Ad 'merits' a look

In a more traditional effort to change the "Last In, First Out" status quo in NY, Education Reform Now is launching a major TV ad buy to run this ad: www.keepgreatteachers.org (it features my friend and rock star AP teacher at Harlem's Frederick Douglass Academy, Jane Viau).  Here's an article about it in the NY Daily News:

 

Ad 'merits' a look

February 11, 2011  |  NY Daily News

 

New York Daily News wrote about the Education Reform Now and Keep Great Teachers TV ad to nix "last in, first out" teacher layoffs: An education-reform group is launching a multimillion-dollar TV ad blitz to persuade the state Legislature to repeal the "last in, first out" law requiring schools to lay off teachers based on seniority rather than merit. The 60-second ad financed by Education Reform Now -- featuring three public-school teachers -- will air starting today in New York City and Albany. "The last-in-first-out policy is bad for teachers, bad for schools and, most importantly, bad for kids," said ERN President Joe Williams. "Reckless layoffs that aren't based on a teacher's effectiveness have the potential to destroy a school's culture and derail all the progress that's been made to improve student achievement," Williams added. "Our lawmakers can't say they want to improve schools and protect great teachers on the one hand and support this antiquated policy on the other." State Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos (R-Nassau) yesterday endorsed curbing LIFO. "If a person is found, whether in a rubber room, or if they're found that their grading has been such that they're not in a classroom, I think that those people should go first before the younger teachers that are doing a good job," Skelos said at a Crain's breakfast. ERN has emerged as a formidable advocacy group chaired by former Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, now a top exec at News Corp., which owns The Post. The group is bankrolled by financiers interested in school reform, including billionaires Bill Gates and Eli Broad and a network of hedge-fund managers who pushed Albany to lift the cap on charter schools. Close allies of Mayor Bloomberg are chief strategists in the bid to repeal LIFO. Among them is consultant Bradley Task, a political adviser to the mayor who ran Bloomberg's successful 2009 campaign for re-election to a third term. United Federation of Teachers President Mike Mulgrew said he's fighting to prevent layoffs, but skirts questions about whether LIFO should be changed. The union has long opposed any changes.