GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

• A study reports that teachers with good value-added scores are the ones principals hire anyway.
• The final version of the common core standards for math and reading were released today.
• The D.C. teachers union ratified its new teachers contract, produced after years of negotiations.
• The first research on Denver’s pay-for-performance plan shows reported positive results.
• A new study (pdf) reports that teachers’ effectiveness is unrelated to the colleges they attended.
• The state teachers union posted a long Q & A explaining the new teacher evaluation plan.
• The Hechinger Report has a handy map of which states applied to each round of Race to the Top.
• GOOD magazine’s “guide to education innovation” includes a lot of online learning.
• The city says its push towards virtual education is not a strategy to replace teachers.
• And in honor of today’s start of the National Spelling Bee, here’s the “top ten spelling bee freak-outs.”

Earlier today, I wondered how the city figured that eliminating planned 2 percent raises for teachers and principals would save $400 million next year, considering that an identical cut to this year’s budget in January was projected to yield just $148 million.

Now I have the answer.

Each time planned raises were reduced — in January from 4 percent to 2 percent, and today from 2 percent to nothing — the city cut next year’s budget by $150 million, according to Department of Education spokeswoman Ann Forte. Together, the two reductions amount to $300 million in savings.

The extra $100 million is what the city set aside this year in case it reached a contract deal with the teachers union to turn Mayor Bloomberg’s intention to give 2 percent raises each year for two years into reality. But without a new contract, the city never had to spend any of this money. After adjusting its budget in January, the department still had about $100 million to roll over to next year.

In addition to the $400 million in salary savings, the city will save about $350 million by cutting school and central budgets, Forte said. (more…)

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan with students, parents, and teachers from Explore Charter School during a visit to the school in February 2009

Explore Charter School CEO Morty Ballen has hundreds of teachers knocking at the doors of his Brooklyn charter schools, hoping to get a job. Yet to find the right person, Ballen has put out a bounty notice.

For the past several years, Ballen has offered a $500 finder’s fee to anyone who refers a candidate he ends up hiring at either of his two charter schools, Empower and Explore. With over 300 applicants for about two dozen vacancies this year, it may seem like an odd choice to pay people to find more teacher-hopefuls, but Ballen said it’s a good way to discover “diamonds in the rough.”

“There are just not enough outstanding teachers who can meet the needs of kids we’re teaching,” Ballen said. “Every year it’s a nail biter to get outstanding teachers who can do a great job.”

Most of the reward money has gone to teachers at his own schools who’ve suggested other teachers they know, he said.

“The teachers who are most successful here know this community and one great source is the folks who are referred by members of the community because they know our culture,” he said. (more…)

When Mayor Bloomberg announced this morning that he will prevent teacher layoffs by freezing wages, teachers union president Michael Mulgrew shot back that the mayor can’t unilaterally make contract decisions.

Mulgrew is right that Bloomberg can’t make teachers contract decisions on his own. But in this case, he doesn’t have to. All Bloomberg has to do to freeze wages is not sign any contract that includes a raise.

The teachers union is left with a decision: it can either agree to a contract with no raises, or not. If the city and union are unable to come to an agreement, teachers can continue working under the old contract indefinitely.

But speaking to reporters today, Schools Chancellor Joel Klein also made it clear that the city is open to discussing alternate deals with the union. The city’s contract negotiation wish-list includes a slew of cost-saving measures that the city could be willing to trade for raises. These include firing excessed teachers who have not found new positions after six months or a year, or requiring that teachers work longer hours.

In an interview today, Mulgrew refused to say whether he was considering agreeing to a contract without raises. “In terms of our negotiation process, nothing has changed,” he said. (more…)

The city is moving forward with Mayor Bloomberg’s plan to avoid educator layoffs by freezing their salaries by writing it into school budgets for next year.

Neither the teachers union nor the principals union has agreed to Bloomberg’s plan, but budgets that principals are receiving today assume that the plan will become a reality. In an email to principals this morning, Klein said Bloomberg’s plan would save the city $400 million and eliminate the need for teacher layoffs. But the city would still lose about 2,000 teachers through attrition, and schools will still see their budgets cut by about 4 percent, he wrote.

Klein will answer principals’ questions about the budgets during a webcast tomorrow morning.

One question might be how exactly the city calculated its savings. In January, when the city cut the raises it had planned for teachers and principals unions in half, Klein said the city would save $148 million. It’s unclear how cutting the other half of the raises could yield the city $400 million.

Klein’s email, which is posted below, also includes an update about the hiring freeze. (more…)

Mayor Bloomberg called this morning for the city to eliminate pay raises for public school teachers for the next to years to forestall teacher layoffs.

The mayor said that cutting the two percent pay raises the city had planned to offer teachers — already a decrease from a planned four percent raise — would prevent the city from laying off 4,400 teachers.

A spokesman for the city’s teachers union said he had just learned of the mayor’s plan to eliminate pay raises. The mayor’s statement is silent on whether the teachers union has agreed to this proposal, an important omission as any decisions regarding pay have to be made in contract negotiations.

UPDATE 11:30 am: Teachers union president Michael Mulgrew released a statement saying the union has not agreed to freeze teacher salaries.

“The Mayor has the power to unilaterally rescind the proposed layoffs, and I’m glad that he has made the right decision to avoid massive disruptions to our schools,” Mulgrew said, adding that the mayor does not have the power to “unilaterally decide on the teachers’ contract.” (more…)

• Mayor Bloomberg has proposed cutting nurses from schools with fewer than 300 students. (Times)
• New schools are likely to suffer more from layoffs because they have more new teachers. (Times)
• The contaminated water that sickened PS 20 students was sweet and pink. (Daily News, Post, NY1)
• Thirteen states sat out Race to the Top’s second round entirely. (Wall Street Journal)
• New York dropped its request for new office furniture from its second-round application. (Post)
• The state’s bid seems more competitive this time because of recent legislative changes. (Daily News)
• New Jersey’s application is sure to deepen the rift between the state and teachers union. (Star-Ledger)
• Some private preschools skirt laws barring them from setting tuition together. (Wall Street Journal)
• Chicago wants to use technology to extend 100 schools’ days to eight hours. (Chicago Sun-Times)

• In all, 35 states applied for Race to the Top’s second round today, with 10 to 15 states projected to win.
• New Jersey turned in a Race to the Top application that ignored a deal with the teachers union.
• Water fountains apparently contaminated with antifreeze sickened students at PS 20 in Queens today.
• Arthur Goldstein urges GothamSchools as an antidote to an excess of misleading education news.
• Rick Hess is skeptical that a trifecta of school reform films will make a difference in education policy.
• Pissed Off Teacher figured out how to help a struggling student — with just nine days left with her.
• Pre-K admissions letters are out, and early registration for the scarce spots starts this week.
• Confused about whether layoffs loom, Miss Eyre wonders if she’s in for a summer of “funemployment.”
• Brooklyn’s PS 29 is mourning after a beloved cafeteria employee died suddenly last week.
• Gotham Gazette offers another explainer about the state’s giant new education law.
• Down in Alabama, a Republican group was partially bankrolled by the state’s teachers union.
• This week’s national spelling bee could see the first home-schooled champion in a decade.
• A new study says high school students will take AP classes even if they don’t get extra credit.
• Applications to Teach for America are up disproportionately from students at Christian colleges.

A week ago, I posted a Q&A about teacher layoffs and many readers left comments with more questions. Last time the questions were invented (or overheard on the subway). This time they’re from you.

My chapter leader told me layoff notices will go out on June 4. Is that true?
Not necessarily. While the union and the Department of Education discussed that date as a possibility, it depended on principals receiving their budgets by today. That has not happened — when principals logged into their internal budget system this morning they were greeted with an announcement saying their new budgets had been delayed. It didn’t say until when, so layoff notices could come out days or weeks from now.

If I lose my job, will I be placed in another school?
There are two ways of losing your job. If you are excessed, it means your school can no longer afford to keep you on staff, but you are still a public school employee and you remain on the city’s payroll while you look for a new teaching position in the system. If you are laid off, you’ve lost your job in every sense.

Teachers who are excessed will not be placed into vacancies at other schools. (more…)