Metro

Lousy teachers harder to shake than a bad habit

The state Senate yesterday passed a plan to revamp school seniority rules, and Gov. Cuomo jumped on the reform bandwagon. But hold the champagne — there are miles to go before merit decides who gets to teach New York students.

In fact, we may never get there, given the legions of boobs, felons and incompetents roosting on the education payroll. City Hall tells me it has documented problems with more than 7,300 teachers in the five boroughs. With a total instructor population of about 80,000, that means 9 percent of teachers have been found deficient.

That rate of troubled and below-average employees would not be shocking in many private companies and institutions. But the difference here is that taxpayers and students are stuck with them because of maze-like union protections, including tenure, and the city’s sometimes creaky pace of enforcing its own rules.

At an average cost of $100,000 each, the untouchables cost $730 million a year. Throw in pensions and we’re talking serious money forever.

The Roster of Shame the city compiled lays out nine different categories of problem employees. Licensing and other staffing issues aside, officials say they would like to pink-slip these educrats first if Albany allows a freer hand.

Some of the 7,300 — about 500 — have been convicted of criminal offenses, including assault, sex crimes, kidnapping, burglary, prostitution and lewdness. About 600 others have been found guilty of incompetence or malfeasance or various levels of misconduct.

Others — about 1,150 — can’t find a steady job because no principal wants them, even when offered financial incentives to take them. They are the divas in the “dance of the lemons,” arrogant and expensive. Most escaped “rubber rooms,” only to suck up salary and benefits somewhere else.

Still others — about 1,600 — rank in the bottom 30 percent among their peers in how well their students score on standardized tests. The “value added” rankings, which try to account for poverty and other factors, are the subject of a court case, with the unions trying to block the release of the data and names requested by The Post and others.

The largest group on the list — about 2,700 — got at least one “unsatisfactory” rating in the last five years. While some may have improved since, only the worst of the worst ever get that scarlet letter because the process is so time-consuming for principals and city lawyers. As Mayor Bloomberg told me recently, “You’ve got to be really bad to get a ‘U.’ ”

Crafting a lasting fix won’t be easy. Some of the 39 arbitrators who make the final decisions in various cases are the problem. They are jointly chosen by the city and the union, most work only five days a month, and the tightest, best cases need about 150 days to complete under state law. Traditionally, many arbitrators are reluctant to fire a teacher for almost any reason.

But the city deserves some blame, too. The grievance processes spelled out in union contracts have been improved, but never truly fixed, even though teachers got raises of 43 percent under Bloomberg. He should have demanded far more money-saving concessions in exchange for the raises.

And only last year did he demand that his administrators start using a clear, single standard for granting tenure. Until then, about 99 percent of those eligible routinely got the virtual job for life, despite serious misgivings in many cases.

By all means, Albany should relax the archaic seniority rules. But even then, a real merit system remains somewhere over the rainbow.

O won’t be playing center

In the Super Bowl day interview, President Obama was asked by Bill O’Reilly if it’s true he is moving to the center of the political spectrum. “No,” Obama said flatly.

I say we take him at his word. His recent actions and words certainly prove he meant it.

You are not, for example, a fiscal centrist when you continue to support the discredited federal overhaul of the health-care industry, as he did Monday. Nor can you look at Wisconsin’s elected leaders and complain that public unions are being “vilified” and their “rights are infringed upon,” as he also did Monday, and be anywhere near the center.

You definitely are not a centrist when, after two years of explosive spending, you can’t find any serious waste in the federal government, even as the Government Accountability Office yesterday reported finding about $200 billion worth.

The pattern is clear. Obama was and remains a statist and a liberal. He wants to increase the size and power of government, and use that power to redistribute the national wealth. Everything else is detail.

The only surprise is that there is still any confusion over Obama’s philosophy. Yet every time he meets with a business group or talks about bipartisanship, there is a flurry of instant wisdom saying he’s shifting.

The feints are intentional. By making gestures he knows will be interpreted by some as moving to the middle, Obama aims to get benefit among the moderate independent voters he will need next year.

But, as former GE boss Jack Welch said on TV yesterday, “The tack to the center is verbal, it’s not actionable.”

It takes a centrist to move to the center. And that’s not who Obama is.

UN DIPLO NEEDS A LESSON

Susan Rice, America’s United Nations ambassador, recently insisted that “for more than four decades, Israeli settlement activity has corroded hopes for peace and stability in the region.”

It’s a scurrilous charge, but let’s play dumb and assume Rice didn’t know the latest proof to the contrary. Let’s assume she doesn’t know that Palestinians, even the so-called moderate ones, are vehemently denouncing plans to teach the Holocaust to their children.

The welcome proposal comes from the UN, which runs many schools for Palestinian “refugees” in both the West Bank and Gaza, as well Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. The Jerusalem Post reports the UN quickly found itself accused of a “suspicious scheme” and a “cultural crime” by Hamas, which controls Gaza. A leader of Fatah, which controls the West Bank, was no more receptive, calling the Holocaust the “big lie.”

Now that she knows all this, Rice will surely realize the fundamental problem is that too many Palestinians hate Jews and do not accept Israel’s right to exist. And once she realizes that, she will understand that to call any other issue the obstacle to peace is truly the Big Lie.


Ted’s Sheenanigans

So a young Ted Kennedy once rented out a whole brothel in Chile, according to his FBI file. That makes “Uncle Ted” the first Charlie Sheen.


No body’s safe!

A man lay dead in his car in a Walmart parking lot in Florida for several days before he was noticed. In Gotham, he would have gotten five parking tickets before he was noticed.