Bloomberg Gets Tough With Teachers
Cited: Google News/Daily News
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg used something of a different approach in wanting to get tough with teachers, he’s offering the best of the a $20,000 raise. In his state of the city address, given yesterday, the mayor decided that the best way to get tough with the teacher’s union is to disarm them and to provide incentives to get them to warm to, and to adopt his plan for merit-based pay, and much more critical teacher evaluations. The mayor is a shrewd businessman and is known for his no-nonsense approach to dealing with the complexities of running New York City, as was evidenced in his proposal to the teacher; the $20,000 bonus will only happen if the unions agree to a rating system for the city’s school teachers.
The Mayor said that he hopes that this incentive will help all involved to come up with a good system that rewards teachers who do a great job and excel in their classrooms, while at the same time, weeding out those under-performers that are hurting the education of our children. The Mayor also advised that he will cut up to half of the teachers now teaching at the 33 lowest performing schools in New York City, and without the consent of the unions. Recent talks between the city and the teacher’s union regarding an evaluation system for the teachers in these schools ended without a deal and with both sides walking away from the discussions. This has now becoming something of a game of “Chicken” and Bloomberg is going to see if the teacher’s union and their rank and file blink first.
United Federation of Teacher’s President, Michael Mulgrew, is opposed to the teacher bonuses saying that the Mayor is dangling a carrot that he knows doesn’t work because it has been tried in other cities with failing school systems and the results have been negligible at best.
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My take:
Sounds like Washington D.C. type politics. Neither side will agree and in the end we, the ones that elected all of them suffer, and in this case its our children who suffer. There must be a way to give teacher’s the protections they deserve against being unfairly punished for the failings of everyone involved and trying to make them accountable for doing a good job.
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