another group of students are ESL - english language learners... Today the state of NY give only 1!!!! year for a student to learn language.... before they will take state English test... Do you know anybody who will be able to this??? what if that child never went to school before???? or I have one for the second year, from the Ivory Coast.... his native language does not have written form try to "perform" with this kind of students...

Galina, don't get all excited.. nobody blames unions for every silly thing. Just for the things they are responsible for.

here is an example how corporate can screw you and how the Union backs you up... 2001 - Mike Bloomberg was elected as the Major of NYC. He is in charge of DOE now.. he declares his "new philosophy" that everyone will read no matter what... the new philosophy is implemented with the dumbest "workshop model" of instruction. and a new personnel policy: get rid of all old high paid teachers, make a system "cost efficient"

So by the end of the 2002-2003 school year 95% of teachers who were 44+ got "Unsatisfactory" rating... The Union filed "class action" and those ratings disappeared... that is how the Union prevents discrimination by the age... Union does not say: "do a bad job, a we will back you up.

Galina, somehow I find the story about 95% of teachers over 44 with unsatisfactory ratings hard to believe.. proof?

then glorious Mike takes another turn: lets close the schools and reopen the charter schools.... he is doing that for almost 8 years... charter schools did not show any difference in performance comparing to public schools, even with there "selective student approach" ...... and the most important thing: THEY ARE UNION FREE!!!!!!!!! SO IT IS NOT THE UNIONS THAT IS F.... UP!

You can go back to UFT website and pool out The New York Teacher newspaper.... dated July 2003

Galina, don't get too excited..
Charter schools don't use a selective approach, they can't refuse students. It's the LAW.
and here is the result for charter schools New York
***********.nber.org/~schools/charterschoolseval/how_NYC_charter_schools_affect_achievement_sept200 9.pdf

you can read the entire study.
but here are some highlights:Charter school applicants are much more likely to be black and much less likely to be Asian or
white than the average student in New York City's traditional public schools. [Chapter II]
! Charter school applicants are more likely to be poor than the average student in New York City's
traditional public schools. [
On average, a student who attended a charter
school for all of grades kindergarten through
eight would close about 86 percent of the
"Scarsdale-Harlem achievement gap" in math
and 66 percent of the achievement gap in
English. A student who attended fewer grades
would improve by a commensurately smaller
amount

very good Mike, I read this all before... the question is: who prepared this report and for what group.