I went into the deli this morning to get breakfast and there right in front of me was the headline on today's Daily News about a sex scandal that has roiled the UFT. And sadly I was not surprised. Norm Scott had a feeling something was up earlier last week. Little did he know that wasn't the only thing "up."

Paul Egan, the UFT's political leader and director of chapter something or other who had been being paid over $190k a year was fired for using UFT issued cell phones and computers to sext and presumably other stuff with his a female UFT lawyer who according to the Daily News is a subordinate.

Frankly I do not care who he was banging. I don't care whether or not Egan or his babe have spouses. Yes, there are issues being involved with a subordinate, but what happens between two consenting adults is their business.

What I do take umbrage with his using dues monies to text photos of his junk using phones and computers paid for by the rank and file. Again, be as filthy and naughty as you want. Just use your cell and your computer.

I take offense that this man is paid, according to the Daily News...

...a salary of $192,102 in 2018 plus $25,757 in expenses, according to union filing

And what did he do to earn such a top flight salary within the UFT? I guess it all started when he was a teacher at PS 113 in the Bronx and he told he 7th graders before a standardized test to sharpen their pencils and just by an amazing coincidence the answers for the first 11 questions were next to the sharpener! And then to be sure to cover his tracks his brain kicked into high gear and blabbered to the students...

“Don’t tell anyone that I helped you or you’ll be the ones who get into trouble.”

Hey, we're all allowed our Homer Simpson moments, right? Why would the UFT hire such a person?

I am wondering about this incident that Egan was involved in...

...his next brush with notoriety occurred in an alcohol-fueled banquet at Albany’s posh Marché bistro in 2011. Big-eater Egan got rowdy while ringing up nearly $2,000 on dinner and drinks at the posh restaurant, which is now closed.

Why did Egan get upset?  He whined that the portions of his prix fixe meal were too small. This was his complaint. So big deal? When you leave, find a Burger King and have a post dinner Whopper. Heck, have a Double Whopper.

The main course of his meal was quail. WTF?? Who eats quail? I guess that is something one eats when you aren't the one paying for it. Why some fancy joint? There is not a IHOP, Denny's, TGIF, on Wolf Rd in Albany where the UFT can dine. Egan looks like a pancake guy. IHOP routinely has all you can eat pancakes.

Why oh why on the day this comes out that the UFT is spending thousands of dollars for a Functional Chapter retreat at the Hilton in Rye Brook NY? Would it not be more cost effective to have such a retreat or whatever it is be at 52 Broadway?

Bad optics. Almost no one at the UFT thinks steps ahead nor what the rank and file truly want.

It would have been nice for Mulgrew to have been quoted in the Daily News article about how appalled he is at the behavior of Paul Egan. I think that would have been good optics. But Mulgrew is rarely about the optics.

Worse, there will be members who will use this to discontinue paying their dues. Some statement by Mulgrew and transparency with this incident might help keep some who are thinking of leaving to stay.

In the past I have started off a blog post using a quote from Rush, or made use of a Star Trek quote somewhere in a post. For those who still have one foot in living in their parents basement as do I, this is your lucky day. I am using quotes from both a Rush (War Paint from 1989's Presto CD) song and from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

Please bear with me, the point will soon be evident. 

"All puffed up with vanity/We see hear what we want to see hear"

"....but like a poor marksman, you keep missing the target"

Both lines fit Portelos better than his trousers do!

 As many know, Jia Lee, MORE/New Action candidate for UFT president appeared with me on my quite rudimentary Internet radio show this past Thursday. In the issue of being fair I extended an invitation to UFT Solidarity Leader Francesco Portelos to appear as well. His reaction is here;

First, thanks to Portelos for choosing me to help him pass the time on his drive to Albany. I usually choose music, or Howard Stern, but I am honored that he chose me. But to address his well thought out, lucid points.

One, can we stop living almost three years in the past? I was not close to MORE nor Jia at the time, and I don't know if Jia knew much about me. But who cares? Obviously Portelos. It's 2016 gosh darn it!

But then Portelos blabbers asking me how it felt when Jia said;

"...back when rubber rooms existed."

Yeah, Jia said that, and if you listen at about the 6:26 mark, I corrected her.

But unlike Portelos, I (And the vast, vast majority of grown ups), not only have the cognitive ability to know when people actually make a mistake as to misspeaking, but I (as well as the vast, vast majority of grown ups), before I post something on social media always seek to verify what I am about to post lest I get caught holding my you-know-what in my hands like Portelos has for the gazillionth time.

If Portelos only had A) a better sound system in his car, B) Was able to clearly hear Jia's voice past all the voices in his head telling him how great he believes he is, or C) Taken the Taconic to Albany instead of the Thruway (less road noise) he would have heard Jia correcting herself just (LISTEN HERE!!) before I did.

To Jia, please accept my apologies for not originally hearing what you had said. For this transgression, and the shame it has brought upon my family, I offer you a pair of Neil Peart autographed drumsticks in return. Use them in good health (its a Jewish thing. You get new underwear, that is what is said)!

But why you might ask, is this pertinent to you, John and Jane Q. Schoolteacher? Because Portelos is screaming for attention help. He wants to debate Jia. He his desperate.

But there are some many Portelos' comedic acts to share on these pages, we have to wait for another day to discuss the debate.

But one last thing.

Why hasn't Portelos sent the same request for a debate to Unity? Why just MORE? As it is written on the UFT Solidarity website, Unity is invited to debate as well. Yet strangely, no invitation to Unity has been forthcoming as of press time.

The Crack Team, along with our Crack Team Consigliere, Tom Hagen, discussed whether or not MORE should entertain such a request. One thing popped into everyone's minds.

Let's see Portelos and his minions get 900 REAL (Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Clark Kent are not, nor have ever been, UFT members!) signatures on the petition first. Yes, a daunting task, but perhaps Portelos can get some signatures in exchange for some entertainment? What is it he does well??

Hmmm...dropping his pants, again and again, and again.

 All of us get lost in the darkness/Dreamers learn to steer by the stars/All of us do time in the gutter/Dreamers turn to look at the cars--Peart, Neil 1989

I have this habit of waking up at 5 AM and checking my phone for the latest emails and news. When I clicked on the NY Post app on my phone I saw and read a story about Jeanene Worrell-Breeden, the principal of the Teachers College Community School had killed herself back in April on the same day that someone at her school reported her she had cheated on the standardized tests.

The first thoughts on my mind, as well as condolences, go out to her family and friends. This was a needless, senseless death that never should have been. She is someone's wife, mother, daughter, grand-daughter, niece, friend, principal, teacher, etc... No one has won here except Governor Cuomo and Chancellor Fariña.

As I lay in bed thinking of this, my thoughts went back five years to a teacher in Los Angeles, Rigoberto Ruelas, a teacher that suddenly found himself ineffective due to a Los Angeles Times reporter, Jason Felch becoming the story and not reporting on the story. Rigoberto after he was outed by Felch, committed suicide.

I know there are some out there who no matter what would see this death as some type of vindication towards their goals but I do not. This death if nothing should bring all educators in New York City and New York State closer together and fight as one against the marauders of education in Albany and at Tweed. For whatever Ms Worrell-Breeden has been accused of doing it did not happen in a vacuum and was completely avoidable.

The pressure from Albany as well as from Tweed to more or less tie everyone's job, their pay, their  own self worth to whether or not that person can be the next coming of someone's fantasy teacher that only exists in the movies is an impossible ladder to climb for almost anyone. God only knows what was going through Ms Worrell-Breeden. Not only to allegedly cheat, but worse, once confronted with this information, to jump in front of an oncoming B train and kill herself.

This sick, unrealistic method, test, test, test, punish, punish, terminate, embarrass, ostracize, method of educating children and evaluating teachers must end and end soon or we will have many more Jeanene Worrell-Breeden's.

Last Sunday night we were in Corning NY and had dinner with another couple. The wife, who I won't mention, is very prominent in BATs and the AFT. Both her and her husband on two of the most real people I have ever met in my life. In the many topics of discussion that evening we touched on what teachers need and what can or should be done for them.

There are false prophets seeking false profits preying off the backs of teachers that are down to their last act of strength in fighting back against the same forces that Jeanene Worrell-Breeden was fighting.

What support are they given? "Oh here, this is how you file this." Or, "This is what you do when this happens to you." Maybe they get a, "You need to do this." But this is the simple advice.

Now mind you I am all for fighting back and blowing the whistle. But the trick that I learned so long ago is not everyone when they need to fight back can or wants to.

Sometimes the best thing one can do is just to be there. Someone to be there for that teacher to have a shoulder to cry on, someone for that teacher to vent to, someone for that teacher to divert their mind from their troubles. I doubt Jeanene Worrell-Breeden had someone like this. Or someone who could tell her she could have fought back. But the trick between being supportive and being one who can lead someone to fight is a fine line and one must have the EQ to know what is the difference and which one to use.

Teachers and principals are sick if this. Yeah, I said principals. How about this? Educators are sick of this pressure. If we, not them, but WE, do not start supporting one another the best way we can for each and every educator and stop from projecting our ways of settling old scores onto them we will be just as guilty to their emotional and physical demise as the powers that be in both Albany and Tweed.

False hope needs to end immediately to teachers walking the precipice. The testing pressure, the culture needs to end.

The whistleblower did the right thing. For some reason Ms Worrell-Breeden thought she was doing the right thing. But neither of them are to blame for her death. The people to blame are the ones hiding behind the dollars and the sense of self-importance and self-righteousness they have.

I do not want to hear of anymore educator suicides. Enough is enough.

It will and can get better.

On February 23 of this year I attended a meeting of of parents, board members, teachers and
administrators at Harrison High School in Westchester County. This meeting was not held just those of Harrison but for all throughout the Sound Shore and Central Westchester. The meeting was facilitated by Dra Louis Wool, Superintendent of the Harrison Central School District and several local politicians were there as guests.

Assemblyman David Buchwald (D-Mount Kisco), State Senator George Latimer (D-Port Chester), and Assemblyman Steven Otis (D-Rye) were in attendance. I was quite impressed. In fact I am quite impressed with Senator Latimer who I have met and commiserated with on several occasions on the state of education in New York. Even better, I live in Senator Latimer's district as well as Assemblyman Buchwald's district. I felt as if Albany came to the masses that night and there was true concern among the three. Well among the two, for I knew Senator Latimer's positions well.

But I was even more impressed by Assemblyman Buchwald. I have had no interaction with him in the past only when he called me from the floor of the Assembly last year to explain to me why he was voting for the budget in which Eva was given everything but the kitchen sink. I disagreed with him but respected his candor and the fact that he called me back. And where he called me back from.

As reported by the Harrison Review on February 26, 2015 Assemblyman Buchwald shared to the crowd assembled in the Harrison High School cafeteria that evening that he had an issue with why there would be diminished evaluation weight on local school administrators and why so much emphasis on the evaluations of outside administrators who are unfamiliar with the community in teacher evaluation.

But more amazingly Buchwald said;

“None of these percentages seems to be based on an investigation of what’s actually best for our school districts.”

He heard how with in Harrison how we are suffering under the draconian cap and holding back of monies from Governor Andy. How the student population is rising and ten teachers are needed but we only have enough to hire one.

Assemblyman Buchwald was good enough to speak to a member of The Crack Team yesterday and shared why he voted yes on the budget. The jist of the theme that we got in our analysis of the Assemblyman's words that it would have been a lot worse.

The Assemblyman shared how the budget negotiations in this state are difficult because the governor holds that cards and with a Senate that is not on board with the Assembly compromise must be made.

He said that he did try to "push back, and was seeking the "best arrangement possible," and how he helped "push to let the Board of Regents" make the final determination in the new and draconian bill passed last week.

While we thank the Assemblyman for his candor and taking the time to speak we must fully disagree with him.

No matter how you slice the new evaluation system it is still 50% based on tests. This is not to help pedagogy or learning but only a way to best jam teachers.  The outside evaluator which the Assemblyman lauded is a problem waiting to happen much as we mocked it yesterday on these pages.

The Assemblyman told us that anything is possible. The evaluator can be another principal from a school within the district or even a neighboring school district. But stop, think, how can this work. Don't these administrators have schools to run themselves? Shouldn't someone doing an evaluation on a teacher know that teacher? Know the students that teacher is working with? What if it is a small school district with only three schools--Elementary, Middle, and High--would a elementary principal be best to evaluate a high school teacher and vice versa?  This is akin to asking a art critic who specializes in Modernism to evaluate the art of someone who was trained and paints in the mode of the Hudson River School.

Basing evaluation on junk science, Value Added Measurements, has been shown not to work and the +/- scale far exceeds what truly happens in the classroom. How can anyone using high stakes tests not consider the multitude of variables that occur in a child? How can a Governor who claims he is for the kids not see and do something about the multitude of children living in poverty across the state and not see how that can affect their learning? He can't, he is beholden to the hedge funders and his own hatred towards teachers.

Assemblyman Buchwald, I thought you were different. You could have done the noble thing and voted no. You knew it was going to pass but you had a chance to safe yourself. Getting back to your quote from above, know who knows best about what is actually best for school districts? The stakeholders of said school districts. Not Albany, not a governor with issues, not hedge funders, and certainly not politicians.

My advice, come and listen to the teachers and the parents. We are fed up. Come and talk to me informally. Come on WFAS next Tuesday morning with me.

On a personal note, I am still awaiting a response from the Assemblyman of emails I had sent on April 28 and May 12 of last year. Maybe he could see why teacher tenure and other protections are so important.

Great news came across the SBSB news desk this week.

After many hours of lobbying, phone calls, letter writings, etc... trips to Albany, I have finally gotten an audience with a highly respected and highly influential New York State senator to meet with me, and maybe some others, on my plight and the conspiracy DR Alison Coviello, Ed.D and Principal of PS 154 in the Bronx had diabolically planned against me and possibly others.

I can't give all the details but the meeting will be taking place after the November elections at the senator's office. The senator is aware of the situation at PS 154 and from what his chief of staff has shared is appalled.

Details to follow.

This looks like good news, but Newsday is reporting that; 

"A proposal to allow charter schools to receive state funds for building has been dropped."

 Yippee!!

The above was what I was in the process of writing until I saw what Reality-Based Educator wrote and what I read in the New York Rag, er, Post. 

I have had many a thought on all this shrillness brought on by Eva and her minions of the last few weeks. I just never could find the right words or right structure to share here on the blog. Still just can't, but will try using an old writer's trick. I'm just going to write whatever pops into my mind. Kind of like a stream of consciousness.

First, charters are not public schools. I don't care how you slice it, and you dice it, and what spin one puts on it, but charters in no way are public schools. A public school is accountable to the public. Charters are accountable only to their boards and their moneyed sugar daddy's.

Let's see a public school pull what Eva pulls. Let's see any public school in NYC ask parents to pull their children out of the school if they are a behavior problem. Let's see what happens with a NYC public school if their only way of discipline is to suspend or make a 5 year old march military style for 30 minutes through the building. Let's see a NYC school with the high turnover rate that reeks through Success Academy schools, both students and teachers.

So the above 3 paragraphs are what I wrote until I my jaw dropped. So let's move on from the stream of consciousness onto the stream of outrage.

So as the Post reported;

"Charter schools will get an increase in per student operating aid and for the first time will receive government facilities funding to cover rent or building costs.

The agreement also calls for Mayor de Blasio to find alternative space for all three of Eva Moskowitz Success Academy charter schools he booted from city facilities for the fall.

 Under the agreement, the city must offer new charter schools or those wishing to expand space in public school buildings — or reimburse them for rent in a private facility."

Who made these agreements? Were there hearings? Public comment? Were other legislators involved? No, just three men in a room. Cuomo, and the stooges Silver and whoever is Senate majority leader.

In the world I come from, the governor is the governor of all the people, not just a select few, especially those that whine and kvetch the loudest and have the biggest wallets. Cuomo is adding to the adage, "What Eva wants, Eva gets."

Cuomo is impressed that there were 11,000 people at the staged rally in front of the State Capital building 3 weeks ago? How many people would he think would be protesting in Albany if the NYC public schools were allowed to shut down for the day and bus the parents, the students, and the staff to Albany to protest closing of OUR SCHOOLS? Over 100,000?

But 100k people supporting public schools in Albany would not have mattered to Cuomo for if NYC public school community did assemble en masse in Albany they would be missing one important thing. Dollars to shower upon Governor Andy. The public school community is not funded and bought off as Cuomo and Eva are by DFER and Students First and astroturf groups like Families For Excellent Schools.

Eva and her ilk had the hundreds of thousands of dollars to bus their students and families to Albany and back and provided lunch. How difficult would it to be to take that money, and all the other monies that Eva tosses around, to pay a modicum of rent?

All we hear time after time about charters is choice, choice, choice. Obviously school choice adheres to the tenets of capitalism, no? But when De Blasio is trying to impart the lessons of Adam Smith on charters to pay rent and not to live off the government dole, what happens? Eva has a coniption fit and says, "I want, I want!! I take, I need, I want!!"

We know part of the reason Governor Andy is doing this. He wants to run for president in 2016. He wants to do what Daddy never did. He wants to make his Daddy proud. Well, his Daddy would never do what he has done to education in this state. Do we really need another president with daddy issues?

Here's news. Andy, you are never, ever going to be president. No way, no how. You're not even going to get the nomination. And there are several reasons.

You have the Cuomo name which is still deemed too liberal in the rest of the country. You are a putz. You're a phony. And most of all, Hilary is going to run in 2016 and she will get the nomination over you in a heartbeat. But there is one more reason I believe you won't even get the nomination.

Governor Andy is going to be in the fight of his life this November. From what I see, this entire state, except the 2 of the 5 boroughs (Queens and Staten Island) and possibly Albany County (Just guessing) has had it with you and your education policies, among other ineptitude brought on by you.

Western New York, and what a great bunch of people they are (I lived in the Southern Tier for a year what a blast), are ready to riot. Long Island in my opinion is ready to secede, and Westchester, well Westchester likes Astorino and not you. You might win, but there will be no mandate. And after just reading where Astorino stands on charters, it looks like educators should get behind Howie Hawkins.

Cuomo and his enablers in the legislature could have at least have waited to see what the rents would be. I doubt it would have broken any charter schools bank and I am sure the rents would have been nominal. If anything to help with the upkeep of the plant.

Isn't it ironic? If Elliot Spitzer were able to show some self-restraint we might not be in this predicament?

Cuomo, he's got to go.

Where is the march on Albany by New York State teachers and parents? We can do better than 11,000 people!

OK, go back to what you were doing. The stream of outrage is over.

Albany is coming to the school for breakfast tomorrow morning. Not the entire city, just the people from Albany who are considered influential and advantageous. Why you ask yourself are the super duper big shots coming to my school. One word. Breakfast. Oh yeah, and air conditioning. Wait, that is three words. Or two if you hyphenate air-conditioning. AM I making sense?

John Deacon has invited every big shot that represents anyone south of Fordham Rd to the school because John Deacon wants central air conditioning for the school. It doesn't matter that Albany is cutting state aid to schools by over $300 million or that the city is having schools cut 2% from their budgets. John Deacon wants AC for everyone. How can you not see the leadership qualities of John Deacon in spearheading this initiative?

So what if the students do not have any books, materials, or a curriculum. To hell with the fact that in our school we do not have any working Xerox machines. Crocodile tears for the teachers who are allowed one ream of paper for the entire school year. Are the students prepared for the 21st century technologically? No freakin' way! Screw purchasing computers for the classrooms and software. As long as we have central AC the students will be able to ace any and all standardized tests and have John Deacon smelling like a rose instead of the pile of cow dung that John Deacon really is. John Deacon is a fine leader that knows how to prioritize the school needs. We see this every day this drive to prioritize the children's needs by having 35 F status teachers, 21 assistant principals, and one, yes ONE administrative teacher that no one in the school can figure out what she does. If anyone does know please let me know. I am desperate for knowledge.

I wonder if there will be an omelette station tomorrow morning.