Tentative Contract Agreement: Vote Yes, But Keep Talking…
The Tentative Contract Agreement (TCA) has some very important gains. This is a contract we need to vote yes on. And it deals with some issues, but incompletely. And it does not deal with some important issues. There are provisions that we should not care about. And it introduces a major problem. The way it was negotiated is an improvement on previous contracts, but there is still a long way to go.
Note: I am a co-ordinator of the New Action Caucus / UFT – but I am writing here for myself, not my caucus.
First, the very good.
Due process for paras. Before this contract, paraprofessionals could be suspended without pay based on a single allegation. This contract establishes elements of due process for paraprofessionals (pp 10 – 12 of the memorandum of agreement (moa)).
Easy grievances to file. The TCA creates categories of complaints that can be brought to consultation, and if not resolved within five days, go to the district level. This creates five new classes of complaints (along with paperwork) that are functionally grievances, but do not require members to file an individual grievance. The categories are: Paperwork, Workspace, Workload, Basic Instructional Supplies, Professional Development, and Curriculum. (pp 4 – 6 moa)
More Arbitration Days. We get for our purposes more arbitration days by agreeing to use existing days better. 1. Class size grievances will be heard earlier, and resolved more quickly. In practical terms, arbitrators will handle 6 in a day (instead of 1). (moa pp 12 – 16). 2. Salary, LODI, and religious observance arbitrations will be scheduled 5 per day, instead of one per day. (moa p55) The Grievance Department estimates that we will get an additional 140 days that we can use to arbitrate matters that are critical to us.
Process for forcing the DoE to move on stalled arbitrations. Needs no explanation. (moa pp 53-54)
Next, the Incomplete:
Two observations: For most teachers (with an HE, or two consecutive Es) only two observations per year. (16 – 18). Our ability to challenge bad observations is blocked by the state law (which Mulgrew boasts he helped write). And students’ test scores still factor into our observations. We still have a long way to go
No Harassment. Language prohibiting retaliation, with a process that leads to arbitration. Hey, enforcing it will not be easy – but this is the first time we will have such language:
“The Board (“Department” or “DOE”) shall maintain an environment that promotes an open and respectful exchange of ideas and is free of harassment, intimidation, retaliation and discrimination. All employees are permitted to promptly raise any concerns about any situation that may violate the collective bargaining agreement, rule/law/regulation, or Department policy or that relates to their professional responsibilities or the best interests of their students. The harassment, intimidation, retaliation and discrimination of any kind because an employee in good faith raises a concern or reports a violation or suspected violation of any DOE policy, rule/law or regulation, or contractual provision or participates or cooperates with an investigation of such concerns is prohibited.” (p 19).
This does not come close to solving the problem of the abusive administrator, but it is a step in the right direction. We’ve got all these new arbitration days – we have to press Unity to use them to push back on abusive administrators.
ATRs – Placed in vacancies Day 1 (instead of several weeks in.) Salaries won’t count against the school. Mulgrew says we need to keep the pool under 500. I think that’s 500 too many, but these provisions are small positive steps. (38 – 40)
Next, Missed Issues
Abusive Administrator. This is touched on through the anti-harassment language, and implicitly by the increased number of arbitration days. But we need to keep pressing the union to respond to members in schools with abusive admins.
Class Size. Expedited procedures are one thing, but reducing class sizes should be the goal. We need to end the false dichotomy between raises and reducing class size. We need a campaign not based on contract, but on the common good, for reducing class sizes. We should target lower grades, and we should target higher needs districts.
I don’t care deeply about:
There’s a pilot for remote learning. Two classrooms in the Bronx will be videoconferenced with a third, so that AP Physics can be taught in three schools. There will be a pedagogue in each room, and class size is fixed below the normal level. And the experiment will probably fail and not be renewed. (33)
The Bronx Plan, which is for schools in other boroughs, too. This replaces the “renewal” program with one that requires UFT/principal cooperation before a school can join. There is shared decision making, and there may be extra money for some titles. (24 – 32)
Prose Plus is for existing Prose schools. They get to take an annual vote of no confidence in their principal. (32-33)
A+ credits will likely be Teacher Center credits for people trying to get their 30 above. At least 18, for new employees, will need to be these A+ credits. I don’t love the TC making money off our members, but it will be easier to get the 30 above. (19 – 22)
There will be join professional development (teachers + administrators) on how the observations should go. Unity seemed excited about this. For most of us, it’s another PD we don’t want or need. (18)
Chapter Leaders now get incident reports and the safety plan. I thought we already got that. (6-9)
The 13% appealable ratings now include people covered by the S/U system. (18)
There are now more “teacher leadership roles” – I don’t think many will get filled. (22 – 24)
Problems
The pattern was set by DC37, and the money is not great (2%, 2.5%, 3% over 3½ years). This is sub-inflationary – not by a lot, but it doesn’t keep up. For lower paid titles there was across the board money as well, so that some of them do keep up with inflation.
But the pattern is discussed in the Municipal Labor Coalition before the first union negotiates. The membership should have been involved in the discussion, BEFORE DC37’s contract. Agreements at the MLC that bind us later on, during negotiations, should be brought to the UFT membership first.
Health includes unspecified savings totaling $1Billion over 3 years for all the municipal unions. (not sure what the UFT’s share is) (p3, moa). Again, this was bargained at the MLC, with UFT participation. It should have come to our members. One specific provision we know of is that the right to choose your own health plan will not start until your second year of employment (everyone will get HIP during their first year). We must guard against future incursions on our health care, and block proposals that push the second tier further.
The issue of Unity making deals with the City and the other unions, and presenting them to us done deals (and not taking responsibility) is very serious. We must work to expose this to the membership, and attempt to end this anti-democratic practice.
The Negotiating Committee actually did some of the negotiating this time – that’s a step ahead, although it falls far short of having meaningful engagement at the chapters. A sub-group of regular members did sit across the table from the DoE negotiators – but the real bargaining remained behind closed doors. The contract survey was better written, and Unity acceded to at least one member concern: Unity Bigwigs (including Amy Arundell) had wanted as many observations as possible – but the members wanted the numbers cut. And we did get the number of observations reduced.
People like the idea of an early contract. But if it is early, there should be no rush. The deal was done on Thursday, and delegates were summoned on Friday to a DA, without the MOA being published. The MOA was e-mailed during the meeting, where Mulgrew summarized the TCA. Delegates were asked to vote on a document they could not have possibly read. Unity distrusts the delegates, and some of the delegates, many of whom were at their first DA, felt it, and may have distrusted Mulgrew right back. The No vote at the DA was double on Friday what it would have been on Wednesday, had they given people time to read through the agreement and talk with their chapters first.
Conclusion
This tentative contract has good new provisions, especially due process for paras, reduced observations, and some repairs to our grievance machinery. It also has disappointing salaries, and a dangerous change in our health care. There are issues (class size, abusive administrators) that we need to continue to deal with outside of the contract. And we must challenge Unity’s practice of making deals at the MLC without membership oversight.
Overall, the good far outweighs these reservations. We should urge a yes vote.
A Quick Fraction Puzzle
This problem is not original, but pushing the solution in this way is fun. Watch, or play along. See if you can figure out what a nice ending might be.
Find a number that is 1 more than its reciprocal
Make sure the audience knows what a reciprocal is: It’s what you multiply a number by to get 1 as the product, or colloquially, the “flip” of a number. For example the reciprocal of 9 is 
I usually allow kids to explore in any direction, but for today’s purposes I don’t want that to happen. I’m going to control the investigation.
Get the kids to make some naïve guesses: 1 is too small since the reciprocal of 1 is 1. 2 is too big since the reciprocal of 2 is 
So let’s start more serious guessing. 
If you comment, mention the age of the children you imagine working with. I’ve been speaking with a few teachers, and we are trying versions of this with 10 year olds, 17 year olds, and everything in between….
I haven’t posted a mathematics puzzle or problem (for kids or adults) in quite some time. I hope there’s someone out there who still likes this.
Remind me: Who did the UFT not Endorse?
The United Federation of Teachers (UFT) did not endorse Andrew Cuomo. For all his progressive rhetoric, and despite some progressive (or progressive-sounding) legislation, union members know that there was much more that could be done, that he’s responsible for blocking much progress, and that if it suits his needs, he can turn on us, and viciously. He is a self-serving, principle-free politician, and we do not trust him, most of us do not like him, to the point that our leaders did not endorse him. Good. Here’s the list. No Cuomo.
Today we had scheduled a Citywide Chapter Leader meeting. This is a big deal. We do it once a year. Some of us write it, in ink, in our calendars.
Seven days ago we got notice: postponed.
Has this happened before? Not in my 17 years as chapter leader.
Explanation: none. (See below).
What do these things have to do with each other? Maybe nothing. But yesterday we got summoned to a rally “to support Letitia James” (James is running for Attorney General, with NYSUT – that’s the UFT’s statewide federation – endorsement).
Is it a rally for Tish? Nope. It’s a “Get Out the Vote” for Cuomo, Hochul, and James. Mulgrew wants us to show up at a Cuomo rally because we like #3 on the list?
Date: 9-12-18
Event: Bronx GOTV Rally for Cuomo, Hochul, Tish
Time: 6:00 p.m.
Location: Xxxx Xxxxx Xxxxx, Brooklyn xxxxx
So much for not endorsing Cuomo.
Welcome to Another Year
New York City Public Schools open tomorrow (except some PROSE, and I said public, not charter, no idea when they open) – anyway, our schools open tomorrow for teachers, with kids on Wednesday.
Welcome back.
This is our first school opening post-Janus. Will it make a difference? I hope not in a negative way, although we are sure to lose at least a few members. On the other hand, perhaps we will find the Unity leadership more responsive?
Where should we look for responsiveness? That’s easy: how much will Unity stand up for members in schools with out of control administrators? They’ve got to do better.
We don’t have a new contract yet, but I expect to have one at some point this year. I don’t expect great changes.
But welcome back. Forget that other stuff, just for a moment. You are educating kids – that’s a great and valuable thing you do, and no matter what the year brings, remember that – your work is important. It matters.
Specialized High Schools – some comments should not matter
At the time of the proposal of the thirteenth amendment abolishing slavery*, the former senators from the southern states were not consulted. And that was correct.
Today, as people with differing opinions discuss future admissions policies for the Specialized High Schools, those “reprentatives” of the schools who have been heretofore silent on segregation should likewise not be consulted.
The current admissions system is based on a single test, on one day. That’s the way it’s been, for a long, long time. But in 1970 or 1971, someone decided to study the admissions policy for the schools (at that time the Bronx High School of Science, Brooklyn Technical High School, and Stuyvesant High School). The New York State legislature responded by passing the Hecht-Calandra Act, enshrining the existing test in law, and limiting an already limited alternate route (Discovery).
The Hecht Calandra Act was passed to stop a study, to preclude discussion.
And today we have de Blasio’s proposal to radically change the admissions process. Now, lots of people want to talk about THAT.
There are people with a direct personal interest in the school: faculty, administration, current students and parents, aspiring students and families.
For the past fifteen years, and more so in the past five-ten, the numbers of Black and Hispanic students at these schools (now eight schools: the three named in the law and five newer schools) has plummeted. In some of these schools, there are faculty and administrators who worked to reverse or slow this process of segregation. But most did nothing.
We have people who no longer have a personal stake in the school, who are advocating that the law be respected. These alumni are not stakeholders. They are advocating that we bow down to a law passed to prevent discussion. They have forfeited their right to be heard. We are correct to ignore them. (Even if in the 13th hour they are advocating systemic change – while insisting the law is unchallengeable.)
I have one guy, always silent on the issue, who now twists every conversation about specialized high schools to advocate that the mayor drop the five new schools, and respect the law by leaving the original three (including his alma mater) alone. I ignore him. Good people should too.
Some specialized high school administrators have been silent in the face of this obvious accelerating segregation. Their right to be heard should be contingent on their not defending the “SHSAT-must-never-be-examined” Hecht-Calandra Act.
That still leaves many of us. Their are current students and parents – both for and against the changes the mayor proposed. They should be heard. There are communities where young students have been preparing for the test. There are alumni who HAVE been speaking about the horrible segregation and have been working for change. They all have a right – perhaps even an obligation – to engage in the conversation.
And there are faculty members who have been trying to address this issue. I served on a UFT task force with several of them, from all eight schools. And there are school communities, including administrators, who have been looking to modify admissions. In my school, the entire faculty and principal agreed to a bold proposal that we presented to the DoE a couple of years ago, only to have the DoE and their lawyers shoot us down. The principal and I were in the process of renewing our proposal (since we have a new chancellor) when de Blasio’s plan was announced.
But for those who ignored a law that told people that they couldn’t even talk about specialized high school admissions, for those who ignored obvious and deep segregation, and especially for those who are no longer connected to these schools – why should your opinion matter?
Speed
Sometimes I write my own math problems:
But I think this is the first time I over a decade that I’ve written a multiple choice question.
Specialized High Schools – I support public schools
As I start rambling on about specialized high schools, I need a starting point. And here it is: I am a strong supporter of public education. I support equity. I am anti-racist. I have a sense of fairness that is always on. But none of this is simple.
Public education in the United States – well, it doesn’t begin at the beginning. I mean publicly funded, publicly run, secular, unsegregated schools, roughly K-12 (though I’m not sure how we got to exactly those 13 years), with compulsory attendance. I don’t think we’ve ever had exactly that in this country. There’s not some “golden age” we can point to… we think of the one-room schoolhouse, but that was protestant, not secular. And, AFAIK, the New England schoolhouse was spread to the midwest and then partially imposed on the south in the early, mid, and then late 19th century, unevenly and incompletely. (There’s a book called “Pillars of the Republic” by a guy named Kaestle that does a good job on this). There were also little private tutoring schools (“Dame Schools”?) going back to the 18th century. And then with the rise of the big cities, charity schools, which give rise to our large urban schools. And these are sort of merged into an almost universal system. But golden age? With segregation? With the vestiges of their religious origins?
And then there’s been a parallel system of religious (used to be mostly Catholic, but there’s quite a range now) and private (or “independent”) schools. So this has never been universal. And over the last two decades there has been the growth of the privately run “charter” schools.
All of this is to say that my support of “public education” is of an ideal, not of the way schooling takes place in the US today, certainly not in NYC today, and there’s not some golden model I can point to at some date in the past.
I think I’ll talk about equity and equality next.
New York City’s Specialized High Schools and Admissions
New York City’s Specialized high schools are in the news; Chancellor Carranza, Mayor de Blasio, and State Assemblyman Barron have proposed changing how students gain admission to these schools. That proposal is stalled until January, which gives us time to discuss and reflect.
Most students who get placement in these schools do so by scoring high on the Specialized High School Admissions Test (SHSAT). In recent years the number of Black and Hispanic students admitted has dwindled . The “diversity” issue has generated occasional arguments and proposals over the last few years. But this proposal comes from the Mayor, and has been headline news…
There are eight schools that would be affected. I teach at one of them. In fact, 16 years ago, I was the founding math teacher at one of them. And the chapter leader for these 16 years…
I certainly have some thoughts on specialized high schools and admissions. And over the next few days I will be sharing them.
A maximizing area question
I gave this question to students as a challenge at the end of a trig unit.
A quadrilateral has perimeter = 60 and a 30º angle. What is the maximum possible area?
I think this is cute. The kids had to make some assumptions, test them, and use trigonometry along the way. It’s not “open-ended” but it does involve some investigation, and it is not just a direct application of what I’ve taught them.
What’s your answer?
Do you like the question?
And do you know why “What is the minimum possible area?” is not a good question?
Pity Arizona
Arizona’s men’s basketball team lost in the first round to 13th seeded Buffalo, who lost in the second round to 5th seeded Kentucky, who lost in the sweet sixteen to 9th seeded Kansas State, who lost in the elite eight to 11th seeded Cinderella Loyola of Chicago, who lost the semi-final to Michigan, who lost in the final to Villanova. That makes Arizona the biggest loser of the tournament.
Consider this, Michigan could claim to be the second best team in the tournament – having lost to the eventual winner. Kansas, who lost in the semi’s to ‘nova, can make the same claim. Radford, who got shellacked by Villanova in the first round, could make the same (though far-fetched) claim. Arizona, uniquely, can claim nothing better than 7th. This tournament’s biggest loser. And at a 4 seed, perhaps the biggest biggest loser since Iowa earned some pity in 2006.
Previous biggest losers:
2018 – Arizona (4)
2017 – Mount Saint Mary (16)
2016 – Purdue (5)
2015 – New Mexico State (15)
2014 – Oklahoma (5)
2013 – Colorado (10)
2012 – Harvard (12)
2011 – Akron (15)
2010 – Oklahoma State (7)
2009 – California (7)
2008 – Belmont (15)
2007 – New Mexico State (13)
2006 – Iowa (3)
2005 – Winthrop (14)
2004 – Florida (5)
2003 – Dayton (4)
2002 – Boston University (16)
2001 – Princeton (15)
2000 – Appalachian State (14)
Telling the Truth
A liar is someone who tells lies. That’s not the same as someone who always tells lies.
Can you imagine that? Someone who always lies, every single thing they say? That would lead to amusing logic puzzles:
– but not be very practical in the real world. In my life I’ve known two horrible liars. They have altered, twisted, falsified, subtly reimagined, or created from whole cloth story after story. “She wouldn’t tell the truth if a lie would do” said the mother of one of them. But both actually told the truth the majority of the time. What’s the weather like, are you hungry, do you have time later today… there are many mundane everyday answers that even the inveterate liar doesn’t bother to confabulate.
Many politicians are practiced liars – not as prolific as my two friends, above, but for them it is an art. They often tell the truth. And sometimes they have to tell the truth, a defensive truth, when cornered by their instinct for self-preservation.
New York State’s budget was delayed for a day last week, when Brooklyn State Senator Simcha Felder tried to exempt yeshivas from state testing standards. Felder is a Democrat from Brooklyn. He caucuses with the Republicans. And in the cesspool of New York State politics, no one better represents some of their constituents to the exclusion of the others than Felder, who is a champion for ultra-orthodox and Hassidim throughout the state (and beyond New York’s borders) at the expense of the non-Orthodox and non-Jews he nominally represents.
Felder has voted for “standards” again and again. They don’t really measure much, but they selectively pressure urban districts. Urban districts are poor, and they have large populations of Black and Hispanic students. “Standards” are a key component of the system that uses standardized tests to intimidate students, threaten teachers, and destabilize schools. Some of these include Felder’s own constituents – the ones he doesn’t represent. Felder has happily acted as part of the machine targeting other people’s kids.
But this was different. The State Education Department was planning for superintendents to visit private schools, including yeshivas. And they weren’t going to enforce “test accountability” that terrorizes the rest of us. They were going to check that the kids were receiving instruction in English, Math, and Civics.
Bravo Mr. Felder, for announcing that even the most minimal rules are to be enforced against strangers, not against our friends. Such honesty.
February 5
Yesterday was my birthday. I woke up in Boca Raton, and had coffee in the sun, by the pool.
I engaged, a bit, in a conversation: If there should be consequences for administrators who bring false charges against teachers, what should those consequences be? It’s obvious that there SHOULD be an answer, but not as obvious what that answer should be.
I know how many ways a polygon can be triangulated (Catalan). But a student proposed investigating dividing polygons into a mix of triangles and quadrilaterals, or only quadrilaterals. I played with her questions and related questions on the plane home. To make a larger n-gon I made a rough circle and then spaced out the right number of points. I didn’t bother connecting them (since I only want diagonals, anyway, and since my sketches are not very neat). So it looked like I was drawing lines in circles. Flight attendant asked – he likes circles and was hoping this was geometry.
Arrived in a cold rain, and before I reached the bus stop my foot found a huge puddle. 54, in the book.
Lack of knowledge, lack of experience
Chalkbeat pays young journalism majors with school reform money, and uses school reform money and influence (directly or indirectly) to gain access to sources. But this just doesn’t add up to real journalism, not when there is a lack of knowledge about New York City an New York State, a lack of knowledge about education in general, a lack of knowledge about teaching, even, quite frankly, a lack of knowledge about school reform. We end up with school reform cheerleaders, (who may in the case of the ‘reporters’ not know they are cheerleading – the ‘editors’ probably know).
But the lack of knowledge, the lack of experience, the lack of historical context, they all slip through. Here’s an example from last week – “Traditionally, students have had to pass five “Regents” exams in order to graduate. ” How do they write that? Don’t they know that traditionally there were two kinds of diplomas, and that one did not require Regents exams? That in the late 90s school reformers pushed for doing away with the “local” diploma, and that there have since been 15 years of battles over trying to reopen some non-Regents pathway?
And when they whine that these are just details, notice that a regular local newspaper easily doesn’t screw up the details.
School reformers don’t believe that experience and knowledge matters for teachers. Glass houses. They don’t seem to believe that experience or actual knowledge matter for ‘reporters’ or ‘editors’ either.
Teacher Evaluation
At Wednesday’s Citywide Chapter Leader Meeting, UFT President Michael Mulgrew gave his version of the history of the current teacher evaluation system in New York City. Here’s his main points, and I think observers who like it and don’t like it will all agree that this is a fair summary:
- The old system, satisfactory/unsatisfactory, was not the “good old days” – you were at the principal’s whim
- The UFT was looking for a way to improve the system and improve teaching, and S/U was not going to do it
- Using straight up test scores made NYC look bad, when teachers here actually do a good job
- We got the state to use a “growth model” which measures what we really do
- The number of negative ratings is substantially down
- We are fighting for more options for the “growth” score, so that it can be based on performance, and not necessarily tests.
Omissions. Misinterpretations. And the deeper story. In six points.
- Why is Mulgrew still arguing against S and U? It’s been 3 years since my last S rating. But we all know why he’s arguing. Members in New York City still don’t buy it. At the Chapter Leader meeting, CLs sitting near me (not people I know) were saying NO and scowling when Mulgrew was trying to make the point. There is pushback, probably coming unevenly, but from all districts. Also, the UFT helped impose this on all of NY State, and there is likely more unhappiness out of the city than there is in the city (NYC has high turnover, newer teachers have nothing to compare Mulgrew’s system to)
- Being at the whim of the supervisor is not necessarily a bad thing, if s/he is a capable, trained, reasonable educator. This is the fight the UFT refused and refuses to take on. Where members were at the whim of an unqualified or malicious principal, we should have fought to have that principal’s judgment reversed, and to have that principal removed. Instead the UFT fought to have us judged on test scores. This is not a small mistake. And it continues. Because HEDI did not clear out the malicious and incompetent. Bloomberg/Klein’s small school policy created hundreds of admin vacancies when there was an admin shortage. Result? Literally hundreds of incompetents/abusives. And the incompetent? When things go badly? They take it out on subordinates. The categories overlap. There is still a need to weed them out, and it is still a fight the union is bizarrely reluctant to take on. They have even accepted an evaluation system where challenging the principal’s judgment is not allowed!
- Whoever thought of tying teacher training and teacher rating was either an enemy of public education, or an idiot. I can imagine this conversation: “Members are resistant to PD, but they should love PD so we can say that teachers love PD and thereby ‘teachers are trying to improve the profession'” “I know, let’s make the PD high stakes and tie it to their ratings, that’ll make them love it” If you can imagine the people having this conversation (and something like it likely took place), then you can begin to understand how the UFT leadership doesn’t get the resentment that much PD generates.
- And mixing rating and professional improvement? Bad idea. And by the way? I like learning about math pedagogy. I do it, willingly. But it has nothing to do with whether I am an ok teacher. Rating and Growth are naturally separate parts of teaching, and should have never been mixed.
- The “growth” model pretends to measure growth. In fact, it produces fairly random numbers. Good for you if you get a high number, not so good if you have a low one, and don’t believe for a second that your teaching really controls the outcome. There is no way to use test scores to rate teachers that actually makes sense.
- The number of negative ratings is down. I like that. But that’s not a system that makes sense; it’s a system that for 2016-17 didn’t do much harm. We got lucky. And for the teachers who got the bad ratings and didn’t deserve them?
Protest Charter High School for Law and Social Justice unfair labor practice
There are things we know that apply to all schools.
- Everyone must feel safe in their own school.
- Curriculum must engage students and meet their academic and social needs.
- And all voices – parents, students, staff and administration – must be heard.
The Charter High School for Law and Social Justice at 1960 University Avenue (by Burnside) denies voice. Worse than that – they fired three quarters of their teachers – precisely for trying to discuss conditions in the school.
The United Federation of Teachers moved to file a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board. This was the correct and necessary first step.
But we must do more. We must rededicate ourselves to helping all teachers and staff in New York City schools gain or maintain voice. We must organize the unorganized, and stand stronger in the face of injustice.
And we must bring pressure to bear on this charter school in particular. I am writing to the UFT leadership today, proposing we begin informational picketing at the school.
Richard Marsico, the president of the Charter High School for Law and Social Justice is director of the “Justice Action Center” at the New York Law School. Two more officers and several board members are associated with the Justice Action Center, or with the law school itself. I will also be proposing a UFT campaign directed to the “Justice Action Center” and its association with these damaging actions and unfair labor practices.
I am a strong supporter of public education. Public schools are a pillar of our republic. The current infatuation with charter schools will pass. But I recognize that we have a lot of work to do improving our public schools – what we teach, whether we test, and the environment inside many of our schools before we reach that point.
In the meantime we should continue to advocate for improvement in ALL schools. That includes making sure that all stakeholders have voice.
Cowardice in the Face of Hate – or how someone made me miss Randi Weingarten
Randi Weingarten was a lousy UFT president. We never should have had a non-teacher as president. But that’s relatively minor. When she left, the union was far weaker than when she arrived. And that is huge. Some of the details: Under her tenure our big high schools were broken up, weakening the union, and making education WORSE for many students. And she didn’t just watch it happen, she participated. Under her tenure, we had the 2005 contract, full of give-backs, rammed down our throats. The damage done in that “deal” lives with us today; seniority, innocent before being proven guilty, right to grieve… and the list goes on.
But there were positives. And one that stands out: on political endorsements we started considering where politicians stood on “human rights” (mostly revolved around gay and lesbian issues). We stopped supporting Dov Hikind and Serph Maltese and their ilk, just because they voted the right way on Political Action’s checklist. If they stood for hate, we wouldn’t stand with them. This was a battle. Previously the UFT supported incumbents mostly for being incumbents, checking a small number of votes, and not looking at their record beyond. That’s pretty lousy. But under Randi, we fixed that. Or I thought we did.
Fernando Cabrera peddles hate. I’m not going to say “homophobic” – let you decide. Maybe we should have known in 2009 when we endorsed him for City Council. Maybe we should have known in 2013 when we endorsed him for City Council. But in 2014, he announced it loud and clear. In Uganda.
Here’s the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSs8UQQgOVc
“Godly people are in government. Gay marriage is not accepted in this country. Even when the United States of America has put pressure and has told Uganda, ‘We’re not going to fund you anymore unless you allow gay marriage.’ And they have stood in their place. Why? Because the Christians have assumed the place of decision-making for the nation. Abortions are illegal here. Things that Christians really stand for. Why? Because the Christians here took the opportunity to take their rightful place. So now the city here is rejoicing.”
Here’s gay city councilpeople denouncing Cabrera: http://observer.com/2014/09/lgbt-council-members-lash-out-at-cabrera-over-uganda-comments/
I spoke at the UFT Exec Board on June 5, 2017, against the proposed endorsement of Cabrera for the 14th City Council District (west Bronx, roughly Kingsbridge down to Tremont). Paul Egan’s defense of Cabrera was weak, and came down to saying that we don’t endorse on a candidate’s personal beliefs, but on where they voted on the checklist. But members of the Exec Board, Unity members who usually vote lock step as their superiors tell them, remembered that we no longer use the checklist method of endorsement when “human rights” is at issue. Several abstained (silently). And one broke ranks and voted no, a rare act from a member of this top-down caucus. The endorsement of Cabrera must have passed about 45 – 7, far closer than they are used to.
At the Delegate Assembly Wednesday June 14 I raised the same objections (some smaller issues, but essentially, he does not share our values, and in the age of Trump he will be empowered to act on his hate). This time Mulgrew was chairing, and he did not call for a separate vote on Cabrera, instead voting simultaneously on a dozen races, mostly non-controversial. UFT practice is to call for a separate vote when there has been an objection. I tried to call a point of order, he called me out of order. Afterwards he said he realized he should have divided the vote.
Occam’s Razor. Which is more likely? The UFT president momentarily forgot a procedure that he has watched others carry out, and that he has carried out himself, many times? Or, having heard that Unity had trouble keeping its votes in the Exec Board, he was afraid to allow delegates to vote on Cabrera alone, fearing an embarrassingly close vote, or even an overturn of Political Action’s choice?
You can decide for yourself. Me, for the first time in a long time, maybe ever, I miss Randi.
Breaking the Fundamental Rule of the Math Class Game – and paying the price
The Fundamental Rule of Math Class: I teach something, you go home, open up the homework, do what I showed you in class, and you’ll be fine. Same thing on the test.
If a student gets some math published, should that hurt the teacher’s evaluation?
Many teachers never deviate from the rule. And me? I obey the rule, too. Most of the time. Even those of us who don’t always do it, we do it more than we used to. (thanks to standardized testing and the insane link between standardized test scores and the teacher’s evaluation score.)
I taught you how to simplify square roots? When you look at the home work, you’ll be asked to simplify square roots. Do what we did in class, and you’ll be fine.
Breaking the Rule
But some days are different. I introduce “problems” – little ones that take a few minutes, and big ones, where I have moved ahead in my curriculum so that we can carve out a day or day and a half here or there. I offer problems that do not fit the Math Class Game – always off-topic, usually using skills from prior units, or prior years. How many games will there be in a single elimination tennis tournament (singles) with 73 players? How many times a day do the minute and hour hands point in the same direction? What’s the biggest perfect square with only even digits?
“… I ask a group of you a question, unrelated to what we did yesterday, seemingly out of left field, that requires only math that you already know, but without any of the usual cues about what tool to use… Questions mix counting, arithmetic, organization, and visualization skills. They require reasoning, planning.”
Going Further
And for the last three years, I have asked the students to do more, and more. Take one of the “problems” that you already solved, and propose an extension. Change it up to make a new problem, and solve that one. Mostly I get variations of the checkerboard, how many subsets, and Ghost the Bunny.
The Price or the Payoff?
As these are the same students whose standardized test scores determine my year-end rating (Thank you Obama, Duncan, Cuomo, Weingarten, and Mulgrew), giving up teaching days is a risky venture. Last year my test scores were “effective” but this year they a) count more than twice as much, and b) could easily end up “developing.” I’m guessing I’ll be ok, but if I am not, and I get TIPped, they’ll pretty much have to put “increase regents scores” in the plan and the first thing they’d look for is “stop throwing away days teaching off-curriculum.” And that’s on top of the TIP already being an unpleasant and fairly useless process. Do I really need to face that so late in my career? Because of test scores that are fine, but do not reach some expectation that is kept secret from me, is set by no one I know, and that no one directly involved actually cares about?
Of course there’s payoff. Kids have fun doing math. That’s worth something. They persevere with an extended task, with the finish line not in clear view at the beginning. That’s big. They propose a new problem, not knowing if they can finish it, and they plow in, hoping to make progress. In some cases students do not complete their problem – in their write up they include advice for the next students to try the same problem. Some finish their problem – they often make suggestions for further inquiry. You know, they are behaving – just a little – like little mathematicians. That’s payoff.
And then there’s M. Her problem this fall generated an alternate interpretation for a known sequence, and will have to be submitted to the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences. Like, published. I want to work with her to help her understand more fully what she’s done before she sends the math in for review. At that point I will share the details in this space.
Hmmph. I’ve been doing math, in one form or another for 40 odd years, and nothing of mine has been published. I’ll take credit for asking the kids to be creative, and for recognizing that her sequence seemed unusual, and for knowing a few combinatoricists. Still, not my name going on the entry.
Thing is, M is a good math student, but works a bit slowly on tests. If we could have the problem solving days back, and turn them into test prep, we could probably raise her score a few points. And given the unpredictability of “growth scores” those few points could make the difference between her hurting my score or helping my score.
As long as I don’t get a “Developing” I will claim I don’t care. But if I get a D? Who knows. It raises an interesting question: If a student gets some math published, should that hurt the teacher’s evaluation?
Has UFT Leadership stopped censoring T*#^@&’$ name yet?
The headline in the NY Teacher (online, January 19, 2017) reads: “DeVos flunks first test”
But more interestingly, in the first line: “Betsy DeVos, Donald Trump’s pick for U.S. education secretary…”
In fact, Trump’s name and actions have been popping up in UFT and New York Teacher stuff since the New Year. But that was after an unofficial moratorium since the election. Over a month of the UFT leadership avoiding his name.
Are we there yet? After two months of confusion? cowardice? caution? is the UFT Leadership now ok using his name, or is it not?
We are worried here. Two stories.
Story Two
On the UFT Website, a new article (last week?), with a fascinating title: “Mike Pence & Betsy Devos: The Threat to the Nation’s Public Schools”
I’m not making this up. Go look. You can see his name once, as if he were tangentially connected to the people he appoints. Who let this get published like that? What warped mind doesn’t say “you know, any member who reads this is going to think we are complete idiots, or that we are totaled scared of Trump, and neither of those is the best message to send just now”?
Story One
Right after the election, remember those days? Remember how scared so many kids and adults were in school – worried about the future? Worried about tomorrow? Worried about women’s rights? LGBTQ rights? About deportation? About harassment by thugs? Violence by police?
Anyway, this story is then. Right after the election Unity leadership brought New Action and MORE a resolution about the atmosphere of hate that Trump’s candidacy had generated. I signed it. Exec Board voted it up, unanimously.
Then the leadership e-mails. Someone wants to change it. They don’t even say who. Here’s the language from the e-mail: “Several executive board members asked that we amend the resolution. The presidential campaign has provided the current tenor in this country, and the resolution below addresses those concerns.”
But look at the change they wanted:
WHEREAS, president-elect Donald Trump targeted communities on the basis of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity and religion, and displayed abusive behavior toward women, has threatened the nation’s promise that all people are worthy of respect; and
WHEREAS, president-elect Donald Trump has outlined an education agenda overtly hostile to public schools and teachers, promising to prioritize vouchers and charter schools at the expense of public schools ; and
becomes
WHEREAS, the presidential election targeted communities on the basis of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity and religion, and displayed abusive behavior toward women, has threatened the nation’s promise that all people are worthy of respect; and
WHEREAS, the presidential election has outlined an education agenda overtly hostile to public schools and teachers, promising to prioritize vouchers and charter schools at the expense of public schools ; and
They didn’t even have the decency to say they were taking out his name.
To their credit, they allowed debate at the next Exec Board. And they took responsibility for making the change (the e-mail says “several exec board members” – I called them on it and the Secretary corrected it to “the leadership”). But every argument they made was an argument against ever endorsing a candidate. And they voted, party line, to keep his name out.
– – — — —– ——– ————- ——————— ————- ——– —– — — – –
I wonder why they did it. My first thought is that they had not allowed the AFT to vet the reso, and that the AFT wanted to play footsie with the Trump. Certainly the Bloomberg era taught has how susceptible Weingarten is to not very subtle flattery, and we know how little Casey is to be trusted. But no, the AFT had one cautious statement, and then started using his name. NYSUT, right off the bat was critical. So this was the UFT. Maybe pressure from the pro-civil rights in Washington but not in my neighborhood wing of Unity Caucus old-timers? Possible. Or maybe some half-baked idea that calling Trump “Trump” would alienate conservative UFTers (but without much logic – if they could be turned off to the union for a political stance, that would have been the Hillary endorsement). Or maybe it was just cowardice. If we stand up, we become a target. Silly, of course, because being a union makes us a target, no matter what we say about Trump.
Bill de Blasio for a second term?
It looks likely that he will get the UFT endorsement. He already has endorsements from many unions – starting with the sanitation workers.
Still, bad optics on AFT President Randi Weingarten hosting a fundraiser for de Blasio, using AFT facilities, before the UFT has run through its endorsement process.
After a decade of misplayed mayoral endorsements (Alan Hevesi, failed to make run-off, Fernando Ferrer, lost run-off, Mark Green, lost election, all 2001, Fernando Ferrer lost election 2005, no endorsement 2009 when Bill Thompson actually had a chance to end the Bloomberg education calamity) a less confident leader might have concluded that her “endorsement radar” was bad. Randi is not burdened by such useless introspection.
Nor is she alarmed by her presidential record (2008 way way early endorsement of Hillary, last union to stick with her, even as Obama wrapped the thing up; 2012 even earlier endorsement of Hillary…)
Nor is she constrained by correct process – local endorsements belong to the locals.
I didn’t vote for her. That doesn’t stop me from being embarrassed for my union.
OEIS
Who can tell me anything about submitting to the On-line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences? Not a new sequence, but a new interpretation for an existing one.
And yes, it is a real thing.
And yes, I am serious.
Rumor: DeWitt Clinton HS Principal Santiago Taveras removed
Is this true?
Any confirmation? Sources?
Details?
When the Department of Education (still under Bloomberg) failed in its attempt to shut down Clinton four years ago, they didn’t give up. They planted two mini-schools in the building, eating up a floor and isolating the library. They discouraged middle schools from sending their students, causing enrollment to plummet. And they brought in Santiago Taveras, with a checkered pedagogical resumé, to demoralize the staff. Which he has done. Nice, smiley guy, who empowered arbitrary, impossible, unreasonable hatchetmen.
Last Spring he manipulated a personnel issue (Clinton has faced multiple years of down-sizing) to “get” the then-UFT Chapter Leader out of the building. We, the whole union, should have gone to war over that. Mentioned indirectly here.
So today, if he really was removed, we should want to know more. What for? Why? And what changes does this signal for the school, and for high schools in general?
Until we know more, it is not possible to know if this change (if it happened) will help bring DeWitt Clinton back, or push it deeper into the hole. Stay tuned.
Advice for myself
From the Spring: Speak the truth. Work for Change. It’s not about you.
Needed additions: Act against racism. Act against anti-immigrant bigotry/hatred. Act against sexism. Act against homophobia.
Also: Act for fairness. Act in solidarity.
Looking away = acquiescence (and is absolutely unacceptable)
What to watch for Tuesday (and still get to sleep)
many of you care deeply about Tuesday’s results. And in the rush, you may find yourself hanging on every update, trying to figure it all out. The stress will be unreal. Teaching Wednesday will be hard.
What you need is a crib sheet.
At 7:00 Virginia polls close. Look for a quick call for Clinton. If it takes them a while, try to be patient. But if they call it for Trump, start studying how to speak Canadian. It’s probably over, and a disaster.
At 7:30 Ohio and North Carolina polls close. If either of them is called for Clinton, go read a book, drink something soothing, and turn in early. It’s done. Clinton won. And if neither OH nor NC goes her way, it’s still ok.
At 8:00 Pennsylvania polls close. Assume for the moment it goes for Clinton (probably will). Also at 8:00, New Hampshire and Florida polls close. If either of them go for Clinton, go read a book, drink something soothing, and turn in early. It’s done. Clinton won.
If some of those four, Ohio, North Carolina, New Hampshire, and Florida go Trump, not a problem. If all of them go Trump, then you have to keep watching, it’s going down to the wire.
At 9:00 PM, Michigan polls close. Should go for Clinton. But let’s look at the two potential trouble spots: If Michigan goes Trump, then Clinton can make up for it by winning North Carolina or Florida. If not, that’s probably a Trump election. If Pennsylvania goes Trump, then Clinton can make up for it by winning Florida. If she loses PA, and wins NC but not FL, then it’s down to the wire. If she loses PA and Michigan, then she needs Florida, or it’s all over. Add NC, and she wins, or else add NH and it’s down to the wire.
Review. By 8:30 or 9:00 if – [remembering that (Michigan) is a 9PM close]
- C: Clinton has VA, PA, (Michigan) and at least one of: Ohio, New Hampshire, Florida, or North Carolina, that’s a wrap.
- C: If Clinton has VA, PA not (Michigan), and has Florida or North Carolina, that’s a wrap
- C: If Clinton has VA, (Michigan), but not PA, and has Florida, that’s a wrap
- C: If Clinton has VA, but neither PA nor (Michigan), but she has Florida and North Carolina, that’s a wrap.
- IDK: If Clinton has VA, PA, (Michigan) but none of: Ohio, New Hampshire, Florida, or North Carolina, it’s down to the wire.
- IDK: If Clinton has VA, (Michigan), but not PA, and has NC, but not Florida, that’s down to the wire
- IDK: If Clinton has VA, but neither PA nor (Michigan), but she has Florida and NH but not North Carolina, that’s down to the wire.
- T: If Clinton has VA, PA but not (Michigan), not Florida and not North Carolina, that’s a Trump win
- T: If Clinton has VA, (Michigan), but not PA, and not Florida, and not North Carolina, that’s a Trump win
- T: If Clinton has VA, but neither PA nor (Michigan), and not Florida, that’s a Trump win
- T: If Clinton lost VA, you should have stopped watching.
What does “down to the wire” mean? Mostly it means, Nevada, whose polls don’t close until 10PM. Sorry. It also might mean the stray single electoral votes in Maine and Nebraska. It might mean Iowa, but if Clinton has lost Ohio, she’s probably already lost Iowa.
By the way, can Clinton lose PA or MI and make it up in Ohio? Highly unlikely – if she loses PA or MI she’s probably already lost OH.
In summary, watch 7 states (or 8, if it goes down to the wire):
- 7PM Virginia (must win)
- 7:30 Ohio
- 7:30 North Carolina
- 8PM Pennsylvania
- 8PM New Hampshire
- 8PM Florida
- 9PM Michigan
- 10PM “down to the wire” Nevada
If they talk about Clinton losing Georgia, didn’t matter. If they talk about Clinton winning Connecticut, didn’t matter. It’s just the 7 (or 8) above. That covers about 97% of what might happen. And it probably gets you to sleep soon after 9.
Election Trivia Question
When was the last time 4 candidates each got 10% or more of the state vote in a presidential race?
A Current poll (Y2 Analytics) has an interesting race in Utah:
Trump: 26%
Clinton: 26%
McMullin: 22%
Johnson: 14%
McMullin, in case you didn’t know (I didn’t) is a Republican running as an independent, on the ballot in 11 states. He is also a native Utahan, and a Mormon, and is polling well enough to get some interesting attention. (I wonder if he is having any impact in Idaho, Colorado, or New Mexico)
Anyway, here’s the question:
When was the last time 4 candidates each got 10% or more of the state vote in a presidential race?
JD2718 