Teachers contract likely to skirt ATR issue, observers say

contract sport

October 5, 2009

Teachers contract likely to skirt ATR issue, observers say

by Anna Phillips, at 12:56 pm

With less than a month to go before the teachers union contract expires, labor negotiation veterans are forecasting a “bland” contract that will disappoint those advocating for drastic reforms both from the city and United Federation of Teachers.

One issue that many believe will be left out of this contract is what to do about the absent teacher reserve: a pool of teachers who were laid off when their schools were closed or were let go as a result of budget cuts. Currently, there are about 1,400 “excessed” teachers who receive their full salaries though most are not teaching.

In previous years, Chancellor Joel Klein has urged the city to adopt the model Chicago uses, in which teachers have a year to find new work before they’re fired. When the city pushed for an 18-month period in 2005, arbitrators rejected the proposal, yet the chancellor has continuously said that this is the system he wants to see put in place.

In response, the union has pushed Klein to do more to find jobs for the teachers he already has, saying that the city created the problem in 2005 when it aggressively lobbied to end seniority transfer and then closed schools.

Sol Stern, a fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute, said there was no chance the Chicago model would ever come to New York.

“I don’t think that would ever happen,” he said. “The union can’t just walk away from these teachers.”

Some believe that it may happen eventually, but not during the current contract talks.

The negotiations are taking place in the black hole of the mayoral election and may continue well after, but some spectators are looking at recent history as a guide to what to expect. That history includes former UFT president Randi Weingarten’s decision to support the renewal of mayoral control, which many interpret as an act that Mayor Bloomberg will have to repay the union for.

Another contract negotiation indicator is the bargaining pattern the city sets. In this case, the pattern was set in September of 2008 before Lehman Brothers’ collapse, when the city offered Teamsters Local 237 two four percent raises and almost no concessions. Later that year, when the city sat down with D.C. 37, it stuck to the pattern despite the worsening economy. Even before the UFT’s contract negotiations began, the Post reported that the city had set side the same deal — two four percent raises — for the city’s teachers.

“There’s a pattern that the city has established. It doesn’t seem to include major concessions, so that’s another obstacle,” said a former Department of Education official. “I don’t think it’s impossible. It’s a question of how hard the DOE and City Hall want to push.”

The incentive to push is there. Paying the excessed teachers’ salaries over the last four years has cost the city over a hundred million dollars. Though the city instituted a hiring freeze, forcing principals to hire teachers who are already in the system, some school leaders have resisted hiring new teachers in hopes that the freeze will end. In an ultimatum handed down last month, Klein told principals they had until October 30 to hire teachers or the salary money would be taken out of their budgets and used to pay the ATRs.

“I’m sure the mayor is saying, this is an increasing embarrassment,” said Peter Goodman, a long-time UFT member. “Bloomberg wants to get rid of this — it’s become a difficult, annoying issue. It’s become a thorn.”

Yet Goodman and others question whether the mayor has the political willpower to make the ATRs a key part of the contract negotiations.

Klein may be focused on changing the current system, but Bloomberg still has an election to win, said Tom Carroll, president of the Foundation for Education Reform & Accountability.

“It’s the most spectacular alignment of the mayor and chancellor anywhere in the country,” he said. “But it’s not a perfect alignment. Their interests are not perfectly aligned every four years when they enter this silly political season.”

Asked whether Bloomberg considers draining the ATR pool a priority for the contract negotiations, Jason Post, a spokesman for the mayor, said “We do not negotiate in the media.”

roget

Ironic the Chancellor seems to want “term limits” for teachers in the ATR pool who are unable to find other jobs. Hmmm. Isn’t his boss opposed to term limits? Maybe Bloomberg can donate the $100 to $200 million he’s spending to buy his foregone re-election to pay the salary of the teachers he’s thrown into the ATR pool. Then he could ask the union for concessions that would make teachers who can’t find jobs in a year–expendable.
http://curious2.typepad.com Ken

Hey Roget,

ATR teachers are not subject to election by the citizens of NYC. I wonder how New Yorkers would vote on a referendum on terminating ATR teachers that can’t find a job after a year. (To be clear, I agree that Bloomberg’s term limit actions were, at best, questionable.)
http://www.classsizematters.org Leonie Haimson

I think you have a mistaken double negative here: “no chance the Chicago model would never come to New York.”
I think Sol Stern meant that there was no chance that the Chicago model would ever come to NYC.
mel

apparently the UFT is under the impression that the purpose of schools in NYC is to provide lifelong income for its members
Jeff S

Of course the UFT cannot give in on this….look at what just happened in Washington DC where another incompetent unqualified Chancellor has decided to RIF hundreds of teachers using evaluations from Principals, few of whom would know what they were observing and/or discredited test scores on poorly constructed standardized tests. If it could happen in DC, an incompetent like Klein would love to try it here.
Michael Fiorillo

The concessions made by the UFT for a new contract – which will be announced before the election – have not been and will not be in the contract itself. It can be seen in the union’s dive on term limits, mayoral control and the re-purchase – er, re-election – of the mayor’s office by our resident oligarch. And over the life of the contract it will be in the union’s continuing acquiescence to the hostile takeover of public schools by charters and private equity/venture capital.

The ATRs are “safe” for now, to insure the re-elections of the Two Mikes in November and the spring. But when the contract-to-be-announced expires in two years, all bets are off.
Smith

I’m wondering where you got the $100 million figure. It seems like these costs could easily be exaggerated. For instance, a friend of mine is an ATR. She teaches a full program at the school at which she was a “teacher” last year. Is her salary now “costing” the city? Also, you say “most are not teaching”. Could you explain this further?

Stern is right. Teachers here would never approve a contract that allowed Klein to fire us simply by closing down our schools and hiring cheaper replacements. The farthest I’d go would be to allow a one-year probationary period for tenured ATR’s. That way, principals wouldn’t be so quick to discriminate against them in hiring.
Tim

“Paying the excessed teachers’ salaries over the last four years has cost the city [more than] a hundred million dollars.”

Going by and extrapolating from salary information available at seethroughny, paying central administration salaries over the last four years has cost the city more than two BILLION dollars. Where is the media outrage with respect to THIS excess?
Michael M.

The real scandal is not what the ATR’s are being paid — it’s that given they ARE being paid, that they’re not in the increasingly overcrowded classrooms doing what they want to do: TEACH.
canwetalk

Michael is correct. The ATRs, experienced and qualified teachers, want to teach. Their only downfall is that they are costly to the school, and they have tenure, which most principals do not want in their schools. Untenured teachers are at-will employees and will not challenge or question an administrator. They will do whatever the principal want and I don’t blame then. They want to keep on working and eventually have a teaching career after probation. However, tenured teachers will fight for what’s best for the students, and for their rights. Francis Lewis HS is a case in point example of an extremely overcrowded school that would benefit by hiring the ATRs. Trust me teachers do not want to sit around and collect a salary. It is unnatural for those teachers who love this profession. The chancellor has to resolve this situation – let teachers teach! Hire them!
Smith

My school hired an ATR in June – the principal said he didn’t want to play any games with the DOE by waiting for the hiring freeze to be lifted – and he’s working out just fine.

One clarification to an earlier point: I said I would support a one-year probationary period for ATR’s. I didn’t mean that they would be subject to dismissal, but to being placed back in the ATR pool at the end of the year if the principal didn’t want to keep them.
http://nyceducator.com NYC Educator

Interesting how people are outraged to discover a union protecting the jobs of its members.
Michael M.

Equally interesting… how people are NOT outraged to discover the union NOT (more openly at least) fighting the ATR issue.

Ken et al,
Teachers did not land in the ATR pool due to individual performance. They landed there because Klein CLOSED THEIR SCHOOLS. Any connection is at best indirect and certainly cannot be extrapolated inward to each individual teacher.

And let’s pay attention to the terminology: it’s not that they need to be “hired”; they need an “assignment.” Do not their paychecks say Taxpayers of NYC either way?

For the sake of illustration only, let’s REALLY give principals “CEO” power, tear up the UFT contract and let each school hire off the street. In a market-based model, which schools would have to offer more pay: previous A schools or previous B through F schools? Or schools under threat of closure?
Jeff S

Again may I remind you what Chancellor Rhee, somebody just as incompetent and unqualified as Joel Klein just pulled in DC where the teachers do not have the job protection they luckily have in New York. It is very clear. Klein won the right to do away with seniority transfers and stuff like that. However the UFT contract still makes it clear that if LAYOFFS are necessary, they must be done by seniority within license area. This is nothing the union MUST most assuredly not give up if they are to look to DC for guidance of what an arrogant unqualified Chancellor can do.. There are procedures, much to the contrary Mr. Klein et al, for terminating tenured teachers under Section 3020A of the Education law. If your Johnny come lately Principals, few of who are qualified to properly evaluate a lesson and a teacher’s performance for lack of experience (nobody is qualified to be a Principal who has not served at least 7 years in the classroom and 3 years as an Assistant Principal) that again is part of Klein’s total incompetence. So folks, stop blaming the teachers and their union for the situation. Are there unqualified incompetent teachers in the system. Yes, of course but I would question truly how many there are and if they are still there, blame the Principals for not doing what has to be done and not the union. I repeat a competent Principal can properly document a 3020A termination case and it is not impossible, contrary to what the editorial writers and Klein tells us.
Smith

Are bad teachers the principals’ or the union’s fault? Let’s ask the teachers, if anyone’s still reading this thread: In your experience, what’s more likely to result in a U rating, bad teaching, or standing up to the administrators?
canwetalk

Smith: Whose fault is it to have bad principals? In a school you can have bad school aides, bad SAPIS counselors, bad CBOs, bad assistant principals, and bad custodians. No uproars about those employees. Yet, there is so much stink when it deals with a bad teacher. There are approximately 80,000 teachers of which 30-50 do not belong in the classroom. Why are we not focusing on those thousands of teachers who are doing a fantastic job at their schools?
http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/ norm

Ken
Your biased view keeps showing despite the data people put in front of you.

There are no ATRs sitting around and doing nothing. As pointed out, many are actually doing full-time teaching but are still classified as ATRs because that gives them less rights than almost anyone else in the school. Or they are being used to cover classes which have to be covered anyway. They do not seem to be used to reduce class size.

If we still had a seniority system- which despite the negatives, is still the surest way to create a stable system and working force – the ATRs would be the lowest and most inexperienced teachers, which would make sense.

I would make the case that there should be ATRs available for every school in the city. That is how I started my career in 1967 when they over hired but we were guaranteed a job. Naturally, unlike the open market system of today, the newbies got to to the scut work of subbing. While it was often hell, I could do minimal damage in one day as a sub as opposed to throwing me in a regular class where I could ruin the kids for a year. I gradually learned how to deal with control and when no one was absent they sent me in to work with a teacher, where I learned a lot. After year and a half as an ATR I was a fairly confident teacher and felt ready to take on a regular class and did quite well, something that I was far from prepared to do when I came in.

But what I am proposing is a rational system, something way beyond BloomKlein, who have a political, not an educational, agenda (as does Ken.)
cs

The UFT should be fighting for the ATRs and making sure that the ATRs are filling the vacancies in schools. Principals have too much power. Where are those principals — the ones that were in the schools that were closed? Were those principals placed in schools? Is the DOE still paying the principal’s salary from a school that was closed? The UFT should make sure that the ATR situation is part of the contract negotiations and that the hiring freeze remains until most of the ATRs are placed in schools.

Since the DOE has offered to pay a good part of a higher paid teacher’s salary, the DOE is acknowledging that principals are hiring based on salary — not the skill of a teacher. The UFT has to fight and get seniority transfers back into the contract.
canwetalk

When schools are closed, and I’m not sure if anyone has mentioned it, why are principals **guaranteed** a position? They should be ATRs, too. Remember the definition of principal means master teacher. Since principals are *master teachers* and their schools closed, then they should cover the classes with the most challenging and neediest students with all the other ATRs. Here’s an opportunity for those principals to model their lessons!

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contract sport

October 5, 2009

Teachers contract likely to skirt ATR issue, observers say

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