Friday, November 18, 2016

Oh, Hello, I'm Eva


Fill in your own caption. 


     I've been reading of Trump's meetings with Eva and his planed redirection of large chucks of  school funding to school choice. So what does this mean to public school education in NYC? It means that many parents will have a choice of marginal/failing/receivership schools or charter/ private schools. Charter/private schools that have plenty of funding. Which would you choose for your child? This will effectively close many public schools due to low enrollment. These schools would then close and reopen as charters. What will happen to those public school teachers? Well, I guess we can apply to work in the charters - for far less money, less benefits, no job protections, a longer work day and year. You will be lucky if you are hired, as many charters view public school teachers (not just ATRs) as sub-par teachers. Realistically many of us may find ourselves on the unemployment line. There's always the future hope that the charter schools (that could replace 50-80% of the public schools, especially in the Bronx) could become unionized. President elect Trump will of course, place a Supreme Court judge that will make Justice Clarence Thomas and the former Justice Scalia look like wild and crazy liberals. Goodbye mandatory dues and we know what that would mean for the UFT. All of this could have been avoided if Randi Weingarten legitimately polled  AFT members. (If she did poll anyone - as is claimed, she should release the statistics, the sample population and how that population was chosen. It was probably a sample of two, Mulgrew and herself.)  I believe most of us would have endorsed Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders would have beaten Trump. There needs to be major changes at the AFT and UFT, if they are to survive - which is extremely doubtful. The 'they' in the previous sentence has to become 'we'. The one saving grace we have is Mayor deBlasio, don't forget that at election time. He has my full support - at least he stood up. The UFT seems afraid to utter Trump's name while writing a manifesto condemning him, but I believe it's worse than that - they are trying to minimally irritate him so as to cause the least negative reaction from 'the president elect' while appearing strong and ethical to it members.

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Stories herein containing unnamed or invented characters are works of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.