Alan Singer, former public school teacher and current professor at Hofstra University, offers free advice to the new Mayor of New York City: Ignore the New York Times, especially when it writes editorials about education policies.
In his post, he rebuts the New York Times’ editorial advice point by point.
He explains why tenure and seniority are necessary and fair.
He rejects merit pay and recommends a different salary scale:
My proposal is to raise starting salaries for starting teachers who complete a registered teacher certification program but to give a bigger pay boost after three years as a teacher. Most of the Teach for America “teachers” and Bloomberg “Teaching Fellows” are transients who come without certification and leave within three years. Pay them fairly, but reward people who earn certification and then make a long-term career commitment.
He opposes the Times’ rebuke of teachers who lost their jobs because their school was closed. His advice: If you charge teacher salaries to the overall Education Department budget, most of this problem would be eliminated. But in addition, why waste the talents of these teachers. To help improve student performance they could be permanently assigned to schools as tutors for students who are performing poorly or as co-teachers in classrooms with high-needs students. Mayor de Blasio needs to be creative rather than punitive.
He objects to the Times’ implication that teachers need to be disciplined for unspecified abuses. His advice: No one disagrees with a clear list of offensives that would lead to discipline and potential termination. I would like to see The Times suggested list. We would probably agree on almost everything. The real issue is due process, which The New York Times may not realize is a constitutional guarantee in the United States. Given that supervisors can be arbitrary and mayors authoritarian, teachers need clear due process provisions in their contract.
Read his article. It is filled with sound ideas that the new Mayor should find interesting.
His bottom line: Good luck, Mr. de Blasio. Ignore the New York Times when it editorializes about the schools.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I think the entire country will be watching to see how Bill de Blasio tackles the mess he has inherited. As a Hofstra alum, I am always happy to read the thoughts of Alan Singer. I thank him for his commitment to public education. As a public school teacher in suburban Philadelphia, I am most impressed with PA Gubernatorial candidate John Hanger at this point. He gets what is going on with corporate reform, and I think he is our best shot in this state. I encourage all PA readers to research him and decide for yourself. We must get Democrats out to the primaries this spring and get rid of the status quo.
Diane, thank you for your posts yesterday by Paul Thomas and Peg Robertson. Teachers are between a rock and hard pace and although I am constantly reading book after book, these posts seem to come at just the right time. The screws are coming down on us tighter and tighter now. Thank you for making sure to share the experience, strategies, and mindful ways of thinking that we need to hang in there. We need it more than ever.
A better solution, stop reading the entire paper and let others pay for this trash and stop doing business with the Exxon/Mobile’s, Wallmart’s, and others who are getting richer at the expense of our children and grandchildren. What a moral shame!
I.F. Stone used to say you could learn a lot from reading the New York Times carefully. I would say, though, ignore the advice of Bill Keller and the clueless NYTimes education staff; and take care, if you do read the NYT, to read between the lines. This goes double for deBlasio. Didn’t the NYT endorse Christine Quinn for mayor?
With all the New York newspapers, I find that the reporters do a good job of covering the news, but the editorialists are living in their own world.
Bill Keller is a very poor excuse for a journalist.
The editorial board is acutely imbalanced.
I cherry pick from the NY Times. I no longer find it’s op/ed to be of much use . . . .
The New York Times has a self-loathing; guilty conscience way of approaching most major subjects. The question is where does it come from? If the publishers and the writers of the Times could figure it out, their article would not have been published in the first place. I do not, nor will not subscribe to this below-average paper.
DeBlasio select NYC schools chancellor Carmen Farina. From the NYT:
“As the leader of the nation’s largest school district, with 1 million students, Ms. Fariña will also face a host of thorny issues, including calming tensions over a new set of academic standards, rolling out a plan to charge rent to charter schools and negotiating a contract with the city’s teachers’ union, which is demanding billions of dollars in retroactive raises.
Mr. de Blasio has spoken often about his desire to break with several hallmarks of the Bloomberg era, including its support of charter schools. He has said he will decrease the emphasis on standardized testing and give more input to parents.
Ms. Fariña shares Mr. de Blasio’s skepticism of standardized testing and his focus on early education. As chancellor, she will help shape his proposal to expand access to preschool and after-school programs.”
Sounds encouraging.