I don't have a lot of time right now, but several sources I trust tell me there is already a deal in place for a new APPR plan. They think it will either be a 40% junk science plan, or that it may be a statewide model based on the NYC plan. The NYC plan, while we in NYC don't much like it, is a better one than those in a few upstate cities that were poorly negotiated. It is not nearly as good as those many small locals came up with.

However, a UFT source I also trust tells me that Mulgrew will indeed fight Cuomo's APPR efforts. Hopefully we'll know more after Wednesday's DA. An agreement could actually still be made to make an NYC-style evaluation statewide, which Mulgrew alluded to at the last DA, or 40% statewide junk science. In either of these scenarios, UFT/ NYSUT could argue that Cuomo wanted 50% and we kept it down to 40.

Such an argument will be particularly tough for Revive NYSUT, which ran opposing the evaluation plan and pinned it all on Richard Iannuzzi. I remember the Revive candidates calling it the "Iannuzzi APPR," tapping into the anger all teachers feel about being judged by junk science. If Revive is party to an agreement that endorses not only existing junk science, but also fewer options for teachers statewide, they will have broken yet another core promise, being against APPR.

A problem with UFT leadership is that everything they do is a victory. When we got the UFT transfer plan it was a victory. When we lost it and got Open Market/ ATR instead that was a victory. Getting artifacts for ratings was a victory, and losing them was a victory. Getting the entire Danielson Framework was a victory and cutting it down to 8 domains was a victory.

So Mike Mulgrew can't lose, no matter how miserable UFT and NYSUT teachers become. He is King Midas and everything he punches turns to gold.

I certainly hope none of the above happens. Personally, I think the system is bad enough as is.

One of the brilliant ideas of Revive NYSUT was the hashtag #CluelessCuomo. I guess name-calling feels good. Certainly there was an awful lot of it directed at President George W. Bush. He was a buffoon, a moron, and he would never accomplish anything. Yet here we sit, in the still-smoldering debris of his education programs, and Barack Obama, no one's fool, has placed them on steroids and made them considerably worse.

Cuomo is no fool. He's ruthless, calculated and cunning. He has his goals and will stop at nothing to achieve them. He grew up in the shadow of his father Mario and watched him fall, likely as not a victim of his own principles and conscience. Andrew lets neither principle nor conscience get in his way, ever.

We can certainly argue that Cuomo's policies will not improve public education. Indeed, merit pay has been around for over a hundred years, and it has never worked anywhere. Sure, it feels good to say some teachers suck and shouldn't get a raise. The whole teacher-bashing thing has wide appeal, what with racism not half as chic as it once was. Hateful morons can't even indulge in gay-bashing anymore, so they need a target. Why not us? Works for Andrew Cuomo. Anything for a vote.

It's entirely possible Cuomo doesn't know that there is no scientific basis for the value-added nonsense he wishes to inflict on us. That appears to be the assumption of Revive NYSUT leaders. But really, that's of no importance whatsoever. Whether or not Andrew Cuomo knows his ideas are baseless doesn't matter one way or the other. The fact is he gets millions from donors who favor this stuff, and he couldn't care less if this stuff works for schools. It works for Andrew Cuomo, and that is the only thing in this universe that matters to him.

Cuomo's dad Mario, may he rest in peace, took a principled stand against capital punishment. It costs more to give someone the death penalty than life imprisonment. Most developed countries have discarded it as barbarism. If we make a mistake, like we did in this case, and the prisoner has already been executed, what do we do? Issue a posthumous apology?

Andrew, on the other hand, took a principled stand against a millionaire's tax. Perish forbid that anyone making tons of cash should have to fork over a few bucks to support public schools. That wasted money could have ended up in the Cuomo campaign coffers (and probably did, too). You won't see Andy risking his career on anything so trivial as people being killed for no reason.

Andy has no problem getting elected with 53% of the vote and demanding that districts who wish to support their children in school get 60% to do so. He has no problem withholding money from districts with a GEA that his unconscionable tax cap makes it impossible to make up for. He'll stand with demagogue Eva Moskowitz as she drags her kids like little pawns to Albany on a school day for a political rally. If you or I did that, we'd be facing dismissal if not prison time.

So you can call Cuomo many things. You can fight him in many ways. But if you opt for empty name-calling, it's abundantly clear someone is clueless.

That someone is not Andrew Cuomo.

I'm at a rare loss for words today. With the news of Cuomo's demands--50% of teacher evaluation based on test scores, charters, tax credits for private schools, it's pretty clear he wishes to drive public education into the ground. After all, public school teachers don't fund his election coffers, and are unlikely to change this policy when he runs for President. He's got absolutely no use for us, unlike the hedge-funders and zillionaires who support his signature reforminess.

NY State has long determined teachers are not to be trusted. That's why we're not allowed to grade the Regents exam papers of our own students. For goodness sake, some crook of a teacher might find a way to change a 64 paper into a 65, detracting from the absolute necessity that failure of a kid go to summer school, or spend another year in high school, or whatever. But Governor Cuomo has taken it a step further. He doesn't trust the administrators either.

Governor Cuomo, therefore, thinks the 50% of rating based on what happens in the classroom should mostly be done by complete strangers. Just like it's unfair for teachers to judge their own students, according to the State, Governor Cuomo thinks the supervisors who work with us each and every day ought not to judge our performance. Therefore he wants to give our supervisors 15% worth of evaluation while the visiting geniuses from other schools, or SUNY, or some distant galaxy far, far away will give 35%.

The current system, which he advocated for and praised just a few years back, has not yet fired enough teachers for the taste of Andrew Cuomo. Therefore, he demands increased accountability. This is a curious attitude from a man who hobbled and then personally disbanded the Moreland Commission investigating corruption when it got a little too close to his office. I guess ethics are for the little people.

Odder still is the anemic and bizarre response by both NYSUT and UFT. There's still no correction I've seen from the position that we should fight for school funding rather than a reasonable APPR. Are we still to fret, as Mulgrew suggested, over the possibility that people will think we oppose the APPR? With all due respect, I know a lot of teachers, and I don't know one single teacher who supports the APPR.

I'm bone weary of the perception, bolstered by the incurious and unquestioning media, that we are a plague of zombies out to destroy the lives of children. I'm not gonna sit here and maintain that every teacher without exception is excellent. But the overwhelming majority of teachers I know are serious and hardworking. There are very few teachers I know who merit the sort of scrutiny that's being showered on us all. It's degrading and demoralizing.

I know a young teacher, a brand new teacher with a great attitude. She said to me the other day that happiness is a choice. It's a choice she embraces, and I can tell she will share it with any kid fortunate enough to be in her class. I want to encourage her, to let her know that she's right, and that her particular gift is worth more than, say, showing a kid how to score 5% higher on some multiple choice test. I want to give her a future that's at least as good as my past.

I don't know if I can do that, though. I think it's time for UFT and NYSUT to open up their brain trust and figure out something substantively more effective than hashtags. If leadership has got anything whatsoever up its sleeve, now's the time to show it. Calling Cuomo clueless and comparing him to Bloomberg may feel good to them, but many of us recognized his shortcomings way before they started saying it.

It's time to slow down the party the rubber stamps are throwing on our dues and do something well beyond liking UFT on Facebook.

We can't wait.

Update: I just received an email from Michael Mulgrew asking me to continue tweeting #AllKidsNeed and #InviteCuomo. It certainly appears Cuomo has already considered and responded to that. Apparently, leadership does not concur.

Today, at the behest of UFT and NYSUT leadership, I took to Twitter and embraced the theme and hashtag #AllKidsNeed. It's a great cause, and there's an awful lot to say. UFT President Micheal Mulgrew was insistent that we do so last week at the DA, and I figured why not? Unfortunately, Mulgrew himself did not participate, as far as I could tell. Wouldn't his voice be more important than that of a lowly teacher like me?

I can only conclude that hashtags, like junk science evaluations, are for the little people. But if we are out there on Twitter, the guy who sent us there ought to be with us. After all, though Cuomo gave his speech and asked for the moon, there are a few hours of Twitter Time  remaining. However, we're still not fighting everything Cuomo is screaming for. Because we are so darn reasonable, we've focusied only on funding. Capital NY speculates this is because funding is a battle we expect to win.

Personally, I'm not sure that giving up on things like APPR, merit pay, charter caps, and multi-front assaults on tenure was the way to go. Working teachers are very concerned about these issues, and while Mulgrew and his Rubber Stamps sit in the Unity Cone of Silence, teachers are in my face about these things pretty much constantly. Again, I'm just a lowly teacher with no voice in AFT, NYSUT, or UFT Unity, where pretty much all the decisions take place. Alas,  I'm not even a Rubber Stamp who goes to the conventions and votes as told.

Is it a good strategy to pick only battles you think you can win? I guess it could look good on a pamphlet. "We got more money for schools." Ignore the fact that you're being judged by test scores, and likely as not test scores of kids you've never taught, or the grades of kids to whom you teach other subjects. That's just one of those inconvenient truths, and if they meant anything, Al Gore would be an ex-President by now.

Most importantly, it appears Cuomo has indeed heard us, and is waving the extra money in the air only on the condition we accept all his reformy nonsense.  That makes this effort appear super-ridiculous. In retrospect, it may not have been all that wise to take this approach, particularly a week in advance. It would've been much better for us to have reacted to Cuomo, rather than sink millions of member dollars into a commercial that actually helped him plan his approach.

Zephyr Teachout, who UFT and NYSUT failed to support twice last year, says what's on the minds of thinking teachers:

...he is holding children hostage to the demands of his Wall Street donors and his personal political motivations, while kids go to school in overcrowded classrooms without arts, sports, or counselors. He is right that we have one system for the rich and one for the poor, but the reasons is clear: the disparate funding that is his legacy,” she said.

And despite our bold Twitter campaign, which the UFT President initiated but couldn't be bothered participating in, it's hard for me to say that it's really helped do anything. Sure, maybe the UFT and NYSUT increased their mailing lists or something.

But this has not proven, in my view at least, the optimal hour for sitting around on Twitter and hoping for the best.

Looks to me like, leading up to Governor Cuomos speech today, the StudentsFirstNY ad is drowning out NYSUT's. Yesterday morning I saw it frequently repeated on the morning news shows I like the NYSUT ad but it's not as strong as what I'd like to see. One thing NYSUT has that SFNY doesn't is an ostensibly reliable source, the NY Times. It demands fair funding for schools, but it doesn't demand that viewers contact Cuomo, their state representatives, or indeed anyone.

I have no idea why they left that out. It may not be the deal-breaker we're looking for. Of course, even if it is, until and unless someone breaks out that orange jumpsuit with Andy's number on it, we're stuck with him for another four years.

I think an uninformed viewer, I suppose the target audience, will be more drawn to the StudentsFirstNY ad. Big banner proclaims,  "Our schools are failing." We've heard that so often, and for so long, that we aren't all that likely to question it. Cuomo spouts platitudes with the best of them. All our kids will be smart, he says. I can only suppose the obstacle to that is those perfidious teachers, on their quest to make kids dumb. There's no reference to fair funding, which by this time the viewer has forgotten, if NYSUT's ad even registered at all. Let's make everyone smart. Who could oppose such a goal?

Of course, if we were smart, it would behoove us to educate ourselves. Cuomo calls himself the "student lobbyist," but has issued a one-two punch to schools that makes it virtually impossible to enable the world class education he's so fond of promising. The Gap Elimination Adjustment has cut aid to schools to such an extent that class sizes will rise, programs will be eliminated, and kids will suffer. Add to that Cuomo's signature policy of not allowing property tax to rise over 2% without 60% approval and you've got a sure way to deteriorate public education. Of course Cuomo himself couldn't achieve 60% approval, but he doesn't hold himself to that standard. He wins even as our kids lose.

Not at all sure the dueling ads will make a difference. It's particularly frustrating when most of the media is asleep, either by choice, paid for loyalty, or sheer laziness. I've read multiple op-ed columns in the times that looked as if they were recycled PR reports from Students First NY. Who knows how much these people get paid to spout uninformed gobbledygook for the paper of record?

I'll tweet today in support of what #AllKidsNeed, but I'm not altogether sure about #InviteCuomo. I'd just as soon have a virus in my room as a demagogue. Will it work?

@perdidostschool @TeacherArthurG @MindyRosier @NormScott1 NYSUT's new motto: A Tweet at the Table.
— sean crowley (@rastamick) January 20, 2015

I understand the skepticism. I share it, in fact. But what the hell, I'm up for a day of tweeting. Will it get us anywhere? I hope against hope it does. But I'm afraid years of neglect, years of accepting reformy nonsense, years of trying to appear reasonable by appeasing  fanatical ideologues are not gonna be wiped out by a bunch of unionists and newbies on Twitter. This fight would be a lot more interesting, for example, if union leadership opposed Common Core, as at least one union president has, like a healthy plurality of New Yorkers and every working teacher I know.

Dissenting opinions welcome. I'd love to be persuaded otherwise.

Lately, there's a lot of negative talk about Andrew Cuomo, what with his juvenile efforts to penalize teachers for not having supported his re-election. And let's face it, most of us took that position simply because he hates us and everything we stand for. Cuomo seems to think think we should look past that and support him anyway.

A lot of people call Andrew Cuomo Governor 1%, because he represents the economic interests of only the very wealthy. But the governor has cast himself as a student lobbyist, and in that sense, he may also represent the 3% of NY students who attend charter schools.

Sure, you say, he doesn't represent your students. He doesn't represent your children. And the way he advocates for his own kids is by sending them to private schools. You don't think Andrew Cuomo would send his kids to a Moskowitz school, do you? Who really wants their kids subject to endless test prep?

But it's important to charter chains to appear to work miracles. That's why their teachers are at work 12 hours a day. That's why they bring work home, and many carry around cell phones so parents can contact them after work. Why should they or anyone have personal lives when there are tests to be taken? That's why so many of them do not last long in these test prep factories, and that's why kids who don't cut it are routinely tossed back into public schools. We take everyone, and are routinely vilified for doing so.

A friend who works in a building with a colocated Moskowitz Academy told me she saw a kid admonished for coughing. The teacher asked if the kid was dying, and said if he wasn't, to just get back in line. This is an incredibly callous way to speak to a child, and any teacher who spoke to my kid like this would not welcome my reaction. In fact, Chancellor's Regulation A-421 protects schoolchildren from verbal abuse. Of course, such protections don't apply to charter school kids, who can be made to wear orange shirts, veritable dunce caps, for unwelcome behavior. There are no excuses, and basic human functions, like coughing, simply cannot be tolerated.

Moskowitz had a hotline to Joel Klein, and she clearly saw her needs as more important than those of public schools. Friends of mine tell me that attitude trickles down to even the students, who have no problem ridiculing the public school kids, even for their handicaps, and whose teachers may even look on as they do so. There is clearly a separate and unequal environment, and it's bolstered by folks like Andrew Cuomo, who has no qualms about taking millions in contributions from charter supporters. They're certainly getting their money's worth.

The National Association of Charter School Authorizers is less than bullish on NY.  Of 21 rated states, NY rates 18, scoring only 7 of 30 possible points. While I don't spend a whole lot of time at Chalkbeat NY (since they've adopted their ponderous new user-unfriendly format), I read Rise and Shine every day, and haven't noticed their mentioning this. Every time Eva Moskowitz coughs, they have a feature. Every time E4E gets a hundred signatures urging more work for less pay, its a revelation. But this hasn't gotten a whole lot of play, if any, over there.

In fact, I don't recall reading about this in the Post, the News, or even the faux-liberal NY Times. There's clearly a pro-charter bias in MSM, and I rarely see much beyond superficial analysis. If 100% of charter kids attend four-year colleges, but 66% of the cohort has dropped out or transferred to public school, what the hell sort of accomplishment does that represent? If they don't take ESL students or kids with special needs, like we do, what does that mean?

And even if they do take those kids, how severe are their needs? Do they take kids from El Salvador who arrived last week, and who know not one word of English? Do they take alternate assessment students who will never earn a Regents diploma? We do.

If charters were what they claimed to be, they'd take only the highest needs kids, and work their magic. If not, if they discourage entrants and get rid of inconvenient children, if they dismiss entire cohorts they find inconvenient, they are hardly Superman.

Here's the big thing, though. Even if we disregard the miserable records of charter schools, if Andrew Cuomo, student lobbyist can't even guarantee that Eva's students are protected by the corporal punishment and verbal abuse regs that protect the kids I teach, who the hell is he representing? Certainly not kids who are dragged to Albany as political pawns on a school day. Certainly not kids who can be reprimanded for coughing, or kids who can be publicly humiliated by people whose job, ostensibly, is supporting them. Clearly Governor Cuomo represents the 1% who fund charters and fill his campaign coffers, and not any of the kids for whom he claims to lobby.

This notwithstanding, in defense of Governor 1%, I have no issue with his upcoming trip to Cuba. I think it's great that he's taking the trip, and I wouldn't even mind if he did so with my tax dollars. My only reservations, frankly, are about allowing him back into NY State. Many of us who live here actually love our children and communities, and care intensely about even the 97% of our children who attend public schools.

Mulgrew preached gloom and doom to the faithful on Wednesday night. Cuomo, having taken millions from reformy types, appears to wish to eviscerate union. While this is really nothing new, Mulgrew has decided it's time to take action. To wit, he asks us to:

a. Sign up for a UFT action alert campaign, entailing joining Twitter and using a few pre-approved hashtags,
b. Like UFT on Facebook, and
c. Follow UFT on Twitter.

This, in the view of the President of the United Federation of Teachers, will somehow help to halt Andrew Cuomo's attempt to circumvent tenure and collective bargaining by placing troubled schools into receivership. This will help stop him from eliminating the charter cap. This will further, hopefully, prevent merit pay, pension deterioration, and five year renewable so-called tenure. None of that old-fashioned mobilization nonsense for us, particularly since over 80% of us can't even be bothered voting for leadership.

Mulgrew pointed to the odd NY State legislative laws, and said that if the budget is rejected Cuomo would have enormous power to enact changes via executive order. He pointed to Cuomo's planned tax refunds, which will lock in a whole lot of suburban legislators. Everyone loves getting money in the mail, and Governor Cuomo has no issue buying off whoever needs buying off.

Mulgrew says we will not fight over evaluation, because then Cuomo will contend we didn't want it. This is an odd position, in my view, because there's now a movement, supported by our insane governor and private-schooled Merryl Tisch, to make state measures 40%, and to rate any teacher ineffective who doesn't meet the junk science standard. A large tenet of the Revive NYSUT campaign to overthrow leadership was that Iannuzzi had initiated the APPR law. They always seemed to forget that he did so with the express cooperation of Mike Mulgrew. The problem, of course, is that teachers really don't want a junk science evaluation system. Evidently, what teachers want is not a factor we consider during a substantive battle.

Another big idea from UFT leadership is to improve the perception of struggling schools. Such schools have large populations of ESL and special needs students. Mulgrew says if we do that, something that's never been done, we will immensely enhance our credibility. I did not hear arguments about addressing, for example, poverty. Nonetheless, given that we heard very similar arguments about UFT charter schools, and given they have not proven to be the magic promised, I'm not sure precisely what fuels the President's rampant optimism.

Mulgrew says Cuomo does not wish to fight over school funding and exploding class sizes, and that this will therefore be a more promising area in which to fight. This is curious to me, since we've done absolutely nothing to improve class sizes in my entire 30-year teaching career. Every chapter leader knows the only instrument that really regulates class size is the UFT Contract. Mulgrew himself just negotiated his first contract, and while we were successful in getting us the raise most city employees got ten years late with no interest, we did absolutely nothing to improve class sizes. I'm not sure how credible we are making class size demands.

Mulgrew referred to a pretty well-bandied about fact--Cuomo is angry about his pathetic margin of victory, and vindictive that we and NYSUT failed to support him. He clearly failed to appreciate our bizarre tactic of failing to oppose him. The largest threat to Andrew Cuomo would have been a serious opponent on the left, to with, Zephyr Teachout on the Working Families Party. Unions, including UFT, were adament that WFP support Cuomo, threatening to withhold support of the party altogether if it didn't.

And, of course, when Teachout redirected her energies to opposing Cuomo in the Democratic primary, AFT President Randi Weingarten made robocalls for Cuomo's running mate, Kathy Hochul, after the NY Times endorsed Teachout's running mate, Tim Wu. Oh, the ingratitude of Andrew Cuomo. He even vetoed his own initiative for a temporary safety net for teachers against the results of the Common Core tests that fail 70% of our students.

So was it a bad idea for us to usher in mayoral control that closed almost every comprehensive high school in the city? Should we not have supported the failed quasi-merit pay program, charter schools, Common Core, colocations, and the ATR? Will a bunch of UFT-endorsed tweets stop Cuomo from bribing the taxpayers and appeasing his multi-million dollar contributors?

If we hadn't done all that, would it now be as easy for Cuomo to push his odious corporate agenda on a misinformed public? Tough to say for sure, but I've seen no evidence our go-along-with-whatever policy has helped anyone but the reformies who bought and paid for Andrew Cuomo.

This Age of Educational Deformity is all about appearances.  It is not about substance.  We play a high-stakes game.  Most of us are just pawns, including some of those persons who fancy themselves generals.  If enough pawns unite, however, they can overthrow any king.

The growing concern over bulletin boards has everything to do with keeping up appearances.  Are you displaying student work with effective feedback?  I have learned over the years that student art works better in the classroom than rough and final drafts strewn with comments.  People take the time to look at it.  It livens up the atmosphere and can be readily digested.  Few students will find the time to read a paper hung on the wall.  Some students don't want their papers hung on the wall.  I don't want to hang a paper with a grade on it on the wall unless I ask a student first.  I don't want to go around the room asking students when I know it is all for show.

Teachers must also appear to have a rubric for this and a rubric for that.  I'm here to tell you that rubrics are not harbingers of objective grading.  I prefer to ask students to give me a well-written paper with separate paragraphs for an introduction and conclusion.  The introduction must state the thesis.  The body paragraphs must defend it.  There must be a clear line of organization.  The conclusion must not leave the reader disappointed.  There must be an overwhelming amount of factual information provided.  This last point is very important to me:  "hammer it home with good specifics!"  I could attempt to put all this into a chart with thirty boxes, but it is a waste of my time.  No student wants to read thirty boxes of stuff.  When I grade, I balance and weigh factors.  It will never be a science, but I try to grade fairly.  My mind has more than thirty boxes in it.

For those who demand showy lesson plans, aligned with tenets of the Core, again, I say it's all about appearances.  When we submit our lesson plans for Danielson-based evaluations, they are supposed to refer to certain NY State or Common-Core bullet points.  They should show differentiation.  My lesson plans are happy sketches.  They are malleable.  I fill in spaces as I react to the interests of students.  I wouldn't want it any other way.  I wouldn't want to plow on with a pre-packaged plan if I had lost the interest of my students.

There is nothing that points to the importance of keeping up appearances more than statistics.  Everything is about stats.  Take graduation rates, for example.  During the Bloomberg years, teachers citywide were encouraged to push more students along to save schools from extinction.  There was a ballooning of credit-recovery schemes.  Diplomas were cheapened.  We had an "Education Mayor," but at what cost?  D.C. had a Rhee.  Her test scores skyrocketed, but at what cost?  Blue skies, smiles and merit pay.  Then, along came a seeming scandal of unsavory erasures.

Some charter schools appear great.  What Success!  But do they work with the most disadvantaged of the disadvantaged?  Do they work with those with the biggest language obstacles or the most special needs?  Or, do they fail to recruit and accept those who do not meet the grade?  Do they push out students who fall short academically and behaviorally?

In so many ways, we are about appearances.  In so many ways, these appearances are often deceptive.  They distract from the real business of teaching.  In the last decade, appearances have become more important than realities.  I would rather be honest and, if necessary, say, "Please excuse our appearances.  Under renovation.  Under reality."

An assistant principal said that to me the other day. I was saying that teachers are constantly under pressure, facing constant evaluation no matter what. The AP countered with the pressures on an AP. I suppose having to do 200 evaluations a month, or whatever the hell it is, can be daunting. I'm certainly glad I don't have to tell people they did this or that ineffectively.

Nonetheless, even teachers receiving effective ratings are unhappy. There's a cloud hanging over our heads, a cloud by the name of Danielson, and it's not going anywhere in the foreseeable future. I haven't really determined whether the 8 domains is better than the 22.  But even if it's the bestest thing ever, it's really kind of daunting to know that no matter how highly effective you are rated they need to keep checking up on you.

Arwen had a great column comparing the old observations and the new ones, and I think most who read it concluded that this largely incomprehensible checklist nonsense represents no improvement whatsoever. Sadly, I have no faith that a crazy supervisor will listen to the voices of your students any more carefully than he listens to those in his head. Also, I think it's preposterous to attempt to remove human error. By doing so, you kind of remove the human element altogether. Arwen used Hawthorne's The Birthmark to illustrate that, and I learned more from that story than I ever expect to learn from Danielson.

This clarion call for standardization is also evident in the demand for rubrics. I hate rubrics. I have hated them ever since I started grading the English Regents that contained them. I got a feel for what they were looking for and I was able to grade them fairly easily. A former colleague of mine got all bogged down in checking the rubrics and I would grade a class set while she was struggling with paper number three.

But I know what I want from student writing. I want kids to address the question. I want them to be careful. I want them to check their writing for errors. I want them to show me they actually care about what they've written, and if they don't, I want them to act like they do anyway. I want them to spell writing with one t. I want them to use structures I've taught them correctly, and ultimately I want them to express their own ideas with clarity and precision. As I teach beginning ESL students, the last goal will take them a little more time.

As for what supervisors want from us, it's tough to say. Is there really such a thing as low inference notes? Can we really keep our feelings out of our observations? Is it a good thing if we do? Feelings are important. For example, I want my students to be happy. I want them to enjoy my class. I want them to know they can speak freely and no one will make fun of their English or discourage them in any way.

I'm fortunate in that I feel only the normal amount of apprehension about this system that loudly announces, "I don't trust you," in every element of its origin and composition. But I know a teacher who I met as a young woman who's been beaten down into the ground by this. She's terrified. She no longer loves to come to work. And she's representative of a lot of teachers I meet and speak with. The only real advantage I have over her is that I lack the common sense to be terrified.

Unlike David Coleman, I really, really want kids I serve, kids I help, kids I love, to be happy. I absolutely give a crap how they feel, even if the father of the Common Core thinks no one does. In fact, that's probably more important than whether or not their subjects and verbs agree. Now I will deny that if you repeat it in front of my students. I hope they're happy anyway.

But no one else seems to be. And whether David Coleman thinks so, whether John King thinks so, whether anyone who runs this system or our union thinks so, that is a fundamental problem.

If we want to have a productive and worthwhile education system, we need to fix it.

I know I can't make resolutions for UFT-Unity.  But I do wonder if Unity could give us a great big gift in 2015, other than a cushy job with a double pension in its offices in exchange for unwavering loyalty, what might it be?  Some, I know, might wish for their COPE payments back.  Some might wish for their UFT dues.  Here, I differ.  I have a different vision:

1.  I wish Unity would send its representatives to find out what teachers really want--not just send its representatives to sell teachers near faits accomplis, such as seemingly sub-par contracts.  After all, shouldn't they be representing us?

2.  I wish Unity would allow all Union voting to take place in schools.  It would greatly increase voter turnout.  At present, less than twenty percent of working UFT members care to elect their representatives via snail mail.

3.  I wish Unity would scrap the Loyalty Oath and the attitudes that give rise to it.  I wish Unity would welcome opposing ideas, not as enemies, but as alternatives worthy of consideration.  Many of the people who put forth opposing ideas are die-hard unionists.

4.  I wish Unity would allow talented and highly committed individuals who love their Union to work in its offices without swearing an oath of allegiance, signing away their conscience or their right to represent a constituency.

5.  I wish Unity would mobilize its membership more.  We are a formidable force.  We are NYC.

6.  I wish Unity would wage war against junk science.

7.  I wish Unity would cease bargaining and selling.  I wish it would fight wars based more upon common sense and moral conscience.

8.  I wish every Unity member who stood as a placeholder for Unity bigwigs at the AFT convention had spoken his own mind first, free from fear or "sycophanticism."

9.  I wish Unity would stop selling membership measures based on fear.  Go to the back of the line, "#151."  "The cupboard is bare."  When your Union feeds you humble pie, it begs so many other questions.

10.  I wish Unity would stop compromising with people who would destroy us.  We, on the front lines, bear the brunt of battle.  We are not expendable, ATRs included.

11.   I wish Unity would let high schools vote for their representatives as in the past, rather than the current policy of making the position at large.

12.  I wish Unity would allow chapter leaders to once again elect district representatives.  It seems more democratic.

13.  I wish Unity would recognize that when less than twenty percent of its membership cares to vote in a time of crisis for public education, the very lifeblood of the union is endangered.

14.  I wish Unity would recognize that its recent successful bid to increase the weight of retiree ballots, solidifying its own victory, seems overtly sad and pathetic.

15.  I wish Unity would realize that in these important times, when the future of public education is at stake, the UFT has a very important role to play.  If it falls short or turns its back on its rank and file, history will not be forgiving.

I don't support NYPD's turning their backs to Mayor de Blasio. What de Blasio said to his son, in view of what was happening in NYC and around the country was perfectly reasonable. I'd have said the same if I were him, and the community who voted for him, perhaps largely because of a commercial in which his son was prominently featured, needed to know that the mayor saw that. He opposed stop and frisk, ran on a platform saying so, and moved to block it. He has never said a disparaging word about NYPD.

On the other hand, I've watched Rudy Giuliani say teachers don't deserve raises because they stink. This was Rudy's way of arguing for merit pay, which has been around for a hundred years and has never worked anywhere. This argument, of course, is not restricted to Giuliani, and is bandied about by politicians statewide and nationally. It's discussed in op-eds as though it's common sense. Of course, common sense is the least common of all the senses, and this sort of blather has pervaded all of MSM, up to and including the allegedly liberal New York Times.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg treated us like something he had to scrape off of his Florsheims. He gave the police an 8% two year raise, and he gave FDNY and virtually every other union the same during an economic downturn. In lieu of that, he gave us a middle finger, threatened to lay us off, tried very hard to destroy our seniority rights (thought not those of any other union), and said he'd like to fire half of us and double class sizes. I don't know about you, but I've had very tough classes of 34. It's idiotic, counter-productive, and incredibly thoughtless to contemplate classes of 68 kids at a time.

With the financial support of the extremely right-wing, extremely wealthy Koch Brothers, Scott Walker decimated union in Wisconsin. He eliminated collective bargaining, and made unions vote annually for dues checkoff. Of course he didn't do that for police. Michael Bloomberg famously referred to the police as his private army. And someone has to protect Walker from the crowds that surrounded his capital when they realize how badly they're being screwed. Pretty much all of the above is disparate treatment.

The press regularly vilifies us. I've seen Campbell Brown and her nonsensical arguments plastered everywhere. Judging from the extremely selective stories she tells, literally based on a handful of cases, you'd think teachers were sexual predators. You'd think people like Bloomberg and his pawns ought to be able to fire us at will, based on unsubstantiated or even rejected allegations. I've read stories in the Daily News and the Post that mirrored her blather. I'm familiar with precisely one of the cases she endlessly repeats and I happen to know the teacher in question deserved nothing more than a caution to be careful of how his words can be interpreted. This is a lesson that teacher, after unmerited years in the rubber room and thousands in unnecessary fines, probably knows better than any other teacher in the city.

The NYPD officer, on the other hand, was facing a man strangled to death, and on video. This was ruled a homicide. A grand jury, however, cleared the officer. I don't hear Campbell Brown loudly crying for this officer's job. I don't see articles about him in the tabloids demanding justice. And in case it isn't clear, this officer was not accused of making a distasteful statement. This officer killed someone, someone who said, "I can't breathe," eleven times, and the video is all over the internet.

I would understand the cops turning their backs to the mayor on the basis of the crap contract they're being offered. My very first act of unionism was marching with UFT at a Labor Day parade in which we planned to do that to David Dinkins. We were all wearing black t-shirts that said, "Shame on City Hall" on the back. But we weren't at a funeral, and we weren't making the preposterous claim that Bill de Blasio had blood on his hands. Because our plan was no secret at all, Dinkins ran off to a tennis match somewhere rather than face us. Apparently, we are supposed to respect the authority of the police, no one may ever question the actions of a single police officer, and no one may warn their children to be careful when dealing with the police, even after we watch a man killed by a police officer on video.

On the other hand it's perfectly fine to vilify teachers, to stereotype us based on shoddy evidence, and to deprive us of due process based on a handful of sensationalized cases. We should trust in the good graces of folks like Mike Bloomberg and Dennis Walcott, and we should disregard the fact that they are fanatical ideologues with no regard for evidence or truth.

Is this because teaching is a profession dominated by women? Is it because time and time again our union leadership has compromised with folks like Bloomberg, embracing mayoral control, charter schools, colocations, two-tier due process, and things that looked very much like merit pay? Is it because the job of educating our children must always take second place to the importance of enriching the likes of Pearson, Eva Moskowitz and Rupert Murdoch? All of the above?

No more multiple choice questions for today. Today's a day for reflection. Why is there one standard for police, and a very different one for teachers? Why is it so widely accepted by the media? Is it the job of our union leadership to let the public know this? Is it possible to even do that, and if so, how?

Some people I like and respect are upset about Mayor de Blasio following through on his promise to end the phone ban. I have never been in favor of the phone ban. It's 2014, I have a phone, and I don't remember exactly when I gave my kid one, but she carried it for years in school. When I found out she was using it in class I turned off her internet access and paid T-Mobile five bucks a month to restrict her usage during school hours. For a few years she was only able to communicate with me and her mom during school hours.

But she's my kid, and I wanted to be able to communicate with her in case of an emergency. Calling a school office and hoping for the best, considering decades of failing to get messages in school buildings, didn't seem a great option.

I realize that not every parent is as cruel and heartless as I am. One reason is that I regularly see kids take out their phones and use them. If I didn't stop them they'd probably do it all the time. On the other hand, I do stop them. My eyes are now attuned to kids with their hands under their desks, which more often than not indicates phone use. Mostly, it just takes a look and the phone goes back in a bag.

But there's no putting every phone in a bag. I know that there's been a business boom in scanning schools, with trucks and bodegas charging kids a buck a day for phone storage. I wouldn't want to pay twenty bucks a month so my kid could store her phone, and I wouldn't want my students, who don't have a whole lot of money, to have to pay that.

Phones in class are a nuisance, particularly with some determined kids, but it's part of the job. They just aren't going away. It's my job to deal with it. Sometimes I deal with it better than other times. Certain kids just slide back. If they didn't have phones they'd have other distractions, and I'd have to deal with them instead.

The cardinal rule in my ESL classes is that we speak only English. Most of my kids speak the same language, so that's a very, very difficult rule to enforce. I spend a whole lot more energy and time reinforcing that than dealing with phones. Imagine if you were in, say, Korea with twenty-five Americans and some lunatic told you you could speak only Korean. That's pretty much how my kids view me. But if I can enforce an all-English policy, I can enforce a phone ban.

I don't like to confiscate phones, and I've done so on only a handful of occasions. I don't allow kids to talk on the phone, ever. On one occasion, a student's phone rang, he picked it up, and he began to speak in a foreign language. This grieved me deeply. His mommy had to come to the school and pick it up at the end of the week. Another time a kid took his phone to the trailer bathroom and played music with it. He spent some time phoneless too.

Once I was subbing for an absent AP. Back then the iPod touch was a luxury item. I politely told a young man to put his away three times. On the fourth time I had a dean come and confiscate it. When I went to the dean's office to write it up the boy's mom was there. She screamed at me. She said it was his "enjoyment," and said she hoped he was never in my class. I offered no argument.

The phones are a pain in the neck, but that's only because our kids are a pain in the neck. It's their job to test us, and it's our job to deal with it. I'll be at work in a few hours, and that's exactly what I'm gonna do. Bloomberg's no phone rule was always ridiculous. Bloomberg was full of himself, and may has well have passed a regulation prohibiting snow.

Of course, he didn't need to worry about snow, what with his private aircraft taking him to the Bahamas weekends. He didn't need to worry about schoolchildren or their parents communicating with one another in an emergency because he didn't worry about us either.

Personally, I'm glad the ban is gone. If only we could get rid of more stupid Bloomberg rules, we and our kids would all be better off. You'll pry my iPhone from my cold, dead hands, and I won't deprive my kids of something that's become indispensable to me.

I used to teach business letters, but I rarely do so anymore. In fact, I rarely even write them anymore, given the immediacy and availability of electronic communication. Nonetheless, one of the first things I taught was that your name goes at the bottom, as does your title. So it surprises me a little when I see a letter that opens like this (slide past the advertising to the right and enlarge to view):

My name is Martin Messner. I am a teacher and a NYSUT member who was elected as NYSUT’s Secretary/ Treasurer this past spring.

I have a few issues with this. One is that his name and title, of course, are included as a signature, and that this is redundant. You'd think with all the money we pay NYSUT they could find a high school grad to proofread. More to the point, Messner doesn't really work as a teacher. He’s full time at NYSUT these days, making 238K a year before benefits.

However, Messner and his Revive buds made sure they’d be able to keep their teaching gigs in case this whole NYSUT thing doesn’t work out. Thus, while they are out there in Albany doing whatever it is they do, they need not worry about being unemployed in case Mike Mulgrew decides they aren’t doing what he wishes. In fact, they managed to get legislation passed to ensure that. Sure, they couldn’t stop junk science ratings, tier 6, the GEA, the tax cap, and they couldn’t work for a pro-teacher candidate like Zephyr Teachout.

This was particularly important for them for several reasons. The primary reason is that the Revive NYSUT team is denying Lee Cutler, Messner’s predecessor, the severance pay that all the other leaders UFT Unity tossed out are receiving. Cutler, like Messner, had to leave his job before actually retiring. While Revive is willing to screw Cutler it’s important that they themselves be protected.

Messner is jumping for joy about potential savings for NYSUT members.  Not only do they save a few bucks by screwing Lee Cutler, but they also have fabulous insurance programs. Messner saved $375 by switching his home insurance, and another $190 by switching his car insurance. Ain’t that fabulous? This will certainly aid his bottom line, along with the double pension he and his buds negotiated for themselves.

Ironically, the only reason Messner was elected was because of UFT support. Lee Cutler is much-loved around the state, and basically kicked Revive’s ass outside of the city. Of course, UFT has 28% of the members, and 33% of the vote. This is because, in NYSUT’s peculiar vision of democracy, anyone who can’t afford to travel for a weekend at the NY Hilton doesn’t get a vote. I won’t belabor the fact that UFT is a rubber stamp for leadership, with a loyalty oath that makes sure all delegates vote as instructed.

The thing is, though, that MetLife can really suck if you’re a UFT member. For one thing, if you live around a flood area, like I do, and like UFT President Mike Mulgrew does, they won’t cover you at all. This has been the case for at least 20 years, because though I had insurance with them soon after I bought my home, they refused to cover me.

The other thing is that their rates for auto insurance in the metro are are simply awful. When I signed up with them, about 20 years ago, they were competitive, and I did indeed save money. But I trusted them to keep up, and in fact they did not. I bought a car last May, and the salesperson asked me who my insurance company was. When I told him, he said he was absolutely sure he could save me money.

I was a little wary. After all, this was a union-negotiated benefit, and they’re looking out for me. But having a teenage driver in my family, and now with three cars, my rate was pretty high—over $7,000. My wife was next to me, and she was pretty insistent. So I went into an office with a salesperson who saved us about $3,000 a year by switching me to Allstate.

Since it’s UFT that controls NYSUT, shouldn’t they choose an insurance company that offers competitive rates to not only Martin Messner, but also those of us who constitute the very largest local in the country? Shouldn’t Messner aggressively look for an insurance company that doesn’t redline those of us who were victims of Hurricane Sandy? Should Mike Mulgrew consider punching him in the face, rather than only Common Core oppenents, if he doesn’t look out for us?

Or is it the case that what’s good for Martin Messner is good for the entire state? Judging from NYSUT’s legislative record this year, which benefits Messner and his Revive BFFs rather than working teachers, that’s what they’ve concluded.

 by special guest blogger Harris Lirtzman

Dana Goldstein, author of "The Teacher Wars: A History of America's Most Embattled Profession," argues that the United States has entered a full-blown moral panic about "the vampiric ineffective teacher who sucks tax dollars into her bloated pension and health care plans, without much regard for the children under her care."

According to Goldstein, this moral panic--the last real ones were over "welfare queens" stealing food stamps and before that actual or suspected members of the Communist Party--requires policy makers and the media to focus on a single group of people (teachers) as emblems of a large, complex social problem (socioeconomic inequality and educational achievement gaps). The media repeats, ad nauseum, anecdotes about the most despicable examples of this type of person so that the focus on the "worst of the worst" comes finally to misrepresent the true scale and character of what may be a genuine problem.

Teachers of America, awake.  You are at the epicenter of a moral panic.

Moral panics are very hard to stop once they have been activated by the people whose interests they serve.

Sunday's Daily News includes an editorial "Listen to Mrs. Tisch," written by publisher Mort Zuckerman, himself, that is a Hall-of-Fame example of a media-generated moral panic.  According to Mr. Zuckerman:

Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch and Acting Education Commissioner Elizabeth Berlin on Wednesday delivered--with an aggressive and specific battle plan for improving teaching and learning from Brooklyn to the Bronx to Buffalo.  They would scrap the part of the teacher-rating system that allows teachers to juice their scores, and change the law so poorly performing teachers can more easily be removed from the classroom. And, of great importance, they would once and for all eliminate the union-controlled arbitration process that has protected from termination thousands of teachers, from those who engage in intimate conduct with students to those who can't write a lesson plan to save their lives.  The state Legislature no longer has any excuse but to send [Governor] Cuomo reform measures he can sign.

Note the required elements of "moral panic."  An "aggressive battle plan" against vampire teachers who "juice their scores" as a way to hide their fecklessness and incompetence from real Americans. The threat that endangers every part of the state from "Brooklyn to the Bronx to Buffalo." The call to final victory in a "once and for all" elimination of the subversive organization that coordinates all this heinous activity and harbors all these vampire teachers, the powerful and dangerous "union." The malefic forces that prevent the eradication of  "thousands" of vampire teachers among us who prey on their charges by engaging in "intimate conduct" with them.  The infectious incompetence of teachers who cannot write "for their own lives" even the very lesson plans that are the hallmark of their profession. Finally, the summoning of public courage and virtue to do the right thing by having the governor act with "no excuse" or mercy to reform the culprits or banish them from the community.

Unless you and your representatives--the same unions who are selling you out to education reformistas in New York State and across the country--find a way to stop, or even slow down, the rising crest of this moral panic you will find yourselves the vermin cause for the imminent breakdown in the fiber of American society, even as many of your students and their parents bring you some version of a red apple because they love what you do for them every day.

Moral panics occasionally run themselves out just as fevers do but mostly they continue until something or someone stops them.

In 1954, Senator Joseph McCarthy took the moral panic about American communists to its highest level during what were called the "Army-McCarthy" hearings, when McCarthy accused the Army of harboring and promoting Communist Party sympathizers. After more than a month of televised hearings, an attorney for the Army named Joseph Welch looked up at the senator and said, "Senator, you've done enough.  Have you no sense of decency, sir?  At long last, have you left no sense of decency?  You have brought it all out.  If there is a God in heaven it will do neither you nor your cause any good."

The moral panic broke.  Within two months, Senator McCarthy's personal approval ratings collapsed and six months later the Senate censured him by a vote of 67-22.

Moral panics are stopped by courageous people speaking truth to power. The moral panic now enveloping public school teachers in New York will not be stopped until someone like a Joseph Welch speaks fearlessly to someone like an Andrew Cuomo. Our Mr. Welch will not come from the United Federation of Teachers or from the New York State United Teachers.  They have no Mr. Welches.  They are afraid of Andrew Cuomo and do not have the words to call him to account.

But we, the teachers of New York State and New York City, do have Joseph Welches among us and our allies.  We must find our Joseph Welch very quickly, because if we do not find him soon we will be washed away by a moral panic that serves many purposes but certainly not the purpose of good education in public schools by trained professionals who change the lives of their students every day.

Perhaps as a student of history, perhaps as a student of human nature, I appreciate the short stories of Nathaniel Hawthorne.  Given this era of Ed. Deform, some of his characters seem all too real.  In particular, I am reminded of two stories, "The Birthmark" and "Ethan Brand."

In "The Birthmark," an alchemist named Alymer is increasingly troubled by his wife's single imperfection, a crimson-colored, hand-shaped birthmark upon her cheek.  This minor imperfection begins to consume Aylmer until he can see little else.  He seeks to eliminate this flaw from his wife's face by concocting potions.  As one might guess, in the end the mark fades and disappears, but he has killed his wife in the process.

In "Ethan Brand," the main character sets upon a quest which troubles his heart to no end.  He goes in search of "The Unpardonable Sin."  He searches for it in the hearts of his fellowmen.  Would you be surprised if I told you who harbored "The Unpardonable Sin"?

Hawthorne describes here the tragedy of Brand:



How many Ethan Brands are there among ed. "reformers"?  They argue for lofty goals.  Yet, as they set about on their path they use their supposedly superior intellects to destroy so much that is good.  They forget the moral and humanistic purposes of education.

In holding teachers accountable for unrealistic levels of "proficiency," reformers attempt to eliminate "the birthmark."  They would close and destroy every public school in their path towards perfection.  How long will it be before they admit that the problems faced by so many school children more often than not have little to do with school, itself--and that their "solutions" will only make the problems worse.  Perfect proficiency will never be achieved short of cut score manipulation, gaming data, the use of sub-par criteria, intimidation or tides of cheating.

And what legacies do the "reformers" leave in their wake?:

Testing becomes more important than learning.
Learning test-based knowledge becomes more important than helping children develop healthy and productive lives.
Students become ever-more anxious and fearful of school.
School becomes increasingly synonymous with drudgery.
Teachers resign, retire early and succumb to stress-related illnesses.
Making statistics look pretty replaces dealing in truths.
Schools are sold to the highest bidder.
Irrevocable harm is done to public schooling.
Communities are destroyed.

"Reformers" will search the heart of every teacher, looking for "The Unpardonable Sin."  Would you be surprised if they, too, like Ethan Brand, had been looking in the wrong places?  In the kiln of time, whose heart will be shown to have been made of marble?

With the passing of Mario Cuomo, we're left to reflect on his legacy. I voted for him every chance I got, and had no reservations whatsoever about it. He's well-known for his principled opposition to the death penalty, which he vetoed every chance he got. It's likely that's what lost him his bid for a fourth term against George Pataki. New Yorkers had also grown weary of his Hamlet on the Hudson routine, in which he endlessly pondered whether or not the time was right to run for President. But there were always reasons to support him. 

 Nowhere was this more evident than in his 1984 keynote address to the Democratic Convention. At the time, the White House was occupied by Ronald Reagan, who supported union in Poland but actively contributed toward its downfall in the US. Reagan, you may recall, fired the air traffic controllers, the only union possessing the peculiar lack of foresight it took to have supported him in 1980. He also instituted a GOP signature initiative, tax cuts for the rich, with the rest of us hanging on and hoping for the best. Reagan was happy with this, riding around his ranch with a cowboy hat. Mario had another vision:

...there's another city; there's another part to the shining the city; the part where some people can't pay their mortgages, and most young people can't afford one; where students can't afford the education they need, and middle-class parents watch the dreams they hold for their children evaporate.

Sounds familiar, doesn't it? This is a theme we heard Bill de Blasio use in his quest to become mayor--it's a theme many lifelong democrats take to heart. This is why a lot of us fight corporate education reform. We want our children and students to have the same or, hopefully, better opportunities that we did. Of course, in that, we have formidable adversaries.

Sadly, in the case of Andrew Cuomo, the apple has fallen miles away from the tree. Doubtless it's very difficult to live in the shadow of such a legendary figure, particularly when it's your father. And surely Andrew has gone to great lengths to rebrand himself. That's particularly evident when we look at another section of Mario's 1984 speech.

We believe we must be the family of America, recognizing that at the heart of the matter we are bound one to another, that the problems of a retired school teacher in Duluth are our problems; that the future of the child -- that the future of the child in Buffalo is our future...

Andrew's been vocal on both these issues. Much as we'd like to, we can't ignore his most recent remark on teacher pensions:

Albany has been too concerned with protecting the pension rights of teachers and not enough with the future of students. #NYGov2015
— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) January 1, 2015

How's that retired teacher in Duluth feeling about Andy right now? The New York Post can't contain its delight at the prospect of placing her on that cat food diet so Murdoch can pull in a few more nickels. It doesn't matter that NY is not in that sort of trouble, and it doesn't matter that the retirement system is not unique to teachers.

As for Buffalo, Andy's using it as a rationale to double down on the junk science used to rate teachers. If Buffalo schoolchildren aren't doing well on standardized tests, it must be the fault of teachers. It has nothing to do with rampant poverty or lack of industry. And of course those things are not Andy's problem. While Mario would have fretted over such things, Andy couldn't care less. 

While Mario Cuomo took a principled stand against the death penalty, son Andrew opts for a principled stand against a millionaire's tax used to fund public schools. The contrast couldn't be clearer.

Alas, our governor is an unprincipled, opportunistic, self-serving, morally bankrupt empty suit whose only priority is his own selfish ambition. He does not answer to we, the people, but rather to his wealthy contributors. He brands himself a "student lobbyist," but lobbies only for schools controlled by Eva Moskowitz. We, the UFT and NYSUT, made a huge error in failing to endorse his opponents. Clearly Andy has no appreciation whatsoever for our neutrality.

The only redeeming factor here is the fact that he's no longer the juggernaut he was four years ago. It's pretty evident the Emperor has no clothes. Yet when NYSUT and UFT leadership had a choice between Andrew's agenda and Mario's (embodied in the form of one Zephyr Teachout), it chose not only to stand on the sidelines, but also to actively scuttle Teachout's WFP nomination.

Perhaps we can credit our activism, as well as Revive NYSUT's questionable promises, for the fact that they sat this one out. But we have to do more. If we respect the legacy of Mario Cuomo, it behooves us all to respect and enable his vision, a vision that respects and empowers not only us, but also our students and their communities.

You remember that wacky funster/ US Education Secretary Arne Duncan? Sure you do. He's the guy who said that Hurricane Katrina was the best thing to happen to education in New Orleans, Louisiana. He also made a ridiculous crack about white suburban moms whose kids weren't so bright. And our leader, Barack Obama, not only let him keep his job after that, but raised not a whisper of objection. To top that off, he was off blathering about how we need to tell second graders whether or not they will be able to go to college.

"Sorry, Suzie, but the aptitude test says you're gonna be a drawbridge oiler. It was written by Pearson, so we know it's accurate. After all, we pre-tested it and it was scored by an eight-dollar-an-hour banjo player from Kentucky, not some special interest unionized teacher from New York. You can't get much more accurate than that."

Now Arne Duncan has had yet another brainstorm.  He actually did an education tweet-a-thon with Shakira, she of the flexible hips, the pride of Colombia. Why does Arne see fit to tweet with a singing star? Well, for one thing, she belly dances a whole lot better than Bill Gates does. (Don't laugh. I haven't seen any of you moving like Shakira.)

For another thing, she has just as much teaching experience as Arne does, and quite possibly more. Who do you think tells the guitar player how loud to play, or tells the backup dancers whether or not they're shaking their booty up to the minute?

This is the state of the art, from our nation's top educator.

If we're a nation at risk, I doubt it has anything to do with teachers, because Arne Duncan has nothing to do with teachers either.

From my DOE mailbox. Much nicer than the insincere and convoluted nonsense Klein and Walcott used to send. Bloomberg never sent anything at all, to my recollection.

There aren't many UFT Unity bloggers. I know of only one chapter leader who bothered with a blog, and he was quietly instructed by his overlords to take it down. Of course he did, and now he's got a really cool gig at a UFT borough office. He also goes to conventions and votes however the hell Leroy Barr tells him to. In UFT Unity World, that's what's known as representing the membership. Being a chapter leader/ activist for UFT Unity entails doing as you're told. It's all neatly laid out in the oath.

The closest thing there is in UFT Unity World to a blogger is retired teacher/Unity bigshot Peter Goodman. Goodman tows the UFT Unity line very closely and clearly telegraphs the positions of leadership for them. While UFT President Michael Mulgrew makes it a point to tell the DA he doesn't read the blogs, because why the hell does he need to know what thinking teachers are actually thinking, I can only suppose Goodman is the exception to his rule that bloggers are purveyors of myth (read "liars").

The other day Goodman put up something I found fascinating, and you should too. Governor Cuomo and Merryl Tisch are raising a whole lot of Sturm und Drang about their APPR system. In their eyes, it's flawed because not enough teachers are getting adverse ratings. It's fairly simple in their eyes. Since they've set up a system in which 70% of our children are failing, shouldn't an equal number of teachers fail as well? I suspect they'd settle for 5 or 10% of teachers being arbitrarily dismissed to show how reasonable and flexible they are, but Tisch clearly wants anyone rated ineffective on junk science to be ineffective overall.

Here's what UFT Unity guru Peter Goodman has to say about that:

In my view, the major issues for NYSUT are not charter schools and the teacher evaluation law; the major issues are the 2% property tax cap and the Gap Elimination Adjustment.

That's an odd view for a UFT mouthpiece. Since these issues afflict our brother and sister NYSUT members more directly than us, we've heard little from UFT leadership about them. Basically Cuomo, who fancies himself a student lobbyist, continues to make draconian cuts in state aid while making it almost impossible for municipalities to make up the cuts in local budgets. It took 53% of the vote for Cuomo to win reelection, but it takes 60 if you want to raise your budget any more than 2% or rate of inflation, whichever is lower.

What this signals to bloggers like me and Perdido Street School is that leadership is likely to take a dive on APPR and charter schools. There's history supporting that--while Cuomo did his grand giveaway of mayoral control to Eva Moskowitz last year, Mulgrew didn't lift a finger to stop it. What will leadership do when Tisch and Cuomo pimp legislation to have an arbitrary percentage of teachers fired so as to appease Andy's wealthy contributor base? Tough to say.

Goodman offers us some other insights as well:

I mentioned to a teacher activist to expect “consequences” if the local endorsed Teachout. He thought Cuomo “would understand.”

Politics is a blood sport. When your guy/gal wins you expect them to support your issues and when your guy/gal loses you can expect the winner to seek retribution. A deeply embedded political aphorism: screw with me and I screw with you.

Maybe you didn’t learn this in your civics class and maybe you’re willing to take the heat and continue to battle and maybe you’re simply an idealist.

I have no idea which teacher activists Goodman speaks to, if indeed there are any.  Of course Revive NYSUT leadership endorsed no one at all, despite its explicit promise when running to oppose Cuomo (to which Goodman raised no objection whatsoever). I suppose we're now supposed to believe that it isn't Revive's fault the governor reneged on his promise to pass a bill exempting teachers from adverse Common Core-based ratings. This was touted as a great victory by our prescient leadership, but actually was not all that significant--it would clearly have affected a very small number of teachers, and it was temporary in any case.

What Goodman is trying to do here is blame those localities who failed to tow the Unity line and endorsed pro-teacher Zephyr Teachout or Howie Hawkins. If only they had sat down and shut up, the preferred mode of UFT Unity activism, everything would have been fine. We'd have our seat at the table and Andrew Cuomo would not have shown himself to be the lying weasel that he is.

You see, it's through quiet and highly diplomatic negotiations that UFT Unity has managed to usher in charter schools, mayoral control, school closings, junk science teacher ratings, two-tier due process, getting paid a full decade after everyone else, and the lowest pattern anyone has bargained in my living memory. Victories like that are a model for the entire state, and surely Revive NYSUT was propped up by UFT leadership so that this vision could be realized.

If Tisch and Cuomo manage to enact a toxic statewide APPR, every teacher in the state will feel the consequences of UFT Unity's unique negotiating tactics.

From our entire editorial staff.