UFT President Randi Weingarten Address Before ABNY Jan 14, 2004
Jan 14, 2004 11:25 AM
Ensuring Quality Teaching in New York City’s Schools
Thank you, Bill [Rudin], and good morning and Happy New Year, Ladies and Gentlemen.
It’s a privilege to be your first guest speaker of 2004, because the history of the UFT and the history of ABNY have been so intertwined throughout the years. ABNY was founded in the 1970s in response to the fiscal crisis of that time. You will recall the UFT played a major role in purchasing the MAC bonds in that crisis — a risky move that helped save the city from default. And this union’s commitment to New York City has not strayed to this very day.
More recently, for example, following the disaster of nine-eleven, the UFT relocated its entire headquarters operation from Gramercy Park to the Wall Street area, in a move that will play a part in the much-needed revitalization of downtown Manhattan. Last month, the UFT joined with other unions of the Municipal Labor Committee which I am honored to chair, in finding the city an estimated $100 million dollars in savings, thereby averting the bankruptcy of important health care programs.
Indeed, the United Federation of Teachers is a union that has always stepped up to the plate when it comes to helping New York. Because the UFTis New York!
And so this morning I’d like to talk to you about a subject that is near-and-dear to the hearts of all New Yorkers — certainly to all ABNY members: how we ensure that our city attracts and retains the best, the brightest, the most competent and the most professional teaching staff possible for its 1.1 million students, who deserve nothing less.
For, as we all know, the education of our children, who are New York’s most precious resource, directly affects the success or failure of this city. And study after study shows that with the exception of parents, the single most important ingredient in a child’s success in school is the quality of the teacher in each classroom. And as if we needed to be reminded of that fact, the New York State Court of Appeals ruling in the state’s school equity case has just reaffirmed that concept.
Indeed, the question I’m posing this morning — how does New York City keep a highly qualified teacher in each of its thousands of classrooms – speaks directly to every ABNY member in this room whether you live, run a business or operate a service in our city. Because, as you well understand, today’s job market demands much higher skills from our graduates. So, maintaining and improving the quality of our public school teaching staff is pivotal to the growth and economic development of New York.
Or as we at the UFT say, “the future of New York is in its classrooms.”
In a few minutes I’m going to offer three practical proposals to either improve, or failing that to remove the relatively small number of teachers cited each year for failing to do a good job. Yes, a union president is going to talk about removing members who shouldn’t be teaching. And I do that without hesitation because this union is not just about keeping people. We are about keeping qualified people.
But let’s start off by putting the whole issue of qualified teachers into some realistic perspective.
While there is still much, much room for improvement, last month the results of the annual nationwide math and reading tests came out, showing that New York City public school students outperformed students in other major urban school systems across the nation. Fourth and 8th graders here did better than their counterparts in Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, Washington DC and Atlanta.
And just last week the number of low performing schools in the city, cited by the state, reached an all-time low – down to 46 from a high of more than 100.
The effort leading to these good results took place long before this year’s major overhaul of the school system. And all this improvement didn’t happen by magic. It happened because the overwhelming majority of this city’s 80, 000 teachers are devoted and dedicated people who work damn hard at getting the best out of their students.
The critical problem is that New York City isn’t holding on to those outstanding teachers.
The single biggest dilemma this city faces in dealing with the quality of its teaching staff today is how to retain that overwhelming majority who are highly-skilled professionals.
Because, ladies and gentlemen, they are leaving in droves.
We’re now seeing a record number of retirements among our most experienced teachers. Last year alone, close to 6,000 teachers retired – far more than anyone expected. On top of that, the latest figures show that through December 1, more than 2,400 newer teachers resigned their positions. And every year for the past five years approximately 20% of our new teachers haven’t returned for a second year. 35% haven’t made it past their third year!
Could you run your business if 35% of the people you hired left before three years while record numbers of your experienced employees were retiring? Well, our business is the education of children – and this combination of newer talented teachers resigning and older more seasoned professionals retiring has become a formula for disaster. Keeping this city staffed with highly qualified, experienced professionals in the classroom is like trying to fill a bucket with a hole in the bottom.
And that is the real problem New York City faces in ensuring quality education today. Eventually, the continued failure of the city to stop that leak will cripple New York City’s public school system, will hurt kids and will play havoc with the city’s economic and social future.
So how do we ensure a qualified instructor in every classroom?
Well, the answer to that question for public school teachers is much the same as it is for retaining highly qualified employees in any business or profession. For teachers, it’s a 3-step solution.
The first step is probably one that you would expect me to say.
Provide teachers a salary that enables them to live a middle class life without a second or third job. Salaries that are competitive with the private marketplace or at least competitive with what they themselves could earn by teaching a few miles away in New York’s suburbs. Because even with the increases we got in our last contract, New York City school teachers are still $10,000 to $15,000 behind what their colleagues earn in surrounding areas.
And where we are furthest behind is with teachers who have between two and eight years of experience — a time that teachers are typically making career decisions.
Some of you may know that in my former life I was a practicing lawyer. Most of our teachers have as many graduate credits or more as lawyers. It makes for an interesting comparison.
If I were starting out today as a New York City teacher with 30 credits above a masters degree — the equivalent of three years in law school – I would start at $45,000. If I were starting out today as a young new attorney in my old firm — Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, I would be starting at $125,000. After eight years as a teacher here in New York, I’d be making $60,700. After eight years in my old law firm, I’d be making a base salary of $215,000.
We simply have to do better for our teachers, folks! And we have to do better for all of our teachers. It’s absolutely ludicrous for the city to single out one or two shortage areas like math or science for pay raises when holding on to any new teacher has become such a struggle. And it’s just as ridiculous to come out with so-called ‘merit-pay’ and other ‘pay for performance’ schemes while the base pay of every classroom teacher is so dismally low.
Don’t get me wrong, the UFT is open to performance pay. In fact you may recall we joined with the New York City Partnership in a program that experimented with it. But you can’t simply put a band-aid on what’s really a much bigger problem.
The second step needed to retain the best and the brightest teachers for our city’s classrooms has to do with treating the teaching profession in New York City — as a real profession. Something more than just a job. Teachers here have to be provided the opportunities for advancement within their profession. Now, the only way to advance is to leave the classroom for an administrative post. Further, in no true profession does a 20-year veteran do exactly the same job she did from day one.
Now, more than ever, the New York City teaching profession cries out for a career ladder similar to what you see in the medical profession — with a meaningful learning period and professional incentives for advancement — where there is a teaching internship and residency, with advancement to career teacher and finally master teacher who can help in the training of our newer people. Teachers should be rewarded for extraordinary knowledge and skills and encouraged to help other teachers,develop curricula, and even design and launch new programs for kids.
As part of this drive toward true professionalism, the city must also provide both its newer and more experienced teachers the support and conditions they need. That means a real induction process, including a reduced teaching load, in-class mentoring, and the opportunity to learn from master teachers at work. It also means real administrative back-up when it comes to disciplining disruptive students, manageable class sizes, and sufficient and appropriate supplies so teachers no longer have to lay out hundreds, even thousands, of dollars for basic classroom needs.
A recent school system survey of first-year New York City teachers who left found the major reason was the daunting classroom conditions under which they worked, including poor student discipline and a lack of administrative support.
The final step toward resolving the retention crisis is respecting the expertise and professionalism that our teachers have to offer. It would be nice if principals and higher officials listened occasionally to their teachers’ advice and suggestions on educational issues that directly affect their students.
An example: Since September the union had been telling the administration that overcrowding and a broken-down student suspension process was creating an atmosphere of disorder in school after school. Quick action at the beginning of the school year could have brought most of these schools under control. But Tweed didn’t listen, and as a result, the education of thousands of kids who want to learn was disrupted.
We do appreciate the Mayor taking responsibility and his determination to make the schools safe, and hopefully this is a precursor of a better relationship between us and the administration.
My point: True professionalism means allowing people some leeway to use their expertise in getting the job done most effectively. And, combine the years of graduate work our members have with years of direct experience, and you have extraordinary expertise.
Yet today, even the most experienced and highly-educated teacher is being micro-managed by a distant bureaucracy on even the merest minutia of running a classroom. Suddenly, professional, highly-skilled educators are being told what colors to use on their bulletin boards, where to place the wastepaper basket and how to arrange the classroom chairs.
Whatever their reason, we’re starting to see that the way in which classroom teachers are being treated by the school system is directly contributing to the retention crisis. The micro-managing has simply got to stop.
I’ve talked a lot so far about making New York City public school teaching a real profession. And if teaching in this town is to be recognized as the profession that it is, the union’s role must go beyond advocating for the changes that will retain qualified teachers. We want to help struggling teachers improve, or if need be, help to remove teachers who really don’t belong in classrooms.
In truth, I’m quite tired of hearing the constant drumbeat from City Hall and Tweed – that it’s the union or the union contract that perpetuates teacher incompetence. I’ve had it with the continuous charge that we drag out the legal hearings and make it difficult to get rid of a bad teacher.
The real truth is just the opposite.
In just about every case alleging incompetence or some other serious charge against a New York City teacher, it’s the school system that needlessly stretches out the process. While the UFT has a legal obligation to provide due process to its members – an obligation we take very seriously — the union and its members also feel very strongly that - - for teachers and students alike - - “justice delayed is justice denied.”
Now how many people are we actually talking about? Well, from the newspaper accounts, one would think the number is huge. The facts are actually quite different. According to school system statistics, in any given year approximately 1,000 people are given Unsatisfactory ratings. Another 200 to 300 teachers are removed from their classrooms for accusations that can range from chronic absenteeism to corporal punishment. So when you do the math, that’s under 2% of the 80,000 teachers employed by the city. Even if you assume that a few principals don’t give unsatisfactory ratings in cases where they should, the number is still extremely small.
And I’ll tell you another myth-breaking secret: the overwhelming majority of our teachers – the teachers who achieved the test results announced last month; the teachers who have dramatically turned around the number of low-performing schools; the kind of teacher many of you know directly as family members or friends — these teachers don’t want to see incompetent or otherwise unqualified people in the classroom next door to them.
If a teacher who is floundering and having difficulties can be helped, my members want that teacher helped. And if a teacher doesn’t belong in the classroom, my members want that teacher out. And they’re not shy about letting us know it. They ask only that there be a fair and timely way to get such cases adjudicated.
The fact is that even one incompetent teacher in our schools is one too many.
So how does it happen that these cases often drag on endlessly? And what do we do about it?
Over the past several contracts we’ve worked out methods designed to cut the time needed to adjudicate such charges. Still, the education department insists it can’t do these cases in less than two years. That’s because instead of seeing if they can help a struggling teacher improve, they spend the two years trying to build a case against the teacher. It’s a ridiculous waste of time and resources that helps neither students nor staff.
And so here are my proposals to change the situation once and for all.
First, because Tweed isn’t doing the job, it should stand aside. Let the union work with a struggling teacher, and we will try to help that teacher improve. If we can’t help that teacher within 90 days, we will recommend that he or she no longer teach. If the principal and chancellor’s office then decide to remove the person for incompetence, we will help that person find employment in another profession for which he or she is better suited.
We expect that in most cases the person will accept the union’s recommendation and career guidance. If the teacher still chooses to fight the chancellor’s ruling, we will do everything we can to expedite a fair hearing.
What I’m proposing, ladies and gentlemen, is that rather than complain that it takes two years to determine if a teacher is incompetent beyond the point of help, the city should stand out of the way and let us use our approach which will take 90 days – not the two years the city claims it takes.
This proposal doesn’t come out of thin air. It is based on a highly successful, negotiated labor/management prototype called the Peer Intervention Program, which has been operating on a limited basis over the past 15 years. Under that program, master teachers provide help to those colleagues who need it in a voluntary, confidential and non-evaluative way. At the end of that period, people either improve as teachers, are counseled out of the profession without loss of dignity, or brought up on charges.
The latest 10-year figures show that through 2003, 475 of the 687 people who entered the program were helped to improve to the point of earning a “satisfactory rating” from their principal. And 85 people were advised to leave the teaching profession, and provided assistance for doing so.
This small, but national award-winning New York City program has now been replicated in cities throughout the nation, including Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Montgomery County, Maryland – which, incidentally is where the education department’s new human resources director is from.
Yes, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
What I am proposing is to scale up and broaden the mandate of this program, so that once and for all we can try to help those accused of incompetence in just 90 days – instead of the school system playing the “gotcha game” for two years.
My second proposal concerns the current 226people who have been accused of other serious offenses. Perhaps they are guilty; perhaps not. Sadly, we have seen more and more false accusations by students. Standards are much tougher these days, and teachers must be a lot tougher on students; a student gets a bad grade and the teacher is suddenly accused of corporal punishment.
The point is that innocent or guilty, these people have been pulled out of the classroom and have been languishing in education department offices around the city—so-called rubber rooms—in some cases for years, waiting for their hearings to begin. It’s not because the union wants that to happen, and it’s certainly not because those accused want it. Many are ready to have their hearings in the next few days!
And so the proposal that I intend to make to the city at our labor negotiations. . . Which after months of silence from the administration are finally getting underway is as follows:
I’m proposing that as quickly as possible the education department and the union jointly appoint a Special Master to work with a staff of pro-bono attorneys who will hear these 226 cases and get rid of the backlog without delay.
Furthermore, the UFT believes that no disciplinary process should take more than 3 to 6-months between the accusation and the resolution of the case.
And so, my third proposal: We will be asking at negotiations that the city and the union set up a system to handle all such future cases with the goal of a maximum six-month period.
Six months maximum, not the years it now takes! Once and for all, let’s end the delays that the UFT is falsely accused of creating! And while we’re at it, let’s make sure every contract dispute or grievance is handled in a 3-6 month period. Expedite everything!
In addition to these three proposals being fair, humane and practical, there would also be a substantial financial benefit. Just the proposal to get teachers out of the rubber rooms sooner would save around $14 million dollars!
And why not take that $14 million dollars the city would save and reinvest that money in our kids? In much-needed classroom supplies and equipment, in solid, educational initiatives like lowering class size? That’s the way taxpayers’ education money should be used.
In the final analysis, all the changes I’ve discussed with you this morning are simply about ensuring the finest, the brightest, the most highly-skilled and most professional teaching force possible for New York City students.
For securing a solid education for all children starts with securing a top quality teaching staff. And that begins by building upon, not tearing down, the human capital we have in our schools today. Failing to do that — and instead continuing all the finger-pointing going on now — might make for good theater. But until New York truly places its education emphasis on teacher quality, both our children and our city will be condemned to a future of mediocrity.
Thank you.
