Voting for merit pay, so soon?
Edwize runs “Teacher News of the Day” every few days. Been doing so all fall.
(The feature uses links from the daily NYC newspapers. Why Edwize staff never calls a chapter leader for a comment is beyond me.)
Only vote for people who pledge to evenly divide the money
Anyhow, remember the UFT ok’ed school-wide merit pay for 200 schools this year, more next year, if the City got the State to reform pensions? Well, the 200 schools were selected last month, and this edition of “Teacher News but not by teachers” links to the Daily News reporting on voting going on in schools. Huh? Schools are “opting in” before the pension reform is enacted???
Did I miss it? Did they vote in Albany?
When it comes to your school, if your school adopts it, there will be elections to see which two teachers join two administrators to decide how to split the money. Only vote for people who pledge to evenly divide the money among all eligibles up front. That’s all titles. All ages. Junior, Senior. Secretaries, Teachers, Paras, Counselors. Do not let them play you against each other.
Be careful that you have a pledge to share equally, and not a pledge to be ‘reasonable’. It will take only the smallest of openings for your administration to drive a wedge.
JD2718 
And you are shocked that Unity has misled us. I didn’t think that you are that naive.
P.S. only loyal Unity chapter leaders are contacted.
Actually, I would like to hear what the official story is. I have an informed guess, but I’d like the official explanation.
Your PS doesn’t make sense. Every chapter leader in my district (who attends our meetings) saw the list of schools. Ask me or your CL about what we know or don’t. It would be better not to guess.
I have a friend at one of those schools. It’s already caused some conflict (who gets to be on the committees that decide, etc.). I’ll let you know how it turns out.
Are they just voting to enroll? Or are they also voting for who will serve on the committee?
If they are choosing the committee, please pass on my recommendation:
+ get a group of people together who don’t want to let “divide and conquer” be used against them.
+ commit to support equal shares for everyone eligible. (including non-teaching titles)
+ commit to refusing to allow consensus to settle anywhere else
+ endorse people who agree, or get people from the group itself to run.
The UFT downtown calls this bonus pay. I call it school-wide merit pay.
Truth is, if a school does share equally, it might be more like bonus pay. If they get teachers and administrators to haggle over who gets what (and start to look at test scores etc) it is precisely merit pay, but with the merit determined by the powerful people on the committee (principal) instead of by DoE downtown.
I guess you were invited to Randi’s party. Right? The Unity CL’s were.
Yes, I was invited. It was $100 a head. I did not attend.
I do not know how many full-time teachers attended. I do understand that every DR was pushing to get people to go.
I know that retirement parties have gotten pricey ($40 would be on the cheap side, at least for those I hear about), but those are off-site, and do not carry the expectation of attendance.
Holding a major pay-event at UFT headquarters, where there was likely an expectation that staff above a certain level would need to turn out, created an appearance that we should avoid. It would be best if such events in the future were off-site, and maintained the full appearance of being voluntary.
Celebrate 50? Of course. But how, and with whom?
I’m not sure — my impression is they needed two staff and two teachers to form a committee to start making decisions about … Whatever they’re making decisions about, now that they’re part of the pilot program. Too many teachers wanted to attend or felt like the meeting wasn’t publicized enough, and it caused some trouble.