Most New Yorkers Believe Camen Farina's Tenure As Chancellor Was A Failure And I Agree.

The final poll on Carmen Farina's tenure as Chancellor of the New York City schools, most New Yorker's believe she was a failure.  In a Quninnipac poll 38% rated Carmen Farina's tenure as Chancellor as a failure, while 34% said she was successful.  This was a drop of 10% of Ms. Farina's approval rating since October of 2017.and shockingly was below Joel Klein' final approval rating of 46%..

I also believe that Carmen Farina's tenure as Chancellor was a failure and here's why.

•   Failure to replace 80% of the Bloomberg era managers at the DOE. 
• Failure to change the DOE ideology that hurt teachers and students.
• Failure to reduce the DOE bloat that sucks up 24% of the budget.
• Failure to eliminate Fair Student Funding that hurts schools.
• Failure to reduce class sizes, in some cases they actually increased.
• Failure to fully fund schools with most being funded at 90%.
• Failure to remove incompetent and vindictive administrators.
• Failure to reduce 3020-a charges against teachers.
• Failure to resolve the ATR pool.
• Failure to end discrimination of veteran teachers. 
• Failure to make schools safer.
• Failure to narrow the racial/income achievement gap. 
• Failure to eliminate academic fraud.
• Failure to remove the Danielson rubric and the four observations. 
• Failure to promote independent and fair investigations.
• Failure to properly address student misbehavior.

Note: It took a new Chancellor to force the DOE to reassign John Browne Principal Howard Kwait as Carmen Farina failed to have him removed.  Read about him Here and Here.

The bottom line is that Carmen Farina's tenure as Chancellor of the New York City schools was a failure as she was part of the problem and not the solution when it came to improving the New York City schools.

Our Disconnected Union Leadership Praises Chancellor Carmen Farina. What Were They Smoking?

It.s obvious that our disconnected union leadership does not listen to the classroom teacher and the hostile environment we operate in under the DOE.  In the latest edition of the New York Teacher, the union's propaganda newspaper,  their editorial page praises Chancellor Carmen Farina for her bringing back sanity to the New York City schools.  Moreover, the editorial goes on to say she brought "dignity" and "respect" to teachers.  Finally, the editorial goes on to say that the Chancellor urged collaboration within and across schools.  If you read the editorial you would be led to believe that Chancellor Carmen Farina was the solution to the Bloomberg appointed Chancellors.  The truth is that Chancellor Carmen Farina was part of the problem and not the solution Let's look why.

First, Chancellor Carmen Farina retained 80% of the Bloomberg policymakers and kept most of the destructive DOE programs intact, like Fair Student Funding, Charlotte Danielson, and the ATR pool.

Second, class sizes actually rose under Chancellor Carmen Farina and she funded schools at 87% to 90% of their fair funding.

Third, she failed to remove vindictive and or incompetent principals while teachers facing 3020-a hearings were as high as during the Bloomberg era.

Fourth, by her own admission when she visited schools, she was looking for poorly performing teachers.  Furthermore,  under her veteran teachers are targeted for removal and termination.

Fifth, She has made ATRs who were disciplined second class citizens.

Finally, Chancellor Carmen Farina has allowed the DOE Central Bureaucracy to remain bloated as schools scrounge for resources.

From a vantage point of the classroom teacher, Carmen Farina was just a continuation of the destructive policies from the Bloomberg Administration.

Michael Mulgrew Finally Admits That Carmen Farina's Failure To Clean House At The DOE Is A Problem.

In last night's Executive Board meeting, UFT President, Michael Mulgrew, finally admitted that the middle management at the DOE is problematic and none of them are capable of being selected as the new Chancellor.  It took almost four years for our UFT President to acknowledge that the middle management at the DOE is a problem.  Maybe if Michael Mulgrew had pushed Chancellor Carmen Farina to "clean house" back in 2014, there would have been better collaboration between teachers and the Central Bureaucracy at the DOE.  If you have read my previous posts, Here and Here, you would read that Chancellor Carmen Farina had retained 80% of the policymakers at the DOE.  No wonder the DOE continues to be looked as the enemy by teachers.

Realistically, the middle management at the DOE still runs the operation.  Instead of collaberation, its confrontation,  paperwork reduction has been a mirage as mandates are sent out to schools for more data mining and accountability while they are not held accountable themselves. Finally, they divert much needed resources from schools who are funded at 87% to 90% of their fair funding while the Central Bureaucracy remains bloated with high priced consultants, questionable programs that have little educational value, and programs that incentives principals to "hire the cheapest and not the best teachers" for their schools while having the largest class sizes in the State,

Too bad it took four years for our union leadership to realize that the main problem is the DOE middle managers.  Most educators knew this in 2014.  Read nyc educator and ICEUFT blogs to read what Michael Mulgrew said at the Executive Board meeting.
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The DOE Puts John Adams High School Staff And Students At Risk Due To Bedbug Infestation.

The DOE will always claim that they put children first when it comes to the health and safety of the students.  However, with a lax student discipline policy and the widespread use of cellphones in the schools, bullying and theft is a serious problem.  Moreover,  both students and staff feel increasingly unsafe in their schools as student suspension rates plummet and weapon confiscations increase as student misbehavior is not punished.  Finally, at John Adams High School, a Renewal School,  the DOE chose to keep the school open for the last week, despite a bedbug infestation at the school that could endanger the health and welfare of the people at the school.

Parents. students, and teachers alike were terrified not only from getting bit by the bedbugs but carrying them home to their own families.  Yet, the DOE ignored their fears and kept the school open the rest of the week, thereby, endangering the health and welfare of the students and staff and by extension their families.

The DOE administrators who allowed the school to remain open last week, despite the documented bedbug infestation,  should be punished and even lose their jobs for potentially putting the school students and staff at risk for serious health and welfare problems. Then again, under Chancellor Carmen Farina, the DOE administrators are not held accountable for their poor decisions, even when it affects the health and welfare of the students they are supposed to protect.

You can see the NBC news feed about the bedbugs Here. The ABC news report can be found Here.

Chancellor Carmen Farina Claims She Brought Joy, Dignity, And Trust. What A Joke.

Today Chancellor Carmen Farina announced her retirement and claimed she brought joy, dignity, and trust back to the New York City Public Schools.  From a teacher's perspective I find that a joke.  Let's dissect her statement and see why it's not true.

Joy:
How joyous is it to be subject to mindless and useless 90 minute Professional Development  (PD) every Monday and for another 85 minutes on Tuesday?   I see no teacher smiling and jumping for joy at these mandatory  PD's and other useless ill-conceived projects thought out by the administration.   Further, the Chancellor failed in her promise to remove the 400 principals that she claimed should not be running their schools and has turned a blind eye to principals like Namita Dawarka of William Cullen Bryant and Jose Cruz of Math, Science, Research, and Technology high schools.  Finally, are teachers happy that class sizes remain the highest in the State and that she allows vindictive principals to file termination charges against veteran teachers for the most trivial of incidents?

Dignity: 
Ask veteran teachers if she respects them?.  The answer is a resounding no.  Back in 2014 she told a new teachers conference to stay out of the teacher's lounge where veteran teachers complain too much.  Moreover, she would visit schools and her prime mission was to identify bad teachers and tell principals how to start a paper trail to terminate them.  Finally, she has total disrespect for the veteran laden ATR pool and would fire them all if she could.  In fact, she gave orders for the DOE not to place ATRs in  vacancies at the Renewal Schools.

Trust:
Under Chancellor Carmen Farina the DOE still uses the punitive Charlotte Danielson rubric and insist on 4 to 6 observations when the rest of the State requires only 2.  That's not trust if you ask me.  In addition, academic fraud is widespread throughout the school system as the graduation spikes ever higher while only 22% ever get a 2 year degree at a community college.  The Chancellor looked the other way when it came to "credit recovery", administrative pressure to change failing grade, and a bogus scholarship requirement that penalizes teachers who fail too many students.  Finally, she supports micromanaging teacher instruction in the classroom rather than "let teachers teach" and do what's best for their students.

Chancellor Carmen Farina's failure to eliminate Fair Student Funding that incentivizes principals to "hire the cheapest and not the best teachers" for their students.  Moreover, she agreed to under fund schools at 90% of what the formula requires.  More importantly, her idea of collaboration was with our disconnected union leadership while her polices and administrators practice a top down approach with little or no collaberation between the DOE and teachers.  In fact Chancellor Carmen Farina retained 80% of all Bloomberg policymakers and her failure to "clean house" allowed the Bloomberg ideology to continue at the DOE.

Under Chancellor Carmen Farina the DOE is looked at as the enemy and not a partner when it comes to educating students.  To me its goodbye and good riddance.

Chancellor Carmen Farina Hates ATRs.

Yesterday, Chancellor Carmen Farina told Chalkbeat that ATRs will not be placed in Renewal Schools and that ATRs who were subject to discipline would not be placed in any schools.  The interview with the Chancellor clearly shows that she hates ATRs and believes they are inferior teachers.  Moreover, it also shows how she believes that all ATRs who faced discipline, were guilty, even when an arbitrator, faced with the evidence, found that the teacher was not guilty of the charges.Finally, the Chancellor continues to vilify ATRs.

To me. its not surprising that the Chancellor feels the way she does since she was a Deputy Chancellor under Joel Klein and retained 80% of the Bloomberg policymakers when she was appointed Chancellor under Mayor Bill de Blasio.  Moreover, as Principal of PS 6 in Manhattan she pushed out 80% of the teachers in her school and as Chancellor she went to various schools to seek out poorly performing teachers and advised principals how to start a paper trail to terminate them.

As for the ATRs?  Chancellor Carmen Farina has made it clear that she shares the Bloomberg/Klein ideology that ATRs are "bad teachers"  and that the ATR pool must be drained by any means possible.  While few ATRs would want to work in a Renewal School and we ATRs can celebrate that we will not be dumped into these low performing schools.  I feel sorry for the students in those Renewal Schools who will continue to academically struggle as they experience high teacher turnover and a steady stream of "newbie" teachers that have a steep learning curve themselves. . In other words the Renewal Schools will continue to be separate and unequal when it comes to student and teacher quality.

The Chancellor did gave herself some wiggle room by saying that ATR hiring will be on a case by case basis and that principals will be able to accept or reject the ATR placement.  This seems to contradict what the DOE said about vacancies after October 15 in which principals would have no say in who the DOE sends the school from the ATR pool.

It seems to me that the Chancellor has made it clear she hates the ATRs and our union leadership continues to remain silent in rebutting the erroneous assumptions that ATRs are "inferior" or "bad" teachers.  Then again, the UFT leadership has never stood up for the ATRs so why would  I expect the unaccountable union leadership to do the right thing and stand up for their must vulnerable of members?

Did Michael Mulgrew Blurt Out The Demographics Of The ATR Pool At The Delegate Assembly?

One of the more closely held secrets that the DOE and UFT keep from the members is the number and demographics of the ATR pool.  While its common knowledge that the ATR pool is usually composed of senior teachers of between 1,100 and 1,500 members, getting real and accurate numbers out of the two organizations is like getting water from a rock in the desert.  Next to impossible.  The last number the media was given was 822 ATRs in the pool.  Of course this did not include the ATRs who are provisionally placed and will be excessed at the end of the school year.

Last night, UFT {President, Michael Mulgrew, at the Delegate Assembly, blurted out that after a year and a half of secret negotiations, they came up with an ATR buyout incentive that made 962 of the 1,100 ATRs eligible for up to $50,000 that's not pensionable and still get their retro payments by retiring.  While, its possible that few of the 962 are not of retirement age , I suspect most are.

Sure, some of the 962 ATRs are leaving the system due to either being under 3020-a charges, or moving out of the Metropolitan area, but not many. The vast majority of eligible ATRs are 55 years of age and over, is it 70%, 75%, 80%?  Whatever the percentage is, let's say that every three out of four ATRs are of retirement age in the eligible ATR pool.  What we now know the 822 figure is a phony number that tries to fool the media by falsely showing the the DOE and UFT are succeeding in reducing the ATR pool, when the real numbers have remained relatively stable over the years.


Finally, and most interestingly, Michael Mulgrew failed to mention how the union negotiators, without ATR participation, rolled over like a trained puppy dog and agreed to let the DOE to continue to abuse the ATRs by doing the following:

• Allowed the DOE a second bite of the apple by keeping two ATR lists, one for ATRs excessed from closing schools or programs and the other who won their discipline hearings and only hire from the excessed list.
• Agreed to "force place" ATRs in vacancies or long-term leaves without mutual consent.
• Agreed to let the DOE keep their "Scarlet Letter" on ATRs who had substantiated OSI or SCI investigations only to have those charges found to be untrue at the 3020-a hearing.
• Allowed the DOE to move Elementary and Middle school ATRs to other Districts in the Borough. 
• Ignored the DOE practice of not offering per session grading for ATRs.
• Supported the DOE in making ATRs second class citizens.

Next time a Unity slug shows up from the union or a Chapter Leader tells you how they have your back by protecting your job.  Remind them of the above issues that the union allowed or agreed to that makes the ATR a "stranger in a strange land" and a second class citizen.

Chancellor Carmen Farina's Failure To Eliminate The Bloomberg Era Policies Is Her Failure As A Chancellor.

It has been over three years since Carmen Farina took over as Chancellor of the New York City School System and many of her promises to overhaul the New York City Public Schools and eliminate the Bloomberg era policies have been found to be lacking.  In fact, as a Deputy Chancellor under Joel Klein she is more the problem than the solution. Let's go over some of her statements and see if things really changed?

Class Size Reduction
One of Mayor de Blasio's campaign promises was to reduce class sizes.  However, since Carmen Farina took over as Chancellor not only has class sizes not been reduced, but actually increased, especially in the K-2 grades.

Removing Principals
Carmen Farina once told an audience that there were 400 principals that shouldn't be running their schools.  However, she has failed to remove more than a handful of these failing principals.  In fact, she and her cronies protect the worst of the worst.

Quality ATRs
The Chancellor was quoted by the Daily News that she will vastly reduce the ATR pool by either terminating them or place quality ATRs back into the classroom.  However, she has failed to use her authority to convince principals to hire them.  In fact, she has made little or no effort to penalize principals who hire and use uncertidfied teachers to instruct in core subject areas like English, Math, Science, and Social Studies.  Moreover, many schools give teachers a "sixth period" rather than hire a needed teacher.  The result is that the ATR pool has remained stable during her tenure as Chancellor.

Fair Student Funding
One of the most destructive Bloomberg era policy is the school-based fair student funding that incentivizes principals to hire the cheapest and not the best teachers for their school. Yet, after three years the Chancellor has not eliminated the fair student funding formula from the schools.  The result is a 1,400 ATR pool of excessed teachers without a classroom costing the DOE over $100 million dollars annually. A colossal waste of money and talent.

Administrative Bloat At DOE Central
While school budgets re frozen and school resources are scarce.  DOE Central continues to expand. The New York Post reported that by next school year it will have almost tripled since Bill de Blasio took over. While it was bloated during the Bloomberg years its become even more so under the Chancellor.


Failed to Clean House at Tweed
Carmen Farina had promised that she would bring with her a new policy of collaboration between the DOE and schools.  However, she retained 80% of the Bloomberg era policymakers.  The result is that the schools have experienced essentially frozen budgets, no reduction in paperwork, despite promises to the contrary, and  a "gotcha" mentality between administrators and staff.  The new tone promised by UFT President Michael Mulgrew is simply the same old song when it comes to the New York City Public School classroom.

Renewal Schools
The Chancellor's vaulted Renewal School program is a failure with minimal benchmarks that over half cannot achieve and the Chancellor's claim  that only "highly effective teachers" will be hired at the schools ended up to be a bunch of "newbies" instead.  Worse she spends millions of dollars on layers of bloated bureaucracy and has hired some very questionable people to run the program. In today's Daily News there was a gang fight at Richmond Hills High School, one of the Renewal Schools.

Resolving The ATR Issue
Carmen Farina once told Chalkbeat that she will resolve the ATR situation once and for all but has simply nibbled at the edges with no significant impact.  Her failure to resolve the ATR issue is a black mark on her and the Mayor's administration.

The bottom line, Chancellor Carmen Farina lives in a fantasyland and she has consistently failed to live up to her promises to remake the New York City School System while all the ills of the Bloomberg era still exist to date.

Why Can't Renewal Schools Recruit Quality Teachers?

Public Advocate, Latitia James, has called for a probe of the policies affecting the Renewal School program.  She appears most upset about the declining enrollment, lack of resources, poor and costly consultant services, low college ready scores, and lack of quality teachers affecting the Renewal Schools.  This post will touch on only one of the issues, that's the lack of quality teachers.

Since the beginning of the Renewal School program back in 2014.  The Chancellor, Carmen Farina, has been claiming that the DOE will make every effort to encourage "highly effective" teachers to jump ship and join the Renewal Schools.  While the Chancellor talked a good game the results were very disappointing.  Few, if any quality teachers took the Chancellor up on her offer.  Nobody in their right mind would be willing to leave their appointed position to work for the same money while being subject to more accountability, less preparation time, and a stressful school environment in a school that might close three years down the road and find themselves in the ATR pool.

The Chancellor told Chalkbeat how she will be staffing the Renewal Schools with "highly effective"  teachers.  Instead, the only teachers being hired by the Renewal Schools are "newbies".  Just take a look at the article about Automotive High School.  Moreover,  the Chancellor ignored the data and falsely claimed that quality teachers were applying in droves to the Renewal Schools.  I guess to her "newbies" are quality teachers and that the Renewal Schools were  not losing students despite the latest data.  Finally, the DOE has in their school-based "fair student funding" formula discourages the hiring of veteran teachers who have the classroom management skills and deep curriculum knowledge to control an academically struggling school.

Go to most any Renewal High School in the City and you see fewer and fewer veteran teachers as they resign or retire and are replaced by the latest batch of  "newbies"  who are subject to a steep learning curve and usually jump ship through the Open Market Transfer System.  In fact, a study shows that 80% of the "newbie" teachers end up in another school. You can read about some of the Renewal High Schools Here.

The chances the Renewal Schools can attract quality teachers are slim and none unless major  structural changes are made like offering veteran teachers more money, exempt from Danielson, assurances of placement in another school if the Renewal School closes, and autonomy in the classroom without the micromanagement that adds to the stress and is a hallmark of the Renewal Schools.

To Chancellor Carmen Farina - Tomorrow Really Is A Beautiful Day.

Back in February of 2014, Carmen Farina, the newly appointed Chancellor of the New York City schools wrongly decided to keep schools open, despite the National Weather Services forecast of heavy snow just when children where traveling to their schools.

Her poor decision making was compounded by her statement that "it's a beautiful day", despite a heavy snow and sleet storm happening at the moment outside her window.  She then claimed that it was important for the children to have a hot lunch.  However, few schools had enough staff to make a hot lunch and the vast majority of students trapped in their schools ended up with cold sandwiches.

To make matters even worse she justified keeping the schools open because it was a babysitting service for parents.  Of course most sane parents did not go to work and kept their children home rather than threaten their safety due to the elements.  Moreover, aren't schools for educating children and not a babysitting service?  Finally, it was the first indication that Chancellor Carmen Farina was following the Bloomberg ideology to keep schools open at any cost, even if it potentially threatened the life and limb of children who travel to school through heavy snow and icy roads.

Now that Chancellor Carmen Farina is apparently retiring at the end of the school year.  She and Mayor Bill de Blasio have realized that its more important to keep children safe and have closed schools,  Now tomorrow is really a beautiful day!

Superintendents, The Weakest Link In The NYC Public Schools.

One of the very few improvements Chancellor Carmen Farina implemented was eliminating the useless and money sucking Children First Networks (CFN) and replaced their function back where it belonged with the Superintendents.  The idea was that principals could no longer play one CFN against another and do as they pleased like hiring uncertified teachers for Regents classes and making sure parent voices were not heard if the CFN was geographically located in another Borough.   The idea of giving back the responsibility to the Superintendents was a sound one in practice since principals could no longer do as they pleased and get no pushback from above.  However, this policy only worked if the Superintendent was an excellent educator with good instincts that did what's right for the children of the schools under their jurisdiction.

Unfortunately, under Chancellor Carmen Farina, far too many of the Superintendents were selected not based on their educational ability but on cronyism, favoritism, and political connections.  In fact, some Superintendents needed a  waiver since they never achieved either the ten year teaching experience and at least three years as a school Principal required for the position.  In fact, the Chancellor retained 34 of the 42 Bloomberg Era superintendents or 77% of these questionable leaders.  Add that to the Chancellor retaining 80% of the Bloomberg policymakers and you can see what's wrong with the DOE. Worse, these superintendents continued committed educational malfeasance  by allowing unsavory and vindictive principals to continue to harass staff and hire and use uncertified teachers for Regents courses in the subject area.

Just take a look at some of these Superintendents?  Amiee Horowitz, the Superintendent of the Renewal schools that oversaw the hiring of a whole staff of "newbies" instead of recruiting the "highly effective" teachers that Chancellor Carmen Farina claimed that the DOE was going to employ at Automotive High School,  The result?  The school which now will be merged with another failing school.  Moreover, she ignored Regents cheating and academic fraud instead of exposing it.

Let's not forget Superintendent  Juan Mendez who has put in far too many questionable principals under his administration.  and is under federal lawsuit for racial bias. Here.

There are many more superintendents with questionable educational ability but you get the picture.  Until a new Chancellor is appointed and Carmen Farina finally retires for good, the weakest link will continue to be the superintendents appointed by the Chancellor who herself saw nothing, did nothing, and said nothing when she was Superintendent in Brooklyn during the Cobble Hill Regents cheating scandal.

The Legacy Of Michael Bloomberg Continues, Thanks To Chancellor Carmen Farina.

 





Before Michael Bloomberg became Mayor of New York City, the teaching profession was treated with respect, even if the previous Mayors weren't especially thrilled with the UFT's demands at the negotiating table.  Principals were long-term teachers who gradually found themselves as administrators and, for the most, part collaborated with the school staff.  The Chancellor was an educator and worked with the schools to ensure they had a solid core of veteran teachers while the DOE funded the school staff based upon units and not salary to ensure the principals could hire the experienced teachers, who mastered classroom management and had deep curriculum knowledge.  This allowed the school to keep a stable teaching staff and teacher turnover remained low.  Struggling schools in deep poverty communities were kept open and provided with additional services to help the schools, with mixed success and their was no ATR pool as excessed teachers were given a list of vacancies in their district to select before principals could hire outside the district to fill their vacancies.

Fast forward to the Bloomberg years and everything changed for the worst for teachers.  First, school funding was changed from units to salary and was dumped upon the school budget.  The result was that principals, were encouraged to hire the "cheapest and not the best teachers" for their schools. Moreover, under Michael Bloomberg, 162 schools were closed and few veteran teachers were hired from the closing school as the "fair student funding" (fsf) penalized principals financially from hiring them.  The result was a pool of excessed veteran teachers called the ATR pool that ranged from 1,000 to 2,000 yearly.  To make matters even worse, the fsf for each school was not fully funded and in 2010-11 school year was only 82% of full funding. The exceptions were the Bloomberg small schools who received 100% and some as much as 150% of their fsf. What other negative changes did Michael Bloomberg impose on teachers during his tenure?  Here's a list"

1. Eliminate most on-street parking placards.
2. Close almost all high school teacher cafeterias.
3. Reduced our TDA interest from 8'25% to 7%.
4. No longer able to grieve a letter to the file.
5. Ever increasing class sizes in his third term.
6. Closing schools and excessing teachers - ATR pool.
7. Redirect taxpayer money to charter schools and under resourcing public schools.
8. Attacking teacher morale and autonomy.
9. The leadership academy for principals
10.  Short-changing Science programs (5-1 to 4-1).

I'm sure there are others but you get the idea.

There was great hope that with a new Mayor would come a new DOE, except the Mayor hired a Bloomberg era Deputy Chancellor, Carmen Farina as Chancellor of the NYC public schools.  She kept 80% of the Bloomberg era policymakers and not surprisingly, kept the Bloomberg education programs as well.  The only changes Chancellor Carmen Farina has made was to eliminate the useless and money suching "Children First Networks" and stopped closing struggling schools.  However, she has retained most of the Bloomberg era policies like fsf and the ATR pool, just to name two.

If we are to see real improvement in the schools then we need to get rid of the destructive Bloomberg policies and the Chancellor along with it.

Teachers Vote That Chancellor Carmen Farina And Her DOE Managers Are Not To Be Trusted.

In the school I have been assigned to we had an uneventful Professional Development (PD).  However, there was one part of the PD I found very interesting.  A question was asked by the trainer.  The question was "Do you trust the Chancellor and the DOE in making the proper decisions to help the school"?  I had expected the vast majority of teachers to keep their hands down,  However, not one teacher raised their hand, even the "newbies"!  While I admit this is a very small sample and only one high school.  I bet if this vote was done citywide the teachers would vote over 90% against trusting the Chancellor and her acolytes at the DOE to do what's right for the schools.

Why do the teachers feel this way?  There are many reasons, the continued excess paperwork heaped on teachers, the many "gotcha" administrators that rather confront teachers than collaborate with them, the punitive Dainelson rubric and the asinine student growth metric used to unfairly evaluate teachers. Then there is the many bad principals that the DOE protects despite there terrible leadership and let's not forget how the DOE sucks up the money while essentially keeping school budgets frozen at less than a 100% of their fair student funding.

If the above issues aren't enough?  How about the DOE's policy of going after senior teachers for incompetence, despite the fact they only had one year of "ineffective" ratings!  In one such case a teacher received an "ineffective" rating back in 2014-15.  However, she worked hard and in the 2015-16 school year raised her grade to "developing" for both the observation and her testing components.  This did not stop the DOE from filing 3020-a charges this school year. There was a similar case where a senior teacher received a "developing" from a validator and still was charged under 30200-a and was terminated.

Finally, the DOE still treats the ATRs as unwanted teachers and with one hand offers schools an incentive to hire ATRs, while with the other tries to get their field assassins to terminate the weaker ones.

I can only snicker when I hear our UFT President tell us that there is a different tone at Tweed when for the teachers in the trenches its still the same old song. They continue to be the enemy and not an organization that supports teachers and the vote shows that.

Carmen Farina's Fantasyland When It Comes To The Renewal Schools.

I snickered with amusement as I read the Chalkbeat interview with the disappointing Chancellor, Carmen Farina, and was especially laughing about the lies she said about the staffing of the renewal schools.  If you read the Chancellor's comments you would be led to believe that "quality teachers" were applying in droves for coveted positions in the renewal schools. Unfortunately, the truth is very different.

Let's look at what happened at Automotive High School.  Few teachers reapplied for their jobs and the hired staff consisted of "newbies" with zero classroom experience.  That is what's happening at all the renewal schools.  Few "quality teachers" are willing to jeopardize their careers to work in these struggling schools with "high needs" students while being subject to onerous accountability requirements that make teaching that more difficult. Yet, according to the Chancellor, teachers are applying to the renewal schools so they can be subject to the increased stress, useless professional development, and added responsibilities working in the renewal schools.  Either she is in fantasyland or outright lying.

Even when it came to the attendance issue, the Chancellor was less than forthright.  She made it seem that the student enrollment has stabilized and that at least one school had more applicants than spaces available.  First, most of the renewal schools continue to have enrollment issues and the parents of academically proficient students do not select these schools for their child.  Moreover, many of the renewal schools suffer from safety concerns as the schools have more violent incidents than other schools.  Finally, the increased accountability on teachers add to an already stressful situation at these renewal schools.

The truth is that the renewal schools are not a pleasant place to work in and no matter what the Chancellor claims, its a place that no "quality teacher" would willingly work in.

Chancellor Carmen Farina's Report Card Is A "D" For Disappointing.

Its been two and a half years since Carmen Farina took over the New York City Public schools as Chancellor and she continues to be a disappointment to the students, parents, and teachers of our school system.  Let's look at why the Chancellor has maintained her disappointing "D" rating.


First, the good things she has done,

Eliminated the useless and money sucking Children First Networks and gave the Superintendents  back the power they need to effectively run their schools.  However, many of the Chancellor's selections to be a Superintendent must be questioned, be it Juan Mendez or Amiee Horoiwitz.

Require seven years of school teaching and administration before graduating from the Leadership Academy to become a Principal.  However, she has apparently carved out some exceptions already.

Now the bad.

Carmen Farina has shown that she supported the continued attacks on teachers as her 3020-a numbers are similar to when Bloomberg was Mayor.  Moreover, she has told new teachers not to listen to the older teachers in the teacher's room.

The ATR pool has remained relatively unchanged since she became Chancellor and she is more interested in firing the ATRs than placing them in schools.  Just look at the 2014 contract that made ATRs second class citizens and even tried to overreach by pushing some into expedited 3020-a hearings.

Class sizes have actually rose under Chancellor Carmen Farina and school resources remain scarce as schools struggle with tight budgets while DOE Central remains bloated.

Now the ugly.

Chancellor Carmen Farina continues to support "fair student funding" (fsf) and to make matters worse, the average school only received 86% of the fsf allocated to the school.  Worse, the Chancellor's budgeting shenanigans has resulted in the school;s forced to hire"the cheapest and not the best teachers" for their school.

The Chancellor's failure to remove bad principals after telling the media their are 400 principals who should not be running their schools.

The lax student discipline code that has made schools increasingly unsafe for all.

The bottom line:  Chancellor Carmen Farina gets a grade of "D" for disappointing.

To Our Clueless Mayor And Chancellor, Its School Safety Stupid.

 Parents, students, and teachers were asked how satisfied they were with the public schools and parents gave a 95% approval rating of the education their children are getting.  However, they had one overriding complaint.  You guessed it school safety issues.  All three groups expressed concern to the deteriorating school safety climate and saw their satisfaction levels drop in this category.

The largest drop came from teachers who saw their school safety issue a concern. The 2016 report showed that teachers most affected by the deteriorating school safety issue by increasing 5% from 2015. The percentage of teachers who reported that order and discipline are maintained at their schools fell from 85% in 2015 to 80% in 2016.

Both Bill de Blasio and Carmen Farina claim that suspensions and arrests are disproportionately given to Black and Latino students and therefore, is racial in nature.  However, the head of the school safety agents, Greg Floyd, which is 90% minority (70% women) said the following statements to the Chief with regard to the high arrest rates of minority students.

"Activists like to take statistics and run with them, they don't like to look at the complete picture.  No one is looking to arrest black or white students, they're arresting students who are committing crimes".  

"Given the de Blasio administration's record of allowing crime to go unpunished, I suspect that now there's going to be a push not to arrest anybody in the schools for doing anything."


With the new, more lenient student discipline polices enacted by our clueless and inept Mayor and his disappointing Chancellor, look for school safety issues to become an increasingly dangerous problem as violent and insubordinate students are left in class to continue to terrorize and disrupt the classroom making a peaceful classroom where everybody can learn a pipe dream.

The DOE's Evil Empire Continues.

It was only two years ago when Carmen Farina was made Chancellor and UFT President Michael (don't call me Mikey) Mukgrew claimed there was a new tone at the DOE.  However, we now know that the evil empire at the DOE did not change but continued as the Chancellor kept 80% of the Bloomberg policymakers in place at Tweed.  Under Chancellor Carmen Farina, she has maintained large class sizes, a bloated DOE Central, froze already tight school budgets, kept the destructive "fair student funding" and refused to remove the incompetent and vindictive Leadership Academy Principals that she promised to do. Read about the latest Leadership Academy Principal with no classroom experience who's in trouble for alleged grade fixing and cheating on the Regents.

Worse, was the requirements imposed upon the ATRs under Chancellor Carmen Farina.  First there were the field supervisors who were supposed to assist the ATRs to get positions but in reality they were used to help terminate the ATRs.  Then there was the 2014 contract that made ATRs second class citizens and some became untouchables,  Finally, the DOE decided to abuse the ATR Agreement by misapplying rotating ATRs into temporary provisional appointments simply for the purpose to terminate them in a one day expedited 3020-a hearing.

It now appears the disconnected union leadership has finally realized that the evil empire still exists and has refused to extend the ATR agreement after they saw first hand how the DOE was abusing the provisions.  What is really disturbing is that the union was willing to extend the ATR agreement, with minor changes, until the DOE overplayed their hand and systematically was abusing the temporary provisional assignment simply to terminate ATRs under the ill-defined "problematic behavior" clause.

Some people speculated that the union's silence on the ATR agreement extension was due to their embarrassment on the DOE actions concerning the abuse of the ATR agreement but I believe that the union leadership kept silent because they were hoping to negotiate a continuation of the ATR agreement with some minor changes that protected ATRs from further abuses. When it was apparent that the DOE's intent was to terminate as many ATRs as possible, the union had no choice but to let the ATR agreement sunset and revert back to the 2011 agreement which you can find Here.

Whatever the reason why the union decided to sunset the ATR agreement and revert back to the 2011 provisions, its still far preferable than continuing the terrible 2014 ATR agreement that has caused many an ATR to face 3020-a termination charges.  Maybe our union leadership will now do the right thing and fight to help the ATRs regain their rightful place in being appointed to vacancies permanently and not provisionally. That means eliminating the DOE's discriminatory listing of ATRs who won their termination hearings and the elimination of the scarlet letter on their files even when an independent arbitrator found that the charges against the teacher was found not to be true,

Chancellor Carmen Farina Shows Her True Colors And The Union Leadership Looks The Other Way.

From day one many of the bloggers were wary of the appointment of Carmen Farina as Chancellor of the New York City schools.  It was pointed out that she was Deputy Chancellor under Joel Klein's anti-teacher crusade until she was forced to retire.  Moreover, she bragged about her sharp memory and remembered everything, except when she was interviewed by investigators about the infamous Cobble Hill cheating scandal and couldn't remember anything, despite being Superintendent during that time.  Finally, how about how she replaced 80% of her staff, while Principal of PS 6 in Manhattan and allegedly diverted money allocated for one program to others without approval.  You can read it yourself from Phillip Noble and Betsy Combier.  Read Betsy Combier's latest post about Chancellor Carmen Farina Here.  While the Chancellor replaced 80% of her staff at PS 6 as Principal she retained 80% oi the Bloomberg policymakers at the DOE.

Last year Politico New York reported how Chancellor Carmen Farina's top priority was not improving student academic achievement and bringing joy, respect, and the love for learning back in the classroom but how to remove "bad teachers" from their classrooms.  How about bad administrators?  That's right Chancellor Carmen Farina's top priority was removing teachers and this was her recurring theme taken out of the Politico article.

Fariña said asking principals to weed out their weakest teachers has been her “first statement when I get into any school visit. ... I repeat it over and over again."

To the Chancellor its not about the already too large class sizes, frozen school budgets, or student discipline issues that have exploded during her tenure as Chancellor its all about firing teachers. 

Just read the entire Politico article and one can see that Chancellor Carmen Farina cares little about education, she only cares about having it her way.  Just look at the Superintendents she hired, since becoming Chancellor, be it Amiee Horowitz or others who expect the principals under them to discontinue and slap the "ineffective" label on more and more teachers. Furthermore, who can forget what Chancellor Carmen Farina said about veteran teachers at a new teacher workshop.   Proof ofher anti-teacher attitude can be found in the continued numbers of teachers under 3020-a termination charges as the Chancellor has chosen to justify the employment of the large numbers of lawyers by pushing them to terminate teachers. For different takes about Chancellor Carmen Farina read the nyc educator and ednotes online posts.

The bottom line while the Chancellor continues her anti-teacher crusade our union leadership sees nothing, does nothing, and fails to hear what the Chancellor continues to spew about teachers.

The Destructive Bloomberg Policies Have Not Changed Under Bill De Blasio And Carmen Farina.

There was great hope from real educators when the anti-Bloomberg, Bill de Blasio became Mayor of New York City.  Sure, his selection of Chancellor in Carmen Farina, was a concern given her association with the Joel Klein Administration and some of the sleazy issues associated with her, like the Cobble Hill Regents cheating scandal, and her embrace of questionable academic programs like "balanced literacy".  However,  didn't our UFT President, Mikey Mulgrew, tell us there was a new tone at the DOE and things will be better?  Well, its been over two years and have things become better for the classroom teacher?  The short and long answer is a resounding NO!

Let's look at how things were under the third term of Michael Bloomberg and see if they have realty changed under Bill de Blasio?

Class Size:
Under the third term of Michael Bloomberg class sizes increased significantly and was the highest in the State.  One of the campaign promises by Bill de Blasio was to reduce class size.  However, that has been a promise not kept as class sizes have actually continued to increase under his administration.

School Budgets:
Shockingly, during the first two years of the De Blasio/Farina tenure, school budgets were frozen, despite a 6 billion budget surplus as reported by the Independent Budget Office.  Worse, the average school was funded at only 86% of their fair student funding allocation.  This is about the same as the last term of the Bloomberg Administration.

Fair Strident Funding:
One of the most destructive programs that Mayor Bloomberg installed was the "Fair Student Funding" that in theory, allowed "high needs" students to receive more money while giving less to more privileged students.  However, by attaching it to schools rather than citywide it resulted in principals hiring "the cheapest and not the best" teachers"  for their schools. The result is high teacher turnover, and an unstable school environment for students and staff.

ATRs:
If anything, things have gotten worse for the ATRs.  The demoralizing ATR rotation, making the ATR "a stranger in a strange land" continued from the Bloomberg years and now all rotating ATRs have a field supervisor who, based on "flyby observations" of classes the ATR know little or nothing about, have resulted in many "U" observations and ratings.  In addition, the 2014 contract negotiated with the union leadership has made ATRs a "second class citizen" with expedited 3020-a hearings, mandatory interviews, and automatic "U" ratings when taking more than 10 days off in any one year unless the ATR has documentation, regardless how many days the ATR has in their CAR.

3020-a Hearings:
In the first two years of the De Blasio/Farina Administration, there were an average of 362 educators who were charged under section 3020-a.  By contrast, in the last term of Mayor Bloomberg, the average was 320.  That's right, under the current administration there are more educators subject to termination charges, an increase of 13%!  According to my reports the rubber rooms are not only back but more and more educators are being removed for alleged offenses.

Tenure Denial:
According to UFT Solidarity, there has been an increase from 11% to 50% of teachers who were denied tenure.  In my school of the 4 teachers who are eligible for tenure, not one will get it and have already been told so.  Moreover, member resignations have increased by 38% since 2009.

Paperwork:
Despite assurances that paperwork will be lessened, the opposite has happened under Bill de Blasio  as the DOE encourages principals to get their teachers to use an electronic grading book and update it daily.  In some schools like Frank Sinatra High School failure to have an electronic grading book that is updated could result in possible disciplinary action and has cowered the staff in complying with that directive.

Lack of Autonomy:
During the Bloomberg years the classroom teacher lost the ability to teach, based upon their student needs.  Instead, they were told to follow the DOE model and were subject to "gotcha observations" that followed a checklist rubric.  Under the De Blasio Administration, nothing has changed as Charlotte Danielson is still used and the "gotcha observation" is  almost a certainty.

Clean House:
When Chancellor Carmen Farina took over, there was hope that she would make a through spring cleaning of the Bloomberg managers at Tweed, instead she has retained 80% of the Bloomberg managers in their policy making positions and despite her claim that 400 principals should not be running their schools has removed only a handful and only under media pressure. Overall, there has been little changed in the hostile classroom environment under the Bill de Blasio Administration.  In fact Chancellor Carmen Farina said this about veteran teachers when she addressed new teachers at the beginning of the school year.

* New teachers should avoid the teacher’s lunchroom during the first few weeks. It’s where “the whiners” go to gripe, she said. 

If you find it hard to believe that she would disparage veteran teachers, you can find it Here.

Our disconnected union leadership can claim there is a new tone at the DOE but to the teachers in the trenches its still the same old song.

What Happened To Chancellor Carmen Farina's Promise That Principals Needed Seven Years Of School Experience?

Last year one of the very few positive changes the disappointing Chancellor, Carmen Farina, made was that graduates from the infamous "Leadership Academy" would have a minimum of seven years school pedagogical  experience before even being considered to be a Principal.  However, it appears that the Chancellor's directive is ether not being enforced or ignored by the DOE.  In today's New York Post we find an article about a newly minted Principal, Eujin Jaela Kim, age 33, who apparently has entered the New York City schools in the 2008-9 school year.  How did she circumvent the Chancellor's directive?  Well if you look at her Linked In page you see she was the Deputy Network Leader in 2011 and Director at DOE Central in 2012, before being handed the Principal's job at PS 169 (the Sunset Park School) in May of 2014. The answer to me is obvious.

According to my Math, no I don't need Common Core to figure out her actual teaching experience, she worked as a teacher for a total of 3 years and three months when she took the Deputy Network Leader position in December 2011 an administrative position. Obviously, the Bloomberg holdovers at the DOE have ignored the Chancellor's C-30 directive and allowed Eujin Jaela Kim to become Principal at the tender age of 32 years of age with less than four years of school experience either as a teacher or supervisor.  Obviously, she never was a school Assistant Principal, the logical step to become a Principal.  Was she even tenured?

With Ms. Kim's lack of actual teaching experience, she has made some very poor decisions as Principal  like banning Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the pledge of allegiance at her school and has brought national ridicule to her school and herself as well with her personal political correctness.  You can read about it in the New York Post article Here.  Is it any wonder that only 32% of the teachers trust Ms. Kim as Principal?  By the way the City average is 83%.

My question to Chancellor Carmen Farina is what good are your directives when your Bloomberg holdovers at the DOE ignores them and places a person who obviously needs more seasoning to be a Principal and does not have the support of 2 out of every 3 teachers at her school?  How can you allow these actions and that opens the school to the deserved ridicule it's now receiving?  Is this what you call a good leader and a role model for the students?  No wonder most of us believe you have been a bitter disappointment as Chancellor and your failure to clean house at Tweed is making you.look incompetent and indecisive.