Bloomberg calls for no teacher raises, while city gets 5 million to recruit new teachers.

[madfloridian]

I find the utter arrogance of this stunning. It shows contempt for experienced teachers, and it means that they are going to give 5 million to private companies to hire cheaper teachers.

That tells you right there what their priorities are. Not good teachers...teachers who will cost the system less.

Keep asking yourself. Why are they spending 5 million to recruit new teachers when they might have to lay off thousands.

Ask yourself...why don't they take the 5 million and apply it to teacher salaries instead of paying private companies to recruit new ones. I doubt you will like the answers.

Bloomberg calls for no teacher pay raises to avoid layoffs

Mayor Bloomberg called this morning for the city to eliminate pay raises for public school teachers for the next to years to forestall teacher layoffs.

The mayor said that cutting the two percent pay raises the city had planned to offer teachers — already a decrease from a planned four percent raise — would prevent the city from laying off 4,400 teachers.

A spokesman for the city’s teachers union said he had just learned of the mayor’s plan to eliminate pay raises. The mayor’s statement is silent on whether the teachers union has agreed to this proposal, an important omission as any decisions regarding pay have to be made in contract negotiations.

UPDATE 11:30 am: Teachers union president Michael Mulgrew released a statement saying the union has not agreed to freeze teacher salaries.

And here is more about the 5 million dollars the city is receiving to contract with companies to hire new teachers while the city is on the verge of thousands of layoffs.

City gets 5 million to hire new teachers

Of course this $5 million expenditure is going to the New Teacher Project, a "non-profit" founded by Joel Klein crony Michelle Rhee, so really this expenditure is less about hiring new teachers and more about paying off cronies.

The DOE has also hired eight new deputy chancellors, continues to spend millions on new testing programs, and hand out no-bid contracts for busing services and the like (even with gangsters who bring guns to the negotiations.)

The City Council gave 4% raises to its staff, Bloomberg gave raises to his staff, and he gave bonuses to his campaign people (albeit, this money came from his own pocket.)

With all this money going from hand to hand, there IS money to AVERT layoffs even if the state and the feds do not give more money to the city. They just have to reallocate it from other things - like the testing programs, the no-bid contracts, the new deputy chancellor hires, and the payoffs to cronies.

Yep, it is all about priorities, and Bloomberg and cronies make clear that teachers are low down on his list of priorities.

More about the meeting where the board had a preset agenda, and the teachers' anger mattered not at all.

UFT at the Panel for Educational Policy meeting

As usual, the majority of the PEP ignored what the public school teachers said and voted to co-locate several new charter schools in public schools. In addition, Gateway Secondary School to Health Sciences will also expand to include a grade 6 against the wishes of the Gateway School Leadership Team and the community. This expansion will probably mean even fewer high school seats in Queens as this school will be capped around 800 but the PEP couldn't be bothered with this triviality. Next up on the agenda was expenditures.

The DOE asked the PEP to approve an allocation of $5,000,000 to recruit new teachers while at the same time they are threatening to lay off thousands of us....

..."The UFT was in the house and they made a great case on the issue of this ridiculous expenditure. The best speaker was clearly UFT Secretary Michael Mendel who spoke for two minutes of the folly of the DOE's spending 5 million dollars to recruit teachers during these tough fiscal times when they are talking about layoffs. When the PEP chair tried to shut off Michael's microphone, Mendel resisted and refused to leave. He told them they would have to have him removed.

.."Speaker after speaker followed. They lambasted the $5 million DOE boondoggle but in the end it didn't matter. The four Borough President Representatives voted no (Staten Island was absent) and the eight mayoral representatives voted yes. There's another $5 million of our money that will go down the drain.

And where is the 5 million going? Here is more about that.

The agency's Panel for Educational Policy will vote later this month on the hefty contract, but already critics are questioning the need to spend money to recruit during a time of layoffs.

"We should put a freeze on any spending related to new hiring. We should not even be going through the expense of negotiating a contract now," said Patrick Sullivan, the panel's Manhattan representative.

Since 2000, the New Teacher Project has contracted with the city to recruit New York City Teaching Fellows. For this school year, the group received $2.8 million for recruiting 705 teachers.

They might get 5 million this year or so it appears.

And who started that New Teacher Project? Glad you asked.

The New Teacher Project (TNTP) is a United States non-profit organization founded by Michelle Rhee.

The New Teacher Project (TNTP) is a national nonprofit dedicated to closing the achievement gap by ensuring that high-need students get outstanding teachers. Founded by teachers in 1997, TNTP partners with school districts and states to implement scalable responses to their most acute teacher quality challenges. Since its inception, TNTP has trained or hired approximately 37,000 teachers, benefiting an estimated 5.9 million students nationwide. It has established more than 75 programs and initiatives in 31 states and published four seminal studies on urban teacher hiring and school staffing.

Michelle Rhee is the very well-paid head of the DC school system. She earns a lot of money and lays off a lot of teachers, some of the layoffs being questioned by the court now.

And that's how the corporate wheels turn while they take over public education. And they are doing it with little opposition.

[Hannah Bell]

1. stunning in its hypocrisy, yes. and don't think for a moment that there isn't dissatisfaction

with this on many fronts: but most of it isn't getting media attention.

for obvious reasons; school privatization is fully supported by most of the ptb & the wealthy income segments they represent.

[madfloridian]

13. You could be right....the media is ignoring the anger and upset.

And they only present one side..the "reformers".

[madfloridian]

14. In fact I am learning from local teachers...

just how aware they are becoming now. It's a good thing, but late in the game.

[stillwaiting]

2. It's time we all make sacrifices. Or so I'm being told.

Except for Wall Street and Corporate Execs, that is.

They get more and more of our tax dollars to finance their massive salary increases every year.

Perfectly sane. Yes, perfectly sane.

I'm sure it will all trickle down soon...

[madfloridian]

11. Exactly right. No sacrifices for Wall Street or corporations.

They are going after the easy target....teachers. After years of bashing, they are so vulnerable.

[Starry Messenger]

3. kick.

I'm so glad you're keeping track of this stuff. When this party loses the teacher vote, we'll be able to point people to links and show them why.

[Me.]

4. I'm Fed Up With Little Napoleon

He's become a real martinet. Hate what he did with Times Square and so many more of his damn 'innovations'. Also the way he forced his way into a third term when the people of this city voted no on third terms.

[madfloridian]

6. He appears to have way too much power.

[Me.]

8. Beyond What Is Lawfully Allowed

He takes

[Overseas]

5. K&R. //nt

[proud2BlibKansan]

7. New teachers are cheaper!

Profit is the new bottom line in education.

[madfloridian]

10. Experience costs. And that shows their motive right there.

It is not about teachers that know what they are doing. It is about the all-mighty dollar

[madfloridian]

9. Accountable Talk blog makes some great points about this "deal"

http://www.accountabletalk.com/2010/06/i-nailed-it.html

"Just call me Kreskin. I predicted over a week ago that there would be no layoffs, and today we have Mayor4Life's pronouncement that he plans to avert layoffs through a two year wage freeze.

I knew M4L would find a way to stop layoffs because, as was pointed out in the NY Times today, many of the first teachers to go would be those who staff new schools, a pet project of the mayor and chancellor. They'd also have to find jobs for all the rubber room and ATR people because they do, after all, have seniority. This whole layoff thing was a scheme by BloomKlein to try to finagle a way to fire senior teachers.

The only problem is that the mayor has absolutely no authority to freeze wages. So he sent Klein out to make the incredible announcement that since the teacher and principal contracts have expired, the mayor does indeed have that authority. They're forgetting one little thing. The Taylor Law requires that public employers negotiate agreements.

Of course, a little thing like the law doesn't prevent a billionaire like Bloomberg from doing whatever the hell he likes."

[madfloridian]

12. Bloomberg and Rhee have the power.

DC teachers just voted to give Rhee what she wants.

Money talks.

[BrklynLiberal]

15. I HATE that Bloombnerg brought in one his corprate cronies to oversee the Education Dept

in NYC. It has been on a downhill slide since day one.

[lib2DaBone]

16. Their goal.. is to bust the Teacher's Union.. one of the few remaining

The Banksters HATE unions.. and they have almost succeeded in wiping them out. Once rid of any and all Unions... they can force people to work for 50 cents and hour..(even cheaper than labor from Viet Nam.)

They also want to privatize the schools to get control of the bonanza-of-easy-cash flowing from the school boards. To them.. it is like a giant treasure chest full of sparkling diamonds just sitting in the sun... their's for the taking.

The flow of tax dollars and gambling profits from State Lotteries to the schools is enough to keep The Bush Crime Family and Repukes rolling in green for many years to come.... plus.. just think of all war, crime and famine they can launch with all that extra cash?

[DailyGrind51]

17. Better to employ more teachers than to give raises to those already employed!

That being said, school districts not private companies, should be doing the recruiting!