Mulgrew responds to Mayor Bloomberg's State of the City address

Mayor Bloomberg in his State of the City address on Jan. 12 proposed merit pay for teachers, vowed to step up efforts to remove ineffective teachers, blamed the union for the breakdown of negotiations over a teacher evaluation system in 33 restart and transformation schools and announced that he would open 50 new charter schools in the next two years.

UFT President Michael Mulgrew said in response to the mayor's proposals:

The mayor seems to be lost in his own fantasy world of education, the one where reality doesn't apply. It doesn't do the kids and the schools any good for him to propose the kind of teacher merit pay system that has failed in school districts around the country. As far as the "turnaround" model goes, the mayor knows perfectly well that under state law these kinds of initiatives have to be negotiated with the union. If he's really interested in improving the schools his administration has mishandled, he will send his negotiators back to the table to reach an agreement on a new teacher evaluation process.