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January 24, 2012

UFT’s new TV ad buy takes aim at Bloomberg’s schools record

by Philissa Cramer, at 7:47 am

The United Federation of Teachers is turning up the heat on Mayor Bloomberg with a new television ad marking mayoral control’s double-digit birthday.

In a separate ad appearing in print today, the union is also continuing its appeal to parents in the ongoing fight over teacher evaluations.

The 30-second television ad, which comes as the union is locked in stalemate with the city over new evaluations, targets Bloomberg’s education track record months before mayoral control’s 10th anniversary. From the ad:

Ten years as Mayor, and Mike Bloomberg still doesn’t get it.

Cathie Black. Fudged education test scores. Closing schools. Parents shut out of the process.

And just last month, Bloomberg said in a perfect world he’d cut the number of teachers in half, doubling class size.

The ad alludes to but does not mention the teacher evaluation fight, for which the union has been pilloried by Bloomberg and other politicians and in the press. The ad concludes:

Mayor Bloomberg, let’s be honest: If you really want to do right by our kids, you’ll work with teachers and parents and stop playing politics with our schools.

Union officials said the ad would start airing today on New York-area TV stations and continue to repeat until Jan. 30. According to the union, the ad buy is estimated to reach more than 8 million viewers multiple times each during programs as varied as “Inside City Hall,” “Top Chef,” Knicks games, and “Jeopardy!”

UPDATE: A full-page “Open Letter to New York City’s Parents” that the union placed as an ad in today’s New York Daily News tackles the evaluations issue head on. The letter, which is not the first that the union has paid to run in recent weeks, urges Bloomberg to “look around the country — and around the world” to understand that teacher evaluations should be used to help teachers improve.

The letter to parents is below.

 

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  • http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/ Norm

    Thank goodness– an end to the insipid ads. Another sign of the UFT leadership is finally getting so frustrated they are exposing what is going on. Until now there was a fear that in trashing the WalBlackBloomKlein schools the union would also be undermining the work teachers were doing. But a decade in, after replacing most of the teaching and administrator staff, the Bloomberg admin — and never forget that Walcott has been there behind the scenes from Day 1 — owns the system. If they claim there are bad teachers, they own that since they have controlled the tenure process. How does the press let Bloomberg get away with bragging that after years of 98% teachers getting tenure only last year did they turn that into 50% when they were in control of the system? And we also have proof that they even messed that up by ordering people to fulfill stats so they can use this politically and in fact a number of people who should have gotten tenure did not.

    So this is a corrupt apple down to the core and it is about time the UFT used its resources correctly. Let’s hope that they don’t turn things down the minute there is an agreement on the evaluation system. Bloomberg’s record under mayoral control must be used as a battering ram to put a stake through mayoral control and bring active communities of parents and teachers into partnerships in running schools at the local level. In a break from 50 years of what I’ve been hearing out of the UFT Mulgrew actually made some of these points on ABC on Sunday. Let’s hope he is serious.

  • old teach

    There should be more informational ads and both NYSUT and the AFT should run them throughout the state and nation. As the darling of the reform movement and with the biggest school district in America, Bloomberg deserves the publicity and Americans should become aware of his failed policies at the cost of a lost generation of students and at a price of more than 12 billion additional dollars during his administration. Kudos to the UFT and president Mulgrew.

  • Philip Nobile

    I was thunderstruck by a line in the anti-Bloomberg ad and sought clarification from the UFT press office. Secretary Dick Riley was out for the week, so I emailed his Deputy Peter Kadushin (and copied Mike Mulgrew and Michael Mendel). I don’t expect a reply, but I’ll post it here if and when it arrives:
     
    Re “fudged education test scores”
    Can you tell me what test scores are referenced in the new ad?And who did the fudging? As you know, tampering with state tests is a crime. The only people with access to the tests are administrators and teachers. Is Mulgrew accusing principals APs,and teachers of tampering? If so, where is the evidence? If not,
    he’s smearing a lot of educators including his own members.
    Please explain.

  • guest

    I think it is more about how the tests got really easy during election years.

  • http://twitter.com/BNiche B

    Here’s the article to the headline that was posted as part of the video. As you will read and as guest mentioned below, it speaks to the inflation of the test scores and the lowering of the cut rates that showed “growth” within lowered standards.

    http://www.nyf.org/newsmakers/2010/07/30/education-scores-dont-pass-smell-test 

  • Philip Nobile

    If the ambiguous fudging refers to lower cut scores rather than tampering, then Mulgrew has different credibility problem. Why did he wait so long to make the case? Why did he reject the DA resolution to support Bill Thompson versus an anti-union mayor campaigning on “fudged” test results? Why was Randi on stage with Bloomberg giving teachers credit for the rise in scores? It is a hard saying, but all too true: UFT leadership, in its own fashion, is as corrupt as the DOE.  

  • Pressure

    GREAT AD!  LOVE IT!  BLOOMBERG IS A NIGHTMARE – DESTROYED THE SYSTEM TOTALLY.  NO EXCUSES, HE’S WRONG.  THE UFT IS GAINING MOMENTUM AND PARENTS AND THE ENTIRE PUBLIC SHOULD SEE THE TRUTH.  GET THE MESSAGE OUT AND KEEP THE PRESSURE ON.

  • Robby Priel

    On Jan. 22, 2012 The NY Daily News published this letter on its “Voice of the People” page.  Kudos to the UFT and the individual who speaks the truth.

    Bad lessons
    Manhattan: I’m really sick and tired of hearing about teacher evaluations, school closings and charter schools. Emperor Bloomberg’s solutions have become the problems. It began with an overemphasis on testing. The pièce de résistance of the emperor’s decade of disaster was his appointment of a loopy senior citizen, Cathie Black, who had no academic credentials, never set foot in a public school and suggested birth control to a community in desperate need of an elementary school.

  • Marty

    Wow, I never thought I’d see the day the UFT ran a decent television ad.  The old ones were painful to watch. 

  • Invictus

    Subway adds should be next.  Bombard all sort of media with the truth…because regardless of how much misinformation and big $$$$$ are behind the DeFormer agenda, their lies and the painful reality always appear from their secret vaults.

    Commenting on the ad, finally have the UFT leadership realized that they need to hire the best, the smartest to make ads that are provocative as well as informational.  Kudos to whomever in the UFT that have decided to change course and to begin a campaign for the hearts and minds of the average middle class person in NYC.

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