Wednesday, September 14, 2005
The NYC Democratic Mayoral Primary
Yesterday in New York City was the Democratic primary for the people who want to run against Mike Bloomberg for mayor. It is a very exciting race at the moment, even though it will be anticlimactic at the end.
There are basically four candidates, Fernando Ferrer, politically active guy and dude who ran for mayor last time too, Anthony Weiner, current member of the House of Reps., C. Virginia Fields, current Manhattan borough president, and Gifford Miller, some guy. They finished yesterday in 1st through 4th place in the order I just listed them. Fernando Ferrer is pretty well known in the city, and since he's Hispanic he's got a built in huge demographic following him. Anthony Weiner is by all accounts a huge up and comer on the political scene and the only thing going against him is that he's young. The other two candidates were just lame and didn't have any hope of winning.
In order to avoid a runoff election a candidate needs to get 40% of the vote. The reason the race is exciting is that as of last night, Ferrer had literally 39.9% of the vote. Weiner had about 30% and the other guys split the rest. The results won't be definitive until they count the few thousand absentee ballots which may or may not push Ferrer over the edge.
Personally, I voted for Weiner and I hope he forces a runoff. Also I hope he wins the runoff and runs against Bloomberg. Ferrer has absolutely zero chance of winning against Bloomberg. Truth be told, Weiner doesn't have much of a shot either, but if he comes out of nowhere to win the Democratic nod, he'll definitely hit the ground running. Also Ferrer kinda sucks. Incidentally, this is the first time that I'm certain my vote actually meant something. The current turning point in this race is the .07% percent between a runoff and not. I'm hoping for a runoff, so I feel like I made a difference.
I'm sortof torn here also, because I don't hate Bloomberg. He's a responsible mayor and he's setting out to do the things that he said he would do. As a public school teacher, though, I'm supposed to hate him. He's making wholesale changes to the school system which one could view as either great or terrible, but the teachers are supposed to be mad at it. I'm personally not that upset about the changes and I think he's been good for New York on most other fronts. But I absolutely refuse to vote for Bloomberg while the teachers have no union contract. There is basically no chance that will happen before the election, so any slim chance of me even considering voting for a Republican are out the window.
Bottom line, I hope Weiner wins and Ferrer loses and I hope the people of New York realize that the mayor is running on the teachers' record of success without recognizing them with a contract that represents an improving school system.
There are basically four candidates, Fernando Ferrer, politically active guy and dude who ran for mayor last time too, Anthony Weiner, current member of the House of Reps., C. Virginia Fields, current Manhattan borough president, and Gifford Miller, some guy. They finished yesterday in 1st through 4th place in the order I just listed them. Fernando Ferrer is pretty well known in the city, and since he's Hispanic he's got a built in huge demographic following him. Anthony Weiner is by all accounts a huge up and comer on the political scene and the only thing going against him is that he's young. The other two candidates were just lame and didn't have any hope of winning.
In order to avoid a runoff election a candidate needs to get 40% of the vote. The reason the race is exciting is that as of last night, Ferrer had literally 39.9% of the vote. Weiner had about 30% and the other guys split the rest. The results won't be definitive until they count the few thousand absentee ballots which may or may not push Ferrer over the edge.
Personally, I voted for Weiner and I hope he forces a runoff. Also I hope he wins the runoff and runs against Bloomberg. Ferrer has absolutely zero chance of winning against Bloomberg. Truth be told, Weiner doesn't have much of a shot either, but if he comes out of nowhere to win the Democratic nod, he'll definitely hit the ground running. Also Ferrer kinda sucks. Incidentally, this is the first time that I'm certain my vote actually meant something. The current turning point in this race is the .07% percent between a runoff and not. I'm hoping for a runoff, so I feel like I made a difference.
I'm sortof torn here also, because I don't hate Bloomberg. He's a responsible mayor and he's setting out to do the things that he said he would do. As a public school teacher, though, I'm supposed to hate him. He's making wholesale changes to the school system which one could view as either great or terrible, but the teachers are supposed to be mad at it. I'm personally not that upset about the changes and I think he's been good for New York on most other fronts. But I absolutely refuse to vote for Bloomberg while the teachers have no union contract. There is basically no chance that will happen before the election, so any slim chance of me even considering voting for a Republican are out the window.
Bottom line, I hope Weiner wins and Ferrer loses and I hope the people of New York realize that the mayor is running on the teachers' record of success without recognizing them with a contract that represents an improving school system.
# posted by ChuckJerry : 9/14/2005 07:34:00 AM
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As you may have guessed, Joe, I disagree with you.
Life with a teachers' union and the "bare minimum" teachers is vastly superior to life without a union contract at all, for reasons too numerous to describe.
Things like a teachers' union, policeman's unions and firefighter's union are absolutely necessary, especially in a city as big and as high profile as New York where some grandstanding clown could just decide to slash budgets and/or benefits, not to mention the bloated beaurocracy that handles the system and all the middle men who have an inordinate say in how the system works.
Life with a teachers' union and the "bare minimum" teachers is vastly superior to life without a union contract at all, for reasons too numerous to describe.
Things like a teachers' union, policeman's unions and firefighter's union are absolutely necessary, especially in a city as big and as high profile as New York where some grandstanding clown could just decide to slash budgets and/or benefits, not to mention the bloated beaurocracy that handles the system and all the middle men who have an inordinate say in how the system works.
I must disagree as well, Joe.
I think that (unfortunately) it's too subjective to qualitatively give pay to teachers who do a "better" job as it is such a subjective thing (say, compared to giving bonuses to salespeople who do more business), and it's a concept/policy that any union would have a really difficult time trying to determine, objectively define, or "enforce". One of those necessary evils of our profession. I wouldn't have a problem with a merit-based pay scale for teachers by any stretch personally - so if there's a good model out there I'd love to see it.
And "don't give a fuck about the students"? Is this feeling based solely on the thing that happened in THS?
I think that (unfortunately) it's too subjective to qualitatively give pay to teachers who do a "better" job as it is such a subjective thing (say, compared to giving bonuses to salespeople who do more business), and it's a concept/policy that any union would have a really difficult time trying to determine, objectively define, or "enforce". One of those necessary evils of our profession. I wouldn't have a problem with a merit-based pay scale for teachers by any stretch personally - so if there's a good model out there I'd love to see it.
And "don't give a fuck about the students"? Is this feeling based solely on the thing that happened in THS?
Joe-
So you're basically anti-union across the board? Whether it be teachers, police, nurses, porters, etc...
I'm on the fence here. I feel that unions for the public work force is good. But when you get into the private work force, that's where my support wanes. Especially here in NJ with the "prevailing wage" clause set forth in all public construction contracts (I can go into further detail if you don't know what I'm talking about - just email me).
Salary should definitely be tied to performance in some way, but like Max said - it's nearly impossible to do that with teachers. How can you measure how much impact a teacher has had on a student?
So you're basically anti-union across the board? Whether it be teachers, police, nurses, porters, etc...
I'm on the fence here. I feel that unions for the public work force is good. But when you get into the private work force, that's where my support wanes. Especially here in NJ with the "prevailing wage" clause set forth in all public construction contracts (I can go into further detail if you don't know what I'm talking about - just email me).
Salary should definitely be tied to performance in some way, but like Max said - it's nearly impossible to do that with teachers. How can you measure how much impact a teacher has had on a student?
Rating teachers on student performance is a very slippery slope. There isn't a fair way to measure a teacher's performance apart from other teachers. even if the sole reason were that one student can ruin an entire class, but there are many more reasons.
The only fair way to distinguish teacher performance is to assume that teachers improve with experience and they should be paid more the longer they work, which is how it does work now.
I don't think the teachers' union is hopelessly corrupt, either. A lot of the teachers in the union are misguided and feel like the union should stand up for their stupid/lazy/inappropriate behavior, but on the whole the union's place is warranted and needed.
Joe, it seems obvious that yours is the opinion of one who has never been in a union. That's not a positive or negative, just a ponit of view.
The only fair way to distinguish teacher performance is to assume that teachers improve with experience and they should be paid more the longer they work, which is how it does work now.
I don't think the teachers' union is hopelessly corrupt, either. A lot of the teachers in the union are misguided and feel like the union should stand up for their stupid/lazy/inappropriate behavior, but on the whole the union's place is warranted and needed.
Joe, it seems obvious that yours is the opinion of one who has never been in a union. That's not a positive or negative, just a ponit of view.
I don't mean that one student's score would bring down the class average, I mean that one student can ruin the work that gets done and the learning that is accomplished by the entire class. If said student acts out every day and uses class time and so on, then the average score, median score, and any other measures of central tendency would be skewed left.
Also basing teacher pay on student performance would cause fights over honors classes and zero special ed. teachers. The amount of work and dedication of any teacher, whether good or bad, is simply not measurable by student performance in my opinion.
I'm not minimizing your argument by saying you've never been in a union, nor am I trying to squeeze you out of the discussion. It is just clear that you have not been a member of a union. If it's possible to simply take that at face value, then that was my intention. One could just as easily say that I'm biased because I'm in the union and I support it.
Teaching is not the only profession in which one's salary goes up due to experience alone. I had a job where every employee got an annual percentage raise every January.
Also there is a huge overlap between the number of teachers who are great teachers in their classrooms and who complain about ridiculous things outside of it. The number of teachers who actually do the bare minimum I would say is pretty low.
Also I think there is a trade off one makes when becoming a teacher. I feel like I have the ability to have a much higer paying, less challenging job, as do most teachers. I'm trading that for good benefits and job security. If there were no security, there would be far fewer good teachers. An unofortunate side effect is that the bad teachers get the same benefits without really having the ability to trade-up in terms of salary.
Also basing teacher pay on student performance would cause fights over honors classes and zero special ed. teachers. The amount of work and dedication of any teacher, whether good or bad, is simply not measurable by student performance in my opinion.
I'm not minimizing your argument by saying you've never been in a union, nor am I trying to squeeze you out of the discussion. It is just clear that you have not been a member of a union. If it's possible to simply take that at face value, then that was my intention. One could just as easily say that I'm biased because I'm in the union and I support it.
Teaching is not the only profession in which one's salary goes up due to experience alone. I had a job where every employee got an annual percentage raise every January.
Also there is a huge overlap between the number of teachers who are great teachers in their classrooms and who complain about ridiculous things outside of it. The number of teachers who actually do the bare minimum I would say is pretty low.
Also I think there is a trade off one makes when becoming a teacher. I feel like I have the ability to have a much higer paying, less challenging job, as do most teachers. I'm trading that for good benefits and job security. If there were no security, there would be far fewer good teachers. An unofortunate side effect is that the bad teachers get the same benefits without really having the ability to trade-up in terms of salary.
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