GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

If Mayor Bloomberg decides to layoff teachers in the next 30 days, how should he do it?

That question was put to four members of a panel on the city’s seniority-based layoff policy that was arranged by Teach for America last night. Most panelists’ answers were predictable and echoed the remarks that have been traded back and forth in the months of debate over layoffs. The representative from the city’s teachers union defended seniority layoffs and said that if the mayor wanted to, he’d find a way to avoid layoffs. The two panelists who work for organizations that advocate against the LIFO system argued for its end.

Principal of the Urban Assembly School of Design and Construction Matt Willoughby found himself somewhere in the middle. Layoffs are only a hypothetical threat for him, he said, because his newest teachers have science licenses. Science teachers are in high demand and so the city has chosen to lay off fewer of them than many other types of teachers.

But looking at the system as a whole, Willoughby said the city doesn’t have an evaluation system that’s good enough to use for layoffs. The evaluation system it does have, which Bloomberg wants to use to identify the weakest teachers and then let them go, labels teachers as either “satisfactory” or “unsatisfactory” ratings. (more…)

After a long wait, a commission of parents led by outspoken critics of the Department of Education is unveiling its own proposal for how to change mayoral control. In testimony delivered to the Bronx Assembly hearing on mayoral control this morning, parents painted an ideal picture in which parent voices would gain power while the mayor would lose it.

Their proposal is topped off by a radical answer to the question of how to change the Panel for Educational Policy — the effective citywide school board — that would both strengthen the powers of the board and reshape who sits on it. The board would include just three mayoral appointees compared to six parent representatives, plus a City Council appointee, an appointee of the public advocate,and four expert members selected jointly by the board.

The commission is also proposing a stronger role for the CEC elected parent councils in each district. A key complaint about Mayor Bloomberg’s leadership has been that parents are not included in decision-making about the schools. Some have criticized the DOE for not consulting those councils when choosing to open and close schools, as is required by law.

Lisa Donlan, a commission member from Manhattan and the president of a CEC, testified that the state should create an “ombudsperson” role who would have the legal authority to advocate for parents when they aren’t comfortable advocating for themselves. This role addresses the DOE’s Office of Family Engagement and Advocacy, which Freeman called “a way of distracting [parents], but not a way of helping them.” (more…)