When Bill de Blasio ran for Mayor he claimed he was to fully fund the public schools and reduce class sizes. He also pledged to "clean house" of the Bloomberg ideology at the DOE and reduce the administrative bloat at Tweed. Instead, he appointed a Tweed insider, Carmen Farina, as Chancellor and she retained 80% of the Bloomberg policymakers and failed to reduce the administrative bloat, especially lawyers..
The Mayor and Chancellor failed to fully fund the public schools, giving them only 90% of their fair funding, despite a 6 billion dollar surplus.. Further, the Mayor and Chancellor has repeatedly refuse to reduce class sizes, despite a CFE court case that allocated State money to do that. Finally, the Chancellor continued the tricks that reduced the need for more teachers by reducing class time and limiting classes to three days for physical education, art, and music.and reduces Science from six classes to five.
The ATR pool still exists with a thousand ATRs rotating from school to school. The discrimination against senior teachers continues, and the school based fair student funding which penalizes principals who hire veteran teachers and financially incentives principals who hire inexpensive "newbie" teachers.
Now Bill de Blasio has hired an outsider as Chancellor and while the new Chancellor is starting to clean house at the DOE . However, the Chancellor's racial policies are very disturbing and are inappropriate. The well respected. Ed the Apple blog gave the Chancellor a APPR ratting of developing and to me, that's being kind. Unfortunately,, Chancellor Carranza has not tackled the problems identified above. Instead he is selecting people with questionable or no credentials to run the DOE, while not changing the policies that are damaging the NYC public school classroom.
The new policy in the schools is let students cheat on Regents exams if you can. When I was grading ELA Regents I saw many students in the same room had the same central idea for part 3. It looked like they were coached or given a hint of where to look in the text for a central idea. Also at FHS the ELA department had writing prompts, outlines and student sample Regents essays strategically posted in classrooms where the ELA Regents was being given. Also, they overlook cell phone use here. The teachers are not required to take cell phones while proctoring. They should have a state auditor at every high school during Regents to ensure policies are being followed and that there is no fraud. This is why you have to take increased graduation rates and increased Regents scores with a grain of salt. A lot of those figures are fudged.
ReplyDeleteMulgrew claimed at the last executive Board meeting that there were only 350 ATRs. I guess those 350 ATRs must all be in my school. This is your last week to opt out!
ReplyDeleteMaybe the rest of them qre being harassed to leve.
Deletecome on give the kids a break here in nyc...many other cities there are no regents to cheat on
ReplyDeleteThey like corruption so much even the UFT
ReplyDeletei question any of the readers of this blog to find me a time in the last 20 years ( or more recent) where the NYC DOE has been this dysfunctional? My "real question" to all this is where is the UFT in all this?
ReplyDeleteUFT United we failed together.
DeleteChaz can you please do a blog on retirement and taxes. The most efficient
ReplyDeleteway to take out your money out of the TDA,457,IRAs and pension?
Speaking of cheating on the Regents. Check out the Susan Edelman article in the NY Post about the kid caught using his cell phone on a Regents at Bronx Science. The administrators allowed the student to delete his info and are saying this is an isolated incident. So much for the "elite" schools. Regents results are a sham!
ReplyDeleteThe principal of La Guardia HS was fired yesterday, and given a cushy job at the Board.
ReplyDeleteThe Post has reported incidents of numerous incompetent administrators being given jobs as "talent coordinators at Tweed. Why can't they just be fired? Why are taxpayers paying them $150,000 or more yearly to push papers at the Board?
Teachers are let go on a daily basis, while the sacred cows of administration stay on.
To the person who asked ,"where is the UFT in all this?"
ReplyDeleteThe politically correct sugar-coated answer might be that they're working on it or they'll look into it, but the correct answer...the true answer is that they are in bed with the NYC BOE. Otherwise, filing reports and claims against admin would actually matter and be addressed. I've heard it mentioned that About 10 -15% of filed complaints are actually followed up on depending on if the rep feels the complaint is valid. I'd bet that if union dues were not forced to be paid and we were able/allowed to pay for the services we actually received, the UFT would be the type of union expected of its members.
To Chaz; Thank you for the time you take to write/update this much needed blog. I doubt it will help anything though. Those connect to the UFT and Carranza would just over-look this as the usual employee complaints and just go on about their day as usual. Crooked organizations will rarely keep tabs on how their members are being treated but would, most likely, address the situation by retaliating against those complaining. And if you think this is unreasonable then I'd ask why comments are posted by "Anonymous" and not their name?
I've heard it said that the NYC BOE is being taken over by "The Spanish Mafia." And just one comment from Chaz ( pasted below ) shows that the comment of "The Spanish Mafia" holds much merit. I would name one particular school in Queens in which admin/staff of Hispanic heritage are guilty without a doubt of cronyism, but knowing many staff in this school, I'd not want to cause them any more stress and racist retaliation than they already deal with. And oh yes!, there IS racism in many of the NYC schools. Union reps will shake and shudder at the mention of this, but trust me, as an insider and "educator" this IS what happens. The age discrimination that is widespread across the NYC BOE system is obvious and admitted to by union reps however, dare anyone play the race card, it just doesn't 'jive.
However, when racism is reversed and it's white people being targeted, all hell breaks loose. Can you tell me why this is? By the way, I'm white and not racist but am slowly adopting a racist attitude towards those of Hispanic heritage and even white people; those who are, in fact, racist. I'm done now and stepping away from the podium. I think I'll start my own blog of all the injustices happening on a daily basis at a particular Queens' school. I'll include the inflation of grades in order to have a high passing rate percentage. I've many notes to share on this and other topics that admin would not admit to and teachers would not speak of... while still working. Me? I'm fortunately and happily retired-:)
"Unfortunately,, Chancellor Carranza has not tackled the problems identified above. Instead he is selecting people with questionable or no credentials to run the DOE, while not changing the policies that are damaging the NYC public school classroom."