A Goodbye for James Eterno

I was out of town when James was laid to rest. I also wanted to wait a few days until after all the blog posts subsided and the service was over before I published. I fell out with him there before the end. I felt the opposition stood a great chance of winning the votes of all active teachers in the last UFT election and I urged him & others to reach out to moderate and right wing voices who we knew were ready to run with us. He & the others didn't see it the same way and eventually ran a left-only slate to oppose Unity (who summarily beat the crap out of them, winning almost every single division except high schools -again). I was mad so I took my marbles and went home. I'm still sore about it, to be honest, so I did nothing to repair the breaches that were caused before his stroke. And now that he's passed, and that opportunity will never arise, I feel responsible to at least try to leave a small record of what has been lost with the quieting of James voice. 

And I should start with a basic fact; that if talent or merit or love of union had played a wider role in the arch that was this man's union career, you would be reading a memorial about a famous high ranking or UFT or AFT official who moved the entire labor movement by building leaders within his profession and fighting like hell for it. He was that brilliant. He was that strong. He was that good.  Alas, those professional qualities play a very small role in New York's teacher union. So you are reading a memorial about a great dissenter instead. But make no mistake, he was the greatest our union ever saw. And you're lucky if you ever knew him. You're lucky if you ever read him or talked with him for more than ten minutes at a time or agreed with him or argued with him with him or learned from him. Just lucky. 

He had enough balls to stand up to powerful men and women (and I mean politically powerful men and women). He had enough brains to know how to do it. And he grew leadership from among those around him in order to do it. While a chapter leader at Jamaica High School. James helped start ICE. The ICE blog became a major voice against many of Bloomberg's policy of closing schools, specifically, the teacher union's complicity in allowing them. But James' voice on education wasn't the only one to ring out of from Jamaica High School during this time. A colleague of his wrote about education for the New York Post. That colleague (who freely admitted to me in my teacher lounge that James was an inspiration for his choice to write about education) went on to be a thorn in the side of the UFT as well.  In 2008, he inspired another colleague, unfairly placed in the rubber room, to start his own blog to fight back. And, although Eric Chassanoff passed away during COVID, his blog was the highest read edu blog across New York for a very long time (according to my checks of Google Analytics during that time). Eric's blistering criticism of the DOE leadership left little to the imagination and was matched only by his dearly held resentment for it. You probably read his blog once or twice, but Chaz' School Daze was actually essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the UFT and the NYCDOE under Bloomberg and Klein for a very long time. That blog was created by one of James' members at Jamaica.

That was James' brand of leadership and it continued all the way up to his last election. I personally knew of his efforts in fostering and supporting the growth of new candidates for chapter leader positions, new teachers to the DOE and even new radio show hosts. There are very few leaders who grow other leaders but that was James Eterno's stock and trade.  He simply inspired others around him. He will never get credit for creating not one but fully three widely read anti Bloomberg/Kein edu blogs at the height of the education wars. You won't hear his voice on WBAI or on the modern UFT Executive Board. But it's there, alive and well in the form of new opposition leaders that he helped develop. 

And James Eterno was the greatest chapter leader of his generation. Although he is best known for his fight to stop the closure of his school, Jamaica High School, James' lasting contribution to working teachers of New York was to provide a blueprint for how to stand up, who to stand up to (and who to stand with) as well as how to articulate the utter insanity that led to his school's demise (that's a long story. I feel like I have to explain)... 

... Under Michael R Bloomberg and Joel Klein, the City fo New York embarked on a ferocious attempt to reverse white flight and attract middle and upper class parents to move back to the city. That attempt led to the creation of small, boutique schools all over the city where white middle class parents would want to send their children. In order to accomplish this, Black and Brown students, as well as students who required extra support services, were all (all) assigned to traditional neighborhood schools which lacked the resources to properly service the hundreds and, in some cases, thousands, of higher needs students who had been assigned to attend together. The result was a highly segregated school system and a whole host of overburdened schools that fell into poor academic standing.

Rather than admit to the neo-redlining policies they had enacted, Klein and Bloomberg helped establish a fictional narrative for the entire city where 'poor teachers' and 'bad teaching' was to blame for the mess that they themselves had created. UFT president at the time, Randi Weingarten, went right along with the program in exchange for retaining a seat at the table of the state and national DNC and for more cash for the teachers who were able to hold on. 

In order to validate their narrative (and to create more space for his boutique schools), Klein over flooded large schools with too many higher needs students than the schools could handle. Once the school statistics went down, the city would close it, displacing community students and open a new one, thus filling the 'new' seats with, 'new' (ie gentrified), students.  This was the game plan under Bloomberg and Klein. 

And James fought it tooth and nail and as much in the public eye as he could. The voices coming out of ICE during this time sounded (both individually and collectively) a stark alarm and painted an almost full, complete picture of what was happening and why it was happening from a teacher's point of view. Although it was before my time, I am told that, as a member of the Executive Board, James challenged UFT president Randi Weingarten at every turn, taking advantage of every opportunity. Back at his school, I was told that he organized parents and colleagues and community members and students alike in order to avoid the closing of Jamaica High School. I know first hand that, once the closing was announced and the DOE began phasing out students and excessing teachers that Eterno fought like hell right up until the end... 

Of course this more notable fight was a loss. Ultimately, Jamaica High School did close and every teacher there (James included) were sent elsewhere as substitutes (sorry, "teacher assigned" from the ATR). For many, their new principals did not trust them, their new colleagues steered clear of them.  But not James. He impressed at his new school and they kept him teaching a full load until he retired. In this loss, though, James showed everyone who cared how to fight the Bloomberg/Klein system and this has become his lasting legacy: You fight it by organizing with allies to amplify your voice. You fight it by calling attention to yourself. You fight it by drawing swords against the leaders in your own union, holding them accountable for their role in the devastating policies and by relentlessly criticising them in public, even during times when you were working with them in private 

In addition to the road map he helped write, James helped to articulate what had really been happening to struggling and working class families all across New York. Activists responded, sure, but eventually families in central and south Queens responded as well. In 2013, they, as well as most of the rest of the city, voted to send the very antithesis of Bloomberg, Bill de Blasio, to Gracie Mansion. School closings and the teacher wars here in NYC ended very shortly thereafter and, with the spotlight snuffed out here in New York, the ed wars soon ended across much of the country's urban centers too. Only those who understand the UFT's power and complicity in that disaster of an era know that James Eterno was one of the major forces behind the efforts to stop it. But those of us who do understand know it very well. 

And I'm happy to tell that tale and I hope you mention, in your travels, how a New York City public school teacher who was prevented from rising the ranks of the union that he loved more than many of the union officials who work it was able to convince so many of of us to climb up on top Rocinante and take a shot at the windmill with him.  I'm happy to count James as one of my mentors of the UFT and grateful for the wisdom I have gained from knowing him. And while I will greatly miss his presence on this stage, I'm confident that his protogees who are still in that fight have been given all the tools they need in order to continue it. 

End the Mysoginy at the UFT HQ. Restore Amy Arundell as Queens Rep. Remove Michael Mulgrew as President

End the Misogyny at the UFT HQ. Restore Amy Arundell as Queens Rep. Remove Michael Mulgrew as President

UPDATE: Michael Mulgrew will have the audacity to show his face at the Queens UFT office tomorrow at 4 PM to exaplin this latest example of the pure contempt he has for professional women who rise through the ranks. He will be flanked by three other men. If he reads this, he will probably bring a token woman along with him. 

Folks who know the UFT have long known that a culture of suspicion and fear permeates the organization. Its headquarters at 52 Broadway is a hotbed of fear and loathing.  It has been described by many as a toxic place to work and has made many victims of great teachers and unionists. This culture is not entirely built upon the misogyny I am about  to describe but the contempt, mistrust and suspicion of women -specifically women who dare to reveal themselves as equals to the men who actually run the union- has had a significant presence on that culture for many years. This is the reality of the UFT office staff under president Michael Mulgrew and has been since Randi left for the AFT. This, among folks who know the union, is known and never mentioned. 

It's ok to be a woman if you work at UFT HQ, by the way.  Just don't ask to be seen as equal to the small handful of men who make all of the decisions. It's ok if you're not a man, mind you. It's probably better if you dress nice or make the important men feel nice. Just don't you dare present yourself as equal to those men. If you do, bad things will happen. It is the most disguised and disgusting form of misogyny that we have in New York City.  The women are there. They're capable. They go to every meeting, attend every event and support every initiative that is requested of them. But they are nowhere to be found in the highest levels of officership in the union and they won't be any time soon.  

When Amy Arundell took over the Queens office, there was no UFT presence in those schools at all. Teachers were harassed and abused in the workplace in schools all across the borough as a matter of routine. It became common. Nearly all of the hardcore unionists, including the bloggers arose from Queens precisely because this fact.  As Queens Rep, Amy Arundell began organizing chapters, supporting chapter leaders and supporting individual teachers. She held "organize your chapter' events and  took to social media posts to answer teacher questions and concerns. She became widely known as the only UFT official who really cared about teachers' rights and teachers' work experience and teachers from all over the city came to knowAmy Arundell's tough, direct approach. "Amy Arundell is the Best Unity Has to Offer" is how well-known teacher Arthur Goldstein described her. By the end of the last contract negotiation, Amy was organizing teachers all across the city for professionally themed days of action and was personally responsible for the UFT's newest tool; the Contract Actions Teams (CATs). Those teams helped organize chapters of schools all across the city. She is also the only UFT official who has refused to say "don't strike" when prompted to on a zoom training that she (as opposed to anyone else) organized and offered to all teachers. 

No one was paying much attention last Friday, October 13, when this dynamo uniost (the same one who organized the entire borough of Queens by supporting teachers) was quietly removed from her position as Queens Borough Rep. No one was paying attention when a white man replaced her either. That's how misogyny breeds: It grows when no one is paying attention. And no one pays attention on a Friday afternoon. That's when workplace abusers do their best work. 

But the fact is that on that on a rainy Friday in October, when he knew the DA would not meet for another month and he knew the Executive Board would not meet for another 2 weeks, Michael Mulgrew had another man, Anthony Harmon, send an ALL STAFF email out to every UFT employee in Queens informing them that the person who rebuild that borough office had been reassigned. The email gave no explanation (after all, who are they to have to explain themselves?) but said that Mulgrew was coming down on Monday -with three other men- to speak about it to staff. 

When no one is looking. When no one is paying attention. That's how this contempt for women leaders grows and sustains itself. 

Teachers found out anyway. Many took to DOE Teacher Chat -a Facebook group with almost 32,000 NYC UFT members- to share the news and to express their outrage at the decision. Amy is the *only* union official who routinely helps teachers, you see, and much of her work has been done in that group. So it stands to reason that some of the posts and comments told a tale of anger and betrayal. You see, none of those UFT people give a sh*t about teachers and we know it. Amy does and we know that, too. So the anger was there on Teacher Chat all weekend. 

"Why did Mulgrew remove a person who has been sop helpful to us?", wrote one teacher. 

"Shame on whoever removed Amy Arundell as the Queens Borough rep. I am absolutely disgusted and embarrassed for our union hearing about this" wrote another. "I urge every Queens chapter leader in this group to mobilize their staff and pusg back against this nonsense"

One Chapter Leader from Queens started a petition in support of Amy which, after 18 hours (over a weekend; when on teachers pay attention) neared 500 signatures. (You can sign the petition here).

And the union trolls -those despicable union officials who normally patrol the DOE Teacher Chat by shaming teachers into silence there- were noticeably silent throughout the entire weekend. Hiding, I'm sure under the nearest rock they could find. 

They are almost all men, by the way  The trolls are mainly DRs  and member reps from the Brooklyn and Manhattan offices and many of them help Michael Mulgrew sustain the culture of fear and suspicion that he has established over at the UFT. They are almost all men. 

(Some of them were, no doubt, behind this misogyny (as in I have no doubt) and, as a consequence, they hid in silence -like slugs who hide from the daylight; the hid away while teachers expressed how abandoned they felt to have the one unionist they felt was ont heir side removed.  The trolls posted nothing under the real names all weekend. But when things turned bad on Teacher Chat, they did try to post -anonymously- to throw shade on the woman who they had targeted.  Otherwise, they shelter in the swamp they have helped nurture.)

Now misogynists will always make an excuse for their abusive acts of misogyny. This is a fact of life for successful woman. Behind those excuses, though, is a simple contempt for women who can do the job better than the cigar smoking man ever could (Amy Arundell does the job better than them). Misogyny takes the form of a silent accusation before the woman is usually swept away. This case is no different.  No sooner did word about her removal begin to spread, did we all started reading sudden anonymous posters on facebook who claimed that Arundell had yelled and screamed and defended Palestinian civilians last Wednesday (Arundell is not a yeller or a screamer and many witnesses have publicly said this never happened). One of the accusers -a man- had accused her of trying to amend a resolution. That wasn't true.  Another -again, a man- said that she didn't defend Israel or some such. Witnesses again say no. 

Since contempt for women is on the menu, it didn't much matter than two Zionists immediately went public in their defense of her. One actually wrote that that, "Her views on the government of Israel are totally in line with many of my Jewish friends and family". None of that matters at UFT HQ. The culture of fear and suspicion had all the ammunition they needed to attack another woman and they used it. 

The Misogynists had their excuse to get the woman who made them feel threatened. That's Misogyny. It's just that simple. Last Friday, misogynists took false advantage of an historically horrible moment and attacked the woman who made them feel threatened. That's how the game works at the UFT. 

But Michael Mulgrew will have the audacity to show his face at the Queens UFT office tomorrow anyway. He will be there at 4 PM to mansplain his latest example of the sheer contempt he has for professional women who stand on the same level and who do the job better than he.  He will be flanked by three other men. If he reads this post, he will probably bring a token woman or two along with him. 

Michael Mulgrew and the two other men who run the UFT are hiding behind a terrible moment in history specifically to remove a woman who they see as a threat to them and to their power. Mulgrew needs to be removed as president. This union is suffering under his poor leadership and is hurting under his overcompensating act of punishing a woman -or anyone- who can do the job better than he can.