City and teachers union return to court in turnaround saga today

legal process

July 24, 2012

City and teachers union return to court in turnaround saga today

by Rachel Cromidas, at 10:49 am

The city and the teachers union are back in court this afternoon to argue over the fates of 24 so-called turnaround schools.

Late last month, an arbitrator found that the city’s hiring and firing decisions at the schools — key aspects of the Department of Education’s turnaround plans — violated the city’s contract with the teachers union. With just weeks to go before the school year starts, the city is rolling back those plans and telling teachers and administrators who had been cut loose how to reclaim their positions, in accordance with the arbitrator’s remedy.

But the city doesn’t want to give up the chance at using the turnaround model. So it is still arguing that the arbitrator overstepped his bounds and asking the State Supreme Court to overturn his decision.

Two weeks ago, Judge Joan Lobis rejected the city’s request to be allowed to continue rehiring and replacing teachers at the schools while she considers the appeal. At the time, Lobis signaled that she did not think the city would be likely to win the case in the end.

That’s what a city attorney who specializes in labor relations also told GothamSchools before the first hearing with Lobis. The city agreed to independent arbitration in the first place, and courts do not like overturning arbitrators, said the attorney, Steven Landis.

“The courts place great deference on a decision made by an arbitrator, so the arbitrator can make decisions without fear of being overruled,” Landis said. “If an agreement has been made to arbitrate, the court says, ‘Arbitrate it, don’t come to me.’”

No matter how the city’s appeal turns out, some questions remain unanswered. It is still not clear who exactly will be staffing the schools in September, whether any portions of the planned reforms will be carried out this year, and whether any of the 24 schools will be eligible federal School Improvement Grants. State Education Commissioner John King, who is tasked with administering the federal funds in New York, told the city it would be able to receive the funds only if the schools followed the federal requirement about replacing at least 50 percent of teachers.

Guest

Why can’t the city say to Commish King….”Ah…we can’t…the court won’t let us…now show us the money….”
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=519383156 Joel Lederer
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=519383156 Joel Lederer

This whole thing is lose-lose for the union. If the schools re-hire all the teachers and fail then 100% of the union members will go to ATR in just a few years, swelling the ATR ranks and giving the city ammunition to attack the ATR pool in the media. If the union accepted the 50% option…well…at least there’d be a shot that they could hold on to that many union teachers if the schools could improve. It’s still, however, a successful attack on the UFT.

As it stands now you’re looking at putting the same struggling schools back together with NO additional funding. In fact, you’re pulling the SIG grant money that they’ve had for two years, so it’s budget cuts all around. You’re asking the same people, now totally divided and demoralized, to do things in a totally different way with both hands tied behind their backs. It’s a recipe for failure either way and the city knows it.

I think, unfortunately, that most or all of these 24 schools will be headed toward Phase Out in a couple of years time. Then what? Charters all around? The UFT can claim victory in the newspapers today, but they expended a lot of political capital in a move that might well cost them more in the long run. It really is a situation of being trapped between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.

It’s a shame, because in the end teachers lose and kids lose. The union loses and the middle class loses. It’s wrong and yet the forces that are pushing these so-called “reforms” have the money and the power. If we funded these schools as much as we funded prisons, perhaps there’d be a fighting chance for real reform.
guest

Remember one thing, though. On 31 December 2013, no more Bloomberg. That’s the light at the end of the tunnel.
guest

They don’t have to use turnaround….there are other models with which they can win the SIG funding but……..it would mean agreeing with the UFT on a fair teacher evaluation system. But Bloomberg has made it quite clear, if any teacher evaluation plan gives teachers any degree of being able to review poor ratings, he will not go along.; It has to be his way or the highway.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=519383156 Joel Lederer

True, but a Mayor Quinn (to name one) regime would simply carry out the same initiatives. I don’t see a true champion in sight.

First step: Re-instate community school boards. Any candidate that doesn’t promise and deliver that is not a pro-school candidate. I’m just worried that the light at the end of the tunnel is a train.
Mr. Flerporillo

”
First step: Re-instate community school boards. Any candidate that doesn’t promise and deliver that is not a pro-school candidate.”

I don’t believe any candidate is promising this. All favor the continuation of mayoral control.
Anonymous

Joel,

Anything that helps shed more light on the failure of the deforms is not a complete loss. Sending 100% to the ATR pool is one of the major features of course, and it is wrong on all levels. To treat those in the worst of the trenches like garbage, upend the careers of dedicated, talented, effective, self-sacrificing people, and have no real plan in mind other than try newer cheaper people and use the failure there to help promote privatization is an absolute disgrace. It is criminal. No hyperbole. It is a criminal act against society. Whether in actual bad faith or a sense of hopelessness, it is criminal. End of story.
I noticed that…

The UFT can make the right move by endorsing a mayoral candidate (Liu) that will be supportive (emotionally and monetarily) of all the public schools and to turnaround the damages that Bloomberg has done. Our union leader knows that the members have not forgotten the 2009 mayoral election by not endorsing Thompson. As you can see, there are consequences for the members when the union leadership sits by the sideline. That’s why we, the rank and file, will remind Mulgrew again come November 2013!
food for thought

If the Judge is non her toes she will want to ask the City: 1. Why is there an ATR pool? The argument due to budget cuts doesn’t pass muster since they are still being paid..2. Why was the list first 36 schools and how do they compare with the 24 left?. What is the purpose of closing the schools at all? Why did you change course so quickly on different turnaround plans. etc
food for thought

because King is in the City’s pocket
East Sider

If a teacher evaluation agreement cannot be reached the law calls for the issues to go before a PERB appointed arbitrator, which the City has firmed refused … at some point the most popular political figure in NYS, the governor, will begin to push his considerable weight around ,,, who will get pushed?
Mr. Flerporillo

These questions are all irrelevant to the issue before the court.
James

Actually, both of those questions are quite relevant to the issue at hand.

1) If the city would be willing to let any teacher who is not rehired in the traditional school default into the ATR pool, taxpayers will be paying for (a lot of) qualified, experienced teachers to become, essentially, babysitters. The city would still have to hire more teachers to fill the positions of those experienced teachers who aren’t willing to play into the city’s hands, thus we’d all be paying twice. Cue the editorials about how teachers are sucking dry the city’s coffers. Of course, it’s not the teachers, it’s the self-serving, political policies of the Bloomberg administration that creates this mess.

2) Right after the UFT held its ground and did not support a bogus teacher evaluation system, Bloomberg announced that he’d “turnaround” those schools, essentially reneging on the city’s previous claim to provide real support and grant money. The 24 remaining schools are all schools that will not be eligible for federal School Improvement Grants (acc. to state superintendent John King) unless the city gets their way. And yet there’s no meaningful change that would actually help kids learn being proposed. Thus “food for thought” ‘s question “What is the purpose of closing the schools at all?” is actually the right one to ask.
A Brooklyn Turnaround Victim
Tsis100

did you here something about today’s hearing?
Mr. Flerporillo

”
Actually, both of those questions are quite relevant to the issue at hand.”

To you, maybe. Not to the court.
SLT Chair of a “24″ School

A defeatist attitude has no place in a system that is responsible for educating the minds of the future!!!!
SLT Chair of a “24″ School

No matter how much you may think you’re being a realist, the bottom line is a defeatist attitude!!!
Kallabos

Not all the 24 schools on the turnaround list have a lose-lose situation, and Bloomberg’s monarchy is slowly diminishing as time goes by, only year and a half left of Bloomy and his puppets. I can’t speak for all the schools on the list, but I can speak for John Dewey High School which has a growing graduation rate for the last three years, all passing the 60% city average AND a college readiness level that’s also above the city average.

To destroy a school that’s improving at a time like this is illogical. Surprisingly, there are far worse schools in the city, but they haven’t even been touched and are nowhere to found on the turnaround list. Once again, I can only speak for that school.

P.S. that school has only one teacher ranked unsatisfactory out of all the 150 teachers.

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legal process

July 24, 2012

City and teachers union return to court in turnaround saga today

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