SOLIDARITY FOREVER: Former UTLA President, ousted, to start own charter school
[Editor's Note: The following was published on New Politics (http://newpol.org) Lois Weiner's blog under the title Why a former teacher union president goes over to the dark side].
Why a former teacher union president goes over to the dark side, By Lois Weiner
The LA Times reports that A. J. Duffy, who just this spring stepped down as President of the second largest teachers union in the US, United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA), is opening his own charter school, which will use all of the union-busting techniques UTLA has long opposed. LA's political establishment, most notably the former UTLA staffer who is now Mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, is, no doubt, chortling in glee at this act of treachery. The URL for the Times story is: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0901-duffy-20110901,0,6278786,print.story
I just returned from UTLA's annual Leader Conference, where I spoke about the nature of the life-and-death struggle in which teachers unions are engaged. One of the points I made was that time is running out for union members to take ownership of their unions and to convert the out-dated "service model" or business unionism to a form of union that is more like social movements. Another point I made is that the unions face tremendously conservatizing forces and that union democracy — member pushback — is the most powerful countervailing tendency.
AJ Duffy's flip to the forces of evil should be no surprise to anyone who understands the tremendous power of the propaganda machine that has been put in place by the "Billionaire Boys Club." Yet, it's a disappointment to see that someone who was trusted with safeguarding public education from privatization, keeping it a "public good" that is overseen and funded by the public, would, so easily, desert his former comrades. Shame on you AJ Duffy!
I hope UTLA members take this as a reminder that union leaders are only as strong and as courageous as the members who force them to be so. Don't mourn about AJ Duffy. Go back to your chapters and organize!
[1] http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0901-duffy-20110901,0,6278786,print.story
THE LA TIMES STORY FOLLOWS HERE:
latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0901-duffy-20110901,0,6803978.story
latimes.com
At his charter school, ex-UTLA head would target tenure
Once an anti-charter crusader, A.J. Duffy wants to make it harder for teachers to obtain protections at the campus he hopes to open next year. By Howard Blume, Los Angeles Times
September 1, 2011
A.J. Duffy, who headed a teachers union that has long fought against charter schools, now is starting his own. And some of his ideas are going to trouble some educators and his friends in the labor movement.
The longtime anti-charter crusader wants to make it harder for teachers to earn tenure protections and wants to lengthen that process. He even wants to require teachers to demonstrate that they remain effective in the classroom if they want to keep their tenure protections.
And if a tenured teacher becomes ineffective, he wants to streamline dismissals. The process now in place can stretch out for several years, even with substantial evidence of gross misconduct. Some union leaders, notably Duffy, have defended this "due process" as a necessary protection against administrative abuses.
"I would make it 10 days if I could," Duffy now says of the length of the dismissal process.
These are not viewpoints ever advanced, condoned or accepted by United Teachers Los Angeles, which represents teachers and other professionals in the nation's second-largest school system. Duffy headed that union for six years, until term limits forced him from office in July.
Duffy will have a unionized school, preferably with his former union, but not at the expense of sacrificing his vision for how a school should operate, he said.
Skeptics, who criticized Duffy's management of the union, now question his qualifications to run schools. Charter school advocates responded cautiously, but were generally positive.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa had called the union under Duffy "one unwavering roadblock to reform." The mayor had no comment, but Patrick Sinclair, a spokesman for a group of schools overseen by the mayor, said, "We're glad he's pursuing a lot of the changes and reforms that we and the mayor would like to see."
Charter schools are free public schools that are operated independently from the local school district. They are not subject to some rules that govern traditional schools, and most are non-union.
Duffy, 67, will move this week from a founding board member to executive director of Apple Academy Charter Public Schools. He plans to submit a charter proposal for review and possible approval by the L.A. Unified School District in the next few weeks. He hopes to open one or more schools in the South L.A. area by the fall of 2012 at the latest.
Among those on his board: Former school board President Caprice Young, who went on to head the California Charter Schools Assn., after the teachers union mounted a successful campaign to oust her in 2003. Duffy was a union activist then; he became president in 2005, joining an anti-charter union leadership.
"If you were to put it in evangelical terms, this is about the best conversion I could hope for," said Young, who now heads a nonprofit teacher-recruiting effort. "I hesitate to describe it that way, because this is a collaboration. I've been willing to let go of my preconceived notions about someone with whom I've fought in the past."
The Apple Academy board also includes Ref Rodriguez, co-founder of the Partnerships to Uplift Communities, a large and non-union local charter group.
Even while Duffy battled charter schools, he also wanted to unionize them. Some other UTLA leaders opposed this goal; they didn't want to sanction the existence of charters in any way. L.A. Unified has more charters than any other school system, 197, and two joined UTLA over the last six years. (Some traditional schools converted to charters and remained with the union.)
As union president, Duffy railed against the lower percentage of special education students and students learning English who were served by charters — an issue that still troubles him. And he fought to keep charter schools off L.A. Unified campuses. Every time a charter school opened, it siphoned off union teaching positions.
At the same time, he argued for charter school-like freedoms at traditional schools, running up against the L.A. Unified bureaucracy and, frequently, his own union's reluctance to risk weakening contract protections.
As his term in office ended, Duffy had a right to return to the classroom — he had been a teacher and a dean. But he hoped for a larger role. That chance came through an unexpected vehicle: a charter-school cheating scandal.
In 2010, when teachers at Crescendo charter schools reported that they were ordered to cheat on state standardized tests, they quickly joined UTLA for protection against retaliation. Duffy took up their cause and argued that the schools should remain open.
L.A. Unified ultimately voted to close Crescendo in July. Now, Duffy hopes to hire Crescendo teachers and attract former students.
Duffy said his new role gives him another crack at a longtime union goal: freeing teachers from what he regards as an oppressive district bureaucracy.
And he said his teachers would receive a fair, if expedited, dismissal process. Struggling teachers would receive help before they were fired, and experienced teachers would have to support the dismissal.
Former UTLA President John Perez said he wished Duffy well but said he could not endorse Duffy's new direction. Charter school operators, he said, are laying the groundwork for using public-school funds at private schools through so-called vouchers.
They're also opening the door for corporations "who want to destroy public education by getting their hands on the hundreds of billions of dollars we spend on public education in this country," Perez said.
By: AJ Duffy
Response to the Article
What you are about to read is my account to clarify the facts surrounding my move to become Executive Director of Apple Academy Charter Public Schools (Apple Academy teachers will be union members).
I have no problem with people criticizing me. I have a thick skin. My problem lies with the misperception people have formed based upon misinformation and innuendo.
If after you read this piece you still disagree with me, that’s all right. We can agree to disagree, but at least you will have heard the real story and facts surrounding my move to run a unionized charter school.
I wish people would check the facts before they misinform others. I want Apple Academy Charter Public School teachers to have something, most if any charter school teachers don't have--tenure. Yes, teachers will have to recertify every few years, but each time they recertify they get more tenure added on in years. That together with quality professional development will give Apple Academy Charter Public School teachers the environment to be involved in a process of constant improvement and honing of their skills. I want Apple Academy Charter Public School teachers to have something charter school teachers don't have--binding arbitration as a final step in a grievance process. And yes, the arbitration process should be expedited. From start to finish it should be fair but quick. No more than 20 days not 10 as reported. My mother once told me to believe half of what you hear and a quarter of what you read. A concept we should all live by; especially those that report the news. I want Apple Academy Charter Public School teachers to have a central role in their school--to create their evaluation system (not based upon standardized test scores), PAR programs, teacher driven lessons and curriculum, and the ability to have a central role in other areas of school decision making. In short, I want to re-professionalize the teaching profession by building a model at Apple Academy Charter Public Schools that will represent all the aspirations of the creator of the concept of charter schools, Albert Shanker, who envisioned for education student centered teacher driven schools. I want to bring to your attention that the teachers were union members at the disbanded Crescendo Charters. The schools were closed because the teachers refused to cheat on state standardized tests as directed by their Executive Director and 4 of the 6 principals. They will continue to be union teachers supported by their local union and paying dues.
I believe unionizing charter school teachers is the wave of the future. Charter school teachers deserve representation, and like the rest of us, they crave a central role in school decision making. Being involved at Apple Academy Charter Public Schools will be my attempt along with my board of directors and the dedicated teachers who are working side-by-side with us, to create a model to show the world that charter organizations and their teachers can work with progressive management to create world class education for students.
Is there something wrong with that?