Jean-Claude Brizard is not yet sitting at the helm of central office, but already the administration is getting ready to deal with the budget crisis he will encounter. On Friday, an undisclosed number of central office employees were told their positions will be closed at the end of this fiscal year.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s threats of teacher layoffs have had a ring of déjà vu. He used the same threat last year to squeeze more money from the federal government and to press his case for abolishing the state law that protects the most senior teachers from losing their jobs.
Teachers from Intermediate School 339, in foreground, gathered for a teacher-appreciation event on Friday, the day that details of planned layoffs were announced.
The strategy yielded a partial victory — $800 million in stimulus money, which, when combined with a pay freeze, took layoffs off the table, but did nothing to alter the seniority law.
The law still stands, and when the mayor again raised the prospect of layoffs, skeptical observers wondered if he was running the same play all over again. But those layoffs came a big step closer to becoming reality on Friday, when the mayor put them in his executive budget, saying they were needed to balance the city’s finances.
In proposing to lay off 4,100 teachers, Mr. Bloomberg turned a political third rail into fair game. He is taking on the teachers’ union amid an incendiary national debate over the impact of public employees’ benefits and protections on state and local governments.
Unlike Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, who has called leaders of his state’s teachers’ union “political thugs,” or
Saturday, May 7th 2011, 4:00 AM
Mayor Bloomberg's plans to dole out 4,100 pink slips to teachers will devastate city schools, teachers and parents said Friday.
The teacher layoffs would cause class sizes to rise across the city - and spell chaos at several schools where potentially more than half the staff could get the ax.
"I'm really disappointed," said Mary Beth Carroll, a reading teacher at the Children's School in Brooklyn, whose job has been threatened by the layoffs.
"With the population increases, I can't imagine what class sizes are going to be next year," she said, noting she and other reading teachers work with students who struggle. "The most vulnerable children will be hurt the most."
Bloomberg said Friday that the layoffs - the first since the fiscal crisis of the 1970s - are necessary due to slashed state and federal funding.
Of the 6,100 teachers who would be off the payroll, about 2,000 will retire or leaving on their own, officials said, while another 4,100 will get laid off based on the state's "last in
What do dozens of American billionaires talk about when they get together? Their topic this week was of course money; not how to make it, but how to give it away.
Billionaire investor Warren Buffett said Friday that a private gathering was a great chance for the billionaires who have pledged to give away at least half their wealth to meet each other, compare notes, eat and laugh.
The media was banned from Thursday's first meeting of the group that has accepted the giving challenge by Buffett and his friend Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. Since last June, 69 individuals or couples have made the giving pledge.
Buffett knew only about 12 of the 61 people at the dinner at the Miraval Resort in Tucson before the famously gregarious Berkshire Hathaway CEO worked the room and made 40 new friends.
"They all more than fulfilled my expectations," Buffett told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.
Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, said she was delighted by the openness of
Tonight members of the Desert Sands Teachers Association participated in a “Grade In” at an outdoor area mall to raise awareness of time spent working outside the classroom.
To those who continue to say educators are paid too much – American educators work the most hours of all industrialized nations, but are the 5th lowest paid after 15 years on the job. View an infographic courtesy of the
at Alternet this morning. It is by Rachel Tabachnick, and is titled The DeVos Family: Meet the Super-Wealthy Right-Wingers Working With the Religious Right to Kill Public Education The piece is very timely, as Betsy DeVos is running a conference in DC on Monday which will feature the likes of the governors of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and Michelle Rhee.
If you do not know, the DeVos family money comes largely from Amway. Erik Prince of Blackwater/Xe fame is connected - Betsy is his sister. And they are very much Christian Dominionists, wanting to destroy not only public education, but if given the chance religious freedom as well.
First, the general approach - beyond that of religion - can be seen in this paragraph:
The conservative policy institutes founded beginning in the 1970s get hundreds of millions of dollars from wealthy families and foundations to develop and promote free market fundamentalism. More specifically, their goals include privatizing social security, reducing government regulations, thwarting environmental policy, dismantling unions -- and eliminating public schools.
There is more - much more.
Across America (TWP)
During Teacher Appreciation Week, teachers across the country were honored with numerous gift packages, ranging from the small but special to the large and luxurious. TWP surveyed teachers and found some interesting results of the weeklong marathon of love and mutual respect.
In Tulsa, Oklahoma, 3rd grade teacher at Ross Elementary, Karen Morrison reported that she received a special email from the superintendent of schools which read, “As we close Teacher Appreciation Week, I want to say THANK YOU for all you do for our students! The single most important factor in our success as a school district is the quality teachers and staff we employ! We will continue to move forward and provide opportunities for our students because of you and your efforts! You are making a difference!”
Morrison noted that the proportion of exclamation points to white space in the email was surely evidence of great
Does your local principal or superintendent blog? Do you read the blog of your local, state, or national school administrator association? Know of other blogs that are of interest to school leaders? I’m trying to collect 500 school leadership blogs in the next 10 days. Sure, there are some lists but they all need updating:
I know that many of you will contribute out of the goodness of your heart. But, because 500 blogs is a very ambitious goal, I’ll sweeten the pot a little. The kind folks at Lenovo are going to let me give away a Lenovo m90z all-in-one desktop computer to anyone in the world who submits a school leadership blog using the form below. I’ll choose at random from all of the submissions. You get an
