Juan Gonzalez says that Mayor Bloomberg wants to drive down the cost of bus drivers’ salaries, but they are not the reason that the city spends more than $1 billion on school buses. Bus drivers are paid about $40,000 a year.
Read his analysis here.
Archives for category: Bloomberg, Michael
New York Commissioner of Education has warned New York City that if the union and the mayor don’t reach a deal on teacher evaluation, he will withhold over $1 billion, in addition to the $250 million already at stake in Race to the Top funding.
He is holding the children and their education hostage unless the parties submit to his will.
With his long (two year) history in a charter school, he knows all there is to know about how to evaluate teachers. His Uncommon Schools charter is known for incredible suspension rates. Does that affect evaluations? He doesn’t say.
How dare he cripple the education of 1.1 million students unless the teachers do as he tells them. Revolutions have happened for less.
New York City is now in the midst of a school bus strike, stranding more than 100,000 students.
As usual, each side blames the other for intransigence.
But there are a few facts that should be remembered for context.
The Bloomberg administration has had complete control of the school system since 2002 and negotiated all existing contracts.
In 2006, then Chancellor Joel Klein gave a contract for $15.8 million to business turnaround consultants Alvarez & Marsal to reorganize the transportation program. Some of the executives were paid $500 an hour (plus expenses). On January 31, 2007, the buses adopted the A&M schedule for the first time. It was the coldest day of the year. Thousands of children were left stranded on bitter-cold corners. It was chaos.
Chancellor Klein defended the choice of A&M, saying they had saved the city at least $50 million.
Presumably, this is the system that the mayor now finds intolerable and outrageously expensive.
Alvarez & Marsal were previously known for its work in St. Louis, where they ran the district like a business for one year, collected $5 million, and left, shortly before the state declared the district o be in such bad shape that the state took control.
A&M’s last school assignment was in DC, where Chancellor Kaya Henderson hired them to review test security procedures, though they had no experience doing that.
Leonie Haimson, head of Class Size Matters in New York City, explains why the teacher evaluation pact failed.
Apparently it was Mayor Bloomberg who scuttled talks between the city and the unions. The unions wanted a sunset clause, the mayor demanded no sunset clause.
According to Ernest Logan of the supervisors’ union, most districts have a sunset clause:
““The CSA and the DOE were closing in on a final agreement on January 16, just before midnight. However, moments later, the Mayor intervened, demanding an agreement for an indefinite period of time,” Logan said.
“It is important to know that the overwhelming majority of school systems throughout the state have reached a one-year agreement in order to evaluate and modify it later to better serve our children. The state law provides for a one-year evaluation plan and the mayor supported the enactment of this legislation,” he added in a statement.”
Apparently the mayor and the union in NYC did not reach a deal on teacher evaluation.
Too bad. VAM Is junk science. It should not be legislated or imposed anywhere.
Here is the UFT press release. Count on seeing the mayor blame the union for not accepting a lousy scheme that has no basis in evidence or experience.
STATEMENT BY UFT PRESIDENT MICHAEL MULGREW:
I am sorry to announce that I have notified Governor Cuomo and other state officials that — despite long nights of negotiation and a willingness on the part of teachers to meet the DOE halfway – the intransigence of the Bloomberg administration on key issues has made it impossible to reach agreement on a new teacher evaluation system.
It is particularly painful to make this announcement because last night our negotiators had reached agreement – but Mayor Bloomberg blew the deal up in the early hours today, and despite the involvement of state officials we could not put it back together.
Thousands of parents have gotten a lesson this week, as the Mayor’s “my way or the highway” approach has left thousands of schoolchildren stranded at curbs across the city by the school bus strike. That same stubborn attitude on the Mayor’s part now means that our schools will suffer a loss of millions of dollars in state aid.
When Mayor Bloomberg was elected in 2001, his first priority was to gain control of the schools. At the time, the schools had a central board with seven members, two appointed by the mayor. Now the mayor appoints a majority and they serve at his pleasure.
In the last decade, the city’s schools have Ben subject to four major reorganizations and three chancellors. One of them lasted only 90 days, a record of sorts.
Now, voters and NYC public school parents oppose mayoral control. In a new poll, only 18% want the mayor to control them.
This is what the Quinnipiac poll showed:
“New York City’s next mayor should share control of the public schools, 63 percent of voters say, with 18 percent who want the mayor to keep control and 13 percent say the mayor should give up all control. Parents of children in public schools share those opinions. In fact, no group supports continuing mayoral control of the schools.
By a 53 – 35 percent margin, voter trust the teachers’ union more than Bloomberg to protect the interests of public school students.
Voters approve 45 – 34 percent of the job Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott is doing, his highest approval rating so far. Parents of public school children approve 51 – 34 percent.
“New Yorkers don’t like Bloomberg’s take-over of the schools. Most favor shared control,” Carroll said. “And never forget: it’s a labor town. Despite all the outcry against the teachers union, New Yorkers believe the union would do a better job protecting kids than Bloomberg.”
Mayor Bloomberg is frustrated that the New York City United Federation of Teachers does not agree with his plan to evaluate them by test scores. He has been berating the union, as have the city’s tabloids, for weeks.
But now he hit a new low.
He compared the teachers’ union to the National Rifle Association.
Coming only weeks after the Newtown massacre, this is especially gross.
This is reminiscent of the time many years ago when U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige referred to the NEA as “a terrorist organization.”
Paige had the good sense to apologize. So should Bloomberg.
Josh Eidelson explains in Salon.com what happened in Bridgeport, Connecticut, when the corporate reformers promoted a referendum to abolish the elected school boards and give the public schools to the mayor. Despite the active support of Michelle Rhee and a heavy infusion of money, the voters of Bridgeport decided they preferred to keep their right to choose those who control their schools.
While I was watching the television coverage of the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut, an ad came on that was very upsetting. Sponsored by StudentsFirst ad, it was a typically deceptive TV ad depicting teachers and parents who demand that teachers be evaluated by test scores. It implies that teachers are slackers and need a swift kick to get to work. If they are evaluated, they claim, this will have a revolutionary effect on the schools.
Showing this anti-teacher ad at this moment in time was utterly tasteless. Just as we are watching stories about teachers and a principal and school psychologist who were gunned down protecting little children, we have to see this tawdry ad. Given the timing, it is political pornography.
The ad is meretricious. It does not mention that the city published the names and ratings of thousands of teachers a year ago, generating anger and controversy, not any wonderful transformation. The ratings a year ago were rife with error, but all that is now forgotten in the new push to get tough with teachers.
Who are those teachers and parents in the ad with no last names? Are they paid actors? If they believe what they say, why no last names? Why no school names?
Does StudentsFirst know that most of New York City’s charter schools have refused to submit to the teacher evaluation system? May we expect to see a TV attack ad demanding that charter schools adopt the same test-based evaluation system that Governor Cuomo and Mayor Bloomberg want? Or is it only for public schools?
Andrea Gabor wrote an excellent post providing the context for ad and the stand-off between the New York City United Federation of Teachers and the city (and state). She writes:
“Governor Cuomo has threatened to withhold funding if the city and the union cannot come to an agreement by January. And Mayor Bloomberg has said that he would rather lose the money than compromise on the evaluations.
“The StudentsFirst ad and the mayor’s tough talk highlight one of several problems with the teacher-evaluation debate. While employee evaluations work when they are part of a system-wide effort at continuous improvement, they are often counterproductive when used as a cudgel against employees.
The cheerful-sounding teachers in the StudentsFirst ad not withstanding, everything about the teacher-evaluation debate has been framed in punitive terms.”
Not only has the debate been framed in punitive terms, but as Gabor points out, VAM is rife with technical issues. As I have written repeatedly on this blog, VAM is so inaccurate and unstable that it is junk science. And as Bruce Baker has written again and again, teachers with the neediest students are likely to get worse ratings than those with “easier” students.
No wonder charter schools in New York City refuse to submit their teacher ratings.
The issue now is whether the governor and the mayor, with the help of StudentsFirst, can beat the union into agreeing to a process for evaluating teachers that is demonstrably harmful and demoralizing to its members, that does nothing to improve education, and that is guaranteed to waste many millions of dollars.
Frankly, StudentsFirst should have had the decency to stop their attacks on public school teachers until the public had gotten over the massacre at the Sandy Hook Elementary School. At long last, have they no decency?
*UPDATE: Micah Lasher of StudentsFirstNY informed that the organization asked the city’s television stations on Monday morning to pull the ad, in light of the tragedy. I saw it on CNN or MSNBC on Monday night. Someone goofed. I appreciate the clarification.
Diane Ravitch's blog 