Be the first on your block to know that Green Dot is coming to your neighborhood school.
Leo's praising it. It's sounding more like a dun deal.
They probably wanted to soften us up before they did this, though. Too bad for them we read this blog.
I'm not defending Leo or Green Dot so bear with me. Green Dot seems to have some favorable job protections, but no seniority rights. Okay, what seniority rights do we now possess? I can't think of a worthwhile one. We have no transfer right based on senioriry, we have no excessing right based on seniority. Unless being an itinerant day to day sub is worthwhile.Principals can give positions to almost anyone without referencing seniority.My school has a lead ELA teacher with six years on the job. There are four ELA staff with more than 20. Seniority helped there.
What I'm saying is what Richie Farkas tried to say in mufti. We have been denuded of most of our rights and our leaders blame the DoE for using the power we gave them. So why not look for a system where the senioroty rights are the same, nil, and the job protection a whisper better. Maybe that's been the plan all along. Make Green Dot look attractive compared to the DoE and have the Unity leadership share the spoils.
Perhaps. There is excess in reverse seniority order, but what with Klein closing schools, claiming victory, and dumping everyone he doesn't like into ATR, that won't work for everyone. I don't like the ATR at all, and the teachers in it could certainly be used to lower class sizes.
But it still beats being fired, as would happen in a Green Dot school. It particularly beats being fired so they can keep someone at half your salary.
Dr. Homeslice has an interesting post:
http://drhomeslice.blogspot.com/...dots-in-
la.html
Here's a comment someone left on it. I don't think I found the complete contract there, as the person claimed, but some revisions, one being you could only take part of the day off for a medical appointment, and that you had to document it. I don't know whether the contract used to be there or not:
UTLA Insighter said...
I happened to have analyzed the Green Dot contract compared to the LAUSD/UTLA contract. The Green Dot one can be found here:
http://www.greendot.org/home/amu.html
Thoughts:
1) Those who are proud that Green Dot is "unionized" are actually more proud that the the Green Dot union is really marginalized.
2) No accumulated sick leave, defined contribution health care (~$420 a month, below market rate), no pregnancy leave, inferior top end of salary scale, no disciplinary procedures, no binding arbitration.... suggests that the only people Green Dot expects to employ are the young and idealistic, and even them, not for long. Teaching is temporary, missionary work, for young, mostly white folks to go save the poor, black, and brown. Its certainly not a career, unless its a springboard into management, where the real money is at
3)Why can't you vote out Steve Barr? (Head of Green Dot)
4) CTA (and not UTLA) nominally organizes the charters because no one else has the resources to spend taking on this massive project. CTA gets dues, Green Dot gets labor movement street cred, and the foundations of public education as a public enterprise are weakened. Energy might be better spent figuring out how to stem the rising tide of semi-private, sub-standard schools based on a promise of college and offering not much else...
FYI-the politics with SB, Villaraigosa, CTA, UTLA, and the privatizer lobby are quite complex.., from one on the inside..
7:33 PM
There's plenty Randi, Leo and the rest of the Unity/New Action coalition have fought for - perpetual power and perks, perks, perks for themselves.
X65,
Do you really think a Green Dot model would work with the type of Leadership we have, including principals who now abuse their powers.
Read Peter's piece on Edwize on how Chapters no longer have a say on SLT teams.
Do you think an organization like Green Dot want senior teachers on their payroll?
Randi first tells us she is looking into alternatives. Yet it seems her mind is made up and her sheep, I mean delegates will follow her with her made-up mind.
Can't we at least look at other alternatives? There are many schools in this country that have pure collaboration between principal and staff, and they come up with innovative plans that show improved student achievement, like using the last period to assess students' work and plan accordingly. Our 37.5 minutes would be better served on similar plans.
Randi is looking to stop tenure and seniority not for the good of our system, but to build her own reputation for Washington, and that's what's unfair.
I see the future and this is what I see--Randi and her amoral staff are going to do the following:
1. Destroy the UFT completely until it is no longer a union, but just a dues collecting patronage mill.
2. Demoralize all staff, especially senior staff and give away all of our hard earned rights--especially seniority rights.
3. Claim she has the best interests of teachers/students/parents when in fact it is her own selfish, powerhungry ego that she serves.
Oh, wait--did I say I see the future? The future is now and Randi Weingarten has done all of these and more. She should be ashamed of herself, but hey--who cares about the union, anyway, as long as you get a large salary?
So--Randi is on the cusp of destroying public education...GREAT JOB!
Wow!! I need to work on my satire. I thought the last line of my post actually showed why I thought Unity was pounding the propaganda drum for Green Dot. Maybe I made myself sound too favorable for GD. Sometimes that Jesuit HS debate training comes back into play. I could always argue both sides of an argument effectively. Sorry for the misconceptions I may have created
My point was Unity praises GD as something we can work with, they have eliminated most of our seniority rights and now they present GD's arbitration system as superior to tenure. Why? They see GD as an ally against Blooomberg and Klein.
UFT has tried a pair of charter schools. I don't know their success, but running the schools must be taxing. GD has resources, cred, and experience in a large urban immigrant system. If Randi can get GD here she will get Albany to lift the cap on charters and GD will start five to ten schools a boro. They will overwhelm Klein and Bloomie's groups like Kip's Bay and dominate the charters in NYC with the UFT (Unity) as partner. Any losses suffered by the stafs of GD or DoE are collateral damage in a war for control of education in NYC.
77% of the teachers didn't even bother to vote in the recent UFT election. We have met the enemy and they are us.
BTW, there are a handful of charter schools in New York City that are unionized under the UFT. They are the "conversion" schools. Some are decent and a couple are excellent. Just one example is Renaissance Charter in Jackson Heights is a K-12 school with solid test scores and a safe environment. If a charter school can be unionized AND get 80% of the funding that DOE schools get, what gives?
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