A Level Field for ATR

Schools Chancellor Joel Klein has finally taken a constructive step toward dealing with the Absent Teacher Reserve under a deal reached with the United Federation of Teachers.

The ATR currently contains more than 1,300 Teachers who lost jobs when their schools were either eliminated or consolidated and have been unable to find new positions. It was created under a contract several years ago between the Department of Education and the UFT that ended the practice under which "excessed" Teachers could use their seniority rights to "bump" younger instructors from positions in the system.

Those in the ATR must convince Principals to hire them, but in many cases they are at the high end of the salary scale, meaning they would eat up more of a school's budget than brand-new Teachers.

Until now, Mr. Klein has ignored the financial realities that would make it difficult for many ATR enrollees to get permanent job assignments, instead allowing the perception to grow that these instructors have not been hired because they aren't very good at their jobs. UFT President Randi Weingarten has decried those efforts and accused the system of perpetuating a kind of age discrimination by making it harder for more-senior staff to return to the classroom.

The deal reached between the parties means there is no longer a disincentive for Principals to hire from the ATR. Not only will their budgets only be charged the cost of a starting Teacher's salary — with DOE covering the remainder of what a veteran Teacher earns — but they will receive a lump-sum payment equal to half a new hire's salary as well.

As Ms. Weingarten notes, this will not wind up costing DOE more money: each classroom taken charge of by a former ATR member means one fewer new Teacher has to be brought in. Since the ATR enrollees were getting full salaries even if they had no jobs to go to, there is a net savings for the system.

This will give the ATR members a chance to return to productive work and use their experience to benefit students. It will also allow for an honest measure of whether some of them really aren't good enough to attract interest from Principals, rather than being casualties of their high salaries.

All concerned should benefit from this resolution.