Word: yorke
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...remarkable thing happened in New York recently: the state legislature, in effect, turned down the chance to win $700 million in federal money. No one does that, except extremely conservative Southern governors (who inevitably relent and take the money) - oh, and occasionally teachers' unions. A few years ago, I wrote here about the Detroit union that forced the local government to reject a $200 million philanthropic gift to build 15 charter schools using a model that was already succeeding in the city. And now we have New York's United Federation of Teachers (UFT), a storied crew, thwarting the state...
...Secretary Arne Duncan could distribute to states on the basis of their willingness to reform their schools. Duncan's definition of reform - a common one these days - demanded more school choice and competition as well as an emphasis on teacher evaluation and accountability. "Duncan really nailed this," says New York City Deputy Mayor Kevin Sheekey. "You can use federal funds to drive a reform agenda. You can buy change, even from state legislatures ... although in our case, the opponents were pretty ingenious - invidious and ingenious." (See 10 elections that changed America...
...York teachers' union was launched in 1960 and led in the early years by the smartest and toughest union man I've ever met, Albert Shanker. The teachers are among the most powerful interest groups in New York State (and nationally, in the Democratic Party). The UFT's slogan is "A Union of Professionals," but it is quite the opposite: an old-fashioned industrial union that has won for its members a set of work rules more appropriate to factory hands. There are strict seniority rules about pay, school assignment, length of the school day and year. In New York...
...curriculums and more aggressive evaluation of teachers. Not all these schools work. Indeed, it can be argued that most states have been too slow to close down those that don't. But over time, the results seem to be improving dramatically. A recent study showed that students in New York City's charter schools - who are selected randomly, by lottery, and are 90% African American and Latino - have closed 86% of the gap in test results between the poorest neighborhoods of the city and ritzy suburbs like Scarsdale, which is known for its excellent schools...
...former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, a previously marginalized Obama adviser who had chastised the Administration for making insufficient efforts to limit the size and risk profiles of big banks. The White House is tired of complaints that its economic team - especially Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, the former New York Fed president who helped bail out AIG and other failing firms - is too close to Wall Street. Bringing the legendary gray eminence in from the cold - Obama called his plan to ban proprietary trading by commercial banks "the Volcker rule" - not only lent capitalist gravitas to populist bank-bashing...