Back to the Future in Education Reform
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Back in the day, schoolchildren celebrated the end of the school year by singing, "No more pencils. No more books. No more teachers' dirty looks."
With states and cities threatening layoffs, teachers may soon be giving their principals dirty looks.
The teachers unions and their congressional allies are pushing for passage of a $23 billion fund that would save up to 300,000 education jobs nationwide.
With growing voter concern about government spending and deficit hawks squawking, theEducation Jobs Fund will likely not be included in an emergency supplemental appropriations bill.
In any case, a teacher bailout with no strings attached would represent a missed opportunity to reform union seniority rules. The "last hired, first fired" rule consigns Digital Age children to classrooms with teachers with 20th century skills.
The New York Times reported:
Schools across the city are bracing for layoffs as city officials estimate that as many as 4,400 teachers could lose their jobs, victims of budget problems in the city and state stemming in part from the recession. Barring any rescue plan from City Hall, Albany or Congress, the job losses, expected to be announced this week, would be the first major cut to the city's teaching force in more than three decades.
But the schools that are likely to feel the layoff pain most acutely are the hundreds of new small schools that have been a cornerstone of Chancellor Joel I. Klein's efforts to overhaul the city's public education system. Because of seniority rules dictating who gets laid off first, the small schools stand to lose a disproportionate share of teachers.
I am a product of the New York public schools, but union seniority rules are not unique to the Big Apple. That's why I kept raising the issue at the recent charrette on education reform organized byDeWayne Wickham, the director of the Institute for Advanced Journalism Studies at North Carolina A&T State University.
Modeled after the annual conference for the study of the "Negro Problem" that Dr. W.E.B. DuBois