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A top city school official is reassuring union president Randi Weingarten that teachers in alternative-certification programs like Teach For America will not get a preference over graduates of education schools. But whether new schools will be able to work around the hiring freeze, as school officials initially declared, appears to be under debate.

The note to Weingarten, from Deputy Chancellor Christopher Cerf, followed a letter she sent yesterday urging the Department of Education to treat all teachers outside the system the same. Cerf’s note says the department will do that. But it also includes a new twist in the story: an acknowledgment that the hiring-freeze exception for new schools, who Chancellor Joel Klein said could hire anyone they wanted, is now “under discussion.”

Cerf did not offer me clarification on what exactly that means, though he did say that Weingarten and the teachers union have no role in the discussions.

One clue is that, in addition to Weingarten, Merryl Tisch, the head of the state Board of Regents, is also voicing concern about the idea of holding new schools exempt from the hiring freeze. In a short telephone interview today, Tisch said that the policy could hurt her goal of sending the most qualified teachers to the hardest-to-staff schools. New schools are actually easier to staff than existing struggling schools, she said, so why should they be the only ones to get free reign on hiring? (more…)

Among those who could be most affected by the new teacher hiring freeze are teachers who haven’t yet set foot inside a city classroom.

The group includes nearly 1,000 college seniors, recent graduates, and career-changers who had been accepted to Teach for America and the New York City Teaching Fellows programs, which select and train uncertified teachers and then help them find positions at city schools. It also includes potentially hundreds of other experienced teachers with unofficial job offers for the fall in hand, at least two of whom have already severed current jobs and a lease in preparation for the move.

All of their plans to teach at city schools in the fall were thrown into question yesterday when school officials announced that principals will have to give preference to teachers who are already on the public school system’s payroll when hiring from now on. School officials are encouraging these teachers to hold out hope for finding a spot, but the teachers say they are skeptical.

Teach For America and Teaching Fellows participants are still being invited to train this summer, but unlike in the past, they are not being guaranteed a paycheck if they don’t land a job in a school. School officials are also telling experienced teachers who had been promised places at schools for the fall to hold out hope, but at least one such teacher said yesterday that he feels left in the lurch.

Chris Timberlake, a fourth-grade teacher in Hampton, Va., thought until last night that he had nailed down plans to begin teaching in the city this fall, along with his wife, who is also a teacher. “We had always wanted to move to the big city,” Timberlake told me. “We wanted to be the change agents, and this was the year we were going to do it.” (more…)

Dozens of first-year teachers originally slated to lose their jobs in early December have only three more weeks to secure a permanent position or be fired, a state labor arbitrator ruled today.

According to the ruling, the new teachers, most of whom were hired through the Teaching Fellows program, will go off the Department of Education’s payroll on Feb. 2 if they have not been hired by a principal by then.

The ruling concludes a months-long fight by new hires who entered a tighter-than-usual teacher labor market this fall. Facing a hefty bill for teachers who weren’t actually filling empty positions, the DOE planned to fire unplaced new teachers on Dec. 5, in accordance with a contract the teachers had signed when they accepted their spot in the Teaching Fellows program, which places unlicensed teachers in hard-to-fill positions. But the United Federation of Teachers filed a grievance contending that the teachers were protected by the job security clause in the union’s contract with the city and so should say on the DOE’s payroll.

When the issue went to arbitration in December, the union was hopeful that the teachers’ jobs would be protected through the end of the school year, UFT spokesman Ron Davis told me. (more…)

A Teaching Fellows ad in the subway in March 2007. Photo via 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…)

Bronx 2020, a career-changer who wants nothing more than to become a New York City public school teacher, has applied to the city’s Teaching Fellows program. He has had an interview, and now he’s just waiting. Until when, he’s not sure. He writes:

I really have no firm date by which I’m suppose to hear back from NYC Teaching Fellows. I’ve gotten various answers back from different people. I’ve heard 5 weeks after the interview (which would be tomorrow). I’ve heard mid-January. I’ve heard late-January and even early-February. It’s like they’ve got a drunken monkey spinning a wheel-of-luck doo-hickey in their office deciding our fate.

Later, he notes that the Teaching Fellows Web site says the program will let applicants know within five to seven weeks after their interviews, so he should know by later this month whether he’ll be a teacher in September. And back in October, he worried about how the size reduction in the upcoming Teaching Fellows cohort would affect his chances of admission.

The State Supreme Court in Manhattan today granted the United Federation of Teachers a preliminary injunction protecting 88 new teachers without permanent positions from being fired.

The Department of Education had planned to remove the teachers from the payroll last Friday in accordance with a contract the teachers signed when they joined the DOE’s Teaching Fellows program. But the union sued, saying that the Teaching Fellows contract wasn’t permitted under the terms of the UFT’s own contract. Last week, the UFT won a temporary restraining order that extended the Teaching Fellows’ paychecks until today, when the issue would get its day in court.

The preliminary injunction is an important step, but it’s not the end of the teachers’ limbo. The court’s decision today means only that the Teaching Fellows are protected from being fired until after an arbitrator has ruled on the matter, UFT spokesman Ron Davis told me. (more…)

With less than 24 hours to go before they were due to be fired, nearly 90 new teachers learned tonight that because of legal action by the teachers union, they’ll keep their jobs — for now.

When they accepted their admission into the Teaching Fellows program, new teachers signed a contract agreeing to termination if they failed to secure a job at a school by Dec. 5. The United Federation of Teachers contends that the Teaching Fellows’ contract violates the UFT’s own collective-bargaining agreement, which prohibits layoffs in all but the most extreme economic conditions.

Today, the UFT won a temporary restraining order against the Department of Education that prevents the DOE from firing the Teaching Fellows until at least Tuesday, when a judge will hear the union’s arguments about the validity of the Teaching Fellows’ contracts. According to an e-mail sent by the UFT to unplaced Teaching Fellows this evening, the union believes the teachers should be kept on the DOE’s payroll at least until the end of the school year.

Teaching Fellows have been required to agree to similar deadlines in the past, but only a handful of new teachers have ever been unplaced at the termination date. This year, 88 teachers have still not been hired by schools. At least two factors likely contributed to this year’s increase in unplaced Teaching Fellows: a larger-than-normal number of available experienced teachers who had been working at schools that closed, and cautious spending by principals concerned about budget cuts.

Unplaced Teaching Fellows this evening received a short e-mail from Vicki Bernstein, head of the DOE’s Teaching Fellows program, announcing the change:

Due to pending litigation regarding the deadline for finding a school position outside of the Teacher Reserve, you will be able to remain in the Reserve after tomorrow. We expect to have further information next week and will keep you informed accordingly about your status in the Fellows program and as an employee. For now, you should plan on continuing to report to your Teacher Reserve assignment until otherwise notified.

Below the jump, UFT President Randi Weingarten’s e-mail to unassigned Teaching Fellows: (more…)

A late-afternoon e-mail sent by the Department of Education yesterday means that new teachers facing termination on Dec. 5 can enter the Thanksgiving weekend with renewed hopes for a career in the city’s classrooms.

Called Teaching Fellows, the teachers are brought into the system with no teaching experience but gain credentials through evening university classes. About 100 90* fellows who had not been placed in classroom jobs are slated to be removed from the city if they still do not have a job by Dec. 5, a deadline that had some lobbying for more security. Yesterday, they got a little bit, in the form of an e-mail from the head of the program, who said that they can be added back to the payroll if they find positions by Feb. 3 of 2009.

Those who don’t find a job by then can join next fall’s Teaching Fellows class, according to the e-mail, and all of the Teaching Fellows who finish out their required coursework this semester can work as substitute teachers for the rest of the school year. (more…)

When the City Council scrutinizes the Department of Education’s planned budget cuts tomorrow (at a hearing scheduled for 1 p.m.) members might want to have aspirin on hand.

That’s because, like the budget itself, the department’s Power Point presentation of the cuts it has identified would give even the most seasoned analyst a headache. The image above is just one page of the dizzying document.

The cuts are divided into five “buckets,” ranging from the central administration to District 75, the city’s district for severely disabled students. How deeply schools and students are actually going to feel the mid-year cuts isn’t at all clear, nor is it clear exactly how the proposed cuts add up to the $185 million the mayor asked the DOE to cut from its budget by Nov. 21.

Some questions, among many, that education committee members might ask: (more…)

People inside Department of Education headquarters weren’t the only ones fretting about the possibility of losing their jobs today.

Afraid they’re just a month from being laid off, a handful of new Teaching Fellows who still haven’t landed positions in schools gathered on the steps of Tweed Courthouse tonight to demand a meeting with Chancellor Joel Klein.

The teachers are seeking, at a minimum, an extension of the deadline to find a permanent position. Newly hired teachers without jobs on Dec. 5 will be removed from DOE payroll, a condition they agreed to when they accepted their job offers this summer.

A security officer stopped the teachers at the door, but a DOE employee spoke briefly with the group and instructed them to contact the chancellor in writing. She took a signed letter and at least one of the teachers’ signs, saying she’d pass their message on to Klein.

According to DOE spokeswoman Ann Forte, 115 new Teaching Fellows are still without jobs, down from 139 in mid-October. Teachers tonight told me they are working as substitutes and assistants while they seek permanent positions.

Earlier this week, the executive board of the United Federation of Teachers set Nov. 24 as the date for the delegate-mandated rally to support teachers in the Absent Teacher Reserve. ATRs are experienced teachers who lost their positions when their schools were phased out.

The UFT says it has also filed a grievance on behalf of new Teaching Fellows without jobs, who are not technically ATRs because they have never held a job in a New York City public school. But a Teaching Fellow who has worked to organize Teaching Fellows without jobs said the teachers aren’t putting much stock in the UFT. “At this point, this is just about the DOE,” he said.