100 Days into NYSUT's Future

As its first-ever contested election fades into NYSUT's past, uncertainty and optimism churn within New York's largest teachers union. Many members worry if the new leadership—led by President Karen Magee—will do anything to stifle the onslaught of Governor Cuomo's tax cap or his love affair with charter schools. While Magee has talked of the tax cap, her first walk may be towards renegotiating the state's teacher evaluation plan (APPR), aiming for a one-size-fits-all system that stretches from Montauk to Massena. Considering the unwieldy plans some of Magee's biggest supporters negotiated within their own districts, a revised APPR could pollute hundreds of other districts throughout the state.

Laced with Common Core tests and modules, APPR is an insidious way to evaluate teachers. However, NYSUT has a more urgent issue to combat than an evaluation system which last year rated 92% of its members as either "effective" or "highly effective." 

Economic inequality remains the greatest threat to public schools and our democracy.

Because of unjust budget cuts, 35,000 teachers in New York have lost their jobs since 2009. It will require the efforts of many to close this wound.  Just as democracy demands many faces, so does justice. Unions must be a face of justice, and if NYSUT and other organizations can't stare the plutocrats down, who will? With 600,000 members, NYSUT possesses the power to confront inequality across the state and nation. Magee and other leaders must address this issue at every turn, and through every medium. After all, it is a leader's job to inspire and educate the masses, and it will require many hands to exterminate the vermin of inequality.

Will Magee meet the task? Like all presidents, her first 100 days may answer this question. This August, NYSUT will decide who to endorse in the state's gubernatorial election. The oligarchical Cuomo needs NYSUT if he wants the support of the AFL-CIO. Cuomo has talked and acted as anything but an education proponent, threatening the "death penalty" for public schools while shaking hands at rallies for privately-run charters.  NYSUT need look no further than Cuomo for a connection to the privatization of public education. The organization only feeds this beast by supporting candidates so beholden to wealthy donors. Though logic calls on people far and wide to rally outside of Cuomo's doors daily, Magee recently said, "the field is open as to who [NYSUT] endorses." Such words do little to spur members against the pernicious policies of Cuomo, as raccoons require only a crack to gain entry.

Thanks to the Supreme Court's decision in McCutcheon vs. FEC, billionaires have permission to burn even more of their money on our withering democracy, which cries out for campaign finance reform.  Oxymoronic justices continue to equate spending with speech. As a result, those with the most cash continue to have the most say in our elections. A few people possess too much power, and power grows corrupt in the hands of the few. Educators throughout the nation can thank this imbalanced system for laws ending collective bargaining and tenure, tilting the pendulum further in favor of plutocrats. 

Workers could be dealt an even greater blow this June, when the Supreme Court may rule on Harris v. Quinn. Should the court rule in favor of Harris, public unions across the nation would begin bleeding members, lured away by the sirens of a few extra dollars saved in their paychecks. In addition to a diminishing voice at the ballot box, workers would also be silenced at their workplaces, and likely blame their listless unions for the collapse of their livelihoods under the dictatorial demands of bosses. 

With many districts careening toward insolvency, NYSUT must start chopping at the roots of inequality before it grows too dense. For example, the next time Magee talks to Cuomo, she should ask him about his duplicitous campaign finance law, meant only to encourage a challenger against Tom DiNapoli in this year's comptroller race. DiNapoli, who opted out of the law, has been a friend to public education, with many urging him to challenge Cuomo in a democratic primary, something DiNapoli has resisted. It’s likely Cuomo’s $33 million war chest has something to do with this; yet another voice silenced by money.

Magee should also ask Cuomo why he decided to disband his Moreland Commission, which had been tasked with investigating corruption throughout the state.  Was Cuomo's commission nothing more than a tool to prod legislators into passing his budget? Did Cuomo fear his own commission would soon start eating its host?    

The next 100 days will determine much about the future of NYSUT and other unions around the country. More people must begin asking and answering the right questions if we wish to salvage our schools and democracy.

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So Goes the UFT, So Goes the NYSUT Election?

Amid an outcry from members over the sale of public education to plutocrats, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) has stopped accepting donations to its Innovation Fund from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Missed among its squirming within the tentacles of privatization was the AFT's slight gesture of solidarity, since a proposed raise in member dues promises to recoup half of the money the organization received each year from Gates. With organized labor drinking cold coffee these days, $500,000 from 1.5 million teachers suddenly buys a lot more democracy than $1 million from a guy who couldn’t teach his way out of a wet paper bag. The AFT should lead similar efforts to stem the stream of plutocratic money into itself and public education before our schools are overrun by robots.      

Meanwhile, as Governor Andrew Cuomo rams nonsensical and undemocratic education reforms down New Yorkers’ throats, New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) will hold an election at its Representative Assembly (RA) on April 5 to decide who will lead one of the AFT’s largest affiliates for the next 3 years. Though democracy should be baked into the marrow of unions, NYSUT’s election reeks of disparity.       

As NYSUT’s largest local, the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) will be represented by 800 delegates at the RA—roughly one-third of the votes. Each one of these delegates belongs to an invite-only group within the UFT called the Unity Caucus, run by UFT President Michael Mulgrew. In order to be “eligible” for membership in the Unity Caucus and vote in NYSUT elections, UFT members must “abide by its rules”, which include:

· To express criticism of caucus policies within the Caucus;
· To support the decisions of Caucus/Union leadership in public or Union forums;
· To support in Union elections only those individuals who are endorsed by the Caucus, and to actively campaign for his/her election;
· To run for Union office only with the support of the caucus;

· To serve, if elected to Union office, in a manner consistent with Union/Caucus policies and to give full and faithful service in that office;

These draconian rules—in addition to shamelessly soliciting the votes of retirees across the country—have kept the Unity Caucus in control of the UFT for nearly 50 years.  With no room for dissent in Unity, there’s no room for dissent in the UFT. Consequently, with no room for dissent in its largest local, there’s less room for dissent in NYSUT.  Before any votes are cast at the RA, the “individuals who are endorsed by the Caucus”—in this year’s case the entire Revive NYSUT slate of candidates—have an 800 delegate lead. Should 800 devotees to undemocratic caucus exert this much influence in an organization of 600,000 members?

Mulgrew, whose achievements as UFT president so far include zero contracts and a state-imposed teacher evaluation plan (APPR), has a lot riding on a Revive victory, including a suitcase full of back pay if he can parlay it into an AFL-CIO endorsement for Cuomo. Revive’s room temperature stance on Cuomo has done little to allay fears they won’t try to win over the Lobbyist for the Students and push an endorsement, or at least force NYSUT to remain neutral. For example, at a recent NYSUT candidates forum in Long Island, Andy Pallotta, running for re-election on the insurgent slate, meekly admitted he wouldn’t “personally” endorse Cuomo after being pressed by a skeptical audience. The UFT-bred Pallotta’s sincerity strains credulity in light of his $10,000 expenditure of voluntary union money (VOTE-COPE) at Cuomo’s birthday party and his designs to donate $250,000 more to the New York Democratic Party, an election-year goody bag for the governor.

Unity delegates represent a myriad of members and interests throughout the nation’s largest school system. Shouldn’t they at least be allowed to vote for the individual candidates of their choice? If anything, a group representing so many members in NYSUT’s first-ever contested election should consider carefully which candidates it chooses to endorse, unlike this year, when Mulgrew endorsed Revive before many of his members even knew there was an election. Though most teachers in New York have made up their minds about Cuomo, few even know who Karen Magee is.      

Cuomo will continue to reward his highest bidder, however. Even if Mulgrew does get his back pay, he’ll still have to deal with Cuomo’s APPR and the metastasis of charter schools throughout the city. Mulgrew would be best served by rallying his members against Cuomo’s duplicity, such as his proposal to use the state’s budget to “protect” charter schools while at the same time calling for the “death penalty” for public schools.     

NYSUT's Past is Precedent

Those still not buying Mulgrew's misguided motivations need look no further than NYSUT’s recent past for a precedent. In the 2002 gubernatorial election, the Union was sidelined after the UFT endorsed Republican George Pataki in his race against Democratic challenger H. Carl McCall.   NYSUT was forced out of that race while a younger and well-financed Cuomo poked McCall throughout the primary.  Pataki easily took care of a wounded McCall in November, with many NYSUT members appalled by their Union’s lack of support for McCall and the UFT’s bow to Pataki.  The words of a rank and file teacher from a 2002 New York Times article echo what could soon reverberate again throughout the state:

''I am embarrassed by this endorsement,'' said Barbara Glassman, a Queens special education teacher and supporter of Mr. McCall. ''We have a tradition of backing our friends, and Carl McCall has consistently been a unionist and friend of education.''

It didn’t hurt that Pataki included $200 million in the state budget that year for the UFT’s raises, which immediately followed then UFT President Randi Weingarten awarding Pataki the UFT’s John Dewey Humanitarian Award. Weingarten "grew up in politics" with Andrew Cuomo and groomed Mulgrew as her replacement. Similar to her protege, Weingarten was also in search of a contract in 2002 and had run out of strings to pull, repeatedly backing the wrong mayoral candidates to face Michael Bloomberg, an enemy of the labor movement. As McCall himself observed at the time:

“You know, they [the UFT] need a contract,” McCall said. “They need more money. And, you know, he’s holding them up. ‘You want more money? Then do something for me.’ ”

McCall may as well have been talking about the UFT and Revive's current flirtation with Cuomo. Following the UFT’s endorsement of Pataki later that year, McCall spoke into the future and Mulgrew: 

“Anybody who would support the Governor on the basis of his education program and his education policies would be betraying the schoolchildren of New York State.”

McCall was likely unaware of his power for prophecy at the time.

An Opportunity for MORE Voices

With major NYSUT positions and policies at stake this year, New York City teachers unfortunately need a written invitation to be heard by a local that suppresses some of its strongest voices.  Facing an intransigent Unity, where can these voices go to be heard?

Ironically, back to their state union.

Running as independents in the NYSUT election are seven members of the UFT, led by Queens teacher Arthur Goldstein, who’s challenging Pallotta for executive vice president. These candidates encompass passionate, rank and file voices within the UFT, some who've even been heard on the national stage. Goldstein, a longtime UFT chapter leader and “NYC’s best teacher-blogger" (according to Diane Ravitch), is seeking to “wake up the sleeping giant that is our membership .” A staunch defender of public education, Goldstein has relentlessly censured city, state, and national leaders alike for their attacks on the profession. NYSUT will be well-served with him as its legislative leader, a strong voice for a position in desperate need of revival. 

UFT candidates for at-large directors include Julie Cavanagh (who unsuccessfully ran against Mulgrew for president last year), James Eterno, Lauren Cohen, Jia Lee, Mike Schirtzer, and Francesco Portelos, a whistle-blowing teacher from Staten Island who's been exiled from his school and recently jailed for excessive satire.  Portelos's strife taught him the value of unionism and can lend valuable experience in a climate in which many teachers have bullseyes on their backs.      

Should these UFT dissidents win prominent positions in NYSUT, they would suddenly have a bully pulpit to channel an activistic UFT demographic, broadcasting the multitudinous needs of their members around the state and nation.  No longer pinned down by the Unity Caucus, NYSUT's largest local would unfurl a tapestry of voices above the dictates of the few.  Never before has such an opportunity presented itself to the UFT's rank and file members.   

A Stronger Union

On April 5, Union delegates from around the state will gather in New York City beneath a wrinkled banner of democracy. Hopes remain high, however, that this banner will re-emerge smoother than before, with more members pressing its principles.  Elections are only as healthy as the number of people who vote, after all.  Though Mulgrew, Pallotta, and Revive may have locked up the votes of 800 delegates, they cannot guarantee a majority. This year's RA should attract more members than ever, fighting for a stronger NYSUT.

And much to Arthur Goldstein's satisfaction, the sleeping giant may have already been awakened...

                        

  

This November, Vote RODE

As if voters demanded more evidence of his ineptitude, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo publicly pondered education policy on multiple occasions this week, once in a television ad and again at an Albany rally.  

The Lobbyist for the Students now thinks he knows exactly which way the breeze is blowing inside the hurricane of education deform.  With legislators under pressure to legislate and reform the Board of Regents, Cuomo tumbles in the wind, cozying up to parents against Common Core tests while paradoxically insisting the tests be used to evaluate and award teachers. The same man who two weeks ago described Common Core as causing “massive chaos” throughout the state, now claims it’s “heading in the right direction.”  Cuomo suggests that the “massive anxiety” over “unfair” tests will subside once the scores are used primarily to punish teachers and not students.          

Rather than brandishing a sign at a rally against Common Core, Cuomo spoke to the signs at a rally for charter schools, promising to stop the closure of schools that don’t even exist yet.  The governor rushed to speak for schools run by his billionaire buddies while touting an undemocratic tax cap that has drained the resources of districts throughout the state.   With $800,000 from charter supporters fattening his campaign wallet, it’s no wonder Cuomo has yet to “form a hard opinion” on whether his teacher evaluation system (APPR) should be used to evaluate teachers at charter schools. After all, why leave the hiring and firing of teachers up to due process when a CEO can take care of it?    

Given the choice between corporate Cuomo and charter-friendly Republican Rob Astorino, many voters in New York have resigned themselves to four more years of education malfeasance. Cowed by Cuomo’s campaign dollars, education advocates find only futility in the search for someone to oppose the governor’s bloated political machine. Yet parents and teachers have a real issue to push, an issue directly involving their kids, communities, and our democracy. New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) and other organizations must mobilize their resources behind a campaign which forcefully challenges Cuomo’s pernicious attacks on public education while shining a spotlight on Citizens United and the dissolution of our political system beneath the paws of Quid Pro Quo. Will a candidate emerge as a spokesperson for this cause and, at the very least, expose Cuomo to a wider audience? This could provide Cuomo the perfect opportunity to share his vision of education with a national audience. Many Americans would gladly debate the presidential hopeful regarding the merits of merit pay, Common Core, and charter schools, likely extinguishing any hopes he had for 2016.    

Supporters of public education in New York and around the country cannot be intimidated by the largess of PAC-funded politicians, as the fight for their schools is happening in the same arena as the sale of our democracy.  Voters must blur the lines between parties, shouting louder than the dollars of plutocrats. 

Perhaps what is needed is a new political party, which, in the tradition of Jimmy McMillan, never fails to remind voters of its cause. I’m proposing the creation of the Running for Office is Too Damn Expensive Party (RODE).

You can make your checks payable to save public ed. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    

The Prince of Common Core

According to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, the Common Core standards have caused “massive confusion, massive anxiety, and massive chaos” throughout the state. In the same interview, the self-anointed “lobbyist for the students” also bizarrely implied that he’s ready to pick up a placard and join parent protests against the same standards he recently called “state of the art.” Cuomo is clearly conflicted over Common Core, and his foot sinks deeper into his mouth whenever he says anything about education these days.  The governor’s own Common Core panel has so far only stoked this confusion, soliciting from speakers ways to merely improve public opinion on the flawed standards.     

Sealed in the same glossy package, Common Core relies on high-stakes tests to bring home the bacon and fry it in the pan. Reformers have used these tests to both punish and profit from the public, enforcing emotional and financial consequences in the name of higher standards.  As a result, if Cuomo’s own teacher evaluation law (APPR) is to have any teeth, Cuomo needs Common Core as much as Common Core needs him. In another ambiguous utterance, the governor recently chastised the Board of Regents after they proposed allowing teachers to appeal any dismissals related to Common Core’s implementation. In other words, the union-busting Cuomo is okay with Common Core as long as some teachers get fired. What Cuomo doesn’t know, or want to admit, is that Common Core withers and dies without high-stakes tests feeding its fetid soil, the same high-stakes tests at the vanguard of his APPR.

In a 2011 letter to Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch, Cuomo urged the adoption of a teacher evaluation plan that he said would be the “building blocks to greater performance in our education system.” As Cuomo’s plan runs riot throughout the state, however, the governor now says he has “nothing to do with” education in New York. Cuomo’s equivocation over Common Core should remind New Yorkers of another classic equivocator, his father and former New York governor Mario Cuomo.

Dubbed “Hamlet on the Hudson", Mario Cuomo could never make up his mind about running for president, agonizing publicly over the pros and cons of a presidential bid. While the elder Cuomo pondered his power, Prince Andrew's ambitions simmered.  Now, similar to his father’s vacillation over seeking higher office, Cuomo waffles over Common Core, exhibiting the contradictory tendencies of his father. The difference, however, is that Cuomo’s indecision is directly affecting students, parents, and teachers on a daily basis. His refusal to push for a pause in high-stakes testing while only vaguely criticizing Common Core's implementation does nothing to help communities already saddled with the gap elimination adjustment and Cuomo’s undemocratic tax cap, with many schools soon facing insolvency.  

Cuomo assumed he could ride the wave of education reform all the way to the White House in 2016.  Ironically, his double-speak on Common Core could drown him in this quest, with the full-force of his father’s legacy washing over him. As he now tries to walk his commitment to the Common Core all the way back to joining parents on the picket line, those parents might be asking, what will the Prince’s sign say?

Sadly, Andrew Cuomo doesn’t even know the answer to that question.

 

     

Cuomo vs. the Committee of 600,000

Between 2011 and 2012, New York teachers (NYSUT) spent $5.9 million to influence the political process. Opponents of unions will point to this as business as usual, just another example of Big Labor’s dominance of the system. Campaign donations in hand, politicians pull strings to protect and promote lazy public school teachers. However, business has been everything but usual in public education of late.  As teachers around the country grapple with budget cuts and Common Core, 300,000 of their colleagues have lost their job since 2009, and morale is at a twenty-year low.  With public education under assault from all angles, just how much did NYSUT’s millions buy for its members?

As it turns out, not much. During that same two-year period, the Committee to Save New York (CSNY), a pro-corporation, anti-union PAC formed with Governor Cuomo’s blessing, spent $17 million on lobbying—about $11 million more than teachers.  Fueled by large contributions from a few anonymous billionaires, CSNY and Cuomo successfully advanced their agenda in New York by slashing worker pensions and corporate taxes, topped with a pernicious property tax cap on school districts. Though CSNY recently filed papers to dissolve itself, saying that its “mission was largely successful”, (coincidentally coinciding with new requirements to reveal its donors) more groups like CSNY are bound to metastasize, touting the same desire to “neutralize the impact of special interest money.” However, when a small group of wealthy people can quickly coalesce and spend three times as much money on lobbying as 600,000 union members, does this level the scale, or knock it over?

Since the Citizens United ruling in 2010, what's happening in New York is happening all around the country, as a minority of wealthy individuals and the PACs they fund muffles the masses, and public financing initiatives have stalled with plutocrats’ billions subsuming the system. Though Cuomo himself is pushing his own version of campaign finance reform in his current budget, how sincere is he, given that he’s only aided and abetted the current system as governor? Will Cuomo refund the $33 million currently in his re-election war chest? Doubtful.       

With rank and file teachers’ anger toward their governor’s policies spilling out at forums and rallies across the state, NYSUT’s officers recently dropped $10,000 of union money at Cuomo’s birthday party, dancing the night away to Billy Joel amid the embers of members’ money.  VOTE-COPE, the union’s voluntary political action fund, is supposed to be put to prudent use, supporting politicians who “understand the importance of education.”  The fund raises the volume of NYSUT’s voice and helps engender favorable conditions for organized labor. Cuomo, however, has been anything but favorable to New York’s parents and teachers, slashing school aid while stubbornly moving forward with moronic standardized tests. Andy Pallotta, NYSUT’s executive vice president who authorized the donation to Cuomo, would like his members to believe that $10,000 was the price for a seat at Cuomo's table—albeit an expensive one. Pallotta and Revive NYSUT (the slate of candidates he’s running with to unseat NYSUT President Dick Iannuzzi and his officers) liken Cuomo to a bossy principal or superintendent who they want to “win over.” However, is $10,000—or even $5.9 million—enough to win over Andrew Cuomo, or any other politician whose pockets are already overflowing with corporate cash?

Cuomo’s actions speak for themselves, and Pallotta and other union leaders' seats, while still in the same room, are now at the kiddie table.  Workers have been shooed away from the grown-ups by plutocrats and corporate interests. Unable to compete with corporate dollars, unions must change course and admit that their members’ modest political donations are no longer enough to win over politicians like Cuomo. If union dollars no longer shout, what then must they say?

For one, it need not be the job of unions to win over politicians. Politicians must win over all voters, including union members.  As echoed in VOTE-COPE’s mission statement, member donations must go toward candidates who already understand the importance of education and have proven this through their records. Union money cannot be wasted trying to change the minds of leaders who’ve already had their minds made up by the dollars of hedge fund managers, Michelle Rhee, and Bill Gates. Member donations should be used to defeat—not convert—candidates like Cuomo, and our present and future leaders must pay a political price for siding with corporations over people.

As union membership shrinks to its lowest level in 98 years, it is in every member's interest to help others form unions and launch campaigns to educate the public on how unions benefit all working people. With America as unequal as ever, each union member lost to budget cuts tips the scale further in favor of the one-percent.  Teachers unions can be instrumental in helping parents better understand current education reforms like the Common Core so that they’ll be best able to fight for their kids at the local level. The more parents know, the more supportive they’ll be of educators, ready to vote for leaders and laws that uphold the social contract. As voting rights fall under conservative crosshairs around the country, unions can also help get out the vote, engaging citizens in federal, state, and school board elections.  

Each year, NYSUT’s Committee of 100 travels to Albany to lobby for the organization's interests, just one way members can engage in the struggle to save public education. NYSUT needs a committee of 600,000 fighting in every corner of the state, from legislators' offices to doctors’ offices, town halls to shopping malls. With the clouds of Citizens United and corporate money darkening the political landscape, unions must parlay members’ financial support into grassroots activism, not futile efforts to persuade an anti-union governor who shines his shoes with $10,000 bills. Though $5.9 million is a lot less than $17 million, it will be worth a lot more after educating and amplifying the voices of everyone who cares about public education.  

Why the NYSUT Election Should Matter to Members

The ax against asinine education reforms is starting to swing in New York. Politicians are writing laws to unravel Common Core, and more and more local leaders are speaking out against the gap elimination adjustment and a crushing property tax cap. Changing laws is not easy, however, and those rallying against nonsensical reforms in New York and around the country have a task akin to an exorcism.

On the front lines of this battle are Dick Iannuzzi, president of New York’s largest teachers union (NYSUT), and his executive vice president, Andy Pallotta.  Paradoxically, both are fighting the powers that be while fighting each other, as Pallotta has helped form another group within NYSUT to challenge Iannuzzi’s presidency that calls itself “Revive NYSUT.” Running for president on the Revive ticket is not Pallotta but Karen Magee, president of the Harrison Association of Teachers. Magee has remained silent since accepting the nomination while Pallotta wines and dines politicians on VOTE-COPE money, the union’s voluntary political action fund. 

On the surface, Pallotta is only doing his job; NYSUT’s executive vice president is expected to push legislation on behalf of the members. As the campaign unfolds, however, many local leaders are starting to question just how effective Andy Pallotta has been as NYSUT’s chief legislative advocate. After all, if Pallotta is expected to push favorable laws, why have New York’s teachers been saddled with the tax cap, reduced pension tiers, Common Core, and InBloom? Pallotta’s inaction against this legislation sings louder than Billy Joel at Governor Cuomo’s birthday party.

Pallotta, the only NYSUT incumbent running unopposed, cut his teeth in the UFT, NYSUT’s largest yet smallest local. For example, only 14% percent of working teachers voted in the UFT’s last presidential election. This minority of active members and retirees who reelected Michael Mulgrew also essentially controls over a third of the votes for NYSUT president, and Mulgrew and the UFT have already endorsed the Revive slate. Should Revive come to power, Mulgrew’s UFT will be first in line for handouts from Cuomo as long as Cuomo’s signature reforms of the tax cap and APPR remained unmarred by Pallotta. An endorsement of Cuomo by NYSUT (spurring a subsequent AFL-CIO endorsement) wouldn’t hurt, either.  

Though rank and file teachers were among the first to see through the pseudo-democrat Cuomo, Pallotta, Mulgrew, and the rest of Revive have not sounded the alarm against him, opposing him in lukewarm spirit only. Many have questioned where Revive’s loyalty lies, as the group seems more interested in ousting Iannuzzi than Cuomo. Though elections are healthy for any organization—this contest has already engaged more members in unionism—NYSUT cannot afford to be more outspoken against itself than Cuomo. Ideally, Revive should be strong enough to oppose Iannuzzi and help NYSUT find a viable candidate to run against Cuomo.  This would undermine Revive’s tenuous platform, however, and require Pallotta to finally step off the political cocktail circuit and into the offices of legislators.

Last June, nearly 20,000 members of NYSUT converged in Albany to demand action against laws passed under Pallotta’s watch. The One Voice United rally was President Iannuzzi’s own attempt to awaken our leaders in the capital. Though Mulgrew failed to awaken his own members for the rally (most of the UFT did not attend), One Voice United aroused Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch, whose money and dark-rimmed glasses determine much of New York’s education policies. Concerned that NYSUT was co-opting the reform narrative, Tisch and Education Commissioner John King soon embarked on a series of community forums around the state to clear up “misconceptions” about Common Core. 

By anyone’s standards, the Common Core forums were a disaster for the Regents, with passionate parents bringing everything but the torches and tomatoes.  Tisch and King’s detached, myopic views alienated people at each stop on the tour, and calls for King’s resignation before the forums suddenly seemed premature.  NYSUT’s “Speak Truth to Power” campaign had reached the grassroots, with Albany leaders on the run. Meanwhile, with no Pallotta-pushed repeal in sight, NYSUT’s legal department filed a lawsuit against the undemocratic tax cap. NYSUT also recently withdrew its support for the Common Core, and moved to vote “no confidence” in Commissioner King, who has screwed his feet even tighter to his stubborn positions since the disastrous forums.  Iannuzzi began picking up where Palllotta never left off, joined by people and politicians of all political persuasions.  As Iannuzzi’s long game played out, the Revive candidates huddled behind the scenes, biding their time until their certain victory in April.

Revive should not become too complacent, however, as local presidents will have something to say about Magee and the rest of Revive at this year’s Representative Assembly (RA).  Iannuzzi, along with other incumbents Maria Neira (Vice President), Kathleen Donahue (Vice President), and Lee Cutler (Secretary Treasurer), have formed Stronger Together and are urging leaders from all locals to attend this year’s RA, regardless of their size.  If NYSUT is truly a democractic organization, multitudinous voices from all corners of the state will drown the din of Magee and the UFT this April in New York City.    

New York’s teachers are calling for help all over, demanding action from their union. Though slow to unfold, Dick Iannuzzi’s actions are now beginning to come into view. Common Core has garnered unanimous disdain, and the public is finally starting to side with teachers again. NYSUT must keep this momentum moving, and solidarity needs affirmation now more than ever before. This election should matter to NYSUT members, as their union is the only thing standing between them and the twisted visions of plutocrats.   

Who Funds New York's Funds?

From the Regents Research Fund to the Educational Fund, a small group of billionaires are having fun running education funds in New York.  According to Webster’s, a fund is “an amount of money used for a special purpose.”  Though the purposes of these funds vary, their purposes have asserted their presence in the minds of legislators across New York State. After all, money talks and writes laws.

In his recent “State of the State” speech, Governor Andrew Cuomo proposed the creation of a “teacher excellence fund”, which he touts as the “first statewide teacher performance bonus program."  This program amounts to nothing more than merit pay, as teachers will be “eligible” for a $20,000 bonus if they are rated “highly effective” according to their district’s Annual Professional Performance Review (APPR) plan. Passed in 2010, APPR is a controversial teacher evaluation law that Cuomo wanted to—according to one source—“force down [New Yorkers’] throats.”  Cuomo is now proposing to force money down teachers' throats to get them to teach better. The failures of merit pay are so epic, however, that an obvious question once again arises: how can a politician be this ignorant about education? Though this question is asked so frequently these days that it has become rhetorical, its answer is elementary: follow the funding.    

Unless the teacher’s union (NYSUT) agrees, Cuomo’s merit pay program is unlikely to gain traction. However, if NYSUT does agree, who will fund it? Would the same billionaires funding the other funds suddenly fund New York’s teachers? Should this scenario come to pass, teachers could conceivably become more indebted to the likes of Bill Gates than their colleagues, much like politicians who are more indebted to plutocrats than their constituents.  

With the passage in 2011 of Cuomo’s undemocratic tax cap, tax dollars going into New York’s public schools are dwindling among growing class sizes and mandates. It may soon reach the point where public schools and teachers depend upon a few billionaires to stay afloat, the same billionaires who’ve created other funds aimed at undermining things like collective bargaining and tenure. The same billionaires who beg for lower taxes at the expense of workers' pensions. Money is power, and with more money flowing from the funds of the few, their power over public education policies will only proliferate. Look no further for examples of America’s economic inequality than our public education system.

In failing to even mention the popular uprising against the Common Core and standardized testing in his speech, Cuomo once again ignored the majority of New Yorkers in a favor of the funds of the few. Not coincidentally, this wealthy few also support using Common Core tests to evaluate teachers, and have donated heavily to Cuomo’s campaign. Hence, the majority still struggles to shout louder than the piercing rustle of private cash, with Cuomo’s political ambitions masquerading as educational ignorance. This phenomenon is not confined to education, by the way. Since the Citizens United ruling in 2010, the money of the few has overwhelmed the voices of the many across the nation.  From education to energy, women’s rights to voting rights, our democracy is under siege, with “Quid Pro Quo” ready to take its place upon the Great Seal.    

Former New York Governor and U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt once warned of “an invisible government” which owes “no responsibility to the people.” Roosevelt sought to eliminate this “unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics.” Andrew Cuomo should heed his predecessor’s words. The more control he surrenders to the wealthy few, the more our democratic principles suffer. Public education need not be placed at the mercy of a privileged minority.

Like it or not, we are all part of the public, and we should all have a say in how our kids are educated.