GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

upside

January 23, 2013

Walcott: Teacher layoffs not on table after eval deal collapse

by Philissa Cramer, at 11:01 am

The collapse of teacher evaluation talks comes with many costs, but teacher layoffs won’t be among them, Chancellor Dennis Walcott announced today.

The Department of Education is set to forgo $240 million in increased state school aid after it failed to agree on a new evaluation system with the teachers union by a state deadline last week. State officials have since said the city will have to go without far more funding until it adopts a new evaluation system.

Last week, Mayor Bloomberg said it was “much too early to tell” whether the losses would require teacher layoffs, which he has threatened but never carried out in the past.

But during a radio appearance today, Walcott said teacher layoffs are not on the table. ”We’re not looking at layoffs,” he told host John Gambling, whose show has been a forum for city, union, and state officials to stake their positions in the conflict.

Instead, Walcott said, cuts “should probably land mostly on my budget, but the mayor will determine what those next steps will be.”

Last month, Walcott warned that without a new evaluation system, class sizes would likely rise, teacher training would suffer, after-school activities would be eliminated, and guidance counselors would be cut. Plus, even if the city does not move to lay teachers off, it could decide to replace fewer of the teachers who resign or retire this year.

Walcott also said today that he is still hoping to resolve the conflict with the teachers union, and he backed away from the harsh criticism that Bloomberg leveled against the UFT on Tuesday. “I want to take this opportunity to try to lower the rhetoric a little,” he said, adding, “Who’s to blame? I want to move away from that.”

And while Bloomberg has criticized the state’s evaluation law for being too timid and the State Education Department for approving short-term evaluation plans in most school districts, Walcott had kinder words for the centerpiece of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s education policy initiatives. “The law makes sense,” he said.

Print Print
  • Gimmy52

    Walcott is not bloomterd he just so happens to be in the middle between our blessed UFT and this incredibly insane mayor who really has no feelings toward hard working people.  The funny thing is this though, you would never see bloomterd phony talking this way to the fire or police unions………this wimp would never go as far as he has with our UFT.  Midget.

  • Gimmy52

    approve this one gotham news,,,,bloomdoe is a phoney and all of NYC knows it.  Look at the polls conducted by quinipiac…..Most NYC parents agree with the UFT and teachers rather than fake phoney doe and bloomberg and his poodle…..Check it out with the pollsters people

  • SUZYTEACH

    I’ll tell you why this is a contant bs from bloomdoe and his poodle… The poodle stated that we
    Last month, Walcott warned that without a new evaluation system, class sizes would likely rise, teacher training would suffer, after-school activities would be eliminated, and guidance counselors would be cut.  GUIDANCE COUNSELORS WOULD BE CUT??? WALCOTT ARE YOU SERIIOUS??? WE ALREADY HAVE 300 PLUS GUIDANCE COUNSELORS “EXCESSED” SITTING AROUND AND NOT BEING UTILIZED AND NOW YOU WANT TO ADD MORE??? YOU CRAZY OUT OF CONTROL IDIOTS WHEN WILL THE MADNESS END

  • Gimmy52

    THANK YOU GOTHAM NEWS FOR THE FORUM I ONLY HOPE OUR NEW MAYORAL CANDIDATES ARE READING OUR BLOGS AND GETTING THE TRUTH

  • Queenbeequeens

    Bloomberg bashing will be at a premium over the next 10 months. He is going to get reamed by the UFT, restaurant owners, small business owners, other civil service groups, etc, etc, etc…….. He’s a KAME DUCK! The fact that he can still make decisions is absurd since everyone knows the city is just waiting for his departure.
    Walcott will BE OUT OF A JOB as well and the crap titled Tweed staff will be scrambling and pleading to stay aboard the U.S. DOE ship.
    The reality is that the new mayoral hopefuls ALL KNOW that there’s plenty of $$$ to be saved by axing the Tweed nonsense jobs. These next 10 months will be historically amazing as already there’s heat within the deputy chancellors as they all know all or several will not be in board. Backstabbing will be at an all time high. Wait and see the sparks fly.
    Walcott isn’t intelligent enough to separate himself from Bloomberg. He will be terminated.

  • Suzyqz

    queenbeequeens, i really love you…we need more smart, in touch people like you. We would have never got caught having this miserable mayor for another term if we had more like you.  im loving the show of the doe people back stabbing……love it!!!

  • wise owl

    I ask but one question:WHO VOTED FOR BLOOMBERG? I have not met one teacher or anyone else who has in any election or his make-believe 3rd election who has. The same  guy who” bought” the election is the same guy that” demands” the evaluation. Accountability begins at home!

  • http://nyceducator.com/ NYC Educator

    It doesn’t get a whole lot of attention, but Bloomberg has cut thousands of teachers already via attrition. That’s why class sizes have gone up year after year. Another thing not much considered, as the UFT is vilified for the 1% actually lost to Bloomberg’s monumental intransigence–he unilaterally cut 14% from the budget meant for the Children he puts First, Always.

    With friends like him, city kids certainly don’t need enemies.

  • Larry Littlefield

    While increasing total spending on teachers significantly, as a result of the retroactive pension enhancements, including the last big one the UFT and Bloomberg agreed to.  Somehow the cause of all this is something that many wish to ignore.

    “With friends like him, city kids certainly don’t need enemies.”

    So he cut taxes?  Or the total tax burden is extremely low here?  Or other services have been spared while the schools have been cut?  Or Bloomberg is burning $100 bills paid by taxpayers in his fireplace?  Nope.

    It isn’t the recession, with NYC private employment set to hit an all time high, finally surpassing 1969, and stock prices close to record highs.

    Talk about consulant contracts, which ought to be cut, remind me of Republicans claiming the entire federal budget deficit is the result of foreign aid.

  • SUZYQ

    BELIEVE ME WISE OWL, i did not vote for this hypocrite.  Look at his face. listen to his voice (winnning)  look at his midget body posture,  his is a FAKE AND A LIAR…just ask Mulgrew

  • Larry Littlefield

    And by the way, why does it not get a lot of attention.  There may seem to be a blood feud between Bloomberg and the UFT, but there is something neither one of them seems to want to bring up.  How come we are spending so much more on teachers, and spend so much compared with other places for teachers, and yet have fewer teachers?  Who created this un-miracle, and who benefitted from it?

  • mg

    Not sure if this is accurate, but I read a couple places that the UFT reported that 1,000 or the 3,500 new teachers hired this year have already quit. 
    All I can say is Wow,. Who needs to layoff teachers, or even fire ineffective ones when you have turnover percentages of nearly 30% only halfway through the year?

    If Bloomberg or the media really cared about improving teaching, they would ask themselves why all these teachers leave in droves

  • Dragon Slayer

    WiseOwl
    There are over 4 million registered voters in NYC. Thisvisca fact.
    Last election there were approx 1.2 million actual votes. Obviously it doesn’t take a genius to understand that about 3 million voters said “whatever”.
    Who voted for Bloomberg? About 600,000 people. Who voted for Thompson? Just over 500,000 people. The race was close and it’s also a fact that if more people voted, Thompson would have easily won. The final totals were Bloomberg 52% and Thompson 48%. It was very very close. This November, people actually have to vote in record numbers like they did for Zobsma in Nov 2008.
    People must vote and vote wisely to give the city back to the working class. My vote is for Thompson, even DeBlasio but Thompson is popular, has a history, can get the minority vote, and has been there before.
    If Quinn wins, we are really in for it.

  • http://nyceducator.com/ NYC Educator

     It’s really a tough job to maintain the interest of 34 teenagers at a time. It’s very, very discouraging and depressing to not be able to do it. I know I couldn’t when I first started. I was offered a job making deliveries for FedEx that paid a little better than teaching. I got a little better at it, learned to love it, and now I’m very glad I stayed.

  • wise owl

    Correct mg. And my next question is to examine the transfer rate OUT of schools. Principals MUST be held accountable for high transfer rates to other schools. This is called “accountability. Accountability needs to be a “two way” street.

  • Larry Littlefield

    “Not sure if this is accurate, but I read a couple places that the UFT reported that 1,000 or the 3,500 new teachers hired this year have already quit.”

    Perhaps they found out about the big pension increase for those cashing in and moving out in 2008, followed by the deep cuts in their take home pay and future retirement benefits to pay for (some of) it.
    “Principals MUST be held accountable for high transfer rates to other schools.”

    I certainly would agree with that.  My understanding is that their union agreed that they should be “at will” employees, like us serfs.  So if a principal isn’t hacking it, that principal and their supervisor are to blame, not the union and the rest of the principals, unless I am mistaken.

  • wise owl

     I can’t wait for the backstabbing to begin.  Looking forward to it. This is going to be the best show in town. The chickens are coming home to roost. And you know what else?  This teacher evaluation opened up a can of worms. Read all the blogs that the teachers wrote, including mine. Look at what’s really going on in the schools. 76,000 teachers can’t be wrong. I can’t begin to count how many teachers are blogging on Gotham Schools Facebook etc. telling it like it is. Let the public see what’s going on and make their decision.

  • Native New Yorker

    I think, also, that after the election in 2008, it was revealed that the pre-election polling that Bloomberg did (and showed he was leading by a lot more than 4%) was not accurate. Some New Yorkers probabl thought Bloomberg was going to win and didn’t bother voting!

Tips, questions, feedback?

Contact us at .

Word from Our Sponsor

Follow GothamSchools

RSS
Subscribe to the daily email digest:

Chalk It Up

Recent Comments

3 comments so far today
View all comments »

RSS Feeds

Newsroom posts Community posts All GothamSchools content

Archives

May 2013
M T W T F S S
« Apr  
 12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
2728293031  

Copyright Notice