By YOAV GONEN Education Reporter
(From New York Post, October 22, 2010)
Call them the men and women of “steal.”
The city teachers union ripped a page from the very documentary that slammed it — handing out blue Superman-style T-shirts Wednesday to hundreds of members with the famous “S” replaced by “UFT.”
The self-given pat on the back came hot on the heels of the release of “Waiting for ‘Superman,’ ” the documentary in which the umbrella union of the United Federation of Teachers is called to task for helping to create a national education crisis.
American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten — former chief of the city local — was cast in the role of the movie’s villain.
Still, UFT members proudly wore their snazzy superhero duds as they filed out of a union meeting at their downtown headquarters.
“The UFT must really dig the movie more than people thought they would,” quipped Joe Williams, executive director of Democrats for Education Reform.
The film focuses on five children who enter charter-school lotteries and their parents, who include two New York City moms struggling to keep their kids on track in school.
The movie weaves in an explanation of how the public schools got to the sorry state they’re in, focusing on topics like teacher tenure and the city’s infamous — and now disbanded — “rubber rooms.”
The film’s title stems from Harlem Children Zone Director Geoffrey Canada’s belief as a child that Superman would one day arrive to rescue his neighborhood from its poverty and problems. He says in the film that he cried when he learned Superman wasn’t real — not because of the fallen fantasy, but because he was left wondering who was going to save his neighborhood.
UFT chief Michael Mulgrew shrugged off the suggestion that the T-shirts had anything to do with the scathing flick — saying the idea came from rank-and-file members.
“They’re the people every day walking into a classroom doing a Herculean job,” he said. “Anytime we possibly can, we try to help them and celebrate the great things they do.”
yoav.gonen@nypost.com