I agree that the Charter issue and the Small School issue are not the same. However, I see them as related. Some people in NY have given up on the existing schools altogether, and these two, charters (which are small) and small schools (which, without oversight, get some of the regulation relief that charters are assumed to have), are being used as alternatives.

And in general, as separate as the two issues may be, we find many of the same groups of people taking opposing stances on both of them. It doesn’t have to be like that. Small schools and charter schools don’t have to be tightly linked. But in NYC they are.

It’s not easy to find a small school advocate who isn’t pushing charter schools, or a charter school advocate who’s not pushing small. Which makes the distinction, at least in NY, today, seem a little artificial.

Jonathan

I was there when Randi told us ‘No more additional time!” And then she agreed to the additional time.

Funny you chose to ignore my comments on ATRs, bathroom patrol and the demise of seniority rights.
Even posts on Edwize first blasting the Open Market then praising it, and much the same with DoE policies has readers like me trying to keep up with these flip flops.

So answer these questions:
Will NYC teachers follow the same contract Green Dot has now?????

Why didn’t Randi fight to make sure our contract provided for professional input instead of taking away our one major point of input–staff hiring?

Even the May rally was stopped–for what?? A 2-year deal that principals are not abiding by in their hiring practices. Why hire an experienced teacher who will be a burden on the payroll for years to come?

You bet I have a lot of questions and concerns. And unfortunately, I have been right on so many points. If I could forsee them, then so should a labor lawyer.

I was “right on” on the excessing situation.

Of course if attacking me personally makes you happy, be my guest.

If you had actually read the original posting you are commenting on, you would have found out that [1] there is no contract now and [2] why there is no contract now.

But that might get in the way of making wild assertions about extended school days and years…

Why let the facts get in the way?

If you check the ’05 archives you will find that the excessing issue, our greatest protection–seniority–was my biggest concern. Of course having professionals that have Master’s degree patrol bathrooms and halls was also demeaning. I am sorry to say I have been proven right. With the reorganization model, do you think Leo will post findings that prove senior teachers are being hired under the Open Market?

However, the writing is on the wall from this union that an extended school day and year,with no tenure will soon be coming. And I wouldn’t be surprised if Saturdays were added on the agenda. Teachers deserve a 2-day weekend.

Notice how “Professional Day” has never really been explained. The analogy of a college professor’s day is still unclear. Given that, how many future teachers and those already in the system will stay when they can do better elsewhere.

Defense? For years the biggest complaint about unions was the protection of “bad” teachers. Yet the union did nothing to find a way to work on that issue. And this union did not issue one statement when Klein referred to ATR’s as incompetent.
What about the excellent teachers who do not want to work in a reorganized school? Under this new system they will have no other choice or risk becoming an ATR.

Has the Green Dot/UFT contract been posted yet? If not, why not? I would love to see in Green Dot will now allow a teacher who has an emergency to leave early w/o being docked. Professionals usually don’t get docked, factory workers do.

And I still contend that a watered-down contract is not the definition of “unionized”.

Regarding the breakups (I went through one myself), I agree that the union could have fought them and didn’t. But that’s not the same as pushing for them.

Whether or not the union accepted these closings I do think it was unconscionable that they negotiated away excessing rights for the affected teachers, especially without warning those who could have transfered while they still had the right to do so.

But I would say that even if one found this argument unconvincing, it is still clear to me that as a matter of practical politics charter schools are here to stay as part of the American educational landscape. In my view, political strategies based on the notion that they can be closed down are non-starters. It follows that the organization of charter schools is a strategic imperative for teacher unions: if we do not succeed in that work, we will lose American education, just as the UAW lost the auto industry when it failed to organize the non-union auto parts sector. It is my view that in order to organize charter schools, you need to have a positive engagement with them. What our two charter schools and our partnership with Green Dot makes clears is that the UFT is not opposed to charter schools — as anti-union charter school operators would want to claim — but to charter schools in which teachers have no voice.

Closed
Monroe
South Bronx
Morris
Taft
Theodore Roosevelt

Closing
Evander
Walton
Stevenson

Downsized to little more than mini-schools (and concentrating special ed and ELLs in one school)
Columbus
Kennedy

Downsized
Lehman
Truman

Untouched
Clinton

There’s also Bronx Science, but it serves 90% kids from out of borough. And the 4 vocational schools didn’t get cut up.

Were we playing defense as 12 of our 13 academic comprehensive high schools in the Bronx were closed or downsized? I didn’t really see much defense, aside from Columbus, where it a homegrown effort managed to keep a rump of a school.

I don’t believe, by the way, that Leo agrees at all with

“If the UFT had been able to stop charters from opening, it wouldn’t have needed to open its own schools, or cut deals with charter operators.”

We can ask him.

Jonathan