ESSAA LOBBYIST MAKES THE CALL: ADMINISTRATIVE TENURE SAFE – FOR NOW

By Bob Liftig

ESSAA lobbyist Bob Ungar called it right this spring when he told President John Sullivan that all the hoopla about eliminating administrative tenure would not add up to a hill of beans.

Sullivan was confident that Ungar’s prediction was correct because of Bob’s relationship with key state legislators. As John stated in his recent letter to ESSAA members:

Bob Ungar is a high powered lobbyist who represents several large labor organizations in addition to ESSAA. He can influence the expenditure of large sums of PAC monies to help fund the election campaigns of pro-labor candidates. His influence is large enough to give him direct access to some of the more powerful Assemblymen and Senators in Albany. He can speak directly with the powers that make certain things happen. In short, he has told us that Tenure is safe because powerful people in the know have told him so. ESSAA has fought the TENURE battle for years. Ungar’s predictions have been correct 100% of the time

This has certainly been the summer for harrowing threats; even former Presidential candidate Howard Dean has publicly wondered about the power of calls to arms to rally the troops in times of organizational disarray and trouble. Of course, no one can blame either the American voter or more particularly some New York State administrators for being off balance by the hysteria of their leadership: Al Quaeda remains committed to pursuing its goals against the United States, and Governor Pataki certainly has thrown his political weight behind the Zarb Report’s recommendation to do away with administrative tenure.

The Governor is certainly persistent, but – and this is in the opinion of a professional educator, mind you – he doesn’t seem to learn. In fact, Pataki’s press release of July 30, 2004 is entitled: “Governor Vows Not To Give Up.” It is easy to see his intentions, despite the poor grammar in his declaration:

“I refuse to give up,” Pataki said. “I will continue our fight to open the doors to a better and brighter future for millions of New York’s schoolchildren and ensure that every child in New York receives the quality education they (sic) deserve ...”

If this statement isn’t clear enough for any of us left who still believe in the infallibility of our elected officials, the press release continues: “The Governor indicated that he’s begun to take the necessary and responsible step of submitting his educational reform plan to the State Supreme Court ...”

Governor Pataki’s plan includes the following:

Enhancing Educational Leadership

• Requiring that school board members receive annual training on the powers and duties of their office to further enhance the skills and professionalism of local school board members in order to ensure that they are well prepared to meet the complex fiscal and managerial challenges they encounter on a regular basis.

• Eliminating tenure for school principals and establishing a system of three to five year contracts that are renewable based upon school performance. • Creating an alternative route to teacher and administrator certification to enable well educated and experienced professionals to enter the teaching workforce.

• Providing mayors of the largest city school districts with greater governing authority of their city schools.

• Expediting “3020-a” disciplinary hearings for tenured school employees and setting up a new process to discipline incompetent teachers.

The Governor’s press release came out just 10 days after he called legislators back from summer recess for an “extraordinary” session to consider Senate Bill S. 7684 – which was eventually passed and which did include the elimination of tenure for administrators. We are sure that, because members of professional organizations across the state were notified, and, as a result, made phone calls, sent FAXs, and offered personal appeals – and through the work of lobbyists like ESSAA’s own Bob Ungar – the Governor’s attack on administrative tenure died – if only a temporary death – in the Assembly committee.

The Governor obviously believes that there are quite a few incompetent school administrators; not only does he want to strip away administrator tenure, but he says he needs to “expedite” 3020-a proceedings. It doesn’t take much of an imagination to conjure up all the confusion this will cause in the minds of parents and the “millions of New York State schoolchildren” when their school administrators are brought up on charges in the Governors’ Kangaroo Courts.

Don’t New York’s school children deserve a stable school environment in this time of national crisis?