Daily News Reports That Andrew Cuomo Has "Lawyered Up"

The Moreland disclosures just don't stop these days - here's another big one, courtesy of Ken Lovett at the Daily News:

ALBANY - Gov. Cuomo has lawyered up as the scandal over the handling of his anti-corruption commission has grown, the Daily News has learned.

Cuomo hired prominent white collar criminal defense lawyer Elkan Abramowitz in May to represent the governor’s office, sources told The News.

Cuomo’s top aides, Secretary to the Governor Larry Schwartz and counsel Mylan Denerstein, have also hired their own personal attorneys, the sources said. Cuomo separately has sought advice from several lawyers, the sources said.

Abramowitz confirmed to The News that he was hired to represent the executive chamber. He said he is serving in much the same role Denerstein might have filled if she wasn’t a potential witness.

Denerstein, who is set to soon leave the administration, is scheduled to meet with U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara’s office sometime this month.

Abramowitz once served as an assistant deputy mayor in the city and was a chief of the criminal division in the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office that is investigating Cuomo.
Cuomo’s office had no comment.

And just because one Moreland disclosure isn't enough tonight, Capital Confidential had another one:

Joseph Percoco, a longtime political aide to Gov. Andrew Cuomo, contacted several members of the state’s now-shuttered anti-corruption commission during the past week and encouraged them to make public statements supporting the governor and affirming the panel’s independence.

According to multiple sources familiar with the matter, Percoco allegedly offered to provide draft statements to those he contacted, and in some cases encouraged them to communicate with him through private emails rather than using their government email accounts.

Monday’s flurry of statements from Moreland members prompted a warning Wednesday from U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, who is looking into allegations that the administration interfered with the panel’s investigations.

Percoco, who previously served as the governor’s executive deputy secretary, has worked for Cuomo’s re-election campaign committee for several months. A quiet but formidable lawyer, he has been a behind-the-scenes fixture in Cuomo’s inner circle for many years, including during his four years as state attorney general and in his earlier role as U.S. housing secretary.

Attempts to reach Percoco were not successful.

Percoco allegedly offered to provide draft statements to the Moreland Commission members he contacted, the one's he and his boss wanted to publicly support the governor and say that Cuomo did not tamper with the commission?

Geez, you just can't make that up, can you?

I'm not a lawyer, but isn't Percoco's offering to draft the statements the governor wanted the commission members to make witness tampering, as Stephen Gillers laid out in The Nation?

Bharara has a basis to investigate Cuomo himself and his aides. The statute would be 18 USC 1512(b) and possibly others. It is a crime to knowingly corruptly persuade another to keep information from an official proceeding. That's the Arthur Andersen case in the Supreme Court among others.

There is a sitting grand jury, which is an official proceeding, and former Commissioners must have been aware that they could be witnesses even if not yet subpoenaed.  Cuomo would also be so aware.

Bharara is warning Cuomo that any effort to coordinate a false story (of non-intervention) that these Commissioners would  tell the grand jury if called would be a federal crime. This is so even if their statements are so far only public statements,  even if the effort fails because the Commissioners don't testify. The statute forbids attempts.

Now, as I say, it may all be innocent. The Commissioners who spoke out, and who  prior to doing so may have been contacted by the governor's people to solicit their statements (Bharara says he "has reason to believe" they were), may have spoken truthfully with no "knowing corrupt  persuasion" at play.

But Monday's events put the governor is at risk in ways he was not before. The US obstruction statutes are incredibly broad. Whoever got the idea to coordinate the concurrent Commissioner statements, assuming there was coordination and not a coincidence,  and even if any such idea was entirely benign, may not have been aware of  what they were handing Bharara for investigation.

Again, I'm not a lawyer and I know Cuomo does this stuff all the time, having statements he wants other politicians and public figures make drafted for them.

But the difference here is, these commissioners may have to testify before a federal grand jury over whether Cuomo was meddling in their work for the Moreland Commission.

Starts to sound very much like tampering to me if Percoco gave the statements of support to those commissioners.

John King Says NYSED Won't Help Teachers Who Were Rated With Faulty Data

Jessica Bakeman at Capital NY reports that NYSED Commissioner King says SED will do nothing to help teachers who were rated using erroneous data:

ALBANY—The state Education Department is telling teachers whose evaluations were based on faulty data they will have to deal with their local school districts to make corrections. 

Some teachers, including many in Syracuse, are appealing their evaluations because the portion that is based on test scores either included students who weren't in their classes or left students they taught off the list.

But Education Commissioner John King said those grievances will have to be dealt with locally by school districts because it would be too difficult and time-consuming for the state to run the data formula again. Teachers were told to review student lists and verify their accuracy through an online portal in June, before districts submitted the rosters to the state.

Because the formula compares teachers to other teachers with similar students, the state could not recalculate individual teachers' scores without having to re-start the whole process.

“There is a moment in time when you sort of close the file, and that is the information that is used,” King told reporters after announcing preliminary results of the evaluations last week.

Uh - no.

If the data is faulty and teachers were unfairly rated "ineffective" or "developing" as a result, it is the state's obligation to fix the problem - even if that faulty data comes from the district.

If the APPR evaluation system is so half-assed that the state can't deal with mistakes and they have to recalculate every teacher's rating, well, that's just too damned bad.

Fix the problems with the individual teacher ratings, fix the problems with the system as a whole.

Or, there will be lawsuits and we'll see what a court of law says about work evaluations based upon faulty data that SED says it won't or can't fix.

Regents Grading - Time To Lawyer Up

The ELA Regents grading process has been a chaotic mess so far and makes the rigging of the APPR evaluation system against teachers in NYC even more troubling than it ordinarily would be.

They have had out of license teachers grading the exams.

They have first year teachers with no experience and little guidance grading the exams.

The "norming" process to get everybody on the same page has been half-assed, with some leaders telling their charges erroneous information about how to grade exams.

The computer system being used for the grading is as riddled with bugs as Michael Bloomberg's new 911 system.

That anybody's rating could be based on this process is truly a travesty.

All I know is, if and when I get dinged by NYSED Commissioner/rookie teacher John King's rigged APPR test and growth components, I will be suing the NYSED, the Regents, the NYCDOE and John King himself.

The Regents and the NYSED have put a shoddy evaluation system into place around the state, the NYCDOE has a shoddy Regents exam grading system in place, and John King has put a rigged evaluation system in place for NYC.

If the UFT is not going to protect teachers from this travesty, then we will have to do it ourselves.

I can tell you from the Regents grading I have seen so far, there is nothing scientific or objective about John King's APPR system based on test scores - no matter what Andrew Cuomo says.

I am willing to bet the courts will back that up when the inevitable lawsuits hit.

What travesties have you seen or heard with the Regents grading?

Let's document the crimes and start building the mountain of evidence we need to take John King and his NYSED goons to court and send their APPR system down the toilet where it - and they - belong.

Geniuses At NYSED Need A Couple More Hours To Finalize The NYC Teacher Evaluation Plan

Is @johnkingnysed a NBA fan? Finalized plans scheduled to be posted by 8:00 PM — just in time for Game 6 tipoff #pacers #heat
— Geoff Decker (@GDeckernews) June 1, 2013

I said earlier, this plan must be a mess.

I'll double down on that.

Cuomo Accuses Buffalo Teachers Union, District Of Near "Ethical And Legal Fraud"

Governor Andy was very upset to learn that the Buffalo school district has made a deal with the Buffalo teachers union to not use the APPR system to fire any teacher the first year because the system has yet to be tested.

“The District understands that it would not be fair to our teachers to use this process against them during this early stage of implementation,” Superintendent Pamela Brown wrote in a memorandum of understanding with the Buffalo Teachers Federation that was struck on the same day as the city and union agreed on an evaluation plan but was not shared with the state.

Governor Andy, the self-proclaimed (and acclaimed) First Lobbyist for students in the state, would have none of this:

In a radio interview today, Cuomo called the side deal, struck at the same time as Buffalo and its union agreed on a new teacher evaluation system in January, “very close to legal and ethical fraud.”

You see, Governor Andy doesn't believe in testing a new evaluation system before using it for high stakes decisions like ruining careers and wrecking reputations.

Governor Andy believes in action - right here, right now, without any thought or consideration of the consequences of said action.

The governor believes nothing is more important than being first out of the gate with something - whether it's a teacher evaluation system or a gun control law.

That's why he rammed a gun bill through the legislature into law, then had to backtrack on that law when it was found to be unworkable.

As the NY Times reported back in March:

ALBANY — In the wake of the elementary school massacre in Newtown, Conn., Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York pushed through the State Legislature gun control measures that included not only a tougher assault weapons ban but also a tighter restriction on the maximum legal capacity of gun magazines. 

But after weeks of criticism from gun owners, Mr. Cuomo said on Wednesday that he would seek to ease the restriction, which he said had proved unworkable even before it was scheduled to take effect on April 15. 

The gun-control law, approved in January, banned the sale of magazines that hold more than seven rounds of ammunition. But, Mr. Cuomo said Wednesday, seven-round magazines are not widely manufactured. And, although the new gun law provided an exemption for the use of 10-round magazines at firing ranges and competitions, it did not provide a legal way for gun owners to purchase such magazines. 

As a result, he said, he and legislative leaders were negotiating language that would continue to allow the sale of magazines holding up to 10 rounds, but still forbid New Yorkers from loading more than 7 rounds into those magazines. 

So Governor Andy, ever resourceful, is making it illegal for gun owners to load more than 7 rounds into a 10 round magazine.

Gee, what a swell compromise, Governor Andy!

But maybe if you had taken some time to think about the gun bill before you had it rammed through the legislature faster than Sandra Lee whips up dinner, you wouldn't have had to negotiate such a ridiculous compromise which is as unworkable as the bill you signed into law.

Now we have Cuomo threatening Buffalo teachers and the Buffalo district with near ethical and legal fraud because they, too, see a Cuomo law - the APPR law - as unworkable until tested and shown to be otherwise.

I'm sure NYSED Commissioner John King will threaten to take money away from Buffalo if they don't agree to fire some teachers this first year based upon APPR.

But that's the kind of thing I just might take to court to see what some people with legal minds slightly less clouded by arrogance than Governor Andy's think about it.

Can the state force a district to fire teachers based upon an unpiloted, untested law?

Can they withhold money if the district doesn't fire enough teachers to their satisfaction?

I dunno, it seems dubious to me that Governor Andy and his NYSED henchmen can win this battle.

Maybe Cuomo would like to negotiate a compromise like the one he forged for the gun law?

Maybe Buffalo will agree that only 7 teachers out of every 10 VAMMED by APPR and deemed "ineffective" have to be fired, just like gun owners can only load 7 rounds in their 10 round chamber?

What say you, Buffalo?

Are you ready to accept the Governor Andy 7/10th's compromise?

Mayor Bloomberg: Your Kids Will Take High Stakes Standardized Tests In 100 Degree Classrooms And Like It

The arrogance of this man:

As New Yorkers were urged to stay cool on a record-breaking day of intense heat and humidity, Mayor Bloomberg expressed little sympathy toward public school students taking exams in sweltering classrooms.

"Nobody is asking them to do something in 110-degree heat inside," Bloomberg said during a news conference at a senior center Wednesday afternoon. "I'm sure they're a lot more worried about passing their exams than the temperature."

The mayor made the remarks during a question-and-answer session after a news conference at the Bronx Works Senior Center, one of several designated cooling centers across the city. He was there with other officials to warn the public about the "dangerous" heat conditions and to urge vulnerable demographic groups to take proper precautions.

When a reporter pointed out the seemingly contradictory messages Bloomberg was sending about how the young and the old should be responding to hot conditions indoors, he became irritated.

"I don't know quite how to answer your question," he said. "Life is full of challenges, and we don't have everything we want. We can't afford everything we want. And I suspect if you talk to everyone in this room, not one of them went to a school where they had air conditioning."

When the reporter tried to follow up, Bloomberg interrupted, "Miss, I've answered your question. There's nothing unsafe about it."

He continued, "It may be a tiny bit uncomfortable, and these are young, strong people, and we're not going to ask anyone to stay in a building where we think it becomes dangerous, whether they are taking a test or not."

"Once their safety, their health is OK, yes, they have to take the test," he added. "That's what life is all about. If they can't pass these tests, they're not going to pass life's tests and then they are really going to be in trouble."

New York City's 1.1 million public school students are still in session for another week, and just 64 percent of classrooms are air-conditioned.

I proctored an exam in a room without air conditioning yesterday.

It was brutal.

I am sure students would have done better had they been in a room with air conditioning.

I am sure students who took the test in a room with air conditioning did perform better.

Certainly students who took the test in a room with air conditioning were given more advantageous circumstances in which to take their test.

But clearly Bloomberg doesn't care about this or even consider it a big deal.

The heat is "dangerous" for everyone else, but for kids and teachers in schools without air conditioning, it's just fine - shut up and take your test!

Now that the only thing that matters in Bloomberg's New York (indeed, in Obama's America!) is test scores, I wonder if a student cannot sue over these adverse conditions where they're forced to take a high stakes test in a room that is 100+ degrees when other students are allowed to take their tests in air conditioned rooms?

And now that teacher evaluations are based in part on student test scores and some students are forced to take tests under adverse circumstances (like a 100 degree heat), I wonder if a teacher whose students are forced to take a test in a room without air conditioning on a day declared a "heat emergency" cannot sue the city over the validity of his/her evaluation based upon those test scores?

Is it fair to compare teachers using test scores from students who took tests in differing conditions?

I dunno, but once the vaunted new Cuomo/Tisch/King teacher evaluation system comes into being, I am telling you, I intend to find out.

Finally, you'll note the lack of empathy Mayor Bloomberg shows for students and teachers in adverse conditions, indeed, you'll note the lack of rationality too.

He says "Nobody is asking them to do something in 110-degree heat inside" when indeed, that is exactly what he is asking them to do.

Or is trying to pass a high stakes geometry test on a 100 degree day when temperatures are closer to a 110 inside a hot building with windows that do not open not asking them to do something?

Cuomo And Dems Use Campaign Cash To Run Teacher Evaluation Ads

Just in case you're a teacher and still think Democrats in this state are, you know, supportive of you:

ALBANY — Gov. Cuomo took to the air in a new ad Tuesday urging New Yorkers to pressure their local school districts and unions to reach deals on new teacher evaluation systems.

The ad, paid for by the state’s Democratic Party, comes as a host of teachers unions and administrators push for changes to a grading deal brokered by Cuomo between the state Education Department and the state teachers union.

The governor has threatened to withhold state aid if the local districts do not implement the teacher evaluations by January.

The ad is scheduled to run on radio stations statewide. In it, Cuomo reiterates his message that New York’s spending on education ranks first in the nation while the state’s graduation rate is 38th.

“It’s not just how much government spends, it’s how we spend it that counts — and we must do better,” Cuomo said. “Now we need the individual school districts across the state to implement these new standards,” he added.

Never mind that 1/3 of the principals in this state are calling for changes to the system - including rolling out a pilot program before forcing every school in every district in the state to use it.

Never mind that the evaluation system isn't actually finished - the VAM that will be used on student test scores hasn't been developed, the tests that will be rolled out in every subject in every grade haven't been created yet EVEN THOUGH PEOPLE WILL BE FIRED USING THIS SYSTEM - Cuomo and the State Democratic Party want to make sure that the public is fooled into thinking this sound is sound, scientific, objective and ready to go.

It is none of those things.

I will reiterate something I said last week - I spoke to someone in a state senators's office who said to me that no changes are going to get done to the system because the the NYSUT already made the agreement, so what you saw last month in the governor's press release is going be the new teacher evaluation system in New York.

This person also said lots of people in Albany know it's going to be a nightmare, that it is essentially unworkable because it is so complex, will force school districts to add so many new tests to the curriculum JUST TO GRADE TEACHERS, and will be the subject of so many lawsuits (especially because nobody knows how unreliable the VAM is going to be.)

And yet, Cuomo and the State Democratic Party are running a propaganda campaign to get this through in every district by September 2012.

You can bet the UFT will agree to this piece of garbage as soon as Andy comes a callin' to Mulgrew and puts some pressure on him.

All I can say is, it's going to be a dark, dark time for the next five years until somebody comes to their senses in Albany.

Teachers need to start bombarding their assembly members and state senators NOW about this impending catastrophe.

In addition, researching legal help wouldn't be a bad idea either.

You can bet if you're declared "ineffective" with this new system, the UFT will be useless as a defense.

Action Plan For Closed Schools Came After PEP Closure Vote

Seems to me this kind of oversight by the DOE is grounds for a potentially successful lawsuit:

School closing? No problem — help is now on the way!

After voting to shutter 23 struggling schools, the city’s Department of Education is only now launching what it refers to as “targeted action plans” to help the schools improve, The Post has learned.

The oddly-timed postmortem aid comes in the wake of a slew of complaints from parents, student and teachers that the city didn’t offer the high-needs schools enough support before pulling the plug.

“Giving a school an improvement plan after you’ve decided to close it is sort of a slap in the face to the entire school community,” said United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew. “That to me sounds like they’re now trying to respond to the accusation that they haven’t helped schools.”

The existence of the action plans was first revealed in documents the DOE posted online late Wednesday, one day before the closure votes.

The documents — a legally-mandated response to public comments on the proposed closures — suggested the city had already implemented the plans.

“Struggling schools have targeted action plans developed by their networks. These identify concrete action steps, benchmarks, and year-end goals aimed at immediately improving student achievement,” the DOE wrote in response to questions about what support the city had provided the schools.

It wasn’t until The Post asked the DOE for a copy of the plans that officials hastily posted revised documents that made it clear none of the fixes had started yet.

A DOE spokesman said the documents were revised because someone in the administration noticed that the statements about the program were confusing.

He could not provide details on when the targeted action plans would launch , nor at which schools.

Two things here:

First, does anyone need any more evidence than this that Bloomberg, Walcott and the DOE do not care about helping struggling schools?

Seriously, they put into place the action plan to help the schools AFTER the closure vote.

Next, since the DOE is legally mandated to put an action plan into place BEFORE they close the schools and since the DOE was lying about these plans all along, groups that want to sue over the closures now have very reasonable (one might say actionable) grounds to sue.

As for the chancellor's comments that "unfortunately there are cases where those schools don’t get stronger," well, that goes without saying.

When you wait until AFTER you close the schools in order to provide the help the schools need, it sure is difficult for those schools to improve.

It's time to close Tweed and end the era of mayoral control.

We can give Walcott and Bloomberg the action plan to improve after we kick them out of power.

Bloomberg Calls NAACP/UFT Lawsuit Over School Closures "Irresponsible"

From Daily Politics:

As our Rachel Monahan reported this week, "The teachers union and the NAACP filed suit Wednesday to block the city from closing a record number of struggling schools this year. The suit filed in Manhattan Supreme Court challenges the closing of 22 public schools and accuses the city of not living up to a deal to provide support to 15 of those schools saved by a similar, successful lawsuit last year."

Said Bloomberg when asked about the suit today, according to our Erin Einhorn:

“I don’t know why they’re doing it now. They’re just trying to create the maximum havoc and disruption and create fear among parents...

"If you’re gonna have that lawsuit, they could have had it a long time ago and I’m not even sure what it is … but the bottom line is I’m confident the courts will let us go ahead. If you think about it, we are trying to close schools that are leaving our kids without an education and they’re fighting to keep those schools open. I don’t know how irresponsible you can possibly be. You go to the parts of the city where the pedagogical problems are the worst, where the results are the worst in some of these schools, and people want to keep ‘em open when there’s a chance that we could improve?"

Fighting to save schools that Bloomberg has systematically starved of resources, money and space is "irresponsible"?

Uh, no.

What is irresponsible is an autocratic mayor who pits traditional public schools and charter schools against each other in the yearly "Space Wars" battle to the death, has cut individual school budgets half a dozen times while leaving the central office Tweed budget intact, is getting ready to lay off 4,278 teachers while spending $550 million on technology upgrades to schools, and never saw a no-bid contract to an outside consultant he didn't want to defend while he shuts 20 firehouses and 100 senior citizen centers to save money.

That's what is irresponsible.

New Yorkers are seeing through this jive.

The mayor is at 36% approval.

People don't like him and they don't like his policies.

NYC public school parents REALLY don't like him or his school policies.

So the mayor can try and deflect blame onto the UFT and the NAACP all he wants.

Given his refusal to use available money to stave layoffs, given the chaos that is going to result in the system when 8%-10% of the teaching force disappears to layoffs and attrition, given the further chaos that will be caused by the moving around of other teachers in the system to schools that see a disproportionate amount of layoffs, if anybody is being "disruptive," and creating "maximum havoc," it's Bloomberg.

But people know that.

The poll numbers bear that out.

Lawyering Up For The Layoffs

I posted yesterday that if the Assembly and State Senate bills are passed that allow the mayor to lay off teachers using measures other than seniority - like ever being "u" rated or convicted of any crime or fined by the DOE - the first thing I would do after receiving such a notice is seek legal counsel to protect myself and my job.

Even the Murdoch shills at the Wall Street Journal acknowledge today that laying people off based upon some of these criteria - like ever being convicted of a crime - is problematic and perhaps discriminatory:

A bill introduced in the Senate and soon to be introduced in the Assembly seeks to change the law that requires teachers to be laid off solely on the basis of seniority. It aims at the 529 New York City teachers who have been convicted of crimes.

The bill also aims to put at the top of the layoff list those teachers who have been rated "unsatisfactory" by principals; who have been absent or late too often; or who have faced misconduct allegations that have been substantiated.

The assistant general counsel for New York State United Teachers, Claude Hersh, said he doubts there are 529 teachers who have been convicted of crimes, as most in that position tend to seek out the union for help. He said there are fewer than 50 such cases coming through his office each year, and added that the Department of Education has the option of seeking to dismiss any teacher convicted of a crime, but doesn't always do so.

Mr. Hersh also said that in many cases the crimes are related to teachers who did not properly disclose their incomes as they sought to continue to qualify for subsidized public housing.

The DOE did not provide figures for how often it seeks to dismiss teachers who have been convicted of crimes.

"The vast majority of our teachers are law-abiding citizens who are doing a great job—but, if we have to lay off 4,600 teachers, we certainly think those who have been convicted of crimes should be laid off before a good teacher who has done nothing wrong," said a DOE spokeswoman, Natalie Ravitz.

Legal experts said picking off teachers merely because of their convictions is problematic. State law bars discriminating against people with criminal convictions unless the crime was directly related to the job at hand.

"It's unfair and discriminatory for all employers in New York, not just school teachers, to hold against someone a conviction based on conduct that had nothing to do with the fitness of their job," said Samuel Estreicher, who teaches labor and employment law at the New York University School of Law.

Okay - couple of things here:

First, note that the DOE can ALREADY fire teachers convicted of a crime, but the NYSUT says they don't always seek to do so.

Next, note that the NYSUT doubts the figure of teachers convicted of crimes publicly disclosed by the mayor and the DOE.

Gee - Mayor Moneybags and the DOE lying about data? What a surprise!

Then note that they're going to seek to fire ANYBODY ever convicted of ANY crime - including someone who has been arrested and convicted of trespassing or making a public nuisance during a public protest or someone who got arrested for some public vandalism as a teenager.

In other words, misdemeanors AND felonies will be treated the same under these layoff provisions.

Look, I'm not out to defend teachers convicted of crimes, but I do want to make the point that this is Bloomberg, the DFER's and all the other anti-union forces looking to manipulate public opinion by tarring any teacher ever "u" rated, arrested for something or fined as some scumbag criminal malcontent who belongs in jail, not a NYC classroom.

If that is so, then the DOE ALREADY has the means to seek their dismissal - as they have with the two teachers allegedly found to be having sex in a classroom or the former sex worker who openly bragged about her prostitution past on her blog.

So for the mayor and the DOE and the DFERer's and the Journal to make believe like there is a whole bunch of scumbag criminal malcontents in NYC schools who ought to be fired is just jive.

This is about PUBLIC MANIPULATION to get their way on a larger issue that will allow them to lay off senior teachers at will and save the system millions of dollars.

Finally, let me state again that if the state senate and assembly bills go through with the convoluted provisions for how to lay off teachers using "U" ratings, two years of "bad" student test scores as measured by a value-added assessment with 12%-35% margins of error, a criminal conviction, or a DOE fine, there are SO MANY grounds to sue on, both individually as a teacher and collectively as a union, that the first thing everybody who gets notice should do is LAWYER UP.

Layoffs - Time To Lawyer Up

Okay, so the end game on seniority and tenure is upon us here in NY State - bills to change seniority-based layoffs have been introduced in both the Assembly and the State Senate.

Gotham Schools has the details of the bills - and there are an awful lot of details.

Here they are:

If the bill is passed into law, there will be nine categories of school employees who will be laid off before their peers. Employees who fall into all of these categories would lose their jobs first, followed by those who fall into eight of the categories, and so on down the scale to employees who fall into two categories. If the city finds that it still needs the lay off people after that, the next rung of layoffs will hit teachers and supervisors who are in the first category — those with unsatisfactory ratings.

The categories, in order of layoff priority, are:

1. Teachers and supervisors who have received an unsatisfactory rating in the last five years. If the new teacher evaluation system is put in place before layoffs are carried out, then teachers labeled “ineffective” would be the first to go.

2. Teachers and supervisors who have been fined or suspended without pay in the last five years. This means that teachers who’ve been charged with misconduct or incompetence and have either pled guilty or been found guilty in the last five years would be laid off. For example, the Bronx principal who was found guilty of arbitrarily giving her teachers unsatisfactory ratings and was fined $7,500 would be laid off before another principal. Under the current system, a principal with less seniority would be laid off before her.

3. Teachers and supervisors who have been in the Absent Teacher Reserve pool for more than six months. These are school employees who were forced out of their jobs when their schools could no longer afford them and have not yet been hired by another school. They remain on the city’s payroll while some work in administration and others work as substitute or full-time teachers. Given that it’s rare for schools to excess staff in the middle of the year, the six-month deadline in the law would include most of the teachers in the ATR pool at the present time.

4. Any teacher or supervisor convicted of a crime in the last five years.

5. Teachers and supervisors who have been fined for being chronically absent or late in the last five years. Also includes employees who have been fined for “improper use or recording of leave time.” The terms “chronically absent” and “chronically late” are not defined in the teachers union contract as a set number of days, according to a spokesman for the UFT.

6. Teachers and supervisors who have been the subject of an investigation in the last five years that ended with the charges being substantiated. This covers school employees who have been investigated by the city school district’s special commissioner of investigation, the city school district’s office of special investigations or the city school district’s office of equal opportunity. Having charges substantiated translates to an indictment, but it does not mean that these people have been found guilty.

7. Teachers and supervisors who, by the August 31 of the year in which layoffs take place, have not completed their certification.

8. Teachers who, for two years or more, have been ranked in the bottom 30 percent of teachers based on their students’ test scores. These rankings, which measure students’ progress against a model that predicts what their test scores should have been, cover a small percentage of teachers. Only teachers who teach math and English in grades 4-8 receive teacher data reports.

9. Teachers and supervisors who were not granted tenure after three years, but were put on probation for the year preceding layoffs. Recently, the Department of Education has begun encouraging principals to extend teachers’ probation rather than offer them tenure if they believe the teacher shows promise, but is not yet ready for a lifetime commitment from the city. Anecdotally, I’ve heard from teachers who’ve had their probationary periods extended by one or two years when their schools had a series of new principals, each of whom requested an additional year to get to know her staff.

And we’re not done yet.

If the city lays off all of the teachers who fall into multiple categories, then proceeds to the first category — those with unsatisfactory ratings — but discovers that it only needs to lay off a fraction of these people, then new measures come into play. Employees with the most unsatisfactory ratings in the last five years will be laid off first, followed by those who have been given U-ratings, as they’re commonly known, most recently.

Employees in the Absent Teacher Reserve will be laid off based on how long they’ve been in the pool. And teachers and supervisors who have been convicted of a crime in the last five years will be laid off based on how recent the conviction was. Among those who fall in the low value-added score category, teachers with the lowest scores will be laid off first, unless they teach children with disabilities or who require special education services.

If the city makes its way through this labyrinthine process and still needs to lay off more teachers, the ball rolls into the court of the Board of Regents, who will get to decide what types of teachers are laid of next. The bill contains a measure meant to protect high needs schools — defined as those where 90 percent of students get free or reduced lunch — against being overly burdened by layoffs. It states:

Any such regulations must ensure that in a high-need school the number of staff laid off shall not exceed the percentage of the overall number of positions in the school that represents half of the average percentage of staff laid off citywide.

If the Board of Regents does not come up with a layoff plan within 75 days, individual school principals will get to decide who to let go, using guidance from the city’s school chancellor. A committee of parents, teachers, and administrators is supposed to advise the principal in making this decision. However, if the city decides that it wants to eliminate all the positions within a certain license area (e.g. gym or art), it can overrule the Board of Regents and principals’ decisions.

Gee - this seems like such a simple process to carry out.

Except that of course it's not in the least simple.

In fact, it makes for a tortuous process that is almost wholly subjective at the higher end of the layoffs and is patently unfair at the lower end.

To wit - if you have ever been "u" rated - even unfairly and just once - you're gone.

If you have ever been arrested - say for protesting budget cuts or corporate education policies or even the Iraq war - you're gone.

If you come in at the lower end of the TDR value-added rankings - you know, the ones with 35% margins of error because they're only using two years of data or 25% margins of error because they're only using five years of data - you're gone.

If the chancellor decides to get rid of all art teachers. Or music teachers. Or Spanish teachers. Or gym teachers. Or whatever.

You're gone.

In other words, the rationale for the UFT will no longer exist because the city, your principal or your assistant principal will be able to trump up any old reasons they want to let you go and succeed within a reasonable amount of time.

And keep in mind, in a year or two thanks to President Obama and Race to the Top, we will ALL be subject to ratings by test scores, so every teacher in the city will be subject to getting fired if they are declared "ineffective" two years running.

As I have noted before, you can bet that if these regulations go into place, an inordinate number of senior teachers will be found to be "ineffective" and subject to dismissal every few years.

It will become a regular occurrence every April or so when notices will go out that five or ten thousand teachers are being laid off because the city "needs to cut the budget."

And ALL of those teacher will have fifteen years or more in the system - you can take THAT fact to the bank.

Then, miraculously come July, the city will be able to rehire teachers again because of newly found revenue or an act of God or whatever and teachers - newbies only and TFA's preferably - will be hired to replace the vets let go in April.

Teachers will have NO recourse to any of this except for this:

If and when these regulations go into place and layoff notices are sent out, get yourself a lawyer and sue.

Better yet, get a bunch of teachers together and file a class action.

The rationale for the lawsuit will be that the city is laying off veterans and replacing them with cheaper rookies.

These kinds of lawsuits have been filed in the past.

Back in 1998, DC 37 filed suit against the city for laying off union workers and replacing them with workfare recipients.

That doesn't sound all that different from the city laying off "expensive veteran teachers" and replacing them with "cheaper and younger rookies."

Or perhaps you'll want to file an age discrimination lawsuit against the city for replacing you with a 22 year old Barbie or Ken Asshat4Educator doll.

Or perhaps you'll want to argue that the layoffs have been capricious and arbitrary, especially since the mayor refuses to open the city books and show EXACTLY why the layoffs are necessary, and sue on those grounds.

Or perhaps you'll want to sue because your TDR ranking was calculated using a value-added system that has a 12%-35% MOE which means the city and your school cannot be certain that you really ARE an "ineffective teacher" no matter what the value-added ratings say.

These kinds of discrimination lawsuits based on race, gender, age, or alleged retaliation have become more common since the 2008 Wall Street-fueled financial collapse.

I dunno, I'm not a lawyer and I might be mistaken here, but I see PLENTY of grounds to sue the city, the mayor, the chancellor and a host of others if these regulations are passed and signed into law.

I do know that if I get a layoff notice for ANY reason, I will be seeking legal counsel to find out my options to protect myself and my job.

I suspect that I won't be the only one looking into those options.

No wonder the corporatists were so intent upon limiting litigation - once they've got all the unions busted (and make NO mistake, if these regulations go into place, the UFT IS BUSTED), the only recourse you will have to protect yourself from the oligarchs is litigation.