President's Perspective

Here we go again

by Randi Weingarten

Feb 1, 2007 12:28 PM

As I listened to the mayor’s announcement of yet another reorganization in his State of the City address, I started outlining the letter I hope many of you have received at home by now. We’ve reprinted it here, as these days snail mail can easily be overlooked. It was obvious the speech would prompt many anxious calls and e-mails from members wanting to know how the reorganization would affect them. Newer members would be concerned about the “tough-on-tenure” talk and senior members would worry about their job security.

Since then, the chancellor has revealed more details of the plan, mostly via the media. While those details only confirmed my certainty that our members will be the only stability in this upheaval, I became deeply concerned about the long-term consequences for our schools and students. I testified about those negative effects at a City Council hearing on Jan. 25; you can read about that testimony on pages 2 and 4.

This is a radical and untested restructuring that simply transfers all responsibility for public schools onto the shoulders of principals. While our members’ legal safeguards, like tenure, and contractual rights, including job security, will remain intact, we will work to educate others about the plan’s pitfalls and to mitigate or reverse the damage. The letter suggests some actions we will take that I hope will be finalized at the February Delegate Assembly.

Dear Colleague:

By now you know the mayor and chancellor are planning yet another top-to-bottom restructuring of the school system, designed to dismantle the bureaucracy and transfer all responsibility for educating children onto the shoulders of principals.

In back-to-the-future style, the reorganization eliminates the regions and keeps schools in the community school districts. High schools and District 75 will be centrally administered. Principals, who have been encouraged to consult with their School Leadership Teams first, will choose how they want their schools supported. They can be an Empowerment School, stay in the system under the instructional deputy chancellor and one of the four new super-superintendents, or pick a yet-undefined private provider(s). (The DOE has moved off having these private companies manage schools, but we await details.)

These changes will create a lot of trepidation among supervisors. And, even though our contract and other legal safeguards shield our members from the instability the plan will create, any upheaval like this is bound to cause stress on students and staff alike.

Let me be specific about how you are protected:

• First, tenure is intact. The city tried to take it away during the 2005 negotiations and failed. Despite the rhetoric, they can’t take that away from you, and they know it.
• Second, the DOE cannot change the evaluation process, which is the main factor in decisions to grant tenure. That is part of our contract.
• Third, the current contract protects your job. Except in the case of a citywide fiscal emergency (which can’t be claimed in the face of a $2 billion surplus), you cannot be laid off. Any excessing must be in reverse seniority order in license, and excessees must be placed in their school or district/superintendency.

However, despite your job security and some positive aspects such as schools’ ability to choose their professional development and staff input into principals’ ratings (360-degree evaluations), the union has serious reservations about this new plan. It sets schools adrift, privatizes many essential services, cuts funds for successful schools, limits parent voice even more and strikes fear in the hearts of new educators. In general, it appears to be an abdication of the DOE’s responsibilities to its schools and to our children, but let me touch upon some specific doubts we have:

Tenure — What Chancellor Klein calls “reforming” the tenure process is little more than what they always could have done: ensure that every teacher granted tenure deserves it. What’s new is the DOE’s intent to use student test scores as part of a probationer’s evaluation. We oppose this use of standardized test scores. It is neither a valid nor fair way to judge teacher effectiveness, and it’s bad for kids, as it deters teachers from working with the most challenging students.

We have written the chancellor objecting to the use of student test scores in teacher evaluations. If necessary we will arbitrate the matter as a contract violation.

Funding — By switching to a so-called “fair student funding formula,” a popular idea among neo-cons, the chancellor is robbing Peter to pay Paul. In the guise of increasing resources for high-poverty, high-need schools, the formula destabilizes good schools.

Our concern centers mostly on how it accounts for the cost of teachers. Currently, the DOE immunizes school budgets against differences in teacher salaries; the new formula would not. Schools that have higher salary costs because they have a stable (and therefore more senior) staff would have less money left for other things. That means program cuts and larger class sizes. This method would punish good schools (whether they serve poor or middle-class children) that support and retain a stable faculty, while it rewards high staff turnover. It also provides a strong temptation for age-biased hiring. We have requested clarification of the chancellor’s intention and, if we are right, we will litigate.

We are also concerned about the negative image the chancellor is again projecting about our members and his use of the reorganization and the tough-on-teachers routine to avoid responsibility and distract from the DOE’s failure to address critical issues. Take teacher quality. More than a third of new teachers leave in their first three years. (If you factor them in, the percentage who receive tenure is closer to 65 percent, not 99 percent as the DOE claims.) Rather than working to support and retain the great new teachers we’ve recruited, the system is discouraging and frightening them with threats about tenure.

The plan’s worst failing is what’s not in it. Amidst all the shake-up, there’s not one instructional initiative. It’s all macro-management and nothing for the classroom. Where is the plan to listen to the voice of front-line educators and parents? Where are the proposals to lower class size, restore art and music, expand career and technical education and improve safety?

So, we have our work cut out for us. Starting this week, we will educate the public about the pitfalls of the new reorganization. We will explain what tenure is and is not. We will try to shift the agenda back to what our students really need: teachers who have the professional latitude to individualize instruction; safer schools; more parental participation; less emphasis on testing; and CFE funds for smaller class sizes and proven programs. And [the week of Jan. 29], work on CFE goes into high gear with Gov. Spitzer’s budget.

None of us can do this alone. That’s why the class-size campaign — which has generated [16,000] faxes to state legislators — is so important, as is the Teachers Make the Difference campaign. I hope you’ve seen our TV commercial; Part 2 of the campaign will be school-based. Watch for details next month.

Meanwhile, thank you for all the hard work you do for your students, despite whatever “next best thing” is being hawked outside your door. In a system once again beset by upheaval, you will be the only stabilizing force.

Sincerely,

Randi Weingarten, President