The Teachers’ Timing
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 timing of the contract with the teachers certainly caught many in town off guard, coming in, as it does, at least a year ahead of schedule and barely a year after the last contract was signed. The explanation is a curious set of political circumstances, though that doesn’t necessarily detract from the fact that there is at least some good news in the pact. While it offers additional raises to teachers with few new reforms in respect of antiquated and inefficient work rules, the contract may help the chancellor, Joel Klein, solve what has been a big headache for the education department and taxpayers — namely a surplus of teachers, many of them not of the highest caliber.
Most of the provisions of the contract are fairly standard as municipal contracts go. That’s by design, since this deal was modeled on the agreement reached over the summer between the city and the bureaucrats of District Council 37. To the credit of both the chancellor and the United Federation of Teachers, the new contract preserves concessions won by the taxpayers, like longer working days that were eked out in the last round of negotiations. New Yorkers are spared the spectacle of backsliding.
In addition, the taxpayers have won a new buyout arrangement. A chronic problem in the school system has been the teachers who can’t find assignments, often — although not always — because principals recognize the particular teachers aren’t qualified. Up until now, excessed teachers have been a drag on the payroll, being shunted into substituting jobs if no full-time work materializes. The new contract gives the teacher the option of accepting a one-time payment and leaving the schools entirely. While in any other workplace paying incompetent employees to quit wouldn’t make sense, in the city school system it’s a form of progress.
This time around, the politics may be more complicated than the contract. One consequence of ratifying the contract now is that the new deal will expire in October 2009. In other words, it carries through the time when Mayor Bloomberg will need the support of the teachers if he makes the independent run for the presidency that he has been so actively sounding out. From the point of view of the mayor, it’s a shrewd move, though the mayor would no doubt bristle at the notion that it even crossed his mind.
Another consequence is that the contract expires a month before the next mayoral election. That will give the UFT’s president, Randi Weingarten, the possibility of playing a major role in that election by putting her union’s support up for bid. Although reaching a deal before a possible big payout from the Campaign for Fiscal Equity case might seem unusual, Ms. Weingarten — who is nothing if not smart — will now be free to argue for spending the money on more teachers (and thus more union members) instead of having to explain why she didn’t push for raises for current teachers.
In other words, there are gains on the union side that offset the wins for the taxpayer. How will they balance? Only time will tell. The thing to watch in coming days will be how the details of the buyout plan get settled, since the parties have yet to settle on a payout amount. It also remains to be seen how many excess teachers will participate. This is where the tale will actually be told in respect of the taxpayers. If the payout is too generous or if too few teachers participate, the gains will not have offset the potential political consequences of the pact. The taxpayer’s only other option is to sit and imagine a day when innovations like expanded charter schools and vouchers will free taxpayers — and students — from the vagaries of UFT contract negotiations.