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According to Kahlenberg, Al Shanker created the world and on the seventh day he rested.

What’s the matter, Kitchen Sink? Haven’t you read Diane’s book yet? Today is a perfect opportunity. Take advantage.

The Post is calling for Paterson to resign.

I gotta say, I agree with the Post (can’t believe I wrote that.)

Paterson sent his personal state trooper detail to get the woman who his aide allegedly assaulted to drop the charges, then called her himself when that first gambit failed.

That is disgusting on the face of it.

it’s even worse though because at the very same time he was doing this, he was calling for Hiram Monserrate to be expelled from the Senate for assaulting his girlfriend.

Paterson has got to go.

And maybe, just maybe, if the facts lead there, he’s got to go to jail too.

Oh, I get it, Micheal. Because Moskowitz (who is affiliated with 4 out of the 108 New York charter schools) has ready access to the Chancellor, that “demolishes” the credibility of the other 104 public schools in the five boroughs.

The rest of the 100+ school leaders, the thousands of educators and staff members, the tens of thousands of parents and family members and kids, all of their hard work and efforts to educate children is a illusory sham, a Potemkin Village.

Since you’re such a fan of Russian history, let’s leave the 18th century and move to the 20th: You represent and defend a corrupt organization, the UFT, which exists to perpetuate the interests of a minority (the power elite of the municipal labor class) who cynically manipulate the emotions of predominately Black and Latino families attending public schools here in New York. Trotsky would be shedding a tear, if he were alive to see it.

Speaking of tears, the crocodile tears of Mulgrew, Casey, et al in the past months about school phase outs and charter school demographics should be saved, because the school phase-out process, with its hearings, its testimony and its PEP meetings with votes are *exactly* what Weingarten, Mulgrew and Casey signed off on last summer when they supported Mayoral Control.

The UFT leadership knew this would happen, because they guaranteed it happening with their support of Mayoral Control. The City Council knew this would happen, when they protected their own interests in lifting term limits, allowing Bloomberg to run again. The UFT’s bought-and-paid-for Assembly Democrats who renewed Mayoral Control at the behest of the UFT knew this would happen. You, angling for your precious HS seat on the Executive Board and the clout that it gives you, knew it would happen.

As for charters, until the most recent round of contract negociations, the UFT’s leadership was mildly supportive (Weingarten) to indifferent (everyone else) to charter schools. The quote of the week was Mulgrew telling Daily News that the reason why their charter schools don’t serve their proportionate share of ELL and SPED students in Brooklyn is because there isn’t law forcing them to do it.

Once it was clear that Bloomberg wouldn’t pay 4 + 4, after extracting the UFT’s complicity on lifting term limits, their active support in gaining Mayoral Control and an absolutely spineless lack of endorsement for Thompson, they flipped their indifference into a media campaign against charters, a phenomenon so small that it legitimately does not affect the vast majority of New York’s school children in any way whatsoever, with 104 schools and 70 co-locations.

The UFT’s leadership got played by someone, and this is a rare case, more ruthless than they are. Bloomberg used them to keep control of the schools and threw them away when they had outlasted their usefulness (hints of Stalin, my Russian history interlocutor). In turn, the UFT’s leadership manipulated communities into thinking that they weren’t complicit in both the broad academic failure of New York’s public schools for Black and Latino communities and their role in allowing Bloomberg to win the election, maintain Mayoral Control and continue his educational agenda.

For you to suggest that the “political and institutional juice” lies with charter schools, the majority of which are not CMO schools, not EMO schools, but rather freestanding, independent schools, is rich indeed. Not as rich as the UFT’s coffers, which exist not to support the working teacher (much less the children of New York,) but to extend power of the municipal labor elite who is actually running the show.

Micheal, you are a bit player in the UFT power structure, a token dissenter who is allowed to exist because you illustrate the illusion of democratic unionism. If you were to ever pose a threat to Unity’s power, they would either co-opt you (New Action) or completely obliterate you (see: Radical unionists in the decade of the 1960s).

You should be smart enough to know that legitimate teacher empowerment does exist in the Department of Education. The Chancellor and UFT are Siamese twins in this disempowerment effort (man, those givebacks sure do sting, don’t they?) and also in the disenfranchisement of Black and Latino communities who are the users of the DOE/UFT’s services. At least the Chancellor makes no pretense of caring about parent voice as he moves on with his agenda. Your champions in the UFT leadership are the ones that should be exposed.

Please note, despite your personal arrogance Micheal, that I address my criticisms to the UFT Leadership (which you aspire to be a part of) and not the school locals, not the teachers doing the right thing every day despite challenging work environments. No, you will not see my criticize the working teachers themselves who have never, do not currently and likely will never have actual power or autonomy as civic agents, barring a UFT perestroika. The notion of that particular thaw is a nice thought on a day like today. Enjoy your snow day!

TtT:

I’m having problems with double standards, and I don’t mean mine, and I don’t mean to suggest yours are not consistent. But your post above did get my brain to thawing, perhaps a bit too much….

If charter opponents cry foul over the Moskowitz-Klein relationship, that should NOT impugn the other charters. (4 of 108 being 3.7 percent)

This despite the fact that even without this particular and unique and QUESTIONABLE cozy relationship, many of the themes (regardless of one’s position on them) remain the same: space wars, impact on traditional public school class sizes, skimming, public funds for private entities, lack of ELL and Spec Ed representation in test score / school results…. etc., etc.

But critics of traditional public schools can cite the 19 of 1,000+ schools (less than 1.9%) slated for closure (deserving or not) of evidence that charters should be given freer rein.

But critics of traditional public schools harp on six specific cases cases of teachers already removed from the classroom as evidence that unionized teachers some 60,000(?) are the problem. 6 of 60k is one one-hundredth of one percent. 0.01%.

Fun with math: seems the Moskowitz-Klein connection is twice as representative as the bad TPS ratio, and is 370 times as representative as the bad-apple teacher connection. Verrry loosely put. [My probabilities and sadistics interlocutor would be spinning in his bell-curve shaped grave. ;- ) ]

And speaking of Russian history, it was less than a year ago that Mayor Bloomberg accused those who dared challenge his totalitarian control of the schools — and his pro-charter at all costs agenda — as wanting to return to the Soviet Union. Got irony? Gee, I always thought the Soviet Union believed in a standardized curriculum. Got even more irony?

“Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything.”
— Josef Stalin

“…and those who spend $108 Mill on the votes have “earned” the right to crow about democracy having spoken.”
– Mayor Mike

Nazdarovya!

Michael Fiorillo (I’m going to try to post this again),

>Frankly, the Moskowitz/Klein emails do demolish the credibility of charters, in particular the chains, which in the neo-liberal business model that is infesting education, are intended to eliminate the mom-and-pop charter schools. Do you really think that if we had the emails between Klein and David Levin of KIPP it wouldn’t show much the same, perhaps even with the same icky, fawning tone?

The exchanges between Klein/Moskowitz, Klein/Levin or any other charter operator, on a systemwide institutional level, are fairly small potatoes. Yes, there are about a dozen charter/traditional co-locations that are hotspots and have some legitimate problems. There are also 700 traditional public school co-locations, and no doubt there are a lot of unhappy math teachers teaching in the library or bookroom there, with nary a charter in sight.

Maybe your buddy Juan Gonzalez can do an expose of TPS/TPS co-locations that aren’t going so well to even it out a bit. Oh, wait, just pick up the VOICE and read about how great it is for Patrick Sullivan’s kids compared to the parents of Black and Latino families in the same building. If you’re so excited about contradictions, how can mom-and-pops, soon to be the victim of the neo-liberal buisness model personafied by Moskowitz, also lose credibility from the email exchanges of the same such person?

>As for illusory shams, that was my description of your Dollar Store faux progressive rhetoric against the UFT. Otherwise, my attacks have always been against the deceptions and delusions of charter backers, not the needs and efforts of parents in getting the best for their children. What I have referred to is the vicious hypocrisy of those who, having disinvested in minority schools and communities for decades, set those same communities against each other in the campaign to privatize the schools. What do you think about that, or is that also the result of the evil UFT mesmerizing its members and public school parents? But that can’t be so, for as you yourself have noted, the UFT leadership supports charter schools.In regard to “the power elite of the municipal labor class” – congratulations, you get a pwogwessive brownie point for alluding to C.Wright Mills – you are stumbling over your own contradictory statements. Your previous comment decried the UFT’s racism and venality directed at minority communities; in your latest comment you lament their dark satanic arts in in manipulating these same communities. Please make up your mind which one it is; your inconsistency makes it hard to know what you think.

You seem to miss the obvious connection that the UFT leadership can be simultaneously racist in its steamrolling of minority voices in the caucuses, in the locals and the DA and also manipulate the sentiment of Black and Latino community members around the school phase-outs. At these hearings, why won’t one Unity member stand up and say “We had a part in this. We could have supported this school more. We could have given more training, more resources and more attention to these struggling schools. We could have used a fraction of our $40 million lobbying budget to support these actual students who are not graduating on time at rates of 50% or more.” Sure, I understand the strategy of the UFT’s leadership in laying the lion’s share of the blame at the Chancellor’s feet (this is how the game works: Chancellor blames union, Union blames chancellor, they are still both in charge), but why can’t one single Unity hack say, “We bear some responsibility in what has happened here. We have failed kids too?”

>As for your description of the UFT leadership’s complicity with the re-authorization of mayoral control and the metastasis of charter schools at the expense of public schools, I agree with much of what you say, although you draw the wrong conclusions. I have been outspoken for years – identifying myself in public, by the way, unlike Tribunes of the People such as yourself – in and outside the union in opposing mayoral control and charters.

The facts are clear. The UFT leadership traded away their opposition to 1) term limits 2) mayoral control 3) Bloomberg’s third term for an non-public promise of giving them a new contract of +4/+4 with minor givebacks and reforms. Guess what, he reneged. Charter school teachers, parents and children are bearing the brunt of this very effective tactic in getting +4/+4. The DOE and UFT, handmaidens as always, are both happy to play parents against each other (in this case, charter vs traditional, in the past, middle class vs the poor) for their own political interests.

>Last year I wasted many hours on the union’s governance committee and helped write a a minority report for the union’s Delegate Assembly that called for a re-instatement of something very similar to community control of the schools. And, of course, not only was re-authorization of mayoral control pre-ordained – as the recently released emails between Moskowitz and Klein conclusively show – but Weingarten unilaterally threw her own Unity-dominated committee report in the garbage. And, as you also correctly note, she was played in the process. My personal opinion is that Bloomberg promised her a 4% & 4% contract, and then reneged when he saw her weakness and servility, and it’s effect on the union.

Your description of the “democratic unionism” of the UFT leadership is much more effective than any I could imagine.

>You seem to think that I have great hopes for my Executive Board candidacy, and expect to get something out of it (besides a lot of tsouris, but hopefully tsouris for the leadership) in the unlikely case of being elected. Sorry, you’re wrong again. I have no illusions about the largely symbolic nature of running. After all, the Unity Caucus, which has governed the UFT since the union’s inception, is the last of the great urban political machines.

It’s good to see that you are not delusional about your place in the UFT. The absolute intolerance of Unity for those who would challenge their power base is well demonstrated by their PRI-like dominance since 1962.

>Still, symbols count for something, and unlike you I can recognize the structural and institutional importance of a union, even a weak or bad one, rather than placing my trust in the plutocrats who fund your boutique charter schools, your boutique charter schools that by your own numbers, generated by a pro-privatization ideologue, are shown to restrict enrollment by special ed students and ELLs. Where’s your response to that? Did you really think that you could just throw numbers out there and that no one would look at them? Apparently, you did.

Symbols count for something, especially symbols that don’t actually represent the larger facts. You hold up Moskowitz as the face of charter schools because it is politically expedient for your views. You effectively marginalize scores of great educators who have started excellent schools that are helping New York’s children learn. However, while you do have a bad union, it is not a weak one, remember nothing happens in Albany without their consent. Unity will eventually win that contract but, just like last time, it’s going to be paid in givebacks. Don’t think Steve Brill is done yet.

>I am even less than a bit player in the UFT power structure: I am just a seasoned, rank-and-file NYC public school teacher (and parent, and alumnus) who has no illusions whatsoever about the union’s current leadership. It’s just that, unlike you and your fellow charter proponents lip-synching your focus group-generated rhetoric about the public schools, I am and will remain a union guy. In other words, someone who believes in the potentiality of working people to act together to create a better world for themselves and others. And please re-read your labor history: what “radical unionists” were “obliterated” in the 1960’s?

Your attempt to portray the UFT as a populist union fits in nicely with the Unity Leadership’s propaganda. If you believed in the ability of working people to act together, you are in the wrong union. Teacher’s unions elsewhere, throughout history and often in other countries (see: the 2006 Mexican teacher’s movement in Oaxaca), and here in the US, in past struggles, have been in actual solidarity with the communities they educate, not simply pawns in their quest for +4/+4. The Unity signed away all militancy and real populist power in another backroom deal for contract benefits, for their troubles, they got the Taylor law.

>Once more, before this argument gets way too redundant, your criticism of the DOE and mayoral control, which I think is merely tactical for the purposes of this argument, shows either your inability or unwillingness to publicly acknowledge your patrons in charterworld.

Beyond your chosen targets and charter school media darlings (again a small number of schools), you truly don’t understand the mentality of actual charter school founders, teachers and parents. There are some many great schools in New York that do not have corporate boards, who do not have foundations/cmos/cbos, who do not have the chancellor’s ear. In your attacks on the fatcats, you have dishonored and minimized the work of many good people. Got nuanced analysis?

>Where would you be without them? Of course, we don’t know, since you conveniently hide behind anonymity. Are you a teacher? Have you ever taught for one day in a NYC public school? Or are you one of those self-proclaimed, instant experts on education, like the overwhelming majority of charter school supporters, repeating the script and talking points?

Unlike you, I am not running for anything and don’t need to self-aggrandize. Let’s stick to the debate.

If your give them more than a cursory read , ou will see a public official working carefully behind the scenes to orchestrate advantages for the operator a private corporation, to the detriment of other public school students he is charged to serve.

You will see (12/21,26/07) Moskowitz asking for and apparently receiving from DOE officials the names and addresses of parents of K-age students in Central Harlem, so that she can expand her “market.” Is this the amount and kind of communication that the Chancellor has with the average school administrator? For years, there have been vague anecdotes about charters being given help in recruiting and poaching public school student: here’s the proof.

You will also see her discussing general strategy with the Chancellor over selling the charter brand.

You will see (3/25/09), as I posted in my initial comment, her telling the Chancellor in the run-up to re-authorization of mayoral control, “What ever legal arguments, this is a power and public relations struggle…”

My sentiments, exactly.

MF,

I did get something out of the tennis match, a more well rounded opinion of my own. You do know what they say about opinions don’t you? Opinions are like a**holes. Everyone has one and they all stink.

MF,

They absolutely do and I respect many of them on this blog, including much of what you say. Just trying to add a liitle humor. Going for a late night sled. (never to old)