Pressuring the Chancellor’s Office to use performance data isn’t the only item on the mayor’s agenda, either. The mayor also wishes to provide charter school funding as well as allowimg principals to make merit-based decisions on teacher’s tenure, rather than seniority based.
A major incentive to change these standards is largely due to the fact that the DOE can receive hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding via President Obama’s Race to the Top education reform program. This program, which has seen a large amount of popularity in organizations across the United States, will grant money to those school systems using original programs.
“The only thing worse than having to lay off teachers would be laying off great teachers instead of failing teachers. Remember who this system’s supposed to work for: the students, not its employees,” said Mayor Bloomberg in a Washington D.C press conference.
“With a transparent new evaluation system, principals will have the knowledge to make layoffs based on merit – but the ability to do so only if the State Legislature gives us the authority to do so, and so we will pressure them to get that authority.”
According to the UFT website, Chancellor Joel Klein originally proposed in 2007 to use student test scores as a part of the decision to grant tenure. At a later date, the Department of Education decided that it will not change tenure standards as well as criteria for granting tenure to new teachers in the future.
“The issue, as the teachers have been saying, it is that we have narrowed our curriculum so much to just teaching for the test, and that would be the state test, that were not teaching children everything that they need to learn in their subject areas,” stated UFT President Michael Mulgrew in a television appearance.
Using standardized test scores to determine a teacher’s tenure may seem unfair and unbeneficial to the teachers, but Mayor Bloomberg continues to remain confident about his decision.
“Now, we all know that great teaching is reflected in more than test scores – but we certainly should never dismiss quantitative data in favor of subjective opinions that fit a predetermined conclusion. That might make all of us feel good, but it really doesn’t help our children,” continued Mayor Bloomberg.
This announcement may seem to spark a larger argument between the UFT and the city, but as the contract negotiations begin for NYC teachers, it is unclear what will become of the relationship between teachers, Mayor Bloomberg, and Chancellor Joel Klein.
