UPDATE: In accord with the comment of NYC Educator (below) Mayor Bloomberg, the UFT and some unidentified parents announced a deal Thursday according the Erin Einhorn writing in Friday's New York Daily News. See also a much fuller article from the New York Times's David M Herszenhorn . The city hall press release is here
The contents of the deal are unclear to me from the articles. While Mayor Bloomberg now appears to promise that no school will lose money, the content of that promise may be empty. It seems to me -- that a key element of the Bloomberg-Klein reorganization -- that funding follow each child, is left in place. If so, as I see it, staffing at school will become somewhat more unstable as principals will have a budget motive to shed senior teachers. I am somewhat alarmed at the apparent exclusion of CPAC from the bargaining. What is the story here?
Thursday's New York Daily News is reporting a bargaining session between the Department of Education on the one hand and the United Federation of Teachers and parents on the other. The link is here. Does anyone know more about this?
Update: NY1 coverage of the joint press conference here.
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It sounds like on the one hand they're compromising, but on the other they aren't. The notion of "fair funding," coming from the same folks who engineered a 2/3 reduction in the CFE award (via their monumental intransigence)is simply preposterous.
The UFT has come to an agreement with the city about the reorg. I got an email from the UFT stating that, and also a private email saying the May 9th rally was canceled.
I just saw a comment posted on the NYC Public School Parents website (it's a comment posted by someone called nyceducator to a posting titled "A Deal on School Reorganization is Made: UPDATE") saying that because the UFT and a few other groups -- excluding most or all parent groups and CECs) -- has ostensibly brokered some sort of deal with Bloomberg and Klein, the May 9th rally outside City Hall has been canceled. The NY Times today also reports that the groups who met with Bloomberg agreed not to hold the rally.
Do you know if any of this is true and if the rally is in fact canceled? If so, what we will have had is an almost unconscionable and seemingly unilateral action on the part of the UFT to take care of its own at the expense of public school parents. Since the UFT "has a deal," there's no longer a reason to have a rally -- is that the message? So what of all the other parent issues -- the reorganizations, the lack of parent voice, etc? When the UFT wants parents to come to a rally, they don't hesitate to ask for support, but now that they could meet and get a deal, they don't see the need for parents to rally and give voice to their concerns and frustrations? As a public school parents, I feel as though Randi Weingarten just cut the legs out from other the PA/PTAs, CECs, and other parent groups around the city. Shouldn't we still have the rally, whether the UFT wishes to participate or not? I believe there are more than enough parents who are still not satisfied with where things stand and where they're going.
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