Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and New York City's teachers' union announced a tentative contract yesterday that calls for raises of 16 percent to 22 percent over 30 months, putting the city in a better competitive position to hire the 10,000 teachers the mayor says it needs by September.þþThe settlement, while giving the teachers a much larger raise than other city workers have received, will add 100 minutes to the teachers' workweek, time that can be used for instruction or training. The settlement also eases — but not nearly as much as the mayor had hoped — some of the longstanding work rules he wanted changed, like restrictions against assigning teachers to keep order in school cafeterias.þþSome education experts say that Mr. Bloomberg's failure to gain more sweeping changes in work rules will limit his ability to improve instruction for the city's 1.1 million children in public schools, even with the recent agreement by state legislative leaders giving the mayor political control of the schools system.þþWith an annual cost of about $950 million, the teacher raises will undoubtedly complicate Mr. Bloomberg's efforts to erase a projected $5 billion budget deficit. The mayor has often complained that the state has provided only a one-shot infusion of $275 million to help finance recurring raises for teachers. The double-digit raises could also pressure the city to be more generous to the two major municipal unions that remain without a contract, the police and firefighters.þþStill, the agreement — which expires on May 31, 2003 — ends the biggest labor dispute facing the mayor. The old contract for the city's 80,000 public school teachers expired 19 months ago.þþCompared with New York City's other recent labor agreements, the teachers' raises are unusually large. With the city needing 10,000 new teachers by September, the United Federation of Teachers had argued that a raise of 20 percent or more was needed to make teacher salaries competitive with higher-paying suburbs and to enable the city to recruit and retain enough teachers.þþSchools Chancellor Harold O. Levy said the double-digit raises were key to improving teacher quality. ÿLet the word go out that the New York City school system pays competitively and has solid professional development and is eager to hire top-quality teachers,ÿ he said.þþThe tentative agreement will raise the city's teacher salaries to nearly the level of those in some nearby school districts, including Newark and Mount Vernon, but salaries will still lag behind those in many wealthy suburbs, like Scarsdale.þþThe pay increases, much of them retroactive, will raise the pay for new teachers to $39,000 from the current $31,900, a 22 percent increase, and will raise the pay for the most experienced teachers to $81,231, from the current $70,000, a 16 percent increase.þþFor fifth-year teachers with a master's degree, pay will rise to $45,506 from $38,598, an 18 percent increase. In Newark, a fifth-year teacher receives $45,900 and in Scarsdale, $58,913.þþIn Newark, starting pay is $40,000 and the top of the scale is $80,108. In Scarsdale, the starting salary is $41,488 and the maximum, $106,305.þþRandi Weingarten, the union's president, said, ÿFor the first time in at least a decade the city has taken a major step to solve the teacher shortage, and although this is not perfect, this agreement has made a great stride toward ensuring teacher quality and making the job of teaching in New York City more attractive.ÿþþMayor Bloomberg repeatedly asserted that it would be hard for the city to afford a pay increase above the 9 percent given to most other city unions. But city officials said yesterday that they were pleased that in exchange for the increase, the teachers had agreed to a school day that is 20 minutes longer on average.þþThe city agreed to the teacher raises after the state promised the $275 million to help finance them and after a state fact-finding panel recommended a 16 percent increase in exchange for a longer school day. City officials said they had already set aside nearly $500 million to pay for the contract.þþAt a City Hall news conference last night with Gov. George E. Pataki and Ms. Weingarten, Mr. Bloomberg acknowledged that it might be difficult to finance the contract, but he insisted that the raises were the right thing to do.þþÿLong-term the best thing that we can do for the economy is the same thing that we can do for humanity, and that is to educate our children,ÿ he said.þþThe union's delegate assembly is to vote on the settlement tomorrow, and mail ballots are to be sent out late this week.þþDistrict Council 37 and most other city unions received raises of 9 percent over 27 months in contracts that averaged a 4 percent annual raise. They said the accord gave a 10 percent raise over 30 months, and added an additional 6 percent in exchange for increased productivity in the form of a longer school day.þþOfficials with the city and the teachers' union said repeatedly that the agreement called for a 16 percent raise across the board. They were reluctant to acknowledge that about 45 percent of teachers — those with less than seven years experience — would receive raises of more than 16 percent with the aim of slowing the exodus of new teachers. One-fourth of new teachers leave before their second year.þþIn one of the most difficult issues, the two sides split the difference over what to do with the additional 20 minutes. Mayor Bloomberg said most of the extra time should be used for classroom instruction, while the union wanted the time split between instruction and teacher training.þþUnder the accord, schools can either add 20 minutes a day or allocate the time into two weekly 50-minute blocks. The decision will be up to the superintendents of the city's 32 school districts.þþIn schools that add 20 minutes a day, that time is to be used for classroom instruction, city officials say. In schools that add 50-minute blocks, the time can be used for teacher training or for small-group instruction, like tutorials.þþMr. Bloomberg obtained only a modest change in a provision known as Circular 6, which he wanted to eliminate. That provision frees teachers from patrolling corridors or cafeterias and from taking nonteaching assignments, like working as a college adviser. Under the old contract, teachers had to do those jobs only if 75 percent of the teachers at the school voted to allow it.þþThe settlement will make it slightly easier to have teachers handle those responsibilities by requiring a vote of only 55 percent.þþThe agreement would also make it easier for the school system to dismiss incompetent teachers, after offering help to improve their teaching. In cases of misconduct involving sexual abuse or the sale or use of drugs or firearms, teachers may be suspended without pay for up to two months if a hearing finds probable cause that the charges are true.þþÿWe've improved dismissal procedures,ÿ Mr. Levy said, ÿso that arbitrations and grievance procedures will no longer take three years, but from three to six months.ÿþþþ
Source: NY Times
