In New York State, a small group of Democrats in the State Senate flipped their allegiance to the Republicans, giving Republicans control of the Senate. Republican control of the Senate worked to the benefit of the 1%.
One of that group was State Senator Jeffrey Klein. He just won the endorsement of the New York State United Teachers.
This is bizarre. According to this blogger, Perdido Street School, Klein is pro-voucher and pro-charter. He supports evaluating educators by test scores.
Can anyone associated with NYSUT explain this endorsement?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
NYSUT will respond that Jeff Klein has been good to the union on getting eye glasses covered. Why does the union do what seems like inexplicable things? Look behind the surface. Note posts praising NYSUT for NOT endorsing Cuomo when in effect that was an endorsement given that they avoided his primary opponent, Teachout. In addition, UFT teacher on leave, Brian Jones, Green Party candidate for Lt. Gov. was denied the oppty to address the NYSUT leaders by a UFT/NYSUT functionary. NYSUT Pres held a rally to tear up the Pearson contract then basically endorses the tainted outcomes on the state tests. The unions use smoke and mirrors to obfuscate the issues and where they stand. So never take at face value what Randi Weingarten says – watch what she and her crew do. There is one way to explain what is really going on — they wittingly or not, in essence work in the interests of the enemies of teachers – and the ed deformers. I think more wittingly than not — one well-known education critic once privately characterized our union leaders as Quislings, the ultimate betrayers. That goes even further than my usual Vichy charge.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Yes, but NYSUT is a different animal (among other things a diverse group, not just teachers), & doesn’t necessarily follow Randi Weingarten down the line. My only input is from a sis whose career (mostly teaching) includes long yrs of union resp, & now admin (so a different union), but it sounded to me like her upstate school’s teachers are strongly supported. Perhaps it’s a different matter, & different strings being pulled, when it comes to political endorsements?
As of April, NYSUT is Unity– just like UFT– and just like Weingarten.
Well, well, well, well, well.
Soo-prise, soo-prise.
NYSUT? Not an Angel?
NO!!!!!!!!!!
Really?!!!!!!!
Oh brother. Since when does the unions care about anything BUT their power?
Look at how their POWER w/Obama trumps teachers right now?
Fools and their profession are soon parted …
Unless, of course, they’re professional fools …
It would not be the first time they have been short-sighted.
It is a shame that the new set of officers seem no more in touch with their membership than the last set. They also endorsed NYS Sen. Tom Libous, who is a member of ALEC, is working closely with our governor in promoting his anti-teacher agenda (among other anti-common man items) and who is under indictment for lying to the FBI. Even stranger, his opponent is Anndrea Starzak, is a retired teacher and a member of NYSUT. By the way, NYSUT’s current president is Karen Magee, not Randi Weingarten, who is head of the national AFT.
Actually Randi Weingarten is unofficially president of UFT/NYSUT and AFT – all jump to her tune. Karen Magee is a puppet.
Diane,
My district is one of the districts piloting the new TEA designed VAM evaluations for teachers for the state. People have been worried about the VAM component but yesterday we saw the rubric and it is pretty crazy in all areas. Two examples: if your students are ” sometimes disrespectful to each other” then you are judged “developing” ( 1 step below proficient). Additionally, if you do attend “ALL school outreach activities” ( these are on Saturdays or evenings, thus off contract) you are “proficient”. If you attend “most” you are below proficient.
We were also told ( probably ten times) “proficient is the new exemplary.” Our principal said this three times in a row and one time paused dramatically and stated “take that to heart.”
I would be happy to scan this to you. I talked to my “union” rep ( in our right to work state) and he said that it is pretty much illegal. But we know how much power “unions” have in our rtw state.
Could you possibly get this out? VAM is the least of our problems here in TX:(
While I’m scared of the “new democrat” (think Booker in NJ), I’m deathly afraid of the republicans in power. The new democrats like the smell of the $$$ but the old republicans are often heard, or overheard, speaking their “us” and “them” rhetoric, which isn’t rhetoric at all; it is a mentality, a belief system, and a way of life. They are the entitled ones, many who grew up with money, and the rest of us can go pack salt. They want to do away with medicare, medicaid, social security, unemployment insurance, unions, minimum wages, health clinics, planned parenthood, PBS. Scary stuff, indeed.
Donna, they are becoming one and the same. Dems are now Neoliberals—basically pro-business, anti-public ed.
Donna,
Booker brought Anderson to Newark. He ignored the street shootings. He backs charter schools. How is he less scary than a Republican?
Titleonetexas:
As a former union rep, I do not see how sharing this is illegal. If you can, please send it to NYCEducator, EdNotesonline, or the Perdido. Their email addresses are part of their blog, and they will respect your identity. Just remind them in your email. Also, do you follow https://www.facebook.com/pages/Texas-Parents-Opt-Out-of-State-Tests/121316371311714
Thanks school gal:)
Are you in Dallas? That sounds like the rubric from Harrison school district in Colorado Springs that caused me to give up teaching after a decade (of
excellent reviews).
“Additionally, if you do attend “ALL school outreach activities” ( these are on Saturdays or evenings, thus off contract) you are “proficient”. If you attend “most” you are below proficient.”
I was the “school based coach” at my school for a year, here in NYC. We attended meetings with the Asst Principals (admin). At one of the meetings, the speakers spoke glowingly of the new tenure requirements which included time spent after normal school hours and weekends. Then they talked about targeting those who are already tenured with the same requirement in order to retain tenure.
Endorsing an oily bottom-feeder like Klein is just part of Unity’s workaday world. NYC teachers who’ve been around for a while probably have not-so-fond memories of the UFT leadership giving its annual John Dewey Award to Republican governor George Pataki, and then stabbing Democratic gubernatorial candidate and long-time UFT ally Carl McCall in the back some years ago. It’s typical behavior on their part.
After all, this is an organization that continues to endorse Mayoral control of the schools (except when the Mayor tries to rein in charter schools, in which case they silently stand by and allow him to be knee-capped by Cuomo/Moskowitz), did nothing to keep Bloomberg from buying an illegal third term and then gave him a de facto endorsement in 2009, takes pay-offs, er, investments, from Gates and Broad, supports Common Core and the testing regime that motivates it, as well as test-based teacher evaluations. The hostile takeover of public education would have never, ever, had the “success” it found if Weingrew had not accepted its premises.
Unity often appears invincible, given their choke-hold on power and the frequent cleverness with which they manipulate it, but everything runs it’s course, and these people have been enjoying their one-party state, and the double pensions that accompany it, for more than half a century. Unity Caucus is literally the last of the great political machines.
However, Unity Caucus is trapped in a dilemma: it fattens off the apathy and demoralization of it’s grossly manipulated membership, yet that very same apathy and demoralization inevitably lead to the weakening of the union, which ultimately endangers their hold on power.
The stronger they appear, the weaker they in fact are.
Michael Mulgrew can threaten to punch us all in the face – everyone, that is, except Andrew Cuomo, whom he kneels before – but he is now widely seen as a joke and embarrassment, and it’s hard to maintain monolithic power when your ostensible leader is a literal punch line.
Like the Communist Party in East Germany, which it ironically resembles in its inner “Democratic Centralist” workings, Unity will continue to be invincible, until it isn’t.
This particular blogger keeps himself well informed into Albany politics. I read his blog every single day because the NY papers don’t always report the goings on in Albany.
I bet NYSUT leaders will say they are doing their part per the agreement with Working Families Party wherein Governor Cuomo was granted the WFP endorsement in return for his working to return the New York State Senate into the hands of Democrats.
But Liz Benjamin at State of Politics reported the following about that:
“There was also no consensus among union leaders about the effort to flip the Senate into Democratic hands – a push that largely originated with unions during the labor-backed Working Families Party’s debate over whether to endorse Gov. Andrew Cuomo or Fordham Law Prof. Zephyr Teachout.”
LINK: http://www.nystateofpolitics.com/2014/08/inside-nysuts-endorsement-process/
I’m agnostic these days about Dems taking back the Senate.
Many of them are ed deformers, pro-charter, pro-CCSS, etc. – like Jeff Klein.
But it’s important to document the NYSUT shenanigans around their endorsement process.
BTW, they also endorsed the second ranking Republican in the State Senate, a pol who was indicted last month for lying to federal investigators in a corruption investigation:
http://perdidostreetschool.blogspot.com/2014/08/nysut-backs-indicted-senate-republican.html
Folks above understand the AFT/NYSUT/UFT leadership thuggery and self-serving cronyism. If we keep our eyes on the prize, we’ll go all out for Teachout in the Sept. 9 NYS Dem Gov Primary, and if she loses, then go all out for Howie Hawkins/Brian Jones for Gov/LtGov on the Green Party in Nov election. We need boots on the ground, voting against the Dem/GOP/AFT leadership cabal fattening themselves at our expense.
I agree. This plan is my plan.
I’ve campained for Howie several times since we both live in Syracuse. This is a man of deep integrity. That alone (for me) will get him my vote. I’m a Democrat, so I will be voting for Teachout in the primary, but come November color my vote Green.
Ditto
No surprise to me, Diane, or any teacher in the state who needed the union. You know that I have been talking about the union’s betrayal forever… because they were the legal representatives for us, and the evidence is clear. I watched a NYSUT attorney ‘defend’ Pi Lian Tu, at her hearing. He let the administration’s lies stand, did not allow any evidence that would prove her account (like the actual tests that showed her competency was extraordinary, or the parent testimony about what she did for the kids.)
He allowed the principal to accuse her of incompetence and theft… all of it lies.
So much for NYSUT.
The primary is underway in Florida, and I am still shocked that Diane’s PAC has not endorsed Nan Rich. Nor, given any explanation why there are not endorsing. I thought this is all about candidates who support public ed. Crist does not. So if you can explain why Nan Rich doesn’t deserve a nod, I would appreciate it because I am trying so hard to convince people not to follow polls. Look at what happened in Hawaii. I am sure that teachers and parents had a lot to do with that defeat even though the polls and money said differently. Grassroots campaigns must be supported. Vote for Nan!!
School gal,
Nan Rich should ask NPE for its endorsement. That’s the way it works. There are many races and we don’t intervene unless contacted by a candidate.
Had no idea that’s how it works. But given her support for public ed, I thought you would have written a post about the fact Crist refused to debate her. You write about so many other candidates including the candidates in this piece which had, if I am correct, not contacted NPE. I hope for the sake of education and the state of Florida, she wins this primary. And for the sake of NYS public ed, Teachout wins.
After support for Common Core it is obvious that they care little about education. Now they want to violate the Constitution by writing curriculum.
Klein wants to be a powerhouse by crossing party lines. read this: NYSUT is sucking up to power at its own expense.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/28/new-york-state-senate-party-control-senator-jeffrey-d-klein-democrat-favors-bipartisan-coalition_n_2204870.html
I don’t get this endorsement
Sent from my iPad
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Diane, the big unions, as much as we need them in our court, are not substantially in our court, and ultimately are in business for themselves, as institutions whose sovereignty and autonomy are pretty much independent of us constituents.
I’m not saying that there aren’t some noticeable and favorable shifts in the unons’ positions. . .. at least they are there rheotrically and with position paper and statements. And I will gratefully accept them.
But the unions have become a politicized species that now politick differently, doing so with the wrong groups. . . . .
Get used to it . . . . .
I’m not being sarcastic, or titillating. . . I’m just observing and reporting out.
I do not wish to disparage Randi, whom I met when I was a NYC teacher. Unfortunately, my experience came about because the UFT rep at my school was not merely unhelpful, she wanted a full-time art position, and because I taught art as part of my 7th grade Communication Arts curricula, the principal kept her in a vulnerable part-time position. She lived near the school and what she told the community, my students and my staff while I was imprisoned in the district office on allegations (but no charges) of corporal punishment, she poisoned the site… I have emails and evidence of everything I say here, and Randi has seen it.
Moreover, the Manhattan Bureau Rep, was present at the MEETING, not a hearing–as not a single charge had been put forth, where the superintendent publish a letter she herself had concocted, which SAID “I had been found guilty of corporal punishment, based on alleged comments to a student.
This UFY rep did what he had been doing to all the veteran teachers who were victims of due process violations in order to break tenure….he told me to sit down when I arose stunned at a VERDICT, with no charges, evidence, investigation etc.
I hired a lawyer to represent me, and for my 25 k he warned the district not to publish that letter.
They did, at the school, where the famous curricula that I and written for the seventh grade, and which the National Standards research had chosen as a cohort for NYC –had been dismantled, and I was told to teach in a storeroom, in a pullout program that never existed. Here I was ‘documented’ as incompetent, and eventually , charges were put out…but not before the principal has someone write that she had heard me threaten to kill her.
i tell you this, because Randi Weingarten, and the uFT attorney have seen all my evidence. Randi helped me with a medical leave ( the trauma that occurred at being blindsided at the top of my career was real… and it was my husband who contacted her.)
Eventually, she helped me into “arbitration’ and retirement…even though I had hoped to teach for several years and reach longevity benefits. I lost pension, social security and saving benefits but I go out with my sanity, not knowing at that time (1998) about the assault on tenure. 16 years later I can say this about the UFT… without them teachers in NYC would be at the mercy of top-down administrators, — lawless, failed human beings.
That said, the union is complicit and working with principals at the local site, and at district levels to harass wonderful teachers… I have tons of evidence from those I met during my own travails, and since then.
We need the unions. We simply need leaders who re-vamp the leadership and enforce the contract… which is sitting next to me on my desktop, as I write this.
We need Randi, for better or worse SHE has the pulpit… but so does Diane, by her honesty and fame.
This whole thing makes me ill.
Susan, never give up as we continue to evolve and reinvent our unions. It is a struggle and a long process, but worth every molecule of effort. You have a powerful voice.
Robert Rendo commented on Why Did New York State Teachers Union Endorse Pro-Voucher, Pro-Charter Candidate?.
in response to Susan Lee Schwartz:
I do not wish to disparage Randi, whom I met when I was a NYC teacher. Unfortunately, my experience came about because the UFT rep at my school was not merely unhelpful, she wanted a full-time art position, and because I taught art as part of my 7th grade Communication Arts curricula, the principal kept […]
Susan, never give up as we continue to evolve and reinvent our unions. It is a struggle and a long process, but worth every molecule of effort. You have a powerful voice.
Thank you Robert. I am new to this blog, and it is encouraging to know that my voice is being heard, because at the crux of what happened to me, is the conspiracy to silence the voice of the classroom teacher… the grunt on the line who knows what learning looks like, and what must be present in order to support the professional practice.
And the first thing is the legal support offered by a union which cares for its members. I was abandoned, like the hundred thousand veteran teachers who went down in the last decade.
I want a union. I want new blood there and an end to the corruption. For me, there is no way that Randi did not know what was happening. It took a lucky break when my husband called her and got through with “This is Richie, is Randi there?”
Can you believe it; she had a decorator or caterer with that name, and my future hung in the balance. If I had not been the cohort for the National Standards and famous in NYC, perhaps she would have ignored my plight. Thus hung my fate.
And to end this story, is the sad truth of why my husband called. You see, the day before, I was no longer in the rubber room, thanks to my filed lawsuit and my expensive attorney. I was not teaching my famous curriculum to the entire 7th grade, but teaching a few kids each period in that storeroom …in the school which I had helped to put on the map in NYC.
But the principal was in an uproar… too many students and parents wanted me back in the classroom, so the new principal threw a fit, and had a teacher in the school downstairs, write a letter claiming that I had threatened to kill her…”Report to the District office,” she ordered,as my union rep stood at her side smirking.
I didn’t know the reason that I was once again in that rubber room, until the personal director, Lorraine Smith, a lovely woman, threw the paper on the table and ran, shouting over her shoulder: “I had nothing to do with this.”
When I read this slander…I lost it. I was beyond knowing what to do, but I knew what I had done… I had created a miraculous curriculum that worked, and had been accused in short order of corporal punishment and attempt to murder… the charges of incompetence were to come while I was on the medical leave that Randi secured for me.
I did not merely lose my job, my career, my life’s work, I lost my civil rights to defend myself, and my self-esteem… and I was ill, now.
MY story is the hidden story of the abuse that comes when NO administrator is held ACCOUNTABLE. I think, if they could, they would have shot me dead.
Imagine how dangerous a teacher like me must be, to encounter such tactics.
I am the metaphor for what has happened to the best teachers in America,… mine is the story of the war on teachers… and yes Robert, they cannot silence me, but who else hears my story and my warnings, beside my peers in this wonderful teacher’s room that Diane created,
Thanks for responding. Even if I am preaching to the choir, at least I am not silenced.
Thank you Robert. I am new to this blog, and it use encouraging to know that my voice is being heard, because at the crux of what happened to me, is the conspiracy to silence the voice of the classroom teacher… the grunt on the line who knows what learning looks like, and what must be present in order to support the professional practice.
And the first thing is the legal support offered by a union which cares for its members.
I was abandoned, like the hundred thousand veteran teachers who went down in the last decade.
I want a union. I want new blood there and an end to the corruption. For me, there is no way that Randi did not know what was happening. It took a lucky break when my husband called her and got through with “This is Richie, is Randi there?”
Can you believe it, she had a decorated or caterer with that name, and my future hung in the balance. If I had not been the cohort for the National Standards and famous in NYC, perhaps she would have ignored my plight. Thus hung my fate.
And to end this story, is the sad truth of why my husband called. You see, the day before, I was no longer in the rubber room, thanks to my filed lawsuit and my expensive attorney. I was not teaching my famous curriculum to the entire 7th grade, but teaching a few kids each period in that storeroom …in the school which I had helped to put on the map in NYC.
But the principal was in an uproar… too many students and parents wanted me back in the classroom, so the new principal threw a fit, and had a teacher in the school downstairs, write a letter claiming that I had threatened to kill her…”Report to the District office,” she ordered,as my union rep stood at her side smirking.
I didn’t know the reason that I was once again in that rubber room, until the personal director, Lorraine Smith, a lovely woman, threw the paper on the table and ran, shouting over her shoulder: “I had nothing to do with this.”
When I read this slander…I lost it. I was beyond knowing what to do, but I knew what I had done… I had created a miraculous curriculum that worked, and had been accused in short order of corporal punishment and attempt to murder… the charges of incompetence were to come while I was on the medical leave that Randi secured for me.
I did not merely lose my job, my career, my life’s work, I lost my civil rights to defend myself, and my self-esteem… and I was ill, now.
MY story is the hidden story of the abuse that comes when NO administrator is held ACCOUNTABLE. I think, if they could, they would have shot me dead.
Imagine how dangerous a teacher like me must be, to encounter such tactics.
I am the metaphor for what has happened to the best teachers in America,… mine is the story of the war on teachers… and yes Robert, they cannot silence me, but who else hears my story and my warnings, beside my peers in this wonderful teacher’s room that Diane created,
Thanks for responding. Even if I am preaching to the choir, at least I am not silenced.
Curious why Dr. Ravitch hasn’t challenged any of the anti-Weingarten remarks above. I was immediately taken to task for suggesting the AFT elections were rigged which they are in the same hamfisted obstructionist way the NYSUT elections were by manipulation and machinations of those holding power.
Those supported by the unions seem to have their articles posted as headlines.
No anti union talk there.
Diane has always been fair about people’s view of the union. She does not censor, save for inappropriate language, threats, and malignment based on falsities.
She believes in not alienating the unions. I have disagreed with her many times about the unions, but she honors all POVs while not always agreeing with them. She is anything but a language police.
I have written very colorful things on this blog about the AFT. . . . and have not once been censored.
We continue to go through an appropriate struggle to reinvent our unions – and ourselves, most of all . . . Karen Lewis and Julie Kavanaugh are prime examples of that.
This is very discouraging. I thought the NYSUT was our last line of defense after my home UFT showed their stripes.
Diane: I understand and respect your point of view: don’t alienate your strongest allies. But their actions just continue to point in the direction of subterfuge.
Yes, NYSUT, the UFT, and the AFT. . . . . Horror stories in so many ways . . . .