Is it possible that the two sides that see day and night in our contract may actually be looking at two entirely different documents? Or, could it be cultural relativism at work?
One need only go to the U.F.T. website to sense Unity patting itself on the back: The contract pays homage to the hard work that teachers do every day in their classrooms and restores "dignity" to the profession. Bloomberg left the cupboard spitefully bare to taunt us, but now teachers will receive their long overdue payments by 2020, reflecting an 18% raise with health benefits and pensions left intact. New channels are created to grieve excessive paperwork and more time is allotted for professional duties. Exemplary teachers will be rewarded with extra pay for sharing their expertise. PROSE schools will foster experimentation that allows for the development and dissemination of best practices.
After one leaves the Unity love fest, one begins to hear things that might make even Pollyanna sour. Excessive paperwork will be challenged; yet, we must carry formatted unit plans with us everywhere. The City will hold our money interest free until 2020. If teachers choose to leave the profession before then, for reasons other than retirement, they will lose their unpaid balance. If the estimated health-care savings are not reached, God only knows, but our raises may be negated. Other unions don't want to touch our deal with a ten-foot pole. They view the U.F.T. as selling out unionism by settling for a less than favorable pattern of raises.
The con arguments continue. The rank and file will be further divided. Although ATRs will be placed in schools, they face a severely streamlined process for removal--a process with which none seem happy. The contract enshrines a test-based system of evaluation, albeit in a seemingly less oppressive way than before. The system will be used to help separate the effective from ineffective teachers. With new positions of Ambassador, Master and Model teacher, one smells merit pay by another name. PROSE schools seem to be charters under another name, hosting workers who will pay union dues, but lose protections. Divided, we fall.
Then, one reads the press and other outlets that despise public-school teachers. Jenny Sedlis of StudentsfirstNY views the contract as a near-satanic deal. ATRs, largely left adrift by Bloomberg's school closings, will be able to return to classrooms and teach in peace after some years of living through hell. Teachers who just might be ruled ineffective (probably largely because of the test scores of their students) might receive the same $5,000 bonus as a highly effective teacher for teaching in a hard-to-staff school. (I still say send Jenny Sedlis to save the day single-handedly and enlighten the impoverished, language-deficient and special needs children of our City, with 34 to a room!) PROSE schools won't be able to completely tear apart Union protections. Shucks! The contract waters down the evaluation system and introduces Peer "validators." Yuck!
In a recent Daily News editorial, the author who seems to have no first-hand experience in schools, but has swallowed whole the arguments of teacher-bashers, also finds fault. Teachers will receive large raises. (Why lose this opportunity to put them further in the red?) Teachers who actually have experience will enjoy seniority rights. (Imagine that!) Evil ATRs will be treated a little more humanely. (Whatever are they thinking?) "As for the kids, they got next to nothing."
The more I think about it, the more I am sure that the biases one brings to the table color significantly one's outlook. In the case of Mulgrew and Co., something clearly above the horrors of the Bloomberg days is a definite coup. From the perspective of the "NO" crowd, it is not enough. And from those who have always hated us, "NO," but for entirely different reasons. Teachers must be beaten to a pulp.
One must decide for oneself. Does the contract address issues of personal critical importance? I, for one, would have liked to have seen more said on class size, but I'm guessing that was not even on the table. In addition, one must decide how much or how little one deserves, when one deserves it, when one can practically get it, and, ultimately, how much value one places upon union solidarity. And for anyone who advises me to make my decision out of fear, I question their motives and their morals.
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