The Times They Are A-Changin'

I was discussing the merits of Bob Dylan as a poet with a colleague the other day. I already knew most of Dylan's famous lyrics, of course, but sometimes when you see them on paper (or on a screen) it makes you see them anew.

One of the qualities of a great poet is the timelessness of the words. With that, I'll leave you with a verse of The Times They Are A-Changin', and ask that you ponder how it's stood the test of time relative to the Occupy Wall Street movement. Oh, and do yourself a favor and listen to the song, too.

Come senators, congressman
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he who gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.

My Day as an ATR

I am not an ATR, but yesterday I believe I got a small taste of what it is to be one.

Yesterday was Election Day, so I, along with thousands of you, got shuttled off to another school for
"Professional Development", which is DOE speak for lecturers droning on for hours in a way, which, if you or I taught that way in our classes, we'd rightly be U-rated. But I digress. The point is that I was sent to a school that is nowhere near me, and I was only informed on Monday of what would be happening Tuesday.

This wreaked all kinds of havoc in my life. I had to arrange for someone to take my daughter to school, because I had to leave far earlier than usual. I also had to arrange for someone to pick her up in case the PD went the distance (it did) and I was unable to get to her at the usual time. Then, of course, I had to figure out how to get to the school I was assigned to, map it on Google, and decide whether driving or public transportation would be the smarter choice. I opted for the subway even thought I knew it would take me longer, because I had no idea what parking would be like. I didn't know whether to bring lunch or not because I had no idea whether there was any place to eat at this strange school. In all, the day cost me quite a bit of time and stress to arrange. My day ended up being two hours longer than usual, and when it was over, all I could think is that I didn't want to ever leave my building again.

I thought about ATRs a lot yesterday. They face the same dilemma as I did on a weekly basis. Who'll take care of their children? How will they park, if they can park at all? What and where will they eat? Of course, real ATRs, not temporary ones like me, face even more problems on a regular basis, such as:

Will there be anyone to talk to?
Will the administration like me?
Who will I be teaching? What subject?
Will the students I'm assigned behave? If not, will anyone care?
Will I get a bathroom key and a secure place to leave my belongings?
Will I get a job here or do I start this all over again next week?
And perhaps most importantly, how long will this go on???

I had the consolation of knowing that however crappy my day turned out to be, it was simply a day, not a DOE-mandated sentence. Today, I am back in my cozy classroom (cozy not because it's large, but overcrowded), and I am truly glad to be here. If I were an ATR, I don't know how long I would last.

Maybe that's the point. Maybe the DOE is trying to disrupt the lives of ATRs to the breaking point, in the hope that they will all quit rather than continue in education limbo. For ATRs, every day is Election Day, only much, much worse.

Mic Check

We need this to happen to Mayor4Life and Governor 1% Cuomo!

The Boss on the 99%

The Two Per Cent Solution

We have passed the two year mark in waiting for a contract. PERB is nowhere to be found, and the UFT has apparently decided to enter radio silence mode as not a single article in NY Teacher talks about our lack of a contract.

The UFT has apparently decided to "wait out" this mayor on the theory that we will get a better deal from whoever takes the reins when Mayor4life's 12 year siege on the public schools finally comes to an end in 2013.

Bad idea.

First of all, the union has often said that we should wait for a new mayor to get a better deal. We waited out Koch for 12 years, Dinkins did little for us for another 4, and Giuliani screwed us for 8. Now, ten years into the Bloomberg administration, we are supposed to wait another two years for our shining knight to come through and shower us with the money we deserve.

It's not gonna happen. We can't afford to wait this mayor out.

Let's do the math. We rightly want the 4% per year that other unions got in the last round of contracts. Let's assume that unions get the measly 1.25% that's been budgeted for unions over the next two years. That would mean that if we wait for Bloomberg to leave office before we negotiate, we will be 10.5% behind where we should be. Does anyone really think that any new mayor will give us a 10.5% raise as soon as he or she walks through the doors of City Hall? Do you believe that in 2013, we will receive all that money retroactive to 2009? No way in hell that will happen, even if Michael Mulgrew is elected mayor.


Apart from all that, can you wait another two or three years for a raise? I know my family is feeling the pinch right now.

I have a solution that might work--a two percent solution. Let's forget the 4% that we are never going to get no matter what. Let the mayor break the pattern, and we can once and for all break the bonds of pattern bargaining that has suppressed teacher salaries for too long. Let's ask for 2% retroactive for each year to 2009, and 2% for this year and next. That would be a total of 8% by 2012 when this mayor is set to leave office. It's not 10.5%, but it is close.

Would the mayor go for this? I think so. It's a pretty easy sell. He can claim that he gave us half what other unions got. In addition, we give him the Danielson framework that he wants and is going to get anyway eventually. He can then claim that his shrewd negotiating is what led to him being able to claim all that Race to the Top money, which he can't get without union support. In return, we get 8 of the 10.5% we deserve. Not perfect, but a hell of a lot more than we have now.

In 2013, we can start fresh with a new mayor and 8% in our pockets.

Any thoughts?

Saint? iDon'tThinkSo

I really don't want to speak ill of the dead, but there sure is one thing you can say about Steve Jobs--he hired the best PR folks money could buy. His recent death has inspired a deluge of fawning, drippy, worshipping fluff pieces such that the next step must surely be canonization.

Before we start ordering the stained glass, let's remind ourselves of a few things. The man was a billionaire many times over, and you don't get there without stepping on people. A LOT of people. Despite an estimated worth of over 8 billion dollars, he ended Apple's philanthropic efforts in 1997 because he wanted his company to make more profits. He never restored those efforts despite the knowledge that he was terminally ill and that Apple had grown into one of the most profitable companies in the world. Surely a smart man like Jobs knew that he couldn't take it with him, yet he was singularly reluctant to part with it. Even Bloomberg and Gates, for all their failings in the education sphere, have contributed far more of their wealth to charity.

Perdido Street School blog meticulously detailed how Apple and Jobs used child labor to help build their fortunes. And who can forget that there was a rash of factory workers in China committing suicide presumably because of the dreadful working conditions while putting together all those iPods? Jobs claimed that he was going to do something about it, but all I ever heard was that he put steel mesh over the windows to prevent more workers from jumping. Forcing assembly line workers to toil in 34 hour shifts isn't exactly the stuff saints are made of.

Since this is an education blog, I may as well mention that Jobs was anti-union and anti-teacher, having infamously said, "The problem [in education] of course is the unions. The unions are the worst thing that ever happened to education because it’s not a meritocracy. It turns into a bureaucracy, which is exactly what has happened." Presumably, if Jobs had run the schools, he'd have broken the unions and installed mesh on classroom windows to keep teachers from jumping. Despite the fact that schools and teachers had a great deal to do with Apple's success, he wasted little time stabbing us in the back.

In the final analysis, Jobs did some great things. Some of his innovations have changed the way people live. Still, it seems clear that he also trampled workers' rights, vilified unions, and shunned corporate philanthropy despite running a wildly profitable business. Jobs was a rich man, and a flawed one, like most of us (I mean the flawed part, not the rich part, unfortunately).

It seems strange to me that the press can spend endless time and effort berating teachers while glorifying Jobs. Then again, we don't have the same PR team that he did.

Asshats 4 Relocation

I know this is difficult to fathom, but could it just be that Ruben Brosbe was the smartest of all the members of Asshats4Education? One might have to reach that conclusion, because even a rat has the sense to flee a sinking ship, while Ruben had the sense to get out of NYC and basically renounce the Asshats as soon as he was denied tenure for the second time. And before someone gets on me for the analogy, I am in no way suggesting that Ruben IS a rat. One is dirty bottom-feeding vermin who spreads contagion throughout a city. The other is a rodent.

I've felt that the Asshats were stagnating for a while now, as they seem stuck at about 1,800 "Likes" on Facebook. When I checked a month ago, they were at 1803 or so, and now they are at 1848. Not exactly a mad rush to join. And when you consider that all you have to do is click a button to "like" them, it calls into question how many members they really have. If people can't be bothered to click a button, it's unlikely many have filled out A4E's infamous loyalty oath.

So, is it curtains for Evan Stone and Sydney Morris? It may just be. South Bronx School reports that A4E may be fleeing NYC for the less unionized Los Angeles. Ed Notes tells us that the Asshats are having a tough time even getting a crowd together. And with all their corporate backing and free media publicity, their failure to attract members is embarrassing.

So while Ruben is living large at Harvard, Evan and Sydney are attempting to bail out their sinking ship with Dixie cups, hoping they can sail off to LA. And bloggers like me are left scratching for material as they flee.

Feels good, man.