Bloomberg Wants More Education Cuts. Where Will The Cuts Come From? Just Don't Expect Them From Tweed.

Today Mayor Bloomberg requested that the Department Of Education (DOE) cut the 23 billion dollar education budget by 5.5% according to the New York Post. 1.5% this school year and 4% next school year which comes out to almost 127 million dollars. While this is less than the 12% that most City agencies need to cut, the question becomes where will the education cuts come from? Based upon the historical record of Joel Klein's priorities, look for the central bureaucracy at Tweed and their well-connected consultants to be spared while the field offices, support centers, and the schools will probably suffer the brunt of the cuts.

However, look for Tweed to put the DOE propaganda machine into overdrive and claim that if they can eliminate the 1,300 ATRs after six months and fire the 650 "rubber room" teachers, they could save 160 million dollars. Of course Tweed will totally ignore the money spent on highly-paid consultants and their pet projects that overwhelms the money Tweed pays non-classroom teachers that they put out of the classroom in the first place. Furthermore, Tweed, rather than hire non-educators like lawyers to persecute teachers and allow principals not to hire ATRs despite Joel Klein's widely ignored ultimatum to hire them or lose the vacancies should freeze hiring of newbie teachers. No loopholes or exceptions at all. Moreover, the DOE should reopen many of the 3020-a cases which not only cost time (average 2 years) but $250,000 per case between the City and State.

If the DOE really wants to help the students then they should cut the central bureaucracy to the bone, free the unjustly accused "rubber room" teachers , and freeze all newbie hires until the ATRs are placed.

By the way if Governor Paterson gets his way, the NYC schools would experience an additional 223 million dollar budget cut for the remainder of the school year for a total mid-year budget cut of 257 million dollars! Let's hope this does not happen for the children's' sake.

Where Does The Money Go When Teachers Either Settle With Or The Arbitrator Awards Money To The DOE?

One of the questions that reassigned teachers ask and get no answers from the union is what happens to the money that the teacher either agrees to settle with the Office of Legal Services or the Arbitrator awards the DOE? Now in Betsy Combier's blog - rubber room reporter she identifies a mysterious group at 65 Court Street, known as "District 65" who she believes may be the beneficiary of the teacher fines. Contrary to what most people believe, the Arbitrators and transcribers are paid by New York State and not the DOE. Therefore, the money the DOE collects from teachers seems to disappear into the Tweed bureaucracy but now Betsy Combier may have discovered where the money may actually go to. Could it be this top secret "District 65" group?

My question is, if this "District 65" group actually exists. What is their purpose? Who runs the group? Where does the money they allegedly take in used for? If anybody knows about "District 65" and what their purpose is please contact

Betsy Combier
P.O. Box 17
NY., NY 10021
reassigned@live.com

All information sent to Betsy will be kept confidential.

Tweed's "Children Last" Program Continues As They Layoff 503 School Aides While Giving Millions To High Priced Consultants

Tweed went ahead and laid off 503 school aides starting Monday. These school aides are invaluable to the schools, especially in the poor neighborhood schools while at the same time approving a 3 million dollar contract for the consulting firm KPMG that does not directly benefit the children. Tweed previously threatened to layoff 530 school aides but was temporarily stopped by an injunction that has since expired when DC37 refused to supply a bond to pay for the school aides.

The school aide position is one of the lowest paid position of all school employees and they do the jobs in the schools that other staff members refuse or do not want to do. Furthermore, many of the school aides work closely with the children by supervising them in the lunchroom, busing duties, and overseers during recess. Many schools will struggle greatly without the school aides and the quality of the children's educational experience will surely suffer. The DOE claims that the layoffs of the 503 school aides will save 13 million dollars for the educational budget, However, the budgets cuts seem to exempt Tweed's consultant services as in the same week they approved a 3 million dollar program by the consulting form KPMG to survey schools for priority issues. This survey has been done previously and has been largely ignored by Tweed when the previous surveys found class size to be the most important factor. Both Public Advocate, Betsy Gotbaum, and the Manhattan PEP representative, Patrick Sullivan, questioned the use of the money at the time of past, present, and future budget cuts. However, the DOE said the survey is needed to identify school improvements. Really? As Patrick Sullivan stated. Tweed has seemed to ignore the surveys when they don't like the results. Why will this survey be different?

Yes, "children last" continues to go strong as Chancellor Joel Klein and his non-educator cronies serve up expensive contracts to well-connected consultants as the schools and especially the classroom, that they are supposed to protect are starved for funds and manpower. I believe the post on Gotham Schools-the last day of a school aide where some children wrote an emotional letter to Mayor Mike about their school aide is a must read. Shame on Mayor Mike Bloomberg and shame on Chancellor Joel Klein for the policies that only hurt the most vulnerable of children they are supposed to protect.

Updated Statistics Of The PIP+ Program Are Now Available & They Are As Bad As The First Year Numbers

The union official in charge of the PIP+ process has updated her numbers for the school year 2008-09 and found that of the 46 teachers who took PIP+ (Peer-Intervention-Program Plus) last year, 41 teachers failed the program and were deemed incompetent and are subject to section 3020-a. This means that for the two years that the union agreed to the PIP+ program 102 teachers who took the PIP+ program, 92 teachers failed the program " that is a 90% failure rate!" How can any union justify a program that allows the employer to terminate 9 out of every 10 of their members?

Now that we know what the numbers are, why is the union allowing such a flawed and biased program to exist? What's more, why hasn't the union let the District Reps (DR) and the Chapter Leaders (CL) know about the unfair PIP+ process and make sure targeted teachers are not hanging themselves by taking a program that has a 90% failure rate?

I am only one blogger and I have limited visibility. However, I appeal to all other bloggers to let their CL know of the problems with the PIP+ program and to read my articles on it here, here, here, and here. Knowledge is power and the more the CL knows, the better the CL can advise their targeted teachers in resisting a DOE inspired program who's main aim is to terminate teachers.

In my previous article I asked that the union members who are knowledgeable that they spread the word that PIP+ was a teacher termination program. The latest numbers have only convinced me that the PIP+ process must be eliminated. James Eterno, one of two UFT presidential candidates has already backed the termination of PIP+, how about you Mike Mulgrew?

Why Is Our Union Not Telling The Members At The Schools What They Know About How Administrators Target Teachers For Incompetence?

Over the last few years the DOE was increasingly frustrated in getting arbitrators to terminate teachers charged with incompetence. To try to increase the number of teachers to either be terminated or quit teaching in the NYC schools, they took precious money (1.2 million dollars) and setup a special unit dedicated to terminate alleged incompetent teachers. This unit was named the Teacher Performance Unit (TPU) also known as the "gotcha squad" named by Randi Weingarten. The TPU consists of lawyers and retired principals whose only purpose is to terminate teachers accused by their principals of being incompetent. The TPU developed different strategies to help principals get rid of teachers that they didn't want. While Tweed developed these strategies to help to terminate teachers, the union remained silent and failed to inform the District Representatives (DR) and Chapter Leaders (CL) about these TPU strategies and how to combat them.

Many of the TPU strategies were identified by either Betsy Combier and myself. Here, Here, Here, and Here. However, unless you read the two blogs the teacher would be unaware that the DOE has given the administrators the tools to go after the classroom teacher. The question is why does the union allow the DOE to get away with these horrible strategies to terminate the teacher? The answer is that it appears that it is in the Union's best interest to sacrifice some teachers to the DOE termination process for the sake of maintaining a good relationship with Tweed. For the union leaders it seems that an occasional teacher or two that are targeted are not as important as getting along with the DOE overseers. My conclusion may seem harsh to some and I am sure that many of the anonymous union hacks will object to my statement. However, when was the union going to let the teachers know about what lengths the DOE will go to terminate them? Further, the union knew full well that the PIP+ program resulted in a 90% failure rate and that the teacher cannot be charged for not taking PIP+. Therefore, the union had a responsibility to inform its members and their representatives (DRs and CLs) and not keep silent.

It is bad enough that we have an anti-teacher Chancellor in charge but we do not need our union leaders allowing his programs go unchallenged when it adversely affects the teacher.

Dear Team Polazzo - Why Matt Polazzo's Article Is Wrong

On my previous post I received a student commenter from Team Polazzo who asked me why I and other education bloggers believe that their teacher Matt Polazzo was wrong and misguided in his article in the New York Daily News last Sunday. The student was respectful and asked me why we attacked their beloved teacher for speaking his mind. I thought about it and believe that they deserve an answer. Therefore, here is my response.

First, your teacher flatly stated that all the teachers in the "rubber rooms" are "bad" teachers and the ATRs are incompetent. If he really understood the issues concerning the two groups he defames he would have known that Chancellor Joel Klein and his non-educator cronies caused both problems with their anti-teacher policy. The increase in "rubber room" teachers and the ATR mess were caused by closing down schools and cutting school budgets to the bone while encouraging principals to hire inexperienced and ill-prepared teachers to replace the experienced teachers in Tweed's "children last" program.

Second, the DOE brought in a fair student funding program that was not revenue neutral as the program was intended to be. This forced principals to hire the cheapest teachers to balance their budget and as a result many of the worst schools have little or no experienced teachers, just those "Teach For America" two-year wonders who couldn't teach to save their collective lives while experienced teachers languished on the ATR list.

Third, Chancellor Klein gave the Principals power to remove teachers they don't like and kick them off the school payroll in sixty days. The sevenfold increase in teachers in the "rubber room" is not about what is best for the students it is what is best for the principals, many of them with limited classroom experience themselves. For your information 90% of these so called "bad" rubber room teachers are sent back to the classroom after an independent arbitrator hears the case against the teacher.

Finally, the DOE practices age discrimination, both in the "rubber room" and the ATR ranks. I just need to refer you to last year's survey on the Queens "rubber room" as evidence to this. If you consider senior, experienced, and highly paid teachers as "bad" then you should work for Joel Klein's DOE.

I am sure Matt Polazzo is a great teacher and the students just love him and deservedly so. However, his knowledge of what really goes on in the "rubber room" and the ATR issue is sorely lacking. Therefore, his article is misguided, unfair, and inaccurate and he deserves the criticism that he brought upon himself.

The First Results Of PIP+ Is Finally Known And It Is Bad, Really Bad

At one of the 3020-a hearings a UFT official with detailed knowledge of the Peer Intervention Program plus (PIP+) has informed the Arbitrator presiding on one of the teacher incompetence cases that of the first 56 teachers who were given PIP+, 51 teachers were found incompetent by the PIP+ educators. That is a 90% failure rate! Astounding that our union allowed this program to exist at all. I was previously assured by a high union official that the PIP+ program was legitimate and it allowed targeted teachers a six month respite from the administration hounding them. However, it is apparent that the trade off was that in 9 of every 10 cases, the DOE now had an expert witness testifying against the teacher in the 3020-a hearing and an increased chance that the Arbitrator will either terminate the teacher or give more severe penalties than without the PIP+ educator's testimony.

Since the PIP+ program is voluntary, the union should be forcibly advising all Chapter Leaders and District Representatives that no teacher should agree to PIP+ under any circumstances. Remember, an Arbitrator has already ruled that that Administration cannot require the teacher to take PIP+ and cannot be charged with not taking PIP+. We all make mistakes in expecting the DOE to act fairly and reasonably. However, time and again Tweed does what is best for them and not what is best for the schools. Therefore, it is time for the union to admit failure in the PIP+ program and demand its discontinuance. Nothing less should be acceptable.