Gov. Andrew Cuomo warned the city and UFT that he won’t extend his evaluations deadline. (WSJ)
The Department of Education named 17 schools it wants to close this year. (GothamSchools, Post, NY1)
A dustup over Mayor Bloomberg’s UFT-NRA analogy continued on Monday. (GothamSchools, Post)
Bloomberg has floated a mayoral run to multiple people as he searches for a stronger successor. (Times)
A student with a chaotic home life has pressed on even after multiple setbacks in high school. (Times)
Students returned Monday to P.S./M.S. 105 in Queens, which was damaged by Hurricane Sandy. (NY1)
City schools are focusing more on science, math, and technology as the economy changes. (Daily News)
The city continued to hold a firm line about whether it will offer seniority rights to school bus drivers. (Post)
A columnist argues that curbing the bus drivers union would send a strong message to all unions. (Post)
A documentary airing tonight argues that Washington, D.C., downplayed cheating claims. (USA Today)
Advocates in Chicago are charging the city with depriving students with disabilities of services. (Times)
DOE Grade F
Great. Now the “new” PEP member for the Bronx Borough President, whose son attends Lehman HS (Identified as a closing school today) can see first hand, how FAKE the PEP team really is. His own son is in a school about to close as soon as the PEP team casts its rubber stamp. Fake team is so disgusting and the parents just watch like puppets following along. The communities have no power. Why are there community boards anyway. They have no clout and no say, just like the FAKE 5. That’s the fake 5 individuals who rep the 5 boroughs. They’re no match for the AUTO 8 appointed by mayor. Sorry, you lose again, 8-5!!!
Ken Hirsh
Some interesting facts from the editorial in the Post on the schoolbus situation:
1. As noted previously, NYC spends $6900 per student versus $3100 in Los Angeles. What I didn’t know: LA is number 2 in the nation! In other words, NYC spends 120% more per student than the next highest city in the nation.
2. The city could potentially save $500 million every year.
3. “Three separate investigations since 1990, the latest in 2007, also found widespread mob influence at the union and at bus companies. The bus union’s former head… pleaded guilty to shaking down bus companies five years ago.”
4. The current contracts require the city to pay overtime for drivers who go out before 7:30am.
5. “Even though the drivers have public-sector job security, they aren’t public workers. That means they’re not subject to the state’s Taylor Law, which forbids critical government workers from walking off the job.”
Flerp
“The bus union’s former head… pleaded guilty to shaking down bus companies five years ago.”
That’s Sal Battaglia of the Genovese crime family. The bus union’s current head, Michael Cordiello, worked directly under Battaglia. Cordiello’s father was on the union’s executive board before him. You can’t make this stuff up.
Tim
I just wanted to make sure you saw what I posted yesterday: LAUSD owns its own fleet of buses, and everyone involved in its transportation operations — drivers, mechanics, matrons/assistants — is a unionized (SEIU) LAUSD employee.
I think the transportation of physically disabled students is one of those areas where the public sector can probably do the job more efficiently than the private sector. Much of the equipment is too specialized to be used for other purposes, and then there’s the scale issue — the 54,000 disabled kids being transported to DOE schools every day is roughly equal to the *total* district population of Boston, Washington DC, or San Francisco. And private competitive bidding has done nothing to lower construction costs in our area, although I’m sure you and Ms. Gelinas will say that’s because of various set-asides and strings attached.
Of course scale would also present an enormous challenge if the DOE bought and operated its own fleet–they’d instantly become the nation’s 20th largest bus operator, and there’s the small matter of not having any money to buy them. But even if LAUSD is moving ‘only’ 42,000 kids daily (13,330 with physical disabilities), they’d be a great model to follow if we could start over from scratch.
BloombergMustGo
A Cuomo quote: “Teachers have said it would be unfair to judge them for an entire year when
they spent half the year without clear expectations. Cuomo said the evaluations
have to apply to teachers this year.
“The parameters have been discussed for years,” he said. “They might not have
known the day they were going to be evaluated, but that’s up to them. And it’s
how their union negotiated it.””
Shame on Cuomo for using blackmail to get his way. Another petulant spolied brat politician. The Taylor Law should include a provision that withholding funding be considered illegal as a bargaining tool, just like we are not allowed to strike.
Our union is negotiating now, not before. We never agreed to a partial year of new evaluations, especially with the complete lack of preparation and training. Principals and assistant principals are completely unprepared forthe new system.
Do mental deficients like Cuomo and Bloomberg realize that they are talking about people’s livelihoods? Are their egos so overinflated that they are willing to destroy whole families just so they get the “win”.
The UFT should take an extremely hard line stance regarding these new evaluations. UFT members must step up and support their union at this time. Accepting this pile of festering garbage disguised as a legitimate evaluation system is ludicrous. The UFT should demand that any supervisor who is evaluating teachers must have at least 10 years actual classroom teaching experience in the subject that they are evaluating.
Flerp
“I think the transportation of physically disabled students is one of those areas where the public sector can probably do the job more efficiently than the private sector.”
That may be correct, but isn’t the important question here whether and how NYC can get its own house in order? There may be reasons not under the city’s control (realistically) why NYC can’t get its per-student costs as low as LA’s, but it doesn’t follow that the NYC DOE’s transportation costs are reasonable, or that nothing can be done about them.
Assuming that students with disabilities are the biggest cost drivers (and they may be, although I haven’t seen those numbers myself), how do we explain the insane increase in busing costs in the DOE over the last decade? Has there been a huge increase in the number of students with disabilities in the last decade? If so, what the heck is up with that? If not, what’s caused the cost increase?
Ken Hirsh
If NYC could take steps to get its costs down to match the second most expensive city in the country, that would be huge progress. Of course, I doubt LA is a model of efficiency.
Ellen
…and as noted earlier,
>mob control is something to break
>union membership is something to support (no, I don’t work for the DOE, OPT any bus company or any union…..none, not one, not ever!)
>the State reimburses the City for up to 90% of the cost of busing
the private schools who also use these same buses and drivers, contribute NOTHING towards the costs of busing their students which skews the cost per child
>there are at least 5 different methods of reimbursement for busing created by the state legislature
>the costs of busing students up-state may be even higher than those you quote for NYC
>until and when the state and city get their acts together on reimbursement methodologies, this will continue to be a free for all……even if there is a competitive busing bid
>contract monitoring by the DOE has NOT proven to be effective
Flerp
Ellen — are you saying that the DOE should reverse course (again) and include employee-protection provisions in all new contracts, as demanded by Local 1181?
Jjstokes
My son’s school in district 30 has 3 brand new computer labs without a teacher. They used to have a great teacher that all the kids liked. But now he is no longer the lab teacher what a shame and a waste of talent. My son needs more science and technology and his school still doesn’t get it.
Ellen
” Ellen — are you saying that the DOE should reverse course (again) and
include employee-protection provisions in all new contracts, as demanded
by Local 1181? ”
Nope. I am saying that parents want on time departures and pick ups; regular drivers and matrons; trained drivers and matrons, buses with GPS technology; cameras on buses; air conditioning on buses and safety belts on buses.
As parents we can’t go two feet without buckling up our children, yet they can be driven all over the City without safety belts. Who is negotiating for safety? Not the DOE. Not the bus companies. It costs too much.
Negotiations with Unions are not my purview, however the safety of my child is. If, as so many are advocating, an open bid process must be used then I want the DOE to be sure that the above items are included when the bus companies bid for the routes. has some judge forbidden that?
Flerp
Thanks for the clarification. That’s the issue right now — whether the DOE should include employee-protection provisions (“EPP”) in new contracts.
I’m not aware of any differences between the DOE and the union regarding safety provisions in new contracts. To the best of my knowledge, the union’s safety argument is a repetition of its seniority argument: that without EPP, drivers will be less experienced and buses will therefore be less safe.
Ellen
It’s the “flavor of the moment” issue. The steady issues that parents are want included in the contracts include all ones we mentioned. If, and only if, the DOE is really interested in negotiating contracts that can ensure safety and be cost effective, then these requests should be part of the discussions. Otherwise it’s all posturing and posing, with a bit of windbag thrown in for good measure.
Flerp
“The steady issues that parents are want included in the contracts include all ones we mentioned.”
Maybe the parents of the 10% or 15% of students who use the buses. But the vast majority of parents don’t use the buses at all, and are more concerned with school-level budget cuts than GPS technology and cameras on buses.
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