Well, we say, what the hell do you know? Ya bunch of chickens! So what if it doesn't work? How else will we get rid of teachers who are a drag on our budget? Listen, it's my position that people in the private sector are fired for no reason, so why can't we do the same in the public sector? Anyway, if a teacher's salary is too high, we can just stack her classes with a bunch of losers, and voila! Instant ineffectiveness.
So, we pretended to negotiate with the UFT for a while to make it look good, but they were all, "Oh, we have to have due process," and, "Oh, what about accuracy?" while we say any principal should be able to fire anyone at any time for any reason. As far as I'm concerned, a principal can never be wrong about anything and would never fire anyone without a good reason. And even if that happens, why the hell should it be my problem?
In case that doesn't work, we have this Danielson framework thingie, and we'll walk in with rubrics and checklists and find a way to give that bad rating. As you know, Danielson offers extensive training in this framework, and no one in the DOE has taken any of it. We figure we'll just wing it and get the results we need.
Also, we're bringing back merit pay. While it didn't work the last time we used it, we figure we can bamboozle teachers into thinking they may get a tip for a job well-done, while we continue to deny them a contract with the raise we gave everyone else. After all, what principal in sound mind is gonna want to take 20,000 bucks out of his school budget and give it to some damn teacher? Plus it sounds really reformy, and I'm the mayor, dammit, and I get what I want, how I want whenever I want.
We're going to continue closing schools, which is a great policy, as we shuffle kids all over the place and look very, very tough. In fact, we close a whole lot of schools we've opened. But it really makes the public think we're doing something instead of just moving the problem around. Sure, according to NAEP, we've made no progress whatsoever over the last decade. But the important thing is that we look like we're doing something, and we'll bring another 50 charters in. They won't serve the high-needs kids who screw up the stats, so we'll be able to close even more schools, and look like we're really serious about this nonsense.
But it will make Eva Moskowitz look great, maybe! Anyway, I've still got eight votes on the PEP, our fake school board, and I'm Mike Bloomberg, dammit, and I can do whatever I want.
In conclusion, I'd just like to say I hope you've enjoyed my little talk. If not, screw you and the horse you rode in on.
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