6,100 Teachers To Be Laid Off, Good for Tea Party

Let's just hope they lay off the most experienced ones. And pay out massive early-retirement packages. And then hire them back and double the rate as substitute teachers when they realize that there are too few "qualified" licensed teachers to fill in -- "qualified" meaning they keep their mouths shut and go along with whatever buzzword bullshit Boston Bloomberg is enthralled with in any given year.

Sad.

The teachers want to avoid layoffs? Pay a portion of their health benefit premiums and convert to defined contribution retirement plans. Their choice.

Of course, Pres thinks the mayor can just snap his fingers and create money out of thin air to pay every government worker unreasonable and unaffordable benefits.

And I don't really follow such things, but aren't we in the midst of a massive school-age population boom in NYC right now? That would imply the need for increasing teacher head count. So would all the Catholic school closings.

Alanhart: I don't know if system-wide, we have a population boom.

City Education Department won't give schools with unexpectedly spiked enrollment funds promised

But this year, with the city announcing last week that school budgets will be cut 1%, officials said they can't afford the extra money. The fact that the city saw an increase of 10,000 students - the first rise since 2002 - only compounds the budget woes.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/education/2010/01/13/2010-01-13_schools_minus_funds_for_added_kids.html#ixzz16nBBZs2f

Well over the past ten years, teacher head count has increased while student head count has fallen. So if we have a bit of a boom in the school-age population, combined with a reduction in the work force, then that may about bring the ratio back to what it was circa 2000.

The Catholic school closings mostly happened already, and were mostly triggered by a decline of NYC's school-age population.

So alan's facts are wrong again. Interesting . . .

An increase of 10,000 students is misleading? And the idea that, their chosen Catholic school no longer in existence, many parents will opt for public school instead .. also misleading?

Life must be very difficult for you, LICcomm, lacking as you are in basic reading skills and the ability to analyze information and synthesize ideas.

Wall Street plus Federal $ will save the teachers.

The teachers want to avoid layoffs? Pay a portion of their health benefit premiums and convert to defined contribution retirement plans. Their choice.

Of course, Pres thinks the mayor can just snap his fingers and create money out of thin air to pay every government worker unreasonable and unaffordable benefits.
=============================================

hey, both ideas seem great. The second is very powerful. Bloomberg creates NYC's own currency, say "The New Yorker" and pays all public retirees with this unique currency that can only be used within the city. That way what union/public sector mess is created in NYC stays in NYC.

The currency can initially be funded by citifying Boston Bloomberg's entire personal wealth and assets of every stripe. And those of his family.

what for? it should be 100% confetti, just like any other currency nowadays. only difference is its local flavor. if you are going bankrupt cause of unaffordable pensions, at least develop a mechanism so that the $ goes back to the city and doesn't end up in Florida.

It would be more fun to citify Boston Bloomberg's entire personal wealth and assets of every stripe. And those of his family. Otherwise it gets spent in Bermuda and London, probably among other places.

Teacher should make $500,000 a year, plus a guarantee pension of 2 million dollars. After all, it's for the children. And we should have no private sector. Government jobs and benefits for all. And, we must confiscate the money from the rich. They stole it anyway.

"And, we must confiscate the money from the rich. They stole it anyway." hahaha
"Behind every great fortune there is a crime." Honore de Balzac French realist novelist (1799 - 1850)

Excellent!!!

And that reminds me: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/h/honoredeba149910.html

"Why has the Democratic Party become so arrogantly detached from ordinary Americans? Though they claim to speak for the poor and dispossessed, Democrats have increasingly become the party of an upper-middle-class professional elite, top-heavy with journalists, academics and lawyers. "
Camille Paglia

Thank you for the deranged attention-greedy lesbian-separatist view from someone who still hasn't completed her Ph.D. 40 years after completing her coursework. 100 parts self-promotion, zero parts achievement.

Maybe you will appreciate this one.
"It is capitalist America that produced the modern independent woman. Never in history have women had more freedom of choice in regard to dress, behavior, career, and sexual orientation. "
Camille Paglia

Oh, i forgot. alanhart likes the freedom loving, women liberating, open minded muslim autocratic states.

we should just privatize education--certainly there's plenty of money in the system to allow for a well-paid executive suite, shareholders, and private equity investors

if bankers and lawyers make 100's of 1000's and million's a years, how could we ever pretend it reasonable to pay career teachers more than 40k a year?

i mean all they're doing is educating our children...what value do they add to our society??

what a ripoff...all thanks to the union

don't teabaggers home school?? why should they pay taxes toward public education??

I wasn't saying Alan had the facts wrong. I was just saying they were mitigated by other facts: namely, that we've had a decrease in enrollment and an increase in the teaching work force over the past decade. As noted by The_President, this year's increase by 10,000 students is the first increase of any kind since 2002.

Anyway, we have an oversized teacher work force in NYC, which should be able to absorb some reintroduction of kids into the system. Also, class sizes can go up a bit. I've always felt that, to a certain extent, teacher quality is a more important factor than class size - I'd rather have my child in a class of 50 students with a good teacher than 25 students with a bad teacher.

god could be your kids' teacher and he/she'd still suck teaching classes of 50

wtf are you smoking??

I agree, and so do "best" private schools, all of which choose to have low student-teacher ratios. The teaching-learning model is not endlessly scalable, and especially for non-superstar students without private tutoring and the like.

Teachers in LA County read about your upcoming lay offs
http://www.workers.org/2010/us/teachers_1125/
Why is it that the foreign Gulen Movement that manages over 150 Charter schools in the USA continues to falsely obtain h1-b work visas for un qualified teachers from Turkey / Turkic speaking countries? In the Los Angeles County the Gulen Schools are called Magnolia Science Academy. Read the h1-b Visa report below, they are claiming they cannot find math, science, computer and English teachers in the USA.

Evidence?

These schools have recently been busted in Ohio for hiring foreigners via the Concept Schools. http://www2.nbc4i.com/news/2010/nov/23/public-charter-school-funds-under-scrutiny-ar-301282/
H1-b Visa info here: http://www.h1bwage.com/index.php?q=science%20teacher

In fact, did you know that the Cosmos Foundation part of the Gulen Movement has immigrated more foreign teachers in than the largest school district in the USA. Of course that would be LAUSD, who is allowing this? That number for Cosmos Foundation alone is over 1,100 h1-b visas since 2001 and Cosmos Foundation is only ONE of the Gulen Movement%u2019s NGOs that are doing this. Who is dismantling the American Education System so followers of Islamic Imam Fethullah Gulen can teach our children? http://perimeterprimate.blogspot.com/2010/07/gulen-schools-and-their-booming-h1b.html
Not only visas for teachers but now they are getting h1-b visas for finance managers, business managers and legal counsel (as if America doesn%u2019t have thousands of qualified people for these jobs) http://gulencharterschools.weebly.com/importing-english-teachers-from-turkey.html
If you are a proud American Teacher and have been laid off, do what the teachers in Chicago and Ohio have done%u2026%u2026%u2026%u2026%u2026%u2026%u2026%u2026%u2026%u2026fight back against the Gulen Movement overtaking America%u2019s education.

I don't mind foreign teachers. Our immigration laws are boneheaded, and if we need to bring in better teachers from abroad to improve our schools because our own available teachers (having been educated in our own failing school systems) can't cut it, then so be it. EducationTruth's posts only drive home the need for immigration reform.

I was asking for evidence of the other point being pushed by Alan & Wbottom, about class size being more important than teacher quality. I agree there are diminishing returns at some point, but the popular theory that that point is about thirty seems to me to be absurdly conservative. If we have to add another lower quality teacher to the work force in order to keep class sizes low, then usually we won't be doing the kids any favors.

evidence schmevidence--
you are obviously completely out of touch if you think class sizes of 30-50 for all but the brightest of HS school students would serve students any way but poorly
next

Thanks, Wbottom. I understand your point is an intuitive one. On the other hand I'm told by friends from abroad that they tend to have much larger class sizes, and also much better math and science scores, than American kids. My impression is also that my parents' generation had larger class sizes and better math and science scores. Some of these may be cultural factors, or maybe this is the result of more systematic "tracking" of students in other countries and eras.

I'm not sure. I'd be interested in the evidence even if you think it is not important. Sometimes it is better to be out of touch than it is to be weighed down by prevailing and unexamined assumptions.

Post87: I've been in a class of 50 abroad, thank you very much, and I know exactly why my classmates excelled. I would bet that average household wealth equalled that at any "top" NYC public school. Let's just say that I learned my luxury car brands at a very young age. The schools abroad with classes of 50 that achieve excellent results are not your average "public" zoned school. For various reasons, those schools have excellent reputations and parents lie, cheat, bribe, connive to get in and/or the selective process is just as stringent as a top G&T or NYC-equivalent. No special needs catered to. Disruptive kids expelled. Zero tolerance.

Any non-selective public school in the United States in an "average" neighborhood that has classes >30 or even 25, forget about it.

there have been tons of studies on the effect of class size, and the overall result is that it is meaningless. like so many things, intuition would tell you otherwise, but those are the facts.

Printer: I am curious about how they do these studies. For one, in any highly-rated school district in the U.S., class sizes have been small for a very long time. So which schools are they comparing these schools to?

And also, what are they comparing - 20 to 50?

Many teacher's put in a fraction of the hours the private work force does. And that doesn't include the generous vacation/time off.

So alan is wrong again. Interesting . . .

Yes, printer, any chance you could dig up links?

"Many teacher's put in a fraction of the hours the private work force does."

They still work far more than college professors. They're making $100k + for working 15 hour weeks. There's a law professor at Suffolk University making $2.8 million a year!

no printer, it's not meaningless. it matters more in certain socioeconomic groups. and there are some twists to the story (a class with 40 students and one senior teacher and a very good classroom assistant may do better than a class of twenty, because there is always one person to deal with upheaval, and yet the cost is less). it also depends greatly on the age. a k-4 class of more than 25 is much different than a 10th grade class of 40.

post87, take a look around the city at some classrooms, better and less good neighborhoods, smaller and larger class sizes, public and private. then come back and state that 50 with a good teacher is better than 25 with a bad. good teachers will find jobs elsewhere rather than deal with a 50/1 ratio. and as 10023 points out, at a certain point the argument becomes ridiculous. would anyone argue that 100 doesn't matter? just one out of control kid can seriously derail a class, three or five can cripple it.

i don't think it's as important as some would imply, but as a parent who has a child in a school with a one to eight ratio, i can tell you the 1/4-6 reading groups for the first few years of lower school were amazing. is that possible in the public schools? of course not, although they don't spend much less per child than many of the privates. but there is a huge difference.

rs, how many children do you have?

to put it another way, there is almost no way that the vast majority of "good" teachers can remain "good" with a class size of 50. it would be disheartening, demoralizing, and career destroying. to ask such a thing would be a huge disincentive for those good teachers to remain in the career, and if they did remain due to no other options, they quickly would become not so good teachers.

it doesn't work here with our high levels of add/adhd, parental non-concern with child behavior, bad public schools generally.

So, aboutready like all faux elitists send her child/children to extremely expensive private school. But doesn't want to give the poor vouchers so they can also send thier kids to exclusive schools.

hey, large one, where did i say i'm against vouchers? i'm for them, but only for the lower to lower-middle class.

yes i send my kid to one of the best privates in the city. so what? choice and all that. libertarianism would insist that i should be able to get the best that i can pay for. and there would be no vouchers. dog eat dog. no taxes for schools, and if you couldn't afford private school you'd home school. extreme libertarianism.

i hate hypocrisy.

"libertarianism would insist that i should be able to get the best that i can pay for. and there would be no vouchers. dog eat dog. no taxes for schools, and if you couldn't afford private school you'd home school. extreme libertarianism"

Wrong again ar. You can have schools and real estate taxes or user taxes can pay for them. The hypocrisy is that clinton and the regime's leader send their kids to an elite private school but don't want the same advantages for all.

um, no, julia, in an "extreme" libertarian environment you wouldn't tax people for owning real estate. i guess you can choose where YOUR regime, as you are the leader of your regime, taxes?

and you do realize that the "elite" schools provide huge amounts of aid to those who qualify? do you want all children to receive the same standard of education as that offered by Sidwell? do you think the expense necessary to achieve such an education would be worth it in terms of monies spent on "real estate taxes or user taxes"?

these are questions the intelligent libertarian ought to have considered.

If someone was plucked out of the trailer trash and given a free education to Yale, what is that person's responsibility to others?

A special pasty for riversider

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/30/opinion/30zhuo.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

What happened to columbiacounty's boycott of Riversider?

no specific links, because there are so many studies google "class size and student performance" or something similar. You can pretty much find a study that backs up whatever pre-conceived viewpoint you may have, but overall there is no evidence that lower class size matters. And no, I don't think the idea was to look at extremes of 15 vs. 50, but more realistic numbers- i.e. 20-30 or so - again, there are many different studies, I'm sure you can find one which examined the sizes you are talking about.
Interestingly, ARs contention that it matters more for younger children, which seems rational and is conventional wisdom, has also been hard to verify.
and be careful what terms you are using - a ratio is not the same thing as class size.

No specific links because there are too many?

Are you kidding?

exactly, printer, a class size implies the number of kids per homeroom teacher. a ratio implies the number of kids per teacher for all classes. if your kid has a class size of 18 but half the class at any given time is off doing math, science, art, dance, pe, whatever and only half the homeroom class remains you have a very different ratio.

we had a homeroom class size of 18 as of first grade, with reading and math groups being smaller, other classes were about 50% of the homeroom class.

ask any really good teacher that you know. see what they say.

I don't know why this became a debate on "extreme libertarianism" (a.k.a. anarchism). We are discussing class size in public schools. A premise for such discussion would have to be that public schools should exist. Otherwise, what would be the point?

sorry, post87, shouldn't respond to julia, the extreme libertarian who nonetheless supports vouchers.

but the other comments stand.

What time in the morning do you start drinking?

Public education is very important. A child should not be at a disadvantage because his parents can't afford private school. It's one thing to compete as an adult, its another thing not to be given the tools to compete during ones formative years.

While there are many good teacher, there are also some not so good ones. We need some serious reforms if our country is to succeed.

Not so sure on the class size level. I do agree it's important when the child is young, but the higher the grade, the less sure I am of that. I also think parents have an important role to play. How many parents bring home the New York Times or similar paper, play scrabble with the kids, supplement their education, etc.

AR - of course a teacher will say that smaller class sizes are better, because its easier for them, and drives up the demand for teachers.

the better questions to ask a good teacher are: would 90 kids be better served by 3 good teachers, or 3 good and 1 mediocre? and further, would you (the good teacher) rather make $75k/yr for teaching 22 kids, or $90k for teaching 30?

as a parent i would prefer the latter. i'd rather have 3 good teachers with bigger classes at higher salaries - you'll attract better talent. maybe use the extra $30k in this scenario for incentives - though I can see how difficult it is to fairly measure success for a teacher.

the more important question is your basis for saying that there are tons of studies--none of which you can be bothered to cite.

columbiacounty, you never add to threads, you only post

why do you believe printer is here to answer your questions and provide you with evidence?

ar sends her own child to an elite private expensive school. She obviously has internal conflicts and guilt for her privilege.(earned or unearned i don't know) Then she attacks me for exposing the hypocricy of the left who supports the entrenched establishment. The NYC school system spends about $20,000 per student. The poor inner city kids would greatly benifit from a Dalton type enducation also. Instead, the poor kids are stuck in an endless circle of mediocracy.

yep

printer, i'm paying $35,000 for a year of education, and i'm paying real estate and other taxes for the ny system. and for that i get a 1/8 ratio, and as you noted that may mean twelve in the math section and only ten in latin, and four in advanced french literature, but i'll take it.

i can tell you that you are deluding yourself if you think that class sizes of over 25 for k-4 are functional in all but the most rare of circumstances (and they'd be based on luck, not having more than a couple of troublemakers in a class, which can happen in any socioeconomic environment). i don't care how good the teacher is. and i used to teach k.

mediocrity*

AR - what real estate taxes are you paying?

you should focus on the definition of chelsea.

report back when you get it right.

Actually ph41, that's an interesting question.

Normally of course the real estate taxes are imputed in the rent.

But since her apartment became regulated / rent stabilized, that is no longer the case.

columbiacounty
2 minutes ago
stop ignoring this person
report abuse
you should focus on the definition of chelsea.
report back when you get it right.

Columbiacounty, that seems pretty nuanced for someone still bitter about being shown an apartment with a window in the shower.

ph41, i pay over $14000 a year upstate for real estate taxes. i'm supporting a child in public school.

What does upstate have to do with NYC, which is the subject of this thread?

aboutready, thank you for paying real estate taxes upstate that are pooled and redistributed to all counties throughout NYS.

RS: "Many teacher's put in a fraction of the hours the private work force does." Did you hook class when they were teaching punctuation, or would you have benefited from a smaller class size? Teachers work many hours beyond the official stated ones, developing and refining curriculum, designing exams and projects, grading, and developing feedback. The private sector spends many hours in the office, fucking around during many of them.

alanhart, really? Local real estate taxes are sent to the state for redistribution downstate?

NYC gets more than it's share of taxes paid to NYS?

aboutready, no one cares about the ratio of your child's school.

Dirty Republicans upstate and in the burbs raid that money, but aboutready is still very gracious in contributing generously to the coffers.

Thank you again, aboutready. You're a pearl of a girl.

according to alan, local taxes go to the state.

ar's husband needs to sue many great American co. to support her republican country club life style.

my republican country club life style? that's the funniest thing you've ever written, large one.

your husband needs to continue to work so you can have the benefits of a socialized medicine insurance source

I make most of the money in my family country club girl.

nothing like $12 hr at the grocery. go for it.

People who make $12 an hour aren't good enough for you columbiacounty?

house upstate ($14,000 in taxes)
elite private school for kid ($35,000)
yale education (although probably an affirmative action case)
trips to Europe

Sounds like a republicn country club life.....

how many trips to Europe?

julialg, you want my taxes to be reduced.

how conflicted are you?

people should keep their money? well we do what we do while paying taxes. and we're willing to pay more.

does that sound like republican country club mentality? you hate everyone, no? anyone who has money, who doesn't have money, etc.

" you hate everyone, no? anyone who has money, who doesn't have money, etc." I love very few, disdain most. So you are probably right.

and more to the point

no one loves you.

sad

> where did i say i'm against vouchers? i'm for them, but only for the lower to lower-middle class.

wtf would income based vouchers make any sense? each child deserves the best education available regardless (or irregardless so that AR understands) of his/her household income. giving the same voucher to all kids would bring real competition within the school system towards higher quality.

I've been away from Streeteasy for some time hoping things had changed. Obviously not.
Do any of you actually think your style of debate makes the world a better place?
If you have views that you think will benefit us all then why not share them in a persuasive manner? We have a serious education problem in the US and none of the above posts brings us any closer to solving said problem.
Why do you spend so much time on a blog if you're method of debate doesn't bring our society closer to real solutions that change behavior and influence the lives of others in a positive way?

"If you have views that you think will benefit us all then why not share them in a persuasive manner? "
There are no solution or views that will benefit ALL. That is just a silly notion. People will disagree because they hold different philosophical ideals.

> Why do you spend so much time on a blog if you're method of debate doesn't bring our society closer to real solutions that change behavior and influence the lives of others in a positive way?

the complexity of the issues are to blame, not the method of debate. for example, when i see home prices going down i'm happy. "why oh why do you like sth that's not good for me" says the homeowner. well, the homeowner was rooting for higher prices that are not good for the young for more than a decade. they just didn't realize or didn't care. many issues here involve transfers. thinking that there's a solution that can "bring our society closer" means you don't understand that transfer nature (so did most of homeowners during the bubble).

Is there a true Tea Party in New York City? Is it possible this could be a good thing? Maybe a shakeup in education helps?

again AR, what I think doesn't matter - its what the studies show. You know, that whole 'science' thing? Funny how the left gets all up in arms when a few loons in Kansas want to teach intelligent design, but when their own deeply held beliefs are challenged by the scientific evidence, suddenly the science is inaccurate.

I'd much rather have fewer, better, incentivized teachers. And vouchers for all is a wonderful idea as well. Imagine that - principals and teachers both rewarded for putting out the best product they can. And all families, rich and poor able to take advantage of it. I know, I know, I'm such a heartless person for having such views.

I did what you suggested.

What are the flaws in this study?

http://www.classsizematters.org/Konstantopoulos_2009.pdf

Printer, it doesn't even approach evidence until methodology and interpretation are scrutinized. A press release or two "announcing" "results" doesn't cut it, which is why you were asked for links to studies.

printer, where are you going to find "good teachers for all"

or the materials and physical plants to provide safe, "equal" quality education for all children?

and how will you eliminate the advantages of residence? and transportation issues?

if you don't think size matters, that makes it easier for you. most people who have studied developmental psychology and education would disagree.

"Is there a true Tea Party in New York City? Is it possible this could be a good thing? Maybe a shakeup in education helps?"

Objectivists of the World unite.

Synthetic Cubists of the world unite. Whatevers.

here is one alanhart and AR:

http://www.psychologicalscience.org/journals/pspi/pdf/pspi2_1.pdf

pay particular attention to pages 9 -13 or so where they talk about the result from some of the meta-studies which have been done. There is absolutely no compelling evidence that class size matters. When I first learned of this I too was surprised. But sometimes you have to be willing to let go of your pre-conceived notions and just examine the evidence.

"if you don't think size matters" Really aboutready, this is a family site.

printer, i have looked at numerous studies on the issue. most studies show that there is a compelling advantage to smaller class sizes. the advantage tends to be the greatest when poverty is highest and in early years for underachievers, but the advantage is there.

you want to put your kid in a class of 35 kids with one teacher who i guarantee will quickly hate his/her job, feel free. and you really think my kid got no advantage to being in a class of 16-18 kids with two teachers, not counting the time spent in specials? ha!

reducing class size is expensive, but it does work.