It’s back to basics for Mayor Bloomberg, who spent a good chunk of his State of the City Address yesterday focusing on the one issue that surely must matter to him most: New York’s schools.
In a speech that proffered an amalgam of fairly squishy proposals (not uncommon for a late-term, lame-duck pol), Mayor Mike’s education reforms stood out.
Not only did he pitch them first, and spend more time discussing them than other issues, but they were by far the boldest of his ideas — and the most notable.
Especially his threat to pull lousy teachers from classrooms, no matter what their union and its bought-off lawmakers say.
Fixing schools “is now more important than ever,” he said. “Our children deserve to make it to the top of the mountain.”
Bloomberg knows his legacy rests largely on progress in the schools — meaning, holding teachers to account. He knows Albany’s “reforms” in that regard two years ago were a charade, as US Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Gov. Cuomo have both suggested.
He’s also aware that the city might lose millions in federal grants, thanks to Albany’s fecklessness. And, more important, without real mechanisms to rate teachers and weed out losers, kids won’t prosper.
Bloomberg’s failed efforts to move Albany last year must also be sticking in his craw: Recall the swift kick he took back then from lawmakers and the governor, who smugly ignored his pleas for greater authority to dismiss weak faculty.
The chief impediment was Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, whose first priority is the union and the teachers it seeks to protect. (Silver made that clear again this week when he lauded a union cat’s-paw, the Alliance for Education Equity, and its top lackey, Billy Easton, as we noted yesterday).
So Bloomberg feels pressure to act.
Mike’s end-run around the United Federation of Teachers calls for committees he controls to grade teachers and replace up to half of them at (for now) some 33 below-grade schools. “We’re not going to wait around,” he said. “Under this process, the best teachers stay; the least effective go.” Bravo.
The move couldn’t have better highlighted Albany’s steadfast refusal to help kids over the union. It also challenges Cuomo to do more than just set up a new education panel, as he plans to do.
Yesterday, the gov seemed supportive, saluting Bloomberg on his vision for the city’s future — and “the most important part . . . our students.” Step one, he said, is a “system that holds teachers accountable.”
Until that’s reality, though, Bloomberg’s gambit is vital.