A New UFT Power Play
Mayor de Blasio has routinely sold out kids and parents to please the teachers’ union, but that’s not good enough for its boss, Michael Mulgrew — who now vows to push to end mayoral control and return more power to . . . the union.
“Parents and educators need more voice,” the United Federation of Teachers president told The Post last week. “A single person in control, with few checks and balances, is not good for our school system.”
Under Mulgrew’s plan, when the mayoral-control law expires in 2022, control of the Panel for Educational Policy (which dictates school policy) would be hopelessly split: The mayor would pick five members, with eight more divided among the borough presidents, City Council speaker, comptroller and public advocate. That’s worse than the old, dysfunctional Board of Education, which was scrapped in 2002.
No single person could ever be blamed for poor performance — indeed, could even hope to reliably control the board.
Which would dramatically boost the UFT’s ability to get its way.
The irony is rich: De Blasio has served as Mulgrew’s cat’s-paw since Day 1. Notably, the union boss set the absurd “3 percent rule” the mayor cited in closing the schools last week.
That decision made no scientific sense: Tests show COVID isn’t surging in city schools, or even in many neighborhoods. Even heavy-handed Gov. Cuomo questioned the rule: “If the school is not spreading the virus, or if the school has a much lower positivity rate than the surrounding area, then the school is not part of the problem,” Cuomo said. The state’s threshold is 9 percent.
Schools in Europe remain open, despite a second COVID wave. In the city, so do restaurants, bars, gyms and hair salons and even city-funded early-childhood centers. Then again, none are staffed by UFT members.
De Blasio has also asked “how high?” when Mulgrew ordered him to jump on other issues: Union cries of a teacher shortage, for example, has now left the city with 4,500 teachers it doesn’t need, since virtual learning doesn’t require as many instructors, the Empire Center notes.
Mulgrew is taking major heat from up-the-creek parents and those who feel kids are being robbed with schools closed. So even he now publicly calls for a policy of only targeted closures. But he didn’t say so before the shutdown.
The United Federation of Teachers isn’t the only reason New York City’s school system is so dysfunctional, now or pre-pandemic. But the way it gets away, time and again, with serving its own interests at the expense of the kids is a major part of the problem.
Mayoral control at least allows for someone to stand up to the UFT. Ditching it would guarantee UFT control — and a system that views “improvement” as only possible via more perks and higher pay for UFT members.
For all Bill de Blasio’s bungling, he’s at least tried to do right sometimes — notably, by pushing for schools to reopen this past fall. If Mulgrew wants more control, let him run for mayor.