I tried to visit the UFT blog, Edwize, this morning, and was redirected to UFT.org. Evidently UFT has thrown in the towel on the whole blogging thing.

Here's this blog's first commentary on Edwize from August 20th, 2005.

Thanks to School of Blog for the heads-up. This could be a good place to turn for contract updates, or perhaps debunking of anti-union, anti-teacher nonsense propogated by the News, the Post, and yes, the Times.

You'll find it at EdWize. Or use the handy link in the blogroll on your right hand side.

In fact I was contemplating writing for Edwize and dumping this blog, as I'd previously written repeatedly for NY Teacher. But alas, that was not to be. I read the details of the 2005 contract and very quickly made the acquaintance of folks like Norm Scott and James Eterno.  I shared their horror at its details and Edwize was no longer interested in the likes of me.


Here's an NYC Educator post from February 17th, 2006, post-awakening.  It's called Unitythink:



I received the following anonymous comment from a Unity loyalist. Unfortunately for them, the topics here are not controlled by the autocratic Unity-UFT management. Nonetheless, it's interesting to see why they're unable to respond substantively on Edwize.

You are a bitter old curmudgeon that has nothing better to do than complain.

While name-calling may pass for argument on junior-high playgrounds, it's hardly a substitute for reasonable discourse.

We do live in a democracy. But that doesn't give you the right to yell fire in a movie theater just because you don’t like the movie.

This, apparently, is Unity's most powerful argument. I know this because I've seen it used repeatedly on Edwize. While they imply criticizing Unity is the same as yelling fire in a movie theater, this point boils down to "Shut up."

I will not.

Nor does it give you the right to defecate relentlessly, anytime or any place you feel like it, at least not without consequences.

That's interesting. Our commenter, no longer content with mere invective, has chosen to emphasize the point (shut up) by resorting to the scatological. While some may consider this juvenile approach colorful, it's hardly a substitute for argument.

What you advocate is not democracy, but anarchy.

It's interesting that Unity supporters, who've changed the UFT constitution specifically to preclude democratic election (so the high school teachers couldn't select a non-Unity VP) regard calls to elect new leadership "anarchy." This, again, is baseless name-calling.

Democracies have rule of law and order.

They do indeed. Too bad Unity won't allow high school teachers the right to choose their own leadership. Too bad Randi won't allow the CCs to select UFT workers anymore. It speaks volumes of Unity's interpretation of democracy.

And most importantly, a sense of decorum.

That's code, again, for "Shut up."

I think your biggest problem is that you aren’t on meds, and you need to be, desperately.

The highly prized "sense of decorum," seems to apply only to others, not this commenter. If that's the best retort they can dream up, it's no wonder the censors at Edwize need to work overtime.

You shouldn't be teaching children in that condition.

The commenter suggests criticizing Unity is tantamount to insanity. What on earth could this person be thinking?

Why, oh why would anyone criticize my cozy little double-pension patronage mill? They should enjoy working more hours for, effectively, less pay.

More interesting still is the commenter's implicit assumption that I treat my young students in the same manner as corrupt, ineffectual, self-serving adults.

One can only hope this poster does not treat kids with the same "decorum" shown here.

I was pretty surprised to see this ad on Craigslist. Apparently you can be a city teacher and utter lack of experience is no obstacle. When I started in 1984, I got my job via a subway ad, and lack of experience was about all I brought to the table. But times were different then. No one wanted this job. The city conducted intergalactic searches for anyone willing to sit in one of the ancient wooden chairs that sat in front of thousands of classrooms. Now reformy folks everywhere complain the standard for teachers isn't high enough.

Nonetheless, though there's actually a glut of teachers on the market, we're still not only recruiting people cold on Craigslist, but subsidizing their Masters programs. I'm all for helping people with education costs, particularly in such a miserable economy, but our priority ought to be getting experienced teachers working with kids, where they belong.

The Absent Teacher Reserve is the very worst consequence of the short-sighted 2005 UFT contract. I wasn't very active in union politics before then. I'd written a few pieces in NY Teacher, and I started this blog hoping to counter some of the anti-teacher nonsense I'd read in the tabloids. In fact, I was thrilled when Edwize popped up, thinking it would further aid the cause. I made an agreement to write for Edwize, and was about to fold this blog when the 05 contract popped up.

I could not believe how bad it was. I was shocked the union could agree to this. Edwize writers suggested the ATR was just a temporary stopgap, and that soon all the teachers would get jobs. They said such things had been done before. They failed to anticipate fanatical ideologue Joel Klein would continue to hire new teachers even as ATR teachers wandered in the contract-sanctioned purgatory that kept them from classrooms.

I fully understand there are people who don't belong in classrooms. I also fully understand, unlike Campbell Brown, that many of them are there because administrators failed to do their jobs, and that they remain because they still don't want to do their jobs. There's no justification for arbitrarily and capriciously removing teachers, despite their fond desires.

All the ATR teachers I know are there either because of school closures, or because the charges against them were not sustained. In the few cases with which I'm intimately familiar, the teachers are not at fault at all. I've spent a lot of time and energy trying to help these teachers, and I've gotten very good support from UFT to help them. Our results are mixed, but it's not for lack of trying.

The problem, of course, is that we allowed the ATR to exist in the first place. For many principals, there's no premium on experience. Better to have an entire staff of newbies, and then you don't need to worry about that pesky contract. Anyone who makes a stink is fired, and that's that.

Actually, this benefits neither teachers nor the kids we serve.

We have a union president who will stand up and say he'll punch people in the face if they take away his Common Core. What we sorely need, though, is a leader who'll get upset when teachers are not allowed to teach. What's more fundamental than that?

...but despite the best efforts of the Unity/New Action aristocracy, it seems a case of too little too late. It appears that, despite our repeated concessions to City Hall, despite the fact that we've moved 40 years backwards in terms of teachers' rights, the mayor still wants to target us, spending a million dollars to get rid of more tenured teachers. Does anyone trust this administration to make fair judgments? Is anyone besides the Unity patronage mill surprised?

Well I'm not. Are you? Here's what I posted on Edwize:

It's unfortunate that you came to this realization so late.This was entirely predictable, as were most of the actions of this administration.

Perhaps giving up seniority transfers, days in August, and the right to grieve letters in file did not satisfy them after all.Perhaps allowing teachers to be suspended without pay based on unsubstantiated allegations did not quench their desire to scapegoat working teachers.

Maybe it was not such a good idea after all to give in to reorganization number three, the one that made it even more difficult for ATR teachers to find employment, when the mayor's PR, for once, was on a downward scale after the bus fiasco.

Perhaps, in retrospect, enabling mayoral control with no checks or balances was not in our best interests after all.Maybe it was not, after all, the best idea to allow time for money swaps in lieu of real raises.After all, when people work extra hours in Burger King, they get more pay, and few interpret that as a raise.

Perhaps it was not such a good idea to wave our arms in victory when a toothless class size agreement (with no consequences for the mayor violating it) was enacted.In fact, Tweed is not even bothering to release class size statistics, despite a legal obligation to do so.

In my school, where I teach in a trailer behind a building that regularly exceeds 250% capacity, no one is surprised anymore when class sizes hit 38 or 40.No one is surprised when 48 new kids arrive in one week.

Maybe, considering this mayor's approach, it was not such a good idea to enable and support him every step of the way leading up to this.

Though the UFT's actions have earned us the admiration of Rod Paige, and the editorial pages of virulently anti-union anti-teacher tabloids, perhaps they were not in the best interests of working people after all.