Chaz's School Daze

Since the beginning of my blog, I have questioned some of the money that our leadership has given or spent on programs that many of the rank and file do not support. In fact, my very first blog post was about the non-educational programs that our hard earned money was going to and I objected to it since it was not going to further the education agenda which it should have gone to. Over the years, the UFT leadership has been using member dues and COPE funds for very questionable uses. Remember the very embarrassing quail incident? If that wasn't enough the UFT's Paul Egan, who caused the uproar, also gets paid a very handsome salary paid for by us. When I go to a UFT function, I get cookies and, if lucky, a wrap, not a $40 meal of quail and booze while picking up the tab for 24 of his union friends on our dime.

Now it seems that the UFT is spending our money on causes that I personally object to. The most egregious is being a co-sponsor of Al Sharpton's anti-police march across the Verrazano Bridge. The very same Al Sharpton who, in my opinion, is a racial arsonist. Yes, the very same Al Sharpton who falsely defamed a prosecutor of rape in the Tawana Brawley case and is anti-Semitic, who worked closely with Chancellor Joel Klein to attack teachers by agreeing with the Chancellor that the racial achievement gap was because of the schools and is a notorious tax deadbeat.

This is the very same UFT who refuses to go after vindictive school administrators because they are fellow union members, while supporting an anti-police march. Aren't the police officers fellow union members too? How can the UFT leadership talk out of both sides of their mouth and justify the use of the rank and file funds for this purpose?

A man I respect very much is Pat Lynch, the head of the police union, who is very upset with UFT President Michael Mulgrew and minced few words criticizing the UFT for the substandard contract the UFT negotiated with the De Blasio administration and the co-sponsoring the anti-police march organized by Al Sharpton. Rather than rehash what he said, you can read it Here.

That brings me to the UFT's COPE contribution that's supposed to be used for legitimate lobbying for the interest of its members. Over the years I have been increasingly disappointed in how our COPE contributions have been spent. When I first started teaching, my Chapter Leader, recommended that I contribute $5 a paycheck and that's what I did since I naively thought all the money was going to make our profession better. As I become more and more disenchanted with the union's priorities, I reduced my COPE contribution to $1 per paycheck. By the time I started my blog, I reduced it to the minimum $0.50. Once the Quail fiasco hit the newspapers, I realized that our COPE money was being misused and I stopped contributing altogether. I sent a letter to UFT headquarters to the COPE coordinator stating I no longer wanted to contribute to COPE and had my Chapter Leader sign the release form sent back to me and that was all I had to do.

Until our union decides to include the rank and file in how our money is spend, I will not give a penny to COPE and neither should you..

I have made no secret for my contempt of the UFT leadership's use of our union dues and COPE money for questionable causes and political action that gives its members no say in the matter. Since the union leadership feels that its members don't count when it comes how they spend our money, this post is dedicated to those members, who believe as I do, that our hard earned money should not go to our quail eating leadership or supporting a racial arsonist like Al Sharpton, who has never apologized for his false rape accusations, anti-Semitic statements, or his failure to pay his overdue taxes, like the rest of us are required to do. All our money should be going to making our profession better and the classroom a less hostile place. The union took in $6 million dollars of COPE contributions last year and not that she be used for the members, nobody else!

If you want to withdraw your COPE contributions, one of my anonymous commenters was kind enough to supply the information. Below, in red is the procedure.

How to cancel your COPE contributions from your paychecks:

Please send a fax requesting to cancel your COPE contribution. The information they need from you is displayed below.

They will send a cancellation card to your address on file along with a pre-paid return envelope so that you can fill out the card and send it back right away. As part of procedure, they must also receive the following fax from you:

RE: COPE Cancellation
TO: Danny Corum, COPE Coordinator

My name is ___________, File # _______________. I would like to cancel my COPE contribution as soon as possible.

[SIGNATURE]
[PRINTED NAME]

Please do not forget to sign and print your name on the fax. The fax should be sent to (212)510-6435. Your contribution will be cancelled when they receive the fax and the cancellation card back from you. Please do not hesitate to contact them at (212)598-6826 or at dcorum@uft.org should you have further questions.

Danny Corum
COPE Coordinator
United Federation of Teachers
Legislation & Political Action
52 Broadway, 15th Floor
New York, NY 10004
dcorum@uft.org
phone: (212)598-6826
fax: (212)510-6435

Maybe if enough of the members stop contributing to COPE, our union leadership might get the message and start listening to member concerns and not misuse money for their own personal ideology and needs.

New York State Education Department proudly claimed that the Common Core based, high stakes tests showed that the small improvements were proof that their policy is working. Of course, what NYSED failed to mention was that the State lowered the "cut scores" that accounted for most, if not all of the improvements. Furthermore, many more students decided to "opt out" this time. Finally, the NYSED Commissioner's conclusion that "poverty is not destiny"is not supported by the very information that he presented in the press conference.

Interestingly, is what NYSED Commissioner John King said in "putting the lipstick on the pig", by hailing the results as showing that the State's education policy is working. Moreover, he claimed that poverty is not destiny crowd has been proven wrong by the results. Really? He showed a scatter graph that indicated that some schools with high poverty levels did well. Of course he failed to mention that the schools were either screened academically or were the Charter schools that have exclusionary policies to eliminate many of the poor performing or disruptive students before they reach the third grade. The scatter graph does show that the deeper the poverty rate of a school, the lower the test scores. It seems that Mr. King should go back to school and understand what his own graph shows before he makes claims that are false. A column by "Ed the Apple"explains further about the State's flawed conclusion as Mr. Goodman shows that there were no high achieving schools in zip codes with deep poverty. Furthermore, based on the NYS data, many schools in the predominately White/Asian District 26 had a 70% passing rate while the heavily Black District 27 had many schools that had close to a 0% passing rate! No racial/income academic achievement gap there. It must all be about the teachers Mr. King.

One of my quotes on my blog is "A union that allows its members to be disrespected, is a union that no longer deserves the respect of its members". Unfortunately, our union has lived up to this quote, be it the contract that made ATRs a second class citizen, screwing ex-members who didn't retire, or using member funds for non-educational or politicalreasons.In addition, our union leadership has negotiated a vastly inferior contract that defers our 8% raises and retro payments till as late as 2020! Hopefully, one does not die or resign before the raises are paid out.

The union has become increasingly disconnected with its members as there is little accountability by

the union leadership to show that they are representing the interests of its members rather than their own interests. A case in point is President Michael Mulgrew using his position as President of the UFT to issue an "Action Alert" to co-sponsor and provide funding to Al Sharpton's police bashing march. Its one thing to march as a private citizen but its another when you circumvent your member wishes and put the union's money and prestige at the service of a racially divisive march, led by a known racial arsonist, anti-Semite, and tax deadbeat.

I have never been more embarrassed and angry about the direction our union leadership is traveling, hugging the Chancellor while she made ATRs second class citizens and praising the new DOE attitude while saying little when the DOE kept the "fair student funding" and froze school budgets. Need I remind one of the union's support of the badly flawed teacher evaluation system? Moreover, if you disagree with Common Core, Mr. Mulgrew will "punch you in the face". Finally, the contract negotiated with the De Blasio Administration was based upon making the City look good at the expense of the members.

The union, in their press release, has informed the members that our 2% raise for the yeas 2013 and 2014 will be in our second check of the fall (September 30th). Included in the raises will be the retro payments for the same time period, or so the union claims. The per session retro payments for the 2013 and 2014 period will be sent out on October 3rd. Just to remind you, we get 1% for each of the two years, starting from May 1, 2013 and May 1, 2014 so the retro payments will be low, probably averaging about $750 for the average teacher salary.

Interestingly, "newbie teachers" will be getting a more significant raise of 4.3% ($2,000) as both the UFT and DOE encourage the hiring of new teachers at the expense of retaining experienced teachers who are stuck with the measly 2% increase in their salary in the DOE's "education on the cheap"policy.

Finally, most of the teachers will be getting their final ratings the day they return to school, September 2nd and there may be some very unhappy educators as a result. Hopefully, the number of "ineffective or developing"educators are small but for the ones that get that designation, remember, you need two "ineffectives"so make sure it doesn't happen this school year.

Yes, the same old DOE has once again, secretly held a job fair for the remaining vacancies in the school system and excluded the ATRs. According to UFT President Michael Mulgrew this is supposed to be the new DOE attitude of cooperation and understanding that he bragged about. It seems to me that little has changed when it comes to the DOE.

The DOE job fair was held on Tuesday, August 26th at the Armory in Washington Heights and according to my sources the UFT was there as well which brings up the question why didn't the UFT object to this exclusionary DOE job fair? The answer is obvious, the UFT aided and abetted the DOE in excluding ATRs so that the DOE can continue to claim that the ATRs are not looking for jobs.

Unfortunately, the UFT is more the problem then the solution when it comes to adequately representing its members. Its the only municipal union that allows the City to bestow"second class citizenship"on some of its members and looks the other way when the DOE tries to punish the members a second time when they failed to terminate them in a 3020-a process. Is it any wonder that the ATRs don't trust the union leadership?

While I still believe in the protections union membership gives me, I realize thatthisdisconnected UFT leadership is not doing their job. I need to rely on myself to uphold my rights and asking the union leadership to do their job is simply a pipe dream. To me its the same old "gotcha mentality" in the DOE and a union that looks the other way when its most vulnerable of members are targeted.

Outside of our union leadership, the ultra-leftist elite, and racial arsonists, there is a groundswell of support for the police and the difficult job they do to keep our big city safe. I remember how scarey it was to walk in the city at night and in some neighborhoods at any time of the day in the 80's and 90's but thanks to the police officers and their dedication to make our streets safe, that's just a bad memory. However, our President, Michael Mulgrew, and his lackeys unwisely used member funds to co-sponsor Al Sharpton's anti-police march in Staten Island last weekend. Its time that the rank and file of the UFT show their appreciation and support of our fellow union members by wearing blue on Tuesday, the first day of school.

The idea originated from teachers in Staten Island and I strongly support the wearing blue campaign and it won't cost any union member one red cent. Please show your support for your fellow union members by wearing blue on the first day of school. I will.

On Sunday, the New York Daily News interviewed Chancellor Carmen Farina and asked her what her goals were for the 2014-15 school year. Not unexpectedly was the Mayor's pre-k program, higher passing rates on State tests, and more parental involvement. However, when it came to teachers, the Chancellor showed her true colors, she told the Daily News that she will train principals how to terminate teachers they don't want rather than collaborate and support hem. Notice, she didn't say "ineffective teachers" but teachers who principals don't want.

The Chancellor also want after the ATRs by claiming that there will be a dramatic reduction of teachers without a classroom by mid October. Did she mean that the ATRs will be offered vacancies? No, according to the Chancellor, the reduction will be due to the conditions of the new contract that has already resulted in 97 teachers taking the buyout (almost all of them were retiring anyway) and by actively going after ATRs.for dubious disciplinary issues.

Interestingly, the Chancellor is full of contradictions as she, on one hand, wants principals to properly document teacher actions that can lead to termination while , on the other hand, wants to improve teacher morale. Let's see if you redouble the efforts to target teachers that will improve their morale, what an idiot! I guess the Chancellor believes in the statement "that the beatings will continue until morale improves". Moreover, she claims she wants to improve teacher retention. How can she do that when she refuses to remove vindictive and incompetent administrators that result in high teacher turnover in their schools? Furthermore, class sizes, the largest in the Stace, are not being reduced. Finally, her failure to discontinue the "fair student funding" and freezing already tight school budgets forces principals to hire the "cheapest" and not the "best teachers" for the students.

The Chancellor claims there will be no "forced placement" and that there is mutual consent.
However, if a Principal requires that an ATR interview and take a position, the ATR has no choice but to accept the interview and the position or resign. That, to me, is not mutual consent and is a forced placement. What is the union's position? They just close their collective eyes and the disconnected leadership will claim there is a new attitude at the DOE. Yeah, a new attitude as the DOE redouble their efforts to target the classroom teacher.

During the Bloomberg era the DOE repeatedly failed to discipline administrators and when they reluctantly did, they gave them a mere "slap on the wrist" for actions that would have led to termination if it was a staff member. With a change in the Mayor's Office and a more "progressive" and friendlier person at the helm, we all hoped his new Chancellor would "clean house" and change the tone at the DOE from a "gotcha mentality" to a more collaborative agency. Even the UFT President, Michael Mulgrew, claimed he saw a new tone at Tweed and even hugged the new Chancellor. However, nothing has changed, its still the same old DOE as the new Chancellor failed to "clean house"and retained many of the high and mid level architects of the destructive Bloomberg years. Sure, there has been some changes at the top but most of them left because they were frustrated with the lack of focus and leadership from the Chancellor not because she wanted them out. Unfortunately, many of the people who remained are the implementers of the hostile Bloomberg policy and it shows in the just completed contract with the UFT that makes ATRs "second class citizens" and makes ATRs who won there discipline hearings an "untouchable".

One of the policies that appears to have not changed is the DOE "double standard" when disciplining administrators and staff members. In many cases, administrators are either not disciplined or given a mere "slap on the wrist" for actions that would have led to the DOE to file 3020-a termination charges against a staff member. The latest examples of this "double standard" is the Assistant Principal who changed 11 grades from failing to passing for his son at "Bread and Roses" High School. His punishment? He is now an ATR Assistant Principal, no 3020-a charges. Another recent case is the Assistant Principal at Automotive High School who dismissed two teachers from scoring because they were too strict on his seniors who he was trying to graduate out of the school.and apparently, in violation of the intent of the City's and maybe State regulations re-scored them His punishment? None. Finally there's the case of the Principal of Murry Bergtraum High School who abused the credit recovery program that pushed seniors out of the school without themappearing in class to get the undeserved credits to graduate. Rather than go for termination charges, the DOE made her a Principal at another school two years later. All three cases can be foundHere, Here, and Here.

Moreover, what happen to these two leadership academy principals in the Bronx who proved to be poor role models and parents demanded their removal? They still are principals in their schools! Here. and Here. If it was a teacher the DOE would have not only removed the teacher from the school but would most certainly have filed 3020-a termination charges.

I guess nothing changes when it comes to the DOE "double standard".

When Bill de Blasio replaced Michael Bloomberg as Mayor of New York City, many of us were looking forward to a new era of collaboration and respect. The new Mayor's selection of a long-term educator as Chancellor was also an encouraging sign as it signifies a change away from the failed business model which was the hallmark of the Bloomberg era. While the new Chancellor, Carmen Farina, has had a troubling past, she seemed like a breath of fresh air when compared to the top-down non-educators who were chancellors during the Bloomberg era. Even the UFT leadership hailed the new Chancellor as a person they can work with and UFT President, Michael Mulgrew, even hugged her. Unfortunately, in the first semester plus of Carmen Farina's tenure as Chancellor she has been a disappointment.

The Chancellor, has so far, failed to make any meaningful improvements in the schools and the classroom. First, she froze the already tight school budgets that has averaged 14% less than it was back in 2008. Second, she did not reduce class sizes, a campaign promise by the Mayor, third, she did not "clean house" and retained many of the architects of the destructive Bloomberg policies. Fourth, she retained the "fair student funding" that forces principals to hire the "cheapest" and not the "best teachers" for their schools. Fifth, she failed to get rid of the money sucking and useless Children First networks. Finally, the new Chancellor has targeted ATRs and made them "second class citizens".

In hindsight, Chancellor Carmen Farina does have a "dark side" that people seemed to ignore. Like the 80% turnover in staff when she was Principal, her rise to become a Deputy Chancellor under Joel Klein before being forced to retire, and this from Philip Nobile. In addition, Betsy Combier in her Rubber Room Reporter blog is a must read when going over the Chancellor's past. She has continues to suffer from verbal lapses such as her "its a beautiful day comment"during a monster snowstorm that trapped students in their schools. Moreover, her verbal attack on ATRs and her statement that she will train principals how to terminate them rather than encourage principals to hire them for their vacancies is not only unprofessional but continues the demonetization of the ATRs that started in the Bloomberg era. Most disturbing of all she told new teachers at a conference not to listen to those disgruntled veteran teachers in the lunch room.

With Carmen Farina as Chancellor do not expect any real academic improvement or a narrowing of the racial/income academic achievement gap as she continues the failed and destructive policies of the Bloomberg era. A very disappointing Chancellor is Carmen Farina as she continues to practice the "education on the cheap" policy of the Bloomberg era.

Once again I find myself starting the school year in a school that doesn't even have classes in my subject area. However, this year the DOE is not even pretending to try to match ATRs with vacancies. Instead, the DOE will make a more determined effort to terminate ATRs, thanks to the new contract provisions negotiated with the disconnected UFT leadership.

True, the DOE claims that starting September 15th, the DOE will start interviewing ATRs for any vacancies that will become available after October 15th. The exceptions will be any ATR that survived their discipline hearings but received a $2,000 fine or more or received at least a 30 day suspension. This includes any ATR who took a stipulation in lieu of going through a 3020-a hearing. These ATRs are about 25% of the pool and are known as the "untouchables".

Its highly likely that any ATR who receive an unsatisfactory observation last year will also not be offered a vacancy since the DOE would rather go for two consecutive "U ratings" and start 3020-a termination proceeding then to allow the ATR to go through with the Danelson program since the ATR would need to get two consecutive annual "ineffective ratings" before the DOE could terminate the ATR.

This week the UFT will be giving their annual ATR"dog and pony show" and spin it in such a way as to make some of the more naive ATRs hope that the union will have their back and will make great efforts to drain the ATR pool by aggressively making sure that all school vacancies will be covered by the ATRs. They will also claim that principals will not have to pay for the ATRs for two years. However, they will not tell you that in the third year the ATR salary will become part of the school payroll and few, if any, principals will want to take a chance of seeing their budget reduced by being forced to pick up the ATR's salary.

The UFT meetings can be found on theICEUFT blog.

I received my September 15th paycheck and noticed our union has increased our dues by almost 5%. At the same time, my salary will only go up a meagerly 2% come September 30th. I think its only fair if our union followed the same procedures they accepted for the rank and file. Therefore, the union should rollback the dues and allow it to rise in lockstep with our deferred raises. That means our dues should be reduced back to 2009 and the increases should reflect the raises their members actually get that were negotiated by the union.

I guess the union can't rollback our dues since they need it to replenish the money that they blew by co-sponsoring an anti-police march and making nice with Al Sharpton. Maybe our disconnected union leadership will next co-sponser a meeting with the education reformers by claiming they are simply misunderstood and only wants to do what's right for the students. Oh wait, they did invite Bill Gates to be a keynote speaker at the Seattle AFT conference.

What's next for our President, Michael Mulgrew, after screwing the ATRs and giving members an inadequate contract, holding hands with Al Sharpton, hugging Chancellor Carmen Farina, and threatening to punch you in the face if your against his beloved Common Core? I shutter to think what's next as our disconnected union leadership does what's best for them and not for the members. Quail anyone? The tab is on the members.

Many teachers who are targeted by their Principal for incompetence and misconduct complain that instead of collaborating with them to resolve their personal differences and offering support to improve their pedology, the principal pre-planned the attack on these teachers. The problem is proving it and that is the crux of the issue. However, in the South Bronx School blog we get an insight of how a Principal planned to target this blogger for incompetence, despite the teacher never getting an "unsatisfactory rating"previously and was "S rated" in June of that year. If it wasn't for the "due process rights" that gives us our tenure protection, he would have been terminated simply because the Principal didn't like him.

If you have been following the South Bronx School blog, you know he was charged and awaiting his hearing under section 3020-a for incompetence and misconduct by his Leadership Academy Principal Dr. Alison Coviello of PS 154. I previously wrote a post about Principal. Coviello's reign of terror and you can find it Here. Well, it appears that South Bronx School was somehow able to obtain an email from Ms. Coviello that was sent to her Assistant Principal on the strategy they were to use the following school year to make sure they can charge the teacher with incompetence. The August 24, 2012 email was printed by South Bronx School in the August 7th 2014 post and is reprinted here.

“Hey, I revised Zucker’s job description (per the advice of Mike Agona) so that it is focused more on literacy. This way, Agona explained, we’ll have a surer chance of winning a case when our observations detail incompetence.”

According to the South Bronx School blog this is the "smoking gun" that shows that the Principal decided beforehand to go after the teacher. It certainly appears that the Principal was targeting the teacher even before the school year started and that brings into question the validity of the charges against the targeted teacher. In other words, the Principal already assumed a predetermined outcome and prepared a strategy to implement it.

From my point of view, the Principal's harassment of the teacher in the 2012-13 school year was pre-planned and morally wrong and hopefully, the arbitrator will see that instead of working with the teacher to resolve their differences and do what's best for the students of the school, Dr. Alison Coviello , instead did the exact opposite and harassed the teacher and in turn hurt the students of her school. If it wasn't for our tenure protection, he and many other teachers would be terminated simply upon the whim of a Principal, many of them unqualified themselves.

The once prestigious Flushing high school has continued to academically deteriorate in the last few years and has become a dumping ground for "high needs" students throughout the borough. As a teacher there in 2011-12 I can personally attest to the problems at the school. The school was once slated to close but survived when the courts ruled against Mayor Bloomberg. Instead, like many of the schools that survived the axe, the Department of Education decided on a slow strangulation policy instead. Flushing high school now shares its building with two new small schools and have reduced freshman and sophomore classes. The result has been a major excessing of teachers in the last two years. Last year the average department excessed an astonishing four teachers from the school and over twenty teachers overall. During this time the school has had three diffwerent principals i n the last three years and a new Principal will take the helm this year making it four principals in four years.

The latest casualty is the infamous James Brown. No not the singer but the Principal who was hired to lead troubled Flushing high school by then Chancellor Dennis Walcott, despite being found guilty in court by a jury of his peers for harassing a female subordinate who also accused him of sexual misconduct . Yes, he was found guilty and left the Baldwin school system and was hired by the Walcott Administration to be Principal of Flushing high school despite the Chancellor's long stated zero tolerance policy on alleged sexual misconduct. You can read the entire James Brown story on my blog Here. Moreover, during his troubled year as Principal he tried to artificially raise passing grades by putting in a grading system that was in violation of State regulations only to be exposed and subject to ridicule, before being forced to abandon it.

It was only a little over two years ago when another questionable Principal was removed due to the police finding drugs in his car during a traffic stop. He now works at the DOE in another capacity. His story can be found Here. In between Mr Brown and Mr. Hudson the DOE hand-picked Principal alienated so many of her staff, that she fled the DOE entirely and know works in a school district upstate after only one year at the helm.

How can a school be successful when the very leaders the DOE selects for the school have serious character issues, lack extensive classroom experience, and are selected on who they know and not on their academic credentials. Until the DOE puts the very best in roles of leadership, no school will be able to show real academic improvement and Flushing high school is a prime example of the academic neglect by the DOE as they have failed to put a real educator, with high academic standards as a role model for staff and students alike.

Over the years, many teachers have bemoaned the fact that our union leadership has ignored the wishes of its members. The complaint is that the union lacks real democracy and transparency in its operation. While I agree 100% with these teachers, the blame must be placed where it belongs and that is on ourselves.

If we look how our union operates, we see that our union is dominated by one caucus, "Unity" which requires total subservience to the leadership, where any dissent results in expulsion from the caucus and the perks that go with it. No other caucus requires a "loyalty oath" as a condition of employment in the UFT. Decision-making is done by a small inner circle of Unity loyalists, dominated by President Michael Mulgrew, and rather than reach out to the rank and file for their input, they impose their own political philosophy and claim that is the union's position. Even the District Representatives are appointed by the union leadership when before Randi Wiengarten came to power the District Representative was voted on by the Democratically elected Chapter Leaders of the Borough or District, The latest two examples of the union unaccountable leadership riding rough shot over the members were the recently negotiated inadequate contract that threw the ATRs under the bus, deferred raises as far away as October 2020, and eliminated retroactive raises for ex members who resigned, were terminated, died, or became an Administrator, just to make the new Mayor look good. Yeah, I know that 77% voted for the contract but it was the scare tactics used by the leadership such as "if we don't approve the contract, we go to the back of the line and the City won't have the money to pay us." that scared many members in voting for it. Then there was theAl Sharpton led anti-police march that the UFT co-sponsor, using member dues money to fund.

Yes, our arrogant union leadership acts like Eric Cartman and does as they please but its our fault that they can get away acting this way. In the latest elections for UFT President, only 25% of all members actually bothered to vote and only 17% of active members. Furthermore, retirees votes were 52% of the total vote. The breakdown can be found in the MORE blog and the numbers are below:

75% OF UFT MEMBERS DID NOT PARTICIPATE — WHY?

The majority of UFT members did not bother to participate in these elections. Out of 173,407 ballots mailed, only 43,138 were returned. When 75% of the membership doesn’t think voting is worth their time, that’s a serious problem. We can’t read the minds of those roughly 130,000 non-voting members, but we can imagine that frustration, demoralization, and basic alienation from the union at the chapter level must be ingredients in the explanation. While public education is facing an historic crisis, our union has thus far failed to involve the majority of members in a struggle to defend our rights and to improve our schools.

The participation results, listed by division, are shameful:

Mailed ballots Returned ballots

High School: 19,040 3,808

Middle School: 10,807 1,879

Elementary: 34,163 7,331

Functional: 51,040 7,704

Retirees: 58,357 22,462

Retirees contributed the majority (52%) of the ballots. Among UFT members who are still on the job, only 18% voted. When the active membership is less engaged in the life of the union than those who have stopped working (and, in many cases, live in other states!), that is cause

Is our union any different from other unions? Probably not, except that our union allows retirees to vote and when you look at the new contract you can see that retirees are the winners. An article, which I only partially agree with, identifies the lack of active member participation in elections and we teachers are no exception to this.

Presently, the two other caucuses, MORE and New Action, has failed to garner significant support and as for the E4E cult? They are simply a fringe group and a front for anti-union corporate reformers, who didn't even bother to enter the elections for fear of exposing their lack of membership. For our union to become more democratic, we need to have a new caucus that focuses on teacher justice and not social justice issues that dilutes the message and alienates a significant sector of the rank and file.

Its time that a new UFT caucus be formed from the disenfranchised membership, ATRs, untenured teachers, and mainstream educators who are unhappy with the union's leadership and lack of support. Maybe the ICEUFT section of MORE can split and form its own caucus, as it did once before, and focus only on educator issues. Become a real trade unionist alternative caucus. Only then will the UFT leadership take notice and maybe our union will become more democratic and transparent. Until things change, its more of the same, a disconnected union leadership that cares more about their relationship with the City and DOE than for the membership.

There is a new UFT Caucus that has formed that will be focused on "teacher justice", not social justice, and will act as a real trade union, representing school staff in the New York City public schools. This new and dynamic caucus is call "Solidarity"and will represent the mainstream educators, the disenfranchised ATRs, and those without tenure. This caucus will be a real trade union caucus and will not dilute the message by having a "social justice" plank or spend member money on causes that the union leadership decides, without member input.

The "Solidarity"caucus will represent teachers and school staff. and not muddle their message with tangential issues that have nothing to do with education. If you are a teacher or school staff employee and want what's best for your school then its time to become a member of"Solidarity" who will advocate for the educator and not hugging the Chancellor or supporting marches that demonize fellow union members.

Join the"Solidarity" caucus and belong to a real union that represents school staff and help improve the hostile classroom environment that our present no-accountable union leadership allowed to happen on their watch. Its time that the rank and file have a real union that listens to their concerns and that is "Solidarity".

"JOIN THE "SOLIDARITY" CAUCUS"

Here is the link to join.

With much fanfare and little scrutiny, Mayor Bill de Blasio and Chancellor Carmen Farina praised the miniscule increases the City students achieved on the 2013 State tests and have proclaimed that 100% of the NYC school children will be passing the State tests. However, when one takes into account thelower cut scores and the large "opt out" cohort, any real academic progress is simply "smoke and mirrors". The politicians can crow all they want about imaginary academic gains but the truth is that these supposed gains are illusionary. Moreover, the unacceptably wide racial/income academic achievement gap has not improved and this is shown by the analysis done for the 4th grade citywide. According to the report, the top schools are predominately made up of students that come from the surrounding diverse middle class neighborhoods or are screened, while the worst preforming schools are in neighborhoods of deep poverty and nearly 100% Black and Hispanic.

The question is how can we improve the academic ability of the New York City school students? There are ways. However, the new Mayor and his disappointing Chancellor has done little to take strides in that direction. For example, despite the Mayor's pledge to reduce class size, the opposite happened, class sizes have actually increased once again for the elementary and middle schools. Numerous studies have shown that class size has a significant effect on classroom learning and the City has the largest class sizes in New York State. Until class size is reduced significantly, don't expect any academic improvement.

Another issue, is the lack of "quality teachers" in the classroom. The new administration has continued the destructive "fair student funding" policy that encourages principals to hire the "cheapest" and not the "best teachers" for their schools. Since 50% of these teachers will leave the profession in five years and over 80% from the school they started at, few will ever become a "quality teacher" for the school that hired them. Moreover, the steep learning curve "newbie teachers" experience makes their students guinea pigs until the teacher has demonstrated good pedagogy skills and gets tenure three years later, if their the lucky 60%. A seven year study showed how difficult it was for struggling schools to attract effective teachers. Even the offer of $20,000 extra for a two year commitment met with few takers. How does the DOE expect to attract teachers to struggling schools for a measly $5,000? The answer is they don't. Combinedwith a hostile and stressful classroom environment, is it any wonder that retention is a problem? High teacher turnover and poor academic achievement in these struggling schools go hand in hand.

Shockingly, Chancellor Carmen Farina froze already tight school budgets at 2013 levels and that is 14% less than in the 2007-08 school year. She unwisely kept the money sucking and useless "Children First Networks" and worst of all, the Chancellor has made the demonetization of the 2,000+ ATRs part of the new contract, meaning that the DOE will waste money and talent by having high priced "babysitters" rotating weekly from school to school.

Finally, under the new Chancellor, the failed policies of the Bloomberg Administration are still evident and many of his architects are still in control of Tweed. Rather than "clean house" she has kept many of them in place and the classroom environment is still as hostile as ever with loads of paperwork, Leadership Academy Principals" and inadequate school resources a norm.

What needs to change to make real academic progress? Lower class sizes, the elimination of "fair student funding" with all staff salaries coming out of DOE Central like it used to be. Downsizing and folding the Children First Networks into the Superintendent's Office, with the savings going back to the schools for resources and the placing of ATRs back into the classroom with the 160 million dollar annual savings being used for hiring of more teachers which will lower the average class sizes, especially in deep poverty neighborhood schools.

Mark my words, without the usual academic tricks any real academic progress will be illusionary and will; not result in the narrowing of the racial/income academic achievement gap.

One of the things I noticed that in many of the academically poorly preforming high schools how out of shape many of the high school students looked. When I covered a physical education class as a second teacher I would observe that half of the students wouldn't bother to exercise or participate in the activities that the physical education teacher planned. In fact, a substantial number of these students didn't even bother to change into their gym clothes but sat on the bleachers and talked to each other.

I blame this on the school administration who allow students not to participate or even dress for physical education and then pressures the teacher to pass them anyway. Is it any wonder many of these students look the way they do?

By contrast, in academically performing schools, every student is required to participate in gym. For the students at these schools not only do they dress for gym and are required to participate in the activities but goals are set for each student to meet. By the time the school year is over, many of the students are physically fit which translates into a better body image, alertness in the classroom, and better grades.

If schools are really serious in improving academically then they must require all students to meet the physical education standards that they have ignored for years by the DOE. Otherwise, look for continued academic failure as these out of shape students fall asleep in class and stay unfocused while doing poorly on tests.If it really is"students first" then start with improving their physical fitness.

It was no surprise that the DOE reported a !2.3% increase of teachers that took excessive absences, meaning 11 or more days off in the 2013-14 school year over the year before. That comes out to be an astounding 13.2% of the entire teaching force of 74,000 or almost 10,000 teachers who called in sick that used over the ten sick days allocated for the school year. The New York Post article can be found.Here.

Interestingly, the DOE claims this 12.3% increase in excessive teacher absences isn't significant, really? In addition, our union leadership claimed it was that maternity leave accounted for the increase. However, a union member blamed it on the Common Core. The real reason that there was a 12.3% increase in excessive teacher absences can be associated with the State's Teacher Evaluation System, the Danielson framework, and the failure of many school administrators to properly support their teachers when it comes to misbehaving and disrespectful student behaviors.

To me, the increased excessive absences is proof positive that the classroom environment has become even more hostile and stressful, when the State and City policies and paperwork are rammed down the teacher's throat. Waiting for the new Mayor and his disappointing Chancellor to make the classroom environment less stressful and more peaceful is simply a pipe dream that our disconnected union leadership tries to sell. However, the reality is very different and the significant upsurge of excessive teacher absences demonstrates this reality.as many of these teachers are fleeing the hostile classroom for as many days as possible to keep their sanity.

I also believe if one broke down the statistics and look at the individual schools, I bet one would find that the low academically achieving schools and those schools with terrible administrations suffer the greatest teacher absences and yearly turnover.

Finally, when one combines the increased teacher absences with the DOE's recruitment over retention policy, the result is a failure by the DOE to implement workable strategies to improve student academic achievement and to narrow the unacceptably wide income/racial achievement gap in the New York City Schools.

In a New York Post opinion piece, some of the parents that were outraged when they found out that teacher Richard Parlini was reinstated to his teaching position at P.S. 101Q in Forest Hills, despite accusations of corporal punishment, verbal abuse, and bullying stated why they joined the lawsuit against teacher tenure. According to the Daily News, Mr. Parlini made a deal with the DOE and paid a $2,500 fine and took a six hour course. He was then allowed to return to the school and was scheduled to teach the first grade until some of the parents complained to the press. Due to the negative publicity, Mr. Parlini was hastily assigned by the DOE to administrative duties at the school until another position is found for him at a different school. Some of these parents then joined the teacher tenure lawsuit, citing the Richard Parlini case as a reason why teacher tenure laws needs to be changed. However, if one looks at the Richard Parlini case, it has little to do with teacher tenure but everything to do with the DOE deciding not to go forward with 3020-a charges and his Principal wanting the teacher back at the school.

First, if the DOE's Office of Legal Services really had a solid case against Mr. Parlini, they would have pursued 3020-a termination charges against him and let an independent arbitrator determine the "award" (penalty). Second, the DOE may have realized that the accusations lacked credibility when they did the preliminary investigation. Finally, its very obvious that the Principal of the school wanted him back, otherwise he would have been immediately assigned to the ATR pool since he agreed to a stipulation and paid a fine. Is Mr. Parlini guilty of what he was accused of? Who knows? However, if the DOE believed they had real evidence, Mr. Parlini would have gone through a 3020-a termination hearing as many other teachers have done.

The fact that the DOE reached a settlement with Mr. Parlini had nothing to do with the teacher tenure issue but has everything to do with the credibility of the accusers and the Principal wanting him back into her school's classroom. With or without tenure protections, the result would probably end up the same way since it was up to the DOE to initiate charges and decided not to. Place the blame on where it really belongs, the DOE for sending Mr. Parlini back to his school and not the teacher tenure issue.

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Why The Richard Parlini Case Has Little To Do With Teacher Tenure.