Competing Interests
The NY teachers’ union (UFT) wishes people– you know, the “blame the teacher crowd and the Wall Street Hedge Funds behind them”– to “quit playing politics” with the school children of New York. EdWise has the TV ad that the UFT began running last week in an attempt to prevent the possible $500 million education budget cut that’s before the legislature in Albany.
The UFT says it’s necessary to take action to prevent the cuts in order to “make a difference in the lives of New York City public school children and keep great teachers in the classroom.”
Protecting teachers’ jobs, though, doesn’t necessarily go hand in hand with making a difference– for the better– in kids’ lives. Otherwise, we wouldn’t see huge numbers of parents trying so desperately to get their kids out of regular public schools into often-not-unionized charter schools. Teachers’ interests are not always the same as students’ interests and what’s best for teachers is not always what’s best for kids.
When it comes to protecting jobs, though, there is a solution other than money from Albany. Gotham Schools reports that Eric Nadelstern, New York Department of Education’s Chief School Officer has another idea:
Nadelstern said that it was also possible that a last-minute agreement with the teachers union could help avert some layoffs. “The best case scenario would be that the teachers agree to forgo immediate raises as well as increases in step increments, and that would allow us to balance the budget regardless of what the state does, and forgo laying people off,” Nadelstern said.
According to a UFT website folks should:
Tell our Leaders in Albany and New York City that kids don’t get a second chance at a good education.
(This isn’t a grammar posting, but I can’t figure out a grammar-and-usage reason for a bunch of teachers capitalizing the word leader in the middle of a sentence. But I digress.)
Now that’s a statement– that kids don’t get a second chance at a good education– that we can all agree with. It’s just that people can rightly disagree on exactly what it means. In a battle of the video clips–and what’s best for kids– I don’t think the UFT can beat the The Lottery.
