The UFT is “reevaluating all of [its] relationships” with lawmakers after pension changes. (Daily Politics)
A physical education teacher at a Brooklyn high school was arrested on sex abuse charges. (DNA Info)
The long and tortuous story of an unlikely football powerhouse, a small D.C. school. (Grantland)
Students at Los Angeles’s Locke High School offer a high-production rap video about testing. (YouTube)
A crackdown on bake sales hasn’t curbed sky-high sugar intake at one mother’s school. (Insideschools)
Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel is blaming school woes on Arne Duncan’s tenure. (Politico via Russo)
A principal advises against “winner’s peace” sanctions in student-on-student conflict. (Practical Theory)
Students at three shared campuses in Brooklyn authored a report on easing co-locations. (SchoolBook)
States have varied widely in their approach to distributing School Improvement Grants. (Politics K-12)
School officials across the country are optimistic about SIG grants two years into them. (Politics K-12)
Some charter schools’ recruitment conjures a suggestion that the market is saturated. (NYC P.S. Parents)
Peoria22
Cuomo and Obama are just as bad as Bloomberg. Why doesn’t the union convey this to its members.
SJ
I wish the nightcap headline read as follows: “UFT rank and file members reassess alliance with UFT leaders post-evaluation deal”.
Larry Littlefield
“The process that happened last week — forget about the issues themselves, the way the process played out … Done in the middle of the night, the epitome of the three men in a room, was deemed unacceptable.”
“Two weeks after the state’s largest teachers union gave Senate Republicans a boost by endorsing their candidate in a critical special election race, Republican lawmakers fast-tracked a bill that would allow New York City teachers to retire with full benefits five years sooner than they can now.”
“The Senate quietly passed the measure on Wednesday. It did not get much public attention, because that same day lawmakers announced with much fanfare an agreement with the New York Racing Association.”
The cost as described to the serfs: zero. It was a lie. Now Mulgrew could say he expected the years in retirement one percent to just screw the quality of education and the taxes on those who actually live in the city, but I don’t believe it. The union already agreed to a “screw the newbie” deal that already affects recent hires. It is all propaganda.
Larry Littlefield
My comment on the above cited article.
Submitted by Larry Littlefield, Feb 15, 2008 08:34
“The teachers didn’t get a gift. Those who will be paid to do nothing got a gift, which NYC teachers and children will pay for.
This, combined with the Sun essay yesterday that objected to vouchers on the grounds that they have the same value for affluent and poor children, and said in so many words that NYC parents have no reason to complain because if they care about education they can move out of New York City, and it is clear where this is going. You will pretend to work, and we will pretend to pay you. The children get nothing, and teachers who do their jobs and stay here are fools. Just like before.
If there ever was a moral issue, it is this. If Eliot Spitzer is to be a worthwhile Governor, he needs to veto this and say why.”
I knew it then. I knew it in 2000. And by the way, those who had 10 years to go had to pay a little more for ten years. Those who were 55 at the time got to retire immediately. No money had been set aside before hand for this sudden increase in benefit payments by the pension fund. And no additional money was set aside for a few years afterward.
I’m willing to bet that under the deal in Albany not only will the city not be contributing any funding for the pensions of new teachers for their first few years on the job, the money contributed by the new teachers themselves will also be paid out to existing early retirees. To be made up later.
Flerplunk
Note Bloomberg and the union’s joint efforts to give us the worst of all possible worlds:
“In October, the Bloomberg administration consented to the pension sweetener in exchange for the adoption of a school-wide merit pay system linked to student test scores.”
Larry Littlefield
The new pension deal apparently allows the Mayor to unilaterally provide a pension sweenter for retirement at age 57 at any time, provided the fraudulent actuary estimate of the additional cost is covered by working teachers who don’t get to cash out. Thus the “screw to newbie, flee to Florida” deal would be done in two steps rather than one.
So let me guess what Mulgrew is demanding from the Mayoral candidates in exchange for their endorsement. Higher pay for younger and future teachers who got screwed by the past deals? Lower class sizes? HA.
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