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Esther Chu was 8 when her parents moved from Hong Kong to Southern California, and she entered a third-grade classroom — terrified.
“I didn’t understand a word the teacher was saying,” she recalls.
But Chu learned quickly, and two years later she landed in the gifted-and-talented program.
In high school, a freshman biology class awoke a passion for science. “My teacher was very enthusiastic about the subject. I was fascinated about the things you can learn about cells, the body, plants.”
Despite her family’s meager finances — her mom worked as a home-health aide, her dad in a warehouse — Chu became the first in her family to attend college: Yale University.
After graduating two years ago, she joined Teach for America, a non-profit group that recruits recent college grads to teach for at least two years in low-income communities, and made a beeline to apply in New York City. The Department of Education snapped her up.
Today, the 23-year-old teaches biology and chemistry at Middle School 88 in Park Slope, after her first year at Williamsburg Prep High School. She aims to match the dedication of those who guided and inspired her.
“Passion can be contagious,” she says. “I try to make sure my enthusiasm for science is transferred, so my students can fall in love with it the way I did.”
None of her gusto may matter, however, once a possible $1 billion cut in state aid forces Mayor Bloomberg to lay off as many as 15,000 teachers, a worst-case scenario he described on Friday.
A 127-year-old civil service law puts recently hired teachers with the least seniority, like Chu, on the chopping block.
Bloomberg has launched an uphill battle to change the law, against fierce union opposition. Ending the “last in, first out” rule is also on the bargaining table in stalled contract negotiations with the United Federation of Teachers.
Layoffs by seniority would hit poor and minority communities hardest, since more new teachers typically start there.
A Department of Education analysis shows a $1 billion slash in funding could devastate schools in neighborhoods such as Highbridge, Mount Eden and Concourse in The Bronx, with 27% of teachers cut, while affluent neighborhoods such as Fresh Meadows, Bayside, Little Neck and Douglaston would lose 14%.
Chu is one of a “wonderful young staff” of 80 teachers at MS 88, most of them 25 to 35 years old, said Principal Ailene Altman Mitchell. Removed from the state’s list of failing schools in 2005, MS 88 has become more popular since an influx of warm, energetic new teachers, according to a review by Insideschools.org.
“She’s wonderful. She’s a great fit for the school,” Mitchell said of Chu.
The versatile Chu not only teaches science but two classes of English-language learners, with students who emigrated from Bangladesh, Yemen, China, El Salvador, Mexico and elsewhere.
“I really relate to them, especially to the English-language learners, because I was one myself,” she says. “A lot of my students are children of immigrants, and these students, like me, will be the first in their families to go to college.”
Chu, who was active in a dance program at Yale, is also part of an MS 88 program that focuses on the arts. She’s currently helping choreograph a student musical, “West Side Story.” At night, she takes classes at Fordham University in teaching biology to adolescents; the master’s degree would boost her starting teacher’s pay, now $45,530 a year.
The rookie says she owes a great deal to her school’s most experienced teachers: “I’ve learned so much from them. Because they’re veterans, they know exactly what works. They don’t hesitate to offer help.”
She adds, “I definitely understand the desire for seniority as protection. If I was in my job for 20 years, I think I’d want protection too. It’s a sticky situation.”
But Chu has joined a maverick group called Educators 4 Excellence, which opposes the union-backed seniority rules that could derail her career. The group, dubbed E4E, recently doubled in members to 1,300 after getting a $160,000 grant from the Gates Foundation to launch “an independent voice for teachers,” says co-founder Sydney Morris.
About half the members, like Chu, have three or fewer years on the job, Morris says.
“We don’t want there to be any layoffs,” she says. “But if we have to lay teachers off, we want to make sure we’re doing it based on effectiveness, to keep our best teachers in front of the classroom.”
Who should get the first pink slips? Morris cited the 1,232 “excessed” teachers who lost jobs as schools were phased out or downsized since 2006, and work as subs. Nearly half have failed to land new permanent jobs in the past three years, and more than 100 remain unplaced for four years, according to DOE data.
“To allow people to stay there indefinitely at full pay when we have to remove thousands of teachers who do have full-time teaching positions seems wrong,” she says.
Teachers rated “unsatisfactory” should also go first, Morris adds.
Chu agrees. “I love my job. It would be unfair if I had to go,” she says. “If you’re good at your job, you should be able to stay.”