I just ran across this endorsement letter by Newton Teachers Association President Mike Zilles on Facebook. Again, like the mayor’s race, I believe this is unusual. I could be wrong but I don’t think the NTA usually endorses candidates, especially not for School Committee.
Newton Teacher Association endorses Steenstrup for School Committee
by Nathan Phillips | Nov 1, 2013 | Elections, School Committee | 9 comments
Are both letters put on site?
When the NTA did this for the Mayor’s race, they promised me they would post all 4 candidates answers on the web site and never did. They can say anything if we can’t see the candidates questions/answers.
Actually it reads like a Thank you for Claire Sokoloff and Jonathan Yeo not so much an endorsement on Andrea Steenstrup.
On Wednesday at 7pm, I requested that the NTA disclose both candidates responses.
I emailed Mike Zilles and the two co-presidents: Jane Roderick and Sue Cohen.
I believe firmly that anyone reading them will see the same command of the issues that was displayed in the LWV debate.
I have no reply yet.
The fact that the NTA endorsement followed the TAB opposite endorsement so rapidly is very weird. How could the NTA have polled its members in such a short time?
It’s almost like a call was placed to the NTA from the Steenstrup campaign to help them out and Mike autonomously obliged.
Was this endorsement even run past the membership? What triggered it?
Some openness and transparency from Mike Zilles and the NTA would be appreciated.
If the NTA does not publish both responses, I’d recommend in the future that any candidate asked to fill in an NTA questionnaire politely decline unless the NTA agrees to publish all candidate responses.
Also, forgive me the double post, but here are some further comments relevant to providing perspective to Mike’s endorsement.
1. Margaret does not march to a drum beat from Washington. She is very aligned with a broad movement to use evidence based approaches to improve anything we do. In this, if anyone has watched recent SC meetings, she is completely in accord with an ongoing core group in the SC: Matt Hills, Steve Siegel, Margie Ross Decter and Angela Pitter Wright. So Mike’s commentary on use of data comes a complete surprise and is in opposition to the growing use of data by teachers in NPS to improve instruction. Teachers are driving this. Not Washington!
2. The word ‘contrarian’ is bandied about like I make it my job to argue the opposite case on everything. It’s an election cycle myth. Remember that this ‘contrarian’ was asked by the SC leadership to argue the case for the override in the only SC op-ed submitted to the TAB. Hardly a ‘contrarian’ assignment.
3. I am not a contrarian. Margaret is not a contrarian. Andrea is not a contrarian. All verbiage around that label should be discarded as irrelevant.
4. Mike knows as well as I do that Margaret would make an excellent SC member. He has seen the LWV debate video and he is not deaf or blind. So this is all some political maneuvering for reasons we can only guess. Mike does not hand out his endorsement without some strings attached. It’s his job to optimize the NTA position in every transaction. So the question comes: What did Mike optimize in this case?
Here are my answers to the NTAs questions for anyone who is interested – http://www.margaretalbright.org/nta-questionnaire.html
This NTA endorsement is completely inappropriate. The number one priority of the teacher’s union is their membership, not Newton taxpayers, Newton parents or Newton schoolchildren. Not that they don’t care about teaching, but that is not the point of their union.
It is the School Committee members are responsible to Newton taxpayers and should be setting policy accordingly. Interference in this process by the beneficiaries of that policy is wrong and gives the impression that the teacher’s are merely looking for a compliant patsy to sit on the board.
The Newton Unions endorsement of a mayoral candidate do not quite pass the smell test either, but the results of those contract negotiations are there for us all to see.
Andrea Steenstrup – can you post your answers to the NTA questionnaire?
I was quite disappointed that Mike Zilles of the Newton Teachers Association (NTeA) endorsed Andrea. Margaret is clearly the superior candidate and her answers to the questionnaire only reinforce this in my opinion.
Andrea Steenstrup are you EVER going to post your answers to the NTA questionairre? We would love to know what they read that was SO different than what you told the Newton Tab group and you told the community during your League of Woman Voters debate.