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Funding is held steady for two years. The re-organization which Klein was originally implementing (The UFT has no official say over funding,) would have funded positions at starting teacher salary. That was changed. Those were among the changes made by the coalition agreement. For the next two school years there’s schools will be held harmless. With CFE funding budgets could increase (dramatically) for schools. The UFT is grieving the inclusion of salary in transfer application.

We’re also monitoring the transfer situation very closely this
spring to see if there are any instances of abuse. If you are aware of any notify your DR immediately.

The UFT will vigorously pursue correcting any mishandling of the funding situation.

Now sure this may be the way it’s done in private industry but that doesn’t make it right and last I heard the NYC public school system was still a public entity, not a private one. If I wanted to work at garbage wages for Walmart I would have. It’s a short sighted policy that will only serve to chase teachers out of the system at all levels.

Klein sent an email to all principals telling them not to hire ATRs or excessed teachers. I do not recall any outrage by our union in the media.

I warned back in 05 how giving up excessing rights would lead to bigger problems. If I could figure that out, the union had to know that too. Instead we were told what a great opportunity the open market was. Now the application includes current salary. That’s a caveat right there.
Yet we needed permission to continue a grievance.

The open market was a very creative way to end seniority rights.

More to the point, I never suggested that Klein’s original proposal was better – I said as far as I could understand, one aspect of the compromise was worse than the original. I even went as far as to say that the deal might be the best we could get under the circumstances.

Is my understanding – that principals will “pocket” more money by hiring new teachers under the compromise than under the original plan – incorrect? If so, please explain in detail. I’d like to know exactly what was originally proposed and what was finally agreed to.

Also, I can’t understand why you use a phrase like “eliminates the incentives”. Are you saying that principals will NOT save money by hiring less experienced teachers?

Why is Leo absent from this discussion? What are our strategies going forward?

Instead of blaming people for pointing this out, why don’t you talk about how we are going to help those teachers?

We could start by being honest about what the DoE is trying to do to them. We will continue our grievance, and we should be public about it. We could consider an age-discrimination law suit. And we should think of other strategies if these don’t work.

We have an obligation to help our most vulnerable members. More effort, more public effort, would be welcome.

Jonathan

Some commenters here need to simply think through the premises of their own questions. There was absolutely no need for the UFT and other Coalition partners to enter into this agreement if it did not substantially improve the situation for schools, teachers and kids. Anyone without a political agenda — or without a desire for the UFT to negotiate special salary differentials for Math and Science teachers at the expense of other teachers — understands that. This agreement protects successful schools through the remaining years of Bloomberg-Klein, and eliminates the incentives to replace senior teachers with novices. The convoluted arguments presented here assume that principals have no interest in finding and keeping quality teachers for their schools, and so will use salary neutral systems to force out senior teachers.

The absurdity of it all appears in the claim that it was better to have the original Klein proposal, where a school did not keep the salary of retiring and leaving teachers, than the changes which make it possible for the school to hire a teacher of similar salary and experience.

NYC Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein’s foolishness has now reached the point where Diane Ravitch described it simply as a sorry situation in NYC. The description is accurate with four years of revolving reorganizations and mandates….