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Hillary calling
Jan 31, 2008 2:20 PM
Senator speaks from campaign trail to thank UFT for its efforts
President’s report
At the Jan. 16 Delegate Assembly, (from left) Vanessa Romano of PS 242 in Queens, Heather Goldberg of PS 82 in Queens, Oral Brady of IS 302 in Brooklyn, Doreen Berrios of PS 146 in Manhattan and Agnes Lopez of PS 114 in the Bronx show who they’re planning to vote for in the Feb. 5 primary.
What do you do when, in the midst of a heated Delegate Assembly discussion of city efforts to deny teachers parking permits, you receive a telephone call from U.S. Senator and union-backed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton? You suspend discussion and take the call. (Even Robert’s Rules of Order took a back seat.)
The senator, via speaker phone at the Jan. 16 DA at UFT headquarters, said she wanted “to thank you personally, Randi, for being there in New Hampshire, referring to UFT President Randi Weingarten’s door-to-door campaigning. “I think you helped make the difference” in her primary victory.
Clinton said she heard that a lot of people were wearing “Hillary” buttons “and I hope I get a picture.”
Clinton also acknowledged that on education matters she takes her cues from teachers. “When it comes to education policy, you all are the experts,” she said. “You do the hard work every day, and when I’m president education will be more than a box to check.
“Education and children are the causes of my life,” she said and promised that “we’re going to get rid of No Child Left Behind,” a promise that brought delegates to their feet roaring approval.
“We just have had a very important conversation about how the extensive testing is really hurting teaching and learning in New York, so that’s music to a lot of people’s ears,” Weingarten told the senator.
Clinton responded that, “We’ve got to end this practice of teaching to the test and give teachers the support and curricula they need to help students achieve at high levels. We’ve got to get back to where we look at each individual child and not treat children like little test takers and teachers like they’re test givers. That’s not how learning takes place!”
She added that as president “we’re going to provide fair pay for teachers working in high-needs areas and fund the kind of recruitment and training programs and get them into schools that need them the most,” and said she was “excited about what we can do together. But I’m going to need your help. It means the world to me to have [the UFT] on my side.”
City Comptroller Bill Thompson also spoke on behalf of the senator’s candidacy, and Marvin Reiskin, the UFT director of legislation/political action, reported on plans for phone banking and get-out-the-vote efforts for the New York and New Jersey super-Tuesday primaries on Feb. 5. Reiskin also walked delegates through the ballot configuration, noting how voters will be asked to not only support Clinton but to vote for delegates pledged to Clinton [see box at right].
Weingarten also commented on some of the campaign acrimony that pundits focused on, saying what was significant was the phenomenon of a black man, Sen. Barack Obama, and a white woman running for president.
UFT Director of Legislation/Political Action Marvin Reiskin uses a sample ballot to show how to vote for Sen. Hillary Clinton as well as union delegates in the Democratic presidential primary.
“I thought I’d never see that,” she said, adding, “we are blessed by two extraordinary candidates and can’t allow campaign differences or divide-and-conquer tactics to keep working people out of the White House.”
Weingarten said a lot of the Department of Education’s fixation on test scores and obsession with aligning sanctions and incentives with test scores was because the chancellor and the mayor are running out of time. “They believe they have one more year to increase test scores substantially so they get bragging rights to say they revolutionized education,” she said. “But we know test scores, even if they increase, are not the equivalent of educating the whole child, and around the country people are recognizing this.” Conversely, some parents — especially from low-income households — want the test prep in class because they can’t afford private test prep. She called it a “class divide.”
As part of combatting the excessive testing frenzy, Weingarten said, “We’re going to buy media to advertise, post Feb. 5, on the need to teach the whole child, then come up with a real accountability system that educates the whole child.”
She also introduced Marilyn Stewart, president of the Chicago Teachers Union, to the DA and she called for a standing moment of silence for Neil Shanahan, former 14-year District 28 representative and chair of the UFT’s Irish Heritage Committee, who died in early January.
