Teachers union is too powerful

[avet]

When the teachers union have TOO much power:

Radical reform required

Cary Hershkowitz is a prime example of how the United Federation of Teachers holds the power to bar school officials from removing from the city's classrooms incompetent, irresponsible teachers - including those who admit to sexual misconduct.
Hershkowitz, a high school chemistry teacher, tried to seduce a student by sending the girl explicit E-mails and coaching her to deceive her mother. Caught, he confessed. There was no question he'd violated the trust that comes with being a teacher, and no question he posed a danger to students. The chancellor tried to fire Hershkowitz, only to be blocked by the UFT for six years and counting.

The chancellor's inability to dismiss a teacher like Hershkowitz - described by a judge last month as "every parent's worst nightmare" - starkly illustrates what little control school officials have over the quality of the city's teachers. In theory, they can fire teachers for "just cause." In practice, only the gravest misconduct and grossest incompetence qualify for termination. Thanks to a UFT contract as enforced by arbitrators who owe their fees to the union, targeting a teenager for a sexual relationship is not sufficient grounds for termination. Nor is persistently failing to help students achieve.

All workplaces require performance standards to achieve success. Employees need to know what's expected, while employers reserve the right to let go those who behave irresponsibly or can't measure up. This is as true for the city's 1,300 public schools as it is for a corporate giant like General Electric, and school officials must gain the authority to enforce higher standards of behavior and competence.

.......
The extraordinary protections afforded these worst offenders demonstrate why UFT-dominated discipline must be replaced with a system that applies higher performance standards to teachers across the board while still affording them due process. For as long as school officials are barred from firing teachers who endanger the health and safety of students, you can rest assured that they have no shot at weeding out the far larger number of instructors who hinder achievement by doing their jobs poorly.


----- MORE HERE-------

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/idea...p-263290c.html

[avet]

(from B.E.N.)

All employers, public and private, fight a daily battle to control costs. Of particular concern are expenditures related to health care for employees and retirees. Hardly a day passes without another story of a business or municipality attempting to cut costs by reducing the number of insurers offered to a single plan.

Erie 1 BOCES was at the forefront of this trend in 2002 when it first began the process of consolidating health coverage for its nearly 780 employees from five plans to a single provider, Independent Health. As reported in The News, this plan, adopted in 2003, has since saved more than $1 million. It has also allowed us to maintain and in many cases improve benefits, and place a greater emphasis on wellness and healthier lifestyles.

_________________________________________

"A large teachers' union in the region is resisting a similar proposal, even though it would save taxpayer dollars without diminishing benefits."

[avet]

Put N.Y.'s children first

The courts have ordered Gov. Pataki and the state Legislature to increase school aid by $5.6 billion a year to remedy an unconstitutional failure to provide a "sound, basic education" to the city's children. Bloomberg and Chancellor Joel Klein have developed plans to spend the money to reduce class sizes and begin programs such as prekindergarten instruction.
But putting the funds to optimal use will also require overhauling a 200-plus-page teachers contract that dictates, in minute detail, how the city schools operate.
. . . .
[Mayor Michael] Bloomberg does not command the $14 billion-a-year system nearly as much as the public might imagine, nor does Klein. As president of the UFT, [Randi] Weingarten shares power with the mayor and chancellor - and even outranks them in deciding how individual schools are managed.

For under the union contract, principals have minimal say over which teachers staff their buildings, how teachers prepare lesson plans and what teachers do for daily professional development. Union rules determine who comes and goes in any school, as well as all the rest.

It is because of the UFT contract that generations of children pass through classrooms staffed by incompetent or, sometimes, dangerous teachers, and it is because of the contract that, disgracefully, schools serving the lowest-performing pupils get the least experienced teachers.

Good luck to these children, most of them poor, most of them minority. They don't get a fair shot at quality schooling, and they will continue to be denied a fair shot at quality schooling unless Bloomberg and Weingarten together enact radical reform.

-------More Here-------

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/idea...p-263102c.html

[avet]

Even with continued personnel cuts, [Gary M. Crosby, the Board of Education's chief fiscal officer], said the school district's worst-case scenario projections show a $131 million accumulated deficit by 2009.
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B.E.N.

It's the open secret of the county budget crisis: The biggest line on suburban homeowners' tax bill isn't property taxes. Not even close. It's school taxes.

The open secret of school taxes is the money, for the most part, doesn't buy computers or field trips or better buildings. No, most of the money - statewide, nearly four of every five dollars - goes to salaries and benefits for teachers and administrators. Even though, as noted in a recent News series, there's no connection between what teachers make and how kids perform.

All of which raises a question: Why are we paying so much?

Experts say the biggest predictor of how a kid does in school is how much his parents make and how much education they had. It's the main reason why, by and large, test scores in city schools stuffed with poor kids bottom out, while the scores of kids in better-off districts soar.
"Tell me the percentage of kids living in poverty in a school district," said national regionalism and education expert David Rusk, "and I can give you the average (standardized) test score within five points."
Sure, good teachers count for a lot. Every district has its share of them. But a district's performance is mainly about its demographics. It's about having a lot of kids with college-educated parents who make a decent buck. The more of those you have, the better the test scores and graduation rates will be.
That doesn't change whether you pay teachers $40,000 or $80,000. Kids at private and parochial schools do as well as public school kids of similar background, even though public school teachers make far more money. The dollars don't make the difference.
. . . .
One of the first things the financial control board did in Buffalo was freeze teacher salaries. But there's little talk of that in the suburbs. Instead, districts put the soccer team or some other hot-button subtraction on the risk list at budget-vote time.

Taking on the big-ticket item, salaries and benefits, means doing hand-to-hand combat with teacher unions. Most school boards don't have the stomach for it. And with veteran teacher salaries already cresting 80 grand, it's like trying to stuff the genie back in the bottle.

You want to lower the tax load? Put a lid on teacher/administrator salaries.

[avet]

The state's biggest union is spending $1 million in an attempt to urge voters to support school budgets that will raise property taxes by more than $1 billion this year.


If all school budgets pass this year, an additional $1.1 billion in property taxes will be collected, said Robert Ward, the Business Council of New York State's research director. Hundreds of millions of dollars more will be necessary to support the school budgets of the state's five biggest cities, which don't submit their plans for voter approval.

"School spending in New York is among the highest in the country so we believe New Yorkers support their schools very generously," Ward said. "There certainly was a significant increase in state aid this year, as there was in almost every year in memory."

[kristop]

What type of pay system would you like to see installed for teachers?

[avet]

The pay system? I'm not qualified enough to make exact recommendations. I just know it is presently way out of line for our area, and will leave that to the legislators (that are not on the unions payroll) to make those proper, and much needed changes.
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BUT THIS, AS FAR AS I'M CONCERNED THIS IS WAY OUT OF LINE !

Changes MUST come or we loose big time. Both financially and most important, "moraly"!


Would you like it if Mr. Cary Hershkowitz was your daughters teacher?

Why is this man's job being protected? Because of his is "union" ? Is the mere fact that he is union, make him "above the law", and entitle him to do things any other person cannot? The community should have the ultimate power to "at least" see him immediatly removed and banned from ever teaching again - anywhere. Is it not normal to "tag" and try to at least monitor sexual predators. We can't do nothing to him because he's "union"? In his case, being a teacher, is like putting the "hungry wolf" into the "chicken coup".

It does not give me any warm fuzzy feeling at all. I find this fact alone disturbs me greatly. If I had any kids, they would be out of that school "fast".

This type of power is not what I consider "in the best interest" of our children AT ALL.


Can you give me a list of any professions that will "protect" sexual predators?

LIST:
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"TENURE" rhymes with "MANURE"

[moadib]

I COULDNT AGREE MORE, AVET, ITS ALL ABOUT THE BURACRACY & TEACHERS UNIONS!

ITS NOT ABOUT TEACHING THE KIDS!

THE SCHOOL BOARD AND THE TEACHERS UNIONS ARE LIKE CHILD ABUSERS. THEIR LIKE ABUSIVE OR IRRESPONSIBLE PARENTS WHO ALWAYS TRY TO DEFLECT BLAME, CRITICISM OR ACCOUNTABILITY BY SAYING THAT "HURTING ME WILL HURT THE CHILD" OR CONVERSELY "BENEFITTING ME WILL BENEFIT THE CHILDREN"

THEIR LEACHING OFF THE WELFARE OF THE CHILDREN FOR THEIR OWN ENRICHMENT AND POWER!

THE CHILDREN ALWAYS COMES LAST!
THE TAXPAYER ALWAYS COMES LAST!

THATS WHY I SUPPORT SCHOOL VOUCHERS AND SCHOOL CHOICE.

ATLEAST WITH PRIVATE SCHOOLS, PAROCHIAL SCHOOLS AND CHARTER SCHOOLS THEY EITHER DONT HAVE A UNION OR THEY HAVE TO NEGOTIATE INDIVIDUALLY (SCHOOL TO SCHOOL) WHICH KEEPS THE POWER OF THE BURACRACY & UNIONS LIMITED & FOCUSSED.

WHEN THE UNION IS NEGOTIATING FOR EVERY PUBLIC SCHOOL, THEY HAVE TO MUCH POWER TO CONTROL BOTH THE SCHOOL BOARD AND THE POLITICIANS....THATS WHY OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS STINK AND WHY THEY WILL NEVER BE FIXED!

[Cgoodsp466]

Originally posted by kristop
What type of pay system would you like to see installed for teachers?

They should be paid like the rest of us, On results. The product
they are turning out is a discrase. If jimmy cant learn to read from a $80,000 teacher, lets try a $40,000 model

[Son of Liberty]

Oooh, I like this thread!

Yes, teachers should be paid and evaluated on a performance basis, just like the rest of the real world! Get rid of tenure and I'm sure we would see a lot of teachers (and administrators) clean up their act.

[lars]

What power or role, if any, do school boards have in the removal of a tenured teacher? Who does the negotiation with the educator's union?

Lars

[lars]

Here's some quick info from the following website re: tenure impact on administrators and peers.

http://cgood.org/schools-reading-cgp...tsheets-7.html


"Bureaucracy prevents school administrators from managing staff.

* Only 24% of superintendents and 32% of principals say they have "enough autonomy to 'reward outstanding teachers and staff.'"
* Only 28% of superintendents and 32% of principals believe they have sufficient authority to remove "ineffective teachers from the classroom."
* 73% of superintendents and 69% of principals say "making it much easier for principals to remove bad teachers--even those who have tenure" would be a "very effective" proposal to improve educational leadership.
* 56% of teachers agree "the tenure system should be changed to make it far easier to remove bad teachers."

Source: Public Agenda, "Trying to Stay Ahead of the Game," 2001, pp. 12-13.



* 59% of teachers report having "a few" colleagues who "fail to do a good job and are simply going through the motions."

Source: Public Agenda, "Stand by Me," 2003, pp. 17, 20-21.



* In one case, it took the Grossmont Union School District in southern California thirteen years and $312,000 in legal costs to fire one teacher for incompetence."

Source: James Payne, "The Agony of Public Education," Fall 2000, p. 272.



* "In the entire state of Florida in 1997, only 0.05 percent of teachers were removed involuntarily from their jobs. Across the state's economy as a whole that year, 7.9 percent of all employees were fired. In two large Georgia counties, not a single tenured teacher was fired from 1995 to 2000. In New York City, where the public schools employ 72,000 teachers, the school board sought to fire three teachers for incompetence in a two-year period. In California, which employs some 350,000 teachers at any given time, only 227 cases reached the final phase of the dismissal process from 1990 to 1999--only one of these from Los Angeles, the second largest school district in the country."

Source: Mike Antonucci, "Teacher Tenure Reform: Mandate or Mirage?" in A Consumer's Guide to Teacher Quality: Opportunity and Challenge in the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (National Council on Teacher Quality, May 31, 2002), p. 1.



* "The contract between the Board of Education of New York City and the United Federation of Teachers is 204 pages long."

Source: Dale Ballou, "The New York City Teacher's Union Contract: Shackling Principals' Leadership," Center for Civic Innovation at the Manhattan Institute (Number 6) June 6, 1999, p. 2."

Lars

[pcnorth22]

I too have some issues with teachers' unions...i.e. tenure, etc...

but the pay issue is a tough one...yes compared to other areas are teachers are paid quite well...but who's to say the money isn't deserved?

why is it that a teacher should have to make a lot less than a parent in school district who works in the private sector who sends their kids off to be taught by someone else?

we'd be in a tough spot if nobody wanted to teach because of the pay...

i think the retirement age should be raised however....

[lyn1639]

Originally posted by pcnorth22
I too have some issues with teachers' unions...i.e. tenure, etc...

but the pay issue is a tough one...yes compared to other areas are teachers are paid quite well...but who's to say the money isn't deserved?

why is it that a teacher should have to make a lot less than a parent in school district who works in the private sector who sends their kids off to be taught by someone else?

we'd be in a tough spot if nobody wanted to teach because of the pay...

i think the retirement age should be raised however....

I don't know what people make there, but an awful large number of the teachers here make a hell of a lot more than the average working stiffs in their districts of employment. We go tent camping on vacation while they travel so our money can see the world. I don't begrudge anyone the right to make an honest living, but paying more is no guarantee of a better educated student since they all have to pass the same standardized tests. The parent who has to take on a second job to cover the increased taxes to pay those teachers is then unable to provide a student with needed support at home.

[pcnorth22]

Sorry...i live back in buffalo...forgot to update my profile...

I'm talking about teachers here....who says they shouldn't make more than the average working stiff as you put it? And believe me...they still don't make a ton...at least until they're much older. My dad is retiring this year...and up until about 5 years ago he had to work every summer painting, siding, building decks, etc...to make ends meet. We never "traveled" beyond the tent camping you speak of.

I just think people have this mindset about teachers and work, "I work and I want some cheap way for someone to take care of my kids...teachers aren't really working so they're is no way they should make as much as I do."

That mentality will eventually lead to nobody wanting to teach and one parent staying home to teach their kids.

And if you think test scores are a good indication of how our schools are doing...I've got some more "no child left behind" bull**** you can read.