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This spring, the West Side Highway’s typical advertising fare also includes a political message that seems aimed at teachers unions.

A billboard advertising Kenneth Cole — the clothing company owned by Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s brother-in-law — puns to southbound commuters, ”Shouldn’t Everyone Be Well Red?” In smaller lettering, the billboard says, “Teachers’ Rights Vs. Students’ Rights …”

The second line evokes a tension drawn out repeatedly by some critics of teachers unions, including Cuomo, who say that unions’ support for teachers’ job protections can stand in the way of students’ education.

The billboard also invites viewers to visit WhereDoYouStand.com, a website maintained by the city-based company, to weigh in on “Issue in the News.” This spring, one of the issues is “Should underperforming teachers be protected?” (more…)

A Teaching Fellows ad in the subway in March 2007. Photo via ##http://nyc2dailyphoto.blogspot.com/2007/03/what-is-your-first-grade-teachers-name.html##NYC Daily Photo##.

I’ve reported before that the Department of Education has hundreds of teachers without permanent positions and that it took a judge to stop the department from firing dozens of new teachers last month.

So I was surprised recently to see recruitment ads in the subway for the DOE’s Teaching Fellows program, which places recent college graduates and career-changing professionals in high-need classrooms throughout the city. (Similarly startled by the ads, Pissed Off Teacher is, well, pissed off about them.)

In fact, the DOE has scaled back advertising for the Teaching Fellows program by more than a third since last year.

This year, the department spent $140,000 to advertise the program in subway cars and $75,000 to promote the program online, DOE spokeswoman Ann Forte told me. In contrast, she said, the program’s advertising budget last year came out to between $300,000 and $400,000, and had spent even more in previous years when it bought advertising in print publications. (more…)