President's Perspective
Who speaks for the kids?
Feb 5, 2009 2:34 PM
In a year that has defied all political calculus, the mayor’s announcement this week of massive teacher layoffs was certainly in that league. It was astonishing and infuriating and disappointing all at the same time.
We all know the economy is in perilous shape and that difficult choices must be made. Nothing — not even the school system — will be exempt from cutbacks.
But it seems that, despite Mayor Bloomberg’s previous record of supporting the schools, he has now totally reversed gears and has singled out education and classroom educators for the most egregious cuts. And while we expect to do more with less, proposing that teachers account for 80 percent of the proposed city layoffs is shockingly disproportionate and unfair.
It’s even stranger when you consider that we have suggested other ways to save almost a billion dollars. While far from painless, the alternatives we put forth would do a lot more to preserve direct services for children.
And they would avoid tearing apart the lives of 15,000 first-, second- and third-year teachers (and a few hundred paraprofessionals) who the system worked hard to recruit and train. If let go, most will probably never return. Of the 15,000 who were laid off during the 1975 fiscal crisis, only 3,000 eventually returned.
Wouldn’t it be far better to immediately institute a hiring freeze, to suspend the Fellows program and stop recruiting now? Wouldn’t it be better to offer a retirement incentive? For example, if only 3,000 veterans retired, they could prevent 6,000 layoffs of newer teachers who will be here for years to come. And wouldn’t it be better to look for savings in programs that don’t so directly hurt kids, like suspending the principals’ Leadership Academy for a year, or the interim assessments or the ARIS system (which actually practically duplicates a state data system), or even the schoolwide bonuses?
It seems so reckless. And by proposing it in this manner and in this magnitude, the severity of what we are confronting got lost in the debate about whether this was simply a negotiating ploy.
The mayor’s argument is that the state cut of $770 million translates to 15,000 layoffs. The math makes no sense. Most of that $770 million is actually a reduction from an expected increase — additional money that was due from the CFE award, which the governor has proposed deferring. Is the mayor claiming that we needed all that new money just to maintain our present teaching force? That money was supposed to pay for additional teachers to reduce class size, not to keep the current teachers.
Equally important, we have pledged to join the fight against school aid cuts of that magnitude. In fact, as I write, we are returning from Albany where we pressed that issue. Our proposal for a progressive rise in the state personal income tax rate for those earning more than $250,000 a year is beginning to attract more attention as the full impact of the state budget becomes clear.
Further, because of the work we all have done, help may be on the way. There is more than a billion dollars for New York City education in the president’s stimulus package, if the Senate approves it as passed by the House. As I hope you all know, we, along with the entire AFT, are waging a mighty battle for that legislation, and I have been lobbying for it every day. (And please remember, everybody, Feb. 10 is National Wear Blue to School Day in support of its passage.)
It is true that, even with federal and state assistance, we will not be out of the woods. Still, I really must wonder if the mayor is just posturing, using kids and teachers as pawns to get the state and federal aid. While I have not known him to play such political games in the past, if that’s what he’s doing, it is cruel and heartless, The (mostly) young teachers who came to our press conference on just a couple of hours notice Friday afternoon were devastated to think that the careers they had so much invested in might fizzle before they’d really begun. But is that what they talked about? Not at all. What they were worried about was the youngsters, the relationships they had built with the students, the progress the kids had made.
Especially when they heard Michael Mendel, the union’s secretary, tell what the schools had been like in the aftermath of the 1975 and ’76 layoffs. With classes of 40 and more, with no supplies, with teachers coming and going throughout the year as the layoffs came in waves, there was sheer chaos. He reminded us that while it was awful for the folks who’d been laid off, it was also very, very difficult for those who remained to teach under those conditions. He compared 1975 to 1991, when there was a retirement incentive. Although we lost experienced people, which always hurts, the incentive helped to create short-term savings and, most important, it averted the disruption of layoffs and bumping.
And then there’s mayoral control and the sunset of the state law in June. What’s the connection with the mayor’s budget proposal, aside from the possible end of the favored status that education has enjoyed in the city for the past six years? (Yes, it’s true. School funding went from $13 billion to $21 billion, a 60 percent increase; and teacher salaries rose 43 percent.)
Here’s the connection: Who is there in the system to fight this cut? Who can speak up on behalf of the kids? Who will give voice to the voiceless and strength to the powerless? Where is the independent voice to champion kids?
It is certainly not coming from the chancellor, and right now, it is not coming from the Panel for Education Policy. The majority of the Panel’s members serve at the mayor’s pleasure, and from the very beginning. the mayor made it clear he wanted it to be that way.
Now I absolutely don’t want to return to the old system, but the new system needs fixing and our governance committee found a way to do it. After working for two years and hearing from more than 1,200 people, the committee developed a plan to hold the mayor accountable with real checks and balances. That report was to be debated Feb. 4 at the Delegate Assembly.
The committee believed, and I concur, that our governance system needs that balance, and needs to allow for more debate on important policy issues. What is happening to the schools in this budget battle may be the clearest evidence of that.
Meanwhile, regardless of the governance debate, we in the UFT have our work cut out for us to protect our schools and our kids in the coming months, with or without the mayor or chancellor’s help. We will speak out in the halls of the capitals in Albany and Washington, and we will take to the street to raise our voices so all can hear. We will not stand by quietly while proposals are made that would cripple our schools and wreak havoc on the lives of thousands of promising young teachers.
Join us on Feb. 10 by participating in the national day to support the stimulus, and at the rally at City Hall on March 5. Sign up at uft.org or with your chapter leader. This time, it’s not enough to send a few representatives from your school. We need every single member. What’s so sad — though not surprising — is that, as always, the budget battles for kids are up to us to wage.
