The DOE Continues To Target Senior Teachers.

When Bill de Blasio replaced Michael Bloomberg as Mayor and selected Carmen Farina as Chancellor, the UFT President. Michael Mulgrew, proclaimed "there's a new tone at the DOE". However, Chancellor Carmen Farina, who had been a Deputy Chancellor under Joel Klein and only retired when the Chancellor made Eric Nadelstern his second in command over her, was really part of the problem and not the solution when it came to real change at the DOE.  Chancellor Carmen Farina retained 80% of the Bloomberg policymakers and told new teachers not to listen to those complaining veteran teachers in the teachers room.  For the teachers in the trenches things remain unchanged.  More about the history of Carmen Farina can be found in a previous post.

In just about every school I have traveled to or speak to other teachers, they tell me how the administration and the Office of Legal Services at the DOE are going after senior teachers.  The latest anecdotal evidence shows that the majority of teachers under 3020-a charges are senior teachers as are those teachers in the ATR pool.  It seems that if you are a senior teacher that the DOE has painted a target on your back and the principals and ATR supervisors are their willing executioners.  True, some school administrations value their senior teachers as role models and mentors but when you consider that 25% of the principals come from the infamous "Leadership Academy" and the Superintendents have told principals under their control to target their "weakest teachers", the temptation is for these principals to target senior teachers due to their salary and seniority status.

The union leadership had hoped that things would change with a new administration but the reality is "the more things change the more they remained the same".