New York: Good Jobs Going Unfilled Due to Workforce Skills Gap

By Elizabeth Ling, DFER NY State Director In this time of high unemployment rates, there are well-paying New York manufacturing jobs going vacant due to a gap between the proficiency levels required to perform these jobs and what our current labor force is able to supply. This statewide gap – which mirrors similar dynamics at

NY Teachers Union Bosses Heart The GOP

By Joe Williams, DFER’s Executive Director Today’s NY Times covers the teachers’ unions latest attacks on Students First NY because their bi-partisan board has a couple of big backers of Mitt Romney’s Republican presidential campaign. We have well-documented concerns about what a Romney presidency would do for education reform – see here, and here, and

A Must Read: Better schools through smarter testing

By Elizabeth Ling, DFER NY State Director This is one of the best op-eds I’ve read explaining why we need to continue testing schoolchildren. At the same time, the author recognizes that our current testing system needs to be revamped. We must improve the content of tests, so they better align to critical thinking skills

NY teachers' union fights against bill to aid special education charter students

By Elizabeth Ling, DFER NY State Director The waning days of our state’s legislative session are often the setting for bad behavior on the part of New York’s teachers unions. This year’s post-budget session proved no exception, with the state teachers union exhibiting the highest levels of hypocrisy in protecting its turf. New York’s teachers’

Empire State Teacher Evaluation Freak Show, Part 6

By Joe Williams, DFER Executive Director Another school year is drawing to a close in New York State and that means yet another school year has passed without meaningful evaluations of teachers and principals. The latest fake hurdle has been a ginned-up controversy over whether or not new teacher evaluations should be made public. Gov.

Parents in NYC are looking for a candidate to champion their cause

    By Sean Andersen, Deputy National Field Director for Education Reform Now Yesterday, over 5,000 charter school parents and students gathered in downtown Manhattan near City Hall to send a message to Mayoral hopefuls. The rally, dubbed “Parents for Progress,” was focused on continuing the advances in education backed by Mayor Bloomberg. Parents are looking to

NY education commissioner calls out the Buffalo teachers union

By Elizabeth Ling, DFER NY State Director The standoff around teacher evaluations in Buffalo continues. This past week, state education commissioner John King released a public letter addressed to Buffalo teachers’ union head Phil Rumore in which he sought to “clear up a few misconceptions.” The commissioner’s letter makes it clear that the hold-up in

DFER's statement on speech delivered today by NYC Chancellor Walcott

Specifically, on the idea of offering incentives to remove salaries from the permanent ATR pool and on removing from the classroom any teacher with two years of ineffective ratings… From Joe Williams, executive director of Democrats for Education Reform: “The naysayers will dust off their old playbooks and pretend to be freaked out, but anyone

Continuing Woes in Buffalo, NY

  By Elizabeth Ling, DFER NY State Director The federal No Child Left Behind law gave children in failing public schools the right to transfer into better schools. But, for Buffalo schoolchildren, in practice that option means very little. The situation in Buffalo is so bad that students in 23 of its schools — representing

REPUBLICAN FY 2013 BUDGET PROPOSAL

REPUBLICAN FY 2013 BUDGET PROPOSAL DRAMATIC AND RECKLESS CUTS TO EDUCATION SPENDING   Yesterday, the U.S. House of Representatives began debate on its budget proposal for FY 2013, the upcoming fiscal year that begins October 1st. The debate resumes on the House floor today. In Washington: • Almost 3,500 children will be eliminated from the