Murdoch Papers Says ATR's To Be Sold Out

Murdoch Post writer, Fred Dicker, the namesake of the "Fred Dicker of the Day" award, writes the following:

State lawmakers are secretly eyeing a compromise that would allow Mayor Bloomberg to fire thousands of "nonteaching teachers" without consideration of the "last in, first out" law, The Post has learned.

The plan, being discussed at the highest levels of the Legislature and with aides to Bloomberg, would grant the mayor the right to fire between 2,000 to 4,000 nonclassroom teachers -- including all those who formerly languished in the notorious "rubber room" under disciplinary charges.

The plan would also target members of the "absent teacher reserve pool" -- which includes nonworking but on-the-payroll teachers from schools that have been shut down because of poor performance -- and teachers assigned only to "administrative functions," sources said.

Bloomberg warned Friday that the city might be forced to lay off as many as 20,000 teachers because of a combination of a city revenue shortfall and the severe state budget cuts to be unveiled tomorrow by Gov. Cuomo. If the plan becomes reality, about 10 to 20 percent of teachers slated for layoffs simply because they were hired last would be spared.

Bloomberg, conceding that significant teacher cuts are inevitable, has launched an aggressive campaign to overturn the state law that requires the city to fire teachers on the basis of seniority and not competence.

State lawmakers privately say Bloomberg can't win full repeal of the law because of intense union opposition and concerns over the criteria the mayor would use to justify teacher dismissals.

But the dismissal of poorly performing "nonteaching teachers" was described by a top state official as "potentially doable."

Cuomo and Senate Republicans have signaled they're open to such a measure, but Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) and his union-funded Democratic Conference have yet to weigh in.

As always, take ANYTHING written in the Murdoch Post (or any Murdoch "news" outlet, for that matter) with a grain of salt.

But it isn't too hard to believe that Cuomo and the Senate are working behind the scenes to give Bloomberg the power to fire at will.

Silver and the Assembly are all that stands in the way of this.

And once the mayor is given the ability to fire teachers at will, you can bet the "bad teachers" in the system will ALWAYS be the most expensive and senior teachers who will be scrubbed from the system every few years like clockwork.