Hidden Costs

Your cover story about the massive “hidden expense of the teachers’ contract” implies that this financial burden and the programs funded by it are the result of benefits surrendered to the self-serving teachers union in recent negotiations. Although I do not represent the United Federation of Teachers, I am aware that it was the Department of Education that insisted on the terms that led to the current crisis. The proposals of the Union, far more sensible from an economic, educational, and logistical point of view, were rejected by the City.
The ultimate argument was not whether, but how the school day would be extended. In the case of middle schools, for instance, the UFT wanted the additional time to be divided among the existing subject class periods. By affixing it as you described, the DOE has caused disruption and severe confusion among principals, parents, and teachers. Had the Union position been instituted, millions of dollars of busing costs could have been avoided.
The DOE also insisted that the annexed time be 37 minutes and 30 seconds and that the half-minute be solemnized into the Contract. Your hard-working readership should be assured that teachers spend an average of a thousand unpaid hours every year processing students’ work, planning lessons, and reaching out to parents. They are not clock-watchers as the Chancellor and other anti-unionists claim.
The Queens Courier is a deservedly trusted source of vital information. Communities served by it should know that their public school teachers are the greatest allies that parents and children have in the fields of education.
Ron Isaac
Fresh Meadows