What Place Should Be Renamed For The Outgoing Chancellor? The Teachers Room Toilet.

A prime example of when a school's Principal does not collaborate with his or her staff is found at Francis Lewis High School, where the new Principal, without even bothering to discuss it with the Chapter Leader or the consultation committee, decided to honor outgoing Chancellor Dennis Walcott, by renaming it the "Dennis Walcott college office.  The letter objecting to giving the Chancellor this honor was sent to the Principal by the school's Chapter Leader Arthur Goldstein and can be found on the nyc educator blog.

While its the right of the Principal to rename parts of his school as he pleased, I must question why the Principal would  rename the college office for a Chancellor that oversees a school system where only 22% are "college ready" and the latest available statistics showed that 23% needed "triple remediation" in college.  The Chancellor's "legacy of failure" makes it puzzling that the Principal would ignore his staff and bestow that honor on Dennis Walcott.

If teachers were able to rename a part of the school for the Chancellor then the most appropriate place would be the teachers bathroom toilet.  To me, the Chancellor has dumped on teachers during his three year tenure.  His policies are summarized as "Mayor Bloomberg first, students last"  has resulted in the following:

• No contract.
• A punitive evaluation system that looks to terminate teachers.
• A useless ATR rotation system
• Forces schools to hire the "cheapest" not the "best" teachers.
• Closed neighborhood schools. 
• Rising class sizes.
• Hypocrite when it came to disciplining teachers and administrators.
• An unacceptably wide student achievement gap.

 Therefore, I propose that the most appropriate place to be renamed for Chancellor Dennis Walcott, is the teachers bathroom toilet where we can sit on when we take a dump.

Hypocrite Chancellor Dennis Walcott Hires A Man Who Was Found Guilty Of Harassment And Retaliation To Be Principal Of Troubled Flushing High School

The hypocrite Chancellor has done it yet again.  He proclaims that there is "zero tolerance" of teachers accused, but not found guilty of sexual misconduct but gives his managers and administrators a pass when they are accused.  Now we find that the Chancellor has hired a man, James Brown that was sued for sexual harassment, bullying.  racist comments and retaliation against a female dean at a Baldwin middle school who won the lawsuit against him.  Notice, this was not just an accusation but a lawsuit where the preponderance of evidence presented showed that Mr. Brown was found guilty of such behavior.  The story can be found here.

Mr. Brown was removed from the Baldwin school in 2009 and was sent to the District office, away from the children, until he resigned in 2012.  Mr. Brown was also accused of saying sexually inappropriate comments. While at Baldwin, Brown was accused of remarking on the tightness of a female student’s pants, said a federal lawsuit against him.  He also said to the female dean to make a school report “tight as a virgin’s, well, you know what is tight on a virgin,” she reported. Yet our so-called "zero tolerance" clueless Chancellor hired him to be a Principal of an already troubled Flushing High School, unbelievable!

Chancellor Walcott has, once again, has been exposed as a hypocrite and practicing a "double standard" when it comes to teachers and administrators.  Remember these stories  here and here?
It seems our clueless Chancellor does not "practice what he preaches" when it comes to selecting and disciplining the DOE administrators.  Thank goodness we only have 99 more days of his inept and terrible leadership of the New York City schools.  Tick, tick, tick.

Chancellor Dennis Walcott's Teacher Approval Ratings Are In Cathie Black Territory And That's Bad, Real Bad.

Well if there is any question how teachers feel about Chancellor Dennis Walcott, the 2013 Learning Environment survey certainly clinched it.  Gotham Schools published the findings on how teachers felt about Dennis Walcott's tenure   In the survey a question was asked "Are you satisfied with the job the Chancellor is doing"? What was reported is as follows:

Satisfied..............................................Dissatisfied
 27%                                                         57%

What's surprising is that 27% of the teachers are satisfied with the Chancellor, what planet are these teachers from?  Certainly not the planet Earth. How does Chancellor Walcott's rating stack up with the scores of the last two Chancellors?  Let's compare them.

...............................Satisfied............................Dissatisfied

Joel Klein....................30%....................................48%

Cathie Black................27%....................................54%

Dennis Walcott............27%....................................57%

That's right when compared to the incompetent and unqualified Cathie Black, Dennis Walcott's 
percentages are actually worse!  There are more teachers who were dissatisfied or very dissatisfied
(57%) with Dennis Walcott than when Cathie Black was Chancellor (54%).

While its obvious that the three Chancellors under Mayor Bloomberg have been unpopular, Dennis Walcott was supposed to bring with him a kinder, and gentler supervision.  Instead Dennis Walcott has alienated teachers with his advocacy for punitive measures, especially against teachers in the classroom.  Let's look at the issues that have made the Chancellor so unpopular with the teachers.

• His lack of independent thought from the Mayor's anti-teacher crusade.
• The Chancellor's advocacy on the "LIFO" repeal.
• Ever increasing class sizes and tight budgets.
• A total failure to connect with the teachers in the trenches.
• A lack of accountability at the top and an ever widening achievement gap.
• The closing of schools and more money going to charter schools.
• His demand to overturn arbitration decisions on charged sexual misconduct cases.
• The continuation of failed policies and meaningless graduation statistics.
• The "fair student funding" formula that stops principals from hiring the best teachers.
• The continuation of the ATR crises. 
• The "double standard" when it comes to disciplining teachers and Tweed managers.

As a teacher if I had 57% of my students dissatisfied with me, I would be a failed teacher and should be terminated.  However, the Chancellor is not held accountable for his poor scores. but the good news come January 1st, 2014, Dennis Walcott will be gone and just a bad memory.  Hopefully,. the next Chancellor will be an educator and discontinue the failed policies under the Bloomberg Administration.

Chancellor Walcott, First Clean Up Your Own House Before You Complain About Teachers.

Unfortunately, the rag, the Daily Snooze, oops I mean the Daily News has once again went after teachers that were accused of "sexual misconduct" but were found by an independent Arbitrator to have committed no such thing.  To Walcott and Bloomberg it doesn't matter if there is evidence to support the accusation.  Just being accused is good enough for them. Evidence?  who needs any damn evidence, if the student or administrator says the teacher did it then it's off with their heads!

At this point I would like to clarify that any teacher found guilty of "sexual misconduct" by an Arbitrator is automatically terminated.  In fact. here is what the UFT/DOE contract states on being found guilty of "sexual misconduct".

  In 3020-a proceedings, a mandatory  penalty of discharge shall apply to any tenured pedagogue a) found by a hearing officer to have engaged in sexual misconduct or b) who have pleaded guilty to or been found guilty of criminal charges for such conduct.


That's right!  The independent Arbitrator must terminate the teacher if that teacher is found guilty of "sexual misconduct".  Unfortunately, our Chancellor is not intelligent enough to understand that evidence is required and hearsay or gossip are not evidence.  Moreover, he fails to differentiate between a teacher having sexual intercourse with a student and a teacher that touches a clothed shoulder of a student to reassure her.  To him it's all the same. He wants the right to fire them all!


Presently, the Chancellor can terminate his DOE employees without a hearing if they are accused of "sexual misconduct" but has failed to do so.  For example take the case of DOE CEO John Shea who was accused by two females of "sexual misconduct" and have federal lawsuits against him.  What action did the Chancellor take?  None!  How about the two leadership academy principals who also have been accused of misconduct of a sexual nature.  Anissa Chalmers, and Emmanuel Polanco.  They are still principals of their schools!  If that's not enough how about the case of acting Principal John Case Jr who was found by OEO to have sexually harrasses female subordinates and students at the school.  In defending Mr Chase, Chancellor Dennis Walcott said the following.

 On the new allegation, he said, “Just because an accusation is made doesn’t mean a person is guilty.”

That's right!  Our zero tolerance Chancellor for teachers is quite tolerant when it comes to his managers and administrators.  What a hypocrite and a phony. It's a good thing that he only has 188 days left in his tenure and we finally get an educator that truly understands education and what goes on in the classroom and not the walls of Tweed and City Hall.

An Interview With Chancellor Dennis Walcott

After reading the transparent propaganda piece that the Department of Education published about how Chancellor Dennis Walcott will improve teacher training and accountability, I decided it was important to print the truth of what the Chancellor really meant.

Doubling Teacher Training:  What the Chancellor really wants is to train more principals in how
 to terminate teachers by using the Danielson Framework rubric that includes 62 different items and also includes "Common Core", Differentiated Learning", and "VAM (Junk Science)" as  the basis for teacher evaluation.  He wants the money used to pay coaches to train principals how to properly document a teacher's weakness and provide support to initiate termination proceedings against these teachers.

Accountability: We will require teachers to be held accountable for student educational outcomes despite failing to provide the proper resources, services, and having the highest class sizes in the State .  Accountability is only for teachers and not the non-educators at Tweed,who are the real culprits who waste a billion dollars on near-useless technology and higly paid consultants for the lack of student academic achievement.

The Current System: The current system requires the DOE to show "just cause" to terminate teachers "ineffective ratings", even if the teacher is not "ineffective".
and requires the DOE to show real evidence to an independent Arbitrator to fire a teacher.  With the new system we can terminate teachers after two years of

Will the Teacher Evaluation System Work?  Who cares if it works or not?  We just want to terminate as many teachers as possible, especially senior teachers.

Do Teachers Trust the New System?  The Mayor does not care
what teachers think since he hates teachers and since I am the Mayor's poodle, I gladly follow his orders..

Why Chancellor Walcott Should Go To Jail.

Clueless Chancellor Dennis Walcott has shown what a wonderful role model he is to the students by defying a judge's decision to allocate $240 million dollars to the New York City schools and has instituted a "hiring freeze" until the Bloomberg Administration exhausts their appeal process.  The result is a high teacher attrition rate with many classrooms without a full time teacher and an increase in class size. As of the beginning of the second semester (January 29th), 400 teachers have left the system and have not been replaced and the DOE expect another 300 to leave before the end of the school year,. for a total of 700 teachers not replaced. 

The fact that Chancellor Walcott has defied a judge's order to distribute the needed funds to the New York City classrooms is outrageous and hurts the children.  The Chancellor's willful disregard of the judge's order should earn him some jail time.   In addition, the City Council's education head said the following about the Chancellor and his Tweed buddies:

"The judge should hold them in contempt of court and, if necessary, fine them and put them in jail," said Manhattan Councilman Robert Jackson.

The DOE had instituted the cuts back in late January which surprised the City Council and lead to many angry questioning of the Chancellor and his staff.  The Chancellor's response to the questioning on why the DOE included the cuts when a judge ordered them not to so was to claim that the City was appealing the ruling and they decided not to include the $240 million dollars in the school budget process while the appeal is ongoing.  It is just incredible that the DOE refuses to follow a lawful order to provide the necessary funds to the City's school children because of political considerations.  But then the inept Chancellor is the Mayor's poodle and does not have a mind of his own. He does what the Mayor tells him and not what is best for the children.

Fewer teachers, larger class sizes, and a lack of resources are the result of the Chancellor's terrible "children last" decision to disobey the judge.  Yes, if I was the judge I would throw Dennis Walcott in jail and throw away the key until the $240 million dollars in desperately needed funds are restored to the City's public schools. For Chancellor Dennis Walcott and his Tweed buddies it is just another example of "children last.....Always".

Mayor Bloomberg & Chancellor Walcott Caught In A Big Lie!

It now seems likely that there will be no teacher evaluation system, at least until after the UFT election in March.  Despite the union and the DOE coming to an understanding on what the teacher evaluation system will have.  Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Walcott vetoed the proposal, primarily because the Mayor demanded no "sunset provision" and the Chancellor apparently didn't like the enhanced and expedited grievance provision after allowing his Tweed administrators to approve it.

At first, it was difficult to know who was telling the truth our union leadership who keeps secret any agreements until it is too late to object and likes to keep its members clueless to what is actually going on or the Mayor, who is known to lie time and again based upon his political calculations.  However, it has become increasingly clear during the day that the Mayor has lied and the Chancellor is trying to claim no agreement was made despite the CSA president Ernest Logan saying there was one with the DOE until the Mayor intervened.  Furthermore, State Education Commissioner John King admitted that the draft sent to him by the DOE contained the "sunset provision".  Read Leo Casey's article about the last minute negotiations here.

Apparently, the Mayor squashed the UFT/DOE agreement when he found out that the two sides agreed to the "sunset provision" of two years at which time the two sides could revisit the results of the Teacher Evaluation System and make the necessary changes to ensure that the system is fair.  Instead the Mayor demanded that the Teacher Evaluation System be made permanent with only changes being made by the DOE, with the UFT having only an advisory role in the process.  In other words, a teacher termination program, especially for highly-paid veteran teachers.  In the Mayor's world it is "his way or the highway".

The Chancellor, in a letter to the Principals, made no mention of the "sunset provision" but claimed that he disapproved of it because it reduced Principal decision-making and took away their authority.  The letter can be found at Gotham Schools   Moreover, the Chancellor does vaguely admit that a Principal Evaluation System was agreed upon but he claimed that the DOE needed both agreements not just one. Finally, the DOE tried to sneak in at the last  minute, a scoring rubric that would maximize teacher "ineffective" ratings and gave the union only 24 hours to analyze the numbers. yet the Chancellor parroted the Mayor's complaint that it was the union that added the revised information and delaying the process. Realistically, the Chancellor is simply the Mayor's poodle and whatever the Mayor says is what the Chancellor does and if that means to lie on demand, so be it.

It now turns out that over 90% of the State approved Teacher Evaluation System has a "one year sunset provision".  Not the two years offered by the UFT, and the Mayor  called those one year sunset provisions a "sham".  However, no school district in the State has agreed to an indefinite time period.  Yet the Mayor demands one so that his legacy would be to put in place a permanent teacher termination program. Not now, not later, not ever!

It is time to move away from the destructive Teacher Evaluation System" that incorporates "junk science", student growth factors that are undefined, and will adversely affect teachers with a challenging population. Our union should start from scratch with the next Mayor and start with a new contract that contains the "City pattern",  including full retroactive pay before agreeing to any Teacher Evaluation System.

The Stupid Mistakes That Mayor Bloomberg And Chancellor Walcott Made in 2012.

It is time to recap the year 2012 and remember the stupid mistakes that Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Walcott has made for the past year. Let's start with the first month of the year.

January - Mayor Bloomberg had a temper tantrum when he couldn't get his way and terminate 100% of the teachers found to be "ineffective" under the proposed teacher evaluation system. I guess 87% was not enough for Mayor moneybags..The Mayor instituted the "turnaround model" that would throw 50% of the staff into the ATR pool and leave the renamed school with a multitude of "newbie teachers", a recipe for educational disaster. The union files a lawsuit and won which resulted in a 58 million dollar loss of much needed funding for the NYC schools. What a knucklehead!

February -  During this month Chancellor Walcott, despite being told that the Teacher Data Reports (TDRs) had large errors and were inaccurate, allowed them to be published anyway.  What ever little good will the Chancellor had with teachers was permanently lost and while it did embarrass some teachers it showed how politicized the DOE was and even parents were up in arms against the Chancellor for publishing such meaningless data while refusing to release FOIL data about his own employees..

March -  Dennis Walcott's DOE decided that many common and everyday words would be eliminated from school tests.  Such inflammatory worlds as evolution, dinosaur, and forty-eight other commonly used words were not to be used in tests for third to eighth grades.  How did our Chancellor responded to this idiocy?

Chancellor Dennis Walcott says lists of banned words are common. “This is not just New York,” he said. “This is across the country.”  What a leader! 

April -Mayor Bloomberg claims that independent Arbitrators would "give a serial ax murder a slap on the wrist".  What an idiotic statement and yet the Daily News failed to take the Mayor to task for ranting such nonsense.

May -Chancellor Dennis Walcott proposed a "generous buyout" for ATRs but forgot to clear it with the Mayor and let it drop.  Good thing he did since his idea of a "generous buyout" was not too generous.  The average ATR buyout would be $14,000 and the maximum was $25,000, not very generous at all.

June - The Racial/Income student achievement gap is as wide as ever under the Mayor and Chancellor as their policies show no improvement in overall student learning.

July -In fact the racial student achievement gap has actually widened!

August - The Jamaica High School fiasco shows that under Chancellor Walcott "children first" rings hollow.

September -High school SAT scores actually fall under Chancellor Dennis Walcott's tenure.

October - After more bad news on his educational policy, Mayor Bloomberg's statement before superstorm Sandy hit that the City is well prepared for it and he will be sending City workers to neighboring communities since Sandy will have a less of an impact that tropical storm Irene. Of course, the opposite was true.

November -Mayor Bloomberg blames teachers and not his failed policies that ignore poverty for his poor educational results, despite evidence to the contrary.  What a phoney!

December -Chancellor Dennis Walcott's tenure is marked with failure as he practices a "double standard" and is a hypocrite to boot.

The future - It looks increasingly clear that the City will lose an additional $250 million dollars in State aid since there is no Teacher Evaluation System (TES) due to the Mayor's stubbornness when it came to the appeals process.  In summary, the educational leadership of Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Chancellor Dennis Walcott in 2012 has been a failure and more educational disappointment is expected for 2013.

The Chancellor's Tenure Has Been A Failure As He Refuses To Remove Managers And Administrators Who Commit Serious Misconduct.

During the inept tenure of Chancellor Dennis Walcott we have seen no significant improvement in student academic achievement, poor college and career readiness rates, and a wide racial/income academic achievement gap.  Moreover, the Chancellor has shown no independent thought and  obediently obeys the Mayor's every demand.  Hence my nickname of him as "Bloomberg's poodle". However, his biggest failure is his reluctance to take action on administrators and managers who commit serious misconduct. His failure to remove and replace wayward DOE administrators and managers under him demonstrates to the rank and file that there is a "double standard" and anything the Chancellor says must be taken with a "grain of salt".  Let's look at the Chancellor's failure to take action against his administrators and managers.

CEO John Shea:  there are two federal lawsuits claiming he oversaw or participated in sexual harassment of female employees and allegedly underpaid them. The accusation is that he ran a "frat boy" organization and yet the Chancellor refuses to remove Mr. Shea.

Principal Linda Hill: She has been accused of misappropriating $40,000 in school funds and "double dipping" by being in two places at once. She has also been accused of not clocking in on her per session time card and hand writing the times herself.  She has also looked the other way when it comes to her Assistant Principal committed "corporal punishment". Yet the Chancellor has closed his eyes to the alleged misconduct by Principal Linda Hill and her administrative cronies.

Ex-Principal John Chase Jr: This Principal was eventually demoted to an Assistant Principal after OEO found him guilty to the charges against him under Chancellor's regulation A-830 of sexual harassment against female employees.  Furthermore, he apparently tried to solicit a relationship with a 15 year old girl.  Yet the Chancellor said the following of that disturbing allegation.

On the new allegation, he said, “Just because an accusation is made doesn’t mean a person is guilty.”

Really now!  The Chancellor didn't seem to have the same opinion of teachers, especially the 16 teachers who he pronounced guilty despite the decision of independent arbitrators who found no sexual misconduct.  What a phoney and hypocrite he is.  There are others and you can find them Here

The Chancellor has not only been a failure academically but in ignoring the legal remedies available for administrators and managers who have committed misconduct.  Is it any wonder that we teachers have no faith in the decision making of Chancellor Dennis Walcott.

Why Chancellor Walcott's Op-Ed Piece Is A Bunch Of Trash As He Pleads For The Power To Fire Teachers Accused Of Sexual Misconduct But Found Innocent By An Independent Arbitrator.

I read with some amusement the Op-Ed piece by the Mayor's poodle, Chancellor Dennis Walcott in the New York Tmes and couldn't believe the spin he put into the article as he pleaded for the power to arbitrarily fire teachers accused of sexual misconduct but were found innocent by Arbitrators.  In his piece he wrote many things that were either misleading or untrue.

First, He claims that substantiated investigations are proof enough that he would terminate teachers, regardless what the actual evidence is.  People familiar with my story and my blog know that these investigations from OSI and SCI are not independent but are biased and unfair against an accused teacher.  In fact, the Principal has a great deal of influence on how the investigation goes.  If the Principal does not like the teacher, you can guess the investigators will substantiate bogus, false, and frivolous actions, and even hearsay statements as proof of sexual misconduct.  I guess the Chancellor does not want the inconvenient truth that evidence should be used as the basis for determining if teacher sexual misconduct actually happened.

Second, he knows full well that when it comes to sexual misconduct, the Arbitrator does not "split the baby" as he claims.  An Arbitrator who finds even minor sexual misconduct is required to terminate the teacher.  In fact here is what it states:

  In 3020-a proceedings, a mandatory  penalty of discharge shall apply to any tenured pedagogue a) found by a hearing officer to have engaged in sexual misconduct or b) who have pleaded guilty to or been found guilty of criminal charges for such conduct.


The Chancellor knows very well what the rules state.  What he ignores is that if these Arbitrators were not following the rules then why does the DOE keep them on the panel year after year?


Third, the Arbitrators rule on the preponderance of relevant evidence not unfounded hearsay, rumors, and gossip or worse, unsupported accusations aided and abetted by unscrupulous Administrators.  Of course, in Chancellor Walcott's  piece he assumes all substantiated investigations and accusations are true, except when it is about his principals, that the Arbitrator's decision can be overturned by him.


Finally, the Chancellor claims that he should have the authority to make the final decision.  However, based on my and other cases he apparently does not have the necessary knowledge or patience to read the transcripts of the 3020-a hearings but takes the lazy way out by reading the so-called substantiated investigative  conclusions as his basis for making his decision to terminate teachers.  Consequently, I must question his judgement to fairly evaluate the evidence since he ignores the Arbitrator's reasoned decision and will base his decision on the politics and not the evidence.


Please read Accountable Talk's post for another response to the Chancellor's op-ed piece.

According To The Chancellor The Truth Is What He Claims It Is, Not What The Evidence Shows As He Fails To Understand What Sexual Misconduct Is.

Over the last few days young female teachers have been accused of engaging in sexual misconduct with their male students.  Based upon the selected information presented so far it does certainly look like they committed sexual misconduct  Of course only time and evidence will tell if they really did. However, the Chancellor, when discussing alleged teacher sexual misconduct,  went further, and brought up the cases of the sixteen other teachers (all but one older and male) that he claimed had found to have committed sexual misconduct and should have been terminated.  According to the New York Daily News, he sent the UFT President Michael Mulgrew the following letter.

“From time to time . we hear reports of teachers who engage in inappropriate, and sometimes sexual, misconduct with students,” Walcott wrote in a letter to United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew.   "Unfortunately under current law, when these reports are true, it is left to an arbitrator to decide on the punishment.”.

Notice how the Chancellor assumed that the charges against the sixteen teachers where found to be true?  While I cannot talk about the other cases, I will talk about my own on what is true and why the Chancellor is not capable of understanding the truth.

• Truth, the most senior and respected Arbitrator on the panel threw out a phony letter to the file back in 2004 as "unfair and inaccurate". Yet the Chancellor did not bother to include it to the media. when he tried to vilify me.

• Truth, A second Arbitrator found no "probable cause" that I committed sexual misconduct in 2008.Yet the DOE wasted over $500,000  in pursuing charges they knew were frivolous and also failed to include that information to the media..

• Truth, the 3020-a Arbitrator found no "sexual misconduct" after weighing all the "preponderance of evidence" in 2011.

• Truth, my Arbitrator told everybody that she was leaving the panel after my case.  Therefore, she did not need to "split the baby" as the Chancellor and Mayor falsely claim

• Truth, the DOE failed to appeal when the Arbitrator's decision was rendered. If they were so sure that I committed sexual misconduct, why would you not appeal?

Here are some other truths that the Chancellor fails to, or is unable to understand.

• Truth, that any  teacher that commits sexual misconduct is automatically terminated by the Arbitrator based upon the UFT-DOE contract Article 21G-6 pg 120.  It states the following.

          In 3020-a proceedings, a mandatory  penalty of discharge shall apply to any tenured pedagogue a) found by a hearing officer to have engaged in sexual misconduct or b) who have pleaded guilty to or been found guilty of criminal charges for such conduct.

• Truth, the Chancellor claims that any SCI or OSI investigation that substantiates the charges, no matter how frivolous, is "proven". 

• Truth, according to the Chancellor a fair and impartial hearing where evidence is necessary is not as important as a biased or politically motivated investigation and the bogus charges that result from them.

• Truth, the independent Arbitrators are jointly appointed to one year terms by the DOE and UFT and can only be reappointed yearly when both sides agree that they are doing a good job.  Therefore, the Bloomberg/Walcott claim that the Arbitrators are influenced by the UFT in determining the penalty is a lie.

• Truth, the Chancellor practices a "double standard" when it comes to Administrators and teachers, see here and here.

• Truth, the Chancellor has blindly followed the Mayor's policy without question.

I must conclude that the Chancellor's idea of truth is vastly different than the common person.  In the Chancellor's world the truth is what he and the Mayor claims it is not what is real.

   

Chancellor Dennis Walcott Proposes to Give A Generous Buyout For ATRs. What Does Generous Mean? Not Much If You Ask Me.

It seems that Chancellor Dennis Walcott has finally given up trying to fire ATRs by imposing a time limit on being an ATR.  Since he now realizes that the union has no interest in negotiating a contract with the Bloomberg Administration and even then Michael Mulgrew has made it clear that he has no intention of giving up the ATRs by imposing a time limit in the next contract. So instead of the stick, the Chancellor is offering a carrot by giving buyouts to ATRs.

While the Chancellor is vague on the buyout offer, he did say it will be "generous" compared to other cities buyout offers.  Dallas gave a $10,000 buyout while Washington D.C. offered a $25,000 buyout for teachers in good standing.   The best guess is that the buyout offer will be $1,000 per year of service which makes it somewhat equivalent to but certainly not superior to the Washington D.C. buyout offer.

The proposal by the Chancellor is quite flawed since the only ATRs that will take the buyout offer are those ATRs ready to retire anyway.  One of my ATR friends had her final pension consultation and was putting in her retirement papers next month.  Now she intends to stay until September so that she can get a $26,000 buyout package.  Who can blame her?  Sure, some but not many other ATRs will take the buyout offer because they want to leave the profession anyway.  The vast majority of ATRs will thumb their collective noses at the "generous buyout".

The majority of long-term ATRs (greater than one year) are senior teachers who are highly compensated and therefore are usually shunned by principals.  Remember principals control their school budget and due to the  "fair student funding formula" are very reluctant to hire senior ATRs due to these budgetary reasons. Furthermore, between ex-Chancellor Joel Klein, the DOE, and the media, the ATRs are looked at as failed or burnt out teachers.  Even in today's New York Post editorial the article demonizes the ATRs so why shouldn't principals, especially the "Leadership Academy Principals", believe it?   Despite the demonizing of the ATRs, many of them  are hard working teachers, who, no fault of their own, came from closing schools, excessed due to the elimination of the school program, and a target of phony discipline issues by vindictive principals.

I personally cannot see any teacher under 62 (unless part of the 25/55 program) taking the "generous buyout".  Certainly, any ATR under 55 will thumb their collectives noses at it since they cannot collect a pension or retiree health benefits until they reach 55 years of age.  So just what is "generous"?  I guess it is in the eye of the beholder. I suspect the Chancellor will be very disappointed when he realizes that his "generous buyout" policy will result in few takers.  If the Chancellor really wants to eliminate the ATR problem simply reimpose the requirement that excessed teachers  in their district are placed in the vacancies.  Any other proposal is doomed to fail and a waste of 100 million dollars.

Further Proof Of Why Chancellor Dennis Walcott Is A Hypocrite When It Comes To Disciplining Teachers & Administrators.

It now turns out that ex-Principal John Chase Jr. of Bronxwood Academy was subject to a new Office of Equal Opportunity (OEO) investigation when the parents of a 15 year old freshman girl called the police because the ex-principal tried to apparently solicit an improper relationship with her.  According to the New York Post article in today's paper, John Chase Jr, told the girl not to go to her guidance counselor but to him with her problems.  He was alleged to have seen her alone and called her "special" and he was "watching her".  The girl became scared and the police were contacted.

What did the Chancellor say about removing the pervy Principal?  You got it, the Chancellor claimed that John Chase Jr. was demoted to Assistant Principal because of his poor testing results on Regents.  Just unbelievable!  Better yet, according to the New York Post article, the Chancellor said the following:

On the new allegation, he said, “Just because an accusation is made doesn’t mean a person is guilty.”

Wait a second, is this the same Chancellor who said that he believes sixteen teachers should have been fired based upon accusations that failed to hold up as evidence in the independent Arbitration process?  What a hypocrite the Chancellor is.  Furthermore, why wasn't the Special Commissioner of Investigations (SCI) called in after the police were contacted?  Instead it went to the more compliant OEO group, why I ask?

To the Chancellor, you are a first class hypocrite and anything you say can not be believed by any educated person.

The Chancellor Data Report Shows That Dennis Walcott Gets A Zero.

In the uproar that followed the release of the bogus "teacher data reports" (TDR) it is only fair that the Chancellor also be given a numerical grade on his ability to run the Department of Education.  Unlike the complex and complected mathematical formula that only blogger JD2718 can understand, I simplified it to an easily understandable equation.

CDR = I + Tm + Sa + Cr + Pi +Sg

I     = Independent thought from the Mayor.
Tm = Teacher morale.
Sa  = Student academic achievement.
Cr  = Career & college readiness.
Pi  =  Parent Involvement.
Sg = Racial/Income student achievement gap.

The Chancellor has shown not one ounce of independent thought from the Mayor's.
Moreover, under the Chancellor's tenure, teacher morale has sunk to an all time low.
There has been no improvement in student academic achievement under Dennis Walcott.
The same is true when it comes to "career and college readiness" rates.
Under Dennis Walcott parent involvement in DOE policy decisions are still non-existent.
Finally, the racial/income student achievement gap has remained unacceptably wide.  Therefore, when I input the data into my formula here is what I get.

CDR = 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 =  "ZERO".

Yes, the Mayor's poodle, Chancellor Dennis Walcott, gets a big fat "zero" in his Chancellor Data Report.

The Mayor's Poodle, Chancellor Dennis Walcott, Deserves An "F" In His First Year In Office

Chancellor Dennis Walcott has completed one year as Chancellor for the New York City Public School system and I have graded him an "F". Why has his tenure been so unsuccessful? Let's breakdown his lack of accomplishments as Chancellor since April of 2011.

Independence From The Mayor's Agenda:

The Chancellor has shown not one ounce of independent thinking and follows the Mayor's commands without question. He has proven to be the Mayor's "lap dog" in deed and thought. His unquestioned support of the Mayor's highly unpopular education policies is disgraceful. The Mayor's legacy as the "Education Mayor" is just a sick joke with the ever widening racial/income achievement gap, low "college and career readiness rates", rising class sizes, reduced school staffs, and a bloated DOE Central Bureaucracy where high priced consultants and wasteful technology rule. Moreover, the Chancellor has supported the Mayor's actions to circumvent the union's "collective bargaining rights" and to support the layoff of 4,666 teachers last year! It is little wonder his job approval ratings are so low?

Lack of Accountability:

Time and again the Chancellor claimed that he will make principals accountable for any cheating or bogus "credit recovery programs". However, to date, the Chancellor has been "all talk and no action". Even the New York Post has questioned the graduation rates. Where was Chancellor Walcott and his investigators when the New York Post exposed the phony credits given to students at Washington Irving High School? How come we haven't seen any results of the claims that the Chancellor made about investigating the various principals that teachers emailed him by way of Michael Goodwin? I know the investigations are ongoing ZZZZZZZZZ. Wake me up when those investigations are complete sometime 1n 2014 as being unfounded . However, when it comes to teachers that were found innocent of serious wrongdoing by impartial Arbitrators he still wants the teachers fired because the Arbitrators, who had all the evidence, were wrong and the DOE, which is known for their faulty and biased investigative process was right. I guess the Chancellor believes that a lack of relevant evidence does not matter in declaring teacher guilt. The Chancellor would make a great judge if this were the "Salem Witch Trials".

Teacher Morale:

Under Chancellor Walcott, teacher morale is at a low, while he and his staff continues to demonize and scapegoat the classroom teacher. Dennis Walcott seems not to understand what rising class sizes, lack of resources, and failure to enforce student discipline does to classroom teaching and student academic achievement. He follows in Joel Klein's boots in blaming the student ills on the teachers and like his Mayor only wants the "best teachers". Of course the definition of "best" is temporary, young, controllable, and inexpensive. He has taken the lead in eliminating half the teaching staff of 26 "Turnaround Schools" or approximately 1,500 teachers. He made sure that many experienced teachers would not get jobs and be dumped into the ATR pool by lifting the City hiring freeze for the three month summer hiring period. The result was there was over 1,300 ATRs that had no classroom assignment at the beginning of the school year.

Taking Funds From Public Schools And Increasing Funds To Charter Schools:

In his second budget, the Chancellor has frozen the Public School budget, which is a reduction when inflation is taken into account, while increasing the budget for Charter Schools. Here again he has failed to public school students and parents. When asked by Fox News today why the small and Charter school do not take the same amount of "high need students" that the closing public schools do, he lied and said they do.

The bottom line, the Chancellor's grade is a well deserved "F".

Well, Well, Even Chancellor Walcott, Has Finally Admitted That The Small & Screened Schools Did Not Take Their Share Of Students With Disabilities.

After years of Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellors Klein/Black/Walcott ignoring the very obvious statistics that showed that the small and screened schools excluded many students with disabilities and English Language Learners, the Chancellor is now facing the inconvenient truth that the Mayor's favored schools have failed to represent the communities they reside in. The Chancellor has issued an email that all schools, except the specialized schools, will have a student body that reflects the neighborhood they are located in. According to a New York Daily News article, Chancellor Dennis Walcott, has emailed the principals and told the small and screened schools that if their student body does not reflect the neighborhood the DOE will do it for them.

It is about time that the Chancellor addresses the inequalities associated with the school selection process. Why should the DOE be allowed to dump the many students with disabilities and English Language Learners in a school and then claim that the school is "failing"? If the Chancellor is serious (I suspect it will be all talk and no action, just like the cheating scandal) maybe this will level the playing field and stop the DOE from targeting the few remaining large comprehensive schools. If the Chancellor forces the principals to take their fair share of students with disabilities, will he also require that the amount of self-contained students are also proportional to the neighborhood schools? Knowing Tweed, I highly doubt that will be the case.

I suspect that the principals of the small and screened schools will take only those students who need "resource room" and are reasonably well behaved (still screened). The DOE will than look the other way when parents of self-contained students with disabilities find that their children were excluded from the schools and complain. All the while the Chancellor will falsely claim that his edict was followed and the schools represent the communities they reside in.

Success for the Chancellor as he made sure students with disabilities are accepted in the small and screened schools. Success for the small and screened schools as they take no self-contained students and limited amount of English Language Learners. Success for the DOE as they fool the mass media time and again with their phony student placement policy. However, a failure as the self-contained students with disabilities and English Language Learners who have serious educational needs are still excluded from these schools and are dumped in large numbers to schools targeted for closing in the near future.

To me it will end up as just another example of Tweed's "children last" policy. Especially, when it concerns the most needy of the students in the public school system.

Another Setback For Mayor Bloomberg's Education Policy As More NYC Public School Students Need Remedial Courses In Community Colleges.

We all know that Mayor Bloomberg's educational achievement is all "smoke and mirrors" and in today's New York Post the paper's education reporter Yoav Gonen exposed that fact . According to the Post article an astounding 78.4% of the 2011 NYC public school graduates who attended community college in the City were required to take remedial courses. This is an increase of 4% from the 2010 numbers 0f 74.4%. So goes any Bloomberg/Walcott claims of improving student academic achievement.

If Mayor Bloomberg and his poodle, Chancellor Dennis Walcott, really want to improve student academic achievement then they should fund wraparound programs that start with the family and community since the social-economic issues are 80% of the problem for many of these students. Their claim that replacing 50% of the teachers in the 33 schools will really make a difference in student academic achievement is simply ridiculous. Changing the teaching staff is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic if the student population and their needs remain the same. Unless students and their family are given the resources and support to improve their academic outcomes, it is unrealistic to believe that bringing in a different teaching staff while ignoring the social-economic problems is the cure. Moreover, if the school fails to enforce student discipline codes (and many schools fail when it comes to student discipline) , no change in the schools will succeed. However, like all Education Reformers, the Mayor and Chancellor ignore the real world outside City Hall and the Tweed building and blame the Teachers' union and the teaching staff for the school ills rather than face up to the truth that their education policy is a complete failure.

Until the Mayor and Chancellor are gone from the scene it is "children last" always.

Even The General Public Realizes That The Mayor's Poodle, Chancellor Dennis Walcott Is Doing A Poor Job Educating The City's Children.

A new Qunnipiac poll found that more New Yorkers disapproved of the job Chancellor Dennis Walcott has done then approve his job performance. The poll showed that 34% of the general public disapprove of the Chancellor's job performance and that 45% of New York City public school parents gave the Chancellor poor marks. Disturbingly for the Chancellor, both numbers have increased by 13% since May of 2011 when Dennis Walcott became Chancellor. By contrast his approval rating only inched upward to 33% (from 31%) over the same time period.

The data from the Quinnipiac poll suggests that as more people get to know Chancellor Dennis Walcott, the less they like his job performance. The Chancellor's overall approval rating is actually 4% lower than when the increasingly arrogant and despised ex-Chancellor Joel Klein was Chancellor and only beats the incompetent Cathie Black's 17% approval rating.

Obviously the general public increasingly sees the Chancellor as a puppet for the Mayor and has shown not one ounce of independence from the Bloomberg agenda of ignoring parents, closing neighborhood school, and strongly supporting privately funded Charter schools. The Quinipiac poll shows that the more you get to know Chancellor Dennis Walcott, the less you like his policies on education which is simply Mayor Bloomberg's "children last" education policy.

Chancellor Walcott's Six Month Grade IS A "F"

It has been six months since Dennis Walcoot took over as Chancellor for the incompetent Cathie Black with promises to lower the overheated attacks between the teacher union, parents, and the DOE. He promised to listen to the parents, discuss civilly with the teachers' union on various issues and demand "accountability" from the DOE. Six months into his regime, the Mayor's poodle has failed to change any of the destructive polices of the Bloomberg/Klein Administration. True, he lowered the temperature a bit and listened to parent complaints but when it came to any real change, there was none whatsoever.

Chancellor Walcott's first speech was to support the Mayor's LIFO bill and to make it clear that he was not going to change direction and will follow the destructive deforms started by Joel Klein. While some people might say that six months is not enough time for the Chancellor to make his mark. I beg to differ. Dennis Walcott was Deputy Mayor for Education for the eight years and worked closely with Chancellor Joel Klein during his destructive Administration. Therefore, Chancellor Walcott came in with a working knowledge of the New York City Schools and a learning curve was not necessary. Let's look at why Chancellor Dennis Walcott gets a grade of "F".

Independence from the Mayor:

There is good reason that I call Chancellor Dennis Walcott " the Mayor's poodle". He has not deviated one iota from Mayor Bloomberg's misguided vision of what makes for a good education. The Mayor's legacy as the "Education Mayor" is just a sick joke with the ever widening racial/income achievement gap, low "college and career readiness rates", rising class sizes, reduced school staffs, and a bloated DOE Central Bureaucracy where high priced consultants and wasteful technology rule. Moreover, the Chancellor has supported the Mayor's actions to circumvent the union's "collective bargaining rights" and to support the layoff of 4,666 teachers!

Closing Schools/Charter Schools:

The Chancellor has continued the DOE's assault on the large comprehensive High Schools by closing them and has supported the Charter Schools at the expense of the neighborhood schools. This has resulted in an increase of ATRs to 2,000 and to make matters worse, lifted the hiring freeze for three months exacerbating the ATR crises.

Lack of Accountability:

Time and again the Chancellor claimed that he will make principals accountable for any cheating or bogus "credit recovery programs". However, to date, the Chancellor has been "all talk and no action". Even the New York Post has questioned the graduation rates. Where was Chancellor Walcott and his investigators when the New York Post exposed the phony credits given to students at Washington Irving High School? How come we haven't seen and results of the claims that the Chancellor made about investigating the various principals that teachers emailed him by way of Michael Goodwin? I know the investigations are ongoing ZZZZZZZZZ. Wake me up when those investigations are complete 1n 2014 when the new Chancellor arrives..

Technology Rules While Teachers Drool:

The DOE has imposed a $79 million dollar SESIS program on Special Education teachers that is a fiasco. Despite union pleas, the Chancellor and his subordinates at Tweed has refused to see that the program does not work without teachers spending extra time, either at home or at lunch just to keep up with this terrible program. The union has actually filed a PERB complaint and a grievance to stop the abusing of teachers that are required to work with the SESIS program.

Disconnect With Classroom Teachers:

Dennis Walcott seems not to understand what rising class sizes, lack of resources, and lack of student discipline does to classroom teaching and student academic achievement. He follows in Joel Klein's boots in blaming the student ills on the teachers and like his Mayor only wants the "best teachers". Of course the definition of "best" is young, controllable, and inexpensive.

Blaming Principals When It Was His Policy That Led To The Layoffs of 676 School Aides And Parent Coordinators:

Probably the most outrageous action by the Mayor's poodle was his laying off the lowest paid school staff despite DC37's attempts to come up with reasonable compromises. Rather than agree to furloughing them on school days when children were not present and a reduction in hours, similar to the accepted agreement with the Park's Department, the Chancellor refused to negotiate. To make matters worse he blamed the principals by claiming the principals had set their school budget and selected the people who were laid off. However, according to the principals union President, Ernest Logan, had the principals knew of the compromise, they would have found it preferable to the layoffs. Finally, under Walcott 30% of the Principal's unspent school funds must be returned to Tweed for their use. This year, the principals can only keep $44 per student, assuming they get a passing grade on the DOE's school progress repor, tany unspent funds over that figure will be sent back to Tweed. Good job Walcott as you continue to "rob Peter to pay Paul".

The bottom line is that Chancellor Dennis Walcott deserves a grade of "F".

Welcome To The Bizarro World Of The DOE Michael Goodwin

New York Post columnist, Michael Goodwin has seen first-hand how the bizarro world of the DOE works when investigating wrongdoings by administrators. In today's column Michael Goodwin wrote about his frustration when he tried to follow up on allegations of cheating by school administrators with the Special Commissioner of Investigations head Richard Condon. To his shock and surprise, SCI refused to take any, not one, of the 25 accusations of cheating at the schools. I could have told him that under Richard Condon, SCI only looks at sexual (no matter how trivial or phony the accusation is) or criminal matters and dumps the rest to the Office of Special Investigations (OSI) which is subordinate to Tweed. Guess where these allegations of cheating went to? You guessed it, OSI! No credit recovery needed for you. This is the same inept OSI that has an ongoing two-year investigation of the Principal at Lehman High School for cheating (changing grades) and she is still there as Principal!

Maybe now that Chancellor Dennis Walcott is sufficiently embarrassed by DOE's failure to take prompt and real action against cheating administrators things will change. Yeah right, and if you believe that it will, I have a bridge to sell you. I hate to say this but I told you so. In my opinion nothing will change when it comes to investigating school administrators.