This week was a busy one in Albany for New York City's interests. The defeat of congestion pricing on Monday came as somewhat of a surprise to those who believed that, after the sturm und drang, a bargain would be struck between Silver, Bruno and Bloomberg.   In the end, Silver went with his Democratic Conference, the people who have elected him Speaker for the last fourteen years.

Did he have to leave congestion pricing to the Conference rather than just twisting arms?  Maybe or maybe not.   If he ignored his members, he would have had to rely on Republican votes to reach the magic number of 76, a majority on the Assembly. To secure the votes of the unwilling "he might have had to incur obligations that he would prefer not to fulfill."  The words we quoted happen to be the consequence for those who ignore Rule 28-C:  “Don’t accept cigarettes in prison.” 

In the totality of  the Constitutional and institutional relationships, the mayor, on behalf of the City of New York, usually needs more from the speaker than the speaker needs from the mayor.  To try to purge the speaker would be enormously difficult. FDR tried unsuccessfully in 1938 to defeat Senators and supersede Supreme Court Justices who disagreed with him. 

Remember Spitzer careening around in the state plane last February threatening legislators who had voted for Tom DiNapoli for Comptroller. Voters like to support the little guy, and compared with Bloomberg, Silver is the little guy who was born, grew up and has always lived in the neighborhood called the Lower East Side. Besides, if Silver were removed, the next speaker would have much less influence with his members, and that could be far worse for the State and the City.  Look at Spitzer, who was supposed to reform the state after the twelve Pataki years.

The Swollen Budget

The State budget, as proposed by both houses, is reasonably fair to the city, which the mayor appreciated in his public statement.  We wrote Tuesday that Shelly owed the mayor something, and he may have believed he paid that debt with the budget, which softened earlier proposed cuts in allocations to the city.

The problem with this budget is that it is financially irresponsible. It increases state spending by 5% (about $6 billion) while the state economy slumps into recession mode.   For years, I have written that a budget is like a road map; it doesn’t necessarily take you anywhere, but it shows where you are headed.  To long-time observers like E. J. McMahon and Bill Hammond, there will not be enough money to pay for the programs the state has included in a budget that contains virtually no reductions.  Even the vacant office of Lieutenant Governor is funded at $1.66 million dollars.

Governor Paterson, speaking at the Association for a Better New York Tuesday morning, said the budget was far too high in relation to anticipated revenues. Link to his engaging and sensitive remarks here.   Paterson will have the opportunity to put his pen where his mouth is by vetoing the budget when, eventually, it comes to him for signature. Both houses of legislature will either negotiate a compromise or override his veto, since it will be their own budget that they will have approved. He will face the quandary of whether to veto and go down with the ship, or settle for modest reductions. He will try to position himself on the high ground of fiscal responsibility.

Of course, if the recession should evaporate, real estate values skyrocket, and mergers and acquisitions resume at a rapid pace, the budget will be close to balanced.  The possibility of an immediate turnaround, however, is, to put it charitably, remote.

What is more likely to happen is that after the 2008 primary and election are over, a large gap will be discovered, which the legislature will have to make substantial reductions to close.  Now if they made the cuts in April, instead of in November, they could be smaller. But logic has never interfered with the time-honored practice of postponing bad news.

Tenure for Teachers, No Matter Whether the Kids Learn or Not.

Another bill approved by both houses curtails the school chancellor’s power to deny tenure to teachers whose students have not improved their test scores after sitting in their classes for a year or more.  It would clearly be unfair to deny teachers tenure solely on the basis of students’ test scores. 

Some teachers may get kids who are not smart, or for other reasons have learning difficulties. The word ‘dumb’ has vanished from the language of the educrats, just as vicious has disappeared from the bowlderized phrase: “There is no such thing as a bad dog.”   BTW, there are two rules beginning with the same seven words: 30-L: “There is no such thing as a free lunch” and 31-L: “There is no such thing as a mental note.”.

Although test scores cannot be the only reason to deny tenure to a teacher, it seems rather obvious that they should be taken into account.   If two teachers, with classes of students of identical intelligence, get vastly different results at the end of the school year in terms of reading, writing, and arithmetic (the threatened three Rs), it would seem that the teacher whose students succeed is likely to be a better teacher than one whose identical students generally fail. 

That aspect of competence should be taken into account in tenure decisions.  Why give a lifetime job to a person who has proven him/herself incompetent for three years?  That would be ridiculous.  But that is what happens in the school system.

As a graduate of the New York City public schools, my experience was that most teachers were very good and a handful were excellent. Some were mediocre and a few really stank. I still remember my teacher in 8B in JHS 52 telling the class about the death of a colleague. "Mrs. Good died last night. And you know why she died, it was because she was too good. I won't be too good, you can count on that. And she waved a ruler over her head for emphasis." Yes, it's anecdotal. It happened 62 years ago and I will never forget it. How many other children will carry the memories of incompetent teachers for the rest of their lives?

The reason this bill passed is in dispute.  There was a story by Jennifer Medina in the January 21 Times about the Department of Education planning to consider test scores to make tenure determinations.  The union says that the chancellor wanted to rely solely on test scores, but Tweed (the new way to say 110 Livingston Street) denies that claim. As luck would have it, Tweed (the building has emerged as the educational Vatican, Kremlin or Pentagon, even though its eponym has rightly been in disrepute for over a century.

The singularity of the Incompetent Teachers Protection Act is illustrated by a provision that the issue should be investigated by a commission, with a report not due for two years. The purpose of that section is to remove the issue for the balance of the Bloomberg - Klein administration, in the hope that their newly-elected successors in 2010 will be more pliant to the union's will than a man who didn't need their money.

The United Federation of Teachers, led by the gifted and talented Randi Weingarten, spends $3 million a year lobbying the state legislature. The union endorses candidates, they support phone banks, they want to be listened to and obeyed.  Much of their work is necessarily on behalf of their less competent members, because able teachers are usually valued for their work. Good teachers do not have to run to their shop stewards for protection, "they do not sweat and whine about their condition."

Nonetheless, there are injustices in labor relations, and the days of unilateral, unchecked rule by management are long over.  There is a middle ground, based on equity and reason, between anarchy and tyranny.  In our school system, anarchy (under the guise of due process) usually wins out, in part because of craven judges, and in larger part because tyranny doesn’t have $3 million each year to lobby the state legislature.

What is wrong here is that issues of this sort should be decided according to common sense and the best interests of the children, not on the basis of the influence of the disputants, which usually comes down to who is supplying the most boodle.

The prior administration gave “Day One” a bad name, but as the earth spins the days come and go. Today, Friday, is “Day Eleven" after the constitutional deadline for adoption of the state budget.  This is the 18th year out of 20 that the budget has been late. A far greater problem, however is the failure of the budget to deal with fiscal reality. The day of reckoning is not yet nigh, but it will come later this year.

Enjoy the weekend.