Bloomberg's New Teacher Project Contract

Let's be honest here - Bloomberg wants to hand the New Teacher Project a $20 million contract to hire new teachers because

a) he loves hiring new teachers and firing veteran ones

b) hiring new teachers is cheaper than continuing to pay old ones

c) the people running the New Teacher Project are part of the education deform crony system and they MUST be paid their ed deform largesse for continuing to do the GREAT EDUCATION DEFORM WORK of demonizing veteran teachers and privileging the hiring of rookies.

Kudos to John Liu for calling Bloomberg out on this:

"Twenty million dollars to recruit teachers as the DOE insists on laying off thousands of teachers seems curious, at best," Controller John Liu said.

How can there be ANY problems hiring new teachers when the DOE hasn't hired in two years and lots of people have graduated education programs and are dying for jobs.

I know, I've seen it in my school.

Many of these folks are working as subs.

They're also bartending, waiting tables, and temping.

I think the UFT characterized this issue well:

The teachers union head called the contract a waste of money.

"I think one of the deputy chancellors should go to the CUNY schools of education graduations and say they have jobs - they could fill every one," said United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew

.

Maybe the deputy chancellor should bring a couple of buses with him.

There's going to be a lot of people he brings back to Tweed in tow.

As for the work John Liu is doing, it is finally good to see ONE politician STAND UP to the Mayor of Money and call him on things when it is appropriate.

Quinn hasn't done this. Stringer hasn't done this well. Neither has De Blasio.

They're too scared of the mayor to be effective critics.

But so far, Liu has been doing his job as comptroller and serving as a counterpunch to Bloomberg's steamrolling of the system and the city.