Since Newark teachers ratified a contract full of unspecified bonuses for evaluations that don't exist, the Daily News editorial board thinks we ought to do the same thing. You know, we should be paid like professional athletes. This is not a new argument. I've been hearing it for years. Except, of course, that no one, ever, has remotely suggested we be paid on any such scale.

Blogger Jersey Jazzman has been consistently brilliant on this issue, and wrote a fairly definitive history describing its various incarnations and failures. Regrettably, the Daily News editorial board either hasn't heard, or more likely doesn't wish to hear about them. They'd prefer to interview some defeated ex-union chief who no longer believes seniority ought to mean anything for working people.

For some reason, a lot of people out there actually believe that folks on the Daily News editorial board, the ones who consistently support things like junk-science VAM, actually care more about kids than we do. After all, all we do is spend every working hour of our lives teaching them, watching them, caring for them. What the hell do we know about kids?

I think Lily Tomlin said, "No matter how cynical you get, it's hard to keep up." And every day, I marvel when I read about the latest untested or failed nonsense that's come down the pike, and how we must enact it right now. I kind of expect this from newspaper editorial boards.

What really disappoints me is when union leaders stand behind it, calling it innovative and worthwhile. I'm particularly irked when they call real teachers liars for opposing such nonsense. In this case, it is the New Caucus that opposes the junk sci-contract, and Jersey Jazzman has posted their position in its entirety.

The danger of nonsense like this contract is that it can spread like a cancer. It's no accident that Bill Gates' boy Arne Duncan has imposed crap evaluation on most of the country, and I don't doubt the man who stated Katrina was the best thing to happen to education in New Orleans would love to see us have contracts just like this one. Chris Christie and Eli Broad love it. That's just one reason for us not to.

Here's another--real working teachers need a raise, not a tip. Remember that when they tell you you can make "up to" whatever. Because the other side is you can also make "as little as" whatever.  A one time payment of "up to $20,000" for a degree approved by the likes of Chris Christie is no substitute for actual credit for education. We ought to encourage teachers to get more education, not have them spin the Wheel of Fortune to find out how much it's worth.

Is that what pro athletes do? If so, I've yet to hear about it.

UFT has just scored a victory against Mayor4Life, conclusively establishing that even those as rich as Bloomberg need to listen to voices other than those in their heads. CTU has just provided proof that a determined and cohesive union can negotiate a win-win. However, there's work ahead on both fronts. In NY, it's likely an embittered mayor will move toward more traditional school closings, because he needs what he wants, when he wants, how he wants. And Chicago, just like NY, still has not agreed upon a new contract.

A time like this is a time for us to stand firm, and stand together. Yet in Detroit, UFT will be represented only by leadership-selected members who have signed an oath to support what they're told to support. This includes mayoral control, the prime source of city school closings, and also value added methodology, now embedded in NY State law. Value-added has been vigorously opposed by a bold group of New York State principals, and also by prominent education historian Diane Ravitch. It's largely regarded as junk science, and that it can cause teachers to be denied tenure, or even be fired for no good reason.

Yet this weekend, at the AFT convention, there will be not one single solitary vocal critic of VAM from the UFT. Can it really be that 100% of UFT members support junk science? Again, it's because every UFT rep has promised to support what leadership supports, good, bad, or indifferent. Regrettably, that's not the sort of thing that strengthens us. Rather, it encourages and increases the sort of cynicism that keeps all too few of our members from active participation. There's a good reason why fully three quarters of UFT members don't even bother to vote in union elections.

As for VAM, the debate within UFT is not whether or not we will be using VAM, but whether it will entail 20%, 40%, or indeed 100% of the final evaluation. That's an interesting conversation, but it ought not to be the one and only one.

As I've repeatedly suggested, the optimal percentage of junk science in any evaluation should be zero, and it's unfortunate this merited no previous discussion, and that there will be no UFT member in Detroit to point that out. I'm very confident large numbers of our members, given enough info (the kind largely unavailable in MSM), would strongly agree. There are not a whole lot of teachers I know who strongly advocate for junk science--I can't think of a single one, in fact. Yet dissenting voices, in a group that applauded for Bill Gates, will get no consideration whatsoever.

UFT leaders need not agree with us. They need not adopt our positions. But again, they ought to entertain them, reason with us,  rather than simply shut us out altogether. Winning hands, like the one just blooming in Chicago, are not achieved by erecting brick walls across the paths of passionate and active unionists.

To be continued...

The Independent reports today that Rupert Murdoch is going ahead with his plans to create a News International-sponsored academy school near his newspaper headquarters in east London despite the hacking and political corruption scandal that is embroiling his company, News Corporation.

The hacking scandal has seen 11 former News International employees arrested on a variety of charges, from phone hacking to conspiracy, including the former News of the World editor and News International chief Rebekah Brooks and one of British Prime Minister's David Cameron's former top aides and former editor at News of the World, Andy Coulson.

News International is the British subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.

News International employees have been accused of hacking into the phones of murder victims, murder victims' family members, 7/7 terrorism victims and their families, celebrities, politicians and members of the Royal Family, bribing the police for information, and conspiring with police and political officials to cover-up the scandal and sidetrack any official investigations into the matter.

The scandal has led to the shuttering of the newspaper at the center of the hacking allegations, the 168-year old News of the World, as well as the withdrawal of News Corporation's bid to take over shares of the British satellite network BSkyB that are not already owned by News Corp.

The nexus between News International criminal activity, News International employees, politicians and police in this scandal has been getting special scrutiny since former News International employee Andy Coulson was forced to resign from his government position earlier in the year as a result of the scandal and since allegations came to light that current or former Murdoch employees hired by the police may have helped quell past investigations into the hacking scandal.

Top officials at Scotland Yard have resigned in the wake of these allegations.

But neither Murdoch nor the political establishment seem disturbed enough by the scandal to put a temporary halt on Murdoch's education moves.

The news about the Murdoch-sponsored academy in Britain is just the latest example of a Murdoch move into the education sphere and he is doing these moves with the help of politicians either currently on his payroll or formerly on it.

For example, former News International employee and now British Education Secretary, Michael Gove, has met with News Corp. executives at least 21 times since the last election, more than any other member of the British government, including six times with Rupert Murdoch himself.

Gove, a corporate education reform advocate with close ties to another Murdoch employee, former New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, has called for a radical overhaul of education in Britain, comparing his reform efforts to Chairman Mao's Long March.

Gove's plans include starting networks of "free schools," which will be similar to charter schools here in the U.S., that will be free from many of the rules schools in Britain have to abide by as well as a radical shift in the school curriculum and an increased emphasis on testing. Gove has also pushed for a ten hour school day and half day school on Saturdays, though the extended hours would not be compulsory.

Gove had a three day series of meetings with Joel Klein on the free schools issue earlier this year. Like Klein, Gove is also a proponent of technology education and hopes to digitize many of Britain's classrooms in the near future for online instruction and education.

Rupert Murdoch himself said he sees online education and instruction as a $500 billion dollar profit sector in the near future and has bought a U.S. company that provides the kind of software and technology that is used for online education, Wireless Generation.

Former New York City Schools Chancellor Klein signed a no-bid contract with Wireless Generation for a few million dollars when he was running the NYC school system.

Klein went to work for Rupert Murdoch after he resigned his chancellorship. Two weeks later, Murdoch purchased Wireless Generation and put Klein in charge of running the News Corporation K-12 online education division, which includes Wireless Generation.

Wireless Generation has since been given a no-bid contract by the NY State Education Department worth $27 million dollars.

That contract is under scrutiny, as 16 other companies tried to bid for the contract but NYSED officials claimed there was no time to bid out the contract competitively, as they were under a deadline for Race to the Top funds.

The Daily News has reported this was not so, that the timeline would have allowed for competitive bidding but that the NYSED decided not to take any competitive bids for the contract

This week the United Federation of Teachers and the New York State Union of Teachers called for the Wireless Generation contract to be voided, citing concerns over the News International hacking scandal in Britain.

Which brings me back full circle to the Independent article about the Murdoch-sponsored free school in Britain that will focus on technology education.

It is apparent that Murdoch, with the help of former political operatives now on his payroll, like Joel Klein or former Murdoch employees now working in the public sector, like Michael Gove, is intent on creating a public/private education system with an emphasis on technology and online instruction, then carving out a substantial part of that sector for News Corp profit-taking.

As he said himself, he expects to make billions off such a partnership even as his own media outlets like the NY Post and the Wall Street Journal call for more technology-friendly reforms from their editorial pages that will ultimately make News Corporation more profitable.

That Murdoch and his minions like Gove and Klein are getting away with this even as the News International hacking scandal continues to grow is disturbing.

An official British inquiry team into the scandal led by Justice Brian Leveson has begun an investigation that is expected to take a year to look into the matters.

Here in the United States, the FBI has opened an investigation into whether News Corporation employees or their British counterparts at News International hacked into the phones of 9/11 victims and their families.

Murdoch announced his own internal News Corp. investigation led by Joel Klein, the man who prepped Rupert Murdoch and his son, James, for their July appearance before a Parliament committee.

Klein reports to another Murdoch employee and News Corporation board member, Viet Dinh, for this investigation, but the internal News Corp. probe has been widely criticized as compromised since men very close to Rupert Murdoch are leading it.

Questions of a continued Murdoch cover-up surfaced when news broke that Murdoch has given employees fired as a result of the News of the World closure raises and bonuses, a move that sounds very much like bribery to keep possibly disgruntled employees quiet about the hacking scandal.

In addition, James Murdoch has been accused of lying before Parliament about his knowledge of the phone hacking scandal and News International payoffs to victims of the hacking by two former high level News International employees, lawyer Tom Crone and former News of the World editor Colin Myler.

Murdoch paid out a 700,000 GBP payment to News International hacking victim Gordon Taylor, but claimed he was only doing so on the advice of Crone and Myler and did not know the reason for the payout.

The statement seems absurd on the face of it (who hands out $1.2 million as a payout without knowing why?) and Crone and Myler are now stating that openly.

So the Murdoch hacking scandal, while at a low level now with Parliament on recess, is not even close to being over.

Many more allegations and disclosures are to come and the scandal may still bring down both James Murdoch and his father, Rupert.

For governments in either the United States or Britain to do education business with News Corp. or News International while this scandal continues to break is disgusting and hypocritical.

But given that so many in the governments of both Britain and the United States are either on the Murdoch payroll, used to be on the Murdoch payroll, or want to be on the Murdoch payroll in the future, I suppose it is not a surprise that Murdoch is continuing with his education ventures unimpeded.

Men like Joel Klein and Michael Gove have shown their allegiance is to Rupert Murdoch and News Corporation, not to children or the public or public education, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised when many other people in the political establishment feel the same way.

In Britain, that means the Cameron government.

In America, that means the Bloomberg administration, the Cuomo administration, the New York State Education Department and the Regents, and even the Obama administration's USDOE.

It seems that short of murder itself, there is nothing that Rupert Murdoch, James Murdoch or News Corporation employees can do that would get the political establishment to bar them from doing business in the public education system.

But who knows?

Given the severity of the hacking scandal already, with News International employees hacking into a murdered teenager's phone and erasing messages, with News International employees hacking into the phone of the mother of another girl murdered - a phone that News International gave her - and with allegations that News International employees hacked into the phones of 7/7 and 9/11 terrorism victims, the investigation may just yet turn up a body or two as well.

The right-wing, pro-voucher, anti-union NY Sun editorial board wrote a love letter to Rod Paige's favorite teachers' union leader today to help her celebrate her 50th birthday.

The Sun lauds UFT President Randi Weingarten for her "idealism" and her "leadership." They note how Ms. Weingarten won her fourth presidential term with 87% of the vote (no mention of the fact that only 30% of the membership actually voted) and teacher's salaries have gone up 43% since Weingarten started negotiating with Bloomberg in 2002.

Finally the Sun says they're sending Rod Paige's favorite teacher labor leader a copy of Milton Friedman's "Free to Choose" in the hopes that she'll add vouchers to the list of concessions she has already handed the education reformers/Walmart proponents like added days, added time, gutted work protections (seniority, grievance rights, the return to bathroom duty), authoritarian mayoral control, union-sponsored charter schools, merit pay and reformatted school financing that favors getting rid of costly veteran teachers and hiring lots of Teach For America missionaries.

Just to show you how much Weingarten despises the role of being a traditional union leader (i.e., actually looking out for the rights and needs of her union membership) and loves sucking up to the education reformer/Walmart proponent lobby, the NY Daily News says that she held a fund-raiser for her charter schools at UFT Headquarters last night to mark her 50th birthday.

That's right - a fund-raiser for her charter schools at UFT Headquarters paid for by you and me and the rest of the UFT rank-and-file.

What's that tell you about Ms. Weingarten's priorities?

The Sun also reports that Representative George Miller (D-California), an architect of the No Child Left Behind law who would like to expand the law to science and social studies next year, has praised New York City for two "groundbreaking" programs: the merit pay program Weingarten agreed to earlier this year and the school report cards that have caused such controversy here in the city.

Leaving aside the idiocy of Miller for now (and make no mistake, what he says is idiocy - a few minutes of research on Bloomberg's school report card program would have told him how stupid and reductionist it is to base a school's grade almost wholly on test score progress rather than overall performance), let us note that both the school report cards and the merit pay program were enabled by concessions Weingarten made to the mayor.

Miller says he'd like to take some of these "groundbreaking" programs national and while the current leadership of both the NEA and the AFT disagrees with much of Ms. Weingarten's education "reform" agenda, she is expected to go to Washington and take control of the AFT pretty soon.

Which means nationally teachers can expect to see some of the same "groundbreaking" concessions like merit pay, additional time and days, charter schools and gutted work protections that Ms. Weingarten has brought UFT members here in New York City.

Before she goes, it is expected that she will also concede teacher tenure to Mayor Bloomberg and replace it with something called "due process" which she and her minions currently praise at the Green Dot charter schools they have helped bring in to the city (Due process, btw, means the administration can "do" whatever the hell they want to teachers and there's not much you can "do" about it.)

Perhaps the Ayn Randians at the NY Sun editorial board will even get a Merry Christmas present in the form of vouchers from Ms. Weingarten before she heads off into the sunset to destroy teacher work protections nationally the way she has destroyed them here in New York (though even I think Ms. Weingarten knows that would be going too far.)

But who know? When Rod Paige - the man who compared the NEA to terrorists - says you're the only teacher labor union leader he can stand and when the right-wing, pro-voucher, anti-union editorial board at the NY Sun sends you love letters to mark your 50th birthday and when you hold a fund-raiser for charter schools at the new UFT headquarters building constructed with the dollars of actual working rank-and-file UFT members/teachers, it's hard to say just how you will sell out next.

But one thing is for certain - she will sell out.

Last year I used to work a C6 assignment in the ESL office. When Spanish-speakers came in to enroll, I translated for them. But this year I've been assigned to a much more vital activity--hall patrol.

Yesterday was particularly challenging. A kid walked by. I asked him if he had a pass. He did.

Another kid walked by. He didn't have a pass, but was headed to lunch. Several more kids walked by, heading for lunch.

In a crucial moment, a few kids walked by, claiming to be on the way to lunch. But my eagle eye detected they were headed away from the cafeteria! I checked their programs, and set them straight. Or made them walk the other way, at least.

Thankfully, I'm no longer frittering my time away helping newcomers, let alone writing lesson plans or correcting essays.