The City of New York has agreed to pay $1.8 billion to would-be teachers who failed the state’s teacher qualification exam between 1994 and 2014:
Roughly 5,200 black and Hispanic ex-Big Apple teachers and once-aspiring educators are expected to collect more than $1.8 billion in judgments after the city stopped fighting a nearly three-decade federal discrimination lawsuit that found a certification exam was biased.
Court rulings found the exam violated civil-rights laws, allowing far more white candidates to pass.
(“Allowing?” Perhaps they were just better prepared and qualified, perhaps even, dare I say it?, smarter?)
Herman Grim, 64, of Queens, on July 5 was awarded the biggest judgment to date, a jaw-dropping $2,055,383.
It includes $1,583,114 in back pay for time never clocked, lost interest accrued, and other compensation.
Grim said he’s in disbelief but the money can’t come fast enough because he’s racked up serious debt on his Queens home and credit cards.
He couldn’t recite examples of why the test was biased.
Other top winners include Andrea Durant, 62, of Center Moriches on Long Island, who scored $1,976,787, and the estate of the late Kathy Faye Bailey of Queens, who was awarded $1,875,119.
The judgments are based on what the teachers and teacher candidates would have earned had they passed the test and kept working in the city’s public school system.
Typically, the further back they failed the test, the more money plaintiffs are entitled to.
But the cost to taxpayers is expected to be significantly higher because they’ll also be footing the bill for many of the plaintiffs to collect pension checks based on time never worked after they reach retirement age, plus their health insurance.
($1.8 billion is only the down payment. It was Bill DiBlasio, by the way, who did this just before he left office.)
