Remember those excessed teachers in New York City who were twiddling their thumbs, waiting for principals to hire them, at an estimated cost of $74 million to taxpayers?
Yesterday, the Bloomberg administration and the United Federation of Teachers finally struck a deal to help these teachers find permanent placements in schools. You can read more about it in the New York Times here.
Under the agreement, Chancellor Joel I. Klein will urge principals to hire teachers who have been out of work for several months. The education department will also give schools financial incentives to hire teachers from the excessed pool.
The New Teacher Project, which recruits teachers for New York City schools, had issued a report in September saying most of the excessed teachers, who work as substitutes and other temporary replacements, are tenured. But there is no requirement that these teachers even find a job, and more than 14,000 teaching positions in New York City were filled during the period when these teachers did not find jobs.