An Interview With Chancellor Dennis Walcott

After reading the transparent propaganda piece that the Department of Education published about how Chancellor Dennis Walcott will improve teacher training and accountability, I decided it was important to print the truth of what the Chancellor really meant.

Doubling Teacher Training:  What the Chancellor really wants is to train more principals in how
 to terminate teachers by using the Danielson Framework rubric that includes 62 different items and also includes "Common Core", Differentiated Learning", and "VAM (Junk Science)" as  the basis for teacher evaluation.  He wants the money used to pay coaches to train principals how to properly document a teacher's weakness and provide support to initiate termination proceedings against these teachers.

Accountability: We will require teachers to be held accountable for student educational outcomes despite failing to provide the proper resources, services, and having the highest class sizes in the State .  Accountability is only for teachers and not the non-educators at Tweed,who are the real culprits who waste a billion dollars on near-useless technology and higly paid consultants for the lack of student academic achievement.

The Current System: The current system requires the DOE to show "just cause" to terminate teachers "ineffective ratings", even if the teacher is not "ineffective".
and requires the DOE to show real evidence to an independent Arbitrator to fire a teacher.  With the new system we can terminate teachers after two years of

Will the Teacher Evaluation System Work?  Who cares if it works or not?  We just want to terminate as many teachers as possible, especially senior teachers.

Do Teachers Trust the New System?  The Mayor does not care
what teachers think since he hates teachers and since I am the Mayor's poodle, I gladly follow his orders..

The Union Must Get A Commitment From Their Endorsed Candidate To Eliminate The Fair Student Funding Formula.

In my continuing series on what the union should require for their endorsement it's time to get rid of the "fair student funding formula" that has resulted in senior teachers not even getting interviews because of the budget constraints by this unfair funding method.  Before the "fair student funding formula", teachers were units and the "best teachers" were recruited by the schools who were considered the most desirable.  Included in this calculation for these "best teachers" was the neighborhood the school was located in, parking and transportation  availability, and the school's reputation.  Naturally, the schools who had the most to offer attracted the "best teachers".  Along came Chancellor Joel Klein's "fair student funding formula" that in theory would allocate additional money to schools that have a high percentage of "high needs" students (Special Education, English Language Learners, and poverty).  However, like all the Tweed inspired policies under the Bloomberg Administration, the "fair student funding formula" failed to allocate all the resources promised to these schools with "high needs" students.  Instead the "fair student funding formula" has morphed into a restraint on principals who would want to hire experienced teachers since it would hurt the school's budget while not allocating the additional funds to those schools with "high needs" students.

The question is what happened to the money?  While I do not pretend to know the answer since the DOE is not transparent about its funding and allocation mechanism, I can make an educated guess that a significant amount went to funding high-priced consultants and their suspect educational programs they peddle daily to the non-educators at Tweed.  Furthermore, the near useless "Children First networks" siphon badly needed funds from schools and have numerous high-priced managers and ousted principals that contribute next to nothing to the classroom.  Finally, the DOE is noted for its bloated central bureaucracy and it's no secret that badly needed school resources end up at Tweed to pay for their ever oversized headcount.

Why did our union allow the "fair student funding formula" to be implemented in the first place?  It appears this was yet another miscalculation by Randi Wiengarten that given a "bill of goods" by Joel Klein, she fell for it only to see that it ends up hurting both the teachers and the students.

In conclusion, our union should only endorse a candidate who is committed and supports the elimination of the "fair student funding formula" that not only discriminates against the hiring of senior teachers but forces principals to hire the "cheapest" and not the "best teachers" for their school and that is what I call "students last....always" when schools are hamstrung by the unfair "fair student funding formula"

Why Our Union Cannot Support Christine Quinn For Mayor.

In a month the UFT will endorse a Democratic candidate for Mayor and Christine Quinn is making a major push for that endorsement.  However, under no circumstances should our union endorse Christine Quinn for Mayor since she aided and abetted Mayor Bloomberg's grab for power by approving a third term that has been a disaster for the NYC Public Schools. She was rightfully booed at the UFT sponsored conference for some of her comments and seemed to agree with the Mayor's education policy in co-locating charter schools, a non-educator for Chancellor, and wants to keep the phony letter grades for schools.  Let me remind everyone that as City Council President she rarely ever stood up to the Mayor, especially when it came to the Mayor's divisive education policy. In fact, she supported many of the Mayor's policy programs when in came to education.

Why shouldn't the union support Christine Quinn for Mayor?  Let me count the ways.

First, she allowed the Mayor to change the City Charter so that he and she can run for a third term.

Second, she failed to provide leadership in not standing up to the Mayor's distructive education policies that included closing schools, ignoring commu, nity concerns, and demonizing teachers, allow charter school co-locations, agree to ever increasing class sizes, and a 20% reduction in school operating budgets since 2008.

Third, she still insists on looking at non-educators as a Chancellor and cited Arnie Duncan an example which caused teachers to give her a loud chorus of boos and deservingly so..

Fourth, she wants to keep the phony letter grades that most educators know is a farce and keeps Principals like Iris Blge in power.

Fifth, she opposes teacher seniority rights and quietly supported Bloomberg's LIFO bill.

Finally, she has failed to show any real independence from the Mayor's education policy and given the power of  being the Mayor will be like having "Bloomberg Lite" in office.  Consequently, the union should not endorsed her candidacy for any reason whatsoever. Now if only our tone-deaf union leader would hear their member vocies on this issue but don't count on it.

Another Princpal Acting Badly And The DOE Does Nothing About It.

The New York Post reported today that Independence HS Principal  Ron Smolkin apparently have written two anonymous letters against two teachers in an attempt to remove them from his school. Despite strong evidence that supported that the Principal wrote the letters, the DOE has allowed the Principal to stay in his position.  According to the DOE an internal (OSI) investigation found no real evidence against the Principal.  However, it certainly appears that the Principal should have lost his job if he indeed wrote those letters and it appears both teachers believe he did.

First, the Principal was accused by a teacher back in 2011 that he wrote an anonymous letter to his co-op board that accused the teacher and his partner of luring young boys to their apartment and infect them with AIDS.  The teacher , who was a Chapter Leader before retiring last year, filed a lawsuit and had a handwriting expert compare the letter sent to the co-op board and Principal Smolkin's handwritten notes and found them the same.  Principal Smolkin  also retaliated against the teacher by removing him from the classroom and filing 3020-a charges, forcing the teacher to retire.   The Principal's actions are subject to a criminal investigation and the DA is reviewing it presently.Yet the DOE investigation found the teacher's accusation to be unsubstantiated.  What a shock!

Now, we find that Principal Smolkin is in hot water again as a female teacher has claimed that  Principal Smolkin wrote another anonymous letter accusing the teacher of flirting with the boys, acting sexy in class, and making inappropriate comments on her Facebook page.  The letter allegedly came from an unknown source but the teacher believes that the Principal wrote it and then put into the teacher's official file.  The teacher has now also filed a lawsuit against Principal Smolkin for deformation of character and again OSI is investigating the accusation.  Yet, Principal Smolkin is still leading the school.

What do we know of Principal Ron Smolkin?  He had one of the lowest trust factors in the City in 2011 with only 32% of the staff trusting his judgement.  Principal Smolkin was also cited for ethics violations and fined by the City's Conflict of Ethics Board $5,000 for using school money to have his Secretary do work as he was working toward his Master's degree.  Finally, Principal Smolkin made the infamous "Bizarro World" list of principals acting badly

I guess when the DOE claims that they go after school personal when there is a "pattern and practice" it doesn't include administrators like Ron Smolkin.  Where is your "zero tolerance" policy when it comes to him Chancellor Walcott?  This is just another case of the "double standard" practiced by Tweed between staff and Administration.

Why Education Reformers Ignore Poverty In Student Academic Achievement.

In just the latest example of how Education Reformers will go to any lengths to ignore poverty as a major cause of poor student academic achievement, the founder of "Common Core", David Colman, in a conference where no school-based administrators or teachers were on the panel, stated that critics who blame poverty on poor student academic outcomes should help eliminate poverty by cutting teacher salaries and distributing the money to the poor.  David Colman's outrageous statement is just another example of Education Reformers attempt to minimize poverty as a major cause of poor student academic achievement and not seriously addressing the problem.  Why do they ignore poverty as a cause of poor student outcomes?  It's because they know that a child's social-economic environment is the major factor in academic achievement and to eliminate poverty costs tremendous amount of money and human resources.  Therefore, it is easier to blame the schools and in particular, the teachers rather than spend the money and human capitol necessary to eliminate poverty and improve student academic outcomes.

Be it ex Chancellor Joel Klein, Michelle Rhee, and Bill Gates, it is best to ignore the effects of poverty on student academic achievement and blame it on other problems, namely teachers.  While study after study shows that poverty is linked to poor student outcomes the Education Reformers will go to great lengths to ignore this linkage.  In fact the Education Reformers will tell anybody who bothers to listen to them that poverty is no excuse for poor academic achievement, as if they can wish away with a magic wand the educational problems associated with poverty. Instead, these Education Reformers have decided that blaming teachers and making them scapegoats to their failed educational programs rather than face the reality of what really is the root cause of a child's educational problems, poverty!.  How many times have we heard that "if only were can hire and fire teachers at will so that we only have great teachers teaching our students" as if a "great teachers" is a cure all for the world's ills.

While we are now starting to see a backlash against the education reform agenda, it will be quite a "high needs" students with appropriate wraparound services such as family counseling, adequate food, medical checkups, and after school programs not the phony programs that serves the political needs of the Education Reformers at the expense of the students, especially the children who live in poverty..
while before education reform is exposed as a farce it is and will fade into history as just another failed experiment.  However, until that time in the future we must stand fast against the Education Reformers and protect our

Will The Union Require That The New Mayor Eliminate The ATR Crises As A Condition For Their Support?

It's getting to be "crunch time" as the likely winner of the Democratic primary will be the new Mayor and the endorsementt by the UFT may decide the winner.  Therefore, what should the union demand from the endorsed Democratic candidate? 

First, and foremost eliminate the ATR crises by requiring that all excessed teachers be placed in one school in their District.  No longer should teachers go weekly to different schools and be treated like garbage from the school Administration.  While the union will not publish the information, many senior and higher paid teachers are not even given a chance to interview for vacancies as age and salary discrimination runs throughout the New York City School system.   The approximately 1,500 ATRS need to be placed and feel wanted.  Going weekly to different schools is a waste of time and just dispirrits the ATRs.  Bring back the old system that requires principals to hire excessed teachers before they can hire "newbie teachers" outside the Public Schools. This would be good for students who would have experienced teachers instructing them and not be made "guinea pigs" as the "newbies" learn how to teach.

Second, demand that the candidate agree to full "retroactive raises" that was part of the 2008-09 "City pattern".  No back loading or "givebacks".

Third, eliminate the "fair student funding" fiasco that discriminates against senior teachers and restore the unit system.  This will allow principals to hire the "best teachers" and not the "cheapest" teachers as many are doing now which is not what our students need or want.

Fourth, reduce class sizes to levels that are the State average and add teachers to reduce class sizes to more manageable  levels, especially in the early grades.

Finally, allocate adequate resources to the classroom and eliminate the waste of money on unnecessary consultants and technology that strips over a billion dollars from the City Schools.

If the UFT does not require these promises from their endorsed candidate then our union will once again fail their members and that is not acceptable.

A Charmed Life!

I have a very close friend who is a bilingual special education teacher who worked in Southern Queens  and was brought up on 3020-a charges of corporal punishment and was terminated by an Arbitrator who was under pressure from the DOE which had reminded him that he was too lenient on a previous case.  The teacher appealed the unfair and shocking ruling and a judge agreed that the Arbitrator used an uncharged specification as part of the basis for the termination and remanded it to a different Arbitrator since the judge didn't think the teacher would get a fair hearing from the original Arbitrator. The City had appealed the judge's decision to the Appellate Court and then delayed their submission as long as they could since the teacher was not on the DOE payroll.  This month the Appellate Court will finally hear the case and hopefully my friend will get her job back, with back pay.  However, that is another story for another day.  This post is about the paraprofessional who was responsible for my friend's unfair termination.

The paraprofessional is one of these people that no teacher wanted to work with,  She was known to take a long lunch and bathroom breaks, leave school at a moment's notice, and was unreliable.  My friend had tried to replace her with a paraprofessional who was more dependable but the Principal refused to change paras since no other teacher wanted to work with her.  Therefore, my friend was stuck with the paraprofessional, let's call her Miss. Nasty.  Miss. Nasty was the prime witness against my friend and embellished the corporal punishment charge despite the denials from my friend and the other paraprofessional who was in the room at the time of the alleged corporal punishment incident. For those who want to know if the child testified?  The child did not!

My friend had a history with Miss. Nasty that resulted in my friend going to the Principal to ask for another para, any para but Miss. Nasty.  However, the Principal, who was forced to retire shortly thereafter, was a personal friend and Miss. Nasty would do the Principal's hair during school time.  Yes, instead of being with the most vulnerable of children, Misss. Nasty was running errands or doing favors for the Principal.

Now it seems in April of this year that Miss. Nasty was seen by both children and adults choking a sixth grade boy and threatening the same boy by allegedly saying "do you  want to go a round"? The corporal punishment incident was reported  to the Office of Special Investigations (OSI) not by the school's Administration but by a parent who's daughter had witnessed the incident and was so upset that she immediately called her mother and told her that Miss. Nasty was choking the boy.  In almost all cases when a staff member is accused of choking a student they are removed from the classroom.  However, what has happened to Miss. Nasty?  Nothing, nothing at all.  That's right Miss. Nasty is still in the classroom almost a month after the alleged corporal punishment incident was reported.  Obviously, Miss. Nasty is being protected by the school's Administration who failed to report the corporal punishment incident in the first place.  I wonder if they are being investigated by OSI for their failure to follow the rules?   While the OSI investigation is still open, nobody expects anything to come from it since the school's Administration is protecting her.  Miss. Nasty, who lied and embellished a corporal punishment incident that resulted in a great teacher losing her job seems to have a charmed life when it comes to her own job.