The Teacher Blame Game Continues.

There is no question that Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his Chancellor, Joel Klein, tried to remake the New York City Public School; system into an education reform laboratory.  The result was a failure of historic proportions as various iterations and policies were foisted on the schools, only to be discarded as yesterday's garbage.  Large comprehensive high schools were closed and small ones were opened, top heavy on administrators and once the extra funding and student exclusions disappeared, the unscreened small schools ended up with lower academic achievement than the schools they replaced.   However, far too many of the Bloomberg/Klein era policies survive to this day.

For example under the progressive Mayor, Bill de Blasio and his Chancellor, Carmen Farina, many of the Bloomberg/Klein policies are still in place.  They are as follows:

•  Large class sizes
•  Graduation rate
•  Fair student funding
•  ATRs
•  Danielson rubric
•  Bloated DOE bureaucracy. 
•  Data mining
•  Uncertified teachers
•  Double standard in disciplining staff and administrators.
•  Principal autonomy. 

Just like in the Bloomberg years, real student academic achievement weren't realized and the income/racial achievement gap stayed as wide as ever.  Who gets blamed for the lack of academic progress?  The failed education reform policies by bureaucrats, and politicians?  How about the poor parent involvement?   It can't be the lack of resources and funding for the schools?  Or was it the high teacher turnover and the policies that devalue veteran teachers?  No?  according to the news media its the teachers themselves!

Now we will have the highly unqualified Betsy DeVos, who will do her best to divert money from the public schools to charter, private, and even virtual schools.  If you think we teachers were unfairly treated before by the likes of Arnie Duncan and John King?  When the new Secretary of Education finds that none of her policies will work who will she and her allies blame?  The teachers and their unions of course.

The "Gotcha Mentality" Still Applies To Far Too Many Schools.

During the Bloomberg Administration the DOE changed from a somewhat benign overlord to an organization that targeted teachers for termination. especially veteran teachers while shifting funding from the schools to the central bureaucracy.  This effort was spearheaded by Chancellor Joel Klein and his Deputy Chancellors, one being Eric Nadelstern who's policies saw the creation of the useless and money-sucking Children First Networks and Principal autonomy while pushing far too many failed Leadership Academy graduates into schools with mostly disastrous results.

 Unfortunately, the Bloomberg Administration was not interested in the students, despite the slogan "children first...Always".  While the DOE Central Bureaucracy became bloated with more lawyers and accountability experts, the schools were being increasingly shortchanged for funds and necessary resources.  Worse, was that class sizes were rising every year and that resulted in New York City having the largest class sizes in the State.  Finally, the Bloomberg Administration put in the "poison pill" called the "fair student funding" that fundamentally changed hiring practices in the system and discriminated against veteran teachers.  Add to this the hiring of many non-educators at the DOE  who bring with them their pet projects and highly paid consultants and the result is that the schools are starved from the resources they need to improve academic achievement.

All this was supposed to change when the "progressive" new Mayor, Bill de Blasio,  put in a career educator as Chancellor, Carmen Farina. However, Carmen Farina was once a supporter of the Bloomberg agenda and was Deputy Mayor under Chancellor Joel Klein before being forced out and replaced by Eric Nadelstern.  Unfortunately, Carmen Farina was not the solution as she retained many of the Bloomberg policymakers at the DOE and this translated down to the hostile classroom environment and the continuation of the "gotcha system".

In far too many schools, the school administration is not collaborative but adversarial.  They will "pop in" without notice and in your worst class, just to get you.  This is not collaboration but confrontation and makes teachers not want to go to school, change schools, or simply quit.  How is that good for the students?  Moreover, when the teaching staff believes that the school administration is out to trap them, teacher morale plummets and many teachers will no longer give that extra effort and do just enough to get the administration off their backs.  These same schools hold teachers solely accountable for student issues, being discipline, cellphone usage, or attendance, while taking no responsibility themselves.  The result is a climate of fear and an "us against them" mentality.  Not a good way to become a successful school..

On the contrary,  a successful school is a collaborative school where the school administration and the teaching staff are on the same page.  These schools will work with the teachers and give them notice that they are coming in to observe them and usually ask them which class would they like to be observed in.  This collaboration makes the teacher fell appreciated and will work that much harder to show the administration that their confidence in that teacher was warranted.  No wonder these schools never need to recruit "quality teachers".  Their reputation of being fair and supportive attracts talented teachers who don't need to continuously "look over their shoulder" fearing the "gotcha system".

An example of schools that use the "gotcha system" goes like this.  One teacher hired in his content specialty to teach Regents courses, was also given a couple of elective courses to complete his schedule.  These classes consisted of unmotivated seniors who just wanted to do a worksheet and socialize, many of them didn't need the course and was simply a fill-in to a schedule.  The administration, knowing full well these two classes were behaviorally, and academically an issue still observed the teacher in these classes rather than the content specialty he was hired to teach.  That's what I mean by the "gotcha system".  A collaborative school would be observing the teacher in his content specialty not in an elective course that is not fair or even appropriate.

Unfortunately, the "gotcha system" is alive and going strong and until the DOE leads by example and encourages schools to appreciate their teaching staff, nothing will change from the Bloomberg years.

What Is The Most Important Characteristic of A Quality Teacher? Connecting With The Students.

Everybody agrees that all classrooms should have a "quality teacher" instructing the students.  However, when you ask the various education reform groups what is a "quality teacher"?  You get vague and unrealistic answers.   If you are Mayor Bloomberg a "quality teacher" to him its a "newbie" that will be a "Teach for America or Teaching Fellow" that cost the least amount and who we leave the profession before getting a pension or retire health benefits.  If it's Bill Gates it's all about being held accountable and under video surveillance.  Especially if it requires the use of "junk science".  If it's ex-Chancellor Joel Klein, it is a teacher that will come in at 7 am and not leave until 7 pm, while not asking for per session.  Finally, to Michelle Rhee a "quality teacher" is one willing to be an at will employee for a few dollars more in their paycheck.In my book a "quality teacher" must posses the following characteristics:

• At least five years of teaching experience.
• Good classroom management skills.
• A deep knowledge of the curriculum.
• A caring and supportive attitude.
• A sense of humor
• A positive connection with the students.

While most education reformers will ignore these requirements publicly, privately they know the above characteristics are necessary to achieve mastery of the classroom.   However, they also know that "quality teachers" require an adequate workload, supportive Administration, and the freedom to try different methods to maximize student learning.  Consequently, this eliminates charter schools, where teacher burnout and turnover is high and in most schools the entire staff is gone in three years.  It also eliminates schools with inexperienced Leadership Academy principals who have limited time in the classroom and are clueless to what good teaching is, and the Bloomberg small schools who are inhabited by untenured staff and burdened with rigid curriculum requirements.  Is it any wonder that the Mayor hates experienced teachers?

Just look at the higher achieving schools, what do most of them have in common?  Right an experienced staff and a supportive Administration that allows the teachers to find the best teaching techniques that allows students to reach their academic potential.  In the school I was in all year, I saw all aspects of good teaching.  A supportive Administration, a stable and experienced teaching staff, and freedom to do the right thing for the students.  When I asked my students what makes a "quality teacher" they almost all said the same thing that the teacher likes and cares about them.  That's right, almost all my students wanted the teacher to connect with them and understand their needs and problems.  One thing they didn't like was for the teacher to be unsupportive or trying to "friend" them.  Both type of teachers turned the students off to learning.  As one girl said to me "I have enough friends. I don't need a teacher to be my friend".  Furthermore, many inexperienced teachers do just that and the students simply walk all over them and these teachers will never master classroom control.  On the other side of the ledger was the teacher who required it to be "my way or the highway attitude".  This type of teacher over controls the classroom , is inflexible, and is resented by the students. Therefore, based upon my many years of experience and discussions with my students while the other factors I listed are important, the most important factor is connecting to the students.  By connecting with the students you gain their respect and give them the confidence that they need to reach their academic goals.

A "quality teacher" is a teacher who can related to the students and guide them to maximize their academic achievement.

Mayor Bloomberg Once Again Puts His Foot In His Mouth About Class Size And Quality Teachers.

Mayor Bloomberg's continued disrespect for the teachers in the New York City Public Schools shows up again when the Mayor on his radio show stated that class size is irrelevant.  According to the Mayor it is not a problem for students if they stand rather than sit as long as their is a "quality teacher" instructing them.  In fact here was his exact words according to the NYC Public School Parent blog.

"I got in trouble every time I say this. But I would do anything to have better quality teachers, even if it meant bigger class size, even if it meant them standing rather than sitting. That's what really makes a difference. That human being that looks the student in the eye, adjusts the curriculum based on instinct what's in the child's interest."

Can you manage standing for up to 90 minutes in a class and be expected to learn?  Furthermore, the extremely over sized classes gives a student no room to put their books down and take notes.  Finally, the noise level of having up to 70 students in a classroom where 34 students are way too much, would make it a poor environment for learning. Moreover, the billionaire Mayor sent his daughters to a private school that have average class sizes of 17 students not 70 as he proposes. How clueless the Mayor is of what really goes on in a NYC Public School classroom but what does he care?

As for Mayor Bloomberg's perception of what is a quality teacher?  It is obvious to all that the teacher must be young, cheap, and temporary and not cost the City money for a pension and retiree health benefits.  The Mayor's ideal teacher would be those Teach For America recruits who are in the classroom for two years and go on to their real profession such as a lawyer, an Administrator, or a hedge fund manager to name a few.  His attack on NYC teachers by trying to get a "LIFO BILL" passed by the State Legislature is a prime example of what lengths the Mayor would do to eliminate senior teachers from the NYC schools.

The only thing the Mayor has been successful in doing is the closing of  schools and dumping "high needs" students in schools he would like closed in the future.  Oh yes, let's not forget the co-location and expansion of Charter and small schools.

It is a good thing that the Mayor is a lame duck with only 300 days left and the quicker those 300 days pass, the better.  Under the Bloomberg Administration teacher disrespect is at a new high and any Mayor that is elected can only be an improvement...I hope.

"I got in trouble every time I say this. But I would do anything to have better quality teachers, even if it meant bigger class size, even if it meant them standing rather than sitting. That's what really makes a difference. That human being that looks the student in the eye, adjusts the curriculum based on instinct what's in the child's interest." - See more at: http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/#sthash.9WaNuRrV.dpuf"I got in trouble every time I say this. But I would do anything to have better quality teachers, even if it meant bigger class size, even if it meant them standing rather than sitting. That's what really makes a difference. That human being that looks the student in the eye, adjusts the curriculum based on instinct what's in the child's interest." - See more at: http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/#sthash.9WaNuRrV.dpuf

I got in trouble every time I say this. But I would do anything to have better quality teachers, even if it meant bigger class size, even if it meant them standing rather than sitting. That's what really makes a difference. That human being that looks the student in the eye, adjusts the curriculum based on instinct what's in the child's interest." - See more at: http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/#sthash.9WaNuRrV.dpuf

I got in trouble every time I say this. But I would do anything to have better quality teachers, even if it meant bigger class size, even if it meant them standing rather than sitting. That's what really makes a difference. That human being that looks the student in the eye, adjusts the curriculum based on instinct what's in the child's interest." - See more at: http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/#sthash.9WaNuRrV.dpuf

I got in trouble every time I say this. But I would do anything to have better quality teachers, even if it meant bigger class size, even if it meant them standing rather than sitting. That's what really makes a difference. That human being that looks the student in the eye, adjusts the curriculum based on instinct what's in the child's interest." - See more at: http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/#sthash.9WaNuRrV.dpuf

I got in trouble every time I say this. But I would do anything to have better quality teachers, even if it meant bigger class size, even if it meant them standing rather than sitting. That's what really makes a difference. That human being that looks the student in the eye, adjusts the curriculum based on instinct what's in the child's interest." - See more at: http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/#sthash.9WaNuRrV.dpuf

Mayor Bloomberg Believes That Seventy Students In A Classroom Will Be A Win For The Students - How Clueless He Is About What Goes On In The Classroom.

Mayor Bloomberg has shown how clueless he is about what goes on in the classroom when, on Tuesday, he gave a speech at MIT that his idea of a good education would be to fire 50% of the teachers and weed out the "ineffective teachers" from the remaining 50%. Furthermore, he sees little problem that teachers would have class sizes of 70 and that a "quality teacher" who is highly compensated and come from the top colleges is all that is needed to improve education. How clueless the Mayor is when it comes to the classroom. His entire speech is on Gotham Schools and can be found Here. He also said that the teachers union is the blame for his failure to change the NYC Schools. The mayor's ill-advised speech on teachers and class size must be looked as a further "nail in his coffin" claiming to be the "Education Mayor" and as UFT President Michael Mulgrew correctly called the Mayor's speech a "Cathie Black moment"

If you follow his speech carefully he never defines what a "quality teacher" is. Except that teachers should be recruited from the top colleges. Sounds like Teach For America to me. However, we do know how the Mayor thinks and in Mayor Bloomberg failed bid to get rid of "last in, first out" LIFO he targeted senior and highly paid teachers who may have been out of favor with principals for termination. Therefore, it is very likely that the Mayor's purpose would be to have a young, replaceable, and untenured teaching staff. Consequently, it is a reasonable assumption that the Mayor idea of a "quality teacher" is a teacher that works hard for the few years they are in the classroom and leave before they are vested for retiree benefits or even long enough to achieve tenure. A tip off of the Mayor's disdain for experienced teachers was this speech he made during the height of the LIFO fight and reported Here.

Previously, I wrote an article about the Mayor's disrespect for teachers Here. Now we have his speech at MIT that knocks teachers and wants to terminate a minimum of 50% of the teaching force. Even his education reformer friends must have cringed when he made this speech. I have noticed not one education reform group has supported the Mayor on what he said at MIT.
Interestingly, I did agree with the Mayor on one part of his speech where he said that technology has not materialized as an important component of better learning. He was quoted as saying the following:

Bloomberg also questioned the impact of technology in the classroom, despite rising spending by the Department of Education on technology and e-learning.

“It may be heresy in this day and age to say so, but there’s not a lot of evidence that when you introduce a lot more technology in the classroom the results are better,” he said, arguing that what really mattered was the quality of teachers.

Mayor Bloomberg is a typical hypocrite as he thinks class sizes of 70 is " a good deal for the students" while he sent his daughters to the private Spence school with class sizes of 16-18. His speech at MIT increasingly shows how clueless the Mayor is about the classroom and his disrespect for New York City Public School teachers.

The Education Degree Programs Don't Teach This In The Classroom. It Takes An Experienced Teacher To Do What Is Right For Everybody Involved.

Many of my readers already know that I am an ATR at a wonderful high school with a good Administrative staff. However, as an ATR I find myself substituting for various teachers who are out for the day and feel, at times, I am not contributing to the school's success since I do not have classes of my own. Sure, I am dependable, tutor struggling students, the Administration trusts me to do whatever job they give me, and many of the students respond to me but it is still not like having your own students. However, something happened last week that somewhat changed how I felt about my contribution to the educational success of the school.

I was overseeing a class of 32 students, who, for the most part, was doing their assignment, so I settled down to take attendance. Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye I saw a student jump up from his seat and run across the room to confront a fellow student who apparently hit him with a spitball. The two students stood up and were nose-to-nose and chest-to-chest (no personal space here) and I realized I had an extremely volatile situation that was seconds from exploding into a fist fight. I instinctively took action to try to defuse the already dangerous situation. I first had a passing teacher call down to "school safety" to get assistance and then moved toward the two students as I encouraged the other students to back away from the inevitable fight. I screamed at the two students to "stop, stop this at once". I repeated this three times as I continued to make my way toward the two potential combatants. When I reached them I instructed them to "stop, and get back into your seats". I quickly realized that neither one was backing down so I did what I thought was best for the safety of the class, me, and the two students. I put my hands on each of them, just below the shoulders and tried to push each one back slowly and gently away from each other without me being caught between them (more like a triangle). At first, neither one budged and I thought this is real bad but I then said in a stern but caring voice the following "fighting each other will only result in both of you getting arrested and suspended for the rest of the school year". That did the trick, both students started to respond to my gentle push and started to slowly move away from each other. As the distance between the two students increased and they could no longer reach each other, I only then stepped between them to further defuse the situation. By the time school safety and the Deans came the altercation was over and both students were returning to their seats. Both boys (17-18 year olds) were sent to mediation to work it out. It seems that they were once friends and had a falling out that festered for some time, only to explode in my classroom. Lucky me.

Did I do the right thing? I think so. My experience in the classroom allowed me to instinctively protect the students in the classroom while defusing the fight and stopping two students from potentially destroying their chances to graduate on time, if at all. Furthermore, I realized that I could not step between them for fear of getting hurt and not be covered because, according to the DOE and UFT, I exceeded my duty in putting myself in danger. Therefore, I did what you are never taught in education courses, that is how to protect the students under your control while not causes injury to yourself. Only my experience as a classroom teacher allowed me to instinctively defuse a potentially dangerous situation into a simple mediation session

Mayor Bloomberg, this is just another example why teacher experience counts!

The DOE Administrative Bloat Has Finally Caught The Eye Of The New York Post. Its About Time That The Mass Media Is Looking At The Tweed Budget.

One of my complaints is how the mass media ignores the Administrative bloat at Tweed which has seen a doubling of money since 2002 and an increase of 16,360 people at the DOE (teachers accounted for only an additional 1,000 to the increase). Finally, none other than the New York Post wrote an editorial that questioned why Bloomberg did not look at the DOE for additional cuts. In fact, the editorial stated the following"

He's vowing to cut some 6,000 teaching slots, for example, including more than 4,000 by layoff -- but he's also more than doubled school spending since '02.

Seems like a ripe target to us.

Furthermore, the usually reliable New York City Council has already grilled the Mayor's poodle, Dennis Walcott on the DOE's bloated Bureaucracy, especially at Tweed and will look hard at cuts there while providing the $276 million to retain the 4,100 teachers. In particular, they will be investigating what happened to the $300 million DOE surplus that mysteriously disappeared when the UFT identified the money in Tweed's budget, the outrageous increases in computer and consultant services, and most importantly the $3.2 billion surplus that is being put away for the budget next year. In fact, the UFT President, Michael Mulgrew, said the following about the DOE budget.


He argued that there are huge potential savings in the astounding $4.6 billion DOE spends on outside contracts, $40 million for outside management consultants, and $36 million for computer consultants. DOE has added 218 positions to the central bureaucracy; and recently, the UFT had pointed out to DOE the fact that there was a $300 M surplus in their own operating budget for salaries; the next day they came out with a new document in which this $300 M had disappeared from view.

The bottom line is that I highly doubt that there will be any teacher layoffs unless he gets his way on "last in, first out". An unlikely action given the Mayor's reduced popularity, and his relentless attacks on teachers that have turned off even his most ardent supporters. Since the Mayor is a "lame duck" I will find it difficult to believe that the politicians who want to be Mayor will antagonize the UFT for the present "lame duck" Mayor. I could be wrong, but I doubt it.

Mayor Bloomberg's Attack On "Last In, First Out" Is Simply About Power, Money, & Control....And Of Course, Teacher Disrespect.

Mayor4Life, Michael Bloomberg has started phase two in his attack on New York City's Teachers by using his own money to print out pamphlets and a companion TV commercial touting his accomplishments while attacking teacher seniority-based protections known as "last in' first ouor (LIFO). However, it does appear that Mayor Bloomberg's continued attempts to attack teacher "due process rights" has backfired on the Mayor. A Marist/NY1 poll showed that his popularity rating is at a 8 year low of 40% and most disturbingly for the Mayor the general public disapproves of how he handled the New York City Schools which shows that only 27% believe he is doing a good job as the education Mayor. Furthermore, a majority of New Yorkers with children in the school system (57%) believe his attack on "last in, first out" LIFO was motivated by his desire to control the New York City schools and not about the budget. The majority of New Yorkers see Mayor Bloomberg's attack on LIFO as a simple power grab.

Moreover, the Mayor declining popularity ratings and his attack on the Governor and the Assembly has made any changes on LIFO "dead on arrival". In fact in a New York Daily News opinion article today illustrates the Mayor's declining power and influence. Even the New York Post's Michael Goodwin questions if the money is being well spent as he calls his column Bloomy's Tail-"Spin". In Albany, the Daily News reported that Andrew Cuomo quietly met with top union leaders in a peace offering was heard to say the following.

And some say he made it clear that Mayor Bloomberg would not be getting his wish to repeal the "last in, first out" law for teacher layoffs.

"Collective bargaining is collective bargaining and we have to support those things," one attendee quoted Cuomo as saying.

Let Bloomberg foolishly spend his own money but the sooner he accepts defeat on LIFO the sooner he can get down to trying to save the teachers and help the children in the the New York City Schools. Even the majority of the general public now believes that it is not about the budget but about control and teacher disrespect on the Mayor's part. I am still waiting for the union to respond in kind with a commercial that equates Bloomberg's action with the "bad old days" of Tammany Hall and of course the video where Bloomberg says that teacher experience is irrelevant.

In reality it is Bloomberg first and "children last" when it comes to the New York City Public Schools.

On The 100Th Aniversary Of The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire - Bloomberg Continues His Attacks On The Teachers Union With A New Commerical .

This is the 100Th Anniversary of the Triangle Fire that killed 146 employees, mostly teenage Jewish and Italian girls. This horrific event was very much responsible for the Labor Laws and the "collective bargaining" that we have today. Even Tammany Hall had to support the rise of Labor Unions in the wake of the terrible fire and loss of life. However, the teachers union now finds itself in the cross hairs of Michael Bloomberg's attempt to bypass Civil Service Law and destroy "collective bargaining" rights when it comes to the teachers union. The Mayor4Life has made a strong effort in destroying the Teachers' union by buying off the Republican Senate when he allegedly donated $660,000 for the Republicans to take back the Senate and they did. To thank Bloomberg for his support they passed an alternative to "last in, first out" LIFO for teachers that eliminated seniority rights and would give the City the right to fire (not layoff) any teacher the DOE could not legitimately fire. The phrase in Bloomberg's Bill is as follows.

"When schools remove positions for any reason, absent a citywide layoff condition, the sole basis for such decisions will not be employee length of service."

Even the Republican Senate realized what this meant after the fact and forced the City to remove the passage in their revised plan which was still "dead on arrival" since the Assembly and the Governor realized that it violated the "collective bargaining" rights of the union. Now on the 100Th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, the Mayor, using his own money, has an anti-union (mostly anti-teacher) commercial that wants to reduce union rights.

For whatever reason the Mayor4Life has continually attacked the Teachers' Union and scapegoated senior teachers. He has refused to give the Teachers' Union the prevailing "City Pattern" that all other unions received. He has gone so far as saying the teaching experience and class size are irrelevant to student learning which made even his education reformer friends cringe as they backed away from supporting that statement. Now he put in an unqualified friend of his, Cathie Black, to be Chancellor which was universally panned by educators and even by the General Public with a 17% approval rating.

Now with the 100Th Anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire we see the Mayor4Life doing his best to destroy the careers of senior teachers because of the money and to fatally weaken the once powerful teachers' union to the point of irrelevance.

I guess we are seeing History repeating itself as Bloomberg attacks the City Unions and in particular the Teachers' Union as he continues his quest to eliminate senior teachers because of the money not what is best for the children. It is what it is, plain old union bashing that goes back 100 years and more. The more things change the more they stay the same and Bloomberg is trying to rollback the clock to the time of the Triangle Shirtwaist Facctory Fire when Labor Laws were weak or nonexistent.

The Emperor, Mayor4Life, Michael Bloomberg Goes For The Jugular When It Comes To Teachers Rights. How Will The Union Respond To This Attack?

His Emperor, Mayor4Life Michael Bloomberg has started his Legislative campaign to get rid of senior teachers by having two hapless and clueless politicians propose an alternative to "Last in, First out". This is Bloomberg's first important salvo in dismantling the Civil Service laws and to destroy the teachers' union. Gotham Schools reported today that Bloomberg was able to put forth his layoff plan for teachers through an East End Republican, Joseph Flanagan in the Senate and of course his Court Jester, Democrat Jonathan Bing in the Assembly. Ana Phillips of Gotham News report the entire proposal which in effect gets rid of any teacher who received a "U" rating in the last five years as well as any teacher that was subject to disciplinary action that resulted in fines or suspensions Finally, the Principal is the sole determiner of who gets layoff. In other words, the entire proposal is based upon getting rid of teachers that administrators don't like. This proposal not only goes after a teacher's livelihood but goes after the jugular vein of the teachers' union.

While this outrageous and dangerous anti-union proposal will probably die in the State Assembly, just the idea that the Sate Legislature, especially the Senate may actually pass this abomination is scary. What is our union doing about this attack not only on its members but the Civil Service protections that has been a trademark of this State? I hope that UFT President Michael Mulgrew is not only telling the politicians what the consequences are for supporting this union-busting and teacher bashing Legislation but getting support of all the unions in combating Bloomberg's attack on public workers.

The full text of the City initiated attack on senior teachers can be found Here.

What is left unsaid about the proposal is that Bloomberg can get rid of high salaried senior teachers and keep cheaper teachers knowing full well that over 50% of these teachers will be gone from the New York City School System within five years. Moreover, if the teachers come from "Teach For America" an astonishing 80% leave the classroom within three years. The piece exposes that no matter how smart and enthusiastic these teachers are, they are gone from the classroom all too soon without acquiring the classroom management and social skills that could make them a "good teacher"The article by Stephen Lazar is a must read if you are to understand why retention of teachers is more important then having a large turnover of "newbie teachers".

Any right thinking person can never support this anti-teacher Legislation that Bloomberg and his flunkies have proposed and I am waiting for Michael Mulgrew to show me that he is the 800 pound gorilla he claims he is.

Update: Please read Accountable Talk's post about Bloomberg's real intention.