NYC Educator: Why Is There a Revive NYSUT?

NYC Educator: Why Is There a Revive NYSUT?:

Why Is There a Revive NYSUT?

There are a lot of stories floating around the net about this. There's a grain of truth to some of them. Many of  them revolve around Governor Cuomo. They say that NYSUT President Richard Iannuzzi wanted to order three tickets for Andy Cuomo's thousand-dollar-a-plate birthday party, and that Executive Vice-President Andy Pallotta not only bought an entire table of ten, but also gave seats to several of his Revive running mates. Iannuzzi then made any outlays of more than 5K subject to a vote. That's true.

There is of course the myth that Pallotta, a product of UFT Unity and a long-time UFT District Representative, wanted to stir up the state union, because he didn't deem it active enough. Pallotta, the sitting Executive VP, is in charge of legislation. On his watch, we've seen not only a crippling tax rule, but also a Gap Elimination Adjustment that cuts state aid. So districts get less state money, and can't raise taxes to compensate for it. This has cost plenty of NYSUT jobs, and has also saddled hapless kids with higher class sizes.

There's then the story that NYSUT leaders belong to some super-exclusive club, and blogs overstating the membership fees. There are ridiculous contentions about one of the VPs, who doesn't play squash, playing squash there. I always thought squash was a vegetable, but regardless, this club was used as a place of business. People tell me there are Revive tweets suggesting they should have done business at McDonald's. Maybe the blogger in question didn't know the membership was 30 years old, or that neither of