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November 25, 2009
Mulgrew challenges Bloomberg’s get-tough tactics on tenure
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The United Federation of Teachers is indicating it will resist Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s effort to judge city teachers based on their students’ test scores beginning this year.
“When we see an actual proposal in writing we will take appropriate action,” Mulgrew said in an emailed statement. “The new state Commissioner of Education says the state tests are a broken measurement. Are these the tests the Mayor wants to use as a tool to evaluate teachers?”
Mulgrew also specifically challenged Bloomberg’s effort to make changes that could also made through the teachers union contract, which the union and the city are currently negotiating.
“These issues could have been — and still could be — resolved with better management and hard work, not legislation,” Mulgrew said. “His other proposals deserve thoughtful review by the Legislature, which has demonstrated appropriate skepticism in the past about mayoral initiatives like the failed West Side stadium plan and congestion pricing.”
But Bloomberg’s speech today was a strong signal that the mayor could try to bypass talks with the union and go directly to the state legislature to achieve his goals. The mayor also offered another get-tough tactic: A threat to sue the state if the legislature does not eliminate the charter school cap provide public funding for charter school buildings.
In his speech today, the mayor also invoked the power of the president. Speaking alongside U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, Bloomberg pitched the changes as a way to bring the state closer in line to Obama administration education goals and strengthen the state’s application for a share of a $4.3 billion federal stimulus fund.
In addition to his announcement about the tenure law, Bloomberg asked state lawmakers to change rules on hiring and firing teachers, which he said would help the state attract better teachers and more quickly remove ineffective teachers.
The tenure law, passed last year after heavy lobbying from the city and state teachers unions, bars the use of student test scores as a factor in teacher tenure decisions.
But the mayor pointed out this morning that the rules apply only to teachers who began work after July 2008. Teachers up for tenure this year were hired in 2007 and so are not subject to the provisions, Bloomberg argued. If legislators allow the law to expire on schedule this June, then it will never have applied to any teacher.
Right now, 1,200 teachers are receiving regular paychecks and benefits even though they don’t hold full-time positions in the city schools. Bloomberg is proposing to make it easier to move those teachers off the payroll.
Bloomberg also targeted the “rubber rooms,” which hold teachers accused of offenses ranging from incompetence to abuse. A backlog of accused teachers means the rubber room is clogged with people waiting for a verdict on whether they can go back into the classroom.
Bloomberg said that his proposals should not come as a surprise to the union.
“I didn’t consult with them, but they certainly know my views that we should use all means that we have to evaluate who the better teachers are, promote them, and pay them more if we can,” Bloomberg said.
Speaking to reporters after the panel, Bloomberg refused to elaborate on whether he was seeking legislative change as an alternative to pushing for these measures in contract negotiations, saying that the city does not negotiate union contracts in public. But Bloomberg acknowledged that some of today’s proposals would likely also come up in negotiations.
“To the extent that the contract will cover reforms we need in the school system overall, we will be discussing that,” he said.
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November 25th, 2009 6:14 pm
By sitting on their hands when mayoral control was up last summer and by again sitting on their hands during the election when union endorsements and union GOTV efforts could have sent Mayor for Life back to his private Caribbean island, Mr. Mulgrew and the UFT have ensured that much of what Mayor Moneybags called for will happen.
And of course the city will dump thousands of veteran teachers from the payroll regardless of quality or test scores once Moneybags gets the legal right to do so.
This is what Michelle “What sex scandal?” Rhee is doing in D.C. by hiring hundreds of rookie teachers, firing hundreds of vets, and then hiring more rookies afterward. She says they were “bad” teachers.
Perhaps. Or perhaps they make too much, they know more about education than the Jack Welch-trained MBA’s she’s hired to work as principals, and are too big a pain the a** to keep around.
And think about all the pension money the state will save when they fire all those vets.
It’s a win-win for the soulless bean counters and like Bloomberg, Klein, Duncan and Obama.
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November 25th, 2009 6:42 pm
“Bloomberg is proposing to make it easier to move those teachers off the payroll.”
Move off payroll?
Did you just lift this from the Mayor’s text? Or write it yourself?
Call things by their right names. He wants to fire teachers.
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November 25th, 2009 6:52 pm
Everytime I read about the mayor4life’s attempt to destroy the lives of the senior teachers, the abuse of those vulnerable, untenured teachers, and the stonewalling of the contract negotiations, I think how the mayor won by approximately 50,000 votes! The union’s tactic of staying “neutral” will inevitably cost many of the members their teaching position and bring about unstability within the school system. All this in the name of politics.
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November 25th, 2009 8:09 pm
I’d begin to discount the impact that Bloomberg’s election results will have on this issue; many voters have short memories.
Reagrdles, this is the dawn of a colossal struggle between the interests of a union and the will of a city’s mayor.
And it ain’t going to be pretty, folks.
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November 25th, 2009 8:34 pm
Yomister,
the struggle will be one that many union members will not forget for many future contracts down the road. Forgive me if the election result is something that, at the present, I’m having a difficult time letting go. It may seem that I’m harping on this, but I felt the need to bring it up. Nonetheless, you’re right! It’s going to get pretty ugly out there. -
November 25th, 2009 9:38 pm
Thanks, Randi.
How’s your legacy in New York looking right now?
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November 25th, 2009 10:53 pm
Congestion pricing would have been a huge victory for the public school children. Their parents’ transit fares just went up in order to subsidize drivers from the suburbs. Meanwhile, the air the kids are breathing is so toxic it can lower their IQ’s. I guess the billionaire mayor is more progressive than the union guy on this one.
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November 26th, 2009 12:12 am
Maura: didn’t he say he would have Klein sue if the state didn’t provide facilities funding to charter schools — not if they refuse to raise the cap? Here’s the quote:
“We’ll also urge the State Legislature to provide charter schools with funding for facilities, just as New York City is doing for other schools. Charter schools are public schools - people forget that - and all public school children deserve to share in the resources that the State has. To not do so is an outrage, and if the State doesn’t get this done, I’ve directed Chancellor Klein to sue, and see if we can’t get it done in the courts.”
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November 26th, 2009 12:34 am
The only person UFT members have to blame for this is Randi Weingaten. She helped Bloomberg keep control during the summer of 09. Maybe she thought that he would settle the contract without much of a fight but he really bluffed her. She fell for his BS and then ran to greener pastures. How much will Mulgrew do for us? He’s a whimp. The only thing he will do is have PERB intervene and Bloomberg will get what he wants. A long drawn out fight and no raises for UFT members.
By the time PERB gets involved and they go through fact finding, etc., Bloomberg will pay to have the laws changed. What kind of contract can we get? A 4 percent increase and then members will have to pay 10 percent towards health benefits. Will anyone over 40 working for the DOE still have a job if Bloomberg has his way?
Who will fire a principal if the school doesn’t get good scores on statewide tests? Principals will have the power to fire a teacher earning top salary with the excuse that her class didn’t do well on state exams, but who will fire the principal for not helping the teaahers reach those high scores. How many lawsuits will there be in New York for age discrimination?
The UFT is doomed. No contract for 4 years. In a way that might be a good thing for the UFT - wait until there’s another mayoral election. There is no way to settle a contract under these circumstances. Bloomberg says he doesn’t negotiate a contract in public. Who’s he kidding. He did that today. He let the UFT know what he wants. Is the UFT strong enough to fight him?
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November 26th, 2009 12:33 pm
I can’t help but to gloat and laugh at the UFT for not backing Thompson. Why do teachers need a union if a Principal can excess (fire under this proposed new law) a teacher whenever they want. Bloomberg is generous and he will give good benefits and you can save the union dues. You will get fired anyway, so save the union dues that only allow those fat cats on Broadway to spend the money in luxury. This may cause a more militant faction to take power if Mulgrew can’t deliver a new contract that insures job security for satisfactory teachers.
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November 26th, 2009 9:29 pm
The Union leadership is sacrificing the Golden Goose by thinking that they can sacrifice the union and still pretend that they have done the battle necessary to stand up for what they are supposed to stand for.
All this rant from King Bloom about how tough he is simply proves in the frailty of the position the union has dig themselves into.
FF 10 years, perhaps NYC will be free of unionized schools as 12 years of Bloomtocracy will lead to the dissolution of the union as well as making NYC like the Rio of North America, a place that has just two classes, the affluent or the miserably poor.
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November 28th, 2009 8:34 pm
our teaching career is at stake where those with over 15 years in the system will eventually be forced out of the teaching profession. Teachers are now considered the unwanted profession with respect to these data driven eduentrepeneurs who extrapolate the human factor of teaching from their spurious reports that only detail the intangibles of teaching and learning.
I’ve noticed that the BloomKlein have such disdain for so many veteran teachers that it would seem that teachers are marked preys waiting for their turn to be victimized by their principals and eventually sent to the rubber room where principals hope that their able to end those teachers’ careers through the 3020a process.
At times I feel like running like they did in Logan’s Run. No one will reach their 30th year of teaching if BloomKlein have their way.
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November 28th, 2009 9:50 pm
Clearly no one should be surprised of the direction that Mayor Bloomberg is going with his educational plan, I as a city Teacher I knew that if Bloomberg were to be reelected that such new plans would be attempted regardless of the harsh realities we face in the New York City Department of Education. However, I am unclear how our union could allow such efforts by Bloomberg to actually become reality. I also am afraid that of my fate and the fate of many of my friends and colleagues who may lose their jobs if Bloomberg succeeds in changing the city school system into a corporate business in which everyone competes in a dog eat dog world which eventually sucks the life out of you and the work you do.
All that is transpiring is a well orchestrated plan that was set in motion in 2002 when mayor Bloomberg gained control of the city schools. Since this error in judgment he has slowly but surely has moved to limit many of the unions control when it came to teacher quality, class size limits and of course the biggest of them all the introduction of charter schools in our fair city which many believed would change the way our children learned but rather alienated many of those it was to help. Throughout the years he was mayor prior to this recent election he campaigned on the basis that charters had revolutionized the education of our children and praised the high scores they received in both Math and English but many of the schools under the new report card system failed while traditional schools passed but yet again he stated that the numbers that counted were the Math and English scores. He also has proposed to raise the limit of charter schools within the city as long as the State Legislature approves to remove the cap and if they do not he will then sue the State, a move he knows he will win simply because he is a billionaire and he can afford to such a luxury while the State which is looking at a budget gap in the billions cannot afford such litigation and would eventually give into his demands.
The new question that should be asked is what Bloomberg’s final end game is when it comes to the New York City school system because as a teacher I would like to know whether or not I, my wife and my friends will have a job when the school year begins anew in September. Also, whether or not our union has what it takes to really fight Bloomberg and his agenda or will we the largest union in the world do nothing to secure the jobs of their members. If not there will be massive layoffs and hundreds of new and veterans will be unemployed and homeless and let us not forget the children who will teach them they will be without the individuals they trust, respect and even care about outside of their own families, who will then teach “our” children.
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