The “Problematic” Language is Not the Only Part of the Agreement that is Problematic

Absent Teacher Reserve

In order to fully understand the insidious nature of the proposed contract’s ATR provisions it is necessary to break down the language.

1.    Definition.  An ATR is anyone in excess after the first day of school
who is not a para or OT/PT.
 

2.    Severance. A severance program is established in which an ATR can collect from 1 week of pay for 3 to 4 years of service up to 10 weeks of pay for ATRs with more than 20 years’ service. ATRs are only eligible for this program during a narrow 30 day window between 30 and 60 days of ratification of the contract.

Problematic:  If, as Mulgrew stated at the DA, the contract is approved by the first week of June this entire window will be in the summer.

3.    Interviews. Each year from September 15 through October 15 the DOE will make an effort to schedule interviews for ATRs with principals in their district/borough and license areas. After October 15 the ATRs may be sent to interviews. “An ATR that declines or fails to report to an interview, upon written request of it, two or more times without good cause shall be treated as having voluntarily resigned his/her employment.”

Problematic:  This provision is unprecedented. There is no limit placed on the number of interviews or the length of time that the 2 failures to report must be committed. Additionally since the language is “declines or fails” the DOE need only document two missed interviews and the burden shifts to the teacher to convince an arbitrator (while receiving no pay since the teacher has been determined to have voluntarily resigned) that she had “good cause” for not showing up. There is no provision for “expedited arbitrations” and it appears the challenge to the DOE action of forcible resignation must go through the grievance procedure. If a teacher misses the first interview how will the DOE determine if it was with or without good cause. Glaringly omitted is any procedure for this determination. Under the provisions of our current contract a teacher may be brought up on 3020-a charges for an allegation of two missed interviews without good cause. Assuming the DOE would even try to dismiss a teacher for failure to attend an interview there is not an arbitrator on our panel that would even consider dismissal for the most egregious violation. Rather the UFT has joined with the DOE to effectively terminate a tenured teacher’s employment without the protections of 3020-a. The resulting grievance would not be decided using 3020-a or its history of protections. While Mulgrew might say “so be it” as he stated at the recent DA he and anyone who votes for this contract is basically saying you will not be protected.

This same provision applies to an ATR assignment only under the proposed contract you have only one chance to fail to appear for the assignment within 2 days or you will be considered to have voluntarily resigned. Again, the only way, under the language of the proposed contract to challenge the DOE’s determination that a teacher has failed, without good cause, to have appeared within 2 days is by way of the grievance procedure where the burden is on the teacher to prove good cause to sustain the grievance.

4.    Assignment of ATRs. Two classes of ATRs are created under the contract proposal. One class, those ATRs who have a disciplinary history where by a finding or stipulation resulted in a suspension of 30 days or more or a fine of $2,000 or more and those who do not have such disciplinary history. Those with the discipline history are not required to be assigned to a temporary position (in other words left to the weekly humiliation of traveling as a sub from school to school).

Problematic:  While the anti-teacher animus of creating this distinction is patently obvious it is clearly a disciplinary distinction which causes those ATRs with a disciplinary history to be further disciplined without any cause. The stigma of a past disciplinary record (teachers settle cases for a variety of reasons having nothing to do with guilt or innocence) carries forward. There is no time limit for the disciplinary history. Civil Service Law prevents allegations (except criminal ones) over 3 years to be used as the basis of discipline in a termination hearing yet a case settled or found more than 3 years ago can put you in this class. This sends a message to the arbitrators that you are to be treated differently should you have a history.

It is no secret that many arbitrations end in some level of finding even where teachers are have been found to be innocent of the major charge. Arbitrators are political beings and are sensitive to these distinctions.

5.    Principal removal of ATR after assignment. Under the proposed contract a principal (not the teacher) has the complete discretion to return a teacher to the ATR pool. If the return is based on “problematic behavior,” defined as “behavior that is inconsistent with the expectations established for professionals working in school.” An ATR accused in two writings within two years of this “problematic behavior” may be accused of a “pattern of problematic behavior” which can become the basis of an “expedited 3020-a hearing” in which a hearing must be completed in one day (half day to each side) within 20 days that the teacher requests a hearing. The decision must be made within 15 days of the hearing date.
 

Problematic:  Under our present contract there is a provision for time and attendance expedited hearings under 3020-a. These expedited hearings may not result in termination and while they were problematic on their own the issues involved (as far as the charges were concerned) were clear; you were either at work or not. The explanations were generally unconvincing to Marty Scheinman (an arbitrator selected by the UFT for these expedited hearing) but as long as teachers knew they weren’t going to be terminated they reluctantly accepted either the agreement or decision.
 

The proposed contract goes over broad. What is considered problematic is itself problematic. After I researched the term problematic behavior in the case law I found references to special education students who brought IDEA cases against the DOE for failing to provide needed services. These students’ behavior was termed problematic. For a teacher I could find no case involving problematic behavior so the arbitrators are left to discern this provision without our rich history of 3020-a hearings as precedent or guidance. While the burden still rests on the DOE (it is, after all a 3020-a hearing) the expedited nature of the proceeding might and probably hurt an accused teacher. There are no time limits for the DOE to provide charges or serve the written statements of problematic behavior. Under the language of the proposal there is no clear right to grieve the first (or second, for that matter) written notice of problematic behavior. Clearly, by definition, ATRs will have no relationship with the school they have been determined to be problematic yet they (and their representatives) will be put on a crash course to prepare for the hearing which might end in the ATRs termination. While Mulgrew cited the phrase “justice delayed is justice denied” as an argument for the diminution of our 3020-a rights the fact is there is no justice in ramming through a hearing that the accused has no time or ability to defend. This is class Star Chamber procedure.
 

The acceptance of this procedure as a perceived benefit signals our union’s position in future contracts where it appears all teachers will “enjoy” the benefit of expedited and ill-defined termination proceedings.

This proposal is anathema to the good order of the teaching profession and must be completely understood before it is blindly accepted.

MULGREW MANGLES DEMOCRACY BEYOND RECOGNITION AT DA AS CONTRACT IS SENT TO MEMBERSHIP

It was a very sad day indeed in the history of democracy at the May Delegate Assembly.  The meeting was moved to the NY Hilton.  I am going to dispense with my usual lengthy summary of what President Mulgrew said because you've already seen most of it in the UFT propaganda literature or you will hear it when union representatives come to your schools.

Mulgrew made the case for the contract for over an hour and then doubled the question period to half an hour to speak some more.  He finally allowed for debate on the contract after 6:00 pm when there is an automatic adjournment at 6:15 p.m. His basic argument is that the city has no money for raises because former Mayor Bloomberg depleted the labor reserve. The one sided discussion was worse than even the usual DA mangling of democracy.  It was a complete sham.

After Mulgrew finally finished talking, one Unity person (majority caucus of the UFT which does not allow dissent) spoke in favor of sending the contract to the membership for ratification and then Mulgrew pointed to a second Unity member and that is when I sprung forward and called for a point of order.  As everyone who regularly reads this blog knows, debate is supposed to alternate between speakers for and against every topic according to Robert's Rules.  Since there was a speaker for the contract, there should be one against.  The Unity speaker was willing to yield the floor so Mulgrew gave it to me.

I had a thorough speech ready (see below) where I was about to go point for point to refute much of what Mulgrew said.  I started right out on the economics. 

"Up until two months ago at the DA, Mulgrew was telling us that the city has money but they always say they are broke.  I keep reading in the papers that the city surplus is growing."

(Mulgrew in February:
“We look at the city’s fiscal numbers all the time; it is clear to us that there is money out there. We need our teachers to be paid at least at the level of the school districts around us, which we are not.”)

I continued: "The city is not in bad shape financially so why are we settling for so little.  If we take out the 4% + 4% for the first two years that just equals the last pattern (and we won't see it until between 2015 and 2020), the pattern we set for the rest of municipal labor is 10% total over 7 years."  That is the worst pattern in municipal labor history (at least as long as I have been around)."  At this point, Mulgrew stopped me and said I was wrong.  I responded that according to Robert's Rules when I have the floor, he has no right to interrupt me. I also told him that I have an interpretation of what's in the agreement and so does he and that doesn't make me wrong.

Someone then called a point of order and said that during the question period we agreed that people would only get 30 seconds to ask a question so I was only entitled to the floor for 30 seconds and my time was up.  Mulgrew said I could make one more point and I responded by telling him that the 30 second rule was for the question period.  I also stated that I sat and listened to him politely for an hour motivating the contract and now it was my turn.  He claimed that was my one point and time was up.  I then proceeded to say that I wished I was being recorded (earlier he said UFT policy is no recording) because the entire membership should be permitted to see how he treats people who are dissidents.  There was fairly loud applause as I walked away. 

Maybe I should have stayed and further held my ground but I felt I blew away his no money argument and other people could handle some of the other issues as well or better than I could.

Unfortunately, they never had the chance.  The opposition's next speaker took his 30 seconds to point out how Mulgrew was wrong on his 30 second rule as it pertained to the question period.  We had one other Delegate who had the chance to speak.

Mulgrew then stopped the debate at exactly 6:15 p.m. and called for the vote.  The overwhelming Unity majority obeyed their caucus obligation and supported the contract.

Time allotted for contract discussion:

• Pro contract side talked for well over an hour. 

• The opposition was given about 3 minutes of which half of the time was spent trying to keep the floor and tell the president he was out of order.  Would you call that a fair debate?

I have written out the points I wanted to make and will instead make them here.  Below that is a statement on health care.  We don't have to make up anything about the contract.  It is bad enough to fall on its own.

Opposition to Contract 2014

This Contract is based on deferred payments. President Michael Mulgrew told us that we have had wages deferred before.  He mentioned a wage deferral from 1991(in an email).  Let’s go look at that deferral and compare it to the current proposal.  
 
Back in 1990 we had a union friendly mayor who gave us a one year pattern bargaining busting raise of 5.5% however the economy was about to go into recession and the city soon thereafter found itself in a cash crisis.  The city threatened to lay off thousands of teachers including me.  To bail the city out, the UFT agreed to loan part of our raise to the city.  In order for the city to get us to accept loaning them our money, they had to sweeten the deal.
 
In return for loaning the city much of our raise, we gained:
* An ironclad no layoff agreement
* The February midwinter recess (we used to work that week)
* The ability to retire directly after a sabbatical
* A very generous retirement incentive that gave people up to three years pension credit allowing those with thirty years in the system to leave as early as 52 years old 
* 9% interest on the loan when we got the money back in 1996.

Thanks to the majority of the members of this union who agreed that solidarity with our most vulnerable members like me was important, my job and the jobs of thousands of other teachers were saved.

Let’s fast forward to today where again we have a union friendly mayor but now we have been beaten down by corporate school reform for a long time.  The city again wants us to defer money. This time it is the 4% + 4% raises other unions got that we are owed since 2009. In addition we are setting the worst pattern in municipal union history that other city unions will have to swallow of 10% over 7 years. I look at the city budget and I don’t see a crisis.  I see surpluses but let’s accept the premise that the money is tight.

If unions accept less money, then what are the sweeteners in this deal for us?

* Changing the use of the 37.5 minutes.  By my count, the extended time provision has been reconfigured 6 times since it went into the contract in 2002.  What makes anyone think this change of two days of professional development and parent outreach will be better than the tutoring or other uses of extended time? It is not a gain. 
* Merit pay or career ladder.  The ambassador teacher, model and master teachers just creates different classes of teachers.  It flies in the face of union solidarity.  We are one union. Funny how there is money for merit pay and the hard to staff school differential but not for our raises. As for the argument that it isn't really merit pay, paying select teachers more than their peers is merit pay. Don't they need to be highly effective or effective which means it will be based in large part on student test scores? If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it usually is a duck. 
* We get a curriculum.  Not exactly a gain. We also now have to write unit plans.
* Up to 200 schools will be run like charter schools with short contracts.  I thought the UFT started a charter school to show how schools can succeed if they follow the contract. Now we want to run schools like charter schools without contracts.  
* Slightly altering Danielson but still basing our ratings in part on student test scores.  No gain there as now the whole lousy evaluation system is part of the contract.
* No interest on the deferred money unlike in 1991 when we got 9%.
* An insulting severance package for ATRs.
* Weaker tenure for ATRs.  Two documented occurrences of "problematic behavior" and we are in a 3020a hearing.  This provision divides the union into two types of membership; regular and ATR.  It’s antithetical to union  solidarity. We are one union; we should have one tenure system for all of us. If this new system for ATRs is so good like the President says, why not give it to everyone?  How can one argue this isn't worse than a major giveback? 

If we are deferring our money, where are the gains?  Where are the sweeteners?  All I see is the acceptance of the basic tenets of Bloombergism but tweaking them a bit. Those are not gains.

In 1990, The DA rejected a loan to the city and sent the Negotiating Committee back to the table to get a better offer.  They did.  In 1995 against a tough mayor, the membership rejected a contract and got a better offer a few months later that had a retirement incentive, a 25 year longevity reduced to 22 and a 5% reduction in new teacher pay was eliminated.  Where are our sweeteners now?
 
Yes these are tough times for unions and educators but this union has a choice: we can accept this contract which basically leaves the Bloomberg anti-teacher system in place or we can follow the lead of the teachers in Portland, Oregon and St Paul, Minnesota who have fought back and gotten better deals for their schools including lower class sizes.  The UFT did better in 1991 after this DA rejected an original loan proposal and we did better in 1995 when the membership voted down a contract. We can do better now. 

VOTE NO!


The contract is bad enough on its own.  We don't need to say anything that isn't true.  This is what UFT Welfare Fund Director Arthur Pepper said on healthcare.

Healthcare
Arthur Pepper reported that the UFT found the necessary savings the city wanted so there will be no effect on members.  We will have the same access to doctors, hospitals and the drug plan won't change.  There will be no premium for members.


Sadly Leroy Barr's mom passed away so our thoughts and prayers go out to Leroy and his family.

THE SALARY SCHEDULES

Here are the salary schedules in the proposed new contract.  It is truly back-loaded.  I could not recommend this. 

Chapter  (what's left of it) authorized me to vote no on this contract proposal at DA today. 

ATRS GO ON ENDANGERED SPECIES LIST IN NEW CONTRACT

I am going to print the entire portion of the MOA that concerns Absent Teacher Reserves.  It is worse than we thought; anybody in the ATR pool is at risk. ATRs could go the way of the dinosaur because of the Mulgrew-Farina agreement.

Here are the key two paragraphs:

If, within a school year or consecutively across school years, an ATR has been removed from a temporary provisional assignment to a vacancy in his/her license area by two different principals because of asserted problematic behavior, a neutral arbitrator from a panel of arbitrators jointly selected for this purpose (the panel presently consisting of Martin F. Scheinman, Howard Edelman and Mark Grossman) shall convene a §3020-a hearing as soon as possible.

Based on the written documentation described above and such other documentary and/or witness evidence as the employer or the respondent may submit, the hearing officer shall determine whether the ATR has demonstrated a pattern of problematic behavior. For purposes of this program, problematic behavior means behavior that is inconsistent with the expectations established for professionals working in schools and a pattern of problematic behavior means two or more instances in a vacancy in the ATR’s license area of problematic behavior within a school year or consecutively across school years. Hearings under this provision shall not exceed one full day absent a showing of good cause and the hearing officer shall issue a written decision within 15 days of the hearing date.

A one day hearing that can lead to dismissal after two incidents of "unprofessional behavior" that can occur over two consecutive school years. We are all at risk.  Don't think it can't happen to you.  Even if schools aren't closed, many will be downsized by the many charter co-locations coming.

This might just be the worst provision I have ever seen.  How could any union ever agree to this?

For an alternative idea, please read what we proposed a while back on this blog

The entire provision of the MOA is printed below in italics.  My commentary is in bold.

16. ABSENT TEACHER RESERVE      
For purposes of this agreement, ATRs shall be defined as all UFT-represented school based titles in excess after the first day of school, except paraprofessionals and occupational and physical therapists.
Severance Program
The employer shall offer a voluntary severance benefit (the “Severance Program”) to ATRs who volunteer to resign/retire and who execute an appropriate release in a form prescribed by the Board (DOE) and subject to legal requirements. 
  
The period during which ATRs may volunteer to separate from the DOE in accordance with the terms of the Severance Program shall commence on the 30th day and shall terminate at 5 p.m. on the 60th day following the Union’s ratification of this Agreement.   

Other than employees who have agreed in writing to resign from the DOE, employees who are ATRs as of June 1, 2014 who volunteer for the Severance Program shall receive a severance payment according to the following schedule:

One (1) week of pay for ATRs with three (3) years of service or more, but less than four (4) years of service, as of the date of ratification of this Agreement.
Two (2) weeks of pay for ATRs with four (4) years of service or more, but less than six (6) years of service, as of the date of ratification of this Agreement.
Three (3) weeks of pay for ATRs with six (6) years of service or more, but less than eight (8) years of service, as of the date of ratification of this Agreement.
Four (4) weeks of pay for ATRs with eight (8) years of service or more, but less than ten (10) years of service, as of the date of ratification of this Agreement.
Five (5) weeks of pay for ATRs with ten (10) years of service or more, but less than twelve (12) years of service, as of the date of ratification of this Agreement. 
Six (6) weeks of pay for ATRs with twelve (12) years of service or more, but less than fourteen (14) years of service, as of the date of ratification of this Agreement.
Seven (7) weeks of pay for ATRs with fourteen (14) years of service or more, but less than sixteen (16) years of service, as of the date of ratification of this Agreement.
Eight (8) weeks of pay for ATRs with sixteen (16) years of service or more, but less than eighteen (18) years of service, as of the date of ratification of this Agreement.
Nine (9) weeks of pay for ATRs with eighteen (18) years of service or more, but less than twenty (20) years of service, as of the date of ratification of this Agreement.
Ten (10) weeks of pay for ATRs with twenty (20) years of service or more, as of the date of ratification of this Agreement. For purposes of this Severance Program, one week of pay shall be defined as 1/52nd of an ATR’s annual salary.

In the event that any ATR who volunteers to participate in the Severance Program returns to service with the DOE, the ATR shall repay the severance payment received pursuant to the above within six (6) months of the ATR’s hiring to such position, through payroll deductions in equal amounts. This repayment provision shall not apply to ATRs who return to work as day-to-day substitute teachers. 
Translation: This is a lousy severance package. Up to 20% of one year's pay to quit.  Not exactly enticing.

Interviews 
During the period September 15, 2014 through October 15, 2014 (and during the same period in each subsequent year to the extent this ATR Program is continued as set forth below), the employer will arrange, to the greatest extent reasonably possible, for interviews between ATRs and schools with applicable license-area vacancies within the district or borough to which the ATR is assigned. After October 15, ATRs may continue, at the DOE’s discretion, to be sent to interviews within the district or borough for applicable license-area vacancies. An ATR that declines or fails to report to an interview, upon written notice of it, two or more times without good cause shall be treated as having voluntarily resigned his/her employment. 

If you miss two interviews, you're done.  Who documents whether someone showed up or not? 
When an ATR is selected by a principal for a permanent placement in either the district or borough, the ATR shall be assigned to fill the vacancy in his/her license area, be placed on the school’s table of organization and take his/her rightful place in seniority order. Schools may continue to hire ATRs on a provisional basis consistent with existing agreements between the parties. An ATR that fails to accept and appear for an assignment within two (2) work days of receiving written notice of the assignment without good cause shall be treated as having voluntarily resigned his/her employment.

Two work days to show up for an assignment or you have resigned.  I guess email notice is written notice.  Good luck if a computer breaks down.  There are so many botched communications with the DOE and now we are responsible. For example, sometimes a principal wants to keep someone and tells them to stay put but the officials placing people have a different idea.  Who are we supposed to listen to? 

Any school that selects an ATR for a permanent placement will not have that ATR’s salary included for the purpose of average teacher salary calculation. 

For how long?
 
ATRs in Districts 75 and 79 shall be sent for interviews only in the same borough, within their respective district, as the school to which they were previously assigned.
  
ATRs in BASIS shall be sent for interviews only in the same borough as the school to which they were previously assigned.

Assignments of ATRs
After October 15, 2014, ATRs, except those who have been penalized (as a result of a finding of guilt or by stipulation) in conjunction with §3020-a charges with a suspension of 30 days or more or a fine of $2,000 or more, will be given a temporary provisional assignment to a school with a vacancy in their license area where available. The DOE, at its sole discretion, may choose to assign ATRs to a temporary provisional assignment who have been penalized (as a result of a finding of guilt or by stipulation) in conjunction with §3020-a charges with a suspension of 30 days or more or a fine of $2,000 or more. 

DOE discretion on whether or not to assign someone who was not dismissed in a 3020A hearing. Some ATRs won't be assigned.  For everyone else, whatever happened to the so called mutual consent doctrine that never existed but is touted?

The DOE shall not be required to send more than one ATR at a time to a school per vacancy for a temporary provisional assignment. These assignments will first be made within district and then within borough.  For purposes of the ATR Program, ATRs shall also be given temporary provisional assignments to cover leaves and long term absences within their license area within district and then within borough.  ATRs in Districts 75 and 79 shall be given temporary provisional assignments only in the same borough, within their respective district, as the school to which they were previously assigned.  
 
All temporary provisional assignments for an ATR in BASIS will be within the same borough as the school to which they were previously assigned.

It is understood that at any time after a temporary provisional assignment is made, a principal can remove the ATR from this assignment and the ATR will be returned to the ATR pool and be subject to the terms and conditions of employment then applicable to ATRs pursuant to the parties’ collective bargaining agreement(s).

We can be removed from a school at the whim of the principal.

If a principal removes an ATR from an assignment to a vacancy in his/her license area because of problematic behavior as described below and the ATR is provided with a signed writing by a supervisor describing the problematic behavior, this writing can be introduced at an expedited §3020-a hearing for ATRs who have completed their probationary periods, as set forth below.

Problematic behavior is a very vague term even when it is described below.

If, within a school year or consecutively across school years, two different principals remove an ATR who is on a temporary provisional assignment to a vacancy in his/her license area for problematic behavior and provide the ATR with a signed writing describing the problematic behavior, the ATR shall be subject to discipline up to and including discharge as provided below. The ATR will be returned to the ATR pool pending completion of the expedited ATR §3020-a procedure set forth below.

Two letters documenting problematic behavior from two principals within two years and we are up before an expedited termination hearing.

An ATR who has been placed back in the ATR pool will be in the rotation to schools unless he/she is again offered a temporary provisional assignment at another school.  Rotational assignments or assignments to a school (as opposed to a vacancy in his/her license area) shall not form the basis of an incident of problematic behavior as described herein.

What?

To the extent that the provisions of this section conflict with the provisions of the Memorandum of Agreement dated June 27, 2011, the provisions of this section shall govern.

ATR §3020-a Procedure
If, within a school year or consecutively across school years, an ATR has been removed from a temporary provisional assignment to a vacancy in his/her license area by two different principals because of asserted problematic behavior, a neutral arbitrator from a panel of arbitrators jointly selected for this purpose (the panel presently consisting of Martin F. Scheinman, Howard Edelman and Mark Grossman) shall convene a §3020-a hearing as soon as possible.

They already have the hanging judges ready to execute us.

Based on the written documentation described above and such other documentary and/or witness evidence as the employer or the respondent may submit, the hearing officer shall determine whether the ATR has demonstrated a pattern of problematic behavior. For purposes of this program, problematic behavior means behavior that is inconsistent with the expectations established for professionals working in schools and a pattern of problematic behavior means two or more instances in a vacancy in the ATR’s license area of problematic behavior within a school year or consecutively across school years. Hearings under this provision shall not exceed one full day absent a showing of good cause and the hearing officer shall issue a written decision within 15 days of the hearing date.
The parties agree that in order to accomplish the purpose of establishing an expedited §3020-a process, the following shall serve as the exclusive process for §3020-a hearings for ATRs that have been charged based on a pattern of problematic behavior in accordance with this agreement. 
- The ATR shall have ten (10) school days to request a hearing upon receipt of the §3020-a charges;

-  At the same time as the ATR is charged, the Board (DOE) will notify the UFT as to where the ATR is assigned at the time charges are served; - The employer shall provide the Respondent all evidence to be used in the hearing no more than five (5) school days after the employer receives the Respondent’s request for a hearing; - Within five (5) school days of receipt of the employer’s evidence, the Respondent shall provide the employer with any evidence the Respondent knows at that time will be used in the hearing; - The hearing shall be scheduled within five to ten (5-10) school days after the exchange of evidence is complete; - The hearing time shall be allocated evenly between the parties, with time used for opening statements, closing statements and cross- examination allocated to party doing the opening statement, closing statement or cross-examination and with time for breaks allocated to the party requesting the break; - The hearing officer shall issue a decision within 15 days of the hearing date. 
 
For the purposes of charges based upon a pattern of problematic behavior under this section only, if the DOE proves by a preponderance of the evidence that the ATR has demonstrated a pattern of problematic behavior the hearing officer shall impose a penalty under the just cause standard up to and including discharge. 

All hearing officer fees in excess of the SED rate shall be shared equally by the parties. 
It is understood that allegations of conduct which would fall within the definition of sexual misconduct or serious misconduct as defined in the applicable collective bargaining agreements shall be addressed through the existing process in Article 21(G) of the Teachers CBA and corresponding articles of other UFT-BOE CBAs.   
 
Term 
This agreement with respect to the absent teacher reserve (referred to above as the “ATR Program”) shall run through the end of the 2015-16 school year.  At the end of that term, the parties must agree to extend the ATR Program and absent agreement, the parties shall return to the terms and conditions for ATR assignment as they exist in the 2007-2009 collective bargaining agreement(s) and memoranda of agreement entered into prior to ratification of this Agreement.  
The parties agree and understand that the due process protections provided in this provision shall modify the provisions of Education Law § 3020-a and any other agreements between the parties.  

MOA ON EDUCATION ISSUES OUT; FOR WAGES IT SAYS TBD

We can now finally see the education part of the Memorandum of Agreement.  All I can say is that it is difficult and convoluted reading and I am outraged over the weakening of tenure for Absent Teacher Reserve.  I truly am in fear for my job as my school will close in June so I will soon be an ATR.

MULGREW EMAIL AND EXEC BD UPDATE

The Executive Board voted for the contract tonight without seeing it but the New Action people asked to table it and then voted against the contract they never saw.

I am posting below in its entirety the email President Mulgrew sent out earlier today.

Two points are clear from reading this:

1-The UFT is going to argue that the city had no money in spite of major surpluses. Mulgrew stated directly, "The cupboard was bare."  That is difficult to swallow when each day we hear about the city surplus growing.

2-The retro money will be compounded but without any interest. Some have said that there would be interest but it wasn't mentioned by the President in this email.



Dear James,

I'm pleased to report that the Municipal Labor Committee, the umbrella group representing New York City's 350,000 municipal workers, voted overwhelmingly today to approve the health care savings program.

The city and its municipal unions will convene a joint citywide healthcare committee that will work collaboratively and transparently to identify ways to deliver health care more efficiently and streamline administration of benefits for all city workers.  All the municipal union presidents feel confident that this program will meet the agreed-upon savings targets without diminishing city workers' health care benefits.

With the health care piece in place, we can now move forward with our contract ratification process.  Our previous mayor tried to make it impossible for the next administration to give educators the raises they deserve.  Michael Bloomberg set aside no money in the city budget to pay for the two 4 percents for 2009 and 2010 that other city workers received.  Over the five long years that Bloomberg refused to negotiate the cost of paying out those raises ballooned.  That's the budget that Mayor Bill de Blasio inherited. The cupboard was bare.

Despite that virtually empty labor reserve, we figured out a way forward with our new mayor, who was a willing and respectful negotiating partner. By agreeing to stretch out the retroactive payments and raises, we made our members whole and at the same time won significant raises in the contract's later years.  Without the delay, we could not have achieved either.  At the end of the day, UFT members will get more money in their pockets.

The phase-in of the retroactive raises has no bearing on the final amount of retro payments you'll receive.  All in-service and retired members will receive 100 percent of the money they are entitled to, compounded back to Nov. 1, 2009, by 2020.

The way this contract handles the retroactive raises is not unusual.  What is unusual is the recklessness of the previous mayor, who ignored the city's largest union local and allowed such an enormous retroactive debt to build up.  Bloomberg's plan failed: We now have a proposed contract that pays members every dollar they would have earned if they had received their raises when other city workers did.

Here's the bottom line: With this landmark proposed settlement, UFT members will get every penny they earned and a total of 18 percent in pay increases over a nine-year period that includes the worst recession this country has experienced since the Great Depression.

We will be posting the Memorandum of Agreement, once it's finalized, and additional information, including FAQs, in our special Contract 2014 section.

Sincerely,

Michael Mulgrew

NO MEMORANDUM OF AGREEMENT FOR UFT CONTRACT TONIGHT

We thought we would be able address some of the many questions that have been raised about the proposed new UFT contract but it will have to wait until Tuesday.  I spoke to a UFT officer a little while ago and he told me the official Memorandum of Agreement (actual wording of the changes to our contract) will not be available until tomorrow. 

The UFT told Chapter Leaders and Delegates they would post the MOA at UFT.org as soon as it is ready. 

Since the UFT Executive Board is meeting tonight, I guess they will vote on the document without looking at it the same way the Negotiating Committee did last Thursday.

I would not be surprised if they approve it without looking at it because the Executive Board is made up primarily of members of the Unity Caucus: the invitation only group that has run the UFT since the 1960s.  To be accepted into Unity, one must sign a pledge to support the positions of the caucus in public and union forums.  They allow no dissent. 

After the Executive Board approves the contract, it will go before representatives from the schools called the Delegate Assembly. The DA - made up of all of the Chapter Leaders and Delegates - will meet at the midtown Manhattan Hilton on Wednesday to vote on the contract. The DA is also made up mostly of people who have joined Unity as it is the ticket to union jobs and free trips to union conventions. Members should try to find out if their Chapter Leader is a member of Unity because if they are, then they are obligated to support the contract.

In the next couple of weeks an army of union officials will be invading the schools to sell the contract. UFT members need to understand that these people work for the union and are accountable to President Mulgrew.  They are there to push the contract and members must not be afraid to ask them detailed questions.

Ultimately, the membership has the power to either say yes or no.  If we say yes, we live with what we voted for.  If we say no, it does not mean a strike.  It means we think we can do better. However, just saying we think we can do better is not enough.  Members will need to mobilize themselves to get a decent contract.

For further information, go to the Movement of Rank and File Educators' website to read Mike Shirtzer's view.

People can also go to NYC Educator to hear from Francis Lewis High School Chapter Leader Arthur Goldstein.

My former colleague at Jamaica is the blogger called Chaz and there is also Perdido Street School.

There are many other bloggers and social media where you can turn to for opinion including the UFT facebook page.

.

NEW UFT CONTRACT: RETRO DELAYED = RETRO DENIED WHILE ABSENT TEACHER RESERVES HAVE TENURE WEAKENED

Four members of the Movement of Rank and File Educators (MORE) sat through a propaganda love fest this afternoon as UFT Chief Financial Officer Dave Hickey, Staff Director Leroy Barr and then President Michael Mulgrew explained our new contract to rousing applause from the Unity/New Action faithful on the negotiating committee. Now that the contract is done there is no need to be confidential.

I asked the President to show us a copy of the Memorandum of Agreement but there was none.  However, the UFT machine is spinning faster than any Wascomat washing machine.

UFT members in the new contract will get the 4 % + 4% salary increases that other city workers unions received back in 2009 and 2010, but we won't see the money until 2015-2020.

For the seven years from 2011 to 2018, where the UFT will set the pattern for raises that other city unions will now follow, we will be getting a total of 10% in raises for seven years plus a $1,000 signing bonus.  That works out to less than 1.5% per year.

Specifically, this is how the CFO crunched the numbers:

2009-2010 = 4% raise
2010-2011 = 4% raise
2011-2012 = 0% raise but we will get a $1,000 signing bonus if we ratify the contract.
Nov 2012- April 2013 = 0% raise
May 1, 2013 = 1% raise
May 1, 2014 = 1% raise
May 1, 2015 = 1% raise
May 1, 2016 = 1.5% raise
May 1, 2017 = 2.5% raise
May 1, 2018 = 3.0% raise *Update February 14, 2015-This final 3% raise will be deferred to June 16, 2018 to help pay for retiree lump sum payments.*
Total: 18% (compounded it will be a little more)

For those of you expecting to go back in the fall and at least have the 4%+4% added to your pay, forget it.

The 4 % + 4% that other unions received in 2009-10 will not be added to our pay until the increases kick in one year at a time starting in 2015.  Here is how the 8% will be added in:

May 1, 2015 = 2%
May 1, 2016 = 2%
May 1, 2017 = 2%
May 1, 2018 = 2%

All we get added to our salaries now if we ratify is 1% for 2013 followed by 1% for 2014 and the $1,000 bonus.

The 8% won't be added to our salaries fully until 2018 and the retroactive money the city owes us since 2009 won't be coming soon either.  Here is the schedule for the retroactive payments:

October 1, 2015- 12.5% lump sum
October 1, 2016 - Nothing
October 1, 2017 - 12.5% lump sum
October 1, 2018 - 25% lump sum
October 1, 2019 - 25% lump sum
October 1, 2020 - 25% lump sum

We will not be made "whole" for Bloomberg denying us the raises that other city unions got 5 years ago until 2020. 

Thanks to inflation, Retro delayed is really Retro denied!

UPDATE-Anyone who Retires Before July 1, 2014 Wins Big
The winners in this deal are anyone who retired from 2009 through now and anyone else who retires prior to July 1, 2014.  They will get all of their retro pay calculated and get it at once.  People who already retired will have their pensions recalculated as well as receiving retro payments for the time they worked. 

At the Negotiating Committee they said retirees up to June 30, 2015 get retroactive upon retirement, but this is what is on the UFT website now.

Retroactive money for the 4 percent raises in 2009 and 2010: Those who retire on or before June 30, 2014 will receive full retroactive pay for time worked in a lump sum. Those who retire after June 30, 2014 and employees who have been continuously employed and are in active service as of the date of the payout will receive retroactive pay in five lump-sum payments of roughly 12.5 percent in October 2015, 12.5 percent in October 2017, 25 percent in October 2018, 25 percent in October 2019 and 25 percent in October 2020.

Anyone who retires July 1, 2014 or after will get the deferred payments the same way as active personnel and will be waiting until 2020 to be made "whole".

Only people who resigned or were terminated won't get retro.

Top salary now $100,049 will crawl up to $119,565 by May (updated to June) of 2018.

President Mulgrew arrived at around 5:20 pm after hanging around at the mayor's press conference and here are some of the other details he let out.

Some union had to settle first and it was us.

Here is a breakdown of some of the non-economic issues.

Evaluations:
We will go down from being rated on 22 Danielson components to 8.  (No word on the number of observations.)  Artifacts are out.

On Measures of Students Learning if we want, we will only be graded based on students we teach.

Paperwork:
The DOE and UFT agreed to set up (yet another) Committee on excessive paperwork.  This one will be half UFT and half DOE with a mediator.  Cases can also be taken to arbitration.

Extended Time
No additional time added to the day. The extended time, faculty, grade/department conferences, open school night time will be reconfigured.  We will work two extra open school evenings which will go from 2.5 to 3 hours.

There will be a default schedule on how to use the extended time each week and preapproved School Based Options.

Multi session, District 75 and 79 schools will keep their current time schedules.

Curriculum
Each core subject will have a curriculum that we must use.  Unit plans will be no longer than a page.

Merit Pay
There will be a career ladder i.e. merit pay.
Ambassador teachers will earn $7,500 more to visit other schools.
Model teachers will earn $7,500 more to be model teachers at their own schools.
Master teachers will earn $20,000 to help other teachers.

PROSE Innovative Schools
Schools can opt in with a 65% vote to cancel major parts of the contract.  This can be up to 200 schools.

ATRs
Absent Teacher Reserves must show up for interviews.  ATRs will be sent to vacancies in schools.  There will be no termination for time in the ATR pool but there is an offer of a severance package.

If two principals document unprofessional behavior, the documentation can be used for a special 3020A process just for ATRS.  This will not be for performance and it will be a one day hearing which could lead to termination.

Schools will be forgiven for ATR salaries.

Bonus
$5,000 will go to teachers who go to a hard to staff school.

Healthcare
There is a healthcare cost savings plan from the Municipal Labor Committee that must be approved. (We don't know how the cost savings will be achieved but we will keep our basic plans for free.)

Validators
For teachers rated ineffective, the validators sent in the second year to validate an ineffective rating will now be educators: teachers and administrators.

Where is the Memorandum of Agreement?
I asked the president when we would be seeing the full Memorandum of Agreement in writing.  He said he didn't know but Staff Director Leroy Barr said it would be out soon.  Mulgrew asked for a motion to recommend the contract for approval.  I abstained as I would never vote on something I haven't seen.  The Unity faithful followed their caucus obligatons and all voted in the affirmative while the New Action people went along with Unity too.  The other MORE members abstained silently during the vote but I screamed out for my abstention to be counted.


VERY BRIEF ANALYSIS
I leave it to you to decide what we should do.  I tried to keep the adjectives to a minimum in this piece and just report what was said.

We couldn't lose on the 4% + 4% because of pattern bargaining (one city union settles on a percentage salary increase and all the unions follow that pattern) but allowing the city stretch it out so that money we were owed since 2009 won't be fully paid back until 2020 really lets the city off the hook.

As for setting the pattern of 10% over 7 years, this is an abysmally low pattern to establish (we did better monetarily under the anti union Mayors Bloomberg and Guilliani).  I can understand why other labor unions in the city are angry with Mulgrew, particularly when it is considered how much surplus revenue the city has.  We should have been able to achieve non monetary gains for loaning the city our money and setting a very low pattern but instead we surrendered as usual. 

The devil will be in the details on the ATR agreement but I see this contract as a real missed opportunity.  Here's hoping the members will ignore the Unity spin cycle and see through it.

TIMES REPORTS UFT IS CLOSE TO A CONTRACT

Here is a link to the NY Times piece on our contract possibly being settled.  I know nothing more than what is in this article which claims that the UFT will be signing a nine year contract with retroactive pay and health savings for the city that will not cause us to pay for our basic plans.  We  will have commentary as soon as we hear more details.  For now, here is an excerpt from the Times piece:

The agreement would include retroactive pay equivalent to roughly 8 percent of salaries, annual raises of up to 2 percent a year and substantial savings for the city on health coverage, according to one official involved in the talks.

 

Three officials who insisted on anonymity because the deal had not been made final or announced said it could be disclosed at City Hall on Thursday; one official said the two sides would announce a nine-year contract.

 

Mr. de Blasio has cleared his schedule for the day, a mayoral spokesman said, postponing a long-planned major announcement about his affordable-housing plan.

 

One teachers’ union official said: “We’re just finalizing the language. It could be very soon.”

 

But officials warned that there could be last-minute snags because other municipal unions were weighing in with complaints that the raises given the teachers — which will probably set a pattern for the other unions — were too small and should be higher. Those pressures could cause some changes of the terms of the teachers’ deal.

OPT OUT MOVEMENT GROWS AT HS LEVEL

Support the First High School Teachers to Join

Growing Opt Out Movement in New York City!!!!

 

On Thursday, May 1, 2014, we, the teachers and school staff, at the International High School at Prospect Heights are refusing to give the NYC English Language Arts Performance Assessment Exam.  We are standing in solidarity with the more than 50% of our parents who have opted their students out of taking the test. 

 

Please support the teachers and staff members who have joined together to abstain from administering a test we we believe is harmful to English Language Learners (ELLS).  We are not willing to sacrifice the trust of our students, their feelings of self worth, and our professional duty to do what is best for them. In good conscience, as educators dedicated to the learning of our students and the welfare of our school communities, we are not administering this test. 

 

We ask that Chancellor Carmen Fariña remove the New York ELA Performance Exam in favor of an assessment created by educators who best know the individual needs of their students and classrooms.

 

Ways to support the staff at the International High School at Prospect Heights:

 

●      Sign a Pledge of Support atStandupoptout.wordpress.com

 

●      Send a Photograph with a Physical Sign or Message of Support to afeingoldshaw@gmail.com.

 

●      Join our Press Conference on May 1st at 8:00 AM at 883 Classon Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11225

 

MAYOR DE BLASIO AND CHANCELLOR FARIÑA SHOULD LISTEN TO TEACHER WISHES WHEN PLACING EXCESSED TEACHERS

Even though I am on the UFT's 300 person Contract Negotiating Committee, I have no, repeat no, inside information to share on what is going on in the day-to-day negotiations between the UFT and the city and the Board of Education (AKA the Department of Education or DOE).  Negotiations are conducted behind closed doors between top union, city and DOE officials. The Committee is updated regularly and told to keep things confidential.

I am not letting out any negotiating details here but I would like to comment on a recent piece that appeared in the Wall Street Journal on AbsentTeacher Reserves.  My purpose here is also to propose a realistic method to place ATRs and if readers like it, consider taking it to the UFT. 

The tone of the Journal article seems to favor putting a time limit on how long someone can stay in the Absent Teacher Reserve pool without a permanent position before he/she is terminated.  This issue has been raised in contract negotiations and in the State Legislature on three separate occasions in the last decade and the city lost each time it attempted to fire tenured personnel without due process.  I want to believe the new Mayor and Chancellor would rather move on and discuss the best way to place the ATRs and not how to get rid of us (I will be an ATR at the end of June).

UFT members and assistant principals become ATRs because their schools are closed or downsized or they win in a dismissal hearing after the DOE tries to fire them.  The huge growth of the ATR pool was created by the 2005 UFT contract which stopped preferred placement for teachers when schools were closed or automatic placement if a program was downsized.  Instead of being placed, teachers and other UFT titles now become highly paid substitutes (ATRs) until a school principal accepts them.  ATRs stayed in a single school from year to year until 2011 but since that time they have been forced to accept weekly rotation to different schools as per an agreement between the city and UFT that avoided teacher layoffs.

As I am a Chapter Leader of a closing school, I constantly receive emails, texts and phone calls whenever an anti-teacher publication like the Wall Street Journal writes a new fantasy piece saying a time limit for ATRs to find a new job or be fired is up for consideration at the negotiating table or should be on the table.  Here is my response:

No viable union leadership, not even the UFT's who I often disagree with, would allow layoffs (which is essentially what a time limit for ATRs would be) to be determined based on whose place of employment (school) was closed or downsized or who beat dismissal charges.

The anti-teacher/anti-union press and organizations that want to privatize public education and break the UFT completely keep bringing the ATR issue up because they want to turn teaching into a job where teachers can be fired at will without any need for cause. They have been unsuccessful in New York for a decade but it does not mean they will give up.  The fact that the media continues to try to make firing ATRs without due process an issue, when in my opinion it has virtually no chance of becoming a reality, shows how far journalism has descended these days when it comes to education.

The UFT contract has gone to non-binding fact finding arbitration as per state law on four occasions including now.  One such arbitration panel proposed a settlement for the 2005 contract that the UFT for some inexplicable reason agreed was reasonable. 

The 2005 arbitrators gave the city much of what it wanted including a longer school day, a longer school year, the end of a UFT member's right to file a grievance on a disciplinary letter for file based on its fairness or accuracy, the return of teachers to involuntary cafeteria and hall duty, weaker due process, an end to seniority and school based option transfers, an end to preferred placement for UFT members if a school was closed, an end to guaranteed placement if someone was placed in excess and more givebacks. 

However after just about conceding the entire store to the city, the arbitrators specifically rejected the city's proposal to have a time limit for people placed in excess to find a new job or be terminated.  Here is the actual language from 2005:

"Fourth, the City/DOE has recommended that an excessed teacher who does not find a new position within 18 months of being excessed be terminated from the system.  We specifically reject this proposal." (page 45; 2005 Fact Finding Report, bold added by me)

Since the Chancellor at the time, Joel Klein, believed that principals should be the sole judges as to who works in their schools, preferred placement for people from closing schools, a part of the previous contract, was ended and instead people in excess had to spruce up their resumes and look for a job.  If they were not successful, they became Absent Teacher Reserves.

ATR status is an indignity that to my knowledge is exclusive to educators.  It is only UFT members and assistant principals among public employees in New York State that have to pound the pavement to find a new job after their place of work closes or is downsized.

When firehouses close, do the firefighters have to knock on other fire house doors to find a new position?

When there are corruption problems and the NYPD cleans out entire precincts, do the clean cops, who just happened to work where there were major issues, have to go to other captains with their resumes to find a job?

It is only the educators. 

In 2006 Joel Klein took a second bite at the firing the ATRs apple in contract negotiations.  This time Klein and the UFT agreed to a voluntary buyout proposal for ATRs but he never offered much of a buyout so it never happened.

Then, former Mayor Bloomberg knew he wouldn't get anywhere at the bargaining table, as the issue was resolved twice in contract negotiations, so he tried to go to Albany in 2011 to change civil service law since New York State law uses reverse seniority for layoffs and time limits for ATRs would violate the law.  At that time Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver refused to allow a bill to change reverse seniority layoffs for NYC teachers to come to the Assembly floor. It was dead on arrival.  That's three failed bites at the firing the excessed teachers apple for the city.

What has changed since then? If anything, the political tide has moved more in labor's favor with the election of a more union friendly mayor. 

In addition, it must be pointed out how even though UFT leaders might not be the greatest union officials on the planet, they are not stupid.  In Chicago and DC where teacher unions agreed to put a time limit on teachers to find a job after a school was closed or downsized, those union leaders ended up being defeated in subsequent elections.

The Murdoch publications (Wall Street Journal-NY Post), the Daily News, Chalkbeat, Campbell Brown, and all of the astro-turf organizations that hate public schools and unions can waste another ton of paper and lots of internet bandwidth saying how we need to fire teachers who can't get a principal to agree to hire them but can anyone see any circumstances where teachers would ever agree to such conditions?

If the new mayor and his team are going to take a fourth bite at the firing the ATR apple as the Journal reported former Mayor Bloomberg was trying to do in fact finding, it would be a huge insult to teachers and unions. We hope that the current Mayor and Chancellor are more enlightened and will move in another direction.

Seniority rights are a basic union principle.  If the DOE wants to terminate a tenured teacher, they have to go through the legally mandated 3020A process, which still exists although it certainly is weaker under the new teacher evaluation law.

The only question that should be on the table now is how to get the ATRs back in the classroom.

As most readers of this blog know, I come from Jamaica High School: a closing school.  My anecdotal numbers on ATR hiring are mostly based on Jamaica and also come from friends from other closing schools.

I only know of about four or five teachers who were hired permanently from the ATR pool in the last couple of years.  Everyone else found a provisional position to cover a vacancy/replace someone who went on a leave or they were not hired. A few of the provisional hires were kept but many were not and are back in the ATR pool.  I know of no senior ATRS with over 20 years in the system, whose schools were closed, who have found a permanent job in another school.

Principals were offered generous subsidies to accept ATRs permanently (they only had to pay half of a beginning teacher salary for eight years from their budgets) in a 2008 ATR Agreement between the DOE and UFT but it did not eliminate the ATR pool. I do not agree that if they change funding to go back to charging principals an average of all of a district's teachers that it will eliminate the ATR pool as some people are hoping. The 2008 subsidies didn't work because many principals do not want too many senior people in their schools, regardless of cost.

If a principal were to hire someone like me with twenty-eight years experience, I would take my rightful place on the school's seniority list and probably be one of the senior people in that school in the Social Studies Department.  If that school then was downsized due to decreased enrollments or there was a budget cut (always a possibility), the Principal would be stuck with me and have to place into excess a newer teacher.  I understand why principals would want to protect their junior people who will more than likely not be tenured and can be made to do whatever administration wants (for example pass every student) as opposed to someone like me who might have some problems with that.

Senior educators who can retire within a few years provide a good check on excessive administrator behavior and should be seen as valuable integrity people who can blow the whistle on wrongdoing without fear of reprisal.  I understand how we could be seen as dangerous to certain principals who want to play with statistics to make themselves look good. Schools will need substantial incentives to hire educators who could be seen as a threat to principal power over their fiefdoms  schools.

Just as Winston Churchill once said that democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others, seniority is the worst method to base hiring/layoff decisions except for all the others.  We have no meritocracy in the school system so basing hiring/firing solely on administrator judgment would not improve education.  On the contrary, it would make it worse as nobody would be able to speak out against terrible practices for fear of losing their paycheck. 

It would complete the bridge to the 19th Century that those who wish to privatize education want. Back then, hiring and firing was based on patronage in public service.  Anyone who thinks that a better system would emerge should read up on government jobs before the 1883 PendletonAct was passed to find out how politics intruding on hiring in the public sector is a bad idea.

The best way to get the ATRs back in the classroom this fall would be to make hiring decisions for people from closing schools (and other ATRs) in a similar manner to the way it was done before the horrific 2005 contract.  Back then teachers were given placement choices within the widest range possible by the Board of Education if a school was closed or reorganized (old Contractual Article 18G).  Senior teachers were not seen as ogres who caused schools to shut down in those days.

A teacher was given a wish-list of six schools and then was sent to one of them. Since some principals are reluctant to take veteran teachers in the current educational climate because we may talk too much, there would have to be a deal reached to influence some of them to accept ATRs.

The DOE should give ATRs the six school wish-list but instead of sticking ATRs on principals and making them pay on the school budget, the DOE should pay for ATRs centrally for their entire salary for as long as necessary (maybe up to a decade) when an ATR is placed in a school. A principal would not be charged a dime from the school's budget.  There would be no extra charge for the city taxpayers either as it's just a matter of paying for people on a central budget-line as opposed to a school budget-line.  Any subsequent downsizing caused by budget cuts or declining enrollments would be neutralized by this real subsidy. ATR's could be used to lower class sizes and guidance caseloads, a not so novel idea.

Under this plan, no ATR who had an ounce of sense would apply for a school that had a vicious anti-teacher principal unless they didn't do homework on schools.  (Yes I know principal turnover is high but at least ATRs could start out at places where they want to be.)

The 2011 policy, still in effect, of forcing ATRs go to a different school every week as highly compensated substitute teachers makes no sense and is a complete waste of  resources. 

Other proposed ATR solutions that keep provisional hiring going - a teacher stays at a school for a year and then can leave or be sent back to the ATR pool by a principal or yearly substitute rotations - will just keep a class of teachers going around from school to school for decades until the last ones retire. Why not just end it now? 

If someone is so bad, document it and use the 3020A process.  Principals could even make someone a co-teacher, as the ATR would not cost them any money, if they are seriously concerned about damage done to children by a specific ATR.  Administrators would actually have more control than they have now as ATRs are sent weekly to different schools to cover classes and principals must accept a different set of ATRs each week.

Maybe I am totally overestimating UFT leadership, but I do not see the UFT selling out the ATRs under any circumstances. UFT leadership has said in public that we could have had a contract long ago if we were willing to sell out the ATRs.

If Mayor Bill de Blasio is serious about not wanting to close schools, then the ATR pool will slowly wither away in the next few years so why not just put ATRs in schools where they have some desire to work and have the central Board of Ed, not individual schools, pick up the entire cost?  If anyone has a better idea, I'm listening.

POSTER FOR MAY 17 CITY HALL PARK MARCH AND RALLY @ 2:00 PM

ICE'S MICHAEL FIORELLO AT DIANE RAVITCH BLOG SHOWS BLUEPRINT FOR OUR DESTRUCTION

I saw this today and was impressed that Michael Fiorello's blueprint on how the privatizers are destroying public education has made it to Diane Ravitch's blog. 

Unfortunately, he nails what's going on in education perfectly.  Here is the post in full:

Reader Michael Fiorillo deciphers the corporate reformers’ game plan:
The Final Solution to the Teacher Question:

- Proclaim austerity for the public schools, while continuing to expand charters.

- Create incentives for non-educators to be in positions of power, from Assistant Principal on up.

- Maintain a climate of scapegoating and witch hunting for “bad teachers,” who are posited as the cause of poverty and student failure, doing everything possible to keep debate from addressing systemic inequities.

- Neutralize and eventually eliminate teacher unions (the first part largely accomplished in the case of the AFT). As part of that process, eliminate tenure, seniority and defined benefit pensions.

- Create and maintain a climate of constant disruption and destabilization, with cascading mandates that are impossible to keep up or comply with.

- Create teacher evaluations based on Common Core-related high stakes tests for which no curriculum has been developed. Arbitrarily impose cut scores on those exams that cast students, teachers and schools as failing, as was done by NYS Education Commissioner John King and Regent Meryl Tisch.

- Get teachers and administrators, whether through extortion (see RttT funding) threats or non-stop propaganda, to accept the premises of “data-driven” everything, even when that data is irrelevant, opaque, contradictory, or just plain wrong.

- Get everyone to internalize the premises and language of so-called education reform:

- Parents are not citizens with rights, but “customers” who are provided “choices”
that are in fact restricted to the decisions of those in charge, based on policies
developed by an educational industrial complex made up of foundations,
McKinsey-type consultants and captive academics.

- Students are “valuable assets” and “products,” whose value is to be enhanced
(see the definition of VAM) before being offered to employers.

- Teachers are fungible units of “human capital,” to be deployed as policy-makers
and management see fit. Since human capital depreciates over time, it
needs to be replaced by fresh capital, branded as “the Best and Brightest.”

- Schools are part of an investment “portfolio,” explicitly including the real estate
they inhabit, and are subject to the “demands” of the market and the preferences
of policy-makers and management.

- Create an intimidating, punitive environment, where the questions and qualms are either disregarded or responded to with threats.

- Get the university education programs on board under threat of continuing attack. Once they are on board, go after them anyway, and deregulate the teacher licensing process so that it’s easier to hire temps.

- Eliminate instruction that is deemed irrelevant to the most narrowly-cast labor market needs of employers, getting rid of art, music, dance, electives, etc., thereby reducing the focus of education to preparation for passive acceptance of low-wage employment.

- Embed software and electronic gadgets in every facet of the classroom and school, from reading to test-taking, with the intention of automating as much classroom input and output as possible.

- Use the automation of the classroom to enlarge class size – something explicitly promoted by Bill Gates – and transform teachers into overseers of student digital production that is connected to massive databases, so that every keystroke is data to be potentially monetized.

- Cash your bonus checks, exercise your stock options, and declare Excellence and Civil Rights achieved.

TENNESSEE REPEALS TEST BASED TEACHER EVALUATIONS; WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR IN NY?

I just read Diane Ravitch's piece on the Tennessee State Legislature and Governor Bill Haslam rapidly reversing course and banning the use of student test scores for teacher evaluations.

This is the commentary on the bill from the Tennessee Teachers Association on Twitter:

TN Education Assoc. ‏@TEA_teachers Apr 23

It is now officially prohibited by law that TVAAS (student test scores) may not be used in teacher licensure decisions in any way. Huge, huge win for teachers.

 

In addition, the great state of Washington refuses to tie teacher evaluations to student test scores even though they have just lost their waiver from the retaliatory provisions of No Child Left Behind.  Every child is supposed to be proficient in reading and math by 2014 according to that federal law.  In essence, the state of Washington told President Obama and Secretary of Arne Duncan to go ahead and make their day.

 

Hey NYSUT/UFT: What are we waiting for?  States are fighting back! Tennessee is a conservative southern state. 

 

This is liberal New York with our self described "progressive" governor who is in some trouble politically and is up for reelection in the fall.

 

Now is the time to push to end teacher evaluations based on student test scores!

 

 

 

 

THE ONE AND ONLY LEONIE HAIMSON COMMENTS ON THE DEMISE OF DATA MINING COMPANY INBLOOM

Leonie Haimson leads Class Size Matters and is a key founder of Parents Across America.  These are two excellent parents' groups who fight for public schools.  Leonie led the fight against InBloom, the Gates Foundation funded data gathering firm that wanted to collect data from students for no legitimate reason. 

Yesterday, Leonie released a statement over at the NYC  Public School Parents' Blog, and in other places, touting the end of InBloom. 

The demise of InBloom is good news.  Leonie describes InBloom's goal succinctly:

InBloom was  not designed to protect student privacy but the opposite: to facilitate the sharing of children’s personal and very sensitive information with data-mining vendors, with no attention paid to the need for parental notification or consent, and this is something that parents will not stand for.

Public education defenders have seen so many defeats over the last decade so it's refreshing to have a real victory every now and then.

Unfortunately, the corporate education privatizers will most likely just take their money elsewhere in the education world to continue to harm our schools, our kids, our teachers and our nation.

TWU DEAL SHOWS FULL RETRO AND NO ZEROS IS POSSIBLE

TWU Local 100 (city transit workers) has reached a deal with the MTA.

According to Capital New York, the settlement includes "five years of annual wage increases, including 1 percent in the first two years, and 2 percent in each of the final three years, paid maternity and paternity leave, improved optical and dental benefits, and, noted union president John Samuelson, pointedly, 'no zeros.'"

It is difficult to understand why TWU would settle for this package for city transit workers when a federal commission recommended that Long Island Railroad unions get almost twice as much (17%) over a six year period and LIRR unions are threatening a strike for July.

Update at 9:55 pm
I just read a Newsday piece on the TWU settlement and this quote helps me to understand it a little better: "A TWU source noted that, while the total raises may be smaller, the LIRR unions could argue that the TWU deal is comparable with what they are seeking because the railroad unions have gone longer without a contract. LIRR unions haven't had a contract since 2010. In 2010 and 2011, TWU workers got raises totaling 7 percent."

How this settlement will impact on city workers, including UFT members, is an open question as the MTA is a state agency, not a part of city government. For city unions the news of this agreement looks to be somewhat positive as the precedent of three years of no raises set by state civil service unions, that the city wanted us to swallow, has now been broken albeit with rather small increases.

That should help city workers a little in our bargaining and UFT members in particular.  Remember, we are behind a round compared to most other city unions. The pattern for the previous round is 4%+4% increases. There is no city pattern for the current round.

CITY OFFER TO PBA STILL 0% RAISES FOR THREE YEARS (Updated with MTA Information)

Someone sent out this Policeman's Benevolent Association ad from the Daily News.  Without knowing anything else about contract negotiations, I think we can safely assume that 0% +0% + 0% probably followed by 2% + 2% raises is still the offer on the table from the city for all city workers for the current round of collective bargaining.

That is the state pattern set by Governor Cuomo and the CSEA that the city is attempting to follow for city unions in spite of a huge city surplus. If the city is not moving for the PBA, it is hard to see them going higher for another union to set a pattern they will have to replicate with other employees.

Remember, the UFT and a few other unions are a contract behind so we are still owed 4% + 4% from the last round of bargaining that most other city unions already received. 

Thanks to Reality Based Educator's comment, we have been directed to the Times article which says the MTA, a state agency, could be moving off of the three years of zero raises in negotiations with TWU Local 100.  However, 8% over five years that the Times is reporting as the offer for city transit workers looks like much less than the 17% over six years that a presidential panel recommended for Long Island Railroad workers recently.  More to come as soon as we have it.