Education Through the Looking Glass

It appears to me that Lewis Carroll has been asked to write the work rules for school-union activities in New York. So bizarre are recent revelations that it seems as if Alice’s fall down the rabbit hole landed her in the New York City school system.

City Council Education Committee Chairwoman, Eva Moskowitz, has been conducting hearings on school work rules, a subject that has been taboo for decades. What she has discovered is nothing less than scandalous. It assuredly strains credulity.

One frustrated principal insisting on anonymity said, “My custodian told me they [he and his staff] don’t vacuum rugs.” Why, you might ask? Well, it’s in the union contract. The cleaning staff will mop and sweep, but vacuuming won’t be considered.

In the wacky world of union contracts, custodians, presumably responsible for the upkeep of school buildings, are required to paint one-fifth of a school building each year, but they don’t have to paint walls above ten feet or certain ceilings. Why? Yes, you got it: It’s in the union contract.

Custodians are obliged to replace door hinges, but cannot order the parts to do the job. That is done by the Department of Education. Why? I think you might know the answer.

Of course the custodians don’t account for all the craziness.

A principal must issue “failing job ratings to an incompetent tenured teacher for at least two years” before he can be fired. In fact, the paperwork is so time-consuming, most principals prefer to cut a deal so that “failing teachers” can be transplanted to other schools, “a practice called ‘passing the lemon’.”

Although the schools chancellor has the authority to close a failing school and open a new one in the same building, he is obliged to hire half of the senior teachers from the failing school even though they may have been part of the original problem.

The union rules strictly forbid the application of free-market principles. All teachers—good and bad—have the same lock-step salary scale. Whether students perform well or poorly; whether math teachers who are in demand or gym teachers who are not, teachers’ salaries conform to a fixed formula. Welcome to socialism’s nirvana.

When the schools’ chancellor Joel Klein proposed a $25,000 bonus as an incentive for outstanding principals to transfer to low-performing schools, the union refused to accept these terms. Salary incentives defy the fixed-income formula. Union rules rule.

That students may be adversely affected by these regulations doesn’t seem to have entered anyone’s calculations. What counts, indeed what trumps all other considerations, are union work rules, however arbitrary and silly they may be.

It is hardly surprising that school custodian positions are among the most highly coveted in the city. You don’t have to work very much; you get a lot of free time; you are paid more than most teachers and principals, and you determine what you will and won’t do.

A former schools’ chancellor, delivering his inaugural address, said the custodian union rules are an “outrage.” At that moment the lights in the auditorium went out and there wasn’t a custodian available who could put them on. The speech ended and a message was delivered.

As Alice once noted, nothing is what it appears to be. The school system appears to be a place where youngsters are educated. But in fact it is a patronage center. Presumably teachers are there to educate kids. In reality the union that represents teachers is there to wield power. Principals presumably manage schools. But what one observes is that they are hamstrung by rigid rules that determine management practices.

Surely, it’s time to let the public know what is going on in the city school system. Yet, just as surely, the union will be the largest contributor to mayoral campaigns and more often than not, political leaders will say “nothing can be done.” Alas, nothing has been done, and even Lewis Carroll cannot believe it.

Related Topics: Education & Academia receive the latest by email: subscribe to herbert i. london's free mailing list