Today, May 3rd, is teacher appreciation day and I received a call by a devastated twenty year teacher who was given her 3020-a charges today by the DOE. If that wasn't disgusting enough, another veteran teacher told me that he was told by his Principal that he will be given his second consecutive "ineffective" rating and that he should retire rather than face 3020-a charges. Finally, on this date three years ago a teacher I knew quite well was officially terminated by the DOE after going through his 3020-a hearing. Yes, for the DOE teacher appreciation day is just like any other day to deliver the bad news to teachers they target for termination.
The DOE has shown that the only teachers they appreciate are young and inexpensive "newbies". To the DOE, the only "quality teachers" are the ones who never question authority, don't have an institutional memory, and have not attained tenure. Remember what Chancellor Carmen Farina said about veteran teachers? Worse, school administrators are encouraged to micromanage teachers in their classroom and teacher autonomy is discouraged. Finally, the DOE has made it clear that student misbehavior is no longer a suspend-able offenses and teacher safety concerns are minimized while students academic achievement suffer from the continued presence of misbehaving students and electronic devices that result in no action or a restorative justice program that the students think is a joke.
On this teacher appreciation day, teachers continue to teach in fear, as school administrators use the punitive Danielson rubric on them, dump 34 students in a classroom that includes ICT classes with more than 12 students who have IEPs and blame the teachers when these students don't test well due to the unacceptably large class sizes. demands an audit for teachers when a student disputes theuir grade, Finally, the DOE's bloated data mining and legal departments mean more money to attack teachers, be it their evaluation results or filing 3020-a charges due to alleged misconduct while keeping school budgets at less than fully funded. That's how the DOE appreciates the public school teachers of New York City by continually putting a target on them.
You're right, Chaz. It's getting rough out there in Farinaland. I know a teacher who was recently charged with neglect of duty and/or engaged in theft of service for sending repeated emails to his proven corrupt former Regents-tampering AP and to educational and government institutions and agencies DURING WORK HOURS (without so much as a mention or a shred of mercy re the teacher's apparent a good faith attempt to force a no-brain audit of the still disputed Regents exams to settle a case covered up by the Chief Counsel of De Blasio's Department of Investigation. God love him/her.
ReplyDeleteThis kind of news almost literally puts a tear in my eye. What happened to the happiness of teaching in NYC? Been teaching 20 years and the climate today is that of oppression and fear. I honestly think the state of affairs is all due from Bloomberg. He is gone but his cronies and reign of terror still exist.
ReplyDeleteThe overwhelming majority of those who are oppressing us from APs and Principals to the back office people, superintendents, etc are all politically liberal, supportive of Obama, the Democratic Party and talk passionately about social justice et al.
ReplyDeleteThink about that for a moment.
In the latest Teacher magazines we all get, the theme is pro-democratic, pro-diversity, pro social justice and rah, rah, rah. Oh, and pro common core, pro Danielsons and pro 'teacher accountability.'
Many have noticed our unions have rolled over and drank the 'we need to reform teachers' Koolaid.
Teachers and unions always talk about the 'evil' conservatives ruining education. People, the Left is the main group in the driver's seat. They think 'old, white, racist' teachers' are the reason for minority failure, so they make all these gimmicks to get us out. Welcome to the brave new world. Do not expect justice.