(From Gotham Schools, November 2, 2009)
By MAURA WALZ
Teachers union president Michael Mulgrew dismissed proposed legislation that would overhaul New York State’s teacher tenure and charter cap laws.
Mulgrew criticized Assemblyman Sam Hoyt’s bill in an interview with GothamSchools on Saturday, after delivering an address to approximately 3,000 parents assembled for the United Federation of Teachers’ annual parent outreach conference.
Proposed to make New York State’s bid for Race to the Top money more competitive, Hoyt’s bill contains a variety of measures, almost all of which the union has opposed. In addition to abolishing the state’s charter cap, the bill would increase the number of years a teacher must work before being considered for tenure and would lift the ban on using students’ test scores as a factor in tenure decisions.
“I think Mr. Hoyt should spend some time with people who understand education,” Mulgrew said. “I am always leery of those who propose education reforms who have never spent time in a classroom.”
Mulgrew would not elaborate on how forcefully the UFT plans to fight the bill.
Last year, the state and city teachers unions threw their political weight behind the ban on linking teacher tenure to student achievement, successfully lobbying Albany to insert the provision into the state’s budget. In recent months, lawmakers and activists have revived the ban as a political issue, suggesting that it may disqualify the state from receiving the elite federal stimulus funds.
Joe Williams, executive director of Democrats for Education Reform, a group that supports many of the Hoyt bill’s provisions, said that criticism of any education policy not originating with teachers or the union is evidence that the debate has become mired in politics.
“Assemblyman Hoyt’s bill is mild, comparatively speaking, but shows how lame the discussion has become here,” Williams wrote in an email.
“Good people are afraid to support better public schools because they are afraid someone will accuse them of not having gone to ed school if they are caught talking about it,” he said. “It’s one of the reasons the public has lost confidence in the system and it is something we have to change if public education is going to survive.”
Policy director of the New York Charter School Association, Peter Murphy, called Mulgrew’s comments “cheap shots” and accused the UFT president of trying to evade debate.
“What Hoyt has basically done is put out a menu of ideas to get this state thinking about how we need to change education,” Murphy said.
“Will it [Hoyt’s bill] pass as is?” he asked. “No, it’s going to be revised as it goes through the legislature. But it’s the start of a process.”