If you like what you read below, please join MORE
MISSION STATEMENT (as adopted April 21, 2012)A – Who we are and why we are forming1. We are members of the UFT and members of school communities and their allies.2. We insist on receiving professional dignity and respect, and we insist on a strong, democratic union emerging from an educated and active rank and file. We oppose the lack of democracy and one-party state that has governed our union for half a century. It has conceded to our adversaries’ agendas and has collaborated with their attacks on us, leading to the terrible situation we find ourselves in.3. We insist on a better educational environment for ourselves and for the students whose lives we touch.  Because of this resolve, we have established the MORE Caucus, which will educate, organize and mobilize the UFT membership.B – For an improved contract4. It is time to end the UFT’s concession to the language and assumptions of the so-called reformers and the wave of concessions and givebacks that result from conceding these assumptions.  We must be prepared to take collective action, if necessary, in defense of our interests, and to achieve a decent contract.5. We seek a contract with retroactive pay, that is not obtained by selling off what few protections remain. We insist on defending tenure, due process rights, pensions, and an immediate end to the arbitrary denial of tenure to probationary teachers. We oppose any teacher evaluations based on standardized tests.C – For quality curricula6. We stand for a union that recognizes that teacher working conditions are student learning conditions and that, after parents, teachers are best situated to understand the needs of young people.7. We insist that high stakes tests no longer deprive New York City’s children of exposure to foreign language, science, social studies and the arts.  We insist that curricula taught in our schools be mindful and respectful of the needs and backgrounds of our students, that they nurture in them the potential for active, reflective citizenship, and is committed to racial and gender equity, democracy and economic justice.  D – Our communities, our schools8. We reject the corporate takeover of the public schools, and the wave of school closures in the city, which have particularly affected poor communities with high proportions of people of color.  We insist on a moratorium on the opening of new charter schools.  We seek to end the cuts to education which have led to increasing class sizes as well as inadequate social, health, guidance personnel and services.9. The schools should be the people’s schools.  We stand for democratic governance and popular control of our school system that fully reflects the needs, aspirations and diversity of those who make up its parent and student body.Mayoral control, which is inherently undemocratic, must be abolished , and be replaced by an elected People’s Board of Education which represents the interests of teachers, students, parents, and community.

norm — i mean the union leadership has been overly timid based on its view that the political and economic context is hostile and that a more aggressive posture would carry to high a cost in public opinion.  i don’t think weingarten was some naive dupe who wasn’t aware of what was happening. 
 
 

Give some examples of how political and economic context let them to support mayoral control and push the 2005 contract and merit pay and supported closing schools, charter schools etc. My position (I am not speaking for MORE — unlike Unity we don’t get thrown out for speaking out minds) is that Randi and crew are basically ed deformers or at least support a good deal of the program, wanting to be on the train of ed “reform” before it left without them.

“by and large, the members know what their interests are and
don’t have to be educated about what their interests are.  we’re not
idiots. i don’t need to get a master’s in sociology to know that i don’t
like school closures, or that i want a raise, or that i don’t like the
idea that i can be fired arbitrarily. and maybe it…”

I understand that you may know what your interests are but what can you do about it when your interests are violated? You didn’t mention it is in your interest to have lower class sizes or kids who are healthy and have access to decent medical service or heat in their apartments. But there is that pesky social justice stuff. Maybe not the problem of teachers?

I notice you dont’ mention that your interests might be to have parents support you politically (not just in the claaseoom) it you are to fulfill your other interests. I mean from their point of view why would teachers be fired arbitrarily if they are doing their job? Much of that is incomprehensible to the public. And even to many colleagues in schools without principals who hound them. There are lots of teachers who don’t think it will ever happen to them. go tell then about the principals from hell.

Do you really think most members were opposed to school closings when the UFT leadership jumped on board and helped the DOE savage those schools as failures (based on high stakes tests which the UFT always supported – until recently trying to make it look like they didn’t).

I imagine what might have happened if most members had come out to closing schools PEP meetings and packed the place inside and out with 50,000 screaming teachers. Where were they? Do you think the UFT/Unity leadership had ANYTHING to do with that? Who else has the structure to bring people out to oppose DOE policies? I’m not sure what school you’re in but from all reports apathy about the union reigns. You can’t give the chapter chairmanship away in some schools. Remember how Randi stood with Bloomberg and Klein when phony high test scores were announced and she said teachers should get raises based on them? People have been mis-educated by the union.

- approved Mayoral control of the schools twice, the second time in contravention of its own governance committee recommendations. If you haven’t noticed, mayoral control has been the primary vehicle for closing schools. To this day, the UFT leadership supports mayoral control; all the various opposition caucuses have opposed it from the beginning.

Additionally, it has been the policy of the leadership to do nothing to mobilize school communities to oppose closings, relying instead on a legalistic strategy that has been largely unsuccessful. The leadership also stood by while Bloomberg paid to override term limits, and passively allowed him to be re-elected when he was in fact very vulnerable in 2009. All of those policies were publicly fought by the opposition caucuses.

– has accepted the fundamental premises of the high stakes testing regime and it’s accompanying value added teacher evaluation models, which are used as weapons against teachers and schools. All opposition caucuses have opposed the replacement of a comprehensive and enriched curriculum by testing. The leadership releases sound bites and bogus petitions, while agreeing to the ever-increasing use of tests to rate teachers and schools.

- negotiated the catastrophic 2005 contract, which eliminated seniority transfers and gave Bloomberg the incentive to step up school cllosings.The opposition fought that contract, picketing outside the union and helping to get 40% of the membership to vote against it.

- has done little or nothing to stop the spread of charter schools and their takeovers of public school space. The opposition has from the beginning opposed charters and fought against their expansion.

Now, what else would like me to show?

You’re kidding, right?

How can you protect teachers without understanding the political and economic context in which these attacks are taking place, and developing strategies for dealing with them?

Or are we to rely on the Unity Caucus inside baseball, service proder/ client model, which has brought us to where we are today?