THE REGION; What Price Harmony Atop New York Citys Schools?
Earlier this year, New York City teachers were promised a week off in the middle of February, a chance for some to bask in the sun or catch up on lesson plans. With the public scornful of the productivity of city workers and frustrated by how much schooling children really get, Chancellor Joseph A. Fernandez and Sandra Feldman, the president of the United Federation of Teachers, provided assurances that the extra days off would be made up by opening schools on other holidays. But when the dust settled in an arbitrator’s decision last month, the teachers ended up with a net of two extra vacation days. Nobody spread the news. Mr. Fernandez was embarrassed by what was at best a misunderstanding or a tactical blunder that will force working parents to scramble for child care. And Ms. Feldman, who is negotiating a new contract, was not going to throw salt in his wounds by gloating. But their reticence may also have reflected an anxiety about stirring up critics who say that the political an
