Mayor Goes National On Trouble With UFT Teacher Protections
By DAVID SIMS

No sooner had United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten go to Washington, D.C. to take the reins of her national union than Mayor Bloomberg followed her there to tell a Congressional committee July 17 that "inflexible [UFT] work rules" hamstrung city Principals looking to get rid of sub-par Teachers.

MAYOR BLOOMBERG: Mixed feelings about UFT.

In a statement issued later that day, Ms. Weingarten said that "the Mayor is just wrong" on this issue, citing a Department of Education survey showing that "94 percent of parents are pleased with their children's teachers." She sprinkled in some praise for other portions of his testimony, saying "we appreciate Mayor Bloomberg being so positive about our work with his administration."

Mr. Bloomberg appeared before the U.S. Congressional Committee on Education and Labor along with Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein and representatives of the school systems in Washington D.C., Chicago and Atlanta. The Mayor's address was mostly geared towards reform of the Federal "No Child Left Behind" Act, which he said "brought accountability to public schools from coast to coast" but must now focus on "the achievement gap that exists among students of different races and ethnicities."

The Mayor said that New York was making strides in closing this gap, in particular crediting his negotiations with the UFT as having raised Teacher salaries across the board by 43 percent and attracted bright new graduates to the profession, and establishing a pay-for-performance program to improve Teacher accountability.

Bouquet to Weingarten

He said Ms. Weingarten's recent election to president of the American Federation of Teachers was "a good thing, because her willingness to experiment could result in more school districts adopting pay-for-performance programs."

But Mr. Bloomberg also criticized the UFT for making it difficult to remove Teachers who "continuously fail [their] students." He proposed that Congress "use the power of the purse to withhold funds from districts that fail to take meaningful steps towards reform," reform being "rewards for success and consequences for failure."

The Mayor's statements provoked an immediate response from Ms. Weingarten, who pointed to "some of the most impressive student test scores we've had in years in New York City" and said that the AFT had "asked all its locals to consider a peer assistance and review program" similar to the UFT's existing program.

Chancellor Klein's address was broadly similar to Mayor Bloomberg's, praising No Child Left Behind for its focus on accountability and seeking a "major Federal commitment to reward teachers who get results." He also highlighted the city's charter school students, who despite being "more than 90 percent African-American and Latino and 80 percent poor ... [topped] students statewide" on state math standards and came "just shy" on state reading standards.