September 7, 2005

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What’s the real agenda here?

Filed under: Contract by CitySue @ 11:45 am

Two articles in today’s NY Times raise serious questions about Klein’s true commitment to what he claims is his major goal: helping under-performing schools. The problem, he says, is a disproportionate number of new and inexperienced teachers in those schools. To change that, he wants to bring more experienced teachers in, and then keep them from leaving. Thus, the elimination of voluntary transfers.

The good news is this: to recruit teachers into under-performing, hard-to-staff schools, he is endorsing incentives like extra pay for those working in designated schools, a concept the union pioneered in the Chancellor’s District (now dismantled by Klein) and proposed anew by UFT President Weingarten two years ago in a speech about School Enterprise Zones. According to the Times, a proposal by Columbia Teachers College president Arthur Levine and U.S. Representative Charles Rangel to offer such pay incentives received a warm response from Klein. (So far, no mention of his first idea: to assign veteran teachers to those schools, whether they wanted to go or not.)
So far, so good. But here’s the disconnect, and it appears in the Times’ back-to-school story by the same reporter. In that story Chancellor Klein expresses his desire to settle a contract with the teachers union, but not "in the absence of meaningful school reform …"

(I can’t resist reading into the rest of that quote, in which he says, "I, at least, am not going to support it." Does that portend a split with the mayor on this issue? Does it confirm the rumors that it’s the chancellor, not the mayor, that has resisted a settlement? We’ll save that speculation for another day.)

Specifically, Klein complains about the contractual right of teachers who have been "excessed" to another position in their license area in the district. He wants to eliminate that right and force these excessed teachers, whose positions have disappeared through no fault of their own, to pound the streets and find their own jobs or be laid off.

Interestingly, although Klein cites a decline in enrollment as a typical reason for a teacher being excessed, he neglects to mention that these days the most common reason is the closing and re-organization of failing schoools — the very same schools that he wants to attract experienced teachers into!

Thousands of teachers have been displaced in recent years by these closings, especially the closing of several large, floundering high schools.

So here is Klein’s message to teachers: "Come to the toughest schools where the kids really need you, and I’ll pay you more. But be warned, I’m closing many of those schools, and, no matter how good you are or how hard you try, you may be out on your ass very soon and out of a job because I’m getting rid of your contractual right to another position."

And, he could continue, "Oh, you’ve always received good ratings and you have tenure? No matter, I’m trying to get rid of that too."

Clearly, this is not the way to attract the best and the brightest.

In the fact of such inconsistency, one is left wondering about Klein’s priorities. What is the real agenda here? Is it to help our neediest students, or is it to kill the union?

11 Comments

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  • As a veteran of the Chancellor’s District, which was conceptualized by Rudy Crew and expanded by Harold Levy, I was there when experienced teachers were recruited to work at so-called “hard-to-staff” schools, and received additional pay in exchange for working an extended school day AND a longer school year. In a great majority of schools, all indicators of student achievement improved (e.g., attendance, safety, parental involvement,graduation rate, and, of course, test scores).

    When Joel Klein took over and dismantled the Chancellor’s District, we were flabbergasted … until it became apparent that any initiative that had been introduced under a prior administration was destined for the scrap heap.

    While the media has mostly parroted the party line (”Mayor Mike has fixed education in NYC,” a lie almost as pervasive as “Rudy put a stop to crime,”), it’s apparent to anyone who’s been around for more than fifteen minutes that the Bloomberg Renaissance has been accomplished mostly through clever use of smoke and mirrors.

    It’s become obvious that this mayor and chancellor are interested more in self-aggrandizement (and, in Joel Klein’s case, his next job) than in effecting any significant and lasting change in NYC’s public schools.

    Continued resistance to negotiation of a new contract is only the most public signal of their true agenda. Until the public wakes up, something I’m not expecting very soon, kids and teachers will continue to languish.

    Comment by institutional memory — September 7, 2005 @ 3:06 pm

  • Let’s face it. We aren’t going to get a contract from Bloomberg or Klein. I think they would like us to work as adjuncts….in other words, only getting paid for the time we are in the classroom (as do teachers in summer school…which by the way is a very raw deal!!!).

    As an adjunct, you can be fired, scheduled to work at the university’s convenience and so on.

    All I can say is that most teachers in my building want to quit. I have never seen morale so low.

    Also, new teachers are plain confused. One new teacher said to me today that everything she is being asked to do in the classroom in counterintuitive to what would benefit the students.

    Comment by get_me_a_contract — September 7, 2005 @ 6:39 pm

  • The “master teacher” designation, as I understand it, carries with it Klein’’s right to send you wherever he pleases. For that, he can keep his extra money.

    Also, this implies that top step teachers will not get a raise unless they accept that designation. It’s remarkable how cost of living, let alone supply and demand, fails to show itself in this calculation.

    Let’s raise the top salary to 90K and offer a bonus on top of that for folks foolhardy enough to allow Klein such power over them. Anyone who trusts this man farther than he can be thrown is simply not paying attention, and hardly worthy of a “master teacher” designation.

    Comment by NYC Educator — September 7, 2005 @ 10:09 pm

  • What I found most troubling about Klein’s comments in The Times today was his contention that teachers excessed from one school do not necessarily deserve a position in another. For Klein, when a school’s enrollment declines, the teachers forced out ought to be out of their jobs unless some other school’s administrator volunteers to take them in. According to The Times, Klein said, “If [the excessed teacher] can’t find a slot in our school system, I think it’s a pretty good indication that you shouldn’t be here.”

    What nonsense. A principal’s disinclination to hire an excessed teacher could be an indication of many things (a nephew with a teaching license, for example), but it is not an indication that the excessed teacher stinks. What’s more, Klein forgets what Klein always forgets: this is not a very attractive profession, and anything that makes it less attractive hurts our schools. Perhaps if college grads were banging down the doors to teach in New York City, Klein could afford to be so cavalier about the few benefits we teachers have. As things are, however, he has to send to Australia and the Philippines just to staff the class. A modicum of job security isn’t much of an incentive when one considers the working conditions (reluctant students, ugly buildings, constant fear), but it is something. Take job security from quality teachers, and potential teachers have one more reason not to come, and not to stay.

    But what is especially disgusting about Klein’s comments is that he surely must know that the issue of excessing is not really an issue at all. How much excessing can there be when the schools are barely staffed?

    What Klein has in the excessing issue then is exactly what Klein wants to have: a good excuse. Klein wants the union like Halliburton wanted Iraq, and when one cannot find the WMDs, one can easily, simply make them up. The agenda here, for the long haul, is not better schools but broken contracts, cheaper teachers. To understand what that means for our city, we need only recall the grim images of another city that have haunted us all week: images of the fallout from the politics of poverty in New Orleans.

    Comment by Jackie Bennett — September 7, 2005 @ 10:52 pm

  • This discussion is so discouraging. The fact that there are teachers alarmed at the idea of being fired or alarmed at the idea of allowing the school system to ask you to fill a particular need in the system makes me realize why there are so many problems. Klein and Bloomberg are a problem because they are clearly removed from the reality of education in nyc (including the many challenges facing teachers) but continue to micromanage. But,it is becoming ever more clear to me that the “true agenda” of the union has little to do with improving conditions for the kids. Sigh. Unlike everyone else in this situation, I am stuck with all of you.

    Comment by nycparent — September 7, 2005 @ 11:03 pm

  • Oh, NYCParent–get a life!
    Explain how you drew the conclusion that the “true agenda” for the union hs a lot to do with the improving conditions for the kids.

    I live on Long Island. The top teacher salary here is $128,000. The top teacher salary in NYC is $81,000….we are losing more and more teachers because they can’t make a living and are working under the most deplorable conditions….doesn’t that impact upon the students?

    Do you really, really think that Joel Klein or Mike Bloomberg gives a rat’s behind about any kid in NYC? I mean look at the awful curricula he has imposed. I see these kids every day. To most, I am a surrogate parent. I am still in touch with students I taught 15 years ago. I was even invited to one of my former student’s medical school graduations. I taught in an awful inner city school.

    I wish I could tell you that I am unique in my dedication, but I am not. Almost all the teachers I know (both in my school and others) have similar stories to tell.

    We don’t trust this mayor or chancellor. If we cannot trust them, then the kids certainly cannot trust them. I am tired of volunteering my time so that the mayor and chancellor can claim credit while castigating teachers. The conditions for teachers in schools has deteriorated greatly. Morale is at an all-time low. Is that good for NYC kids???

    How do you fix it? First, stop attacking the union. Compare our contracts with the contracts of teachers in the metropolitan area. We have the fewest benefits, the longest work year, and the most severe conditions….it is so disheartening for both the staff and especially for the students to endure the mass exodus of teachers. Kids need stability these days…..with so many teachers leaving, there is a sense of instability in the schools.

    Where do you send your kids to school, NYC parent???? Do you think that your kids’ teachers are well compensated?

    It’s not the union and it’s not the “true agenda” of hte union that is hurting kids or not even trying to help them (au contraire…who operates…at teacher expense…a homework helpline, for example?) It is the mayor’s capricious, vindictive policies. He is going to run the schools in the ground. I am on the inside and that’s how I see it.

    I have stayed in the NYC schools despite the awful conditions for 18 years because I believe in my students. This year will probably be my last if things continue as they are going……

    Can I be replaced? Sure. Will my replacement be as good as I am? I doubt it highly. Who suffers? The NYC students.

    Comment by get_me_a_contract — September 7, 2005 @ 11:34 pm

  • I am so distressed that nyc parent missed my point, which is this: We all agree that kids in struglling schools would be better off with more experienced teachers, so incentives are a good idea. But Klein is so zealous in his drive to kill the union contract that he would sacrifice the kids for his anti-union agenda. His threat to fire experienced teachers who go to a troubled school that then must be closed means that no good teacher will go there, and the kids will pay the price. If the union weren’t concerned for those kids, why would it support a pay differential that is traditionally anathema to labor? “Parent’s” sigh should be directed at a chancellor whose priorities are clearly not those of a true educator.

    Comment by CitySue — September 8, 2005 @ 11:10 am

  • Thanks for the comments CitySue. You have to see that from my perspective, both sides sound the same. You both make crazy accusations. Of course Klein cares about kids, as long as it doesn’t interfere with politics and of course UFT cares, as long as it doesn’t interfere with labor. UFT doesn’t want to talk about merit and performance management and closing bad schools and Klein doesn’t want to talk about class size, and school conditions, and poor teacher pay. I want a contract. I want someone to commit to me that my kids will never have to sit through a year of science class with a teacher who was an art major. Will someone commmit to me that my teacher will come to class prepared and organized? I want someone to put in writing that if my child needs to be given extra assignments to match his aspirations in a subject or needs extra help in a subject, that I won’t have to hire a tutor. My non-negotiables include: toilet paper in toilets, a safe and secure lunch environment(god forbid a teacher to be supervising) and a principal who knows about curriculum and knows about management. Please stop the rhetoric or let me out.

    Comment by nycparent — September 8, 2005 @ 6:58 pm

  • The summer vacation being over, we have now re-entered the Season of Disparagement: in other words, the school year. It is a time for teaching, learning. and aberrrations in the use of language, not limited to official dosuments.

    When people want to disparage the New York City Department of Education, they often call the school system a “zoo.” But if a zoo were run like the DOE, the beasts would be falsely identified, the cages would be flung open, the shifts confused, and the keepers constantly reassigned in the wake of mass disappearances and feedings gone awry.

    If the Bronx Zoological Garden were really the model for DOE management, recruitment of teachers wouldn’t be such a problem. There’d be no need for Human Resources to fly to Tierra del Fuego, the Khyber Pass, and the lost continent of Atlantis to drop tantalizing leaflets from the sky. risaac.blogs.com

    Comment by redhog — September 9, 2005 @ 8:45 pm

  • STRIKE!!!

    I am amazed!

    Our union lead us to a poor contract last time, this time around she is looking to see how much more can give back to the mayor at out expense this time around.

    It is obvious that Randi does not have tearchers’ best interests at heart, she is more concerned with herself & her own future. She gets my vote of “No Confidence.”

    I honestly feel like our leader is not looking out for our best interest. Our union leader should be calling us to ready for a strike. This is the only way we can flex our muscle as a group.

    The police nor fire departments do not have to work extended shifts, would their union leaders entertain such contract proposals? Why should we? We are the city’s most educated employees but we are not acting like it. We need to strike now before the election, this would result in pressure on the mayor to come up with a contract.

    We need a new union leader and we need to strike!

    Comment by IteachAPE — September 16, 2005 @ 7:13 am

  • Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein refuse to admit that veteran teachers began their careers in the most difficult schools and transferred out as soon as they could. Mr. Klein left teaching after 6 months. Ms. Weingarten rarely taught.
    Teachers must be a major part of negotiating a contract. You can’t have people writing a contract who have either never or rarely seen the inside of a classroom as a pedagogue.This includes members of the UFT negotiating committee as well.
    It was wrong for Ms. Weingarten to say that she was surprised by the fact-finding panel’s report. She should be shocked and outraged.
    What are the givebacks of transit workers? We want their number of givebacks.
    Other than salaries, what are the demands of the UFT? It appears that we are being steamrolled by a union that has become nothing more than a collection agency.What improvements in working conditions were we asking for? How about health insurance? Since we know how difficult the job is, why weren’t we demanding more prep periods?
    Former Chancellor Rudy Crew was shocked when he came to N.Y. and saw that teachers had cafeteria duty. Will we next be relegated to cleaning out toilet bowels in the schools?
    In future contracts, will teachers be required to work on weekends? Will they be allowed to have a personal life with their families?
    Everyone should be made aware that Ms. Weingarten and her cronies receive double pensions. This is also outrageous. Most of the membership is unaware of this windfall enjoyed by the union hierarchy.
    Mr. Klein and Ms. Weingarten, together with the UFT hierarchy, should be made to go back and teach when they leave their current positions, which can’t come fast enough.
    The UFT bigwigs knew full well what we were in for when this panel was given the power to suggest a solution for settling the contract. In the 1980s we went to binding arbitration, which the UFT knew full well would be a disaster, since Koch gave back checkoff (paying dues to the union). The price for going to binding arbitration and getting screwed was the real reason why Koch, an extremely ant-UFT person, gave the union back its checkoff.
    It is as if we have a one-party system in this union. Democracy has gone the way of the dinosaur according to the UFT bylaws.
    Albert Shanker must be turning over in his grave. Crucial items such as tenure and seniority were fought for and ultimately won by this union. With one stroke of the pen, the current union leadership is attempting to wipe these major necessities out. What kind of nonsense is this that a teacher can’t dispute an adverse or false observation or accusation by an administrator?

    Comment by steadyeddieg — September 16, 2005 @ 11:58 am

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