"A child's learning is the function more of the characteristics of his classmates than those of the teacher." James Coleman, 1972

Tuesday, August 30, 2016

AFT Affiliate Exec Among United Opt Out Admins

by Jim Horn
 
A friend sent me a link to some reactions by AFT members to the recent national conference, where it seems that everything that transpired was tightly controlled by Weingarten and TURN veteran, Mary Ricker, to advance the Clinton candidacy, rather than to advocate for students and teachers.  Surprise, right?

Take a moment to read it, and you will see why anyone who is not a hand-picked enforcer of Weingarten's corporate agenda has no chance to affect the direction of this faux union:

AFT Leadership controls the membership. This must change. We are a top down driven union. The international relations and domestic positions of the Democratic Party, and specifically Hillary Clinton (who was present and gave a very disappointing speech about supporting public charter schools) shaped the convention. It was tightly controlled.
Given this basic acknowledged fact, it is hard to imagine the resistance moving toward closer ties with AFT and its affiliates, which are tightly controlled by the AFT home office.  Yet this is what's happening, as I noted a couple of weeks back just after the United Opt Out splintered over these very issues.

Soon after I published my commentary on the shake-up inside UOO and the announced joint meeting with the Houston Federation of Teachers, Ceresta Smith posted at Facebook a message from HFT president, Zeph Capo, about Houston's big CBE model initiative, which doesn't seem to bother him all that much.  I hope you will read the comments that follow his dissembling letter (click on the "See More" just below to get the entire entry).



More recently, the "new" UOO announced a new line-up of administrators, which now includes an executive from HFT.  

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