A couple of years ago I took considerable ribbing from some NYC teacher friends following an op-ed I wrote in the NY Daily News which argued that a recent contract settlement with the United Federation of Teachers wasn’t as great a victory/reform tool as Mayor Bloomberg had declared.
I think the headlines in the NYC newspapers this morning are the latest example of what I was talking about.
Imagine we stepped back in time just a few years to when Mayor Bloomberg gained control of NYC’s 1.1 million student school system. Imagine if we were belly-up at the bar and throwing out all sorts of fanciful possibilities.
Imagine one of our drinking companions suggesting the possibility that Mayor Bloomberg would offer the city’s 80,000 teachers 43% pay increases over the next few years.
(Imagine everyone falling off their bar stools and laughing uproariously. 43% in pay hikes? Lay off the Jagermesiter hombre!)
Imagine someone then steering the conversation back to the hypothetical: What if the mayor did put that much money on the table for teachers – what kind of MAJOR changes would the city’s public school families see from that level of bargaining?
You’d think that the conversation would hit upon some bigtime, wholesale reforms of the teacher contract that would bring the stale, old labor-management agreement into the new millennium, no? You’d think you would be hearing phrases like “national reform model,” especially since it was the original NYC contract with teachers that blazed the trail for collective bargaining nationwide back when the education world looked a whole lot different than it looks today, right?
You’d think that our conversation about this hypothetical scenario would be leading down some bold and exciting paths – to the kinds of changes to standard operating procedures in the nation’s largest school system that would inspire optimism about public education’s future (not to mention the kinds of changes that would make us all proud of both labor AND managament).
It’s rather sobering to think about today isn’t it? In reality, of course, we did plop down the money – and even the union’s leadership has bragged to its dues – payers that 43% is real money. But despite all the hemming and hawing from the various factions within the UFT, we really don’t have all that much to show for it.
Sure, we now have teachers showing up for work a couple of days earlier in August – but that hardly seems Earth-shattering considering we’re talking about a school system where only half our high school students graduate. And yes, we tacked on a few minutes to the school day – again, small beans when you consider how significant are the educational needs of so many of our students.
This morning’s newspapers are filled with stories about the $81 million that the city is spending on teachers that nobody wants. It is based on a very interesting report by The New Teacher Project that looked at one of the half-promising changes made through bargaining. Basically, teachers who were excessed from their schools no longer would “bump” less-senior teachers out of their positions, meaning teachers who were let go by one school would have to go through the application process to secure teaching positions at other schools. Principals wouldn’t be forced to take anyone they didn’t want teaching children in their schools.
The end result is that most of the excessed teachers DID find other teaching jobs, meaning they found the right “fit” with a school that seemingly wanted what they had to offer. That’s fantastic.
But this, especially in light of the 43% pay increase, is really only half a reform for Mayor Bloomberg. He didn’t get the other half – namely, what to do about the teachers that nobody wants, or even the teachers that aren’t actively even looking for other teaching jobs. Right now, as the headlines point out, we’re taking $81 million away from students to pay for teachers who either don’t want to work or who don’t seem to be a good fit for any of the schools with teacher openings.
(And I don’t think it is fair to blame Randi Weingarten for this. Afterall, Mayor Bloomberg is supposed to be the one representing management at the table. This is why strong mayoral control is so important in a city like ours. But the mayor has to act strong, not just talk strong.)
There are some reports, like this one in the NY Sun, which suggest that Bloomberg (who already squandered his chance to negotiate hard with the teachers, i.e. you make the changes when you’re offering the big bucks, not after) wants to re-open the contract to fix the mess, so that the schools aren’t forced to keep paying the unwanted teachers.
The teacher contract is a serious matter for everyone involved – including the city’s school children and their families. The mayor now has about one year left to take it seriously. Here’s to hoping that he does.
(Note: This is the only on-line version of the 2006 op-ed I wrote that I can find.)