My Predictions For 2015.

Look for very little change in 2015 as the increasingly unpopular Governor tries and fails to get his education agenda through the State Assembly despite linking it with the false "perv teacher" issue as they respond to parent and educator complaints of the Common Core tests, used in the teacher evaluation system, being poorly implemented and discriminatory. Moreover, I expect that NYSUT will initiate a lawsuit on the teacher evaluation system that will tie up the teacher dismissal process claiming the VAM is "junk Science',  now that the Governor reneged on his promise to not use the Common Core tests against the teachers for the two year period.  Finally, the New York State courts will rule against the education reformers on the teacher tenure issues.  However, the education reformers will continue to appeal and it wouldn't be settled until 2016 or even 2017, if even then as it works its way slowly to the State's highest court.

I suspect that the disappointing Chancellor, Carmen Farina, will resign at the end of the school year as she is criticized from all sides as she ineptly stumbles her way through one crisis after another, making all sides unhappy.  Hopefully, the Mayor will select an educator that doesn't suffer from "foot in mouth disease", who has never worked at Tweed and can really clean house of all the Bloomberg policymakers that fester there.  Under Carmen Farina, the DOE's bloated bureaucracy will continue to consume much needed resource from the schools and many incompetent "Leadership Academy Principals" will remain in place and that will result in terrible working conditions,  high teacher turnover, as well as poor student outcomes but then again, under the disappointing Chancellor, its not about the students as she is part of the problem and not the solution.  Look for only a marginal increase in already tight school budgets as Tweed still controls the money and will divert it to non-classroom uses. Chancellor Carmen Farina will continue many of the Bloomberg policies that hurt student academic outcomes, such as large class sizes, school budgeting, using the fair student funding, and paying for over a thousand experienced teachers without a classroom while encouraging principals to hire the cheapest and not the best teachers for their schools in their "education on the cheap" policy.

I expect our disconnected union leaders will continue with their neglect of the rank and file and when some of the ATRs are terminated for frivolous infractions or fail to show up for mandatory interviews, they will simply shrug their collective shoulders and continue to close their eyes to the abuses that teachers suffer in the schools.  As long as they get the member dues, they will ignore the many issues that school staff have to put up with.  Be it vindictive principles, unpaid extra work requirements, the large amount of unnecessary paperwork, or the use of uncertified people teaching a subject. Will a real dissent movement take root and shake up the dictatorial Unity leadership?  I hope so but not confident for it happening in 2015.

The hostile classroom environment will remain essentially unchanged as the good feelings between

the Chancellor and our union leadership does not make it down to the schools as vindictive administrators still take their cues from the bloated DOE Bureaucracy at Tweed and look to use the Danielson framework to punitively rate teachers and when these administrators are identified and exposed, the Chancellor and our union President ignores the problem.  With changes to the student discipline code, the classroom will experience more behaviorally challenged students who know there will be little or no consequences for their actions, making teaching a living hell in hard to staff schools and I strongly expect an even higher teacher turnover in these schools. That's why if you teach in Queens at the high school level please see my list on "Schools to avoid".

The only silver lining I see for 2015 is that we all get a 3% raise in May and receive 12.5% of our retroactive raises in October, assuming you don't resign, get terminated, or die before then.