Philly teachers hatch a militancy plot

The Caucus of Working Educators is shaking up the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers. What's on their agenda?

Alison McDowell, left, and Diane Payne attend a City Hall hearing on standardized testing.
Maria Pouchnikova

When the School District of Philadelphia announced its latest round of mass layoffs in June 2013, Science Leadership Academy teacher Larissa Pahomov created "Faces of the Layoffs," a simple website that featured posts about those who had lost their jobs along with a photograph and explanations of what each loss would mean.

Overbrook High School counselors Tonnie Davenport and Melissa Lawson were "the thread that holds the school together." One student credited Northeast High School teacher Dave Sokoloff with having "opened my eyes to the world." Kim Richardson, a history teacher, changed jobs after a career working for the city because she had "always dreamed of being a teacher. ... Kim has a big heart, open enough for all members of the Girls' High community. Don't break it this way."

Pahomov started the project to support a friend, Bartram High School English teacher Anissa Weinraub, who was among those who had been let go. The website ultimately collected about 200 profiles and exploded on social media and into local news coverage.

"That started with me getting a call from Anissa [on Saturday] in the afternoon, knowing she had gotten a pink slip, and we had to do something by Monday," says Pahomov.

The site, a project of the Teacher Action Group (TAG), was heartfelt and straightforward, and humanized teachers and other staffers who in recent years have been under attack. And it was the sort of bottom-up initiative that inspired Pahomov, alongside fellow teachers, counselors and nurses—many of them TAG members—to form the Caucus of Working Educators (WE), a group of militant members shaking up the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers (PFT). The group, founded in March, recently held its first convention.

As a caucus, it is working within the union to focus on reengaging and educating members, developing new leaders and building relationships with community and parent organizations. And its very existence stands as a pointed criticism of the PFT's often moribund status quo.

"We have become a union that has become more stratified," says Pahomov, co-chair of the WE Steering Committee. "There is some distance between the leadership and the rank and file. I feel that both parties are equally culpable. ... As a rank-and-file member, what can I do? I can energize my fellow rank-and-file members."
WE members have been visible in their red T-shirts at rallies, opposing funding cuts to city schools, and at public hearings, denouncing the actions of the School Reform Commission (SRC).

When the SRC announced its unilateral decision in October to make teachers pay part of their health-care benefits, the WE website quickly posted the real-dollar cost to teachers. (A local court has stayed the SRC's action.)

Many labor unions were founded in the last century by militant workers who went on strike, sometimes broke the law and often called for radical change. But in today's labor movement, bureaucracy has become the norm, and the relationship between workers and their union is typically based on the services the latter provides: benefits, grievances and negotiating a contract behind closed doors.

Today, organized labor in general, and teachers' unions in particular, are in decline and losing political battles. With all the layoffs, membership in the PFT has declined to 11,232 today, compared to 16,408 in the 2010-11 school year, according to School District figures.

For years, PFT president Jerry Jordan's Collective Bargaining Team has been the union's sole caucus, and activist teachers have complained that its leadership is too complacent and insular — failing to educate, involve and mobilize its members.

The PFT has suffered repeated defeats since the state takeover of Philly schools in 2001, and then under Gov. Tom Corbett, who imposed deep cuts to education spending. A well-funded movement of self-described reformers identify teachers' unions as a key problem facing public schools. They tout as the best solution evaluating teachers based on standardized-test scores, weakening job protections and the establishment of privately managed and mostly union-free charter schools.

The PFT has failed to mobilize an effective counterattack.

Ismael Jimenez, a history teacher at Kensington High School for Creative and Performing Arts and WE Steering Committee member, points to last week's PFT meeting at Girls' High School, where he says only about 100 of the union's members showed up. It was "depressingly empty."

"I think there is a huge disconnect from the average member to what the union's actually doing, to the point where most PFT members within the union don't feel like the union is supportive of them as educators," says Jimenez. "I think that the [WE] caucus can really fill that gap and say, 'No, the union is you. It's not just the PFT off in the distance who you get emails from occasionally.'"

Jimenez, for one, says he has never voted in a PFT election of officers. "And that's coming from somebody who's highly interested in unionism, philosophically," he says.

In an interview, PFT president Jordan said that it was hard for many members, especially young mothers, to be involved.

"Certainly I think that members being active in the organization is a good thing," says Jordan. "We have meetings, we advertise it. Some people come, some people don't. And again there are a lot of reasons for that. As you know we have a lot more younger members now. ... The vast majority of our members are female, many are young mothers. They are really very, very busy with doing their jobs, and then having to balance doing their jobs and their time after school with the task of raising their own families."

Jordan agreed that the union needed a more active membership, and said that he had taken the lead in trying to boost involvement.

"Over a year ago at a membership meeting, I talked to the members about things that were going on in the school system and in the country relative to education and the word 'reform,' which I've learned to almost hate, and the reformers," says Jordan. "And what I said to the members at the meeting is that, as a union, we have to become very active. And I suggested to them that we form something called an Action Army."

The Action Army, according to PFT spokesperson George Jackson, is basically an e-mail list to publicize protests and events.

WE, which boasts 141 dues-paying members, held its first convention on Nov. 8. Its quick growth could shape the larger fight to defend public education in Philadelphia, where thousands of jobs have been eliminated, charter schools have expanded rapidly with little financial oversight, dozens of schools have closed, preparation for high-stakes testing dominates much of the curriculum and now, because of the attempt to impose health-care cost-sharing, underpaid teachers face what is effectively a salary cut.

The PFT is the single most powerful force fighting for fair funding for city schools and opposing school closings and layoffs. Its weakness and inability to mobilize its members undermines the entire movement to save Philadelphia public schools.

The WE Caucus takes inspiration from Chicago's militant Caucus of Rank and File Educators, or CORE, which took over leadership of the Chicago Teachers Union in 2010. Then, in 2012, they led teachers out on a high-profile strike that grabbed national attention and, more important, received widespread support from parents and community members.

CORE had poured money into training rank-and-file teachers as organizers and formed strong ties to neighborhood and parent groups. It also prioritized opposition to tax-increment financing, or TIFs, which funnel property-tax revenue to often-private development (not so different, in terms of its political and economic implications, from Philadelphia's property-tax abatements).

The support CORE had built was evident when a phenomenal 90 percent of CTU members cast ballots in favor of going on strike and community groups took an active role in organizing strike actions.

"You could just tell when you were in Chicago that this was a union whose rank and file was extremely invested in the strike that was going on, and really took ownership of it," says Micah Uetricht, the web editor at the left-wing magazine In These Times and author of the book Strike for America: Chicago Teachers Against Austerity.

"Labor [knows] they're supposed to have community groups working with them, so it becomes sort of this thing they check off their list," Uetricht adds. "It's much different with the CTU, which doesn't just have them at their press conferences, but has them involved in the day-to-day decision-making of the union."

Polls showed that a majority of parents backed the teachers in their contract fight against Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Now, they are the backbone of Chicago's left, and playing a leading role in seeking to oust him in the 2015 mayoral election.

For years, many have called on the PFT to strike even though Philadelphia teachers are specifically barred from doing so under the state takeover law. A strike could still be successful, however, given that the state Department of Education's only means of retaliating would be to revoke teachers' certifications, and the agency couldn't decertify thousands. But, given the union's current level of member engagement, would it be ready to mobilize its members and the community in the streets?

Jordan denied criticism that the PFT was a bread-and-butter, wages-and-benefits union that failed to take social movements seriously. As an example of the leadership's commitment, he pointed out that he was vice chair of the American Federation of Teachers standing committee on civil and human rights, and that the union maintains relationships with groups like Jobs With Justice, and speaks out against mass incarceration.

Last week, Jordan spoke at a City Council hearing on high-stakes standardized testing — a hearing packed with members of WE and their parent allies from the group Opt Out Philly.

"I am also a supporting member of WE, which is in the early stages of creating a committee to support the needs and amplify the voices of parents and community members in addition to the educator members," says Alison McDowell, a Masterman parent and chair of Opt Out Philly, a committee of the Alliance of Philadelphia Public Schools. "Some [WE members] are parents and educators who have made the choice to refuse testing for their own children."

Strong community ties are necessary to fight off the many threats to Philly public schools, according to WE. In the past, student and community-group leaders have often joined the PFT in fighting for fair funding — but have been wary of the union leadership's commitment to forming real partnerships.

But strong school-level organization among teachers and staff is a prerequisite for effective community outreach. Some schools have strong PFT committees in the buildings, but many don't. In schools where WE has a strong presence, like Feltonville School of Arts and Sciences, teachers and staff have taken militant actions independent of union leadership, setting up pickets and protesting a School District award.

"I think the first way we started engaging members is starting in our own schools," says Feltonville teacher Amy Roat, the PFT building representative and a member of WE's Steering Committee. "If something pops up in the newspapers say, [we ask,] 'What do you think? How do you feel? Are you upset? Should we do something about it?' ... The morale is extremely low in the School District" and it makes a big difference "just having somebody listen and say, 'I care about what you think. Did you read that article?'"

Jordan seemed satisfied with the union's building committees, con­tending that the degree of involvement depends on an individual school's culture.

"We have building committees in all of our buildings, and we have building reps in all of our buildings. And it varies from building to building, and that has always been the case and will probably always be the case. It depends on the people who work in the building and, by that, I mean not only the staff, but also the administrators," he says.

The PFT has long been the equivalent of a one-party state: The Collective Bargaining Team caucus has run the union since 1983. In 2007, Jordan, then PFT vice president, was appointed to complete outgoing president Ted Kirsch's term. Jordan was then elected to a full term in 2008, and reelected in 2012 — sort of.

That year, Jordan says, there was no opposition slate. "If there is no submission by anyone for an opposing position or slate, then the secretary of the executive board casts the vote for the slate that has been submitted. And the last election [we] ran unopposed," he says.

There is a sense that PFT leadership is nervous about the Caucus, and the WE's website's Frequently Asked Questions included answers to questions including, "Is this kind of work allowed?" and "Does being in a caucus undermine the current union leadership?"

"The emergence of the caucus of WE has unsettled some people," says Eileen Duffey, an outspoken school nurse leader and WE Steering Committee member, in an email. "We have found ourselves being accused of being disloyal. That misses the point."

WE is not currently challenging PFT lea­dership in union elections. But given what happened in Chicago, it seems possible.

"Patience only goes so far," says Mark Stern, an assistant professor of educational studies at Colgate University, who is studying WE (and who is also a member). "I imagine that given the national trends it's something the Caucus thinks about."

WE members said that it is not currently on their agenda.

"I think that we have so much on our plate right now, just keeping our jobs and not letting the reform monster gobble up our schools and our students, that that hasn't been a consideration," Roat says.

Editor's note: This story was updated to clarify the fact that Faces of the Layoffs was a project of the Teacher Action Group, members of which went on to form the Caucus of Working Educators.