Sharp Dresser, but He’ll Wear Down Foes

A.J. Duffy circled the desks of Room 192 at Palms Middle School with the careful grace of a street fighter, albeit a somewhat portly one. He danced from side to side, kicking his legs out slightly as he walked.

As usual, Duffy was dressed to the nines. A long-sleeved, black-collared shirt was buttoned to the top. Flashy, black-and-white, tasseled patent-leather loafers peeked out from under charcoal pants.

Duffy watched his students, slouching in their seats, scribbling essays in beige composition books, then barked out a command laden with Brooklynese. “Siddup! What did I tell you guys about posture in the classroom?

The tone was singsong, but the orders absolute. “Don’t forget the date in the upper-right-hand corner. I need a date on everything! Best handwriting!”

He thrust his hands into his pants pockets, then, a moment later, tucked them under arms he restlessly crossed over his chest. He gnawed a disposable ballpoint pen absent-mindedly. “Let’s have some nice, short sentences. Simple is best.”

The students, all of whom have learning disabilities, have a hard time concentrating. They’re up from their seats every few minutes: to grab a tissue, to sharpen a pencil or to study a map.

The former dean of discipline at the Los Angeles middle school, Duffy knows all the moves. “I didn’t recall this being a group activity!”

The students scramble to their seats.

Duffy is used to having people jump to order. A longtime union activist, he forged his reputation as a fearless defender of teachers’ rights. A dozen principals are out of a job because Duffy sought their ouster.

On July 1, the Brooklyn-raised Duffy will become head of United Teachers Los Angeles, assuming a new mantle of authority.

The biggest difference between him and the present union leader, John Perez?

“I dress.”

Besides clothing, there is much about Duffy that will be new for the 35-year-old teachers union. He’ll be the first teacher to move directly from the classroom to the head of the union that represents Los Angeles’ 46,000 teachers.

That, some say, may give Duffy more rank-and-file credentials than previous union leaders, who had left the classroom long ago.

He has vowed to bring “a completely new look” to the organization. Besides traditional union concerns such as contract issues, the union will focus on social justice and activism. He has vowed to stand up for members on issues such as the federal No Child Left Behind rules, which he says are designed to turn teachers into scapegoats and eradicate public education in favor of vouchers and private schools.

At various times, Duffy, 61, has been known by different versions of his name, including A. James, James, and A.J. But usually, he insists that his peers call him Duffy. And they do.

In Room 192 at Palms, where he teaches two groups of students with a wide range of emotional and physical difficulties, Duffy is the only one who can get away with nicknames. It’s strictly Mr. Duffy here.

As he circled, Duffy complimented one student’s originality, then worried, in an aside, about whether another has been given his medicine for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Such paternal concern might seem out of character for a man who describes himself as a bulldog. But there is a deeper motivation for the words and the interest. Duffy sees himself in his students.

In the days before Ritalin and Adderall, Duffy said, he was “an ADHD kid.” He got some help from a program at Brooklyn College -- but his upper-middle-class parents eventually refused to have him classified as anything other than normal.

Since then, his life and career have been anything but conventional.

Duffy said he did not learn to read until he taught himself, between the ages of 25 and 30. It took him three years to get a two-year degree at New York City Community College. A move to Philadelphia in the late 1960s took him to Powelton Village, a “left-radical community” where Duffy said he lived “sort of communally.” There, he began his career in organizing and education, helping to start a community day-care center called All of Us Together.

“Sometimes,” he said, “the parents paid us with canned food. It was a growing-up time.”

Duffy came to Los Angeles in 1971 because a friend had told him that everyone moves to Los Angeles eventually. He found work at the Venice Community Playgroup, a parent-run day-care center where his son was enrolled. After helping a student with cerebral palsy move into public school, he realized he wanted to focus on special education full time. He borrowed money from his parents to get two teaching credentials: one for K-12 social sciences and the other for special education.

Duffy intended to start in special education right away, but Los Angeles Unified offered only a mainstream position teaching social studies at Charles Drew Middle School in South Los Angeles.

But he couldn’t resist the lure of organizing. He became a union chapter chairman at Drew, representing the teachers of the school. Even as he moved on to other schools, he continued his rise through the union.

As UTLA’s area chairman for West Los Angeles from 1996 to 2002, Duffy established himself as someone who could help teachers get rid of “problem” principals. The district, he said, removed or demoted 12 principals because of work he and fellow union members did to expose problems that included theft, fraud and verbal abuse.

While the efforts made Duffy popular among teachers, it also earned him a reputation as an aggressive, sometimes confrontational, union leader.

“A lot of people don’t like him,” said Palms Principal Charles Didinger, who describes himself as a Duffy fan. “I did hear that from people when he got elected.”

In the weeks since his election, Duffy has dined with Supt. Roy Romer and lunched with members of the Board of Education, both those elected with union support and those with whom the union has been at odds.

“No matter how much we fight -- and we’re going to fight -- we have to be able to communicate, to put the struggle aside and talk,” Duffy said.

If Duffy had his way, the union would still be fighting over pay. A contract offering a 2% raise, which he opposed, passed last week by the narrowest margin in union history.

Duffy has battles to pick with the union, which he calls top-heavy and guilty of “creating bureaucratic monsters.” Joshua Pechthalt, the union’s vice president-elect, said that Duffy, whom he has known for 20 years, is the sort of person that the union needed to mobilize its membership. The president-elect, he said, is able “to engage people in a discussion, whether they agree with us or not.”

Paul Mooradian, a fellow teacher at Palms, praised what he called Duffy’s “dogged determination.”

“I guess to some people he might be abrasive,” said Mooradian, who teaches seventh- and eighth-grade history.

“He can be very charming. He can be easy to get along with. But when he is doing the work that he is doing, it becomes a different story.”

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

A life in education

* Duffy holds an associate’s degree from New York City Community College and a bachelor of science degree in community organizing from Antioch College. He got his teaching credentials from Cal State L.A.

* He met his wife, Carol, at the doctor’s office where she worked. He asked her out for five years before she said yes; two weeks later, they moved in together. The couple married in 1991.

* The self-described clotheshorse admits a penchant for two-toned shoes; he has 40 pairs. At the Duffy home, he lays claim to 2 1/2 closets, while Carol gets only 1 1/2 . “They call me Imelda,” he said.

* In 2002, while running for UTLA vice president, Duffy contracted a flesh-eating bacteria on the left side of his body. He spent 16 days in a drug-induced coma, a month in the hospital and five months off work.

* Though he prefers tales of ancient Rome and Aaron Burr, Duffy re-reads his favorite book, “Catch-22,” every few years. “It’s so outrageously accurate,” he said, “and becoming more and more so.”

Los Angeles Times