Bloomberg declares war on tenure and teachers’ union.
On Tuesday it is expected that President Obama will dramatically escalate the war in Afghanistan by sending 30,000 more troops “to finish the job” most Americans don’t believe can be finished.
Yesterday, NY’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg, standing alonside Obama’s Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, dramatically escalated the war on teacher unions. Ignoring the collective bargaining process and the laws of the state of New York, Bloomberg declared that he would act to make test scores the basis for New York public school teachers’ tenure and employment rights.
The NY Times reports:
The Bloomberg administration contends that it already has the power to use test scores in tenure decisions. But, he said that the Legislature should require all districts in the state to evaluate teachers and principals with “data-driven systems,” one of the factors Mr. Duncan will use in deciding which states will receive Race to the Top grants.
The mayor also said the state should allow teacher layoffs based on performance rather than seniority, as they are now. It is a particularly crucial topic now, because the city may face large budget cuts and potential layoffs.
How obvious that even the pro-Bloomberg Times knows that this action by the New York mayor of laying off more experienced and therefore more expensive teachers has more to do with budgets than it does with quality education. Only the union stands in the way of the Bloomberg/Duncan agenda.
And what will the union do?
Michael Mulgrew, the president of the city’s teacher union, said he was “very, very disappointed” in the tone of the mayor’s speech.
He did not rule out filing a lawsuit once the details of the mayor’s plan have been fleshed out.
He said that using the test scores was a poor way to measure teachers, citing criticism that the tests have become too easy, with so many students showing large improvement that they have lost their meaning as gauges of learning.
“How do we constructively fix that instead of saying let’s play political agenda and propaganda?” Mr. Mulgrew asked.
There is a lot more wrong here than just “tone,” and it will take more than a lawsuit to fight this battle. And believe me, this is not just New York’s battle to fight.
I believe you that it isn’t just NY. I think he’s emboldened by Michelle Rhee, who just fired 5% of her workforce without regard to contracts, and apparently without any consequences.
An Axis of evil.
But NY is a front where we should be able to push back, hard. We also have to look more at what happened in DC. Did the teachers do something wrong? Did they start off weaker? Was their administration/adversary much tougher? We don’t want a repeat, but to avoid it, we need to understand how it happened.
Jonathan