It's not the best of weeks for Andy Cuomo. After all, Preet is dropping clues all over the place that Silver and Skelos weren't the only crooks under his watchful eye. And there are really few individuals so morally bankrupt as the Governor of our great state, obviously on sale to the highest bidder. For a few million, he'll stand with Eva Moskowitz and pretend she serves all children (while we really do, and are regularly vilified for our trouble). He'll call himself the "student lobbyist" but fail to seek the billions NY State owes city children in the CFE lawsuit.

You may recall that the great minds of Revive NYSUT overthrew leadership, specifically claiming to oppose Cuomo. They failed to do so in the Working Families primary, when pro-teacher Zephyr Teachout ran against him. They failed to do so in the Democratic primary, when Zephyr Teachout ran against him again. They also failed to do so in the general election, when the Green Party's Howie Hawkins provided an alternative considerably better than shooting ourselves in the foot.

But alas, the leadership of NYSUT and UFT was having none of it. After all, it's scary to endorse newcomers. It's frightening to oppose a governor like Andy Cuomo. He might get mad if you do that, and that's an unacceptable risk. I mean, what if he gets up on his hind legs and demands a teacher evaluation system even worse than the one we already have? So it's best to slink away and mumble ridiculous excuses when members demand you stand by your explicitly stated principles.

On the other hand, Cuomo actually did demand an evaluation system worse than the one actually on the books. Not only that, but he won it as the spineless Democrats voted for it with "heavy hearts." I don't remember the reaction of NYSUT, but it's hard for me to forget an email I got from UFT President Michael Mulgrew thanking the Assembly for passing this atrocity.

Of course, Cuomo has since backed up a bit, what with hundreds of thousands of New York children opting out of his ridiculous tests. And everywhere I read of a "moratorium" on using test scores to rate children or teachers, even though a very limited number of tests are actually not counted. For example, all high school teachers are still judged on the same junk science as last year, and will have to await the "matrix" before we get a new variety of junk science.

But now that Cuomo is pretending to back down on his insane demands, and now that everyone is talking about having him frogmarched into a cell with Silver and Skelos, this might be a good time for NYSUT and UFT to get ahead of the curve. Why not start trashing the governor right now, so that when he finally goes down, they can genuinely take some credit for it?

When Michael Mulgrew, who was gonna punch us in the face and push our faces in the dirt if we didn't support his beloved Common Core, stands up and takes credit for its few and inconsequential reversals, he looks ridiculous. To avoid that in the future, all he has to do is threaten to punch Cuomo's face instead of ours. Maybe then when Cuomo goes down, he can say, "You see? I boldly threatened to brutalize the guy and now he's in prison so I don't have to."

So let's get in there now, UFT and NYSUT leadership. Because once the guy goes down, you know you're gonna take credit for it anyway. So let's make it look good, and begin making some noise. As an added benefit, all those irritating bloggers won't be calling you out all the time.

It's all about looking ahead, for once, and just a little bit. Let's try doing the right thing, just as an experiment, and seeing how it works out. If it does, who knows? Maybe we could make it a regular thing.

Our union backed the Working Families Party for a long time, but those days are over. The Working Families party supported Bernie Sanders, and the United Federation of Teachers has no use for anyone who doesn't do what they say. That's why every single person who represents us in NYSUT and AFT has to sign a loyalty oath. 

I was very upset with the Working Families Party in the past because they endorsed Andrew Cuomo. This was really a terrible move as far as I'm concerned, because I'm a working person and Andrew Cuomo hates me and everything I stand for. I mean, what the hell is the point of a party that declines to support someone like Zephyr Teachout against Andrew Cuomo? In fact, what the hell is the point of a union leadership that can't see the value of someone like Teachout?

In fact, UFT failed to support Teachout in her bold challenge to Cuomo in the Democratic primary. Perhaps they thought this would make Cuomo like us or something. Far from that, Cuomo went and pushed the most anti-teacher legislation I've ever seen, raising the percentage of junk science, adding strangers as observers, and placing schools under the threat of receivership. For this, UFT President Michael Mulgrew thanked the Heavy Hearted Assembly. 

Of course Randi Weingarten endorsed Hillary. This happened early, and it was based on what the AFT called a "scientific" poll. I haven't got the faintest idea what that means, and I've never seen the questions they asked. It was entirely predictable that AFT would endorse Hillary, and New York education bloggers were universally not surprised. I got onto an AFT call regarding the endorsement, and the very fist speaker happened to be a NYS Unity propagandist who'd written a really nasty article about me. Randi tweeted the piece, which was how I saw it. It called me a part-time teacher and a part-time union rep. Randi was OK with that until I pointed out it offended not only me, but each and every working chapter leader in the city.

Perhaps it was a coincidence this guy got called on first, and perhaps there was indeed a scientific survey randomly asking people their opinions. All I know is I work in the largest school in Queens, and no one ever asks me or anyone I know any of these questions. When teachers are polled and come out in support of Common Core, I can never find any teachers who agree. But what do I know? I talk to teachers all day long, and I guess the only way you can really be in touch with what's going on is sitting in an office in 52 Broadway.

But here's what's clear--UFT leadership cannot abide dissenting opinion. When Working Families decided to endorse a candidate that actually supported working families, that was the last straw for Michael Mulgrew and company. And while it's a great honor to financially support the Hillary Clinton office at 52 Broadway, a whole lot of politically active teachers I know do not support her. I don't know whether that office is paid for exclusively by COPE, but I do know my union dues keep the lights on over at 52.

It's a disgrace that once the Working Families Party takes a clear stand for working families Michael Mulgrew takes his ball and goes home.

Hi folks, it's me, your old pal "Punchy" Mike Mulgrew! Don't try and take my Common Core from me! I'll punch out your stinking face and push it in the dirt! But seriously, folks, let's talk turkey. First of all, don't believe anything you read on those blogs. I'll be nice, which is hard for me because I'm an ex-carpenter, a regular blue collar guy who can't help but walk around spouting obscenities for no reason. So I'll just say they're purveyors of myth, rather than call them a bunch of despicable liars.

Anyhoo, the new agreement does not suck. Cuomo wanted probation to take five years, and now it only takes four. And all due process rights remain in place, as long as you don't get rated ineffective twice in a row and need more than 90 days to prove your case, as long as you don't get rated ineffective three years in a row and need more than 30 days to prove your case, and as long as you aren't an ATR who needs more than one day. Sure tenure used to take three years, but you gotta admit four years sucks a full year less than five years. Score another victory for us!

Governor Cuomo demanded more charter schools, and whoopee! He didn't get them as part of the budget agreement! How much does that not suck? Instead, he'll negotiate it later! It would suck if they had done it now. Now, we will talk about it later and no one can say just how much it does or does not suck until then. So, in review, doesn't suck now. Another victory! Plus we've always supported charters, and we've even opened and co-located one, and the part of it that didn't suck is still open. Another feather in our cap.

As for placing schools into receivership, the Governor won't do that. Instead, local chancellors will choose receivers. How bad could it be if the city took over closing schools, or had someone take them over? That's much better than Cuomo doing it, and it sucks way less. Of course it's never happened and we have no idea what it will be like when it does, but it is our considered opinion that it will suck less. After all, what's a few thousand ATRs between friends, and who even knows if that will happen? Clearly the amount of suck cannot be quantified here, so, no suck, no foul.

As for merit pay, Cuomo wanted 20K in merit pay. But that won't happen. In NYC, we have master and model teachers, and the rat squad which goes out and determines whether the burden of proof to fire you is on the DOE or you, but that's not merit pay, just like our last failed schoolwide program wasn't merit pay either. And since merit pay sucks, that isn't merit pay, and Cuomo didn't give us merit pay, this also doesn't suck.

As for funding, Cuomo wanted to give 1.1 billion in increases if we sucked up his sucky programs, which would suck. We went out and demanded that Cuomo pay us the 5.6 billion he owed us from the CFE lawsuit, and even paid valuable lip service to the notion of taking him to court over it. But we got 1.6 billion in aid, which sucks a lot less than 1.1 billion and a bunch of sucky programs. Sure the bloggers will ask why we didn't go for the 5.6 billion, but screw them because they're a bunch of lying bastards and we will never, ever allow them to influence us in our mission to accomplish things that don't suck as much as they could otherwise.

As for evaluation, we have of late been suggesting that the 1-100 measure, the one we had Leo Casey defend passionately on Edwize, sucks, and that we're looking for something new. Of course we don't want 50% of your rating to be based on test scores, because that would suck. Instead we will have multiple measures, which we already have, which suck way less than the 50% Governor Cuomo wants. What will they be? Who knows? And sure you might get observed by strangers from the state, but who can judge your skills better than someone who doesn't know you from a hole in the wall? That doesn't suck, does it?

Like Governor Cuomo, we loved the current law when it came out, but when people started to suggest that it sucked, we listened, and dumped NYSUT President Richard Iannuzzi, contending that he sucked for passing the law in the first place. And believe you me, if there are any further problems, we will step up and declare Karen Magee sucks and dump her too. We are not afraid to dispense blame for things that suck. Just bear in mind that nothing is ever our fault, and that every change is a victory in that it could have sucked even more without our valuable input.

So thank you for everything you've done. In retrospect, it sucked that we scheduled the rally for March 28th coinciding with the budget agreement. Perhaps it would have been smarter to do it a week earlier when we might have gotten massive press coverage and actually influenced someone. Believe me, I will blame someone for that, maybe the bloggers, maybe Karen Magee, but someone will pay. And maybe we should have actually endorsed someone against Cuomo when he was running for governor, rather than sitting on our hands and letting Zephyr Teachout lose twice. However, we have already decided to blame NYSUT for not making that decision, so again, it's not our fault and it doesn't suck. And those bastard bloggers won't mention this, but under my leadership we haven't had a catastrophic natural disaster in over two years.

So, in conclusion, things suck much less than they could suck, we've reduced suckiness to a bare minimum, anything that does suck is not our fault, a thousand points of light, and God bless the United Federation of Teachers.

I keep getting a lot of email from UFT about how March 9th is a "week of action." We're going to wear a special color, or hold hands at our school, and take a photo. I don't mind cooperating. It's not a whole lot to ask. I'm not completely sure, though, that it will accomplish much.

More to the point, if next week is a week of action, what exactly are the other 51 weeks? In the case of the UFT and NYSUT, many of those weeks were indeed spent not fighting Andrew Cuomo. For example, though Revive NYSUT ran on a platform suggesting they opposed Cuomo, during election season they did absolutely nothing about it. UFT leadership joined them in this effort. Not only that, but it looks like they went the extra step, threatening the Working Families Party with dissolution if they endorsed Zephyr Teachout over Andrew Cuomo.

It must be an awful balancing act for leadership. After all, AFT President Randi Weingarten went so far as to make robocalls for Cuomo's running mate, Kathy Hochul, after the NY Times endorsed Teachout's running mate, Tim Wu. Weingarten's affiliation with AFT, rather than NYSUT or UFT, gave some cover to the people who are today claiming to be born-again Cuomo opponents, and the direct endorsement of Hochul rather than Cuomo gives a little breathing space.

But if you actually think about this stuff you have to ask yourself why she did that. And the conclusion is unlikely to be one that leadership virulently opposed Cuomo in the election. Much as I'd like to differentiate, it's very hard for me to give credence that there is much separation between UFT, NYSUT, and AFT. For example, UFT overthrew increasingly vocal NYSUT leadership last year by directing its 800 delegates to vote for Revive, and Weingarten clearly supported that move. I heard all sorts of stories about deals she made to procure votes. I think leadership is in sync, always, unless someone needs to be thrown overboard.

And then there is the membership. Take a photo, maybe see it in NY Teacher and pat yourself on the back. There's nothing wrong with that, but I keep wondering whether the best time to oppose Cuomo would have been when he was running for office. Typically tone-deaf leadership miscalculated again and refused to join those of us who gave money to and/ or worked for Zephyr Teachout. Apparently they did not anticipate Cuomo actually supporting the charter/ anti-union crowd that was giving him millions of dollars. They thought this particular megalomaniac would be grateful we scuttled his opponent and gave the appearance of not opposing him, of sitting on the fence.

Yes, the week of action is a good time to take a stand. But it's also a good time to examine why we have all those weeks of inaction. If you read Diane Ravitch's blog instead of NY Teacher, you won't be able to deny that things are happening every single day, every single moment, and don't stop for our convenience.

The strategy of sleepwalking through election season, in particular, has proven less than fruitful, and bears reexamination. Sadly, in the elite and exclusive UFT Unity echo chamber, loyalty is the prime directive, and new ideas are never welcome.

March 4th is Lobby Day for UFT. A whole lot of people are being bused to Albany to talk to legislators. Oddly, there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of room on the bus. Our group, the last I heard, only had 15 seats. I’d go anyway, in my own car, if I thought it would make a difference. That’s what I did the first and only time I went.

Basically we sat for a rubber chicken dinner in a hotel somewhere, were assigned to a group, and someone who led the group gave the UFT line to legislators we visited. The year I went, Bloomberg was trying to destroy seniority rights for NYC teachers only. Our pal John Flanagan thought that was a good idea, even though it affected precisely zero teachers in his home district.

If I recall correctly, Shelly Silver addressed us. The theme of the day was that Bloomberg was the Antichrist and Andrew Cuomo savior. At the time, Cuomo was pretty high on the new statewide APPR. He felt it wasn’t necessary to eviscerate seniority rights because his new rating system would fire a sufficient number of teachers. How things have changed.

Now, Cuomo is freaked out because not enough teachers have gotten poor ratings. What particularly irks him is that Long Island teachers are getting good ratings. This is odd because if Long Island were a state, it would have the highest graduation rate in the country, among other things. But when Eva Moskowitz’s BFFs have paid $1.6 million for you to trash public education and send tax money their way, facts go by the wayside.

Interestingly, on March 4th UFT will be battling with the Moskowitz Academies for attention. They’re closing their schools and busing thousands of kids and parents to Albany for the day. Last year, Governor Andy was fundamental in organizing this rally, and spoke at it. For her part, Eva, making sure this was the worst field trip ever, claimed she was making kids do schoolwork on the bus.

Last time I went to Lobby Day I was trying to organize a rally at my own school. So I actually broke away from the group and managed to extract promises to show from several local politicians. If UFT really wanted me there I’d go. But actually there’s a PTA meeting, and I’m going there instead. Judging from the crap I read in the papers, I doubt a whole lot of people know what’s really going on. I’m going to try and tell our school’s parents.

On Cuomo, UFT has a good message to deliver this year.  I support it absolutely.

I can’t help but wonder, though. What if we had supported Zephyr Teachout’s bid in the WFP rather than blocking it? What if Cuomo actually had opposition from the left in the general? Would that have helped?

It’s hard to say. I still think Astorino would have been a disaster. But Cuomo is certainly a disaster, we should have known better, and you never know. Think of this—Governor Zephyr Teachout.

It’s certainly interesting to read about how Cuomo wants to deunionize a thousand workers who supported Zephyr Teachout. NYSUT, of course, is outraged. After all, we didn’t support Teachout and he wants to screw us anyway. But that’s not really what they express outrage about. How dare the governor take people out of a union? After all, unions support union, don’t they?

In fact, in the case of NYSUT, they don’t. Even as NYSUT takes exception to the governor's latest juvenile snit, a whole lot of NYSUT employees are not unionized. Most of them are, but there’s a glaring exception. To wit, it's  Executive Vice President Andy Pallotta’s staff.  Most of them are not unionized, and have no bargaining rights.

The justification given, I'm told, is that legislative staff must be available 24/ 7 during budget time and other crucial times. So what does that suggest? Are they to have no rights, to ignore their families, or not even have families? Lots of people, myself included, work extra hours all the time. That’s a by-product of having a job you love. But were they unionized, NYSUT says, these folks might not be available when needed. That’s a pretty poor excuse, in my view at least.

If I recall correctly, that was the same justification GW used to not unionize homeland security. So Revive NYSUT, once again, finds itself in great company. Certainly GW's bro Jeb would share Karen Magee's passion for Common Core, and might even agree with her that the alternative is total anarchy. Sadly, they're both wrong.

Now you might say, “Sure, NYC Educator, but Andy Pallotta’s a swell guy, and he would never fire anyone, because we union folks just don’t do stuff like that.” And I’d hope you'd be right, but you wouldn’t be. In fact, after the contested NYSUT election in April, I’m told a female staff member they deemed insufficiently loyal was fired with no due process. Of course, not being in a union, they don’t really need a whole lot of reason to fire anyone. In Andy's defense, I'm told he didn't want to get his hands dirty, so he had someone else do the actual dismissal.

But NYSUT doesn’t affect us NYC teachers, does it? Well, in fact, the EVP in NYSUT has always been a UFT member. There’s a sort of power-sharing agreement there in which the EVP represents the UFT. Some people have told me the EVP pretty much ran the show until Richard Iannuzzi showed up claiming to be President, simply by virtue of having been elected President. The audacity! It's likely that's why UFT propped up Revive NYSUT. Now that they've dumped Iannuzzi and put in their BFFs, it's quite clear who calls the shots in the state union.

Actually, much of UFT staff is not unionized. While they are UFT, they can be fired from UFT positions and dumped back into classrooms at any time. Thus many of them are fiercely loyal to whatever they’re instructed to be fiercely loyal to. After all, why would they want to turn down all those junkets and gala luncheons and be sent out to work with us lowly teachers? You don't think they want to be evaluated by junk science as we are, do you?  I’m told the clerical staff at UFT is unionized, but they, of course, are not the ones with the all-important task of pimping the latest piece of crap contract, 2-tier due process, Common Core, or whatever gets us this week’s Seat at the Table.

NYSUT leadership will preach no perks, but then pass legislation to benefit their leadership. NYSUT leadership will say they oppose Cuomo and fail to do so. They'll say they oppose Common Core but then support it.

NYSUT leadership can be union, ostensibly support union, but concurrently deprive their very own employees of it. It's an abject disgrace.

Our leadership has had a lot of exciting adventures lately. There was the election, of course. When someone finally reached out to me to explain they were making calls to keep the Senate under Democratic control I contributed some time. I was not moved by their first organizing effort, the notice as to which days there was Chinese food and which there was deli.

I alluded the other day to NYSUT's rationale for the bath we took. According to Randi Weingarten's hand-picked leaders it's the fault of the members who didn't vote, and local presidents who didn't push them to vote. On the other hand, a lot of us loved brilliant Zephyr Teachout, and our leadership made sure she didn't carry the Working Families Party nomination, thus depriving us of someone who could've really brought out the vote. Also, when WFP supported Cuomo, it rendered them farcical. Who actually believes Cuomo supports working families?

Revive NYSUT ran on a platform saying they equated Cuomo with Scott Walker, and opposed him. But they couldn't manage to support Teachout's bid for the Democratic nomination, and they sat on their hands in the general. Perish forbid they should support Howie Hawkins, the only non-millionaire in the race. I voted, but I certainly understand the disgust of my brother and sister union members.

While we get Happy Thanksgiving messages from UFT, NYC just found 2.6 billion dollars under the sofa cushions. Maybe we shouldn't have taken the city's word (or Mulgrew's) that the "cupboard was bare." Maybe we shouldn't have told members if you don't take this piece of crap contract you get behind 151 other unions and may get nothing. Maybe we shouldn't actually indulge in appeals to fear, because maybe it encourages members to be fearful. UFT leadership repeatedly uses arguments that ought to come from management.

Today in Chicago, their leadership is urging members to stand up to corporate rule. They're protesting at a Walmart grocery store, demanding that working people be paid a fairer wage. While we were tacitly supporting Andrew Cuomo, their leader was running for mayor until health issues stopped her. I went to Chicago with members of the activist PJSTA and met her.  The room was electric with inspiration the likes of which I hadn't seen in a long time. And unlike the monthly get-togethers at 52 Broadway, none of us were patronage recipients.

By making sure there was no viable opposition for Andrew Cuomo, we supported everything Walmart stands for. To thank us, he stood up in front of God and everybody and swore to break the "public school monopoly." What does UFT fight for? Two-tier due process and pay raises a decade after everyone gets them. One party rule in which teacher interests are blatantly ignored. Charter schools, mayoral control, junk science ratings, and depriving members who resigned or advanced of money they earned.

When we stand up to their nonsense, they spout nonsense like we oppose teacher empowerment, and actively frighten members to cow them into compliance. They criticize the statewide vote but fail to note that the UFT, the largest local in the United States, can't even must 20% of working members to vote for union leadership. Although I vote every chance I get, that's even more understandable. More than half of UFT votes came from retirees who have absolutely no skin in the game when it comes to contract negotiations.

Our Chicago brothers and sisters have chosen another path. Things had to get worse in Chicago than they are here before they rose up. Of course, in Chicago, only working members vote for leadership. In NYC the deck is stacked against democracy in multiple ways.

We simply cannot afford to lie down and allow our leadership to continue collaborating with our reformy enemies. It has gotten us nowhere. I'm thankful for our brothers and sisters in Chicago, and hopeful that we will wake up and follow their example.

Now seems like a good time. Unless you think we should wait until our leadership sends us memos why it's a good idea to break the "public school monopoly."

There's absolutely no reason to assume that's not what comes next.

Thanks to Mike Schirtzer

When I first started this blog in 05, I started to learn a lot about my union. I started it with the intent of offsetting the insane nonsense I regularly read about public schools. While I thought the 02 contract was poorly conceived, giving time for money when we could later get zeros that would make us end up working for free, I didn't have much idea about UFT history or leadership.

Then the 05 contract hit, and I could not believe how absolutely awful it was. Along with others, like Chaz, Paul Rubin, and James Eterno, I went to war in the comments section of Edwize, the now moribund UFT blog. It was ironic because I had just negotiated the notion of writing on Edwize and had thought of scrapping this blog in favor of writing for UFT. I had been published a few times in NY Teacher and it seemed like a good idea.

I found I was the enemy, to be welcomed with some of the most inane ad hominem nonsense I'd ever seen. I was pretty shocked that the great minds of my union couldn't muster real arguments.

I became pretty nasty too, and for years said the most awful things about then-UFT President Randi Weingarten and her staunch defender Leo Casey. I'm not quite as nasty as I used to be, and I try not to get so personal as I used to. Still, I'm amazed at the absolute audacity of this political machine, and I now know it entails not only UFT, but also NYSUT and AFT. They are either wholly subsidiaries of UFT, or perhaps of Randi herself. I can't tell. Maybe someone out there can.

So there is a machine, and it does something, but I'm not entirely sure what. Diane Ravitch posted that Randi was not voting for Cuomo, but later had to modify the headline. Randi said something like she was voting all WFP, but that she was not beginning with the top of the ticket. A clever commenter suggested perhaps she was beginning at the bottom, and in fact nowhere did she explicitly say she was not voting for the alleged Democrat who just called public schools a monopoly.

It's pretty clear to me that Randi's a polished politician and I'm not. I mean, I can't understand why we supported mayoral control the first time, let alone after it proved an unmitigated disaster and we failed to amend it. I don't know why we support charter schools or Common Core. It's a mystery to me why we partnered with Steve Barr and brought Green Dot to NY, particularly when he thanked us by working for parent trigger. I don't know why Bill Gates was keynote at AFT, particularly when he thanked us by trashing our pensions as soon as he walked out. Though Randi now opposes VAM, she's supported multiple agreements to use it, including ours.

Mostly, I have no idea why we scuttled Zephyr Teachout's bid to take the WFP nomination. We managed to deprive New Yorkers of a great choice for a truly progressive candidate, we managed to show that Revive NYSUT's claims of opposing Cuomo were ridiculous nonsense, and we managed to place WFP below the truly progressive Green Party, if not off the ballot altogether.

So Randi clearly takes much more nuanced positions than I do, and spends a great deal of time thinking about them, pondering the possibilities, considering all sides, and perhaps even more sides than all sides. I look at things that hurt working teachers, and say, "Who needs that?" I can't look at them and say, "Well, maybe it's not that bad. Let's try it." Of course, not being a mind reader, I have no idea whether or not Randi thinks that either.

But I'd love to know why on earth she couldn't just say outright, "Andrew Cuomo is a despicable, unprincipled, disingenuous opportunistic thug and I won't vote for him."

If anyone knows, please clue me in. I'm all ears.

Related: Perdido Street weighs in.

I don't think I've made it a great secret that, along with Diane Ravitch and others, I support Howie Hawkins for Governor. Cuomo is an ogre, an abomination, a bizarro version of his dad. He's said public schools are a monopoly that needs to be broken. He's taken money from DFER, from charters, and shows no evidence that he's actually thought about anything except which side would give him the most cash.

His Republican opponent, Rob Astorino, opposes the Triborough Amendment that kept our contract in place even as Bloomberg stubbornly refused to grant us the compensation increases he'd granted virtually everyone else. He supports vouchers, and has criticized Cuomo for not passing tax credits for those who attend private schools. Despite his lip service to being a public education supporter, no one could support public education and have such policies.

Howie Hawkins is a working person, and not only supports working people, but also speaks in favor of working teachers. In fact, his running mate is a former teacher. I realize he's not likely to win, but we'll be strengthening the Green Party and giving it better ballot placement by giving it as many votes as possible. Given the Working Families Party has sold out working families by suppporting corporate Cuomo instead of brilliant Zephyr Teachout, the Green Party is the only option for those of us who really believe that working people deserve a fair shake.

I will never, ever vote for another anti-public education candidate again. The first time Barack Obama ran, I voted for him despite reservations. He proved my reservations were not only well-founded, but not nearly strong enough. He took the odious education policies of GW Bush and pushed them into overdrive. The second time he ran, I voted Green. It was not enough, as people argued, that Obama was less odious than Romney. I can't support people anymore simply because they make me vomit less copiously than their opponents. I have no idea why Americans, the majority of whom don't vote at all, accept such miserable choices.

The first time Cuomo ran, he ran on a platform of going after unions. As a lifelong Democrat, I find it amazing that Democrats can run on such platforms. You're left wondering who hates you less, candidate A or candidate B. That's not enough of a choice.

But whatever you think, and whatever you choose, you need to make your voice heard. You may listen to me or not, but you need to get off your ass and vote tomorrow. We are role models and it's unacceptable for us to tell our kids we don't give a damn who controls their schools or makes decisions about their lives.

I always leave a few minutes early and vote before I go to work. Please take the time and do it too. Don't tell folks like Andrew Cuomo know you are nobody and will tolerate anything, because that's precisely what he'd like to hear, and precisely the message you give when you fail to vote.

I worked for Bill de Blasio's election. I contributed and froze my butt off at his inaugural. I was pretty pleased to see Governor Cuomo sitting there with no role and had kind of hoped that would continue. Cuomo is good at doing nothing, and his other talents have thus far eluded me. Of course he and the assembly stabbed our new mayor in the back by giving the city to Moskowitz, and our union did not lift a finger to stop that.

But de Blasio has since gotten into line with our self-serving governor, helping, along with union leadership, to make sure the Working Families Party did not provide an alternative for working families. He also helped to thwart Zephyr Teachout's bid to have the Democrats run a real Democrat. As if that weren't enough, his chancellor Carmen Fariña has shown a propensity for the absurd, in dumping PD on teachers rather than instruction for kids. She now says there will be a snow policy, which I suppose can only be an improvement. The current policy appears to be checking whether Macy's is open, declaring it's a beautiful day, and hoping no one notices the ten feet of snow or the ten hour commutes.

A pledge de Blasio has made to the city is to get rid of trailers. That's a worthy goal, and I'm told there's a bond issue on the ballot to help do that. However, common sense dictates that getting rid of the trailers be accompanied by a program to make space for displaced students. Well, no such luck. Apparently it's an expense to simply remove the decrepit structures, and that's what the city is gearing up for.

I'm also hearing that targeted trailers will be those that are unused. While it's always a good idea to remove an eyesore, that's not the issue with trailers. The issue is we ought to be providing suitable space to our children, and that we are not doing. In fact, we haven't done so for years. And inconvenient and costly though it may be, it's important we provide suitable space for children, even if they aren't in Moskowitz Academies.

So here is what I propose, Mr. Mayor. Make sure every public school child is placed in a reasonable facility. Make that a priority. Let it be known that every kid in NYC merits that consideration and push it through. Governor Cuomo fancies himself a student lobbyist and owes you a huge favor. Don't focus on getting rid of something. Focus on building something for public schoolchildren.

And the trailers?

Give them to miracle worker Moskowitz. Since she's allowed to dump kids who don't contribute to her myth-making, let her dump them into welcoming and improved facilities. Since she is superwoman, let's stop giving her our precious space and allow her to continue to fabricate her miracles in the trailers.

It couldn't happen to a nicer demagogue.

Nowhere is the craven opportunism of Andrew Cuomo more evident than in his own words. When he was facing opposition in the Working Families Party, he was a liberal, a progressive, a true blue Democrat. He was gonna reign in those nasty independent Democrats, the ones who acted like Republicans, so our bold UFT and NYSUT leadership made sure that scary Zephyr Teachout didn't take that mantle from him.

And when Teachout mustered the temerity to run against him in the primary, we heard not a word from him. Except that this deal to appease progressives in WFP? Forget about it.

Of course, he spent a few millions fighting Zephyr in court, claiming this Fordham law professor who's been working in NY since 2009 commuted to Vermont or something. This is the sort of sterling judgment we can expect from our fearless leader. Now that she pulled over a third of a vote from him in the primary, and things look safe, he can tell us what he really thinks.

The governor also noted how he took on the teachers union to bolster accountability in public schools.

We all know how that's worked out. Aren't things in your classrooms just humming now that you're being observed 200 times a year? Don't you feel valued, trusted and professional? And isn't it a fine thing that teachers are being evaluated by test scores even though there is not only no evidence to demonstrate this is a valid measure, but there is also quite a bit of evidence that teachers are a minor factor at best in such scores?

Governor Andy has declared himself to be a "student lobbyist," but he's enabled a system in which people who vote no to supporting public schools get more of a voice than those who vote yes. In New Paltz, 59.5% of voters said yes to a budget and it went down. That's the sort of thinking we get from our pal Andy, and the leader of the AFT actually made robocalls for his conservative running mate just to make sure Zephyr's partner Tim Wu didn't actually capitalize on that NY Times endorsement.

Don't forget Andy's Gap Elimination Adjustment. Not only is it virtually impossible for localities to raise money for public schools, but they're concurrently receiving a whole lot less state aid. That's a recipe for disaster. And lest you're thinking about Astorino as an alternative, he says Cuomo's tax policies don't go far enough. We don't need Cuomo, and we especially don't need Astorino, the second coming of Scott Walker.

There are no good choices from the major parties, and we as unionists are partly responsible, by enabling leadership that shoots down a shining star like Zephyr.

If you support public education, support the only standing candidate who shares that sentiment--Green Howie Hawkins.

Yesterday I was in a truck stop outside Albany, buying important supplies like the Oreo cookies my daughter demanded to make the last leg of our trip home. The young woman behind the counter started talking about how long the hours were at that particular job. I told her a good solution was to find a job she loved, and then she wouldn't think about the hours that way.

She revealed the not-very-well hidden secret that she didn't love her current job and went on to tell me she wanted to be a corrections officer. I was pretty surprised. I guess there are people who want that job but its allure eludes me utterly. She spoke of how you didn't know what would happen from one day to the next. Though I couldn't argue with that, that was a pretty strong reason I'd never want that job. I guess we should be grateful there are people who want jobs we don't, or there'd be a whole lot more of us doing jobs we didn't like.

I told her I was a teacher, and she said that involved doing the same thing every day. I told her she was wrong, and that you never know what kids are gonna do from one day to the next. I told her that was one of the things I really loved about this job. I didn't get to mention that kids do troublesome and difficult things all the time as well. Personally, I have a lot more patience for behavior like this from kids than I do for adults. Kids are supposed to test us. They're supposed to do all sorts of crazy nonsense and we're supposed to guide them to use their energies to find happiness, even if it doesn't earn us credit on VAM scorers.

Her next argument came pretty quickly. She told me she had a son in second grade, and that he struggled with math. She said there were complicated formulas he had to use to draw conclusions, and that he didn't have a textbook, that she didn't understand how it was supposed to be done, that she knew no one who did, and that she didn't think his teacher understood either. Doubtless Campbell Brown would blame the teacher and demand we kill tenure as the only way to resolve this situation.

But these are the sort of things that happen when John King sits around making reformy mandates and not caring how they affect people. After all, his kids, like those of Bill Gates and Andy Cuomo, go to private schools, so what the hell's the difference how Common Core affects her kid, or mine or yours? When millions of kids suffer through age-inappropriate, incomprehensible nonsense, they can attribute it to rollout, or whatever, and continue on their merry reformy path.

But the young woman made a pretty strong case about how she would not wish to do to kids what her school was doing. It's pretty sad that this is the impression with which Common Core leaves people. And yes I know that there are books available, and it's entirely possible this case could be a particularly bad one, but parents of young children tell me variations of this story on a pretty regular basis. As CL of a large school I hear a lot of complaints, and over the last year or two I've been surprised just how many of them were about CCSS---not about what we were doing in our school, but rather what was being done to their kids elsewhere.

If I'd thought that I'd have to teach things that wouldn't help kids I'd never have taken these jobs. One way or another, Cuomo and King have to go. There's not a whole lot of love for Governor Andy and his 30-million dollar war chest. Even if he wins, there will come a time when popular outrage might force him, however reluctantly, to do the right thing. Being reviled in his home state will not be the best calling card for his Quixotic presidential campaign.

Meanwhile, if you're a registered Democrat, don't forget to vote for Teachout and Wu this September 9th. Happy Labor Day to all, and I'll see you in the classroom. Or trailer, such as it is.

Education/ legal expert Campbell Brown is at it again, and this week, rather than simply labeling teachers a bunch of shiftless perverts via stereotype, she's going after teacher tenure for all of us. She won't tell us where her money comes from, but I'm pretty sure it comes from our good pals in Reformyville.

Do you know where Reformyville is? It's the place where teachers can be judged by value-added via test scores. I watched up close and personal while former NYSUT President Richard Iannuzzi was excoriated for his participation in the NY State evaluation law. This couldn't be tolerated. And thus Michael Mulgrew's UFT leadership told Unity's loyalty-oath-bound faithful to dump him, leaving him with a 34% vote deficit before he lifted a finger to protect his job.

And yet--pardon me if I'm not recalling correctly--Mulgrew himself was part of the team that negotiated this law. It was the bestest thing ever. Finally, he told us at the DA, we would have multiple measures. Before, principals could do whatever they liked. Now, everything was perfect. We could negotiate evaluation ourselves. Unless, of course, we couldn't, in which case totally objective John King could just do whatever he wished.

The point is, we played ball on evaluations. We played ball on mayoral control, not once, but twice, after we knew it was an unmitigated disaster. We sat on the sidelines while Bloomberg changed the law and bought himself a third term. We supported and helped enable Race to the Top. We supported Barack Obama, who promised he'd find comfortable shoes and stand with labor when we were under attack. We supported Common Core and Arne Duncan, the man who stood in front of God and everybody and stated that Hurricane Katrina was the best thing that ever happened to education in New Orleans, the man who ridiculed suburban mothers when their kids failed tests for which they were utterly unprepared. And we didn't say boo when Andrew Cuomo took mayoral control away from Bill de Blasio and passed it to Eva Moskowitz.

And here's what UFT leadership told us when they sold us the sellout 2005 contract, the one that created the wretched absent teacher reserve--they won't like us if we don't take it. The tabloids will attack us. What will they say? Actually, I saw the same questions asked as they sold the current contract.

But here's the thing--self-proclaimed progressive Wayne Barrett just wrote a piece that basically condemned de Blasio for paying us the retro that matched a previous pattern. Chalkbeat NY penned a column about how their reformy pals consider it a waste of money to pay us for our work. And now, because it is not enough that we've decimated seniority with the ATR, because it's not satisfactory that they now get second-tier due process, because junk science is not firing enough teachers, they are using a nonsensical rationale that the only way to protect children is to make us at-will employees.

We, the UFT, NYSUT, and the AFT have played ball with the reformers. When we give them an inch, they want a yard. Appeasement doesn't work. Guess what? They don't like us, they never have, and they never will.

And if NYSUT, UFT, and AFT don't support Zephyr Teachout's primary bid against Charter Champ Andrew Cuomo, that only proves we've learned nothing.