At a public hearing in Albany on the state’s new receivership plan for struggling schools, UFT Vice President for Academic High Schools Janella Hinds declared the UFT’s firm opposition, calling it a “heavy-handed action” that does nothing to improve the quality of instruction and support for children facing the greatest challenges.

“Where the scores are lowest, the challenges are also the highest,” Hinds noted in her Oct. 14 testimony before the State Assembly’s Standing Committee on Education. She described receivership as a failed strategy that does not address the root problems of poverty, homelessness, learning disabilities and lack of English proficiency.

Instead, she said, receivership is really about neutralizing the union and giving management a freer hand to terminate teachers. “There’s a desire to privatize public schools and to nullify collective- bargaining agreements,” she said. “So that’s our frustration — this ultimately isn’t about making education better for these children.”

Ironically, Hinds pointed out, the Department of Education’s School Renewal Program, which the UFT supports, is already doing what the law would require of schools in receivership. The city’s 94 renewal schools have extended learning time and are all now community schools paired with nonprofit agencies that provide wraparound services.

The UFT vice president was among the more than two dozen educators, administrators, parents and teachers around the state who testified that struggling schools need more time and resources to turn around.

State Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia, who also testified, warned that the accelerated time lines and insufficient funding could thwart the statewide effort to improve struggling schools.

Under the law pushed through by Gov. Cuomo as part of this spring’s state budget package, schools that the state Department of Education has designated as “persistently struggling” have one year to show “demonstrable improvement” or face receivership and “struggling” schools have two years to improve. The state can strip the local school district of its control of schools in receivership and turn them over to an outside receiver.

The 144 schools statewide threatened with receivership, including 62 New York City schools, held public hearings during September and submitted turnaround plans to the state.

At the hearing, the UFT vice president called on the state to take a broader, more systematic approach to combating child poverty; reduce concentrations of high-need students in particular schools; expand success measures beyond test scores; and infuse struggling schools with additional support and resources.

“What our schools need to make them better is the investment of proper resources — not receivers,” she said.

Hinds contrasted Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s failure to provide the long-overdue $2.5 billion in school funding ordered by the courts in the settlement of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit to Mayor Bill de Blasio’s investment of $750 million in the city’s 94 renewal schools over three years to pay for academic supports and social services.

The receivership law made $75 million available statewide for “persistently struggling schools,” but set aside no funds for the many more “struggling” schools.