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With less than a month to go before the teachers union contract expires, labor negotiation veterans are forecasting a “bland” contract that will disappoint those advocating for drastic reforms both from the city and United Federation of Teachers.

One issue that many believe will be left out of this contract is what to do about the absent teacher reserve: a pool of teachers who were laid off when their schools were closed or were let go as a result of budget cuts. Currently, there are about 1,400 “excessed” teachers who receive their full salaries though most are not teaching.

In previous years, Chancellor Joel Klein has urged the city to adopt the model Chicago uses, in which teachers have a year to find new work before they’re fired. When the city pushed for an 18-month period in 2005, arbitrators rejected the proposal, yet the chancellor has continuously said that this is the system he wants to see put in place. (more…)

The highly anticipated contract negotiations between the teachers union and the city are officially off and running.

In anticipation of the UFT contract’s October 31 expiration date, officials from both sides met yesterday to begin the negotiation process. The negotiations are colored by the city’s dismal financial projections and the upcoming mayoral election — the UFT has yet to endorse a candidate for mayor. They are also UFT president Michael Mulgrew‘s first significant challenge, and are likely to be a factor when he comes up for election in the spring.

Though both sides have signed confidentiality agreements allowing them to keep mum when the press pushes for details, neither has been entirely silent about changes they’d like to see made to the contract.

Chancellor Joel Klein has made no secret of his desire to see the Absent Teacher Reserve drained. The pools currently holds 1,695 teachers who previously worked in schools that have been closed. Though they remain on the city’s payroll, they do not have full-time teaching positions. The point of tension between Klein and the UFT is how to drain it.

On Wednesday, the first day of school, Klein reiterated his support for Chicago’s model, which allows teachers who’ve been laid off to spend one year searching for a new spot in the school system while receiving their regular salaries. At the end of that year, those who haven’t landed new positions are forced to move on. (more…)

Simon Doolittle of AfterEd.tv interviews Sol Stern of the Manhattan Institute about mayoral control in New York City.

A week after Sol Stern argued in City Journal that New York City should create an office of reading improvement and provide low class sizes and scientifically-based reading instruction in high-poverty, low-scoring schools, the DOE announced a new reading initiative: teachers at 10 pilot schools will implement the new Core Knowledge Reading Program (CKRP) in grades K-2.

Education historian Diane Ravitch wrote in favor of the program in the Post on Monday, saying it’s a smarter choice than the “unproven” Balanced Literacy curriculum that Klein introduced in 2003. “Balanced Literacy doesn’t stress content knowledge, vocabulary or phonics. And we now know that it didn’t work,” she says, citing flat reading scores on the 4th and 8th grade National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).

What will the new reading program look like? (more…)

Focus on the early years, says Stern. Photo by woodleywonderworks

Close the achievement gap by focusing on early-grades reading instruction, argues Sol Stern in the latest issue of City Journal, calling for “a Marshall Plan for reading.”

Stern cites research showing that “controlled for socioeconomic variables, blacks were still at the 35th percentile of the white distribution in math and the 39th percentile in reading,” and that the gap occurred even when students attended the same schools and had the same teachers as their white peers. Stern identifies the root of the problem in “cognitive deficits” of black students when they enter school:

Inner-city black children, research shows, begin school with only half the vocabulary of white middle-class children. Typically, they soon fall behind in trying to decode how the written English language blends the sounds made by letter combinations into words.

The solution Stern proposes is to create an office of reading improvement within the DOE, which would then identify 300 high-poverty, low-scoring schools, fund scientifically-proven K-3 reading programs, reduce class sizes to no more than 15 students in those schools, and provide information to principals about the effectiveness of the program choices.

Stern projects the cost of such a “Marshall Plan” to be about $150 million.