From the Daily News:Mayor Bloomberg vowed Wednesday the city will use students' test scores to decide if their teachers should get tenure - defying the Legislature and angering the union.
Bloomberg made the aggressive move in a speech in Washington as contract talks with the teachers union have stalled - and hundreds of millions of federal dollars hang in the balance.
"You can evaluate teachers on any criteria you want, just not on student achievement data," Bloomberg told an audience that included U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan. "That's like saying to hospitals: 'You can evaluate heart surgeons on any criteria you want - just not patient survival rates!'"
United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew reacted angrily to the plan, which would affect about 6,000 teachers this year.
"This really blew my mind today," Mulgrew said. "The state education commissioner and [Regents Chancellor] Merryl Tisch have both said publicly that the test scores are broken, and then the mayor stands up in public and says he wants to use the broken test scores to evaluate teachers."
The union last year persuaded the Legislature to pass a law barring the use of test scores in tenure decisions.
City lawyers say they found a loophole in the law - which expires in June - that allows them to use student performance to evaluate teachers who are up for tenure this year.
The mayor said he didn't consult with the union before going public with the plan. The UFT contract expired Oct. 31.
36 comments:
A wonderful photo. Beauty and the Beast.
I thought that was Pee Wee Herman!!!
the n.y.c. d.o.e. spends $20 BILLION per year to support the U.F.T, and attempt to educate or as some claim ,"to dumb down the students".
the cost per student is approximately $19,000 /year in the public system. a special education student costs
$45,000 to $70,000 per year.
have we gone insane to enable this over spending by our elected representatives ?
i bet Obama's taxpayer stimulus money will show up very soon in the U.S. d.o.e. bankroll .
"...and hundreds of millions of federal dollars hang in the balance."
- - -
For the turtle faced freak dwarf, that's what this is all about: money.
He came and screwed up the NYC school system and now intends to complete the destruction.
The only benefit is that the UFT, who supported his illegal third term, have just found out that the Commissar will screw them just as he screwed the electorate.
The big difference is that the UFT was a coconspirator in both screwings - its own and the voters'.
And, the UFT for years has joyfully participated, even demanded that the textbooks, curriculum, supervision, testing and grading be so damaged that as of now, the UFT couldn't organize an obedience school for dogs.
And they supported this defective parasite during his turn at the destruction.
Now, the very destruction is about to be used against the UFT and the teachers.
You know what?
Each deserves the very worst.
Taxpayer what you don't realize is that it's not the TEACHERS that did any wheeling and dealing, it was former UFT president Randi Weingarten. SHE was the one who sold out her members. She made quite a few deals that helped HER advance he career. She was also a good salewoman selling the contract to us for a vote as the best ever. The city also made sure teachers would be so desperate for raises by letting contracts expire for YEARS. I'll never forget several years ago right after a brutal contract negotiation, during a press conference Joel Klein leans over and KISSES Weingarten on the cheek! I knew then she was in bed with BloomKlein and WE were finished. Mulgrew is more of the same although I will say he does speak up once in while, mostly about test scores.
Each and every contract that was signed not only took away more rights of the teachers but gave more to the principals. Now Bloomass will say teacher's salaries have gone up 43% since he's taken over. But what he doesn't mention is that we now work longer days, so that's not much of a raise, is it?
And most teachers I know would gladly go back to the old salaries and end the systematic abuse BloomKlein have imposed on teachers.
Example:
A note from the DOE went home last week regarding under the No Child Left Behind Act, prents are entitled to find out their child's teacher's qualifications. Nothing wrong with that. No where on that letter did it mention how you could find out the school's administrator's qualifications. Do you know that the ass't principal at my school was hired at 28 years old! She is evaluating master teachers of 20 years plus! And let me tell you - she does NOT know more than them.
Ultimately I really believe this is all about money. And Bloomscum doesn't believe our students are worth spending any REAL money on experienced, qualified staff. Keep the schools a revloving door of educators. After all, who cares? Ways to save money:
1) Rid the system of veteran(expensive) staff
2) Make teaching so miserable, no one lasts more than 4 or 5 years.
3) Deny tenure as much as possible
Right now Bloomjerk wants to give the principals even MORE power to "excess" based on test scores and not seniority. Who do you think the principals will want to get rid of first?
Many of the administrators are graduates of the infamous "Leadership Academy", a basic boot camp for administrators to learn how to "shake up" their schools. Long time educators are a thing of the past.
It will take YEARS to undo the damage done by BloomKlein. This is only the beginning...
Taxpayer, Primmadonna is right. I worked a clerical job at the UFT for 4 years and can attest to many shocking things.
Do you know that New York City does not require principals to have any pedagogical background whatsoever?
When I was in kindergarten, the principal at my school had decades of in-classroom experience and a doctorate as well.
Now do you see why they need such new positions as lead-teachers to mentor the newbies?
In my day, that was the principal's job.
Also, how do test scores take into consideration such factors as self-selection as when the best students run into magnet schools and specialized schools and the neighborhood school is left with the dregs.
There have been scandals in some states where school officials intentionally tried to force marginal students out of school entirely or keep them from taking tests so as to artificially boost the scores.
I admit, I am a graduate of Our Lady of the Flying ruler, and sometimes I think those mean old nuns had a point, but our generation wouldn't look at them cross-eyed. Today the kids carry weapons.
Right on..."Primadonna"!
But there are some tenured
lifer-teachers that deserve to be purged from the system.
Once they get in you can't get rid of these bad few without a crowbar.
Where does it say in the US Constitution that you have a "right" to a public education?
Answer: Nowhere.
You see what's happening to public education? Now transfer that to the public delivery of mail. Have fun at the post office for the next 3 weeks. Can you imagine if we get public healthcare? Watch. There will be a United Federation of Doctors bitching and moaning.
"Since 'public property' [or anything] is a collectivist fiction, since the public as a whole can neither use no dispose of its 'property', that 'property' will always be taken over by some political 'elite', by a small clique which will rule the public - a public of literal, dispossessed proletarians." -Ayn Rand "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, p.128.
End public education.
Well that's what happens when the UFT blindly trusts "randy" Randi...Albert Shanker's old main squeeze!
Even the meager intelligence level that public education provides to the average voter so he or she can make somewhat wise choices at the polls is essential to running a successful republic.
Although I don't see much evidence of smart voting these days judging from the caliber of our elected officials.
Hey "George"...a question I've been meaning to ask you for awhile...have you ever collected NYS Unemployment Insurance benefits or are old enough to collect Social Security and Medicare?
Those are "socialist" programs, as we all know.
Do you suggest we cancel these "entitlements" too?
Put your money where your mouth is!
As a proud public school alumnus, from pre-K to grad school, I's like to tell the blog's resident atheist where he can put his ideas.
That being said, I also feel that the UFT has too much power, and needs to be checked.
After the last remnants of the Zyklon-B odors left the gas chambers, the guards opened the doors to dispose of the bodies. They always found the dead heaped onto a pyramidical pile. As they were being gassed, the strongest clawed their ways to the top to get the last breaths of fresh air. But they too eventually succumbed.
I graduated from the City College of New York in 1969. "Before". I received a "free" education. (The last month of the Spring semester, radical students shut the University down demanding "Open Admissions". The professors could not get to work. The students could not attend classes. Seared, seared, in my memory are chanting radicals behind padlocked gates at the entry to the South Campus. BTW, I was the recipient of a NYS Regents scholarship of $500/annum. The tuition was "free". The Taxpayers handed me "free" money. I made $ going to school!) I use the term graduated "before" because this was before the eventual institution of Open Admissions when standards began to deteriorate. See? I clawed my way up the pyramid before the effects of the gas intensified.
Now, entrying codgerdom, I am deciding whether to get early Social Security payouts or wait for a bigger chunk of change before the gas rises. Are their any financial advisors in the Crapper readership?
Excuse my foot on your face, but the air is fresher at the chamber's ceiling.
Primadonna and Anonymous, and other teachers who are offended when I blame the teachers also for the mess:
Since the 1960s, the public school system in NYC (as well as throughout the US) has been deteriorating at a rapid rate.
For nearly 50 years, teachers with various degrees have knowingly demanded a union based on the industrial factory union model.
Money, money, money.
The teachers have degraded themselves publicly for all these years. Dressing like slobs in the classroom, talking like drug addicts, promoting leftists politics and causes, joyfully allowing students to learn nothing.
Sister Mary Meanface had a skill and used it to teach. Teach and demand excellence. And the teaching and demanding bore results.
Sister Mary Meanface belonged to no union, was hated by union members for not being in a union. But, Sister Mary Meanface was successful and so were her students.
What has the UFT done for teachers or students?
What has this Commissar done for any teacher or student, or for the UFT, or for the NYC education system?
I have never considered education, either, public or private to be "free" but rather "prepaid."
In return for being educated and provided with skills to make honorable living, paid for by an older generation, the new graduate enters the workforce and through his taxes prepares the next generation.
It is a compact between the young and the old, a contract not to waste what others so generously provided.
I don't need Ayan Rand to tell me not to be a human sponge. My very traditional Catholic upbringing speaks to the duties of Corporal Mercy and the obligations of the individual towards the greater community.
"Duties"? "Obligations of the individual to the greater community"?
"'Duty' destroys reason: it supersedes one's knowledge and judgment, making the process of thinking and judging irrelevant to one's actions.
'Duty' destroys values: it demands that one betray or sacrifice one's highest values for the sake of an inexplicable command-and it transforms values into a threat to one's moral worth, since the experience of pleasure or desire casts doubt on the moral purity of one's motives.
'Duty' destroys love: who would want to be loved not from 'inclination', but from 'duty'?
'Duty' destroys self-esteem: it leaves no self to be esteemed."
-Ayn Rand "Philosophy: Who Needs It"
brilliant. get those lazy assed old tenured teachers out from behind the desk!
Ayn Rand's biggest disciple, Greenspan, did more to facilitate Rapscallions and Chancers than anyone else in the seventy years since our last Depression.
Duty sounds pretty good to me about now.
That's right. Cull the herd. So a younger batch of heifers can come down the chute.
Greenspan was an apostate to the Objectivist philosophy. Do some research.
Anonymous said...
"Right on..."Primadonna"!
But there are some tenured
lifer-teachers that deserve to be purged from the system.
Once they get in you can't get rid of these bad few without a crowbar."
Look, no one wants to get rid of bad teachers more than me. They make the work of the other teachers in their buildings that much harder.
The problem with BloomKlein's abusive policies is that it doesn't ultimately get rid of the bad teachers because that takes YEARS. It's getting rid of our GOOD teachers. The policies they've implemented stress ALL teachers out. And they're leaving -in droves usually for the suburbs or even other careers.
Bloomshit seems to equate older teachers with being bad teachers. In my experience, that's never been the case. They are mentor teachers that I've learned SO much from.
Picture this:
Imagine you're a teacher and you've been successfully teaching for 15 years. A brand new teacher, right of school, comes to work in your grade. Your principal can't stop gushing over her and makes you visit HER room every week to observe HER. Shouldn't it be the other way around? (Sidenote: New teachers are NEVER good because it takes years to get good). That's just one of Klein's policies to degrade veteran teachers, to make them feel like they are has-beens when they are far from it.
Taxpayer:
I don't know about the UFT in the sixties. Ever since I worked for the city, I've never seen any real benefit to being a member. I have never trusted any UFT rep in my school. I always felt they worked more for the principal than for us.
George:
Graduated college in 1969?
Groovy.
Does that make you like, 80?
No that would make him like 63.
I hope Primadonna doesn't teach math.
Crappy!
I was just joking. I know how old it makes him. Just trying to be annoying. :)
And I'm actually a really good math teacher BTW.
What? You got something against old, veteran, experienced, tried & true posters?
Primadonna-
Do you discriminate because of age? How sad... ;=(
George:
I've got nothing against experienced, veteran teachers. Only atheists.
DOMGG:
Sorry Pops. Older guys have never done it for me. Wouldn't want to give you a heart attack. lol
"...that would make him like 63."
He said he's thinking of getting early Social Security. So he's younger than 62. He may even be way under since he could have been a child prodigy when he attended college.
primadonna said..
"He may even be way under since he could have been a child prodigy when he attended college."
Yes. Shudda been Doogiegeorgetheatheist
Don't worry George, there's a lot to be said for old and experienced.
Sorry Pops. Older guys have never done it for me. Wouldn't want to give you a heart attack. lol
Don't worry about me, primadonna. Doc says I got the heart of a 70 year old!!!
Retirement benefits by year of birth
So he doesn't have to be younger than 62...
BLOOMBERG FOR TERMINAL CANCER PATIENT '09!!
DOMGG:
Be careful there Pops, you wouldn't wanna get the Mrs. jealous.
Anonymous said...
"BLOOMBERG FOR TERMINAL CANCER PATIENT '09!!:
Where can I sign up for this campaign?
primadonna said... Be careful there Pops, you wouldn't wanna get the Mrs. jealous.
You're gay? How disappointing. I'm a swingin' single!
i was a systems sales rep.with n.y.c. universities,colleges,medical schools,board of education(j.h.s. &h.s.) as my accounts.this period was 1963-1977.
i was finished installing a system at Hunter College in 1969.on the 14th floor.upon leaving ,i was told by a group of pot/heads that they had "captured" the elevators, and i would have to walk down, to leave the building.
there radical demands were taped all over the walls.
while descending the stairs rational students told me that a professor led student group of radicals ,had also "captured" the cafeteria.
outside, the n.y.p.d. had circled the building at Park ave. to Lexington ave. an officer told me that there orders were not to enter the building.
i was a Korean War vet 1952-56,and could not believe that this radicalism was being enabled by our authorities.
at n.y.u. and columbia ,the hardhat patriots gave the radicals a good whipping,until the n.y.p.d. saved the radical's butts.
thanks to RUDY G.and HERMAN BADILLO ,open admissions was stopped and now C.U.N.Y. seems to be reaching high standards again.
LIBERALISM IS AN ILLNESS......
DOMGG:
Hey Pops! People your age aren't supposed to discuss such things. And don't swing to hard, you might throw your back out or something.
P.S. Don't have a gay bone in my body.
Re: capturing elevators. What a shame a few big men who did not want to walk down 14 flights of stairs didn't grab a radical or two and toss them out the windows.
God forbid you had arthritic knees or a bad back, were you supposed to be trapped in the school?
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