The City Council held a meeting on class size and advocates, like Class Size Matters, recommended that 1,000 additional teachers be hired to reduce class sizes. Interestingly, there are approximately 1,000 ATRs, who are already being paid.and they can be put back into the classroom to alleviate class sizes, without hiring new teachers and paying additional funds.
The reason that the ATRs have not been put back in the classroom is simply based upon the Bloomberg ideology that permeates the DOE policy making apparatus that Mayor Bill de Blasio and Chancellors Carmen Farina and Richard Carranza has failed to remove from office. The second reason is the 800 pound guerilla called school based Fair Student Funding that discriminates against veteran teachers since schools must pay for staff and since most ATRs are veteran teachers, principals will not hire them.
The City has a small pilot program that allows the worst schools to hire an ATR free of charge for as long as they stay in the school but has not expanded the program for all schools. Moreover, the De Blasio administration only funds the schools at 90% of their fair funding. No wonder principals try to save scarce funds by hiring the cheapest teachers and short change their school by having a bare bones support staff. Finally, ATRs who were accused of discipline issues are "red flagged" and principals are encouraged not to interview them for vacancies.
The bottom line, is the DOE does not need to spend more money to reduce class size since it's their Bloomberg ideology that leaves 1,000 ATRs without a classroom which can significantly reduce class sizes to the State average.
For coronavirus related absences, what are the policies from DOE and UFT? Can I use my
ReplyDeleteCAR days to stay at home without being punished?
Definitely not new news.
ReplyDeleteThis has been the case for a while now and is not going away.
Hey, from a political standpoint, it’s a great strategy. When reporters ask why the schools stink the mayor and his puppet can say that there are bad teachers called ATRs and it deflects what is really going on.
Sadly, what the general public doesn’t know or doesn’t want to know is what makes them the general public.
Of course all of this would make too much sense for the doe to institute it. I think they need to do what doesn't make sense to them so it will make sense to us.
ReplyDeleteWhen you go to some schools, and see how great some teachers have it, yet they still complain with the "mild" inconvenience of their admin, I sometimes wish I had a wall to smash my head into. Many of these teachers never had to work a day in their lives and I think of the crap I went through, not having the caliber of students they have and it's just frustrating. It's frustrating, always, being referred to as a sub, when I know full well I could do way more than most of the teachers I see at these schools.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Chaz, love your blog, but would it kill ya to run the spell check once in awhile?
Also these teachers are probably all getting highly effective on their MOTP because their students are so receptive. Place them into a high needs school and they'd probably be at the most developing. I was at a school last year where the students were great but I saw many teachers teaching teacher centered lessons and they probably were getting highly effective because their students were so good.
ReplyDeleteWe need to thank the UFT and Bloomberg for all the policies that are making our schools worse.
ReplyDeletehttps://nypost.com/2020/03/01/united-federation-of-teachers-admitted-it-cant-run-a-successful-school/amp/
ReplyDeleteOne would think now that after seeing Bloomberg perform in the dem debates and the way he handled his presidential run the writing is on the wall that Bloomberg is a bozo. Further Bloomberg was caught on camera picking pizza from a box at his campaign headquarters and then ripping off a piece and putting the rest of the pizza back into the box.
ReplyDeleteTo make matters worse Bloomberg was caught licking his fingers while eating the pizza in open space in these corona virus times.....And this is the guy who was lecturing every one on what to eat, how to eat it and how much to eat or drink for that matter.
Maybe now people will realize that Bloomberg is really some guy who struck it rich with one great idea and by no means is he a brilliant mind and his policies destroyed our livelihoods here at the nycdoe. People thought because he was rich that he knew better but in reality we all knew better. Maybe now the atr pool will cease and sensible policies can be re-implemented into our system
Principal at my school makes 20k in Per Session
ReplyDeleteAp makes 16k in Per session, is that normal?
Seems like They are cutting everything but getting rich themselves
1:21 PM
ReplyDeleteThis is my life. I was the teacher that put kids in groups, spent time developing creative room arrangements, had pair share time and all the "differentiated" lesson plans stuff. As an ATR, I go into schools where they are regularly doing chalk talk (or white board talk). Effectives across the board while I was saddled with Developings. Like yeah, the kids are good. Of course they are getting effectives.
1:21: You hit it on the head. That Danielson rubric is biased towards schools with good kids. 80% of that rubric is based on what the kids are doing. Very little is what the teacher is doing. I'm an ATR and at my last school I saw completely teacher oriented lessons and these teachers were getting highly effectives. It's because when the APs go ask the students what they are doing, the students can answer correctly. It's a matter of the AP hearing what he or she wants to hear.
ReplyDeleteThe majority of DOE lawyers are causing a lot of problems.
ReplyDelete