Mayor Bloomberg sought Friday to strike a more conciliatory tone with the union representing the city’s teachers, one day after he threatened to remove as much as half the faculty at some of the city’s low performing schools.
“For all the bluster, I think, in the end, my hope is that people would all come together and that we’ll find a way to evaluate teachers, reward the best, give some help to those that aren’t doing a great job,” Bloomberg said during a brief radio appearance Friday morning.
“If they can get better, that’s wonderful. We’ve got big investments in them. But if they can’t, then they’ve just got to step aside,” he added.
On Thursday, Bloomberg dedicated the bulk of his annual State of the City address to initiatives aimed at improving the city’s school system. The mayor offered to increase the salaries of the best teachers by $20,000 per year and threatened to bypass the union and remove ineffective educators in 33 struggling schools.
Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, accused the mayor of living in a “fantasy world.”
The union opposes the merit-pay proposal and has questioned whether the administration has the legal authority to remove teachers. Bloomberg responded to Mulgrew’s criticism in his remarks Friday.
“It’s not a fantasy world for the best teachers who are proud of what they do,” Bloomberg said. “In all fairness, that’s the vast bulk of the teachers. And the very best really would like to be able to get bonuses.
“Nobody goes into education for the money. But we all know it’s tough to pay the bills, and more money would help.”
While the mayor did not back down Friday, he used softer language to discuss his education agenda.
“We just have to do something to make the educational outcomes better, and if we can do it and protect all the teachers, that’s great,” he said. “But if we can’t, we have to decide what is our number one priority, and it’s got to be the students.”