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who should rule the schools
June 4, 2009
Randi Weingarten under fire for mayoral control position
Randi Weingarten testifying at a mayoral control hearing in February. (GothamSchools)
A group of parent activists and union members is expressing anger with teachers union leader Randi Weingarten, telling her that she has dropped the ball in fighting for checks to the mayor’s power over schools.
The frustration began with a May 21 New York Post column, in which Weingarten indicated that she is open to allowing the mayor to continue appointing a majority of members to the citywide school board. A union task force recommended in February that the state legislature reverse that majority as a way to strengthen the board, known as the Panel for Education Policy or PEP.
Weingarten’s Post op/ed dismayed some members of her own union. “I was quite disappointed and angry, actually,” said Lisa North, a teacher who sat on the union’s task force to consider revisions to mayoral control.
North said the task force never seriously considered recommending that the mayor keep his majority of appointments, and so when union delegates ratified the committee’s final recommendations, she expected Weingarten to promote them. “The delegate assembly is supposed to be the highest authority of the union, and it voted for it,” she said.
In an interview today, Weingarten acknowledged that people have reached out to her with concerns about her position, including her own union members. ”I did get a couple of e-mails from members saying, ‘Why are you doing what you’re doing?’” she said. She said that she empathizes with those concerns. “I totally and completely understand and concur with the frustrations that many have that this mayor and this chancellor have not listened to and respected enough the voices of those who go to our schools, their parents, and those who teach them,” she said.
But she also said that she has to weigh concerns about checking the mayor’s power against the reasons she supported giving the mayor control in 2002. “It’s always been a balance of stability, cohesion, and responsibility, which is what mayoral control brought us, and modifying it to create sufficient checks and balances and transparency,” Weingarten said.
Parent leaders, who had hoped to ally with the United Federation of Teachers to lobby in Albany, also say they feel alienated by Weingarten. Lisa Donlan, a Manhattan parent who is part of the Parent Commission on School Governance, which is calling for significant changes to mayoral control, said the Post column ended discussions between the union and parent leaders who are strategizing about how to lobby lawmakers. Donlan said the Parent Commission had been trying to identify areas of agreement among all of the groups who have suggested revisions to mayoral control so that it could present a unified slate of recommendations in Albany.
“We felt very comfortable going into that conversation [with the UFT] that we all believe that the mayor should not have control of the central board,” Donlan told me.
The confidence disappeared with the Post article, Donlan said. ”That conversation did stop when [Weingarten] pulled back on the composition of the PEP,” she said. “We feel very disappointed that we don’t have the UFT advocating any more for that shift at the central level, where policy is made.”
Activists within the teachers’ union are also showing their concern. “The idea that [Weingarten] would have a task force that spent a year studying the issue and then on her own, say something different … This is a betrayal of the task force concept,” said union activist Norm Scott.
“I do feel betrayed,” said Michael Fiorillo, another chapter leader who sat on the union’s task force. “I just wish I could say I felt surprised.” He said Weingarten has veered away from members’ consensus on other topics in the past, and so he had early doubts that she would hold firm on the task force’s recommendations. (Fiorillo ultimately voted against the recommendations, saying they weren’t aggressive enough curbs on mayoral control.)
“My guess would be the sense of betrayal would be stronger among people outside the union,” Fiorillo said, noting that union members were accustomed to watching Weingarten change her mind.
In the interview, Weingarten emphasized two checks to the mayor’s power that do not involve the school board: empowering district superintendents and parent councils to have more decision-making power. “There’s different kinds of ways to get to the standards I just set out,” she said, referring to her commitment to ensuring “checks and balances” and “transparency.”
Weingarten’s critics say that checks and balances are insufficient in a system that is fundamentally flawed. “From the Parent Commission’s point of view, unless we change the balance of power, all of the minor adjustments to the system would be severely handicapped,” Donlan said.
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June 4th, 2009 5:43 am
When Randi, stated, “It’s always been a balance of stability, cohesion, and responsibility, which is what mayoral control brought us, and modifying it to create sufficient checks and balances and transparency,”….did anyone notice if the document she was reading from had an “Office of the Mayor” seal on its letterhead?
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June 4th, 2009 9:31 am
[...] Randi Weingarten’s mayoral control position is making parents and teachers angry. (GothamSchools) [...]
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June 4th, 2009 10:51 am
Not for nothin’ folks, but Randi never said she opposed Mayoral Control…..ever
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June 4th, 2009 4:25 pm
As a public school parent, UFT Chapter Leader and member of the union’s Governance Committee - who must admit that he had every expectation that Randi would pull exactly this move - I must follow up on Ellen McHugh’s statement that, not only has Randi Weingarten never opposed mayoral control, but that we would not have mayoral control if not for Randi Weingarten.
The UFT always had veto power with the legislature over this issue, and it was Randi who gave the go-ahead for mayoral dictatorship of the schools in 2002. In fact, a colleague of mine who spoke with Sheldon Silver at the time tells me that Silver had alternative legislation written that, while giving substantial power to the mayor, would have provided for some checks and balances (which I seem to recall from my US history classes, is supposed to be the American Way). Weingarten rejected this, and we now found ourselves where we are today, betrayed yet again by a so-called union leader who prefers the company and compliments of the oligarchs who are intent on privatizing the schools, de-professionalizing the job of teaching, and preparing students for the the stress, tedium, overwork and surveillance-filled electronic and service/retail sweatshop that is the 21st century workplace.
For those who work or have children in the schools, Randi’s rationale that Bloomberg has brought “stability, cohesion and responsibility” to the schools is a particular insult to our intelligence and experience. After all the intentional fragmentation, chaotic (intentionally so) re-organizations, and refusal to accept any responsibility for ongoing crises within the schools, Randi’s distortions and/or refusal to see reality rubs salt in our wounds, to ay nothing of making it harder to try and make public education work for all students.
As president of the AFT, now taking her show on the road by prepping the sell out of teachers in DC and Detroit, Weingarten’s disgraceful legacy metastasizes nationally.
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June 4th, 2009 4:37 pm
It seems the only things she opposes are the teachers she represents, the children they teach, and the parents of those children.
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June 4th, 2009 4:47 pm
Kudos to Lisa Donlan and Michael F.
My own coming of age re RW was two-plus years ago during the Fair Student Funding rollout. To whit: For a while it seemed that the UFT and parents had common interests on that topic. Then Klein threw in “hold harmless” and some additional insulation for principals vis-a-vis teacher salaries, and suddenly, the remaining parent concerns were forgotten. To paraphrase High School Musical, we’re not all in this together.
And certainly not on the fundamental matter of mayoral control. -
June 4th, 2009 5:48 pm
How profoundly terrible the state of public policy is in New York when anyone on this forum could write “the UFT always had veto power over the Legislature on this issue” regarding Mayoral control, and the statement is viewed as credible. The UFT is a professional union interested in protecting adults’ job. The Legislature is (or should be) the People’s democractive forum. Woe is everyone if the UFT really does control the Legislature in the fashion suggested.
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June 4th, 2009 6:03 pm
Everyone is forgetting that there was more than a UFT member on the commission that created the now functioning DOE. Parent, Unions, CBOs, concerned ctizens, all sat on that committee. you are giving one person wwwaaaayyy to much importance. What about all of the others who created this entity…..including the elected members of the Assembly and Senate. You are being disingenuous to blame one person or one union. You are also giving everyone else who worked on that proposal…. parents, unions members, CBOs and concerned citizens…. a way out, a pass, a tree to hide behind.
And if you are going to tell me that the others willingly ceded their power to the big, bad union, well shame on them. -
June 4th, 2009 9:58 pm
Not to be too harsh, but I think people are being ingenues if they think that the UFT does not have a powerful voice on education issues in the legislature, particularly in the Assembly prior to the 2008 election. And that’s how it should be, since the teachers are both the most stable constituency for public education, as well as - I know this goes against the current conventional wisdom/progaganda about schools - the strongest voice for students. I’m aware this statement will not go over well among many readers of this site, but consider the following:
- It is the UFT contract, and ONLY the UFT contract that places any limits on class size. Without the class size caps in the contract, Bloomberg and Klein would put 50 students in each class. After all, they never tire of saying that class size is irrelevant and that only “teacher quality” matters. Of course, charter supporters will say that they’re classes are smaller, without the “inefficiencies” of a union contract, but the reality is that charters are private entities masquerading as public schools, siphoning off public funds and receiving substantial private subsidies. Comparing charters - with their actively or passively creamed student populations, their low or nonexistent ELL and Special Ed populations, their freedom to remove students for whom the school “is not a good fit” - with zoned public schools is an exercise in naivete or dishonesty.
- The union contract, and ONLY the union contract allows people to make teaching a career, where many teachers often spend their entire professional lives serving the children of a particular community. This is an inestimable social benefit that is often overlooked. Again, charter schools are all about work force transience and turnover (an explicit policy goal of Klein’s, and one reason he’s pushing charters so aggressively), making teaching a temporary missionary/Peace Corps gig. If this offends you, I suggest you look at the turnover rate in charter schools: it’s an unacknowledged scandal, and gives the lie to their claims that they are “all about the children.”
The issue should not be one of people being shocked, positively shocked that the union has a powerful voice in Albany (after all, Finance, Insurance and Real Estate certainly does, and had been unsuccessfully pushing for mayoral control for quite some time) but how well the union uses that power in the service of teachers and students. And by supporting mayoral control, and yes, being the gatekeeper in permitting it to occur, the UFT under Randi Weingarten has failed its members, students and parents.
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June 8th, 2009 8:20 pm
[...] made a deal … she traded for mayoral control for …” See here and here and here. Some postulate: a “deal” on the contract, Klein’s “head,” an [...]
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June 9th, 2009 7:19 am
[...] Randi Weingarten’s mayoral control position is making parents and teachers angry. (GothamSchools) [...]
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June 9th, 2009 11:42 am
Um, just to remind you, Michael, charter schools are public schools.
That’s not my opinion; it’s New York State law.
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June 9th, 2009 6:42 pm
[...] speculate about her mayoral control motives Posted in 974 at June 5th, 2009 / // We’ve reported that people are upset with Randi Weingarten for her school governance position. But we [...]
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