Chancellor’s budget solutions ‘don’t fix anything’

“I’m trying to get myself in a better mood; I had to testify at City Hall on the budget today,” UFT President Michael Mulgrew told delegates at the March 24 Delegate Assembly.

Mulgrew was referring to the chancellor’s preceding testimony, where, he said, Joel Klein averred that the best way to fix the city budget was to save money by “removing seniority layoff provisions, and firing the ATRs and everybody in the rubber rooms.” Not a word about cooperation with parents and the union in pressing Albany for better funding.

The chancellor’s approach “doesn’t fix anything at all,” Mulgrew said.

From there, Mulgrew segued into a sobering report about the dramatic cuts to school funding under consideration in Albany [see story on page 3].

UFT President Michael Mulgrew discusses his budget concerns with the delegates.

Mulgrew spent much of his report discussing the national situation, which more and more is shaping events in New York City.

With respect to the commitment of the nation’s governors and state commissioners of education to develop a common core of state standards in English language arts and mathematics for grades K-12, Mulgrew urged the delegates to go online at www.corestandards.org and make comments on the draft standards “because those comments will help change things. ... We talk about us becoming the educational voice, but if we don’t comment, we’re not a voice.”

On the need for common standards, Mulgrew said that “until we get an agreement on real standards, so that student achievement is more than results on a standardized test, school systems will game the system by lowering standards requirements” and we’ll be urged to teach to the test.

On the Obama administration’s proposals for revising the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, Mulgrew applauded the recommendation to move to a growth model to judge schools, rather than the current snapshot that penalizes schools with the neediest students.

“We need a model that says if we take low-performing students and move them up the ladder of achievement, we are doing our job,” he said. “Otherwise, we will take all the schools with the neediest students and label them as failing.”

Mulgrew warned educators that the Obama administration is flatlining federal Title I funds, which are tied to student populations based on need, and instead plowing additional education dollars into competitive grants tied to adopting particular policies, many of which the UFT takes issue with.

Mulgrew closed his report by trumpeting the next day’s 50th anniversary celebration of the UFT’s founding, and urging delegates “that when you go tomorrow you relish the history of what this union has done for children. This celebration is about the union and this city and what we have done for this city.”