nytimes.com
By Fernanda Santos
Jan. 12, 2012, 1:00 p.m.




Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s state of the city speech on Thursday is devoted largely to educational issues, as he attempts to shape his legacy while rounding the bend of his last term. Here are the highlights of his proposals:


ATTRACT HIGH-QUALITY TEACHERS
The city will pay up to $25,000 in student loans for college graduates who finish at the top quartile of their college class. The money would be paid in installments of up to $5,000 a year, for a maximum of $25,000 at the end of five years of teaching service.


RETAIN TEACHERS
Teachers who are rated “highly effective” for two consecutive years will receive a $20,000 raise per year. The measure puts pressure on the unions to compromise on the parameters of a new, four-tiered evaluation system to rate teachers and principals in public schools.


EVALUATE TEACHERS
Drawing on a provision of the teachers’ contract, the city will form school-based committees to evaluate teachers based on their performance in the classroom. The contract allows up to 50 percent of the teachers to be replaced under this arrangement. For the city, it is a bid to restore the roughly $60 million in federal grants for 33 struggling schools, which the state suspended in New York City and nine other school districts because they failed to reach a compromise with their unions over the parameters of an evaluation system for the teachers and principals working in those schools. The evaluation system is a requirement of the grants.


MORE SCHOOLS, MORE CHOICES
The city will continue its charge to replace large, failing schools with smaller schools by phasing out another 25 schools this year and opening 100 new schools — including 50 new charter schools — over the next two years. The city has asked charter operators Mr. Bloomberg defined as “our most successful” to expedite their expansion plans and will move to recruit similar networks that do not have a presence in New York.


COLLEGE AND CAREERS
The city will open at least 12 new career and technical schools and programs within the next two years, offering training in skills aligned with the demands of the global economy, in areas including computer science and health care. It will give extra money, from private sources, to help 40 schools that have shown success graduating young black and Latino men. (The schools have not yet been selected.) It will also expand partnerships between schools and private companies, similar to a partnership with IBM that led to the opening this year of the Pathways in Technology Early College High School in Brooklyn.


FINANCIAL AID
Under a partnership with the Obama administration, the city will help high school graduates who would have qualified for federal financial aid, but did not apply, to turn in their applications. It also intends to lead the charge for passage of the New York State Dream Act, which would give qualified high school graduates who are illegal immigrants to apply for state-sponsored college loans, grants and scholarships.


Fernanda Santos covers New York City public education for The New York Times.

Bloomberg Unveils Ambitious Proposals for Schools