Mayor Bill de Blasio was interviewed by WNYC-FM about the New York City public schools and said that he will make it a "personal crusade" to keep and retain good teachers. Interestingly, at the same time he was speaking to public radio there are over 2,000 teachers without a permanent classroom. Many of these teachers are ""quality teachers" excessed from their schools during the Bloomberg years for various reasons and ended up in the ATR pool. How can the new Mayor claim that he wants "good teachers"when he has all these excessed teachers deliberately being kept out of the classroom despite being "highly qualified and credentialed"as required by the No Child Left Behind act? I hope the Mayor "practices what he preaches".
The exact quote by the Mayor is "I'm going to make this a personal crusade that we focus n attracting the best teachers". He further stated "of all the things that would affect the future of educationin our city, this is one of the most central".
Will the new Mayor be a man of his word? If so, the first thing he must do is immediately eliminate the DOE's "fair student funding" that requires principals to hire the "cheapest" and not the "best teachers" for the classroom. In addition, all teacher salaries should be funded through DOE Central and not as part of the school budget with schools being allocated "units" rather than forcing the schools to take salary into consideration. By placing many, if not all ATRs, back into the classroom, the Mayor is giving students the "quality teachers" they deserve rather than be used as guinea pigs for untested "newbies".
However, if the new Mayor and Chancellor bows to the Bloomberg ideology that permenat6es the DOE and their media allies and continue to demonize the ATRs by wasting $160 million annually while misusing the teaching talent by making them "glorified babysitters" , then it's not what's best for the children as he claims but what's best for the "status quo" .
Will the new Mayor follow the Bloomberg ideology by falsely equating the "cheapest teacher"as being the "best teacher"? Or will Bill de Blasio and Carmen Farina do what's right for the students and encourage principals to bring the ATRs back into the classroom where they will help reduce class sizes, provide quality instruction, and bring the classroom management skills that the "newbie teachers"lack and will not acquire for many years, assuming their still teaching.
Let's see if Mayor Bill de Blasio actually "practices what he preaches".