NYC Educator: Opt-Out Rally---Where's the UFT?

NYC Educator: Opt-Out Rally---Where's the UFT?:

Opt-Out Rally---Where's the UFT?

Here are the presenters at the opt-out forum that took place yesterday in Comsewogue. I got to meet and speak to a few of them. Second from the right is Beth Dimino, the intrepid President of the Port Jefferson Station Teachers Association. All the way to the left is Mercedes Schneider. In the center is Comsewogue Superintendent Joe Rella.

Rella spoke of a tribe in which the overarching question is, "How are the children?" This, to them, reflected on the community. In our state, according to Common Core testing, 70% of our children are failing. This is unacceptable. Rella, when I met him, likened himself to the conductor of an orchestra. He said the teachers were his musicians, that he didn't actually know how to play their instruments, and that couldn't do his job without them. For someone accustomed to the likes of Joel Klein, talking to him was revelatory.

I've read Mercedes Schneider's blog, and noticed her impeccable research. She told us she opposed Common Core standards because she had personal standards, and then called Common Core toxic for its failure to create a knowledge base. Then she told stories of how she'd give her high school kids said knowledge base via telling them stories, and it was very easy to believe. She's got a soft Louisiana accent and I do believe I could listen raptly while she read a telephone book. But she's also ridiculously intelligent, and that's apparent if you speak to her for more than one minute.

Beth Dimino is rapidly becoming one of my personal heroes, as she is a woman of action. She does not let the grass grow around her feet, and