Sunday, November 24, 2013

Is There Age Discrimination In The ATR Pool? You Bet There Is!


In the last ATR meeting with the union in October at the UFT Queens Borough Office, approximately 100 ATRs showed up to listen to what the union had to say Here.  Looking at the crowd showed that almost all the ATRs were over 40 years of age.  Of course, I didn't ask the other ATRs their ages but "seeing is believing". In my informal observation I saw less than 5 young-looking ATRs in the audiance.

Fortunately one of the teachers set up an e-mail poll to find out what the age distribution of the ATR pool was.  To no surprise to me and to many other independent educators, it showed that almost all the ATRs were over 40 years of age.  The results are listed below.

Under 40 years of age.................................2%

40 - 49 years of age..................................12%

50 - 59 years of age..................................48%

Over 60 years of age.................................38%

Astoundingly, 86% of the ATRs who responded to the e-mail survey are 50 years of age or older!

Unfortunately, the union will tell you its not age discrimination but salary, seniority, and those frequent earthquakes in Japan, for that matter or any natural disaster under the sun, but not ageism as their basis that there is no age discrimination occurring at the DOE when it comes to the ATR pool.

I shouldn't have to remind our union that our students need "quality teachers" in the New York City public school classrooms.  Instead they remain silent as the DOE encourages principals to hire the "cheapest and not the best teachers" and fails to challenge the DOE on their "education on the cheap" policy.  This is the Achilles heel of Tweed's claim that its "children first, always" and the union should be running commercial;s to expose it.

To me, "children first" means schools have the freedom to hire those "quality teachers" that are in the ATR pool without worrying about the cost and that means bringing back teacher hiring by units and that part of the budget should be handled by the Central Office and not.the schools who don't have the best interests of the students they are supposed to be looking out for.  Instead, these principals hire untested "newbies" and use their students as "guinea pigs" when it comes to instruction.  Just look Here. for examples how principals hire now."

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

The most amazing thing about this is that bloomshit bloomberg will go on TV or radio and boast how we have the best and brightest in our classrooms all the while knowing that he has strangled principals forcing them to hire teachers who still look like students roaming the halls of our schools. Such disgrace, such shame, such deceit by the bloomberg administration.

Anonymous said...

Joel Klein you piece of sh**. Just reading past articles on how this piece of garbage called Klein who created the ATR pool(ugly as sin) was throwing ATRs under the bus claiming they are losers, not wanting to work and so forth when the truth was exactly the opposite -these are some of the finest teachers we have in the system!! Klein where ever you are, I hope you rot in hell you ugly, no good, loser, lazy martian looking excuse of a human being

Anonymous said...

EVA MOSKOWITZ EARNING 500K per year still crying about her precious space she wants in our schools.....awwweeee
Can Moskowitz get her carcass to a dermatologist? I haven't seen so many warts since the toads in the pond near my old house.

Anonymous said...

I am over 40 - 18 years in the system - Bloomberg closed my school and I have been an atr for 3 years. What the DOE has done is criminal - they should all be prosecuted and then they can all go to you know where.

Anonymous said...

We live in the USA. We pay union dues. Age discrimination is against the federal, state and city law.
So why aren't all of us demanding equitable and fair treatment? The staff at these schools call us subs to our faces and treat us like mildly retarded oddities. The administration realize that the union is not protecting us and are abusing those who are fearful and meek. I was in a school last week where the principal asked my atr colleague to mop the staff room! What's most disturbing is not our union's complacentcy, it's ours.

Anonymous said...

wanted to add that atrs are deprived of all kinds of PD. We are never told where or when pd is and we are usually not expected or invited to attend. As a result I have not learned anything about common core or Danielson at this critical time. We should be taken out of the daily crap of being treated like garbage as subs and we should be given a lot of comprehensive pd on these issues.

Anonymous said...

great post and let everybody understand how the ATRs are disrespected, discriminated against, and are larhly ignored by the union and the DoE.

I noticed that... said...

Before my retirement, I was a chapter leader at my school for over 7 years. I made absolutely sure that all the ATRs were treated with respect starting with Administration down to the students and even with the custodian staff. It was upmost important for me and for our profession that my ATR colleagues were treated as professionals. Unfortunately, there were a few ATRs that would very easily give up their rights knowing that I was there to support them. I think those few were so used to giving up their hard-fought rights at other schools because either there were no chapter leaders or it's the path of least resistance by giving in and up.

I can't wait for de Blasio to start his administration where, I hope, our profession will be respected. I can't believer that our profession went through so much for 12 years with the little tyrant.