Wednesday, September 28, 2011

The Mayor's Poodle, Chancellor Dennis Walcott, Demostrates Why He Is Clueless About The Classroom.



The Mayor's poodle, Chancellor Dennis Walcott, held a press conference where he stated that he will close 50 poorly preforming middle schools and replace them with Charter schools and new public schools. He will use the "turnaround model" which means replacing the leadership and 50% of the teaching staff, while leaving the students in the schools. UFT President MIchael Mulgrew responded to the Chancellor's speech by claiming " that all you are doing is rearranging the deck chairs". However, the most serious aspect of the Chancellor's middle school proposal will result in 2,000 more ATRs or a doubling of the current ATR population. Furthermore, the Chancellor apparently has the right to decide which teachers to keep based upon some obscure and undefined merit selection process. Since the Mayor has already stated that the "best teachers are our new teachers" and experience does not count in teaching, guess which teachers will be retained by the "turnaround schools"? Moreover, how many public school teachers will actually accept assignments in the new Charter schools? Not many, if any, since many of these Charter schools do not have the union benefits and teacher "due process" that the public school teachers do. That means some of the "turnaround schools" that become Charter schools will replace their entire teaching staff! Who will replace the teachers that leave or excessed from those schools? Well. the Chancellor already has solved this problem. He stated that the entire class of "Teaching Fellows", with their five weeks of training will be sent to the "turnaround schools". Yes, for the Mayor's poodle, Chancellor Dennis Walcott, the "best teachers" are those"newbie teachers" that cost the least amount of money. In other words its "education on the cheap".

I can just picture what will happen in a classroom as the "newbie teaching fellow" is confronted by the unruly middle school students who were largely responsible for the problems of the school in the first place. The "Teaching Fellow", with no classroom management skills, working in a new and challenging, if not hostile environment, and struggling with a new curriculum is just what the Chancellor ordered to improve these schools. Yeah right! If you really believe that "newbie teachers" are the answer then I have a Bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.

Besides putting the entire recruiting class of "Teaching Fellows" in the "turnaround schools" some of the schools will be the first middle schools to participate in the online based IZONE, where students are essentially self-taught on computers with little teacher guidance. Even in the carefully selected high schools this technology based online program has received mixed reviews at best. Now the Chancellor and his minions naively believe that technology alone will succeed by making immature children responsible in a self-taught program that requires the academic discipline which many of them do not have. Finally, to make matters worse, the already large class sizes will continue as the Chancellor has no intention of lowering class size, an integral part of improving student academic achievement.

Let's see, the Chancellor expects improvements by replacing experienced teachers with poorly trained "newbie teachers" and in the IZONE schools no teacher, keeping large class sizes, and ignoring the social-economic problems these students are exposed to outside the school environment which is the primary cause of the problems with the failing schools. To me that is simply a fantasy and it shows how clueless the Chancellor really is about the what goes on in the classroom.

29 comments:

Anonymous said...

Do you think the DOE will really be moving ATRS around week to week? I'd be willing to wager they won't. Too many moving parts to manage, and too many ATRs being late,lost,or worse.

Chaz said...

I don't think that the DOE is really capable of moving ATRs weekly. However, I believe that the DOE will try in the beginning and eventually give up.

Worse, is the DOE is looking the other way and allowing principals to hire teachers outside the system, despite the ATR agreement.

Anonymous said...

I agree, it will begin with the ATRs and then quickly, and silently end. On the other issue, it's the jelly-fished UFT to blame...really pathetic.

veteran teacher said...

The key to ATR movement is to check the end date in the assignments we are given. True, there are many moving parts, but that is what the DOE wants. Think of it from their perspective: If they can make ATRs nuts(ie not knowing where they go, when they go, the school hours etc), isn't that what they want? It will be pretty easy for a principal to write up an ATR for 'learning curve' errors like not knowing where a room is in a building, being in the bathroom when they rudely page the ATR.

In my opinion, this has all been scripted by the DOE.

Also, I believe we ATRs will be moved week to week this year. It is all computerized. They just set up a computer program and each week, it spits out where we go. If it were done by man power, then it wouldn't happen. I was told by the United Federation of Teachers rep on the phone, that we will be getting our 2nd assignments this Thursday.

To me, it is not the worst thing in the world. They cannot send us out of district and if you get stuck working for a jerk of a principal, then you're gone the next week.

The UFT would love us all to quit and go away, but they cannot sell us out completely b/c if they agree that we get laid off, then there is no union(even though it is only a union in name only now).

veteran teacher said...

Chaz,

The DOE is definitely letting principals hire teachers from the outside. I asked the UFT why they are allowed to do that and I got the obligatory 'we are looking into this' response.

What they do as a city makes no sense and these newspapers are all on Bloomberg's payroll

Anonymous said...

Yeah . . . it's called fascism . . .

Anonymous said...

Can you beleive they placed me in a school in Williamsburg and I live on the southside of Staten Island. What can I doooooo?????

Anonymous said...

H

I was excessed from ...... I received the phone call that I was excessed on August 30th which was one week before the start of the school year. I found out that the principal changed the codes of my classes to allow someone's husband to take my program. He was supposedly placed under a Social Studies license but the last I heard he was teaching as a day to day sub out of the Business dept. I lost the Step 1 grievance and when I contacted the union representative I was dealing with for the Step 2 grievance he said he hadn't looked at the paper work yet. (almost 3 weeks later)

Now they are rotating the ATR's and we have no say in our placement. Everyone says that we are lucky to have jobs. They are sending me from the south shore of Staten Island where I live to a school in Williamsburg/Greenpoint. Am I really lucky? I thought they were not suppose to send ATR's out of their district/superintendency but this has become a murky subject with a creation of a new district???? Accroding to the DOE websites high schools are either classified under a superintendency for example BASIS with its own superintendent etc. or a district. Now, because I feel they are urging the ATR's to quit we are being sent to far off places withing these new districts. I don't know what you can do to help but the union needs to stand behind the ATR's. We are nearly 2000 teachers without a voice or a home! The vagueness about the districts is a fight worth fighting!

Sincerely,


Susan Rau

veteran teacher said...

You are not allowed to be placed outside of your district. Contact your UFT office and demand help ASAP. Even if you have to take a day from work to do it, then do it. The longer you stall, the longer it will hose you. If I were you, I would take Monday off and get it all straightened out.

Anonymous said...

I know that the high schools are not technically in 'districts'. what is your home district oyou were excessed from?

Anonymous said...

The UFT does not care about the ATRS. They want them to resign

FEDUP! said...

I contacted my UFT rep. I am not suppose to report until October 10. He seems confused about districts...so sad! The union is doing NOTHING to help! I was also screwed out of a job at my old school and the UFT rep said last night he didn't have time to look at the paperwork for the Step 2 grievance. I think I knew that I was royally screwed!I was excessed from a school on Staten Island. It really is a hardship to get there.

FEDUP! said...

We are royally screwed. According to an email I got we are not quite understanding what our "districts" are. District 76 is all of Staten Island, Williamsburg and South Brooklyn???????????????????????????

Anonymous said...

that is awful! how is staten island not just a district in itself? i really wish our union was more concerned about its current dues paying members than PR. could you contact an attorney and possibly pose a threatened lawsuit based on a hardship transfer?

Anonymous said...

I would take Monday off if I were you and go down to the UFT borough headquarters and demand to see a rep and demand concrete answers. Calling on the phone does nothing. Call out sick Monday and head down there. Make them notice you

Anonymous said...

I don't have to call in sick. I will go after work. Traveling almost 25 miles to a school seems a little bit of a hardship to me. They are doing this deliberately to make us quit.

Anonymous said...

And the union rep told me it IS in my district! What a joke!

Chaz said...

First, District 75 is a Citywide District and they can send you anywhere.

Second, High Schools are assigned a district like District 77 in Queens.

Finally, it may be computerized. However, as some ATRs are given long-term assignments, it will breakdown and will need to be done manually, at that point look for the week-to-week rotation to end.

Anonymous said...

Did anyone else get a placement yet? I bet they will send everybody to the farthest school from their last school!What happens if we don;t show up to our placement? Do we get fired?

Where You Be? said...

WHERE IS THE UFT?
WHERE IS THE UFT?
WHERE IS THE UFT?

Anonymous said...

We should sue the UFT for misrepresentation and breach of promise.....

veteran teacher said...

we are supposed to receive placement thursday via email. i have been told that all atrs will be receiving new placement. to be honest, the week to week rotation doesn't seem that bad. this system is such a mess!

Anonymous said...

It is amazing the shafting that our union gave us as ATRs. They would love us to just go away b/c they know that as a union to stay a union, they must keep us employed.

On a side note, how many times this week will a UFT rep give an answer of 'we're not sure' or 'we are looking into this' when asked questions at the ATR Q and A sessions

Anonymous said...

I wouldn't care about being moved around if the high school districts weren't so large! We have to make a stand that they cannot not send us somewhere where it imposes a hardship? What district are you in Veteran teacher? Do you know>

Anonymous said...

...and "Randi" gets rewarded by doing the corporatocracy handiwork...she was Bloomberg's Tutta Da Capo...and most responsible for this ATR disaster..."Randi" who boasted she did "seven years in the trenches teaching" while everyone knows she barely worked a year full-time...a sellout Ho she is...

veteran teacher said...

i'm in 32, but i am not in a HS which is good. the HS atrs got a huge shafting b/c no one knows how to figure out the hs districts. the uft can really make you nuts with what they have done. granted, weingarten got us the no layoff clause, but this atr stuff is ridiculous.

Anonymous said...

I looked on the DOE website and high schools there are classified under districts not one is classified 72, 76 etc...the only place I am seeing these very broad districts is on the excessed staff job vacancy site...doesn't the UFT look into this..fight this????? They have deliberately created these districts to screw ATRs over! Go on the nycenet.edu site and every high school is in a district..just NOT the ones listed on excessed staff site! Am I the only one seeing this???

veteran teacher said...

the uft looks into nothing. they are as useless as a you know what on a bull! i love their cop out of 'well, you should be grateful to have a job' that's bs! they have let a city hire newbies from outside the system again. i don't get it. it makes me sick and frustrated. also, when you ask them a question, they give you the obligatory 'we;re looking into it' or 'we don't know at this time'

disgusting! weingarten sold us out big time

Chaz said...

he high schools have been in their own districts since 2000 and they are in the 70's (District 76, 77, etc.) This was before there were ATRs and it was done to carve out the High Schools from the local community districts and their political influence.