THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. ** Thursday, October 31, 2019 |A10A
Mr. Utano, in a recent inter-
view, said the union has done
much better in previous con-
tract negotiations.
Following the 2008 reces-
sion, the MTA budgeted no net
increase in costs for its 2012
contract. The union held out
for more than two years. The
final deal, reached in 2014,awarded workers retroactive
pay increases of 1% for each of
the previous two years and 2%
increases in each of the fol-
lowing three years.
MTA officials have warned
for months about a looming fi-
nancial crisis. The authority is
poised to undergo a restruc-
turing that could see the lossof up to 2,700 jobs.
Officials have been warning
of potential service cuts amid
forecasted deficits in the com-
ing years totaling hundreds of
millions of dollars.
TWU officials counter that
the MTA has spent billions of
dollars in recent years on con-
sultants and that it recentlyannounced its intention to hire
500 highly paid police officers.
Earlier this month, the union
launched a $1 million radio and
TV campaign attacking MTA
mismanagement, calling out
Chairman Patrick Foye. In an
email, Mr. Foye accused Mr.
Utano of not negotiating in the
best interest of his members.Teachers often squeeze the
work into weekends and vaca-
tions. Many cap the number of
recommendations they take
on. And a few get paid days
off or extra pay for particu-
larly heavy loads.
David Swaney, a social
studies teacher in Iowa, tack-
led 75 college letters one year
when he worked at Montgom-
ery Blair High School, a public
school in Silver Spring, Md. “It
almost killed me,” he said.
After becoming a single dad
of twins, Mr. Swaney cut back to
promising only 25 letters yearly,
accepting requests largely on a
first-come, first-served basis.
Some grateful parents have
tried to give him envelopes full
of hundreds of dollars, which he
couldn’t accept.
“It was a ‘thank you,’ not an
attempt at a bribe,” Mr.
Swaney added. Since he is al-
lowed to accept small Star-
bucks gift cards, he figures hehasn’t spent a dollar of his own
for coffee there in decades.
Schools try to ease the bur-
den by nudging students to
ask for letters before summer
vacation, and to seek out
teachers who taught them be-
fore junior year to avoid over-
loading a chosen few.“What’s driving this is the
idea that a particular teacher is
a king- or queen-maker,” said
Braden Peterson, director of
student services at Langley High
School in McLean, Va. “A lot of
fear is driving the process.”
In last year’s federal trialexamining how Harvard Uni-
versity uses race to shape its
student body, trial materials
gave a peek into the inner
workings of its admission of-
fice. They said Harvard in-
structs admissions officers to
give top marks to recommen-
dation letters if they are “truly
over the top,” with phrases
like “the best ever” or “one of
the best in X years.”
But Bobson Wong, a math
teacher at Bayside High School
in Queens who wrote recom-
mendations for about 50 stu-
dents one year, said he doesn’t
aim to call anyone “best.”
What matters to him is growth.
He likes to write letters ex-
plaining the story of students
“who struggled and stuck with
it until something clicked.”
Recommendation writing
isn’t part of teachers’ contrac-
tual obligations in many dis-
tricts, but an expected role
nonetheless. In New York City,a United Federation of Teach-
ers spokeswoman said some
schools offer teachers about
$51 an hour to write letters af-
ter work hours, but in most
cases, teachers simply do it
without extra pay.
In Palo Alto Unified School
District in California, officials
said that after a teacher writes
10 letters, the district pays
$47 per recommendation.
October is “hell month for
11th-grade teachers,” said Da-
vid Rapaport, an American
history teacher at Palo Alto
High School who just finished
32 letters, and expects to do
more for January deadlines.
He says he spends at least an
hour on each one, and some-
times three hours. After jot-
ting notes throughout the year
on students’ astute moments
in class, he likes to riff into a
voice recorder and then tran-
scribe his points.
Some critics of the hyper-competitive application pro-
cess say letters make inequities
even more stark, with some
overstretched teachers lacking
the time, or skills, to write
compelling recommendations.
“Not only are teacher let-
ters of recommendation unfair
to students from under-re-
sourced high schools, they’re
unfair to teachers and coun-
selors who have to write
them,” said Jon Boeckenstedt,
vice provost of enrollment
management at Oregon State
University. He said some coun-
selors call this stressful month
“Sucktober.”
Further, he said, it is hard
to evaluate recommendations’
credibility: “There is no grad-
ing distribution on letter writ-
ers, so a reader never really
knows whether every letter
that teacher writes is glowing,
or whether this one candidate
really stands out among their
peers.”Halloween is full of creepy
vampires and blood-spattered
swords, but for many teachers
the scariest part is a due date
that some anxious students
see as life or death: submit-
ting college applications.
Some high-school teachers
write recommendations for
more than 50 applicants in an
admissions season. With grow-
ing numbers of seniors racing to
meet Nov. 1 deadlines for “early
decision” and “early action,” Oc-
tober has become increasingly
stressful for teachers trying to
flesh out students’ profiles with
illuminating details.
“The timeline has shrunk,
which makes it more intense,”
said Maureen Mazzarese, di-
rector of counseling at West-
field High School in New Jer-
sey. Now most of her students
apply months before the regu-
lar round of January deadlines.
BYLESLIEBRODY
Teachers Race to Finish Piles of College Recommendations
October is ‘hell
month,’ said a
teacher who just
finished 32 letters.transportation departments,
said that even for a city of
New York’s size, the plan sets
impressive targets.
The bill, which passed by a
vote of 35-9 with two absten-
tions, requires the city to cre-
ate one million square feet of
pedestrian space within theplan’s first two years. It also
requires the city to add 250
miles of protected bike lanes
and 150 miles of separated or
camera-enforced bus lanes
within the first five years.
The legislation also calls for
thousands of traffic lights to
be altered to give buses prior-ity; for parking and loading
rules to be overhauled; and for
thousands of bus stops to be
upgraded with new benches
and shelters.
The improvements are ex-
pected to cost the city $1.7 bil-
lion through 2032. More than
half of the expense would beGREATER NEW YORK
for bus improvements, such as
real-time bus information
signs, new bus lanes and bus
shelter and bench upgrades.
The first street master plan
is due in December 2021, the
same year that New York state
begins imposing a congestion-
pricing charge on vehicles us-
ing Manhattan’s busiest
streets.
Congestion pricing is ex-
pected to significantly reduce
traffic in Manhattan’s central
business district. Officials in
London used the introduction
of a pricing scheme more than
15 years ago to make similar
improvements to its streets.
The master plan is expected
to provide benefits citywide.
Council Speaker Corey John-
son, a potential 2021 mayoral
candidate who has championed
the bill, said at a rally earlier
this week: “This is about saving
lives, and it’s also about chang-
ing our city for the better.”
Before the vote, Mr. John-
son, a Democrat, said too many
people have been killed be-
cause city streets haven’t been
planned properly. “This is whybold action is needed,” he said.
“It doesn’t have to be this way.”
Councilman Robert Holden,
who represents parts of
Queens, voted against the
plan, saying different neigh-
borhoods had different needs.
“My district has been
starved for more public-transit
options, so I cannot vote in fa-
vor of any long-term transit
plan without guarantees that
it will be coupled with im-
provements for transit des-
erts,” he said during the vote.
Mayor Bill de Blasio, a
Democrat, has signaled that he
will sign the bill. His adminis-
tration will be required to cre-
ate the first five-year plan,
though by the time it is imple-
mented, the term-limited Mr.
de Blasio will be out of office.
Jon Orcutt, a former trans-
portation-department official
who now advocates for cy-
clists, said the legislation re-
places the city’s piecemeal ap-
proach to street design with a
legally mandated process. “It’s
now the city’s policy en-
shrined in law, and you have
to do it,” he said.New York City is about to
embark on a large-scale over-
haul of its streets, taking
space from cars and trucks in
favor of pedestrians, cyclists
and bus riders.
A bill passed by the New
York City Council on Wednes-
day requires the city to create
a master plan every five years.
The measure mandates annual
benchmarks for significant in-
creases in pedestrian space,
bike lanes and bus lanes.
It comes at a time when bus
speeds remain stubbornly slow
and as cycling deaths are on
track to reach their highest
level in recent years.
A spokesman for the Na-
tional Association of City
Transportation Officials, a co-
alition of North American
BYPAULBERGER
ANDKATIEHONAN
City Approves Major Revamp of Streets
Legislation mandates
a master plan to
improve pedestrian
and cyclist safety
Pedestrian and bike fatalities
in New York CitySource: New York City Department of
TransportationNote: Figures are through Oct. 28 of each year.15002550751001252013 ’14 ’15 ’16 ’17 ’18 ’Pedestrians Cyclistssaid the agency is focused on
negotiating in good faith and
in reaching a mutually accept-
able contract.
The MTA, in addition to
running New York City’s sub-
way and buses, also operates
the Long Island Rail Road and
Metro-North Railroad.
Labor accounts for almost
two-thirds of the authority’s
annual operating budget of
about $17 billion. The TWU
contract often sets the tone
for the authority’s contracts
with its other unions.
Relations between the MTA
and the TWU have become in-
creasingly tense in recent
months. MTA officials have ac-
cused unionized workers of
abusing the agency’s time and
attendance systems.
The authority has offered
annual wage increases of
about 2% over the next four
years. It also has asked for
benefits and work-rule conces-
sions that the union says
amount to no raise at all.
The union hasn’t publicly
made specific wage demands,
but it doesn’t want to give up
any of its members’ benefits
or work rules.Thousands of subway and
bus workers crowded lower
Manhattan on Wednesday eve-
ning to demonstrate their ris-
ing anger over stalled contract
talks with the Metropolitan
Transportation Authority.
During the rally, held out-
side the MTA’s headquarters,
the president of Transport
Workers Union Local 100, Tony
Utano, said the state-con-
trolled agency always has lost
when it tried to take on the
union in contract negotiations.
“They are going to get
nothing,” he said.
Transit workers, including
those from other MTA unions,
blocked Whitehall Street, which
was closed by police. They held
banners calling for better pay
and work conditions, job secu-
rity, and threatening to strike.
The TWU has accused the
MTA of dragging its feet in ne-
gotiations with its nearly
40,000 unionized subway and
bus workers, whose contract
expired in May. The union’s
workers are barred from strik-
ing under state law.
A spokesman for the MTA
BYPAULBERGER
MTA Workers
Hold Massive Rally
Over Contract
Transit workers marched in lower Manhattan on Wednesday, seeking better pay and work conditions, and threatening to strike.MARK KAUZLARICH FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNALCycling deaths are on track to reach their worst level in years.
The bill requires the city to add 250 miles of protected bike lanes.DREW ANGERER/GETTY IMAGESNY