From the Right: Educational Intelligence Agency on Randi, Common Core and TNTP Slug Tim Daly

If you think she’s (Weingarten) being shifty now, wait until someone asks her about Mulgrew vs. Iannuzzi. ...EIA

Last week the union announced 13 recipients of the grants. Nine of the grants are geared to ease the implementation of the Common Core standards. The NEA delegates approved the fund by a relatively slim margin (55.6% to 44.4%). The margin might have been slimmer yet, or even entirely overturned, had Van Roekel hinted that most of the money would go to Common Core.... EIA

Gee, someone should ask Randi where she stands on NYSUT issue. The fence will get a workout. I will speculate on the threat to Randi nationally if the NYSUT split lasts past April.

Here are 2 posts by Mike Antonucci at EIA with some interest. He breaks down the NEA resistance to common core and includes a link to the slugs at TNTP led by Tim Daly who actually try to make the point that E4E is one of the reasons Weingarten has to walk on the fence. I left a comment on Mike's blog about the joke they are.

He does talk about the BATS and the NYSUT story.

But also ends his quote of the day with a big chunk from James' posting on the ICE blog.

And what both Daly and Antonucci get wrong is that Randi starts out from the neo-liberal support for much of ed deform and backtracks as it falls apart.

But you must read the so-called "very insightful" Tim Daly piece for a batch of laughs. Daly and TNTP have been vampires living on the blood of the public school system for years. I left a few comments on the EIA blog.

Get Out of Dodge?

Written By: Mike Antonucci - Jan• 28•14

Tim Daly and Dan Weisberg have a very insightful post on the TNTP blog about Randi Weingarten and what they see as her varying positions on Common Core. They call it “the implementation dodge” because it consists of supporting Common Core while deriding its implementation.
Their analysis is spot-on, but I would change just one detail. They write, “Her track record has been less about staking out a thoughtful position and more about shifting from one position to another as political realities demand.”
I don’t feel Weingarten shifts from one position to another. To be a teacher union president requires holding two position simultaneously, even if they are contradictory. As the union’s representative to the outside world one must present the union’s best face, mostly consisting of concerns for teacher quality and the general health of the public education system over self-interest. But as union president, one must always be waving the battle flag, to remind the members that they are in danger from nefarious forces and only their membership in the union protects them from utter disaster.

Full post

And this chronicle of NEA and common core. I'm including the entire piece here because there's so much juicy stuff. And he ends with a long quote from James Eterno.
http://www.eiaonline.com/2014/01/27/nea-cant-deliver-common-message-on-common-core/

NEA Can’t Deliver Common Message on Common Core

Written By: Mike Antonucci - Jan• 27•14

January 27, 2014

NEA Can’t Deliver Common Message on Common Core. It is the established policy of the National Education Association that the Common Core State Standards are a good thing. There is a sizable faction within the union that disagrees. The problem is that there is an ebb and flow to the strength of these opposing positions that NEA seems entirely incapable of managing coherently.

Last July, delegates to the NEA Representative Assembly approved the creation of the Great Public Schools Fund, financed with a $3-per-member assessment. The roughly $6 million raised annually would go to union affiliates that “demonstrate leadership in enhancing the quality of public education and to assist in the development and implementation of a proactive agenda that engages members and leads to success for every student.” That is a fairly broad description, leading to expectations that a broad category of activities would be funded.

Nevertheless, the ultimate authority to release the funds rested in the hands of only two men, NEA president Dennis Van Roekel and executive director John Stocks. Last week the union announced 13 recipients of the grants. Nine of the grants are geared to ease the implementation of the Common Core standards.

The NEA delegates approved the fund by a relatively slim margin (55.6% to 44.4%). The margin might have been slimmer yet, or even entirely overturned, had Van Roekel hinted that most of the money would go to Common Core.
The NEA president is expending a lot of energy to diminish the concerns of the anti-Common Core members, writing in an editorial that “change is hard.” He also states, without a note of irony about the history of union communications, that “as a general rule, doomsday scenarios rarely materialize.”

The Badass Teacher Association, which is home for much of the opposition to NEA’s support of Common Core, reacted with a “BAT swarm” to fill NEA’s Facebook page with negative comments.

As a practical matter, the BATs are a minor annoyance for NEA’s powers-that-be. Of more concern is the recent unanimous vote of the board of directors at the New York State United Teachers to withdraw its support for the state’s Common Core standards until major corrections are made and a three-year moratorium enacted on any consequences from standardized testing.

“We’ll have to be the first to say it’s failed,” said Richard Iannuzzi, president of New York State United Teachers.
So the national union is heavily promoting a program that its largest state affiliate is denouncing, while its members continue to pay to implement it.

If that’s not confusing enough, Iannuzzi might be out of office by April, and Van Roekel will be gone by September. Will this policy continue under their successors, or will there be a change in direction?

No wonder the members don’t pay attention.

Recent Intercepts. EIA’s daily blog, Intercepts, covered these topics January 22-27:
*  It’s Official: Civil War in NYSUT. Will it be New York City on one side and the rest of the state on the other? Inside the teachers’ union, that’s an even battle.

Quote of the Week. “Membership to the Unity Caucus in New York City is by invitation only. To be accepted into the caucus, one must sign a statement pledging to support the decisions of the caucus in union and public forums (the so called Unity loyalty oath). There is no public dissent allowed. In exchange for absolute loyalty, Unity members get all expense paid trips to the AFT Convention and the NYSUT Representative Assemblies where they vote as an enormous bloc. I very much doubt that the smaller locals in New York State have the funds to pay for their Delegates to travel to the RA and stay at the Hilton. The party discipline Unity has would make Mao envious.” – James Eterno, United Federation of Teachers chapter leader and member of the MORE caucus. (January 26 ICEUFT Blog)