I am a retired teacher and before I taught I was a school payroll secretary before the days of direct deposit. It always surprised me how many teachers forgot to show up to collect their checks on payday or for days after that. The paycheck was something you needed to pay the bills. It did not affect the way you taught or how hard you worked to be better at the job. You did that for the kids and because, if you didn't, your working life was miserable. The mayor, a businessman, thinks he can buy anything with money. It shows how little he understands the very singular profession of teaching.

The Mayor's bonus program flys in the face of the latest knowledge in motivation research. Monetary rewards backfire at enhancing performance that require high levels of cognitive functioning. This is according to an economics study by MIT, Carnegie Melon and U of Chicago. Check it out here:

But, why should we be surprised the mayor ignores the latest research. He has repeatedly tried ed reforms based on "common sense" that have failed time and again. And by-the-way, the best teachers I have worked with over the years weren't there for the money. Not everyone shares his ethos.

(New York, NY – January 12, 2012) – Mayor Bloomberg delivered his State of the City address at Morris High School in the Bronx today, including several thousand words on education. Parent leader Zakiyah Ansari of the Coalition for Educational Justice released the following statement in reaction.

“Nearly every student in City public schools today started school under Mayor Bloomberg. These are our children and Bloomberg has run out of time, spin and excuses. All the kids in our schools are ‘Bloomberg’s Kids’; all the results are his to own. Until he makes serious changes and begins listening to parents, he will be ‘Mayor 13%’—the mayor who prepares just 13 percent of Black and Latino students for college.”

“As I listened to the Mayor's speech today, my hope was that he was going to take real leadership and acknowledge the truth of what is really happening in our schools. Unfortunately but not surprisingly, he did not. The mayor missed a major opportunity today to take a big step forward for our children and our school system by listening to the concerns of parents and the majority of New Yorkers who believe his policies have failed, and moving forward with a new set of reforms that will lift our City out of this educational crisis. Instead, the mayor doubled down on bad policies that – after ten years of mistakes – leave just one-in-four City students ready for college and only 13 percent of Black and Latino children prepared for higher education.

“In fact, the mayor's outrageous claim that 'by almost any measure, students are doing better and our school system is heading in the right direction' is not only flat out wrong, but a dangerous presumption for this administration to have and promote. The federal government’s National Assessment of Educational Progress Trial Urban District Assessment (NAEP TUDA) test results in December showed that City scores have plateaued since 2009 and the large racial achievement gap persists between Black and Latino students and their white peers has not budged. More than one-third of all City schools are now considered failing by the State. That is not the right direction. We wonder if the mayor is so out of touch with his own constituents that he does not even see the writing on the wall.

“The school the mayor chose for his address is itself a symbol of his failed education policies. Yes, graduation rates have improved at Morris High School—but only because the city cruelly forced out the highest-needs special education students. The old Morris HS had a 14 percent rate of self-contained special education students; the new Morris HS campus schools have an average of just two percent. What happened to all those special education students? They now attend other large high schools like Samuel Gompers and Grace Dodge, which the Mayor is now closing down as well. This 'warehousing' of students, according to the state's chancellor, is happening all around the City to cover up the real problems with City schools.

“Over the years, my eight children have passed through the classrooms of at least 50 teachers. I can count on one hand the number of teachers who I objected to. I'm offended by the mayor's insinuations that the majority of teachers are ineffective and that it is teachers, rather than the last decade of the mayor's leadership, that is responsible for the state of our schools.

An economic incentive the way he outlined is simply an untenable proposition, especially if there is not a systemic way of financing it and keeping the really "brilliant teachers" that he proposes to staff NYC schools with. The only thing that this sort of reward model did to other fields and ventures, most recently in finance and real estate is to reward a boom and bust model that almost drove the country into a depression. What Mr. Bloomberg and many of the 1% refuse to acknowledge is that more than just compensation, the reason why really good, effective teachers leave the profession after a couple or year or never bother to enter the field is because it is first a thankless profession and only second, not well paid. Of course, I doubt that Mr. Bloomberg does not understand this but it is simply convenient to discount this simple fact and throw his business reward and punishment system around in order to execute his shadow agenda.

The education proposals in Bloomberg’s State of the City address are being described as “ambitious” in the New York Times and GothamSchools. I see it differently.

First he claimed that “By almost any measure, students are doing better and our school system is heading in the right direction.” Of course that is not the case at all. By most reliable measures, achievement has stagnated and our students are falling further behind their peers in the other large cities.
Not surprisingly, Bloomberg focused in his speech on the controversial factor of teacher “quality.” The first education proposal he mentioned in the speech is to recruit better new teachers by repaying the college loans for those who graduated in the top quartile of their class, giving them an extra $5000 per year for up to five years of teaching. I’m not sure if this means even higher subsidies for TFA’ers without proper training or certification, including those who don’t intend to stay for more than a couple of years anyway. In any case, since the city intends to allow the teaching force to continue to contract over the next few years and will not be hiring many new teachers, I’m not sure what the likely effect of this proposal would be, if any.
His second proposal was ridiculous. The mayor said he wants to improve teacher retention by re-introducing teacher merit pay -- giving a $20,000 raise to teachers rated “highly effective” for two years in a row. Teacher merit pay has been tried all over the country and has failed according to nearly every study, to increase either student achievement or teacher retention. NYC tried starting merit pay in 2007, wasted $75 M on it and dropped it in 2010, because it had null results, according to studies by Roland Fryer and RAND. Both analyses also concluded there was no evidence it worked to increase teacher retention.
In response to horrified tweets from Randi Weingarten and me, Deputy Mayor Howard Wolfson tweeted that the “evidence” for merit pay could be found in a recent NY Times article about the bonus pay program that is part of DC’s IMPACT teacher evaluation system . When Lisa Fleisher of the WSJ pointed out in a tweet that the evidence in that article was purely anecdotal, Wolfson responded "Good enough for me."
When the article was first published, I called it a “puff piece” and an example of the worst kind of journalism, because it glossed over the numerous studies that have shown merit pay doesn’t work to improve retention, while quoting a couple of DC teachers who said their bonuses might keep them teaching in DC schools longer. A good summary of some of the other research on this subject is posted in today’s Shanker Blog, which points out that there has been no published study of the effect of the DC IMPACT teacher evaluation system, and that the majority of studies suggest that financial incentives have negligible positive effects on the teaching force.
(Apparently, the leadership of the DC Public Schools canceled a proposed study of the IMPACT system because they would not accept the methodology proposed by Roland Fryer, the researcher that had been selected. New doubts have been raised about whether the IMPACT system even correctly identifies the best teachers, as most of those who have been found to be “highly effective” work in neighborhoods with the most advantaged students. As teachers rated ineffective can be fired, the system seems to have provided a powerful disincentive against working with the highest needs students.)
Clearly the Mayor and his staff read the NY Times, since he also quoted an unfortunate oped in today’s Times by Nicholas Kristof, in which Kristof described the recent study on the long-term value of a good teacher and mistakenly concluded that the findings showed that five percent of teachers should be fired based on their student test scores. Kristof ignored the cautionary tone of the study, which warned that placing high-stakes on tests could lead to even more test prep and cheating – the sort of negative effects that have undermined schools here in NYC and elsewhere in recent years.
The mayor also announced (ho hum) that the DOE would create one hundred new schools over the next two years, including fifty more charter schools. He said that he had asked KIPP and Success Academy to “expedite” their expansion and that he had invited Rocketship charter schools – a much-hyped chain of charters that started in California and offers online instruction with huge class sizes – to come to NYC.
Finally, he said DOE would seek to obtain the $58 million in School Improvement grants that the state is withholding because of the deadlock between the DOE and the UFT, by setting up “school-based evaluation committees” that could fire up to half of teachers. How this would work I have no idea, but the DOE released a letter dated tomorrow, from Chancellor Walcott to Commissioner King that has a lot about switching schools from “transformation” and “restart” to “turnaround,” (while letting those private managers like New Visions keep their big bucks for “restart” schools) but doesn’t mention these committees except to say that DOE will “measure and screen existing staff using rigorous, school-based competencies…”
Anyway, not an inspiring speech and not one based on any change in direction or real vision for education, but more of the same damaging free-market policies of expanding privatization and high stakes accountability that he has pursued for the last nine years, without any evidence that they work, except for misleading and flimsy newspaper articles. It is very sad that in the second half of the mayor’s third term, Bloomberg has so run out of new ideas that he is impelled to re-introduce an expensive and useless experiment that was tried and abandoned only two years ago -- because it had utterly failed.

Bloomberg fetishizes Principals and Administrators. Two quick points from personal knowledge: I know of one public school principal who was poorly educated and a liar (I'm not speaking carelessly). That one's predecessor was a cronyist, year after year keeping all behavior problem kids out of her friend's class, and improperly declared that class the school's "gifted and talented class," (the school had no such program). So every year that teacher got evaluated after having NONE of the behavior problem kids in her class--they were all funneled by the principal to the other teachers--whose year-after-year evaluations came after years with troubled kids that their colleague didn't have to put up with. All because of this daft, corrupt Principal. If Bloomberg wants Principals to have EVEN more vast authority and power over Principals than they already have, then teachers need STRONG protections and checks agains his evaluation system.

Stupid President. Stupid Mayor. Stupid Board of Education Leaders.

Sugar Daddy Obama may throw a few more trillion dollar bones to buy some more votes for November, but He will never solve the United States Education problems, no matter how much money he spends. Mayor Bloomberg may use his millions to give teachers some very appreciated bonuses, but that will never fix the problem, because he is not giving teachers what they most need. The Board of Ed and the teachers Union may come with a few hundred new programs and pricey experiments, but the NYC troubled school system will remain the same 10, 20, 50 and 100 years from now. Well, I may be wrong: It may be worse.
My wife and I are both educators. While she has spent her career in public schools teaching Pre-k and 1st grade, I have taught in private schools, college, and have had a continuous private music studio. My one year stint in a New York City public school ended when my principal fired me for being “too good for the caliber of students at this school.” Impatient and short-sighted come to mind.
But the main problem which I have seen with my own eyes - and heard repeated year after year from teachers all over the country - remains the same. Yet this problem is ignored because the media and education boards and leaders all across the country are clueless as how to fix the problem.
The Problem
My father often said something to me that I never fully appreciated until I observed the New York City school system and the lampoonish ideas that the Mayor and Educational leaders continue to come up with. I can guarantee you this: Not Obama, not Bloomberg, not our next president, not the Board of Education leaders; no one will ever fix the educational problem. Period. Because no one will tackle the most important of all issues. My father said:
“No matter how much money you spend, no matter how many quality people you hire, no matter how ingenious the programs you invent, no matter how much blood, sweat and tears you poor into it, no organization will ever be successful nor can its problems ever be fixed, if it gives responsibility to people without giving them the authority to carry it out.” (James Lacewell Berry)
The difference between the failing educational system of America and the successful educational programs in the rest of the world is simple. In the rest of the world (outside of perhaps, England), it is the teachers who have authority, not the students. In American inner cities, there is an insurmountable epidemic that will never be fixed by this administration or the next: it is student and ACLU controlled classrooms.
Walk into any troubled school in NYC and ask the students who runs the school. After looking you over to see what planet you’re from and taking a moment to try to understand why you would ask such a stupid question, they will reply, “We do. Who do you think runs this place?”
I say, let me choose 1000 inner city students to work for one full year for the President, the Mayor, the Board of Education and any business big wigs who disagree with me. The students must be paid minimum wage for a 40 hour week whether or not they show up. They can swear and curse at the Mayor or anyone else (like they did my principle who would just say, “That’s not nice,” and walk back into his office), but they cannot be fired.
They can walk around the office and disturb the other workers and interfere all they want without having their pay cut. They can take extended breaks to do drugs or meet someone for a quickie. They can threaten supervisors they do not like. In all of this, the Mayor and all Board of Ed members and companies who disagree with me must allow the students of my choice to continue work and be paid without any real consequences. Maybe a few time outs and some reprimands and some co-worker intervention and talkity-talk, but the students can also skip out on those meetings if they want.
Just for one year. Not four years like the junior high and high school teachers have to put up with.
All of you can laugh and scoff at the idea of teacher authority fixing the problems. But I can guarantee you this: None of your ideas will ever fix the problemd in the next one thousand years without it. Not all the money of Bloomberg, Gates, and Buffet combined.
And please, stop the stupid talk about holding teachers accountable unless you are willing to give them authority. Stupid President. Stupid Mayor. Stupid Board of Education leaders. In Bill Clinton’s inspiration, “It’s who’s in authority and responsible, stupid.”
James Scott Berry

I taught in a GED program that is now defunct. The program had sites in all 5 boroughs.

Students were assigned to one of three levels, based on their score on a reading test. The test was not administered in a standard fashion in all sites. It was not scored according to the instructions. Nor was it designed to be used with the students we worked with. Some teachers worked with illiterate special needs students. Others worked with students who scored at the test's ceiling. I had "drop outs" from Stuyvesant, Brooklyn Tech and Bronx Science. In other words, some teachers worked with students who were academically gifted; others worked with students who required a great deal of attention and time to make small amounts of progress.

Attendance was poor. Students dropped out. They were replaced with new students. For much of the school year we got new students every week. At times we got new students every day, throughout the day. This disrupted the classroom. The disruption could last for days or weeks or months as new students were slow to adjust.

Teachers were not assigned to their class based on their skills but rather on the basis of their requests, per the contract, with assignments being made based on seniority -- but where two teachers made the same request, if one of them had the assignment the previous year that person was not allowed to have the assignment the following year. In those sites where teachers vied for the class with the top performing students there were new assignments every year, which meant that teacher had little time to master their area; in other sites where teachers valued continuity or where different teachers each felt different levels to be rewarding, teachers came to know their materials and their students in a more effective way.

I just don't see how a teacher with an ever changing array of students, with different students in June than were there in September, can be charged with any particular level of progress.

I've been in the classroom for 12 years, now. I have yet to see a single teacher who says, "Gosh! If only I had some sort of monetary incentive, I would work just a little bit harder!" That's ridiculous. Surely, the mayor doesn't believe that we're holding back our talents for a few more bucks!

The fact is that nearly all teachers are working hard. (Yes, there are a few outliers. But the vast majority are working hard to earn their pay.)

The mayor (and others) should recognize that most of us would do this job for our already modest (and reasonable) salaries, good health benefits (which include our families), and a comfortable retirement. That said, it appears (to me, anyways) that the problem is not in bolstering salaries. It's in protecting benefits.

After three years of 80 hour work weeks as a teacher in a NYC public school, hearing that there is a chance to earn a salary closer to the amount of heart and sweat I put into my job is welcome news. I took a 10,000 annual pay cut to go from Boston public to NYC public. NYC then turned around this fall and docked me close to another 1000 to pay for a substitute while I was pursuing studies in my content area on a Fulbright grant in Europe. These factors, in combination with watching my earnings go virtually nowhere in NYC has been a central source of questioning daily how long I will last and what I will pursue next. If the system described above goes into effect I would have far more motive to stay.

Mayor Bloomberg tried to bring the Olympics here which would have set NYC back many many billions of dollars while he would have BUILT 15 new stadiums. BUILRT is the key word...Strike one. Mayor Bloomberg's tenure as head of NYC schools has proven to HIS OWN failure. Kids' test results just after he was elected a third term showed the kids did worse than when he originally took over as mayor. Nevertheless, he BUILDS NEW SCHOOLS while closing good and established buildings. He BUILDS Charater schools which are often high priced failures. Strikes 2 and 3.

He plants million trees to the tune of a billion dollars total while RESIDENTS NEED JOBS. STRIKE FOUR.

He BUILDS LIC into a high priced area leaving low and middle class earners unable to live there. Strike 5.

THE LIST IS ENDLESS. HE IS A BUILDER OFF THE BACKS OF THE POOR AND LOWER MIDDLE CLASS-EDIFICES TO HIS GREATNESS, LIKE THE PHAROAH. HE HAS DONE POORLY. His odeas stink if examined carefully.

I was a NYC high
school art teacher for 26 years, and I worked in many schools, b because it was at a time when budgets were being cut, and my position was eliminated a several schools, so I was "excessed" frequently. As a result, I taught in many schools and have a wide view of what makes teaching better (or worse.) The firts thing I would say is that actual salaries are not a major factor in teachers' wanting to do a good job. Teaching is a joy for those who are called to it as a vocation, and money given toward making teaching a better job, needs to be given in support of the teacher: good environment and material s, assistance from paraprofessionals to help struggling students, a quiet, controlled school management that communicates a climate of focus on learning throughout the school.

@magiorNYT @MikeBloomberg
Mike, do a swap. Take all staff - janitor to principal, every person at a high performing school and swap them with all the staff from a poor performing school. Next year, not much difference in student's achievement or non achievement. Oh, so ignorant Mike, it all begins at home. Start facing the truth - When a 5 year old child comes to school chronically late, frequently absent, hungry, dirty, tired, fighting, disruptive, stealing, sexually provocative, etc. Send social service teams into the home to provide support for student and family. Do that Mike or continue to keep the underclass growing. After all, there are many who believe that they would be lost without servants!

@magiorNYT @MikeBloomberg
Mike, do a swap. Take all staff - janitor to principal, every person at a high performing school and swap them with all the staff from a poor performing school. Next year, not much difference in student's achievement or non achievement. Oh, so ignorant Mike, it all begins at home. Start facing the truth - When a 5 year old child comes to school chronically late, frequently absent, hungry, dirty, tired, fighting, disruptive, stealing, sexually provocative, etc. send social service teams into the home to provide support for student and family. Do that Mike or continue to keep the underclass growing. After all, there are many who believe that we would be lost without servants!

Recent fiqures of the teacher turnover statistics over the past ten years reveal that under the Mayor's leadership the DOE has had the opportunity to choose more than 80% of all the newly hired teachers. Remember, beginning with the Mayor's first four years, the blame for students not performing well on state tests fell upon the veteran teachers in the system. Now, most are long gone. Yet, recent student test results show no improvement across the board. What this is revealing is that, maybe, the fault for poor student performance has less to do with teachers after all. Why are the Mayor and DOE complaining about teacher quality when they have had the power to hire and hand pick the best (80% of the teaching staff) over the last ten years?

Perhaps we are going at this from the wrong angle? Rather than focus on teachers already in the system for many years, the focus ought to be on the hiring process from the very beginning. Additionally, why quickly toss into the classroom newly hired teachers who have no exposure to teaching in a highly diverse environment where they soon become frustrated when confronted with the realities of a very challenging career. Therefore, it may be a consideration of the DOE to implement some type of 1-2 years of on the job training for newly hired teachers. This could be more helpful in the long run for these well educated, energetic, idealistic, teachers who leave the system within a few years due to the "sink or swim" circumstances in which they find themselves confronted with. We cannot continue to lose these teachers when they are beginning to blossom.

The turnover rate is too high. This, in a poor hiring climate. What will the turnover rate be when the economy and the job market improves? Which is more costly for us - needing to search for a constant stream of new teachers, or preparing well the newly hired in an effort to keep them working for us?

Lastly, the Mayor and the DOE need to come to the realization that those principals, associate principals, and teachers that have lasted more than 10 years within the system are a special breed of New Yorkers that can deal with the daily challenges that the occupation in this city require. They are a dedicated group that have already given much in the way of blood, sweat, and tears.

It does little good to berate, insult, and tear apart the very folks who have done their best for their students. If there is eventually going to be any significant progress in our organization the Mayor, DOE, and the UFT will need to sit down in a room for how ever many days (weeks) it takes and and make peace. We all must work as a team. This nonsense has got to stop. Really, gentlemen, it has got to stop!

Actually the DOE cancelled their merit pay bonus program last year after concluding it had NO impact on improving scores which makes his proposal seem odd at the least.

What is my reaction to all of the noise I have been listening to over the past ten + years?

I am beginning to think that the leaders I once respected now sound similar to the students I must deal with on a daily basis.
Mr. Mayor, Mr. Walcott, Mr. Mulgrew, it is time that all three of you go into a room and start panning out all these disagreements. What has been going on cannot continue. We, who are in the trenches with our students, need you three to start to acting in a mature manner and settle these disagreements.
Come on, get with guys!

We applaud the Mayor's expansion of the P-Tech initiative
as a way to grow skills and 21st Century jobs.

I dont see the preparation piece and the investment in college prep in elementary and middle schools. Minority kids are falling not because of teachers but because of the way of teaching and the DATA tthat schools and teachers have to change. I also dont see any plan for ESL, new immigrants and SIFE students in order to level them in the system.

Bloomberg has had "Mayoral Control" of the schools for 10+ yrs and the results are below expectations. In fact, there is far greater dysfunction in the schools now than ever before. Bloomberg continues to be big on talk and small on meaningful results.

What the mayor put forward today is a series of bold yet common sense initiatives to improve our public schools, ideas so obvious that with each one he announced the crowd erupted in applause. Opening high performing schools, paying teachers more and creating an elite corps of educators from the tops of their college classes are all important steps towards giving every child the top notch education they deserve. We should remember those authentic reactions as the special interests do their best to appeal to those applauding today to turn on these ideas tomorrow.

There's no "there" there. Curriculum is JOB #1.
So what if you have a teacher evaluation system and lots of choice in styles of schools - what are you going to teach?

Merit pay based on student scores has been tried for centuries with poor results.
Education is a collaboration of student,parent and teacher. Education and medicine do not work effectively using the Bloomberg style business model.
I can remember falling asleep in my late afternoon Physics class not due to the teacher but i was tired from working a 40 hour job, commuting 20 hours a week and having streaming crazy parents.

People who say that good teachers shouldn't care about money are insane. We should definitely recruit better teachers from wherever, train them to teach in a modern school setting (schools of ed have failed to do this), and then reward them for successes. When teachers say it is impossible to come up with a system to evaluate teachers therefore we should not give bonuses at all, are merely shooting themselves in the foot. Teachers should be the most vocal advocates for bonuses. By rejecting a bonus system outright, we are just protecting poor teachers and punishing strong teachers.

LET us NOT MAKE ANY MISTAKE about Mayor Bloomberg's
intentions. He is extremely manipulatiuve and decitful.
If the teachers union were to go for his rediculous plans
once scenarios is that the so called excellent teacher
who gets a 20Gs bonus is then possibly transferred against that teacher's will to a failing school. The teacher gets
a U rating and gets fired. Another scenario is that the
so called excellent teacher gets a 20Gs bonus, then gets
a heart attack or attacked by a studenet. Absence is
absence to the Mayor, and reasons don;t matter. Teacher
is rated U and fired once again. Another scenario is the teacher is excellent, gets the bonus, then a new principal comes in
chosen by his Horror himself, in a nature of former
unqualified Chancellor Kathy Black model. Principal is
a magolomanic-sadist, as some are. Teacher get a U rating
and gets fired. Under present UFT teacher contractual
job securityprovisions, these34 scenarios cannot happen.
This is all just the tip of the iceberg. Any change in
teacher evaLUATIONS AGREED TO BY HIS HhORROR IS NOT
MEANT TO BE FAIR. HE IS AN ABUSIVE CONTROL FREAK,
PLAIN AND SIMPLE. HE WANTS NO UNION. HE WANTS CHAOS
IN SCHOOLS SO THAT PARENTS GET DISGUSTEWD IN THE SCHOOLS
EVEN MORESO THAN THEY PRESENTLY ARE UNDER THE LAST TEN
YEARS OF HIS OWN MAYORALTY CONTROL. PARENTS TAKER KIDS OUT
of public schools in voluminous numbers... KIDS GO TO
CHURCH RUN AND PRIVATE SCHOOLS. This reduces NYC'S
FINANAICAL OBLIGATION TO THE DEPT. OF EDUCATION. IT'S
IS ALL ABOUT SAVING DOUGH TO HIS HORROR. PEOPLE ARE NOT
HUMAN to him, BECAUSE HE IS A MAGOLMANIAC.

We're thrilled to see the Mayor's focus on business engagement in education and connecting students to careers. We know that through our own PENCIL Fellows Program, internships help students learn and sharpen needed workplace skills, and develop a better vision of their own future. And for those students most in need, an internship can be the first step in breaking the cycle of poverty.

Actually the DOE cancelled their merit pay bonus program last year after concluding it had NO impact on improving scores which makes his proposal seems odd at the least.

He should follow thru on his pledge to give $20,000 raises. But he should do it NOW-TODAY by giving his Principals a mandate bto identify the top 10% of Teachers in each school that have been "HIGHLY EFFECTIVE" for the PAST 2 years. This should be quick and easy as he said they are his front line and should make the decisions on personnel. One of 2 things will happen either he will pay up or concede the Principals are unqualified to make that assessment. Only time will tell.

Recent fiqures of the teacher turnover statistics over the past ten years reveal that under the Mayor's leadership the DOE has had the opportunity to choose more than 80% of all the newly hired teachers. Remember, beginning with the Mayor's first four years, the blame for students not performing well on state tests fell upon the veteran teachers in the system. Now, most are long gone. Yet, recent student test results show no improvement across the board. What this is revealing is that, maybe, the fault for poor student performance has less to do with teachers after all. Why are the Mayor and DOE complaining about teacher quality when they have had the power to hire and hand pick the best (80% of the teaching staff) over the last ten years?

Perhaps we are going at this from the wrong angle? Rather than focus on teachers already in the system for many years, the focus ought to be on the hiring process from the very beginning. Additionally, why quickly toss into the classroom newly hired teachers who have no exposure to teaching in a highly diverse environment where they soon become frustrated when confronted with the realities of a very challenging career. Therefore, it may be a consideration of the DOE to implement some type of 1-2 years of on the job training for newly hired teachers. This could be more helpful in the long run for these well educated, energetic, idealistic, teachers who leave the system within a few years due to the "sink or swim" circumstances in which they find themselves confronted with. We cannot continue to lose these teachers when they are beginning to blossom.

The turnover rate is too high. This, in a poor hiring climate. What will the turnover rate be when the economy and the job market improves? Which is more costly for us - needing to search for a constant stream of new teachers, or preparing well the newly hired in an effort to keep them working for us?

Lastly, the Mayor and the DOE need to come to the realization that those principals, associate principals, and teachers that have lasted more than 10 years within the system are a special breed of New Yorkers that can deal with the daily challenges that the occupation in this city require. They are a dedicated group that have already given much in the way of blood, sweat, and tears.

It does little good to berate, insult, and tear apart the very folks who have done their best for their students. If there is eventually going to be any significant progress in our organization the Mayor, DOE, and the UFT will need to sit down in a room for how ever many days (weeks) it takes and and make peace. We all must work as a team. This nonsense has got to stop. Really, gentlemen, it has got to stop!

It's in the details:

A quick look at a few of the Mayor’s past programs:

Mayor Bloomberg tried to bring the Olympics here which
would have set NYC back many billions of dollars while
he would have BUILT 15 new stadiums. BUILT is the key
word...Strike one. Mayor Bloomberg's 10 year tenure as
head of NYC schools has proven to HIS OWN failure.
Kids' test results just after he was elected a third
term showed the kids did worse than when he originally
took over as mayor. He reduced teaching and installed
voluminous testing...Nevertheless, he BUILDS NEW SCHOOLS
while closing good and established buildings. He BUILDS
Charter schools which are often high priced failures.
Strikes 2 and 3.

He plants million trees to the tune of a billion dollars
total while RESIDENTS NEED JOBS. STRIKE FOUR.

He BUILDS LIC into a high priced area leaving low and
middle class earners unable to live there. Strike 5.

THE LIST IS VOLUMINOUS. HE IS A BUILDER OFF THE BACKS OF
THE POOR AND LOWER MIDDLE CLASS-EDIFICES TO HIS
GREATNESS, LIKE THE PHAROAH. HE HAS DONE POORLY.
His odeas stink if examined carefully.

LET us NOT MAKE ANY MISTAKE about Mayor Bloomberg's
intentions. He is extremely manipulative and deceitful.
If the teachers union were to go for his ridiculous
plans, one scenarios is that the so called excellent
teacher who gets a 20Gs bonus is then possibly
transferred against that teacher's will to a failing
school. The teacher gets a U rating and gets fired.

Another scenario is that the so called excellent teacher
gets a 20Gs bonus, then gets a heart attack or attacked
by a student requiring months of rehab. Absence is
absence to the Mayor, and reasons don’t matter.
Teacher is rated U and fired once again.

Another scenario is the teacher is excellent, gets the
bonus, then a new principal comes in chosen by his Horror
himself, in a nature of former sadist and unqualified
Chancellor Kathy Black model. Principal is a
magolomanic-sadist, as some have proven to be. Teacher
get a U rating and gets fired.

***Under present UFT teacher contractual job security
provisions, these scenarios cannot happen.

This is all just the tip of the iceberg. Any change in
teacher evaluations outlined by HIS HORROR IS NOT MEANT
TO BE FAIR. He just said publicly wants to fire 1/3
of the NYC teachers…Yet, his appointed cronies chose
most of them over the past ten years. HE IS AN ABUSIVE
CONTROL FREAK, PLAIN AND SIMPLE. HE WANTS NO UNION.
HE WANTS CHAOS IN SCHOOLS SO THAT PARENTS GET DISGUSTED
IN THE SCHOOLS, EVEN MORESO THAN THEY PRESENTLY ARE
UNDER THE LAST TEN YEARS OF HIS OWN MAYORALTY CONTROL.

PARENTS TAKE KIDS OUT of public schools in voluminous
numbers...KIDS GO TO CHURCH RUN AND PRIVATE SCHOOLS.
Or: Parents move out of NYC area totally...

This hugely reduces NYC'S FINANAICAL OBLIGATION TO THE
DEPT. OF EDUCATION. IT IS ALL ABOUT Eliminating union
power and protection for workers, and SAVING DOUGH TO HIS
HORROR. THE MASSES OF PEOPLE ARE NOT HUMAN to him,
BECAUSE HE IS an undiagnosed mental case.

Granted, I'm no fan of Mayor Bloomberg, or any of the cronyism that comes with the politics of this city, but I'd invite you to at least look at the other end of the spectrum.

I for one happen to be lucky enough at one of the top performing schools in NYC by any measuring stick. Yes, the demographics of the school inherently mean that we'll be one of the top 10 or 15 percent of schools, however despite this reality, I'd invite you to come have a look at some of the initiatives that myself and my colleagues have instituted in my time(3 years) there.

I'd invite you to have a look at our staff using iPad's in the classroom to access a student's online gradebook that is accessible to parents as well. No, the DOE did not give us those iPad's, a team of teachers wrote a grant to Apple which was accepted. I'd invite you to see some of the websites teachers have designed that allow for real time collaboration between students from home through Google docs. I'd invite you to have a look at the lessons that I present to my students online to supplement their in-class learning. I'd love for you to meet my principal who has the confidence in her staff to incorporate these a few of these many initiatives without bureaucratic meddling.

I have worked in another school, where yes, teachers worked hard, but when push came to shove, would rather complain about what's wrong rather than collaborate about truly useful ideas on how to improve the situation.

My point being, give me that merit pay. If you can't hack it and make a difference, then perhaps there's someone more qualified who can. Stop hiding behind your union who peddles around looking for excuses rather than solutions. Yes, I'm at top 15% school because of demographics alone, but the reason that makes my one of the top 3 schools in the city is not dumb luck at all. And it has nothing to do with the city, the mayor, the doe, or the union.

I can't wait to see what interesting, engaging and truly cutting edge ideas we come up with in 2012.

I am opposed to merit pay. The human component involved cannot be controlled and it is the variable which has the greatest impact on the outcome. I am a teacher and a mother. I know that a fellow teacher would welcome having either of my sons in their class because they would have a positive effect on the teacher's rating. I work with them 1 on 1 to advance and enhance their learning. And on the other extreme, there are parents who are too high off drugs to give any sort of attention to their children. Those children are raising themselves, so how is a teacher supposed to be rated by their performance? In addition to this, students often who perform well in a pre-cursor course don't perform as well in a successive course or vice-versat for many reasons. Again, uncontrolled variables. Teaching cannot be compared to other professions, where the rating is based upon more controlled variables. Once this country stops trying to apply their business models to education, we can get back to reality. Have those with these bright ideas based in theory teach students who haven't had a meal in days or a bath and then let them re-evaluate their bright ideas. Amen to that.

Mayor Bloomberg at least is consistent about education policy. He is always wrong!
Merit pay has been tried and failed. And as a teacher who would love an extra twenty thousand. It sounds like an incredibly stupid idea. It is a brilliant way to get people to work together! And that is the point because if we work together as a team good things may happen!

"2008: Mr. Bloomberg said he would ask the Panel for Educational Policy, which oversees education policy in the city, to vote to abolish social promotion in eighth grade, effectively ending the practice in the city. He was successful."

If the Times merely means he was successful in getting PEP to vote his way, that is correct. PEP is, after all, the mayor's puppet. If it means he was successful in ending social promotion, it is most certainly not correct. Failing eighth graders now often are offered a ridiculous sham, dubbed "credit recovery," where a short project over a short period of time at the end of the school year is deemed to make up for a year's worth of being MIA in class and/or failing to do any substantive schoolwork up to that point. The student is happy, the principal is happy, and Bloomberg is happy. New Yorkers and the media are played for suckers, and the socially promoted students find they can't hack it in college, as statistics bear out.

Re: Schools - The Mayor is out of touch with reality, children, families and communities. The harm being done especially to at-risk "failing" schools, children and families is beyond quantifying. How it's possible any of the current policies of this particular version of Mayoral control are legal is baffling.

Mayor Bloomberg's decisive action on evaluating teachers will help our students enjoy more comfortable Adult lives and compete is a global economy. It's time the teachers think for themselves and see the big picture - There is no turning back on wanting to better our lives

In regard to poor teachers in the New York City school system, I believe there is one aspect of the problem in which few are recognizing. A supervisor/manager in the NYC DOE has 3-5 years in which to determine whether a teacher belongs in the classroom, requires further development, or should be removed. Mayor Bloomberg believes fifty percent of the teachers should be let go. Interestingly, due to the high turnover rate in the profession, the Mayor and the DOE are responsibile for hiring most of the teachers presently within the system. Additionally, the DOE is given up to five years to pinpoint a "dud" in the classroom and have the teacher removed. Why is the union getting the blame for something that is actually fully in control of the Mayor and the DOE? It is they who are: 1) responsibile for the hiring; 2) responsibile for the direct supervision and training of the new employee; 3) have the power to deny tenure to the teacher up to five years.
Therefore, it is possible that the problem for employees that should not be teaching lies more with the hiring, training, and supervision policies of the DOE. They need to look at the hiring process not blame the union. Can we imagine any business organization having at the minimum up to three years and, if necessary, up to five years the ability and power to determine whether to keep an employee or advise the employee to find another career, but not doing so?

The teachers in the 33 transformation and re-start schools cannot be lumped together as ineffective. Many of the students they teach are new immigrants that are learning English. How are they expected to graduate HS in four years? Many of the other students are struggling with the usual adolescent issues but many also come from poverty, broken families, and other social problems. One cannot measure a teacher's effectiveness. It takes two to tango. A teacher may be using every technique to reach someone but if a student is not receptive or resistant, learning cannot occur. Is a doctor punished if he counsels someone to lose weight and then the patient does not and then has a stroke? Maybe Bloomberg and his crew are the ineffective ones.

As a public school, special education teacher I certainly wouldn't scoff at a $20,000 bonus check but I wonder if setting up teachers (even amazing ones)with Wall Street-esque monetary rewards is the best answer we can come up with. A better use of that money would be to spend it on upgrading the technology in and supplies in my classroom or setting up an account to fund student trips and projects. Right now, Bloomberg makes out pretty well on my current salary. Just think of what I could give back to the school system with a $20K bonus!

The proposal of merit pay fails to address several key shortcomings and is a short sighted plan for sustained improvement of our schools. First, respected academic studies have shown that merit pay fails to bring about true meaningful change in education. Secondly, the evaluation level of “highly effective” as created by Charlotte Danielson and adopted by the DOE is not what it appears to be at first glance. Dainelson herself has explained that “high effective” is not an attainable level for a teacher to achieve every single day of the school year, but was created as a reward for those days that a educator’s lessons are hitting on all cylinders. All teachers work hard every period of the day and beyond to develop “highly effective” lessons, not for their benefit, but to produce meaningful change in the lives of students.

The other shortcoming of this proposal plan is the actual “reward” set forth here. A reward for certain teachers will create an atmosphere in which teachers are less inclined to collaborate with one another. This would not promote student growth, but would hinder it since individuals would be guarded with what they do on a daily basis. Education is effective when ideas are shared, discussions lead to revelations, and new concepts are enacted. We want to unite all parties involved in education, including the community, parents, and the school in order to truly prepare our students with the skills they will need to be productive citizens.

My proposal would be to give every staff member of an “A” school a small cash “reward” for their performance on the progress report. It could be a thousand or a couple of thousand dollars. Current schools scoring “A” on the progress report would continue to strive for growth to maintain their rating. Schools that are not scoring an “A” would have the incentive to work as a community of educators in which ALL staff members would have a vested interest in improving their school. In the end collaboration, and innovation to improve student learning will win out.

Piggybacking on that wonderful video above on the limits of monetary incentives, here's an article in Education News about a new report by the National Educational Policy Center saying merit pay based on student test scores is not effective in promoting school excellence, nor does it help attract and retain good teachers: http://www.educationnews.org/...