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labor pains

July 30, 2009

Parents and DOE reach tentative deal on parent-paid aides

by Anna Phillips, at 8:19 pm

Parent-paid teaching assistants may be able to keep their jobs for at least another year under a tentative agreement reached today by parents and city officials.

The proposed solution came from schools chancellor Joel Klein, who recommended that teaching assistants who are hired and paid for by parent associations be renamed “substitute school aides.” Though the change appears to be cosmetic, the new job title allows parents to bypass the citywide hiring freeze and retain their current employees at a similar salary to what they’ve paid for years.

According to Department of Education officials, calling parent-paid support staff “substitute school aides,”  would allow them to work under D.C. 37 union rules, rather than those of the teachers union (though they would not be D.C. 37 members). Under the D.C. 37 contract, substitute school aides are paid about $12 per hour and are not given benefits — conditions that mirror their current work situation. Parent associations can pay them throughout the year, rather than having to collect all the money before school starts, as some had worried. Were these employees to become members of the teachers union, they would have to be paid significantly more and receive benefits, which few parent associations say they can afford to offer.

Previously, these employees were vetted and hired by parent associations to serve as recess aides, clerical workers, and teaching assistants. They were not affiliated with any union. After the teachers union, the United Federation of Teachers, complained that city schools were employing non-UFT workers for UFT jobs, the DOE said it would crackdown on the practice.

One thing working in the PTA’s favor is that the job title, “substitute school aide,” is already being used in some schools, although DOE officials could not say how widely.

The tentative agreement, reached during a meeting today at Tweed Courthouse which Klein, UFT president Michael Mulgrew, elected officials and parents attended, is not a sure bet. D.C. 37 officials were not present at the meeting and have yet to agree to go along with the plan.

It may be a tough sell. Today, the DOE released the number of teachers and administrative staff who have been “excessed” this year, meaning that they have lost their jobs and are looking for work within the school system. According to the department’s numbers, 900 school support staff employees have been excessed, among them many substitute school aides. Currently, there are only 100 vacancies for these positions in the city. With hundreds of its own members already looking for jobs, it could be difficult for D.C. 37 to allow these employees to work under its job title, but not hold union membership.

“Everyone in the room felt very positive about the chances of having supplemental assistants or whatever specific title they will have, in the classroom this fall,” said City Councilman Daniel Garodnick. “But again we did not finalize it today,” he cautioned.

Ron Davis, a spokesman for the UFT said this wasn’t a long term solution. “We will be exploring ways to develop some apprenticeship or internship program so these teaching assistants can eventually become teachers,” he said. As for support staff who do clerical work and are not on the teaching track, “That’s something we’re going to have to work out,” he said.

“I think everybody’s happy with this short term solution,” said Jennifer Noban, president of the Parent-Teacher Association at Lillie Devereaux Blake School (P.S. 6), who attended the meeting today. Noban said her school had 17 parent-paid aides.

D.C. 37 officials could not be reached for comment this evening.

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  • Smith

    No health or dental benefits? This is an ugly solution.

  • Matthew

    In my experience the vast majority of the assistants are seeking and do get full time teaching positions, albeit not always at the same schools or even in NYC. Typically they need to complete their masters degree, which is why they are working as assistant teachers rather than in “full teacher” roles.

    So fear not Mr. Davis, your precious UFT will extract its pound of flesh eventually. You still run a closed shop, right?

  • John

    A TA is more or less a paid intern. It’s a foot in the door to become a teacher at the school they are working for already. Since when do interns get benefits?

  • http://edintheapple peter

    UFT paraprofessionals may participate in a career ladder program, the abiltity to earn a BA and an MA at the employers exepnse … thousands of paraprofessionals have moved into the teacher ranks, with the excuse, well, if we prevent the additonal funding the kids will flee to private schools … transparency would be nice … how many aides? pay scale? which classes get the aides? If, as a parent, you don’t contribute, does your kid receive the benefits?

    What is disturbing is that we have allowed affluent parents to create a new kind of school, a public-private school, that provides services to children well beyond what a school in a low SES neighborhood can provide …

  • http://edintheapple peter

    UFT paraprofessionals may participate in a career ladder program, the abiltity to earn a BA and an MA at the employers exepnse … thousands of paraprofessionals have moved into the teacher ranks,

    we hear the excuse that if we prevent the additonal funding the kids will flee to private schools …is that reaon enough to allow the additonal dollars? sounds like another CFEE lawsuit issue …

    transparency would be nice … how many aides? pay scale? which classes get the aides? If, as a parent, you don’t contribute, does your kid receive the benefits?

    What is disturbing is that we have allowed affluent parents to create a new kind of school, a public-private school, that provides services to children well beyond what a school in a low SES neighborhood can provide …

  • http://edintheapple peter

    UFT paraprofessionals may participate in a career ladder program, the abiltity to earn a BA and an MA at the employers exepnse … thousands of paraprofessionals have moved into the teacher ranks,

    we hear the excuse that if we prevent the additonal funding the kids will flee to private schools …is that reaon enough to allow the additonal dollars? sounds like another CFE lawsuit issue …

    transparency would be nice … how many aides? pay scale? which classes get the aides? If, as a parent, you don’t contribute, does your kid receive the benefits?

    What is disturbing is that we have allowed affluent parents to create a new kind of school, a public-private school, that provides services to children well beyond what a school in a low SES neighborhood can provide …

  • Matthew

    Peter,

    You have to look closely at the Title I monies that flow to many lower SES schools.

    These funds are used, among other things, to fund aides and assistants with roles quite similar to those of the PTA-funded staff at higher SES schools.

    Admittedly there are differences in outcomes between high and low SES schools. But as is so often the case, this is not easily explained by the difference in inputs like money or quantity of staff.

    Under Fair Student Funding, which Tony Avella has just announced he would scrap, more funding flows to schools with greater needs, independently of Title I funds, which are determined at the federal level.

    Good questions, hard to answer. But beating up on PTA supporters probably doesn’t get us much closer to the truth.

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  • http://edintheapple peter

    Mathew

    The only problem with FSF is using actual rather than average district salary. Students should carry funding with them … if the DOE had used average district salary and phased in the formula over a number of years it would have been applauded … the snag was that the “inventer” was Bob Gordon, an economist, now at the White House, who was a Klein consultant … and had no idea how schools work …

    with 1000 or so paraprofessionals and adies laid off I wonder whether DC 37 will cave … or stand up fpr their laid off members …

  • http://edintheapple peter

    Mathew

    The only problem with FSF is using actual rather than average district salary. Students should carry funding with them … if the DOE had used average district salary and phased in the formula over a number of years it would have been applauded … the snag was that the “inventer” was Bob Gordon, an economist, now at the White House, who was a Klein consultant … and had no idea how schools work …

    with 1000 or so paraprofessionals and adies laid off I wonder whether DC 37 will cave … or stand up for their laid off members …

  • Matthew

    Peter,

    If the average versus actual teacher salaries were the only thing that was wrong with FSF we’d be on easy street.

    The more significant point with respect to the prior comments you made about the need for transparency and whether PTA-funded positions are “another CFE lawsuit issue” is that Title One money is used in poorer communities to create the same types of positions that the PTAs fund in better off communities. So far as I know both sources of funds are publicly disclosed.

    We all have to watch out forthe tendency towards sweeping generalizations.

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  • Michael M.

    Matthew,

    At the risk of making a sweeping generalization, I have long wondered how much admissions decisions (to the degree any are at principals’ discretion) get swayed by FSF in light of School Progress Reports.

    One of the philosophical goals of FSF is to make sure funding follows the kids, ostensibly to reduce avoiding admitting higher-needs kids.

    To whit: If I’m a principal, even if FSF gives me all the funding I need to provide incremental services to students in those categories that warrant a few more cents on the dollar, and even if I indeed provide all those services, I’m going to be quite wary that even full serviced higher-needs students may pull down my school’s progress report grade.

    Better to forego the FSF funding on those kids and protect my school’s test scores?

    After all, principals’ bonuses are tied to School Progress Reports, which themselves are biased toward year-over-year “progress” (60%), as distinct from “performance” (25%).

  • http://edintheapple peter

    Michael

    You’re correct … principals have very little say over entering students … however … although the FSF formula is transparent I don’t know a principal who calculates per child … and, the School Progress Report offers an “extra credit” category for high needs kids (Special Ed, ELL, lower third, etc.) … a school w/ all Level 3 or higher kids who don’t show “progress” results in a mediocre Progress grade … targeting resources to students in the higher FSF, higher needs category can bump Progress grades significantly … it’s a complex world in schools these days …

  • Michael M.

    Point being, highly touted programs should not be… randomizers.

    Klein might as well feed the kids placebos so that when the kids grow (at roughly the same rate as kids in other cities), his boss can brag about their implicit nutritional value as justification for a third helping.

    Oh wait…

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  • Michael M.

    We need an award for funniest “track-back” in history.

  • http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com Patrick J. Sullivan

    Peter claims PTA providing “provides services to children well beyond what a school in a low SES neighborhood can provide”. Simply false and a transparent attempt to manufacture a false haves vs. have-nots conflict. Federal Title I, State C4E and City FSF all combine to ensure per capita funding at lower income schools is far higher than the Title I ineligible schools where the DOE has decided to block PTA funding.

  • http://edintheapple peter

    Patrick:

    DOE formula create a baseline for school funding … and additional funding based on “need,” as defined by handicapping conditions, ELL, and SES status. Should schools be able to raise additional funding through parent contributions to provide additional services? This is a significant public policy issue … school with more affluent parents can create schools, lets call them public plus schools … that have greater services then provided by formula … unfair to less affluent parents, but, some argue, keeps middle class parents in public schools … addtitionally the monies are not filtered through the DOE, they are dispensed by the parents at the school … if I were a para or a school aide who was laid off and parent paid aides were retained I would certainly challenge … I know plenty of non-Title 1 schools where parents cannot afford to contribute hudreds of additional dollars … but, then agin, this is an election nd a contract year.

  • http://edintheapple peter

    Patrick:

    DOE formula create a baseline for school funding … and additional funding based on “need,” as defined by handicapping conditions, ELL, and SES status. Should schools be able to raise additional funding through parent contributions to provide additional services? This is a significant public policy issue … school with more affluent parents can create schools, lets call them public plus schools … that have greater services then provided by formula … unfair to less affluent parents, but, some argue, keeps middle class parents in public schools … addtitionally the monies are not filtered through the DOE, they are dispensed by the parents at the school … if I were a para or a school aide who was laid off and parent paid aides were retained I would certainly challenge … I know plenty of non-Title 1 schools where parents cannot afford to contribute hundreds of additional dollars … but, then agin, this is an election and a contract year.

  • Michael M.

    Can someone refresh my memory?

    I seem to recall discussion here on GS that “hold harmless” — whereby schools would be insulated from absorbing the nominal hit to their budgets due to higher-than-average teacher salaries — was extended another year to 2009-2010.

    Then again, a 5% budget cut (on the heels of the prior year’s cut) sorta swamps that, eh?

  • http://edintheapple peter

    Under FSN some schools gained dollars and other lost dollars … under an agreement w/ the UFT schools that would have lost dollars were “held harmless” for two years, and the agreement was extended for one year. As new teachers are hired they bring their actual salary into the school … an experienced teacher costs more than a new(er) teacher … Each year the average school salary is recalculated … in my experience principals are willing to hire more senior teachers if the teachers bring skills needed in the school … experience alone is not a skill …

  • http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2009/02/testimony-on-mayoral-control-for.html Patrick J. Sullivan

    Peter,

    There are a number of funding streams that combine to provide funds to schools. FSF, Title I and C4E all have formulas that assign funds based on need. Many schools attract additional private or CBO grants like Robin Hood. Many based on “need” but none consider the other funding streams in their formula. Yet in all these funding sources, you would single out PTA contributions and block them.

    Eva Moskowtiz compared two schools in her DN op-ed, PS 290 and PS 149. The later receives Title I funds of $1000 per child, incremental FSF funds of $900 and C4E of $400. CBOs may contribute even more. If a PTA non-Title I school will add a few hundred per child, is that really an “unfair” provision of additional services? Is that your argument? The PTA should be blocked from making that contribution?

    Patrick

  • http://edintheapple peter

    Patrick

    Most schools do NOT have private or CBO grants … its takes special expertise or political clout to access special funds.

    I believe there are two policy issues:

    1. Should parents be able to provide unlimted additional funding to their school? Does this exacerbate inequities in education based upon parent SES? and …2. Should parent voluntary contributions be funneled through the DOE … to assure tranparency, absence of nepotism, and, of course, to assure fingerprinting and backround checks …

    I know many non-Title 1 schools in which parents cannot afford “hundreds” of dollars each to enrich instruction …

  • Michael M.

    This topic is not complete, let alone balanced, without some mention of the DOE’s flaunting of its own class size reduction commitment as put forth in the state-approved Contract For Excellence (C4E) plan.

    For any classroom in any school in any neighborhood in any corner of the city in excess of those limits — which are themselves the product of the decade-plus-long Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE) lawsuit that the Bloomberg administration has done nothing to enact and wasted seven years to appeal — The DOE should build seats long term and provide bodies in the interim, so as to provide those children with what is their moral — and now legal — right: in the words of the trial judge, a “sound basic education,” the deprival of which due to large class sizes representing a “systemic failure.”

    Those target numbers, as incorporated in state statute, and AGREED TO PREVIOUSLY BY KLEIN ET AL are…

    TWENTY in K-3, and
    TWENTY-THREE in 4-12.

    Let’s put the focus back where it belongs, not on the PTAs in overcrowded schools turning away dozens of zoned kids, but on the Charter-Chancellor… and the Sardine-Mayor.

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