How Will Crisis Impact on Market Based Ed Reform?

For one who worked in the schools through the catastrophic financial crisis in NYC in 1975 and 1976, these times seem very familiar. The impact on schools then?

About 13,000 layoffs with excessed people from schools bumping people all over the place.

Of course with the current contract, that won't happen. Just a mass of ATR's. Or not. Remember that "no layoffs" clause in the contract? I think there's some small print along the lines of "Unless there's a fiscal crisis." Hmmm.

Now would they lay off $45,000 a year teachers while keeping people making 80- 100 grand? Hey, the law says they have to. I wonder how those mad dogs from the Leadership Academy (costing us $50 million over 5 years and one of the numerous pet projects of BloomKlein that will survive class sizes of 80) will take to that? Maybe Bloomberg can do a 2 for 1. While buying the city council to extend term limits and the state legislature to continue mayoral control, he can get them to change other laws.


They hit the elementary schools in '75 and the secondary schools the next.

My elementary school lost 15 people from a staff of about 70. All cluster teachers except one was left standing. Our preps were cut from 5 to 3 a week. How did they manage that? We got one prep a week and they sent kids home 45 minutes early 2 days a week for 2 years. (The only benefit was the wine and cheese Friday 2:15 parties.) A freeze even of the salary steps we were to get. Basically, a total suspension of many of our contractual gains. Class size? Forget about it.

Oh yeah. And we went on a strike to supposedly resist. Al Shanker's "We won't go back 'till we all go back," still resounds. Then the next thing we know is he is giving away our pension money to bail out the city. I was with the Coalition of NYC School Workers and we stood outside Madison Square Garden pleading with people to vote the plan down to no avail.

For you newbies used to the capitulation of the UFT (the one bulwark that could organize resistance) the Unity Caucus leadership has had a lot of practice.

Other than special ed (which exploded in the late 70's) over the next 10 plus years, I don't remember one regular ed addition to our staff.

Schools were closed and later sold off to private interests - in Williamsburg (Brooklyn) there are still 4 large former public schools being used by the Hasidic community that they bought for about a buck. (They DID have 3 members of the school board.)

Pretty much all long-term maintenance on schools was stopped for 15-20 years and that caught up with them in the 90's when serious problems cropped up in many buildings that they are still addressing today.

So, how will the current crisis that can turn out to be worse than the one 33 years ago impact on the schools in NYC and the BloomKlein program that puts a premium on high priced executives and extremely expensive private schemes while shortchanging classrooms? What about all those frills floating on the pond of market-based ed reform?

We'll speculate on the future of the extended day (can you see them cutting this - and the salaries that go with it?) small schools movement, merit pay schemes, after school programs, etc. a bit in an upcoming blog.

But here's an early warning shot from a Chicago teacher:

The Chicago High School Redesign Intiative (CHSRI) layed off all of its employees last Monday who were working with small schools. CHSRI managed the Bill Gates grants that help fund additional money to the small school movement. This will be the last school year that there will be a small school AIO. Next school year the small schools will return to the area offices AIO's or to the turnaround school AIO. CPS will be closing small schools and turning them back to "one" whole school. Small schools cost too much money because of higher administrative costs and CPS will be able to save money by going back to one principal instead of three or four principals per building. In a small school you must have at least 600 students per school, for the staffing formulas to work economically.

(jargon translation: AIO is Area Instructional Officer--small schools have had their own separate area, rather than being organized like the other schools into geographic areas. Turnaround schools are run by an outside agency headed by "venture capitalist" Martin Koldyke and also have their own "area".)