In yet another case, of DOE hypocrisy many teachers who were charged with incompetence by the DOE and have settlied their 3020-a cases by resigning at the end of the school year find themselves back into the classroom and teaching students. Yes, you read this right, the DOE after pressuring teachers to resign at the end of the school year based upon incompetence charges are sent back to schools to finish out the year teaching students! Just unbelievable, and hypocritical. I know many of you think I am making this up but it is true. I know at least 12 teachers who took settlements to resign at the end of the school year, rather than fight a losing battle because of PIP+ at the 3020-a hearing. All, yes all the teachers were put back into schools and most are back in the classroom teaching students.
Now just think, these teachers were charged by the DOE under State Law 3020-a with incompetence. That means that the DOE believes that these teachers should not be teaching the students and yet if the teacher settles the incompetence charges by resigning at the end of the school year, they are almost immediately sent to a school and in many cases given a classroom to teach the children. If these teachers were really incompetent, how could they be allowed back into the classroom? The answer is quite simple. The DOE knows that many of these teachers are not incompetent, they are either old (very few young teachers are charged with incompetence), make too much money, the Principal does not like the teacher (see the Iris Blige article), or don't fit the culture of the school. In my experience with the teachers charged with incompetence the majority are quality teachers that fit one or more of the issues I identified in this article.
For all you media outlets, how can you justify the DOE filling charges of incompetence against a teacher and once the teacher resigns due to the incompetence charges are sent to teach in a classroom with students until the end of the school year? Now that is just another case of DOE hypocrisy that the media closes their collective eyes to.
13 comments:
If I didn't know better, I would swear you wre making this stuff up. It is unbelievable.
Are you saying these teachers should be asked to resign on the spot? Don't you want these teachers to have at least a few months of income to transition into another source of employment?
To Anonymous -
He's not suggesting that. He's merely making the point that if the DOE truly thought these teachers "incompetent", they shouldn't be put back into the classroom at all. Sending them back underscores the frivolity of the original charges against them.
Anon 10:42
You hit the nail on the head.
It is not about whether the teacher is incompetent it is that the DOE went to great lengths to pressure them to resign only to dump them back into the classroom until the end of the school year.
I agree. These incompetent teachers need to be fired immediately.
This last person missed the point of the article also. Again, The point being made here is not that incompetent teachers are being placed back into the classroom, but that the DOE is willing to reinstate teachers that have been officially deemed incompetent. It causes one to doubt the sincerity of the DOE's original objectives, as well as the credibilty of the original charges against the teacher.
I understand that but I will restate: These incompetent teachers need to be fired immediately.
@4:50pm. Apparently the argument is too opaque. These teachers have not been shown to be incompetent. They have been removed for incompetence, which may or may not be true. It may or may not reflect that an administrator simply dislikes them. They are entitled to due process before being terminated. It is the burden of the DOE to prove inompetence, which they have not done, and they undermine their own claims by putting them back in the classroom. If the teachers are NOT incompetent, then the DOE should withdraw the charges against them. If they ARE incompetent, then the DOE should not be allowing them in the classroom. Either way, the DOE is negligent.
@4:16 just a minor point about semantics - these teachers have not been "officially deemed"incompetent. They have not even been formally charged with being incompetent. They have been ACCUSED of being incompetent. Yet their accusers have not brought forth documentation or evidence of the accusations. It's a few steps away from being "officially deemed" anything. It's good to have voice your support and to hear your clear-minded thinking - just please bear in mind that one or two words can change the entire tenor of a comment.
J:
I could not explain it any better then the way you stated it. The DOE is not only negligent but hypocritical in their approach to teachers who settle incompetence charges.
Just a quick response to Anonymous @ 9:49: I was thinking that the teachers mentioned by Chaz were found by to be incompetent at their hearings. However, after reading through the article again, I can see that the charges were most likely dropped in return for their resignations. So, you would be right in pointing out that these teachers were not "officially deemed" incompetent. Thanks for the clarification!
Postcript: By the way, whatever a teacher has been charged with, whenever there is a settlement and a stipulation is drawn up, the teacher has to acknowledge that they were charged. The DOE really loves its work.
Back @4:16 - actually, you made me go back and read it again, too. We're dealing with really fine shades of meaning - "deemed to be" versus "acknowledged that" and it's all so troubling. Chaz did write that they "settled," which requires an acknowledgement, sort of like a defendant pleading to a lesser charge, thereby acknowledging guilt of some sort. However, we all know anecdotally that plenty of defendants plead out because their cases aren't strong enough to win at trial, not necessarily because they're guilty. I'm sure most of these teachers just wanted out - who wants to sit in the Rubber Room for years and years?
Whatever these teachers did, however competent they are, the DOE accused them of it, the teachers settled for whatever reason, and yet they're back in front of kids. I still stand with Chaz on the hypocrisy. And one question I'd like to have answered - why not fill those spots with the teachers on the ATR list? Argh, I'm getting such a sick feeling over all that's happening. I can't even think straight any more.
Anon 4:16:
That is the union's position to have the ATRs fill in and reduce class size. However, Bloomberg & Black have a political agenda to not doing this.
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