NEW YORK—Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced his plan to get ineffective teachers out of the city’s classrooms in his State of the City address earlier this month, but noted in his weekly radio address on Friday they will remain in the school system for years to come.
The process of getting a teacher out of the school system takes years, says Bloomberg, and teachers deemed ineffective will be in a “pool” until the process is complete. They will serve as substitute teachers or in comparable roles.
“We’re not going to go back to the rubber room thing?!” asked radio host John Gambling, referring to the now defunct detention hall-like rooms, where teachers removed from the classroom still received full pay.
The mayor says rubber-room teachers are now working in Department of Education (DOE) offices and other placements.
The mayor’s plan is to form school-based committees to pick out teachers for dismissal. He will start with the 33 worst performing schools, removing half of the teachers from the classrooms. He will then move on to the rest of the city’s 1,700 schools.
Bloomberg says teachers will leave the classroom and go into “excess,” meaning that they will be substitute teachers and have other duties. The important thing for now, says Bloomberg, is getting them out of their role as permanent teachers.
“A separate issue which must be faced, but which is a lot less important, is moving them out of the system,” said Bloomberg.
The mayor said in his State of the City address that he would dismiss ineffective teachers with or without the support of the teachers’ union.
The union responded with scathing ads, denouncing Bloomberg’s management of the schools. The ad criticizes the mayor’s plan to remove half the teachers in the 33 schools; a move it says will double class sizes. The ad also lists what the union deems as Bloomberg’s failures: “Cathie Black, fudged education test scores, closing schools, [and] parents shut out of the process.”
Bloomberg said he hasn’t seen the ad, a benefit of not watching much television.
The other half of the mayor’s plan is to attract good teachers.
