This week, a New York City Council hearing intended to be a debate about the contentious, union-mandated teacher "work rules" (which limit, among other things, how long a teacher can work each day, how schools set faculty meeting agendas, and how teachers are hired and fired) devolved into a heated argument between council member Eva Moskowitz and NYC teachers' union president Randi Weingarten. In her opening remarks, Moskowitz likened the hearing "to NYPD whistleblower Frank Serpico and the 1970s hearings on corruption in [New York]." Weingarten was outraged by the claim and insisted that the union "did not strong-arm anyone not to testify" and complained that Moskowitz's comments made the union look like thugs. (That two of the three principals who agreed to testify would only do so anonymously may be suggestive.) In a slightly more substantive exchange, the city education department's director of labor and policy, Dan Weisberg, blasted the union rules governing teacher compensation and staffing, saying that "the system, as far as removing incompetent teachers, is broken." Some damning evidence in support of Weisberg's claim also came this week when a tenured Bronx teacher "with a sexual harassment record dating back to 1991" was finally fired after "asking gay students to identify themselves during class and then demanding three lesbian students be 'immediately' transferred out of his room."
"Teacher contract hearing turns into battle," by Ellen Yan, New York Newsday, November 14, 2003
"Political lesson," by Carl Campanile, New York Post, November 13, 2003
"Dread of the class," by Jeane MacIntosh and Carol Campanile, New York Post, November 17, 2003