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It’s war.
Mayor Bloomberg broke out the battle-ax against teachers in the city’s worst schools yesterday — launching a bombshell plan that would remove as many as 1,500 of them without any say from the union.
In his 11th State of the City speech, Hizzoner launched a coordinated strike against the teachers union that included the layoffs and an ambitious plan to handsomely reward the best teachers with $20,000 bonuses.
Bloomberg said he would overhaul 33 struggling schools by essentially closing and reopening them in one fell swoop — keeping all the kids but retaining only the best teachers.
As many as 50 percent of educators at each school would go.
Most of the schools had been part of a $58 million federal turnaround program that was halted abruptly last month after the city and the United Federation of Teachers failed to reach a required deal on a new teacher-evaluation system.
Bloomberg said the new route would allow the city to reclaim the lost funding because it doesn’t require any deals with the union.
The controversial plan would set up five-person teacher-rating committees at each school as early as this summer — and bounce those educators who aren’t up to snuff.
“We need to be able to identify those ineffective teachers and give them the support they need to grow,” Bloomberg said in yesterday’s address at the former Morris HS in The Bronx. “And if that doesn’t work, we need to be able to move them out.”
Booted teachers could seek jobs in other schools or else work as substitutes.
Bloomberg said federal guidelines and the city’s contract with the UFT already clear the path for the program.
However, the state Education Department would have to OK the plan, which swaps out six schools that were part of the initial program for six low-performing schools that weren’t.
UFT chief Michael Mulgrew blasted the mayor as short on facts and flat-out wrong in his assertion that he can unilaterally assemble teacher-rating teams.
“Those school committees can only be formed under certain situations, and the schools he was talking about today do not fall under that,” Mulgrew said.
“If you want to keep using this as a political football or an agenda because you’re leaving office, the reality is that you have harmed these schools, and we’re going to stand up for them,” Mulgrew added.
“We’re not going to sit down and sit quietly because the mayor said it in a speech.”
The head of the principals union — whose members’ jobs are also on the line — blamed the city’s policies rather than bad teachers for the failures at the low-performing schools.
In order for the city to collect the federal dough, any of the principals at the 33 underperforming schools who weren’t recently appointed would also have to be removed.
“These schools are likely to continue struggling, not because 50 percent of the educators are supposedly incompetent, but because of the DOE’s student enrollment policies that place students who are over-age, undercredited, in temporary housing or dealing with involved special-education needs in schools that are said to be low-performing,” said Ernie Logan, president of the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators.
In further saber-rattling with the union, Bloomberg announced plans to start a merit system that would boost pay by $20,000 for teachers who score in the highest category possible on their evaluations for two straight years.
Union leaders have long opposed merit pay, and they continued to argue yesterday that the incentive programs haven’t worked in other cities.
The mayor also wants to pay up to $25,000 of student loans for teachers who graduated college with high marks and who commit to working in the city for up to five years.
Students would get $5,000 to cover their loans for each year of service.
The mayor didn’t specify how the economically strained city would pay for the new and costly incentives.
Gov. Cuomo commended the mayor for outlining a plan “that puts students first.”