Thank you. My same sentiments! I am pro-union and believe in fighting for our rights that were gained through negotiation between the UFT and the DoE. Mr. Polazzo doesn’t seem to don’t want to comprehension that the contract, which clearly states on the front page “Agreement between the Board of Education of the City School District of the City of New York and United Federation of Teachers”. The operative word here is “Agreement”. Michael you stated it succinctly, “the contract protects students as well as teachers.” Why do we have the chancellor regulations? Because it protects students as well as teachers. I wonder if Mr. Polazzo would sing a different tune if he were working in a phasing school, and becomes an ATR, where he must cover classes, and then he is all of sudden accused by a student of corporal punishment and then thrown in the rubber room. Well, I guess he would not need the contract because he’s not a mediocre teacher and that along would set him free.

Michael thank you for your feedback.

Thank you for the positive feedback.

Whatever my criticisms of the UFT, I am a union member and will fight to defend it and the contract. I also think the contract protects students as well as teachers.

The only thing that limits class size in the public schools is the contract. The only thing that provides the many, but mostly unacknowledged, benefits of having teachers remain parts of their communities for years is the seniority provisions of the contract.

This deluded and self-important teacher – ooh, he teaches at Stuyvesant! – like most other critics of the union, makes that cliched, tired reference to the “165 page contract,” as if its length is by itself proof of its dark powers. Has this innocent ever considered that the contract’s length is in direct proportion to the idiocies enacted by management over the years? Provisions in the contract are there to protect teachers from the chronic over-reaching and intrusions by administrators. Whatever professional autonomy he has is because of the contract, the people who struggled to achieve it, and those who struggle everyday to see that it remains a viable thing.

I criticize the UFT all the time, but there are many hardworking and dedicated officers and staffers there and I sympathize with their professional obligation to represent management suck-ups like Mr. Polazzo.

If Mr. Polazzo is so convinced of his specialness and untouchability, a la Ariel Sacks, he is fooling himself and endangering the rest of us. Should the UFT ever strike again, he sounds like a certain fink (aka, a union member who crosses a picket line). How surprising that Mortimer Zuckerman should give him space on the opinion page.

You are correct about how layoffs would go down: by license area, according to date of hire.

We are fortunate that the contract still retains such “archaic” language, which the deformers are sweating and panting to remove.

Teachers in DC had no such provisions in their contract, and Rhee was able to fire people across the seniority spectrum. The question for us is, “How far will the UFT go to defend seniority against the attacks that are sure to come?”

Recent past practice is not so encouraging. Randi Weingarten had a bad habit of selling off pieces of the contract – extra time, grievance protections, seniority transfers, etc. – in exchange for cost-of-living wage increases.

Perhaps the other night Michael Mulgrew was telling Bloomberg that he’s mad as hell and isn’t going to take it anymore, while they were watching the Yankees together the other night, in the stadium we helped pay for.

Yeah, that’ll show ‘em.

As I stated, last years UFT protest at city hall was a “comedy routine”, and a political activist event (more people were yelling “yes we can”, instead of stating the true issues).

Packing people in barricades surrounded by thousands of police officers is not a protest. If you want to see a protest of discontent, watch videos of the economic collapse of Argentina in 2000, when the currency and economy was hijacked just like ours has been now.

When you see these videos, you will see what true discontent for corruption and mismanagement is.

How many protests should we have? Well, so far there technically have been no protests

>until we abandon the notion that NYC Public Schools are about “jobs”, and instead realize it >should be about “education”, things will only get worse

Goldman Sach’s steals your tax money….so does the government. The corporate and bankster slobs use it to fund stadiums to feed the oligarchy, thus creating a giant bubble.

Families are destroyed, divorces increase, the “mental-makeup” of society goes into a maelstrom, to the point we need more school psychologists, teachers, and support.

It is a fundamental that we all (policemanfirefighter, teacher, businessman, blue-collar worker) go to work, and aim for success and a high quality product…..wait, this doesn’t exist anymore.

So, according to you and the rest of uneducated society, cuts to middle-class teacher families are prudent, instead of holding accountable the oligarchs and representatives in which create the DISORDER that WE WORK SO HARD TO CLEAN UP!

Yes Mel, there are bad teachers…like bad everything. There are things about society, unions, and non-unions that are both good and bad, but your solution would be to cut teacher salaries 50% to parochial school levels, further choke middle-class families……while you go to your yankee game at a STADIUM WHICH THE PUBLIC HAD NO BUSINESS FINANCING THROUGH TAXES….1.5 Billion between all the stadiums!!! This is 33% of NY State’s budget gap over the foreseeable future.

You would be amazed to see how dedicated we are to helping the lives of the pupils in NYC schools. Do we strive for excellence, yes! However, your reasoning is manipulative and will lead to a worsened NYCBOE and a 20% national unemployment rate.

However, with the Goldman Sachs, Citi-Bank, Bloomberg, Soros, Rothchild out of control “Bilderberg” empire, these people are involved in a CRIMINAL GANG. I put Bloomberg in the category because ANYONE that goes along with the manipulation on the market and in this free-market society should be scolded.

There was sufficient revenue for the public sector, but the city felt it was prudent to build two baseball stadiums and focus on a 3rd stadium in Brooklyn. This is around 1.5 Billion in city tax revenue. This is enough to save around 30,000 civil servant jobs.

The banksters implement Keynesian economics and use it as a manipulation mechanism until the oligarchs can walk away with their money stolen in the massive “bubble”, while we are left to starve.

This has happened all over the world, in different ways and to varying degrees. And we ARE too uneducated of a society to realize what is occurring. We could very well have food shortages, bank-runs, a currency crisis, public disorder and chaos, because we are depleting and diluting around resources, our currency, accruing more debt that will never be paid.

The true meaning of the UFT and other unions needs to be reformed into a middle-class neo-educated philosophy of intolerance, discontent, and activism. When we have protests, Mike Bloomberg quarters the protesters between barriers and police brigades like we are cattle. Let me tell you, that last years protest was the saddest display of activism.

As a layman who follows the world of finance closely – with a “know your enemy” purpose – I largely agree with your take on the structural economic issues the country is facing. Still, if we are to remain a representative democracy, in spite of its shortcomings, we need to be educated and prepared to respond to the shock and awe policies that are coming down the pike, in the name of “fiscal responsibility.”

One of the reasons why deficits – local, state, federal – are so huge is that we don’t tax the rich in this country, we borrow from them. One tax that would be painless to to the overwhelming majority of Americans would be a financial transactions tax, directed at taxing all stock, bond, foreign exchange and derivative transactions. A tax like this would instantly raise billions upon billions of dollars for the public sector, while also providing the incidental benefit of being a potentially mild brake on speculation. I believe there is an opening for discussing a tax like this, and that many people across the political spectrum would support it.

Additionally, raising the income ceilings for the Social Security tax – something candidate Obama supported, but which has lately been replaced in his rhetoric by disturbing noises in the opposite directions, namely cutting benefits – would end once and for all the propaganda about how SS is going broke.

The current and emerging financial crisis of the state is real and need to be addressed from a progressive standpoint, before the oligarchs, plutocrats and privatizers use it to their advantage.

All Bloomberg needs to do is declare a “Financial Emergency”, and even our current contract would not be able to protect against layoffs.

This being said, there are 3 fundamentals in the contract relations; a) the UFT b) what others predict Bloomberg will accept and/or dismiss c) the reality in which nobody foresees and fails to understand.

Yes, we know the economy is bad (at least people on planet earth). However, lets evaluate the problem without pointing fingers at anyone;

1) The reserves in the FDIC are in the red, which means that the banking system and the US dollar can crash any day. Yes, there is $250 billion + of a treasury line, but essentially this involves printing more money, devaluing currency.

2) NY State is on the verge of issuing IOU’s.

3) When you take out the Cash for Clunkers and Tax Credit lifelines, where is there growth with 0% interest…and then when interest is raised, this will further devastate the middle/lower classes. And if we print more money to sustain these programs, we are debasing our currency.

I predict that in the next 4 years, EVERY JOB will face the hassle of having to adjust salaries with hyperinflation, increased crime rates, larger classes, more accountability for teaching 50 student classes…..

This is not a conservative or liberal argument..it is an argument about fiscal sanity, and the government and corporate fiscal insanity will virtually incapacitate every union from protecting the working class.

Yes…We won’t be protected, the students will be crammed in larger classes without proper resources, teachers and other civil-servants and working class Americans will be exploited, while your beloved oligarchs continue to put the greatest ponzi-schemes in the history of mankind.

It’s not the contract that makes me nervious….it is the “economic-doom” abyss that we are soon to enter!

I find it interesting how many really excellent and caring teachers I know are so adamantly opposed to all the schemes that would get them more money through merit pay. By the way, some people equate caring with excellent teaching. Not always true. I worked with teachers who always came in with very high test scores. Some seemed to be really good teachers (but we still suspected something funny going on) and others were lazy and just did test prep (we knew something funny was going on). Some teachers did not stress test prep and were held up to others that did and were “punished” by not being given the top classes. There were teachers who resisted the trend and tried to swim upstream by providing a rich and varied curriculum. Some teachers were great at creating a working and effective community in their classrooms where kids got along and enjoyed coming to school. Character building was stressed. But academics in terms of measurable results suffered in comparison to teachers who mainly stressed the tests. How do you measure character building?

How to judge teacher quality? I’ll use Michael F. as an example, though I’ve never seen him teach. Not long after I retired I met him at his school and we went to lunch. On the way back into the building he was stopped by kids for various reasons or just said hello to kids. The way those kids looked at him and related to him and he to them made me miss teaching. Can we find a way to measure that?

I agree with you: good teaching spans many different styles and personalities. I’ve had and observed both traditional talk-and chalk teachers and cooperative, group instruction-style teachers, and everything in between. I’ve experienced enough to know that it’s invalid to make a blanket statement about any one style and methodology. I’ve seen excellent and awful teachers within every style along the spectrum.

Some of the often contradictory demands that are made of us stem from the “flavor-of-the-month,” faddish quality that has afflicted education for as long as I’ve been in school or observing education, and some of it is administrative will to power. Both are negative presences in the schools. Unfortunately, the current fads are far more malign that in the past.

I think that ceolaf did a good job of answering your questions directed at me.

Again, a question arises: what defines a superior teacher? Is it someone who aids in the social and emotional growth of a child, but who may not be so strong in “hitting their numbers?” Is it someone who exposes young people to new ideas, and challenges them to question their assumptions? Is it someone who can make an alienated and fearful child feel accepted and valued as a human being? Is it someone who has the observational skills to presciently see that a child might be suffering problems or abuse at home? Someone who can get a failing student to find one thing in school that keeps them off the streets? Or is it someone who’s social and career antenae are such that they will uncritically follow the ever-shifting mandates of remote authorities whose experience in the field and motives are open to question?

My point is that, lost in all the debate about testing and numbers, is the fact that teaching is – or should be – a fundamentally human encounter. The very term you use to discuss the means of separating effective from ineffective teachers – “metric,” as in metering or counting – displays a bias that limits the debate.

It may sound scientific, but it’s not. It’s scientism, and they’re not the same thing.

So, for now, since good teachers can be good and effective in a multitude of ways, and since people should be rewarded for the time and commitment they give to a job and a community, my vote goes with sticking with the current system, especially since I have so little faith in the competence or intentions of the people who are proposing alternatives.

In the meantime, the Board of Regents and SED have new commissioners, Tisch and Steiner. But prior to them, we had Richard Mills, and a very dysfunctional Albany that had three people running the system for the entire state. All these deformation of education policies are presently being created by the millionair & billionaire populace who feel that they have the money to influence people to make these radical changes to the school system without taking into consideration the voice of the experienced educators. It is time to stop the ideologue of those who have no teaching experience from deforming the education policies and bring in change agents from the trenches of the classrooms!

I look forward to you publishing your cell number in this blog so I can give you a call.

(Those numbers are in response to yours. I am trying to address your comments, as best I can.)

I don’t think that you answers quite hit my points.

1) That’s not how education funding works. There is not some magical and unlimited source of funding. In profit-driven organizations, better performance can be linked to short term profit, thus the better performances can be expected to pay for themselves. In education, we don’t have that dynamic. Money is budgeted for education, and then is budgeted within education. (I also question the idea that a “metric” is how teacher quality can meaningfully be judged, but that’s a different objection.

2) But WHY? You don’t have a reason for why teachers should get paid more? You cite some corrosive effect without any even any examples, let alone mechanism. Why not pay the teachers who work harder more? Why not pay the teachers who work longer hours more? Why not pay the teachers with the most challenging students more? Why not pay the teachers with the best students more? The best results? The greatest gains? Whose students win most awards in competitions? The fewest discipline problems? Who students become respected role models for other students? Shall I go on?

Your claim that we can deal with the supposed corrosive effects of ignoring teacher quality when it comes to setting pay assumes that there would be some sort agreement as to what constitutes teacher quality. If you pay teachers more by some definition, but a group of teachers in that school/district/state disagrees with that definition? Then you still have corrosive effects. In order to eliminate corrosive effects of pay you need to have universal agreement that the pay system is fair, but we know that that is not going to happen. So, that means that we need a pay system that offers the least corrosive effects. The common salary scale that all teachers can take equal advantage of was designed to do precisely that.

The fact is, as I have best been able to ascertain it, that teachers do NOT objects to being paid the same as other comparable or average teachers. The problems arise only when really poor teachers are paid more than they are. That is, when the comparisons are painfully obvious. Of course, most of us think that there are many teachers who should be removed from the classroom, and I think that these are the teachers whose pay other teachers find objectionable. If we properly evaluate teachers USING THE TOOLS WE CURRENTLY HAVE and remove them in a timely fashion USING THE PROCEDURES WE CURRENTLY HAVE, the corrosive effects that i think that you are mentioning would be taken care. Unless, of course, you are talking about theoretical corrosive effects that don’t actually exist in any real school. I mean, no teacher says, “I know that I’m 10% better teacher than him and I cannot accept that I don’t make more. Dammit, I am going to stop working so hard!”

3) I want to be rich. Right now. I want to be the grand super-duper-czar of all education in America. I want the body and hair I had when I was 22. And I’ve got to say, this bright yellow skin and pronounced overbite make it harder for people to take me seriously, so I wish that they were fixed. But simply wanting these things to be possible doesn’t make them so. The issue with differential pay for teacher is not merely that we need to make sure that it is fair. The issue that those who have thought and worked on it for decades have been unable to find a system that is universally seen as fair. You are advocating for something that it appears is not possible, like my calling for end of private schooling (bad for democracy, bad for America). The burden is on supporters of differential pay by quality to offer a system that addresses these issues.

You could get broad support — even among teachers — for being the better teachers more, if only you could convince them that you’ve got a valid and reliable way to discern teacher quality. Satisfying non-educators or people who do not — and might not ever have — work(ed) in the classroom is almost irrelevant. This is not an incidental requirement pay-for-performance. THIS is the central question. THIS is the problem. The saying is “the devil is in the details,” right?

I found an interesting quote on the idea that many good theories don’t actually pan out. “Subsequent research will of course be necessary to sort out whether the theoretical statements hold up under scrutiny, or whether they will join the long list of theories that only deserve to be true.” (Sutton & Staw, 1995) Clearly, you think that differential pay by teacher quality is good DESERVES to be true. But we are LONG since past the point when we should be talking in the abstract. People have tried to design and implement these sorts of things for decades. Maybe this is one theory which only deserves to true, and sadly is not true.

Very thoughtful response.

Couple additional comments:

1. The concern about teachers being pitted against each other can be resolved by stipulating that everyone who hits whatever metric is automatically entitled to a performance supplement. This is superior to having a fixed pie that assumes that one person’s gain is another person’s subtraction.

2. I agree the foundational question is should a better teacher getting paid more. This is not an empirical question, of course, but rather a matter of philosophy, or, if you will, taste. I have always thought it unfair that a better teacher gets paid the same as a lesser teacher, and I think that can have a corrosive effect. But, I understand that many others view the world differently.

3. I agree that if a performance system is implemented unfairly — or even perceived as unfair — it can have a decidedly negative impact on morale.