Bloomberg Intends To Fire 50% of Teachers At SIG Schools

Went up this afternoon at the Daily News:

City officials are determined to replace roughly half the staff at 33 schools that will be shuttered this summer, documents show.

The city will push forward with axing 1,750 staffers even though doing so won’t necessarily qualify for $58 million in a federal turnaround grant, legal documents state.

United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew struck back Monday, charging the mayor with closing schools rather then improving them. “That’s why his education legacy is in shambles,” said Mulgrew.

The city plans to shut the 33 schools this summer, requiring each of the teachers to reapply for the job at a new school that will reopen next fall with the same students.

The city may not get the federal funds, as it won’t in every case be able to meet the federal requirement that half the staff at the schools be axed.

Bloomberg went on record saying he wanted to fire 50% of all NYC teachers.

He's starting with the SIG schools.

You can bet that after he leaves office, there will be a lot of pressure from the hedge fundies and Wall Street crooks like Kathryn Wilde for Bloomberg's successor to continue his education policies, including the school closure policy and the teacher bashing.

And given the money Bloomberg plans to throw around as a "philanthropist" once he is out of City Hall, he may still have de facto control of the schools even after he no longer holds political office.

Scary but true.

So the UFT's strategy of waiting for Bloomberg to go is short-sighted and ultimately doomed to failure.

The corporate attack on public education, teachers, and unions is bigger than the Little Autocrat.

They ought to be developing a coherent, community-based strategy to fight back against this.

But they're not.

We have some dark days ahead before Bloomberg goes.

And we may have still darker ones afterward.