ink-stained wretches

Queens Dad Doesn’t Want to Offend the Post, But They Got the Wrong Op in His Op-Ed

Someone had a big problem with Brian Rafferty’s passionate op-ed in last week’s New York Post decrying the United Federation of Teachers union’s refusal to give the public access to a list of teachers’ names and their effectiveness rating — and that someone is Brian Rafferty. The parent of a Queens public school student says he got a call from an assistant to a Post reporter the night before asking to transcribe his comments for an op-ed, but what showed up with Rafferty’s byline under the headline “Dad: Union putting my child last” wasn’t what he said. “I might be skeptical of the union sometimes, no offense guys, but there is absolutely no way that these opinions are mine,” the executive editor of the Queens Tribune told a roomful of parents and teachers at the Queens Community Education Council, where he’s a member. The op-ed does reflect someone’s perspective on the issue. After the city said it wasn’t responding to newspapers’ requests to release the information, the Post’s editorial board openly criticized the union’s president. A contributor to the GothamSchools website says a piece he wrote for the Post was also edited to reflect the paper’s views. Sometimes the best way to get your point across is to put it in someone else’s mouth.

Parent says NY Post fabricated his opinion of teacher ratings [GothamSchools]

Queens Dad Doesn’t Want to Offend the Post, But They Got the Wrong Op in His Op-Ed