What matters goes a lot deeper than one endorsement.

I was a union member for all of the 33 years I taught. I always thought and voted independently, but I appreciated the other benefits of a union.

I don't want teachers to lose what's good about unions.

That is what America is all about...and we can vote as we choose.

So far in America, that corrupt executive board/director, cannot FORCE the teachers to cast their ballots as they direct...I'm sure the "directors" wet-dream would be able to do the voting for millions of teachers.

We are voting Bernie.

HRC will be a great president.

who responded to that endorsement with this:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/AFTMembersFeelTheBern/

which didn't exist before the endorsement.

Then, of course, there's the petition that has already very rapidly gathered 2,735 signatures:

https://www.change.org/p/american-federation-of-teachers-withdraw-your-endorsement-of-hillary-clinton-for-the-democratic-presidential-nomination?recruiter=337451827&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink

Sen Sanders. He is the people's choice not the billionaire's choice.

Doesn't invalidate the OP.

Who's up next?

It's about the way the moneyed foundations are infiltrating all educational processes. I don't remember who was endorsed in previous years, but this time teachers are hurting. They have felt the pain of the "reform" more since 2009.

This is how privatization takes place, one union head, one superintendent, one principal at a time.

say about changes within the leadership. They have disconnects about being on
the same page.

It's not pleasant to read, but it colors the future of education.

Union leadership is elected, and if the poll shows 67% support HRC then it's not unbelievable to think that there may be 33% who are not satisfied and may complain.

as far as I took it and I found it unfortunate that some took that to mean a conspiracy
theory was being developed.

There is rarely a unanimous agreement on endorsements.

So many teachers know this now about Randi's connections to Gates and Broad. It's a very long article, but people really need know these things.

https://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2014/10/04/weingarten-broad-and-collaborative-privatization/

I think many were like I was...questioning the process and knowing the background.

Broad does not want to get rid of unions; he wants to subsume them.

And Weingarten is just the *leader* to unofficially sell UFT (and now, AFT) to Broad and other corporate reformers in a back-door, privatizers’ “company union”-type arrangement.

What makes this arrangement possible is the cancer that runs AFT/UFT, the pro-corporate Unity Caucus, an invitation-only, dominant group that drives the direction of AFT. Unity Caucus members agree to sign away their individual voices and accompanying critical thinking skills in order to *belong* to this dysfunctional, corporate-reform-loving *in-crowd.*

As Derstine documents, Weingarten has a well-established record in placing corporate interests above those of K12 teachers. But she is not alone. Other Unity folk collude in this traditional public education betrayal:

Kind of like the Democratic Party. The school "reform" movement is about the destruction of public schools for private profit. A can of worms has been opened and people are asking questions. Which is their right, most especially teachers as they are union members, but all people who have children in school or plan to. Transparency and honest dealings should always be a top priority.

Unions are essential to ensuring workers' rights and workplace equality. That's not in dispute.

But there are always efforts to subvert unions either to dissolve them or place them under then hand of capital. and union leaders are often a vulnerable point for this to be done - they're pretty far removed from the proverbial shop floor, and they're usually rubbing elbows with political and financial "leaders." it can be easy to bend a union leader's ear towards theri own gain, if you make it sound like their members will be alright (sometimes you don't even need that much.)

So it's a constant balancing act. Unions need to be there. and any organization needs heads, spokespeople, organizers. But the head is vulnerable. so constant scrutiny is required, in order to protet the union's membership.

Concern for the rainbow of schoolchildren? No. The color of money. Public education spending in the U.S. is a shade under $1 trillion. Private interests want that. Like you say, follow the money.

No matter how well it's working, it represents a HUGE amount of money in government hands, that corporations want to get their mitts on...whether education, social security, healthcare, or military.

Unions represent people Labor and if Broad and his ilk are infiltrating our public school system, bring on the sunshine

If the people know what the Capitalists are doing to our children, the word Scandal will arise

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I really don't.

in the primary season.

votes to pay attention!

Was there any other possible outcome?

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/aft-endorses-hillary-clinton-for-president-119988.html#ixzz3fhj4UtHD

Randi W. finally decided not to take any more of his money because too many teachers were griping.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/03/11/teachers-union-cites-common-core-in-decision-to-cut-gates-funding/

The American Federation of Teachers, which has won millions of dollars in grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, will no longer accept foundation money for its Innovation Fund. Union members have expressed concern about the poor implementation in many states of the Common Core State Standards, one of the initiatives in which the fund invests.

AFT President Randi Weingarten said at the recent SXSWedu conference in Austin that she would ask her executive council to approve a five-cent raise in dues to make up for the money that the nation’s second largest teachers union would have received from the Gates foundation for its Innovation Fund. The fund has invested not only in the Common Core standards but in expanding learning time, charter schools and other projects.

The Gates Foundation has awarded more than $5 million to the AFT Educational Foundation in the last five years, including a 36-month $4.4 million grant in June 2012 to support the Innovation Fund, teacher development and the Common Core State Standards, according to the Gates foundation Web site. The Gates Foundation also has awarded the AFT grant money for other purposes outside the Innovation Fund, and Weingarten said the AFT would still accept Gates money for other purposes.

Weingarten said at the conference that she had decided to stop taking Gates money for the Innovation Fund after talking with many union members, who have been unsettled by the implementation of the Common Core State Standards, which have been heavily supported by the Gates Foundation and Bill Gates for years.

Don't know the details.

In 2001 the Broad Foundation made an important investment

UNIONS The Broad Foundation invests $2 million in the Teachers Union Reform Network (TURN), a network of National Education Association (NEA) and American Federation of Teachers locals (AFT).

Teacher Union Reform Network

Teacher Union Reform Network is a union-led effort to strengthen the nation’s teachers unions by promoting progressive reforms that will ultimately lead to better learning for all students. Because teachers are closest to students, to the learning process, and because of their link to parents and the larger communities, we are in a unique position to stimulate the necessary changes that will lead to sustaining more equitable and effective schools for all students.

Under HRC should she win. Continuing Obama's betrayal on this front.

You really need to real all the link called Weingarten, Broad, and *Collaborative* Privatization.

Eli was ecstatic over the 2008 election.

With the 2008 election of President Barack Obama, Arne Duncan, until then a Broad Foundation Board member (see the next section), was appointed Secretary of Education. The 2009/2010 Annual Report of the Broad Foundation (Page 5) states:

“The election of President Barack Obama and his appointment of Arne Duncan, former CEO of Chicago Public Schools, as the U.S. secretary of education, marked the pinnacle of hope for our work in education reform. In many ways, we feel the stars have finally aligned.

With an agenda that echoes our decade of investments—charter schools, performance pay for teachers, accountability, expanded learning time and national standards—the Obama administration is poised to cultivate and bring to fruition the seeds we and other reformers have planted.” (Emphasis added.)

Do AFT members support these policies?

Teachers have suffered under these policies...and so have parents and students.

Those trained by them have a tendency to use punitive measures like overtesting, dissing teachers, etc.

And only three simple words, too.

DC public schools run by Broad, Gates and Walmart. http://www.dceducationfund.org/our-partners/
Union members should throw Weingarten out on her expensive ass. R.W. laid out a vision? No, she is a collaborator, unless I am missing something…

http://www.wtulocal6.org/issues-we-care-about
Reclaim the Promise
AFT president Randi Weingarten has laid out a vision for reclaiming our public schools. Help us reclaim the promise of public education


Take Action on IMPACT!
DCPS is telling us there are two different errors in the way the District has calculated IMPACT scores: some teachers who got high scores weren't that good, and some teachers who received low scores weren't that bad. In other words, we now know that IMPACT's flaws are even worse than we feared.

These miscalculations have created a significant problem for everyone in the community—teachers, students and parents—because IMPACT scores determine which teachers are retained, rewarded and even fired. Nearly 600 DCPS teachers have been fired in recent years, most because of IMPACT scores. And, this latest arithmetic mistake appears to have affected 1 out of 10 teachers whose evaluations include student test results.

We cannot let this pattern continue. Write Chancellor Kaya Henderson and Mayor Vincent Gray and urge them to change the high-handed way DCPS operates and to involve teachers and parents in the decision-making process.


Teachers are more than an algorithm
Value-added modeling (VAM) uses students’ performance on prior standardized tests to predict academic growth in the current year. In many places VAM doesn’t account for factors that have a big impact on students, like poverty and school funding; it only counts standardized tests.

Leading researchers have questioned the use of VAM in high-stakes teacher evaluation, indicating that it can be an inaccurate and unstable measure of teacher performance when used on its own. This is coming from groups like the American Statistical Association, the Rand Corp. and the Economic Policy Institute. So why are districts, legislators and even the U.S. Department of Education still pushing it as a silver bullet for education?

Agony

Good, cause I have more coming about the infiltration of unions.

Read my post again.

Arne's family has gone home to Chicago, but he's going to keep on harming public schools till the end of the term. Lost the link to that. Must find.