New York City government schools have had some pretty outrageous policies.  Rubber rooms were a great example.  They were special places created for teachers accused of crimes, incompetence and the like. Due to state tenure laws, it actually cost less to house the failed teachers in a location where they couldn’t inflict more damage on students, than to go through the lengthy and expensive legal process necessary to fire them.

Thanks Big Labor!

Now New York administrators are trying to deep-six a program created a few years ago in the collective bargaining agreement with the United Federation of Teachers: the Absent Teacher Reserve.

What’s this?  A creation of bureaucrats, politicians and labor bosses, the ATR is comprised of teachers who literally have no classroom for one reason or another. Due to a labor contract stipulation, they can’t be fired or laid off, and continue to draw the same salaries as full-time teachers. They’re put into the ATR pool, where they may be assigned to work as substitutes, clerks, or perhaps to do nothing at all.

They’re clearly not needed, and collectively they make a great deal of money. How’s that for management of taxpayer dollars?

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While Marxists spout equality and equal worth, they are not above claiming ownership of the Occupy Wall Street protests. Turns out some are more equal than others.

LaborNotes reports:

“Unions and other sympathetic groups called out their members to defend the [Wall Street] occupation—rallying to a phenomenon that’s put wage cuts, layoffs, and foreclosures squarely in the national debate. …

“Red-shirted Communications Workers—many of them recently on strike against Verizon—graduate student members of the United Auto Workers, building services workers in their SEIU Local 32BJ purple T-shirts, and Transport Workers Local 100 members were among the unionists visible in the crowd.

“The victory came ‘because of our unity and strength,’ said James Taylor of 32BJ. He also thought [New York City Mayor] Bloomberg had made a political calculation: ‘Especially with the unions out here, they can’t claim it’s just a bunch of college kids.’”

Unions of every stripe have embraced the #Occupy movement with full-throated chants and jeers.  According to LaborNotes, unions deserve the credit.

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Evidence suggests that ACORN, the left’s premiere astro-turfing organization, has been paying people to participate in the Occupy Wall Street protests.

Astro-turfing campaigns can generate big money, and ACORN’s lucrative protest-for-profit program is nothing new. As I note in my book, Subversion Inc.: How Obama’s ACORN Red Shirts are Still Terrorizing and Ripping Off American Taxpayers, ACORN has acquired great expertise in manufacturing so-called grassroots protests.

Left-wing billionaires Herb and Marion Sandler, the founders of World Savings Bank, gave ACORN affiliates close to $11 million to manufacture mobs to protest their competition in subprime mortgage lending. The United Federation of Teachers paid ACORN $500,000 to create a spontaneous uprising against charter schools in Manhattan.

The SEIU-funded Working Families Party, a front group for ACORN, placed a want ad on Craigslist dated Sept. 26. The ad indicates that WFP was recruiting activists to carry out “direct action,” leftist argot for a variety of activities aimed at forcing sociopolitical change.

The line between direct action and violent terrorism can become blurry. Extreme forms of direct action can lead to bodily injury and sometimes death. The labor movement is no stranger to assault and killings. Left-wing activists David Gilbert and Kathy Boudin participated in an attack on an armored car that left two police officers and a security guard dead. Two anarchists tried to disrupt the 2008 GOP convention with Molotov cocktails. The eco-terrorist Sea Shepherd Conservation Society admits both to attacking whaling ships with acid and sinking them.

WFP’s ad is titled, “FIGHT TO HOLD WALLSTREET [sic] ACCOUNTABLE NOW! MAKE A DIFFERNENCE [sic] GET PAID!” It states:

The WFP is seeking immediate hires.

You must be an energetic communicator, with a passion for social and economic justice.

Only outgoing, articulate dedicated, determined candidates will be considered for the positions.

For those candidates that qualify WFP offers substantial paid-training provided by senior leadership, on varied issues such as: advocacy, public speaking, mobilizing, fundraising, networking and organizing. We invest in passionate people with excellent communication skills and a full benefits package is offered to those candidates that qualify. In addition, there is opportunity for advancement and travel to our satellite chapters and out of state affiliates.

This is not a policy job! Through direct action you will be shaping NY state politics for the next 20 years.” [emphasis added]

As previously reported, WFP has been involved in organizing the Occupy Wall Street protests since the beginning.

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On Saturday, September 17, Marxist protesters (NeoComs) planned to take over Wall Street. While they had wanted to have some 20,000 protesters come to New York, converge on and stay for months in order to ‘tear down the machine,’ their numbers were far fewer, and their goal of occupying Wall St. never materialized as police relegated them to Zuccotti Park a block away.

In talking to several on the first day of their protest, their inspiration seemed to be a Marxist blend of  Communism and Anarchism, sprinkled with a tinge of comic-book (or Hollywood) flare from the character ‘V’ from ‘V for Vendetta.’ By Day Three, however, they made their demands more clear, calling for the seizure of workplaces and schools, as well as the ‘de-privatization of everything.’

Over the last two weeks, their numbers have dwindled to just a few hundred and there have been well over a hundred arrests. The protesters have been ordered to remove their Guy Fawkes masks and, for the most part, have set up a campground in downtown Manhattan, with take out food called in for them from around the nation.

While they’ve had visits from such Left-wing luminaries as Michael Moore, Susan Sarandon, Roseanne Barr, and Dr. Cornell West, they have not had as much coverage from the mainstream media nor have they had the support of the real jackboots in the fight for a Marxist revolution—today’s union bosses.

That is, they haven’t had union support until now. (more…)

New York City families and school choice advocates were handed a major victory late Thursday evening when a Manhattan Supreme Court judge ruled that 22 failing public schools must close and 15 charter schools must be allowed to share space in public school buildings.

The ruling gives hope to many New York City families eager to see their children receive a quality education. The NAACP and the teacher unions so despise non-unionized charter schools that the groups were willing to see students remain trapped in ineffective schools for selfish political and financial reasons.

Thursday’s ruling corrects that injustice.

Education Action Group believes that all parents should have the right to choose where their children attend school. Each child deserves access to an effective educational experience that will prepare them for life.

The state Supreme Court has previously ruled that the New York Constitution requires that students receive a “sound, basic education.”  There is nothing that says that education must occur in a traditional government-run school.

That principle was indirectly affirmed again last night by the Manhattan Supreme Court judge’s ruling.

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From The Daily Caller:

Minority parents in New York have a message for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the United Federation of Teachers (UFT): you are hurting our children.

In New York Monday, charter school parents staged another of several rallies to voice opposition to a lawsuit brought by the UFT and NAACP against the New York City Department of Education. If the organizations are successful with their suit, it would prevent enrollment or re-enrollment in 17 charter schools and stop the closure of 22 public schools.

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Many civil rights groups around the nation have strongly supported school choice initiatives, mainly out of concern for inner-city children who have traditionally been stuck in sub-par schools.

Civil rights leaders understand that education is the key to escaping the cycle of poverty that’s prevalent in many inner-city neighborhoods. Kids trapped in poorly run, dangerous schools often don’t receive the instruction required to move on to  college or a decent job.

Those children need quality options like charter schools, or government vouchers to pay tuition at private schools, if they are going to have a chance to succeed. Most civil rights leaders understand that concept and want to help children seek quality education beyond their geographic school district boundaries.

So why isn’t the NAACP on board?

That organization has joined New York City’s United Federation of Teachers in filing a lawsuit that would prevent the closure of approximately two dozen failing schools, prevent several dozen charter schools from sharing space in public school buildings, and prevent the opening of at least two new charter schools.

In other words, the NAACP is suing to keep a lot of black kids trapped in really bad schools, with no options for escape.

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During a recent television appearance, former Vermont Gov. and Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean said “charter schools are the future” and suggested that the charter school/teacher union “battle is coming to an end.”

Yeah, right. Or, in Howard Dean’s language:  YYYEEEAARRRR, right!

The “battle” may be over, but the teacher unions’ desire to co-opt (and ultimately destroy) charter schools remains.  The tactics have changed.  Instead of the Gatling-gun approach, they’re now resorting to the Boa Constrictor method.

In fact, the unions have been surprisingly candid about their new strategy of infiltration and suffocation.

United Federation of Teachers Vice President Leo Casey considers charter schools competition that will cost teaching jobs in traditional public schools. His goal is to organize the teachers so public support for charters will drop off. He said this at the recent socialist Left Forum:

“If we do not figure out how to organize charter schools and if we are not successful in doing that, we will end up in the same place as the auto workers. So there is no more key question before us as a union and a broader labor movement with regard to education than how we approach charter schools and our ability to organize them.”

This reinforces something Detroit Federation of Teachers President Keith Johnson wrote a year ago:

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One of the things I’ve always liked about charter schools is they aren’t bound by onerous labor agreements that hamper innovation.  Traditional public schools get boxed in with union contracts that literally stipulate when a teacher arrives in the morning and when he or she must depart.  And that’s just the beginning of union-imposed regulations.

In charter schools, the interest of the students comes first, so adults oftentimes find themselves going above and beyond to ensure that students succeed.  In the documentary “Kids Aren’t Cars,” the story was told of Tindley Accelerated School in Indianapolis.  The principal said his teachers stay late and work Saturdays if necessary because they do not accept failure.

That’s why it is disturbing to watch labor unions organize charter school after charter school, with little being done about it.  Their intent is clear.  Consider what United Federation of Teachers Vice President Leo Casey said at the recent socialist Left Forum, courtesy of EAGtv:

“If we do not figure out how to organize charter schools and if we are not successful in doing that, we will end up in the same place as the auto workers. So there is no more key question before us as a union and a broader labor movement with regard to education than how we approach charter schools and our ability to organize them.”

What he’s saying is that the United Auto Workers unionized Ford, General Motors and Chrysler and ignored foreign competitors.  As foreign market shares grew, the UAW’s membership rolls suffered.  Casey’s envisioning a similar scenario with school employee unions.

He doesn’t care if charter schools benefit students. He just knows that they hurt his union, so they must be changed as soon as possible.

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Teach for America has been a breath of fresh air in some of America’s worst schools.  The program, founded 20 years ago, recruits the best and brightest college graduates to commit to being teachers for at least two years in dozens of inner city schools around the country.

Studies have shown that students in classes with TFA teachers did demonstrably better on math tests than students in non-TFA classrooms.  Many TFA teachers continue beyond their two year commitment.

TFA teachers, by their very nature, are go-getters. Most were excellent university students who could have gone straight into high-paying careers, but chose to spend some of their early years working with American youth. They do what it takes to get the job done.  They’ll stay beyond the final bell.  They essentially toss the collective bargaining agreement out the window.  It’s that type of drive that gives heartburn to union organizers who want the school to operate according to the contract.

Washington Post columnist George Will called Teach For America “a template for transformation.”

Randi Weingarten recently praised TFA in Education Week, saying:

Teach for America has attracted thousands of highly educated, idealistic young people to undertake one of the toughest jobs out there in some of the most challenging environments.…

Educators are all in this together.  One group should not be pitted against another, when our focus must be on the devastating cuts that threaten great harm to a generation of children.

So consider this skunk at the garden party. Leo Casey, vice president the New York City United Federation of Teachers, seems to believe that TFA is somehow bad because too many of the teachers are white. The film clip of his comments comes from EAGtv:

The teaching force in New York City has become steadily whiter under [Mayor Michael] Bloomberg and [former schools Chancellor Joel] Klein and it is connected I think in significant measure to the use of groups like Teach for America which are significantly whiter than the teaching force.

Yes, at the socialist-organized Left Forum, Casey tossed the race card on the table, accusing Teach For America of “whitening” New York City public schools.

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From The New York Daily News:

As nearly 5,000 city teachers face the ax, their union shells out millions of dollars on feasting, boozing and partying, the Daily News has learned.

Free-spending United Federation of Teachers brass last year spent nearly $1.4 million for the UFT’s 50th anniversary gala at the Hilton – complete with a movie, a book and a paperweight.

Records show they:

• Ponied up $514,000 to 16 separate caterers.
• Dropped $278,417 on the annual Teachers Union Day ceremony at the Waldorf-Astoria.
• Bought $6,100 in gift baskets from a lower East Side candy store – and plowed $179,000 into training retreats at a Connecticut resort boasting golf, scuba diving and aqua aerobics.

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After years of obstructing efforts to reform public education, the nation’s teacher unions are using this week’s national education conference in Denver to push for a spirit of “collaboration” among education reformers and teacher unions.

It’s too bad that the unions’ new-found interest in “working together” has not been reflected in very recent teacher union behavior.

In a recent radio interview, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said, “Let’s solve problems for kids rather than making them pawns in an economic austerity budget.”

In a recent press release, Weingarten said, “When collaboration trumps conflict, it helps create the conditions for teachers to teach and students to learn.”

Such happy talk makes for a good press release, but it does not match reality. Across the nation, teachers unions are attacking reformers and have not resisted the temptation of using children as political pawns.

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Teacher union leaders have been known to bark back when their strongest job protection – tenure – is referred to as a job for life.

“Despite current misconceptions tenure is not ‘given’ by the DOE. The only legal requirement for tenure is actually time; three years for teachers. After a three year period, within license, of being on payroll and the DOE has done nothing to stop the clock, you are automatically granted tenure,” Kaufman writes. “In fact you can be theoretically rated unsatisfactory for each of the three years and still get tenure if the DOE doesn’t fire you or cause you to extend your probation.”

Political operatives connected with renamed ACORN affiliates are in position to help swing close, competitive races for left-leaning candidates in the 2012 elections, according to former insiders and policy analysts who are familiar with the network’s operations.

An ambitious rebranding scheme that began earlier this year has now accelerated to include affiliates in at least 12 states. The bankruptcy filing the organization slyly submitted on Election Day is properly viewed as “a head fake” and a “public relations gimmick” arranged to distract attention away from the partisan political activities of renamed affiliates, sources say.

It is worth recalling that the organization known in full as the Association of Community Activists for Reform Now had initially denied reports that it would be dropping its tarnished name in press statements released in the summer of 2009.  Wade Rathke, who founded ACORN in 1970, had announced on his blog that ACORN International, one of many affiliate organizations, had officially changed its name to “Community Organizations International.” Former board members who came together under the banner of ACORN 8 in response to an embezzlement scandal saw the move as a possible opener to a larger rebranding effort.

Scott Levenson, a spokesman for organization’s national leadership, issued a statement claiming that the name has not been dropped and that Rathke is no longer connected with ACORN.

“ACORN is not changing its name,” he declared. “ACORN International, is a five-year old organization from which ACORN withdrew a year ago as part of an overall restructuring process and requested that they stop using the ACORN name, which they have now done. Wade Rathke was fired as Chief Organizer of ACORN in June 2008.”

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The Education Action Group believes that the New York City teachers union’s impending lawsuit over the release of teacher ratings exposes its true motivation to protect sub-par teachers and preserve the failing system.

New York education officials’ made the bold move to release rankings of 12,000 fourth through eighth-grade teachers recently to inject more accountability into an education system plagued by huge union-related costs, terrible graduation rates, and thousands of teachers that simply collect checks to do nothing.

The financial and other abuses the teachers unions perpetuate on public schools is a national problem that can only be corrected when citizens have unfettered access to all information available to make informed decisions. Transparency is critically important to ensure that all students receive the best education possible.

The New York City teacher rankings would, like recently released Los Angeles teacher ratings, lay the groundwork for a more transparent, effective public education system.

Unfortunately, the NYC teachers union, the United Federation of Teachers, has vowed to take the issue to the State Supreme Court in Manhattan today because UFT President Michael Mulgrew contends that the system is “unreliable and in a developmental stage,” the New York Times reports.

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By now, most Americans know how hard union bosses pushed, tugged, bullied and threatened, using tens of millions of their members’ money on advertising and lobbying, all to get health care reform passed.

Most Americans also remember (though many did not believe) the promises that health care reform would make health care “affordable for all.” And no one can forget how the legislation was sold to Americans:

The Chairmen of the three Committees with jurisdiction over health policy in the U.S. House of Representatives introduced comprehensive health care reform legislation today that will reduce out-of-control costs, encourage competition among insurance plans to improve choices for patients, and expand access to quality, affordable health care for all Americans.

Well, on March 23rd (not quite six months ago), the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was signed into law. That same day, a jubilant Andy Stern even recorded this video for his SEIU members, congratulating them on ow the SEIU “changed America forever.” That was then… The Chickens Start to Come Home (aka the Law of Unintended Consequences) Almost immediately after the passage of what is now called “ObamaCare,” like a pebble thrown into calm waters, waves began to develop. Karma. The first sign of trouble began when a number of companies began taking hundreds of millions of dollars ($1 billion in AT&T’s case) in write downs due to the projected cost of ObamaCare, making Congress and the Administration furious. In fact, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) was so furious that he ordered a show-trial hearing to be held and then he abruptly cancelled it.  It soon became clear why, as noted by the Daily Caller [emphasis added]:

Publicly, Waxman said the investigation showed the companies’ disclosures were properly filed. But a new report from committee Republicans reveals the documents Waxman obtained included embarrassing evidence that the health-care law could drive up insurance premiums and force employers to dump employees from their health plans. “Turns out Obamacare means if you like your health plan you can lose it. The president didn’t have to actually strong-arm companies into dumping their employee health insurance because his bill carried financial incentives to virtually guarantee that result,” Energy and Commerce Committee ranking member Rep. Joe Barton, Texas Republican, said. Most significantly, documents unearthed by the investigation highlight companies that are considering dumping employees from their current health-care plans in the face of new costs from the health-care law. President Obama repeatedly promised his health-care law would let Americans keep their current insurance if they’re happy with it.

The dumping begins… Over the past couple of weeks, months after Henry Waxman’s initial embarrassment, a big problem has begun to emerge for the Democrats who worked so hard to pass ObamaCare.  News has begun to break that companies are, in fact, beginning to dump their employees (or retirees) health care benefits.

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The irony would be humorous if it weren’t so sad: The United Federation of Teachers, the New York City branch of the American Federation of Teachers, which pushed ardently for ObamaCare has now requested – and received – a waiver from its mandates.

The UFT is a member of New York State United Teachers (NYSUT).  In September 2009, the NYSUT’s website published “Health care reform: facts vs. myths.” Here’s an excerpt:

• Myth: Health care reform will force you out of your current insurance plan or force you to change doctors.
• Fact: You can keep your existing insurance; reform will expand your medical options, not eliminate them.

ObamaCare was such a great idea at the time - the AFT gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to Healthcare for America Now, the leading organization pushing for the government takeover of health care.

It was announced Thursday that the UFT has requested and received an Obamacare-waiver after it discovered their members would end up losing their health insurance plans.  Uh oh.

According to USA Today, “The waivers are effective for a year and were granted to insurance plans and companies (i.e. the union and its affiliated “UFT Welfare Fund”) that showed that employee premiums would rise or that workers would lose coverage without them.”

If the union thought ObamaCare would benefit the country, then why seek a waiver?  And can we now count the union as a partner in the effort to repeal it?

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When we created AFTexposed.com a few weeks ago, we paid particular attention to the American Federation of Teachers’ connection to ACORN.  [See a related sidebar below.]  Randi Weingarten, the president of the AFT, had previously been the president of the United Federation of Teachers–the New York City teachers’ union.

Bertha Lewis, before becoming the CEO and chief organizer of ACORN, had headed up the New York chapter of ACORN.

Weingarten’s UFT had hired Lewis’s ACORN to help unionize 28,000 day care workers and bring them into the UFT fold.  Just what exactly does the UFT know about child care?  From ACORN itself:

“For us, it’s an educational issue and a moral issue and an economic justice issue,” [Weingarten] said.

From 2006 to 2008, ACORNcracked.com has been able to account for over $1.2 million in dues dollars from New York City teachers going to ACORN.  And Weingarten earned a special recognition from ACORN earlier this summer at its 39th anniversary gala, hosted by chief AFT rival, the National Education Association.

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