Departing Union Leader Looks Back

In the last 33 years, Thomas Hobart Jr. has represented workers in 40 foreign countries, run task forces and commissions in New York and nationally, and expanded the membership of the New York State United Teachers to 500,000 from 100,000.“Teachers were pretty much indentured servants to the administration and the schools,” Mr. Hobart, who will retire in April, said as he remembered the beginning of his teaching career. He wouldn’t take full credit for changing the field of education and the role of teachers in New York, but he said he played a part.Mr. Hobart, who turned 68 the day after Christmas, said he has helped change the way teachers are compensated, win slots for teachers on important decision-making bodies such as textbook committees, and bring down class sizes.The longtime union president, who supports seniority rights and opposes merit pay, differential pay, and charter schools, said the union has also nudged lawmakers to make some major changes that are almost ready for implementation.The Board of Regents, for example, is thinking of approving a core curriculum for elementary grades, he said.“It’s taken a long time, but it appears that the regents have now come about and they’re going to do that, which is a vital step before they reform the assessments, because how do you prepare a kid for an exam when you don’t know the curriculum?” he said. “Supposedly the exam is supposed to be based on the curriculum that they teach. Some people say you shouldn’t ‘teach to the test.’ If you have a curriculum in place and a valid assessment of that curriculum, there’s nothing wrong with teaching to the test, because that is the curriculum you’re supposed to be preparing the students for.”Another recent accomplishment he has supported has been the movement toward imposing high standards.“The ultimate discrimination is when you go into a classroom and you don’t expect the kids to be able to perform,” Mr. Hobart said. “Once we put the high standards in place, everybody is looking for a way to get the kids to meet those standards. Now, we fall short with some kids, but we pick up an awful lot of kids we missed before.”He said the assessments, which still aren’t completely in place, are so important because they can show New Yorkers whether the money they’re giving to the school system is paying off.“A lot of money is spent on education in New York State, almost $15 billion, and now the CFE decision in New York City is going to add almost $6 billion to that, without looking at the needs in the rest of the state. So we’re talking about a lot of money,” the union president said. “If we don’t have a valid assessment to show to the citizens of the state who are the taxpayers that this money is being used for a benefit, and one of those benefits would be that these kids are going to be the workers in the work force say, 10 or 15 years from now, which keeps the economy of the state so high – if we can’t ensure to the citizens of the state that we’re meeting this, they are going to not support the funding and resources that are necessary.”Even once the assessments are perfected, he said there’s still a lot of work to be done to fix New York’s schools.He said the state could do a better job educating its youngest children, its English-language learners, and its special-education students. He said another challenge is teaching all children a foreign language.Mr. Hobart said the new money that the special masters in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity case recommended will help solve some of these problems. The money should also be spent, he said, on programs designed to retain and recruit quality teachers, on training teachers in new and effective methods, and on reducing class sizes.He said his successor – who will be elected in April – will have to deal with the consequences of the court’s mandate of a “sound basic education,” as well as the yet-unknown consequences of the federal No Child Left Behind Act.Mr. Hobart said NYSUT’s executive vice president, Alan Lubin; its secretary-treasurer, Ivan Tiger; its second vice president, Maria Neira; and its first vice president, Richard Iannuzzi, are all “very qualified” and would make good NYSUT presidents.He said one of the things he hasn’t accomplished, but that he hopes will be accomplished by his successor, is creating an environment so that teachers fight over vacant slots in problem classrooms.“We should be fighting to get those challenging jobs,” he said, “the same way as the medical profession has the doctors fighting to be the first one to get the successful heart transplant, or NASA has engineers that are fighting to get back into orbit.”If his replacement needs help, Mr. Hobart said, he can give advice, but he said in general, “We’re ready for a new generation of leaders to tackle a new generation of challenges.”Mr. Hobart said he will be spending time with his four grandchildren and learning to ski, snowboard, and play golf better – all in New York State.“I think this is not only the Empire State, but the greatest state that we have in this country,” he said. “I’ve been very privileged to travel the world, representing the union, and traveling to all the other states. This is the place to be. I come from Buffalo and I even like the winter weather.”

Departing Union Leader Looks Back

Departing Union Leader Looks Back

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