WOW! UE* Union In Defense of Public Education! UFT/AFT: Which Side Are You On?

What follows should be endemic to the UFT and the AFT unions. School unions should be actively and aggressively working with the UE, the FMPR (Puerto Rico) and other progressive rank & file groups (e.g. CORE Chicago) and not with the likes of Bill Gates and other corporate profiteers that promote neoliberal agendas such a charters/privatization.

It is up to us, the rank & file in unity with our school communities, to get involved and work to transform the UFT/AFT into real fighting instruments of reform. It is up to us to build a militant, social justice UFT that functions democratically starting from the school level on up. At our schools, teachers and staff need to build strong UFT chapters. Our UFT chapters must work in tandem with parents and independent community advocacy groups on issues.

GEM struggles to promote quality public education and the rights of school workers. Work with us to transform the UFT into powerful militant democratic union that truly represents the interests of school workers, students, parents and communities. United we can make progress.
Angel Gonzalez of GEM
(Try pushing these resolutions at Delegate Assembly and Executive Board meetings and see how quickly the Unity/UFT/AFT (Mulgrew/Weingarten) officialdom will quickly move to squash them.)


* "UE" is the abbreviation for United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, a democratic national union representing some 35,000 workers in a wide variety of manufacturing, public sector and private non-profit sector jobs. UE is an independent union (not affiliated with the AFL-CIO) proud of its democratic structure and progressive policies.

UE Convention Resolutions 2009
Public Education:
Stop the Attacks and Fund Quality Education for All
http://www.ueunion.org/policy_se.html

One of the first demands of early labor organizations was universal quality education. At a time when only the rich could attend decent schools, labor leaders saw that access to publicly-funded schools was the only way that the working class and the poor could achieve basic literacy skills. Labor leaders knew that education was tied to the ability to organize and exercise political power.

We find ourselves in an ongoing battle to prevent not just the erosion, but the outright destruction of public education. That many public schools are inadequately funded means poor equipment, crumbling buildings, and larger numbers of students in each classroom. Rather than fund public education adequately, conservatives push for privatization and subcontracting, practices which reduce jobs, and turns janitors, cooks, maintenance workers, educators, and many others into low-wage contract workers who receive few or low benefits.

The Obama administration has announced its intent to reform the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), the current incarnation of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act put into effect during Lyndon Johnson’s administration. While the stated goals of NCLB are laudable, namely improving student achievement and closing skills gaps between students of different backgrounds, the Act is flawed. Schools that already face challenges because of poor funding or the demographics of the area they are in are forced to conform to a "one-size-fits-all" standard based on high-stakes testing, and then punished by having funding withdrawn. Vouchers redirect taxpayer money away from public schools to private institutions, which are not accountable to the public or to elected officials. The Obama administration has requested a $1 billion increase in funding, yet no details of Obama's intended reforms have been given.

Barack Obama has also expressed support for merit-based teacher salaries. Excellent teachers deserve to be rewarded, and the potential for higher earnings as a result of hard work would help to recruit and retain talented individuals who would otherwise choose a career in the private sector. However, a system of merit pay is not the answer to poor teacher salaries and poor student performance. Administration of a merit-based teacher pay system would be a bureaucratic nightmare, prone to corruption and dishonesty, and would undermine cooperation and collaboration between teachers. The No Child Left Behind Act has already shown that universal standards don't work when applied to real-world education, in which students come from different economic, cultural and linguistic backgrounds. The way to attract superior teachers is to pay teachers what they are worth.

Private commerce has no place in public education. Schools that are starved for funding turn to corporate sponsors for help or contract services out to private companies. Corporate sponsors flood the schools with commercial messages, and undermine teachers' attempts to have students to think critically. Private companies are not responsible to the public for the quality of service they provide. This same commercialism is rampant in public colleges and universities, leaving many vulnerable to intellectual and moral corruption. At the same time, the cost of public education at the undergraduate and graduate levels is becoming more and more prohibitive, putting working and middle class families deeper into debt for services tax dollars are supposed to provide.

Higher education workers are also facing a crisis as their employers replace full-time positions with "contingent" faculty. Adjunct instructors are paid a fraction of the wage a full-time professor would receive, and these contracts have no benefits. Job security is nonexistent for these workers. Along with vouchers and standardized tests, growing dependence on part-time workers is a further indication of corporate and profit-driven motives in education. This trend inevitably leads to a decrease in the quality of public education.

Public schools, funded adequately and fairly, with certified teachers and full-time faculty, who have long-range educational plans that teach basic skills and critical thinking to all students is the only way to resolve this problem. We support public education because it promotes the best interests of everyone when all members of our society are well educated and able to think independently.

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED THAT THIS 71st UE CONVENTION:

1. Calls upon all levels of the union to demand and promote:
Federal funding that achieves an excellent public education at all levels, including early childhood and adult learning programs;

1. Restructuring of federal, state, and local taxation and funding systems so that all public schools are funded fairly, without regard to income levels of local school district residents;
2. A reduction of class sizes to a manageable student-to-teacher ratio at the primary, secondary, and college/university levels;
3. An increase in the salaries of all public elementary and secondary education teachers which reflects the value of their role in educating future members of society;
4. Barring the use of taxpayer-funded voucher programs that siphon off much-needed funds from public schools and route them to private schools;
5. Elimination of high-stakes testing, which pressures teachers and administrators to "teach to the test" or risk financial ruin, and therefore puts tremendous emotional and psychological pressure on children who are forced to endure such high-stakes tests;
6. Removal of commercial/corporate sponsorship that tends to interfere with the academic freedom of students and teachers and the decision-making freedom of elected school boards and other publicly-employed professionals;
7. Preservation and enhancement of the arts, foreign language and multilingual education programs, whose elimination most often hurts poor and working-class children's education;
8. Preservation and enhancement of vocational education programs for adolescents and adults;
9. Full and appropriate services and accommodations for students with disabilities;
10. Full funding of Head Start;
11. Passage of conflict-of-interest legislation that prevents individuals with ties to for-profit schools and to for-profit corporations with school contracts from serving on school boards or boards of regents;
12. Elimination of privatization and contracting out of school services;
13. The teaching of labor history and other aspects of history which present a full view of the economic, social, and political history of the U.S. in public schools, colleges and universities; and support of local labor education centers;

2. Calls on the union to work with other unions and push for a change in the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) in order to ensure that all employees have the right to unionization;
3. Supports all campaigns which advocate universal access to free public higher education.

Real Reformers Rally at Waiting for Superman Opening: Sept. 24, 2010

Pics from rehearsal at Lincoln Center to the theater.

Labor Beat: Corporate Media and Plunder of Chicago Public Education

In the weeks following the election of Karen Lewis as the new Chicago Teachers Union President, we see how Chicago's corporate public relations world attempts to spin the story of new union militancy in the face of layoffs and 35 students per classroom. Exclusive press conference scenes and analysis. Interview with Carol Caref, new CTU Region A Vice President, as we watch her and Karen Lewis spar with reporters. George Schmidt, Editor of substancenews.net, provides valuable insights into the media scene in Chicago. Also footage and commentary by substancenews.net reporter John Kugler who describes his question that shut down a press conference put on by Mayor Daley and the head of Chicago Public Schools Ron Huberman. 27 min. Produced by Labor Beat. Labor Beat is a CAN TV Community Partner. Labor Beat is a non-profit 501(c)(3) member of IBEW 1220. Views are those of the producer Labor Beat. For info: mail@laborbeat.org, www.laborbeat.org. 312-226-3330. For other Labor Beat videos, visit Google Video, YouTube, or blip.tv and search "Labor Beat".

Chicago Teachers Union Wins Back Jobs of Laid Off 1,000 Tenured Teachers

UPDATE: Oct. 12

NOTE: Some people were passing this email around as connected to race. George Schmidt sets us straight:

Please see the correct information from George Schmidt.

From: gnschmidt@aol.com

Subject: Re: AFT P&J: Fwd: Black Chicago Teachers Win Discrimination Lawsuit

10/11/10

There were two separate legal actions.

In 2009, CORE filed an EEOC complaint against CPS, charging that the firings of veteran teachers was racially discriminatory. That complaint is still pending.

In 2010, the Chicago Teachers Union (by then led by CORE people) filed a federal lawsuit charging that the June - August 2010 firings of veteran teachers in Chicago was unconstitutional. That's the lawsuit that was won last week. (Substance published the decision along with an analysis by John Kugler at www.substancenews.net).

Chicago Teachers Union v. Board of Education was a federal civil rights case. And it had nothing to do with the race of the teachers who were fired. It was based on the Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection) and decided, as you can read in the decision, on that basis. I don't think there was one reference to race in Judge Coar's decision.

George Schmidt

Substance

www.substancenews.net

[click title for full Substance News article]

Chicago Teachers Union upholds teachers' tenure rights... Judge Coar's decision shows how completely CPS has lost (again) in federal court

John Kugler - October 05, 2010
"Four hundred thousands students will have their teachers returned to them," an elated Karen Lewis told a press conference at the headquarters of the 30,000-member Chicago Teachers Union on the evening of October 4, 2010. Lewis's statement was her opening in describing the immediate impact she thought should take place in light of a federal judge's decision that the Chicago Board of Education had violated the rights of tenured teachers in firing them during the summer of 2010, using inflated "deficit" claims as the basis for creating a financial emergency and assuming to itself unprecedented powers.
Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis (with hand outstretched) was surrounded by members of the expanded union negotiating team on July 23, 2010, when she led union members and the union's newly elected officers across the street from the union's Merchandise Mart offices to the Holiday Inn Mart Plaza for the first meeting with Board of Education negotiators. The Board demanded $100 million in cuts from the CTU contract, even thought the Board's claims of a billion dollar deficit had been discredited, and when the union refused to buckle, Ron Huberman order the elimination of more than 1,000 tenured teachers from their jobs. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.For the second time in six months, a federal judge has handed a rebuke to the Chicago Board of Education because of the Board's lawless (and unconstitutional) actions. On October 4, 2010, U.S. District Judge David H. Coar in a strongly worded opinion held that CPS had violated the rights of more than 1,000 tenured Chicago teachers when it fired them from their jobs based on a number of spurious grounds that had been conjured up by the Board during the summer of 2004.
In the October decision, Judge Coar held that the Board of Education of the City of Chicago and its Chief Executive Officer, Ron Huberman, had violated the rights of tenured teachers it has been firing since June 1, 2010, under the guise of various pretexts. Despite the clear language of the judge's decision upholding tenure, Patrick Rocks, the top lawyer for CPS, claimed in a quotation distributed by CPS in an October 4 press release that the judge's ruling only allowed the teachers CPS had dumped to "complete for jobs." At a 7:00 p.m. press conference held at CTU headquarters, CTU President Karen Lewis told reporters that the judge clearly disagreed with Rocks's version of the law. "We won," she said, chiding reporters from WBEZ and Catalyst who kept repeating the Rocks talking point after she had explained the decision.
... For full story, go to http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=1706&section=Article

What I Learned at NBC's Education Nation Summit

Thank you, Teacher Brian Jones for sharing your lessons from your NBC debate. Your reflections demonstrate the higher order analytical critical thinking skills that the privatized charter school models (i.e. teach-to-the-test/rote learning) are pushing out of our classroom pedagogy.

For full article, click: What I Learned at NBC's Education Nation Summit

Excerpted text:

"Waiting for 'Superman' " paints Canada as a kind of educational Chuck Yeager -- the pilot who first broke the sound barrier. So he seemed particularly incensed that I brought up the fact that after New York's test scores were re-scaled last year, only 38 percent of his students in Harlem Children's Zone 1 fell within the benchmark for "proficient" reading ability. Canada tried to change the subject to the better scoring Harlem Children's Zone 2.

But even if we assume that he's doing something wonderful, then we have to ask the question: what does it take to do that something wonderful? Apparently it takes the kind of wrap-around services that Canada aspires to provide his students from the cradle to graduation, such as health care. And, we should note, it apparently takes tens of millions of dollars.

Yet, while taking large checks from Wall Street on one hand, Canada insists that "it's not about resources" on the other.

I argued that wealthy people, who spend five figures on their own children's education, insist on small classes, beautiful facilities, and experienced teachers. I mentioned that the Harlem Children's Zone flagship building on 125th Street is beautiful, and that all children deserve such attractive surroundings.

Canada countered that his highest performing school is in a building with no windows. Then why, I wonder, does he need $20 million for new construction, especially when Harlem has the lowest school utilization rate in the city? Still, Canada insisted, "It's the not the building that drives teaching, it's what's going on inside those classrooms; not whether or not kids have a window to look out of, which ours don't."

Here we have a message honed to perfection... for the wealthy: the unions are the problem; the teachers need to be cheaper; give me money now for a few beautiful schools that can help break the unions and open up the education market; but don't worry, we don't want too much; we certainly don't want what your children have.

National Actions to Defend Public Education, October 7th 2010

New York, NY Many rallies during the day at Brooklyn College, City College New York, Hunter College, Queens College and throughout the state.

Unified New York City rally at 4pm
at the Harlem State Office Building 163 West 125th Street, just east of Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. BLVD(seventh avenue),
then march across Harlem via 125th street to Frederick Douglas to 141st street and to CCNY.
hcrazycat@yahoo.com
720-979-9491
www.march4ny.wordpress.com

Last fall, California sparked a movement that has grown drastically over the past year. Much energy went toward building March 4th 2010, National Day of Action to Defend Education, which as a resounding success in the struggle to defend public education. Thousands organized and participated in the events of that day which took place in 32 states. Major actions took place throughout California, but also in Milwaukee, New York City, Illinois, and Baltimore with hundreds of actions planned nationwide. University of Puerto Rico students capped off a two-month strike with a victory receiving many concessions from administration.

What is clear is that this fight is not over. The lines are drawn. As working families struggle to recover from the crisis, access to education is diminishing as cuts continue to come. California activists have proposed October 7th as the next Day of Action. Internationally, activists are focusing on October and November as crucial moments in the struggle to fight back against neoliberalism and defend education rights. We, the below signed organizations and individuals, call on students, teachers, faculty, staff, workers, and parents to unite together and Defend Public Education this fall.

In Texas, the Board of Education has drastically changed the content of Texas textbooks, to include praise of Joseph McCarthy, and many other clauses. In Arizona, The state has passed the racist SB1070 that mandates police detain anyone looks like an undocumented worker. Following this, Arizona is also shutting down ethnic studies programs. In New York City, Chicago, and Detroit, districts are facing massive school closings. Public universities throughout the country are raising tuition costs and looking for more private investors. Budget cuts, tuition hikes, school closings, and right-wing reforms are hitting working families the hardest, especially in communities of color.

As these cuts continue to come, we see the costs of neoliberalism hit home harder than they have before. Public education has been losing funding for years, much of which disappeared because of neoliberal changes to the economy. The current budget crisis in many states will result in further drastic cuts to public education, including further cuts to underfunded schools, increases in unpaid days off for staff, a incentive program promoting “reforms” that are outright attacks on teachers, a restructuring of the public university around the needs of private business – largely supported by massive private grants, and tuition hikes that threaten accessibility to higher education for working families and people of color.

As the education disparities between poor and affluent grow ever wider, public schools serving communities of color are swiftly being re-segregated, provided fewer resources, and less-experienced teachers. These students are being tracked into non-academic, dead-end programs while ethnic and multi-cultural classes and opportunities are being cut.

This crisis and this solution are a direct result of neoliberal-era ideology, reducing or dissolving taxes on the rich and corporations while working people struggle to provide for their families out of their ever-shrinking pockets. As private interests gain more power, as the private dollar begins to strengthen its influence in education, our democratic rights are being stripped away.

The time to act is now, students teachers and staff are preparing for the next wave of actions. We need your support and participation to make this day a historic moment in American history. To get involved please Email: fall_actions@defendeducation.org or call us at 8609162761

The Real Reformers Stood Up: Video of the Rap at the Waiting for Superman Gap

Here is a compilation of the performances of Will the Real Reformers Please Stand Up! at the Loews Lincoln Square movie theater at the Waiting for Superman premiere on Sept. 24, 2010. It includes a brief section of the Real Reformers running into Michael Moore on the street (It was opening night at the NY Film Festival.) See press release below.

Press Release                                  

Date:  Wednesday, September 29, 2010   

Contact: Norm Scott: 917-992-3734

Parents and Teachers, the Real Reformers, Organize Response to “Waiting for Superman”

On Friday, September 24th, parents and teachers participated in a demonstration outside of the premier of “Waiting for Superman”.  The film, which has garnered significant publicity in recent days, has taken the lead in framing the conversation regarding education reform.  A grass roots group, The Real Reformers, reject this framework and offered an alternative voice to the conversation.

Explaining the impetus for Friday night’s actions and the development of a forthcoming grassroots documentary, Julie Cavanagh, a teacher in Red Hook, Brooklyn said, “We felt compelled to demonstrate a resistance to a film that can be described only as propaganda.  The film continues to propagate myths about the so-called crisis in education and further espouses false claims about supposed reforms and reformers that are garnering much of the media’s attention right now.  It is time for Real Reformers to stand up, and lead the conversation on what works in our public schools, and the policies needed to improve our public schools.  There are no easy answers.  Viewing charter schools as a silver bullet and blaming teachers, the vast majority of whom work tirelessly for students and families every day, is part of a larger movement to privatize public education.  We must be vigilant in protecting, while improving, true public education, the pillar of our democracy.”

Lisa Donlan, a public school parent and President of Community Education Council One added, “For too long now our children have been the pawns of powerful politicians and their handpicked bureaucrats who paint themselves as reformers while they reinforce the status quo, depriving our neediest children of the quality education that is their birthright. No man, not even Superman can alter the sad reality: the achievement gap persists, our schools and communities are segregated and less money is spent on students despite tripled budgets.  In the words of Frederick Douglass in 1857:  "If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation…want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters…. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."

Outside of the Loews Lincoln Square movie theater, the Real Reformers stood up and presented their vision for real education reform.  The Grassroots Education Movement provided two pieces of literature including:  “The Inconvenient Truth About Waiting for Superman” which outlined information regarding misleading and factually inaccurate claims in the movie and “The Truth About Charter Schools”, a brochure that outlines “myths” and “truths” about charter schools.  The group also released the trailer for their upcoming documentary, “The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman”, which will be shown in New York City neighborhoods, and across the country, this fall.  The trailer for this film is posted at http://www.waitingforsupermantruth.org/.

Parents and Teachers also engaged in a flash mob performance of “Will the Real Reformers Please Stand Up”.  (The video of this performance and the movie trailer can be found at (see the trailer at:  www.waitingforsupermantruth.org).

Various groups were represented at Friday night’s event.   Attendees expressed a myriad of objections to the film, while joining in a shared mission to expose the narrow lens with which Guggenheim tells his story. 

Mona Davids, President of the New York Charter Parents Association commented, “The so-called education reformers consisting of hedge fund millionaires and billionaires do not respect parents and the communities of color they serve.  Charters in NYC have been denying parents their civil rights by vehemently opposing PA/PTA's in charters.  NYCPA in it's one year of existence has brought about charter reform including charters serving special education and English Language Learners; PA/PTA's in every charter in NYC; audits by the state comptroller; public lotteries; monthly board meetings, stronger conflict of interests requirements and the ban of for-profit charter schools, to name a few.  These reforms should have been enacted 10 years ago.  It's hypocritical of the charter lobby and education reformers to say this is the civil rights issue of our time when they are refusing to comply with the revised charter law requiring PA/PTA's in charters and violating the civil rights of charter parents.  Apparently, their children attending private schools can have PA/PTA's but not the children of color attending publicly funded privately run charter schools.  Charter parents don't matter. Just the per pupil funding does!”

Sam Coleman, a teacher in Sunset Park, Brooklyn and member of Grassroots Education Movement and NYCORE, had another take, “The insinuation that teachers and teacher unions are to blame for what ails public education is insulting to teachers and distracts from the real issues. Talk to students who are getting police records for school hallway scuffles about what is stopping them from graduating and getting a job. Talk to high school students who are also parents and are forced to drop out because there is no childcare in their schools. Talk to immigrant students who cannot go to college because of their immigration status, or to queer youth who are bullied and pushed out of school. Ask any of them; their stories reveal the complexity of what ails our educational system. Let’s stop blaming teachers and teacher unions. Let’s give control of education to communities and educators. Let’s fund communities equitably and let the corporate lawyers hold bake sales to buy their shredders."

Visit:  www.waitingforsupermantruth.org for more information

Additional Contacts:

Lisa Donlan, Parent: 917-848-5873

Mona Davids, Parent: 917-340-8987

Sam Coleman, Teacher:  646-354-9362

Julie Cavanagh, Teacher: 917-836-6465

GEM REAL REFORMERS:Smashing Broadway Success!

Loews Theatre - 66th & Broadway - New York City Sept 24, 2010

GEM-NYCORE SuperHeroes, The REAL REFORMERS, were a Smashing Success at opening of pro-charter propaganda film, Waiting For Superman, on Broadway.

The GEM-NYCORE protesters included a caped-hero-street-theatre troup that rapped lyrics to educate ingoing/outgoing crowds about the film's pro-privatization, pro-charter fraud.

Over 100, including parents, educators, and activists engaged by-passers in dialogue as they distributed the updated GEM brochure, the Truth About Charters.

Teachers are not the problem. The Wall Street Corporate-Government alliance to profiteer by privatizing our schools is the big menacing problem that education advocates must confront before it is too late. Keep reading our blogs and join the fightback at our schools and citywide with GEM. Come to GEM's Sept 28th meeting.

The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman - The Flyer

The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman

http://www.scribd.com/full/38037161?access_key=key-2o8e4tso2tk3v3iexmpa

From the Grassroots - GEMNYC October Newsletter Available

Ask and ye shall receive. Contact gemnyc@gmail.com for copies.
Or try this url and download.

From the Grassroots - Gem Newsletter Oct 2010

GEM Produces: The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman - The Trailer

Check out The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman web site:


http://www.waitingforsupermantruth.org

GEM Meets Sept. 28, 4:30-7PM

High-Stakes Testing
and
The Attack on Public Education

In NYC, test scores have made the headlines once again.  Last year, test scores were bandied about by Michael Bloomberg as evidence of his effective "stewardship" over NYC schools.  This summer, ELA and Math test scores dropped precipitously due to re-scaling of the tests, causing widespread parent outrage.

In NYC and across the country, new systems of teacher evaluation are based more and more on student scores on a single high-stakes test.  Dozens of schools are closed on the basis of low test scores leaving these communities without neighborhood schools and displacing experienced teachers, thereby adding to the ATR pool. Teachers, students and parents are now being told to judge the basis of a quality education on these dubious test scores.

• What do the changes in test scores mean for NYC teachers and students?

• How is high-stakes testing being used to dismantle and undermine the public education system?

• What is the effect of incessant testing on our educational system?

• What can we do about it? 

Bring your experiences and ideas to a discussion with the Grassroots Education Movement (GEM).  Join with others in attempting to counter the effects of high-stakes testing mania.

September 28 4:30 - 7 p.m.
CUNY Graduate Center
34th and 5th Ave. Room 5409
(Bring ID)
Trains:  N, R, D, F, Q, B, W, V, 6, 1/2/3

ATR Job Fair: Many called....Few chosen

A “mandatory recruitment fair” (or was it a futility festival?) was held in the main room of the Grand Prospect Ballroom in Brooklyn on September 14. Teachers were initially directly to report at 10 o’clock in the morning. Email messages went out the day before changing the time to 1:00. Although the second floor ballroom is large, teachers weren’t permitted to enter until after one o’clock. Some didn’t get in until around 2:00. Teachers who arrived in the morning had to stand around waiting for more than three hours before going upstairs to the interview tables.

The DOE used a first floor lounge and restaurant as waiting rooms. These side rooms were stuffed far beyond their room capacity (which is listed on the ballroom’s website as 320 persons).

Teachers were advised in the email messages that no lunch would be provided. For those arriving in the afternoon there was not even water. One teacher was stopped from entering the Skylight Room where administrators were being served a range of beverages by waiters in black jackets. A handler in a monogrammed jacket told the teacher there wasn’t anything available for interviewees. Asked what his position was the man explained that he was employed by a private company (a DOE “partner”) hired to provide logistics for the job fair. Apparently these logistics didn’t include providing water for the hundreds of cattle call participants. After a standoff of several minutes a Ballroom waiter brought the teacher a glass of water from the off-limits room. Teachers typically seemed to be seeing about 3-4 vacancies in their licence area. Some fewer. Some found none.

Throwaway line: Many of the participants were dressed like they would hope to be treated: professional or at least semi-professional. However, scores of others were more in keeping with the shabby reality.

GEMNYC: WHO WE ARE

Inform, Support, Inspire: Promoting Policies for a Fully Funded and Effective Public School System

The Grassroots Education Movement (GEMNYC) educates, organizes, and mobilizes educators, parents, students and communities to defend public education. Too many current corporate and government policies seek to underfund, undermine and privatize our public school system. GEM advocates around issues dealing with the equality and quality of public educational services as well as the rights of teachers and school workers. These issues include the incessant push for charter schools, the attack on union rights, the focus on high-stakes standardized testing, school closures, and the failure to address the racism and inequality that exists within our schools. As the attacks on public education and teachers grow more vicious, the collective organization of those who directly face these attacks at the grassroots level becomes all the more essential, and in fact constitutes the most effective potential resistance. GEM advocates for a positive vision of education reform by building alliances with other activist groups and organizing and helping coordinate the struggle at the grassroots school and community level, with a focus on school-level organizing. Join us.

Contact GEM: GEMNYC@gmail.com Blog: http://grassrootseducationmovement.blogspot.com

Videos from August 30 PEP Meeting

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roSDxs16NPU




Parent Carol Boyd Creates a poem for the PEP

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzrsxfe3sY8