Darrel Aubertine's campaign for the 48th State Senate seat picked up major endorsements today from the United Auto Workers of American (UAW) and the Communications Workers of America (CWA) at a rally in Oswego County.
"When Darrel talks about saving jobs, it isn't just chatter-it is words from someone who has done it," said Sam Williams of UAW Region 9. "The choice for us in this campaign was simple, because Darrel is the only candidate who has worked to protect the interests of working men and women. He has worked to keep companies from outsourcing our jobs and to keep good-paying jobs in our region for the long-term, and he has been successful."
"Darrel has proven himself to be someone who stands up for working people," said John Decillis of CWA local 1124, Watertown. "This region needs an economic renaissance, and to succeed it will take someone with the work ethic of Darrel Aubertine. Getting results and saving jobs takes hard work and perseverance, but Darrel has done it before and is clearly the best candidate to do it for the residents of Oswego, Jefferson and St. Lawrence Counties."
Aubertine is gaining a lot of support from people who know that he will fight for the working class in the Senate, just as he has fought for the working class in the Assembly. Earlier today, he picked up the Working Families Party endorsement, which means he will appear on the February 26 ballot on the WFP line.
Aubertine's campaign is rolling. There are endorsements galore and the universal sentiment is that he is the candidate for the middle and working class folks of the 48th.
NY-26 Democratic candidate Jon Powers picked up another big endorsement today and his first from a local union. The 1199 SEIU United Health Care Workers East endorsed Powers today.
From the press release:
"The healthcare workers of 1199 SEIU are proud to endorse Jon Powers for Congress," stated George Gresham, President of 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East. "As an Iraq war veteran and schoolteacher, Jon's passion and commitment will be a welcome and much needed change from Congressman Tom Reynolds' failed leadership. From his blind support of the Iraq War to his senseless vetoes of children's health insurance, Reynolds has proved time and again that his loyalty is not to the people of Western New York but to President Bush - Western New Yorkers deserve better from their elected leaders. We look forward to having Jon as a strong voice for working families and we'll do everything we can to make sure he's elected."
1199 SEIU plans to direct mail, phone-bank and go door-to-door to all its members in the 26th congressional district.
"The men and women of 1199 SEIU know what it means to lead by example," said Powers. "They do it every day, with their hard work, their commitment to serving others, and their dedication to a job well-done. I am profoundly grateful to have earned their endorsement. And, in Congress, I'll strive every day to offer a style of leadership by example worthy of these hard-working Americans."
Kudos to Jon. This is a big endorsement. I'm sure more will follow.
Acting on behalf of its more than 1.4 million members, the AFT executive council on Wednesday endorsed Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination for president, citing her proven ability to advance our nation's key priorities, and her bold plans for a stronger America.
"Our members have told us that they want a leader they can trust to strengthen public education, increase access to health care, promote commonsense economic priorities and secure America's place in the world," said AFT president Edward J. McElroy. "Hillary Clinton is that leader."
Chris Bowers at Open Left calls it, "the biggest endorsement of the campaign for me so far."
I know AFT people, both the teachers and the organizers. They are friends, family and colleagues. They are smart, extremely hard working, and also very progressive. I trust the decisions they make. If they decide to endorse Hillary Clinton, that means a lot to me . . . The AFT endorsement of Hillary Clinton improves my image of Hillary Clinton.
[I hope this post about the changes to No Child Left Behind proposed by Congress proves interesting. It was originally posted on Edwize and written by Edwize blogger Maisie.]
Lest you think that the debate over reauthorizing No Child Left Behind is hard-to-follow/wonkish/a tempest-in-a-teapot or anything like that, note that Jonathan Kozol today entered his 76th day of a partial hunger strike over NCLB.
In protest over that law, Kozol, the widely-published, passionate advocate of educational equality, has taken himself into the realm of serious danger.
He's sick of NCLB. Mandating math and reading tests and punishing schools and students who do not meet their targets is "turning thousands of inner-city schools into Dickensian test-preparation factories," Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page quoted Kozol as saying. It has "dumbed down" school for poor, urban kids and created "a parallel curriculum that would be rejected out-of-hand" in the suburbs.
[I hope this post about the changes to No Child Left Behind proposed by Congress proves interesting. It was originally posted on Edwize and written by Edwize blogger Jackie Bennett in response to a New York Times editorial.]
Every corner of the educational community has protested the consequences of No Child Left Behind, including that the law has narrowed the curriculum and unfairly penalized schools already making progress.
In spite of that, an editorial in the NY Times defends the status quo. Referring to proposed NCLB revisions, the Times complains that the changes will "allow schools to mask failure in teaching crucial subjects like reading and math by giving them credit for student performance in other subjects."
Yet, just one paragraph earlier the Times has this to say: "Faced with poorly educated workers at home - especially in science - American companies are increasingly looking abroad."
[I hope this post on the recently-released Learning Environment Survey proves interesting. It was originally posted on Edwize and written by Edwize blogger CitySue.]
. . . those who attempt to explain them often do. The so-called Learning Environment Survey released by the city of New York is a case in point.
For teachers the results were gratifying. Nobody -- not even Mike the Master of Spin -- could do anything to diminish a statistically astounding 90 percent approval rate!
Curiously, although the DOE apparently wanted to know what parents thought about "the quality" of their child's teacher, it didn't ask parents what they thought of the school principal. Though maybe it's not so surprising considering the fact that Klein is betting the farm on them to bail him out of the first and second reorganizations.
A friend of mine whose father, Larry Hanley, is the President of the Amalgamated Transit Union on Staten Island (Ed Note: via email -"Larry Hanley is no longer prez of ATU on SI--he's been promoted to a national VP of the ATU, for several years now." -lipris) alerted me to this gem of a video from 2001 where he confronts then-Mayor Rudy about giving city subsidies to a private bus company, the Atlantic Express Bus Company, that coincidentally put Rudy's political advertisements on their busses.
The video is not special so much for the substance of the conversation but rather its revealing of Rudy's nasty personality.
