Mike Klonsky: What Was Gained by Randi’s Visit with Betsy?

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1. GregB says:

   April 23, 2017 at 12:59 am

   As Klonsky asks, has she been playing a fool’s game? It seems to me that she’s been playing this game for quite some time.

   Reply
   • Joel Herman (@jwherman11) says:

     April 23, 2017 at 1:59 pm

     Is she being driven from down below to do anything different and what affect do retirees have on the actions of the AFT .
     In many unions only active members can vote . I don’t believe that is the case in the UFT / AFT .
     The reformers did better in the last UFT election in NY but they still lost .
     So my take is that a teacher with a nice comfortable position in a wealthy suburban district has little incentive to rock the boat till they come after him

     Reply
2. m4potw says:

   April 23, 2017 at 1:24 am

   After reading the link, I am really sorry to acknowledge the gullibility in Union President of AFT.

   The rule of thumb, about EVIL in “sainthood” clothes for the look , but NOT in action, is to MANIPULATE and to LURE public into their evil trap for their own profit and power.

   Please research more into all documentaries regarding HOW fascists and communists have mislead and betrayed their GULLIBLE followers/believers in their EMPTY PROMISES.

   I always remember the joke that has a doubled meaning from Clint Eastwood and Arnold Schwarzenegger, like:

   1) Do you feel lucky, punk? Then Clint shot the bad guy.
   2) I lied then Arnold dropped the bad guy over the cliff.

   In the same vein, Hitler terrorized Europe and Northern Vietnamese Communists successfully trapped and killed GULLIBLE Southern Vietnamese leaders in their Concentration Camp.

   WE NEED TO LEARN AND TO AVOID all evil traps. That is my two cents worth regarding my own common sense and own tough luck experience. Back2basic.

   In short, I complete agree with Mike that:

   [ start quote]

   But if she’s providing some union cover for DeVos in exchange for some credibility with the Trump administration, she’s playing a fool’s game.

   [end quote]

   Reply
3. Susan Lee Schwartz says:

   April 23, 2017 at 1:40 am

   I was a teacher when Randi was the president of the UFT.
   She came to my rescue when the the principals went beyond the law, because I was a celebrated educator and I had the facts, the tapes and the evidence of how the union had utterly failed me.
   http://www.perdaily.com/2011/01/lausd-et-al-a-national-scandal-of-enormous-proportions-by-susan-lee-schwartz-part-1.html

   So, there is no surprise here!

   Reply
4. democracy says:

   April 23, 2017 at 6:28 am

   The school system the Weingarten and DeVos visited together is certainly “tradition” even if it’s rural.

   Like so many other school systems, the Van Wert schools have gone all-in for STEM. The Van Wert Independent reported last Spring that the Van Wert city school board heard presentations of the STEM program at the middle school, which “began in the 2007-2008 school year.” The superintendent of schools told the board that “We’re trying to do as much STEM as we can…” STEM is alive and well at the elementary level too.

   Two years earlier, the Van Wert Times Bulletin reported on STEM pre-engineering classes being offered at the high school.

   Meanwhile, GE has been laying off hundreds of engineers in Ohio and thousands more across the country, including layoffs at its research labs. Reuters reported last August that Cisco was laying off nearly 6000, Intel was laying off more than 12,000, and Dell cut more than 10,000. A tech industry expert said 2016 would see 370,000 layoffs. Information Week reported last Spring the top 10 tech companies that would shed workers over the next year, including VMware (2,000), Symantec (3,000), Yahoo (3,500), EMC (10,000 – 14,000), Cisco (14,000), HP Inc. (14,000), Microsoft (18,000), Oracle (26,000), Hewlett Packard Enterprise (72,000), and IBM (95,000). Surely all those jobs are not STEM-specific, but an awful lot are. Just two months ago, the VP for engineering for Boeing said that the company “plan calls for us to reduce our engineering staff…The engineering buyout package will be offered to employees in Washington state, Southern California and South Carolina…” Two additional rounds of cuts are in the works.

   So, there’s a STEM glut. More layoffs are planned.

   And this is the kind of schooling that Weingarten deems essential for DeVos to observe.

   Isn’t this rich?

   Reply
   • Charles says:

     April 23, 2017 at 9:15 am

     I am an engineer (telecommunications). If you think that there is a surplus of qualified engineers, you are wrong. See the highest paying jobs for college graduates:

     http://www.collegechoice.net/50-highest-paying-careers-college-graduates/

     My firm has five(5) openings, now, and we having difficulty finding qualified applicants. Here in Fairfax County VA, the unemployment rate is about 3%, almost every engineering firm in town is hiring.

     The jobs picture for engineers, is obviously not uniform around the country. Some individuals may have to relocate.

     Reply
     • Joel Herman (@jwherman11) says:

       April 23, 2017 at 12:16 pm

       Charles

       The shortage that your firm experiences do not necessarily represent a shortage .

       “Because labor markets in science and engineering differ greatly across fields, industries, and time periods, it is easy to cherry-pick specific specialties that really are in short supply, at least in specific years and locations. But generalizing from these cases to the whole of U.S. science and engineering is perilous ”

       https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/03/the-myth-of-the-science-and-engineering-shortage/284359/

       ” See highest paying jobs for college graduates:” highest paying does not show wage growth.
       I assure you if you employer raised his offering more applicants would show up . From other firms in the same field if the offer was high enough. That a principal that Adam Smith described . Something about supply and demand.

       It was none other than Larry Summers who stated a year or two ago that there is no evidence of the type of wage growth that would indicate a shortage of skilled workers,in all but 2-3% of the economy .

       “That’s no surprise in light of dwindling job prospects. In 2014, 95 percent of graduates with a bachelor’s degree in petroleum engineering found work in the oil and gas industry, according to the Society of Petroleum Engineers. This year, 64 percent found work. ”

       http://www.cnbc.com/2015/12/04/petroleum-engineering-degrees-seen-going-from-boom-to-bust.html

       An old story in engineering my sons good friend’s father a former Grumman engineer threatened to disown his son if he majored in engineering Joe went on to get his degree in finance.

     • democracy says:

       April 24, 2017 at 4:12 am

       Sorry dude, You are generalizing from your own narrow experience. Bad idea.

       Try reading about the STEM glut.

   • Joel Herman (@jwherman11) says:

     April 23, 2017 at 9:30 am

     Bingo .

     Of course what the STEM advocates would say, as BIO PHDs do home energy audits.

     ” we need more skills in high-tech manufacturing” .

     All of those jobs that none of those engineers laid off at Boeing or Cisco could ever retrain to do .

     ” Not when they could stay home and play with Xbox instead”

     Next :

     “The American Trucking Associations, meanwhile, declared in a recent report that the industry needs to add almost 1 million new drivers by 2024 to replace retired drivers and keep up with demand.”

     In recent months there have been endless news stories about how self-driving vehicles were going to lead to mass unemployment in the trucking industry. This seems like more evidence of the which way is up problem in economics; we will either have a massive shortage of workers in the trucking industry or mass unemployment. Whichever, it clearly is a serious problem.”
     Dean Baker

     Reply
   • John Wund says:

     April 24, 2017 at 6:12 pm

     Believe it or not, I was what is now called a STEM teacher (degrees in Astronomy and Physics as well as certification, of course.

     I would NEVER advocate pre-engineering math or science for the vast majority of High School students. In the first place, very few of those students will end up in those careers. In the second, the main thrust of those STEM programs is deductive (despite the initial ‘S’), meaning subservience to the system. In the third (perhaps as a sub-set of the second), any real advances, either in our floundering civilization or in science, require new eyes, new modes of thought.

     Engineers (and T and M) are slaves to their ‘known’ truths. Instead of training more, we need to make those so disposed understand the limitation of deductive logic. They need to re-discover what the ancient Greeks knew, the insight that drove the more literal Romans crazy.

     The Greeks understood that deductive systems were human creations and, as such, were intrinsically flawed. Now, we would say that as creations of our biology, they were limited by that same biology. Those Greeks, therefore, always put inductive logic above deductive systems, observation above human creation. But that, you see, invites student criticism (in fact, encourages it).

     On another note… this isn’t the first ‘stem’ glut. There was another in the early 1960’s, caused by the push toward engineering in the 1950’s. The Boeing reductions in Seattle had engineers selling pencils in the streets (they say) in order to survive.

     On a third note… Weingarten is, first and foremost, and opportunist. Honestly, the teachers in NY need to kick her out of power. Perhaps she ‘had her day’, but, as the song goes, “that was yesterday, and yesterday’s gone”.

     Reply
5. Eleanor says:

   April 23, 2017 at 6:36 am

   Randi, a Hillary Clinton Super Delegate, seems to have never met a reformer she doesn’t like.

   The AFT and its state affiliates are run top-down, corporate-style.
   We had no voice in the endorsement of the Democratic party last year, unlike the Communications Workers of America, who sought their rank-and-file members’ input.

   No wonder new teachers show little interest to join. The AFT has no problem keeping us docile and compliant – how often does YOUR state chapter or local bargaining unit keep
   you abreast of education issues besides your pension?

   There are lots of issues where rank-and-file members should weigh in, but the suck-ups at the regional, state and federal levels apparently don’t see us as needing to do anymore except to pay dues and vote for them.

   Until AFT actually practices democracy a la CWA, we will keep getting sh@t upon, because docility and compliance from us is what Randi and her ilk want.

   Reply
   • Joel Herman (@jwherman11) says:

     April 23, 2017 at 10:01 am

     Democracy will have to start bottom up . It has to start at the local level with active teachers (members) who know the issues and take part in the process . Unfortunately this only seems to happen when members feel themselves up against the wall. At that point it is too late or they would not be in that position.

     The structure of the CWA is not that much different than that of any other National Union. They had a progressive leadership who had an agenda, transmitted that agenda to the local leadership and then held a vote knowing in advance what the outcome would be. This was by no means a plebiscite. It was “manufactured consent ” and the right choice.

     Reply
6. Linda says:

   April 23, 2017 at 8:11 am

   Further evidence of the intentions of Randi and other teacher union managers will be obvious if the AFT and NEA fail to, publicly expose and reject the Gates plot, called the Frontier Set and, the Center for American Progress/Rubio plot to replace the current college accreditation system with data churning student outcome measurements.

   A different union needs to move in to represent teachers and to protect children and American democracy.

   Reply
   • Norwegian Filmmaker says:

     April 23, 2017 at 9:10 am

     And the ruling class are counting on “right to work” as a way to capitalize upon union members’ legitimate discontent with their union leadership and its willingness to compromise for almost 2 decades.

     Beware, because this is a perfect storm. These are American unions, not European ones. I fear that is might be better to have union power and prominence – albeit horribly corrupt as Weingarten – than to have mere patches of unionism throughout the workforce.

     Which brings me to my own contemplation: Would right to work status help create newer, better unions though sheer demand and market reactive forces (ones that would hang Weingarten in public and derive democratically structured unions) or is it just better to have a closed shop?

     Teacher turnover means nothing to Weingarten, as she gets her union dues paid no matter who fills the position. Yet union dues keep unions more than afloat to do what they are supposed to do: fight for educators, children, and families.

     The United States is such an amazing country . . . it shines SO more brightly than Norway in many aspects. Yet, Weingarten et al are an example of how deplorable the culture here really can get to be. She’s not a real union leader, nor is her governance militant, forceful, or effective. It’s just there to keep her $500,000+/year salary in tact. She is a master triangulator . . . Either that, or Amerians are not paying attention to her governence.

     Something tells me that this is not my European lens talking here, but that more than 75% of Americans would agree about the corruption behind the AFT, NEA, and UFT. I could be wrong.

     Reply
     • Joel Herman (@jwherman11) says:

       April 23, 2017 at 10:31 am

       Sorry to say the membership gets the leadership it deserves and the leadership gets the membership it deserves.
       National Right to Work will be a disaster turning the clock back a hundred years. All you have to do is look at union membership and wages in any state that has instituted right to work.

       So why should membership drop when those members are no longer forced to either pay dues or representative fees ,free loading . Why are unions so afraid to exercise the only weapon they have withholding their labor . Because the membership is not up to the challenge.

       The answer to that is the membership was never up to the task . Stop bitching about the AFT and start changing it one local at a time from the bottom up .

     • Threatened Out West says:

       April 23, 2017 at 12:38 pm

       Not possible to change Weingarten when the vast majority of the votes for her as head of AFT are from the Unity Caucus in New York City. The rest of us in other parts of the country have NO say in Weingarten at all, because we are completely out-manned and out-voted by a cabal in New York City.

       I LOVE my AFT local and state affiliates. MUCH better than my state’s useless NEA affiliate. However, AFT nationally is awful.

     • Norwegian Filmmaker says:

       April 23, 2017 at 2:40 pm

       You’re right. Reinventing the big fish by changing the small fish on local levels is the only hope.

7. retired teacher says:

   April 23, 2017 at 9:52 am

   I doubt Devos was “in receiving mode” as she is on “a mission from God” to destroy public schools. She is not going to be swayed by the “Godless” public educators making sense. Randi is on a mission to seem relevant, which is getting to be hard sell to the AFT membership, as she willingly caves into and collaborates with the oppressors.

   Reply
8. NYSTEACHER says:

   April 23, 2017 at 10:41 am

   The catalog of Weingarten’s shameful, disgusting, and treacherous tenure is dense and well-known.

   The only thing for all of us to truly understand is that we have no hope against reformers and privatizers if we let people like her remain in power. I’ve been saying this for too many years. The apparatus of our unions are really the only thing on the landscape that can pull-off and win this fight. The problem is these same unions are detached and alienated from membership and, to be quite honest, from reality. This is an existential fight for working teachers and public education. This is THE showdown. Our only hope is to recast our unions in a fighting, militant, smart mold. (Believe me, I am aware of the lack of likelihood of this and everything standing in its way).

   Removing Weingarten from her position and her perch is essential. Literally every day that she remains is a shining example of how far away we are from even remotely fighting back properly.

   I remain completely absent of hope.

   Reply
   • retired teacher says:

     April 23, 2017 at 1:05 pm

     With all the right wing attacks, globalization and tech bots, union membership is only somewhere between 8 and 12 percent, unions no longer have the clout they once had. I am not defending the poor job the unions have done representing teachers; even the Democrats have lied to and ignored the teachers’ unions. If we want to defend public education, teachers must unite with parents and social justice groups. We need significant numbers to scare complicit politicians. We need numbers to work against so much wealth and power. We must be engaged and vocal.

     Reply
     • Joel Herman (@jwherman11) says:

       April 23, 2017 at 11:20 pm

       Bingo

9. JJones says:

   April 23, 2017 at 1:57 pm

   Always the appeaser=it in her genes . Go away Randi

   Reply
10. George McDermott says:

    April 23, 2017 at 8:42 pm

    Van Wert is a rural community where half the district’s 2,000 students come from low-income families yet 96% graduate from high school—on time. With top-line results like that, you’d expect the district would be getting top grades in Ohio’s standardized school assessment system, but you’d be only half-right: A’s for graduation rate and progress in math and reading, but F’s for achievement gaps and K-3 literacy.

    So where did DeVos focus her post-visit remarks? On school choice, of course. Faced with the dearth of charter schools and private schools and vouchers in rural Ohio, she seized on the fact that the parents of nearly 20% of the students in Van Wert city schools choose to send their children to public schools in other districts.

    She also promised to lift the burden of government-mandated paperwork that takes time away from teaching. When asked for examples of that burdensome paperwork, however, she couldn’t cite any. Suggesting that she’s been getting alternative-fact lessons in Washington.

    Reply