City Gets $5 Million To Hire New Teachers...

...even as they get ready to lay off 6,400 teachers:

The DOE asked the PEP to approve an allocation of $5,000,000 to recruit new teachers while at the same time they are threatening to lay off thousands of us. The excuse given was that DOE has to have teachers for our most needy special education students ready on day one as this is a shortage area. This is a laugh as I pointed out to the Panel when I spoke as Jamaica has special education classes that in May still don't have a regular teacher.

The UFT was in the house and they made a great case on the issue of this ridiculous expenditure. The best speaker was clearly UFT Secretary Michael Mendel who spoke for two minutes of the folly of the DOE's spending 5 million dollars to recruit teachers during these tough fiscal times when they are talking about layoffs.

Of course this $5 million expenditure is going to the New Teacher Project, a "non-profit" founded by Joel Klein crony Michelle Rhee, so really this expenditure is less about hiring new teachers and more about paying off cronies.

The DOE has also hired eight new deputy chancellors, continues to spend millions on new testing programs, and hand out no-bid contracts for busing services and the like (even with gangsters who bring guns to the negotiations.)

The City Council gave 4% raises to its staff, Bloomberg gave raises to his staff, and he gave bonuses to his campaign people (albeit, this money came from his own pocket.)

With all this money going from hand to hand, there IS money to AVERT layoffs even if the state and the feds do not give more money to the city.

The just have to reallocate it from other things - like the testing programs, the no-bid contracts, the new deputy chancellor hires, and the payoffs to cronies.

Lately in some circles there has been talk of furloughs to avert layoffs. There has also been talk of taking a wage freeze and salary step freeze to avert layoffs.

I believe these ideas are huge mistakes.

Bloomberg and Klein are not playing honest with the money any more than the MTA plays honest with their budget when they are getting around to asking for fare hikes.

To agree to furloughs, wage freezes or salary step freezes would allow Bloomberg and Klein to continue to spend money on their priorities - like adding more tests and more PD that brings them closer to their goal of a totally privatized system with merit pay and work protections gutted.

Furloughs, wage/step freezes also would allow them to continue to pay themselves and their cronies more money while funding the recession on the backs of teachers, schools and most importantly, children.

Until Bloomberg and Klein get honest with WHAT they're spending money on, teachers should not sacrifice their own financial well being so that Bloomberg, Klein and all of their no-bid contract cronies can save theirs.