Pols Knock Mayors School Ideas
By [Megan Finnegan Bungeroth] Last week, Mayor Michael Bloomberg laid out a sweeping vision for New York in his State of the City address, given at Morris High School in the Bronx. With a broad focus on education, creating jobs and bolstering the economy, Bloomberg echoed many imperatives that Gov. Andrew Cuomo laid out in his State of the State address the previous week while putting forth some specific, and controversial, plans of his own. Perhaps the biggest issue Bloomberg tackled was education, giving a five-point set of goals that seemingly blindsided the United Federation of Teachers and has education advocates either grinning or wringing their hands, depending on who you ask. While emphasizing the need to attract and maintain talented teachers with initiatives to help pay off teachers" student loans and programs to bump up salaries by $20,000 after two consecutive years of stellar ratings, Bloomberg called for the power to get rid of the ineffective ones. â??Under a school turnaround program already authorized by federal and state law and consistent with a provision of the existing union contract, the city can form school-based committees to evaluate teachers on merit and replace up to 50 percent of the faculty, Bloomberg said, pointing out that 33 schools missed out on $58 million in federal funding because of poor performance and that the city was unable to replace any of those teachers. â??Under this process, the best teachers stay [and] the least effective go. And now, that is exactly what will happen, he said. Michael Mulgrew, president of the UFT, was reportedly not told about the mayor"s pronouncements until shortly before the address. He mocked Bloomberg for being â??lost in his own fantasy world. â??What I saw was a man who was trying to set up a smokescreen about the decade of disaster that he has put upon our city schools, Mulgrew said in a statement. â??He"s trying to start a fight with the UFT rather than negotiate with us on an evaluation system so that all children will be helped more. Upper West Side Council Member Gale Brewer, who noted that the address itself was abuzz with politicians and city employees tweeting out updates, trying to beat one another to release the latest news, said that her overall impression was that Bloomberg is attempting to cement his legacy above all else. â??The whole speech seemed like it was an awful lot to get done in 22 months, Brewer said, referring not only to the education policy mentioned but to changes in the economy and to the city"s infrastructure. â??I know how long these things take because I"ve been working on them myself. She was also unsure of how the mayor plans to enact his large-scale changes to the education system. â??From my perspective, forgiving a loan is one thing, but there isn"t enough evaluation procedure to be able to say that somebody has enough qualifications to get the extra $20,000 for being the best teacher, Brewer said. She also noted that, from what she has heard, one of the biggest problems facing local schools is a lack of qualified principals coming through the system. â??If you don"t have good principals in the pipeline, teachers are upset, parents are upset and the scores aren"t going up. I don"t see how this is going to be a legacy item, she said. Bloomberg also highlighted the need for better recycling programs and said the city will begin turning wastewater into renewable energy and explore ways to cleanly convert solid waste. He called the debate over bike lanes â??hot and heavy and said that the city would step up enforcement of traffic laws while encouraging even more bike use through the bike share program. Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer applauded the mayor"s calls for a higher minimum wage but criticized some of his other proposed measures, like selling three buildings in Lower Manhattan to raise money for the city instead of utilizing them. â??I wish he had spoken more about the squeeze facing New York"s middle-class families, Stringer said in a statement. â??Too many New Yorkers are working harder than ever but feel like they are falling farther and farther behind.