The Teachers’ Pact
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The agreement between the city and the teachers may mean that Mayor Bloomberg will be able to head into November’s election without worrying about opposition from one of the city’s largest unions. And, in a contest between Mr. Bloomberg and Fernando Ferrer, anything that eases the way for the mayor to gain a second term is no small victory. It would, for one thing, give the chancellor, Joel Klein, the mandate, which he roundly deserves, to finish the reforms he has started.
But in respect of the particulars, it is hard to see what students and ordinary New Yorkers gain from the new contract, other than the opportunity to live under the threat of future tax increases. That may be too cynical. Among the concessions gained by the mayor is a two day increase in the length of the school year and an additional 50 minutes of teaching time each week. Seniority transfers, which allowed experienced teachers to pluck plum assignments from their younger colleagues, are theoretically now a thing of the past. This is a good thing that will help improve some of the underperforming schools. And teachers will be required to take up some “hall monitor” duties, which had recently been performed by extra employees.
The mayor, however, failed to win authority to fire incompetent teachers, as Councilwoman Eva Moskowitz, pointed out to us yesterday afternoon. The new contract makes it easier to dismiss teachers accused of sexual wrongdoing, but fails to make significant progress when dealing with run-of-the-mill incompetence, which is where management – meaning those who represent the voters and taxpayers and parents of New York – really needed to gain. These new work rules will require teachers to teach and will allow principals to regain some control of the schools. But isn’t that exactly what should have been happening all along?
Taxpayers will have to shell out enormous sums to buy what would be the status quo in any sane school district. Teachers will receive a 15% raise over four years, as opposed to the 11.4% over three years that an arbitration panel had recommended. Yet a report published by the Citizens Budget Commission earlier this year found that under the old contract, and even without accounting for fringe benefits, public-school teachers in the New York area already earn 176% as much as their private-school counterparts, clocking in at an average of $44.11 an hour compared to $25.03 an hour at private schools. The new contract’s $42,000 starting salary and $93,000 payout for top teachers will seem princely in one of the most heavily taxed cities in America, especially in light of the “concessions” those new pay levels are buying.
After two years without a contract, the deal announced yesterday will offer some stability to the public schools, especially since some teachers had been threatening a strike. But much as we admire Mr. Klein and the progress he has been making, we don’t view stability as the highest goal here. We would have welcomed a strike, which would have thrown the issue of education into sharper relief than ever and forced the city to think harder about making any contract with the teachers and whether it is logical to pursue a course in which the government monopoly in education is maintained.
In the long run, the road to reform of the city’s schools is going to have to come from the maximization of choice, giving parents a say in how the global education dollars in the city are spent. The way to do this is through a system of vouchers that would extend to poor and middle-class families the kinds of choices available to wealthy parents in the city. This does not have to mean a death of public schools or a destruction of the United Federation of Teachers (one doesn’t have to spend much time with Randi Weingarten to sense her idealism). But it would permit choice and thus competition and hasten progress.