Sunday, May 07, 2017

What The Tenure Numbers Mean?



























Last week Chalkbeat published the latest tenure figures supplied by the DOE and it showed that 34% did not earn tenure.  However, what the data also showed that most of the teachers denied tenure, eventually received tenure the following year.  The discontinuance rate remained steady at 2%.  The Chalkbeat article  along with the tenure graph can be found Here.  It needs to be noted that under Bill de Blasio the probationary period is now four years rather than three years during the Bloomberg years.

Under Bloomberg, the tenure approval rate ranged from a high of 97% in the 2006-07 school year to a low of 53% in his last year as Mayor in 2012-13.  Interestingly, the discontinuance rate has remain relatively steady during the last decade, between 2% and 3%. On the other hand 6% of the teachers who were denied tenure the previous year received it the next year.

The data shows that while more teachers earned tenure under Bill de Blasio, the fact that over a third of teachers had to wait an extra year or two shows that the influence of the Bloomberg policies are still in effect as many of the DOE managers are holdovers from the Bloomberg administration and the Chancellor, Carmen Farina, was a Deputy Chancellor under Joel Klein.

Of course, the bigger problem is not the recruitment of teachers its the retention as 50% leave the profession within five years.  While tenure is a worthy goal,  keeping teachers in the NYC classroom should be the real goal.


17 comments:

Anonymous said...

The tenure process at my school has literally been torture on the new teachers. So many have been extended, jerked along, made to feel they will be fired at any moment. Admins these days are psychos and many love to inflict PTSD on their workers. I got tenure the last year it was easy to do so. Now these ridiculous 'tenure binders,' endless meetings, extra observations - it's all mind-boggling in how much psychological damage it inflicts. I have seen many young teachers at my school crying, broken-spirited and running away from the profession.

Don't take solace in a 'teacher shortage' in NYC to 'punish' those lousy reformers - there are hundreds of applications for every teaching position in every school. I work in a renewal school, and for 10 positions last year, we got 600 resumes. 600! NYS also lowered teaching standards by elimination the basic competency test so more can get through the pipeline. Teachers are a dime a dozen now.

Anonymous said...

I disagree with 5:40 and that people are applying for positions.

I teach in a decent school. People aren’t kicking and screaming to teach at my school. They were still looking for people until the first day of school. Maybe they were more picky, but they didn’t have oodles of applications. I remember when there were oodles, not any more.

I will agree that new and newish teachers are being tortured. Well, so are senior teachers. Well, all the teachers in between are too.



Anonymous said...

5.40: The supply will always be greater than the demand. The way I see it is that it doesn't much matter either way because they will always go for the cheapest and most easy to manipulate candidate. This is irrespective of whether or not they have 600 applications or 6,000 applications.

Anonymous said...

Thank you Chaz for all your posts

Anonymous said...

Just read about the new parking permits! What do you guys think?

Anonymous said...

ANONYMOUS maybe you lump yourself into that "dime a dozen" category, after all you do work in a babysitting factory! many are hard working teachers (professionals) who take great pride and honor in what they have become and achieve everyday! 90% of those resumes are from idiots who changed jobs and just want the summers off!! the worst school system in the country makes it easier to do just that!!!!

Anonymous said...

Parking permits are back but not for the ATRs? We will need to get a special permit for each school we are assigned to? CONFUSING! We should just get one permit for all of the NYC schools! There are itinerant passes being issued as well! Are we not itinerants?

Anonymous said...

Take my word for this as I am a social worker in the NYC school system. Under Bloomberg the system suffered dearly with teachers, students and other school personel being moved around like the pawns he thought we were. Mike Bloomberg did so much damage to the schools in NYC so let me explain:
1. Bloomberg closed great schools that offered so many options for students for small schools with little resources, small cramped space and everyone on top of each other including social workers in the same offices as secretaries.
2. Bloomberg took every teachers parking permit away leaving teachers and other educators like myself to fend for a parking spot in the south bronx.
3. Bloomberg created the ATR pool which is a group of teachers with 15 or more years of experience to be housed in school lounges and out of the classrooms with the goal of firing as many teachers as he could.
4. Mike Bloomberg stated that we could have 80 students in the classroom if the teacher is a “good” teacher
5. MIke Bloomberg closed ALL of the teacher cafeterias in all NYC schools leaving teachers to have no where to eat lunch – reason Bloomberg closed all the teacher cafeterias is because he said they lose money
6. Mike Bloomberg did not give the teachers a raise since 2005 and left the mayors office in 2014 with expiring contracts for all city workers including teachers, police, fire dept. all because the miser did not want to give anyone a raise.
7. Mike Bloombergs net worth went from 5 Billion when he took office in 2002 to 40 Billion when he left in 2014. How is that possible?
8. MIke Bloomberg kept guidance counselors, social workers in the ATR pool basically just sittiing around every day because he wanted to fire as many people as he could who were makiing a decent salary- meanwhile the students were suffering with no social emotional help in the schools
9. Intead, MIke Bloomberg had so called “not for profit” organizations come into the schools and have people with less than bachelor degrees play social worker and counselor with the students
10. Mike Bloomberg had 3 school chancellors during his tenure. The first one Joel Klein had ZERO education experience instead he was a lawyer. Klein later had to resign as he was so hated by teaches he was not allowed in the schools. Then Bloomberg hired Kathy Black a debuntante (Betsy Devos type) with not education experiece at all in fact she worked in the publishing industry if you can believe that one. Kathy Black lasted all but 3 months as parents demanded he get rid of her.
Mike Bloombergs tenure in the NYC schools has been a disaster and let no one tell you anything different just listent to the soldiers in the trenches for the truth.

chris said...

This last post is 100% FALSE . I've spoke to friends that are AP's and they aren't getting many resumes outside the NYC teachers that' are just trying to move to another school . The teachers coming into the field or still looking is so thin , it's scary . Teacher shortage is coming .

Anonymous said...

given you work for the "worst" school system in the country I can see your argument about psycho administrators, newbies being jerked along, endless meeting, broken spirits blah blah blah. since you work in a baby sitting factory you must lump yourself in with the "dime a dozen". there are many high quality teachers who come to work daily with excitement and spirit ready to take on the challenge. I would argue that 80% of those 600 resumes are from new appointees who either changed careers just so they could have the summers off!!!

Anonymous said...

There is totally not a teacher shortage. My school hired 10 new teachers this year outside of the DOE veterans. ROOKIES!

I know for a fact that local colleges are still producing teachers by the thousands.

The issue is that the DOE is the last resort for young people. And I cannot blame them.

Once they realize you need a relative who is a superintendent in the suburbs to get hired the neophytes have zero choice but to come into our crap system

Anonymous said...

I was on the hiring committee two years ago, and some of my work friends were on it last year. We did indeed receive mountains of resumes last year and the year before. Some demo lessons were done in my class (I volunteered). The quality is low, as some of the posters here suggested. Most of our resumes were from teachers looking to change schools because the admins were so bad in their current places.

And just because we complain doesn't mean we are just babysitters biding our time. I am recognized as a top teacher in my school by all. I smile at work, but inside I see the rot in the system and wish others would too. You can have Socrates as a teacher, but if he knows he has to drink the hemlock a few hours from now, he might not be so eager to sing the praises of the local educational system.

Anonymous said...

We as a society gave Bloomberg the opportunity to make money off of us and to make the billions of dollars that he has. He doesn't believe he should allow other people to make a decent living or be able to afford their rent.
That's real greed. Me only.
Let's not forget the air conditioning. After we finally got air conditioners he decided we shouldn't use them except for JUNE and 3 weeks in September. Even if your windows don't open. Just suffocate. But he didn't turn his AC off. He's got his on. And we allowed this.

Unknown said...

Repost by Asyarh We as a society gave Bloomberg the opportunity to make money off of us and to make the billions of dollars that he has. He doesn't believe he should allow other people to make a decent living or be able to afford their rent.
That's real greed. Me only.
Let's not forget the air conditioning. After we finally got air conditioners he decided we shouldn't use them except for JUNE and 3 weeks in September. Even if your windows don't open. Just suffocate. But he didn't turn his AC off. He's got his on. And we allowed this.

Anonymous said...

725 pm,

Do you honestly believe the quality of teachers giving demo lessons is low?

What do you expect? In this system, we are expected to make chicken salad from chicken you know what.

And remember, one day you're viewed a 'top teacher,' but one mistake and that 'top teacher' label comes off

Anonymous said...

Yes, many newbies from outside the city try to teach the students as if they were better behaved, English speaking suburban white kids. Won't fly in the real classrooms of NYC where chaos is seething and ready to blow at all times. The demos reveal this.

I am mindful of the ease with which a 'great' teacher can be targeted and labeled as bad for no reason. I have seen it happen to too many veteran teachers who did nothing to deserve it. I actually expect to be targeted at some point because the age discrimination in the DOE is breathtaking in its scope and depth. I am not far from early retirement so I have decided not to let it stress me out.

The 'system' we work for is corrupt, staffed by idiot supervisors who are out-of-touch and populated by essentially non-Western students, even if they were technically born here. Western civilization is collapsing. We try to maintain it, but let's be realistic.

Anonymous said...

I agree that Bloomberg did much to wreck teacher's spirit. Giuliani had it out for teachers too, but the mayor who wouldn't leave (Andrea Peyser's line) had almost 12 years to be mean to teachers. My consolation is that Bloomberg really wanted to be president- or at least vice president. But he was too afraid to try-after all, who would vote for a New York City billionaire?