What's more important? Well, if you're the UFT brass, on the heels of the worst contract in living memory, quality is pretty much out of the question. So you plug the new "free market" program, declaring it a success because considerably more teachers have moved around.
Then, you declare that many teachers have chosen to join the "absent teacher reserve," or ATR program because they didn't want to risk their right to return to their old schools.
How many teachers chose that? Who knows? Today, at lunch, several of my colleagues expressed horror at having to sub indefinitely, and I gotta agree. Not a single ATR teacher who's contacted me wants to be there.
The NY Times says the ATR program will cost 100 million dollars. While its existence is assured until the end of this contract, how can the UFT not anticipate what Klein will have to say about that come contract negotiations?
The open market is an interesting notion. But if you're a principal interviewing a 23-year veteran, even a reasonable one, how can you not consider the effect that teacher's seniority will have on the rest of the department? And despite what I've read about salaries being unimportant, how can no one consider that you get two 40 thousand teachers for the price of one 80 thousand teachers?
Why does no one in Unity consider these things? I'd have no objection to their salaries dwarfing mine if they actually showed vision enough to earn them.
Thanks to POd Teacher and Bigdon393
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