Often what editors leave out is more important than what they put in. Case in point: Monday’s front-page New York Times dispatch lamenting that “very little of what has worked for charter schools has found its way into regular classrooms.”
The Times is right that reforms getting results in Gotham’s charters aren’t making it to kids in traditional public schools. But a Times story asking why this is so made no mention of the big news that explains why: Mike Mulgrew and his United Federation of Teachers are fighting it every step of the way.
Don’t take our word for it. Mulgrew said so himself just a few days ago. In comments taped and leaked by someone in his audience, the UFT leader told his troops “we are at war with the reformers.” So much for those caught in the crossfire: New York City schoolchildren.
Mulgrew added that though he may have appeared to be negotiating with then-Mayor Mike Bloomberg in good faith about teachers evaluations (one reason charters work is because they sack bad teachers), his real aim was to “gum up the works.” He called such comments “things I don’t get to say in public.”
So it was surprising to see that the only mention of Mulgrew in Monday’s Times story was a short quote saying competition makes cooperation difficult. Then again, maybe not so surprising. Post readers had the advantage of reading all about the comments Mulgrew made when he thought no one was listening. But Times readers never did, because the Times never printed them.
In the days since his comments went public, Mulgrew has doubled down. His only slight concession has been to admit he wished he had chosen a better word than “reformers” to describe the enemies with whom he and his union are at war.
We disagree. It’s plain to anyone watching the UFT has been at war with school reformers for years — and that it has a deliberate strategy to “gum up the works” rather than let anything that would help the kids in.
What’s shocking is not that Mulgrew would say this, but that the city’s so-called paper of record won’t report it.