Mayor Bloomberg was mum on Friday after United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew likened him to Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak, in a bizarre attempt to suggest that City Hall rules with an iron fist.
Bloomberg might have responded by labeling Mulgrew the progeny of Karl Marx, heading a group that’s animated, at bottom, by his call for workers to unite — and, in the UFT’s case, in defense of failure. That, at least, would have been based on truth.
Fact is, the UFT — like other unions — has two primary concerns:
* Boosting pay and terms of employment for teachers.
* Shielding weak teachers from accountability.
Now, that may suit teachers (especially lousy ones). But the second goal — protecting losers — doesn’t work at all for kids. And never has it been more destructive than now, when a cash-strapped city needs to assure maximum quality in every buck it spends.
Indeed, Mulgrew was defending schools that have rotted for years. He used the Mubarak metaphor after a panel controlled by the city’s democrati cally elected mayor last week finally shuttered 22 truly awful schools.
At Jamaica HS graduation rates have stagnated below 50 percent for a decade. At Brooklyn’s PS 332 last year, only 21 percent made the grade in math, and just 25 percent made it in reading. Yet the union actually sued to block some of these schools from closing (and won). Go figure.
Similarly, it insists on a last-in, first-out rule when the city passes out pink slips, as Bloomberg plans to do this year by the thousands. Never mind that some younger teachers, who far outshine some old-timers, would be first out the door. Never mind that fewer teachers would be let go if the state’s LIFO law were scrapped. Individual merit counts for nada in the Marxist-inspired union world.
Mulgrew & Co. perpetuates failure in other ways, too:
* Tenure and tough contract rules block principals from firing teachers who can’t teach.
* The Absent Teacher Reserve is meant specifically to assure that teachers keep getting paychecks even when principals refuse to put them in a classroom.
* The union has opposed the use of student test scores as part of teacher evaluations, lest they shine a spotlight on ineffective teachers, who can then be targeted and held to account.
Like other workers, teachers — even good ones — bond in the hope that all boats will rise. Uniting empowers them to wring extra goodies from taxpayers by implicitly threatening strikes or job actions and marshaling considerable cash and other resources from teachers, which they then use to bribe lawmakers and wage publicity campaigns.
But what should make parents especially nervous is that, to reap the benefits of a monopoly, good teachers opt to forgo
their natural market advantage and agree to protect their weaker brethren. The result
is failed schools.
Think about it: Would you trust a hospital that hires, fires and promotes surgeons based on seniority — with little regard to the surgeons’ abilities? Not likely.
Nor should anyone trust schools that can’t fire lousy teachers or reward good ones. Unfortunately, that’s about 1,300 of New York City’s 1,400 public schools (the remaining ones being non-unionized charter schools).
Kids are not widgets. On an assembly line, relevant skills don’t vary much. Nor, generally, is the quality of the work as critical as a teacher’s. A last-in, first-out rule for layoffs and other protections might work fine in a factory. But in schools, parents want the best — not merely the longest-serving.
And with budgets tight — City Hall says Gov. Cuomo plans to send $1.3 billion less to the city for schools than expected — it’s vital to get the most bang for the education buck.
Mulgrew & Co. may not see it that way. Employed teachers want to keep their jobs — and who can blame them? Prizing unity, the UFT will stand behind all of them.
But parents needn’t roll over; indeed, some aren’t: As the panel was voting to close those 22 schools, some parents voiced loud support, demanding better-performing charter schools in their stead. As cash continues to dry up, even more parents may come forward.
Actually, it would be sinful if they didn’t. Supporting failure — at kids’ expense — should never be tolerated. Doing so when money’s tight and every dollar counts is simply unforgivable.