From Timothy Cardinal Dolan to Jeremy Lin to Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, New York is on a roll. Everywhere you turn, incredible people are doing amazing things. Then there are the teachers unions.
To cut through the complexities of the deals the unions made with Mayor Bloomberg and Gov. Cuomo, consider this: Under the terms, no public-school teacher in New York state can be fired for incompetence until June — of 2014!
And that’s if everything goes according to plan. Take that, taxpayers and parents.
Whatever the merits, and there are some, including more federal money, a big negative is that the new system will erase current attempts to hold teachers accountable for student performance. “It wipes the slate clean,” one city official said.
That means thousands of city teachers already found to be boobs in the classroom likely will get a fresh start. Under the new law, they must get “ineffective” ratings for two consecutive years before administrators can even try to dismiss them.
With details still to be worked out in the city and other local districts, the earliest the new system could take effect is the start of school next September. The time needed for someone to get two years of “ineffective” evaluations would push the calendar to June 2014, which is when the first group of failing teachers would face possible termination.
But dismissal won’t be a sure thing. Under the terms the city negotiated, two ineffective ratings will be considered a presumption of incompetence and shift the burden of proof to the teacher. However, the final decision on firing remains with a three-person panel, which includes an independent arbitrator and one representative each from the union and City Hall.
No wonder Bloomberg complained that he will leave office in December 2013 without dismissing a single bad teacher under the agreement. Cuomo probably won’t see much impact when his term ends a year later.
Equally troubling, the city does not get new powers to fire thousands of teachers it already deems unfit. Last year, the Mayor’s Office counted more than 7,000 in various categories it wanted to dismiss.
Some had committed crimes, and some were chronically absent or late. But the vast majority were on the hit list because of poor classroom performance. Typically, only a relative handful of teachers are fired each year, because the cumbersome process is designed to protect them, so most on the list will get a clean slate.
In addition to 2,671 teachers with at least one unsatisfactory rating who were not fired, they included 1,149 employees who had been pushed out of a permanent job but were still being paid and 1,593 teachers in grades 4 to 8 who had failed to help students improve over two or more years.
The cost to taxpayers of paying for dead wood is staggering. The widely used figure of more than $100,000 for each employee per year, which includes salary and benefits, means the city is paying $700 million for little or no good service.
The upshot, then, is that Chancellor Dennis Walcott must make better use of every lever of authority he has already. The first, best way is through denying tenure.
It’s a power the city held all along, but educrats rubber-stamped these “jobs for life” at a rate of 99 percent. Two years ago, the mayor finally ordered a standards-driven process, and last year only 57 percent of those eligible got tenure.
As many as 2,400 teachers are eligible this year. If only the best pass muster, the others will resign or try again the following year. Either way, if high standards are consistently enforced over years, the city eventually will have a big impact on teacher quality. By then it also will be able to move against thousands of others who presumably will get two years of ineffective ratings under the new system.
Good enough for New York? Not really. But it is what it is.
Appeasers’ deluded Iran hope
Day by day, Iran’s behavior grows more menacing. It is pushing forward with a nuclear-weapons program, threatening havoc in oil markets and launching assassination attacks in several countries.
In response, counsels of appeasement fill the air like so many bleating sheep.
From Europe to America, supposed sophisticates echo the willful ignorance with which Neville Chamberlain greeted Herr Hitler. Turning reality upside down, they warn not of the dangers of Iran but of the dangers of confronting Iran.
Some insist the thugocracy is growing more hostile because it really wants to find a way to pull back from the brink of war.
It’s an optimistic thought based on, well, hope. And hope, it is said, makes a good breakfast but a poor supper.
It is very late in the day to hope Iran is doing anything other than what the evidence says it is. The enriching of uranium, the hiding from international inspectors, the threats of Armageddon against Israel and America — they point to one conclusion.
To assume anything else is foolish and dangerous.
Look at how Iran is acting. Now imagine it with a nuclear weapon. Does anyone honestly believe it would be a better neighbor and global citizen with a nuke than without one?
It is probably true that an Israeli strike will launch a regional war, and thus should be avoided if possible. Clearly, finding another solution is Israel’s goal as well as America’s. Otherwise, an attack would have happened.
But an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities is almost certainly better than the alternative of waiting until Iran gets a nuke and seeing what it does. As Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak said, later could be too late.
What would the Chamberlains say then?
Can’t fake fear
Reuters reports that Italian police seized “$6 trillion worth of fake US Treasury bonds and other securities in Switzerland, and arrested eight Italians accused of international fraud.”
The article quoted traders joking about crates of fake bonds and the effect on prices, but something else caught my eye. An Italian paper says the suspects were hoping to buy plutonium. Yes, plutonium.
Hold the laughs; cue the worry.
Liberal journos’ true colors
At least 19 professional reporters and media executives have gone to work for the Obama administration or outside liberal groups supporting it, the Washington Examiner complains. It counts five from the Washington Post and three each from ABC and CNN.
Look on the bright side. After years of pretending to be fair, the media types finally are being honest about their politics.
Primarily a GOP nightmare
A friend and Republican political operative is tired of being asked to predict the outcome of the party’s nasty and volatile presidential primaries. “I don’t have a crystal ball, but I can offer analysis about what is going on,” he says.
OK, I ask, what is going on?
His answer: “It’s a f–king disaster!”
Amen.