Mayor Revises School Plan To Win Over UFT;
Positions on Funding, Class Size, Tenure Are Softened

By MEREDITH KOLODNER

The United Federation of Teachers last week relaxed its opposition to Mayor Bloomberg's school reorganization plan after he withdrew school funding changes that could have penalized senior Teachers.

RANDI WEINGARTEN: Finally communicating.

The deal with the UFT, and a host of other community, immigrant and parent groups that had been vocally opposing the Mayor's plan, included an agreement not to change Teacher tenure criteria next school year.

Consult on Class-Size

The pact also sets up a consultative process for reducing class size after the state issues its regulations next month. And it promises to add about $50 million for English Language Learners, according to sources involved in the negotiations.

The agreement was put in writing and included concrete changes, but all parties acknowledged that there were several points of disagreement that remained unresolved.

"When we stopped yelling at each other a lot and publicly," said Ms. Weingarten at the April 19 press conference, "we started talking to each other and we found that there were more areas of agreement than disagreement."

The Mayor, standing in front of an array of community leaders who have been leading protests against his plan, also struck a positive tone.

'Closer Than We Thought'

"We are a lot closer together on some of the issues surrounding school initiatives than we might have thought," he said. "For the first time in decades, our schools are headed in the right direction, and our Teachers deserve a lot of the credit."

The deal came after hours of negotiations with the major players in the Put the Public Back in Public Education coalition, which includes the Working Families Party, ACORN, the Coalition for Educational Justice and the New York Immigration Coalition. The group is re-evaluating the need for the May 9 mass rally it had planned to oppose the school changes, but members indicated that they would not disband as a group and would continue to work to oppose portions of the Mayor's school reorganization plan. The UFT called an emergency delegates meeting for April 24 to discuss the agreement.

"There is a very effective dialogue on the things that we are concerned about," said Ms. Weingarten, "and there are still aspects of the reorganization that we obviously have qualms about."

In his January State of the City address, the Mayor outlined changes to school funding formulas that would drive dollars towards schools that have historically received less money per student, due to Byzantine and politically influenced spending patterns.

Ties Dollars to Students

The Mayor's plan would assign a dollar amount per student to determine how much each school received, increasing that amount for English Language Learners, special education and other high-needs children.

Schools in poor neighborhoods have historically received less money per student than schools in wealthier areas. This lack of funding often led to low-performing schools that usually had poor working conditions, making them unattractive places for many experienced Teachers to work. Advocates of the Mayor's plan argued that experienced Teachers should not be clustered in well-funded middle-class districts while lower-income areas churned through new Teachers each year.

The UFT and community groups declared themselves in favor of more equitable funding, but objected to a component of the new method, which they said could add to Teacher churning. One of the changes would have meant that instead of funding each individual Teacher regardless of salary, Principals would have to take into account Teacher salary when crafting their overall budget. The UFT argued that this would create an incentive not to hire higher-paid Teachers. Further, the union asserted that the change would de-fund and destabilize schools that are currently well-funded and high-achieving.

Won't Rob Peter

Instead of simply re-allocating current spending, the new agreement would use the massive influx in state and city dollars to finance schools that have been underfunded, without taking money away from the schools that have been well-funded. "The idea is to use the extra money to bring those, who for a variety of reasons didn't get as much per capita, up," said Mr. Bloomberg.

The Mayor had originally agreed to hold schools harmless for current Teacher salaries in the coming year, and the new agreement extends that period through the 2008-2009 school year.

In addition, the original plan would have meant that if a Teacher making $90,000 retired, that school would have seen its budget allocation drop to reflect the average Teacher salary. The union was concerned that this would again give schools an incentive to hire "cheaper" Teachers. The UFT got an agreement that when Teachers from a "hold-harmless" year retire or leave for another school, the amount allocated to their salary will not be decreased.

Principal's Discretion

A Principal still has the choice, however, to use that senior salary to hire a less-expensive teacher and re-allocate the rest of the money for other school needs.

The union also was given assurances that school funding will increase as Teachers' salaries increase, regardless of the new formula.

"There is no more perverse incentive to squeeze people who have a higher salary out of a school," said Ms. Weingarten.

But the union is still pursuing its grievance against using Teachers' salaries in deciding whether to hire a Teacher who wants to change schools. The relatively new Open Market Transfer System allows Principals to choose whom to hire for an open position where the old system gave available jobs to the most senior Teacher who applied. The transfer application now requires a Teacher to indicate her salary, which the union believes is a violation of the contract.

Tenure Safe for Now

Making the overall deal sweeter for the UFT, the agreement confirmed that there would be no changes made this year to tenure criteria, while an internal Department of Education committee works on overhauling the system. The UFT's major opposition to tenure evaluation changes has been the threatened use of students' test scores in making tenure decisions.

But disagreement about how to move forward was clear from Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein's comments after the press conference. "There were no deals regarding tenure," Mr. Klein said. "As far as I'm concerned, test scores should be a factor. What we all agreed to is that state law will govern us. But I've looked at the state law, and I think it allows us to look at test scores."

Governor Spitzer's education spokesman Brad Maione said in a phone conversation last week, however, that the new regulations passed in the state budget prevent districts from using student test scores to make decisions about Teacher tenure.

State Education Department regulations will also be the central factor in determining class size reduction. Decisions are on hold until the regulations are more fully developed and clarified, a process that should be concluded within the next few weeks. The DOE agreed to "work with the UFT, and other stakeholders, such as New Yorkers for Smaller Class Size, with the goal of developing recommendations on how best to implement the regulations."

Didn't Set Funding

The state budget agreement passed earlier this month included language requiring districts to develop a plan to lower class size over the next five years, but stopped short of mandating the amount of dollars spent on the effort or a target number for the reduction.

Assuming there are no major disagreements over the recommendations from City Council Speaker Christine Quinn's Task Force on Middle Schools, the DOE pledged to work with community groups to apply its policy changes, with a goal of getting at least 50 schools to implement them.

The DOE will also form a committee with coalition members chaired by DOE's Chief Parent Engagement Officer to "design improved systems for parent engagement" and to make sure each school has a well-functioning School Leadership Team. Its recommendations should be issued by mid-summer.

Several groups that had demanded to be "listened to" and get a seat at the table got that and more under the agreement. Notably absent from the press conference, however, were the Chancellor's Parent Advisory Committee and groups opposed to high-stakes testing.

But while most of the groups once at loggerheads with the Mayor and the DOE professed their commitment to "partnership," future peace over funding decisions and other policy shifts is not guaranteed.

Klein: Still Our Call

"Over the next several years I hope we can level the playing field," Mr. Klein said, referring to the funding formula. "What we've agreed to is a consultative process. But the Mayor and the Chancellor will be making the substantive decisions about the future of the schools."