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Mulgrew rips mayor’s ‘reform’ speech
Dec 17, 2009 4:03 PM
Says Bloomberg-Klein mismanagement has created ‘problems’
UFT President Michael Mulgrew discusses his objections to Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s speech on school reform during a Dec. 9 interview on NY1’s “Road to City Hall.” A video of the interview is posted on the home page of the UFT Web site.
Responding to a pre-Thanksgiving speech in Washington, D.C., by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, UFT President Michael Mulgrew sent an e-mail to members accusing the mayor and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein of promoting “fake reforms, simplistic ‘solutions’ and sheer fantasy.”
Mulgrew charged the mayor with public grand-standing on issues better resolved in contract negotiations and the Department of Education with systemwide mismanagement.
“The mayor and chancellor created many of the personnel issues like the ATR pool and the rubber rooms that the mayor now cites as problems,” he said. “The mayor needs to take responsibility for what he and his chancellor have created.”
Mulgrew also took specific aim at Bloomberg’s directive to Klein to begin immediately using state test scores as a factor in teacher tenure decisions, vowing to take “appropriate action” if the proposal were implemented. He called the directive a “classic political crowd-pleasing stunt,” especially in light of the flaws in the tests revealed by the NAEP scores.
Mulgrew expressed amazement that the mayor would want to evaluate teachers on the basis of test scores that both the state education commissioner and Regents chancellor have called “broken” — especially while the union is already working with the DOE and the Gates Foundation on a study to help develop fairer and more accurate measures of effective teaching.
The mayor intends to try to make an end run around the 2008 state law banning the use of test scores for tenure decisions, contending that it does not include teachers hired in 2007 and coming up for tenure at the end of this school year. Going even further, he also called on Albany to mandate tying test scores to tenure in school districts statewide.
Even U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who was present at the mayor’s D.C. meeting and supports the use of test scores in teacher evaluations as a criterion for a state’s eligibility for the federal grants, said afterward, “Everyone agrees the current system is broken. ... [W]e have to talk about what makes sense.”
The UFT president pointed out that most of the mayor’s ideas required legislative or contractual changes.
But Bloomberg apparently chose headlines over negotiations when he announced at an education forum on Nov. 25 the wish list of “reforms” that he claimed that New York City needed to implement to improve the state’s chances of winning some of the $4.35 billion in federal Race to the Top education grants.
His controversial agenda also called for scrapping seniority rights in excessing and layoffs, imposing a one-year limit on the time excessed teachers (ATRs) have to find another position before being terminated, and eliminating “rubber rooms” and statewide caps on charter schools.
In the speech, Bloomberg also proposed closing 10 percent of the city’s lowest-performing schools — the DOE has already shut down 91 and has announced plans to close another 20 — significantly adding to the ATR pool.
Among other examples of DOE mismanagement, Mulgrew cited burgeoning class sizes. He criticized the continued hiring of new teachers, including paying bonuses to recruiters, while 1,000 dedicated and experienced teachers remain in the ATR pool, calling it “an inexcusable waste of human capital and mismanagement of resources.”
While the DOE promised to provide support and resources to help struggling schools turn around, instead it has encouraged the creation of charter schools or simply cut school budgets across the board.
The mayor’s ideas may not get a warm reception in Albany. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver noted that many of the proposals “are contractual issues that should be dealt with at the bargaining table.”
The other items on the mayor’s agenda were using State Education Department discretionary grants to attract and retain high-performing math, science and special needs teachers in low-income schools and ratifying the nationwide Common Core Standards.
Mulgrew called for an end to Bloomberg’s political games and a return to the bargaining table.
“These issues could have been — and still could be — better resolved with better management and hard work, not political grand-standing,” he said.
