with the "PIP Plus" sell out  , where teachers are being fired by the boat load- with the union leaders as part of the shanda [scandal]. Oh, in case we forget, she scurried out of town after lying to her Unity Caucus members that Bloomberg (using public funds as a bribe) promised her  an eight per cent raise over two years but only if we knifed Bill Thompson in the 2009 mayoral race.  We did knife  him and it's two years later and no contract! 
Jim Callaghan

Yes it's the real Jim Callaghan.... There are'nt enough cemeteries in this town to dig up all the bodies of corruption, malfeasance, nepotism, shady deals, booze fests and collaborationists who cheat the members so they can advance themselves, family members, mistresses, boyfriends, girlfriends.... Some literary agents have told me I might have to make it fiction because no one will believe it......
The day after I was fired, Mulgrew offered me a bribe-----he would use the members dues to silence me if I signed a non-disparagement agreement in return for free health insurance for life.....if I live to be 100, that would have cost the members $540,000! All so I would keep quiet and betray the members who paid my salary for 13 years to fight for them with D.O.E. and corrupt union officials like Mulgrew and Weingarten...the bribe was offered on Friday morning, august 13, after Mulgrew the fake tough guy found out I was going on Fox News that afternoon.....I told him to shove his hush money... the question for reporters and union members is what mulgrew fears so much that he would attempt to bribe me? Unless I wind up like Ted Maritas----- Google him,------ the rest of the country will find out how bad Weingarten and Mulgrew [are] and how sadistic their mostly white $190,000 per year enforcers are... I am open to suggestions for my book title....

It was hardly everything.......I would guess there are another 350 pages more........I left with 48 boxes of emails, reports, thank you notes from uft officials, including the founders of the union, hundreds of notebooks full of stories of teachers who were railroaded by Weingarten and Mulgrew and abandoned by so called journalists like deidre mcfadyen and Larry miraldi who went along with the UFT cover-ups of how our members were being sent to the end of their stellar careers....I left with logs and journals I kept and notations in my calendar of every major scam going on...

I was told to investigate PAVE academy which took over space in P.S. 15 in Red Hook.....Mulgrew then told me he was pulling the plug on my story because Bloomberg called him in a rage, telling him that the father of PAVE'S founder was a close friend of his named Julian Robertson, a billionaire hedge fund manager listed by Forbes as the 155th richest man in America, one spot ahead of David Rockefeller.... PAVE hadn't filed their 990 forms with the IRS but Bloomberg gave the school $35 million----our money----so the kid could build a new school in an under-utilized district....

[The main skeleton that was in the Klein files on Weingarten was that Weingarten actually had the very limited classroom experience of three years for a union president. The skeleton is here The above passages sound wild to outsiders, but awareness of the system shows that these things are going on in the DOE and the UFT.]

DOE used Parent Advocates in LIFO fight against Teachers

"The Chief" on March 25, 2011 reported, David Sims, "Local 372, UFT Claim Foul: Charge DOE Pressed Staff to Lobby Against LIFO:"
DC 37 President Santos Crespo charged that the New York City Department of Education was using Parent Coordinators to lobby against senior teachers in the Last In-First Out ("LIFO") struggle.
The DOE sent a petition from Jaclyn Berryman at Tweed's Office for Family Information and Action to at least 375 Parent Coordinators to circulate among parents and community activists that read:

We urge our elected leaders to provide New York City with its fair share of state funds and restore the proposed cuts to our public schools; reject the State's proposed changes in Building Aid, which will delay the construction of thousands of new school seats in our neighborhoods, and allow the city to keep its most effective teachers by ending the state's 'last-in, first-out' policy, allowing Teachers to be retained based on their performance, rather than just seniority.

(Notice, also, how there's the implicit pitch to have construction workers and industry people join the DOE's side in combatting experienced teachers.)

Crespo also noted that the city had previously manipulated parents in the fight against schools and teachers. The DOE mobilized Manhattan and Bronx parents to go to public meetings to support the city's plans for school closings.

The United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew also criticized the DOE's directed parent coordinators to mobilize parents and students against LIFO.
Read further, pages 1 and 7 in "The Chief," March 25, 2011.

UFT and parents walk-out of sham PEP meeting

THE UFT SHOWS SOME SPINE

After calling the city's bluff (???) and assuming that this will get the city to play nice,
the United Federation of Teachers tonight at 7:15 PM walked out of the Panel for Education Policy meeting for voting on the proposed closure of some two dozen schools in the auditorium of Brooklyn Technical High School, one of the city's top selective public high schools.

At 7:00 PM UFT President Michael Mulgrew called the panel for what it is: a sham of a democracy. He noted that the city Department of Education sets up schools for failure. He made reference to a recently publicized internal DOE report (ironically, in "The New York Post") that the DOE starves schools for resources and sets them up for failure (clusters them with weaker students).
His speech was followed up by a parent that echoed his comments. Then, at 7:15 PM, parents in the front of the hall entered the aisles to leave, and union leaders, seated in the back of the hall, joined the crowd.

GOTHAM SCHOOLS GETS IT WRONG; ATTEMPTS TO RE-WRITE CURRENT HISTORY-MAKING
The Gotham Schools blog inaccurately reported that one-quarter of the crowd in the Brooklyn Tech auditorium left. The proportion was more like at least one-half. The reporting blogger cynically referred to the crowd walking out as "the Gompers crowd." In truth, parents and students were heavily represented in the crowd walking out of the meeting.

Parents and elected representatives, such as City Councilor Charles Barron, in a stirring speech, earlier in the night noted that the schools targeted for closure are saddled with special education and English Language Learner (English as a Second Language) students. The union has had to pursue a public campaign in recent years to get the city to properly staff schools with special education and resource room teachers, so as to meet the Individual Education Program needs of special education students.

CLOSINGS A CRUCIAL ISSUE FOR ALL TEACHERS
The closings and co-locating of competing schools in buildings with existing schools will lead to the displacement of veteran teachers. Every experienced teacher is in great danger of becoming next year's ATR (absent teacher reserve) teacher. This suits the perennially budget minded mayor exquisitely. Expensive veteran teachers will be replaced by cheaper, novice, untenured and timid teachers.

BLACK'S JEERING TO PARENTS, "OHHHHH"
Others chided embattled schools chancellor Cathie Black's contempuous talking back to parents, Tuesday, February 1, 2011, evening.
(She said, "I can't speak if you're shouting." Members of the crowd said, "Ohhhh." Black mocked back, "Ohhhh." Click to this NY1 clip, "Chancellor Black Criticized For Talking Back To Crowd During PEP meeting."
(NY1 was the only commercial outlet with cameras rolling during Black's jeering retort to upset parents.)

This walk-out, we hope, will foreshadow, a new, stronger turn for the teachers' union and parents, in a bid to challenge the fait accompli plan of closure that the city has for a quota of the lowest performing schools. As Mulgrew and others speak said Tuesday and Thursday, the panel is mostly hand-picked by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and is seen as a rubber stamp for the mayor's wishes.
Parents, students, teachers and elected officials walked out because speakers can speak, but the decision is always pre-determined. Whatever the people say, the panel members will only vote according to the pre-ordained program for X number of schools each year.

As speakers cited the stirrings for democracy in Egypt, we hope that this evening's stirrings and walkout will lead to the replacement of the autocratic rubber stamp PEP with a democratic board of education.

LIVE BLOGGING UPDATE
NY1 stuck around after the walkout. The reporter, Lindsey Christ, reporting live at 9:00 PM, said that only 200 to 300 audience members remained and that they were mainly charter school supporters. In contrast to Gotham Schools, Christ said that the majority of the attendees walked out.

Excellent, sympathetic comments at Daily News about the Rubber Room situation

The "Daily News" allowed some excellent comments by sympathetic readers, on the issue of Rubber Room accusations, on the occasion of the closing of the rubber rooms.
We should remind readers of the context of the Rubber Room closures:
The closures decision occurred simultaneous with the public premiere of an independent film no the rubber rooms. UFT president was letting New York City schools chancellor off the hook when he agreed to the closure of the rubber rooms. The movie was apparently embarrassing to the city.

Here, some of the best comments on the issue of rubber rooms, and accusations against teachers, by someone named "EllenB."

EllenB
6:28:20 PM
Apr 15, 2010
Having many friends who are DOE educators, I have an inside look at what's really what in the NYC education scene that many people don't have. First of all, It is absolutely APPALLING that the DN has continuously bashed teachers within its pages, particularly those assigned to the "Rubber Room". Most of those teachers have, in truth, done NOTHING wrong. They are in effect political prisoners. China or the old USSR have nothing on the Bloomberg version of the camps. Some of the teachers assigned to "Rubber Rooms", unfortunately, have in fact been incompetent or actually committed a crime. And they should, of course, be removed from the classroom. But they are a very small minority of the hundreds of teachers in "Rubber Rooms". A very small minority indeed. The teachers may have been whistleblowers on unscrupulous administrators, and their reward was to be falsely accused of hastily drawn-up charges and sent to the "Rubber Room". Students who justly received failing grades
Report Offensive Post
EllenB
6:30:01 PM
Apr 15, 2010
Cont'd for poor quality work are actively encouraged to write statements against their teachers, which are then used to "justify" charges against that teacher. And they end up in the "Rubber Room" for no authentic reason at all. Oh, and if the charges are found to be false, the teacher's name is still blackened but there are NO consequences to the students, none at all. It's such fun to get some get-back at your competent teacher who justly gave you a failing grade for low quality work or who told you to be quiet so that a lesson could proceed and people could actually learn, or who had your cell phone confiscated. Every single day since the dawn of time, teachers have had to raise their voices in class when polite requests for quiet are ignored. By rewriting definitions, this has now become a criminal offense, corporeal punishment, under Bloomberg and it's been given the title "verbal abuse". "Corporeal" refers to "bodily" and this sort of punishment originally meant tha
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EllenB
6:31:41 PM
Apr 15, 2010
CONT'D - that teachers could not physically strike students. Many teachers reassigned to "Rubber Rooms" did nothing more than speak a little too loudly. Principals with a lot of older and hence expensive teachers have been very busy inventing all sorts of ludicrous charges to then clear their school budgets of these high-priced veterans, whose salaries are then eventually taken over by the central DOE---off the budgets of the individual school. This decentralization of salary payments was instituted by Bloomberg, and presents an obvious incentive to get rid of expensive teachers--by any means. The point is, the vast majority of the teachers sitting in the "Rubber Rooms" are falsely accused by their school administration based on questionable evidence, and would much rather be TEACHING kids than sitting around. And if you, a highly educated and intelligent person, were forced to sit basically immobile in an overcrowded room, only allowed to walk around during the lunch hour, w
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EllenB
6:34:34 PM
Apr 15, 2010
CONT'D - hour, what exactly WOULD you do to pass the hours? These people are not criminals, but they are being treated so. These people are not lazy bums, but they are being characterized as such. Bloomberg created the "gotcha" parameters, then pays off the media to defame those so accused (and usually innocent), inflaming public opinion against these unjustly maligned educators and thus gaining a favorable position with which to negotiate a less favorable contract for teachers. What is so hard to see about this? Yet judging from the vicious and ignorant comments posted by many here, Bloomberg's counting on an easily roused mob mentality ("Lynch them teachers! Hang 'em high!") worked admirably.
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oneofthemany
7:37:54 PM
Apr 15, 2010
@EllenB- This is EXACTLY the truth. I dare anyone who does not work for the DOE to see what goes on these days in a school. Principals have been given carte blanche and g-d help the teacher who speaks out against him/her. They'll quickly find themselves in the rubber room on charges of corporal punishment based upon NONSENSE. Take on the thankless job of being union rep, file a grievance for a fellow colleague and you'll find yourself written up for insubordination or professional misconduct. The DOE and the Mayor cry that the Union is the reason that things move so slow but when you have 15 arbitrators for the entire city that work 5 DAYS A MONTH, whose fault is that? The 60 day rule has been in effect for years but those cases are few and far between.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/education/2010/04/15/2010-04-15_city_to_close_rubber_rooms_reassignment_centers_for_teachers_accused_of_major_vi.html#ixzz0lEUy4v3w

Diana Williams teaches Mulgrew that new rating system will lead to teaching-to-the-test

So pathetic: A broadcast journalist has to point out to United Federation of Teachers president Michael Mulgrew that the new teacher evaluation system (with plenty of observations --thanks, Ed Notes-- of what the system will mean, in action) will lead to more test-prep as "teaching":
http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/video?id=7444645&pid=7444663
On Sunday, May 16, 2010, WABC-TV's Diana Williams pointed out that the new rating system, with its placing 40 percent of a teacher's evaluation on student performance on standardized test performance, will lead to more teaching-to-the-test.
The lame UFT president evaded that point.

Does anyone in the media ever consider the pitfalls of test-emphasis when so many factors are generally beyond a teacher's control, such as whether a student actually shows up to class?

Pertaining to the last point above, note these comments in reaction to a Washington Post article, "Is the public turning against teachers unions?":

if teachers had to deal less with bad parenting (behavior, morals, discipline, work ethic, etc...) and ineffective administrative practices (rules with unrealistic or little punishment, false threats, etc...) then we would be a little less "bad". i am SICK and tired of not having my students show up to school regularly, on time, with materials, and willing/ready to do any work. i guess it must be because i'm a bad teacher and has nothing to do with the fact that most of my students have no accountability nor support from home to push them to appreciate an education.

(Granted, the lower case first-person "i" doesn't look good.)

After the rubber room closings: essential procedure rights issues ignored by UFT, media

So, the city has agreed to close the teacher reassignment centers, also known as the rubber rooms.

They were a travesty upon the city, but not for the reason that "The New York Post" alleges.
They represented Soviet gulags right here in the United States.
Yet, in the talk about UFT president Michael Mulgrew and the press reports there is no talk of reform of the investigation procedures. The UFT last year passed a resolution saying that the New York City Department of Education investigations are frequently biased.

One wonders, what kinds of thoughts of regret of professional mission do partially conscientious DOE investigators have? Do they ever think to themselves: Am I serving justice by being a cog in such a biased, rigged system? Who could I speak with about this abusive system? Is this what I went to law school for?
The investigations are frequently biased. Investigators can interview a range of opinions, yet their default determination is that accusations are "substantiated." The DOE investigations, by the nature of the fact that DOE proceedings are fait accompli affairs, are really a test of the summoned teacher: how naive is the teacher? Since the teacher is not merely presumed, but determined to be guilty, the affair is of questionable benefit for the accused.
The proceedings are in sum a monkey court, a Stalin-style show trial, with the Department of Education and the various investigative offices constituting prosecutor, judge and jury.
CORE ISSUES OF LEGAL PROCEDURE INJUSTICE UNADDRESSED
These issues of procedure are of great significance. As Philip Nobile pointed out this week in a contribution at Education Notes, the accused in the murky DOE experience a pre-Magna Carta deficit of rights. Basic features of the Bill of Rights are withheld from accused teachers. The accused are not informed of the reason that they are reassigned. They are not allowed to know of their accuser. They cannot even see statements by opposing witnesses, even with the names redacted. They cannot pursue their own investigation. It is obviously a one-sided procedure. In the United States under standard rules of legal procedure each side in a legal proceeding is allowed to pursue their own investigation. In the real world each side is provided documentation of investigations. The investigation procedures are in a zone in which the accused teachers are denied their due process rights.
Our weak Mulgrew-lead UFT has done nothing in the past or in the new agreement to correct the general denial of due process in the entire procedure. And the UFT does not serve the accused well. As Nobile has pointed out, the UFT has a standing policy of denying the accused the right of getting a copy of the notes that the representative has taken in the proceedings with the investigators.
The media have uniformly done a incompetent job of reporting the rubber room procedure. In the absence of the UFT's addressing the systemic denial of due process, the abuse of teacher's due process rights will continue. The public, in the absence of a complete representation of the denial of basic legal procedures, will remain under the impression that the whole procedure is legally kosher, "Well, the Department of Education is headed by lawyers, surely they must follow correct legal procedure. This is America. Everyone always gets due process. The UFT was headed by a lawyer. Surely, they must be on top of the situation. So, all of those people in those rooms must get a fair and just judgment."
Closing agreement's curious timing
Let's hope that Justin Cegnar and Jeremy Garrett's "The Rubber Room" movie gets broader distribution. The film received a review at Education Notes.
It seems all-too-coincidental for the city to come to this agreement on the rubber rooms, just the day before the premiere of this film.

As to the deadlines of how long the city has to act before charging teachers, the question is will the city live up to the commitment? The city already has such deadlines, but the city has not kept to those commitments. The UFT knows of this and has not corrected the problem.
The closing of the rubber rooms a set-back?
In the closure of the rubber rooms, the mistreatment of the accused could get worse. Concentrating all of the accused in one place surely lead to some sharing of information of the limited rights that the accused have. The venue for information sharing among the accused is lost.
Remaining work for the UFT to do
The UFT needs to address the myriad of essential real world procedural rights-denied. The UFT needs to address the larger context of the rubber rooms. They have ballooned under the Bloom/Klein administration, as part of a pattern of principal intimidation of teachers. The UFT needs to have better education efforts, including brochures, for the accused. In sum, the UFT must have a more aggressive effort at correcting a general miscarriage of justice.

UFT president Michael Mulgrew to appear on WWRL 1600: Mar. 31, 2010

Randi Weingarten-appointed United Federation of Teachers president Michael Mulgrew will appear on Errol Louis' "Morning Show" on Air America Radio's New York station, WWRL 1600 AM, on March 31, 2010, at some point between 6 AM and 9 AM --most likely, I would guess between 7 AM and 9 AM.

Ask him the questions you've been meaning to ask him, such as why he does not muster the hundreds of union officials (including many that never teach or teach for single periods) and mobilize them for pro-active public, grassroots campaigns that address the crises that the schools and the teachers are facing, due to forces in the city and in Albany.

Errol's podcast site. Maybe the interview will be uploaded a day or two after Mulgrew's appearance.

The tech-savvy might figure out how to grab the live stream of the radio broadcast.
VOTE FOR JAMES ETERNO AND THE ICE-TJC SLATE
If you have not yet mailed your election ballot make sure to read the blogs and vote for James Eterno for UFT president and the ICE-TJC slate. Be careful!: either choose to mark X in the full slate option on the first page of the ballot, or vote for single offices. Do Not Mark Both The Slate Box and The Offices Boxes. This action would result in an invalid ballot.
Read Independent Community of Educators' endorsement of James Eterno for UFT president at their website.

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.