Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s warnings of substantial layoffs of municipal workers in order to balance the city budget have finally materialized. After years of making the same dire predictions, but finding ways to avoid making tough decisions, this year there was no pot of gold from Albany or Washington and no budget tricks left to pull out of government’s magic hat.
Early predictions that up to 20,000 teachers could be fired, plus thousands of other city employees, have now become a very real 6,000 teachers. This week Bloomberg released a list of the 4,675 most junior teachers who will be receiving pink slips at the end of this school year. The other 1,325 positions will be eliminated through attrition.
Naturally, principals are crying foul, saying that in many cases the teachers being let go are their top recruits, their most motivated and successful teachers. These teachers are also almost overwhelmingly in poor minority neighborhoods, where the impact of these firings will hit hardest.
However, as we covered on this page a few weeks ago, there are literally thousands of teachers in the system, many at the top pay level and with the most seniority, who are not teaching classes, but instead serve in mainly administrative or other non-teaching positions. This means, thanks to a glut of teachers in the system, no classroom should increase in size due to this cost-savings measure.
However, thanks to insane union rules, this will adversely impact children in our poorest school districts. There are many culprits here, but the blame mostly goes to two rules both based on teacher seniority. Senior teachers, our most experienced and highest paid, can choose where they teach. Instead of putting them where their experience is most needed, they choose cushy teaching assignments in the city’s best schools.
Then there is “Last In First Out” (LIFO), where the newest teachers, usually in those poorest schools, and no matter how good, are the first to be laid off. None of this is in the best interest of our children, or the taxpayers.
We should immediately create a two-tier system, one for teachers with full teaching schedules, and one for teachers who don’t. Layoffs, however they are to be determined, should come from non-teaching teachers first. This will protect the most vulnerable children in our system, and reward the teachers doing to hardest work.
Bloomberg should show some real leadership and do this now, unilaterally. Let the union take him to court – if they can justify it. This would be the single greatest reform he could implement and would solidify a legacy for his tenure as mayor.
