Mayor Bill de Blasio Needs To Revamp DOE's Teacher Hiring Process

Back in 2005, the UFT under President Randi Weingarten negotiated the worst contract in NYC education history by giving up seniority transfer and Civil Service protected bumping rights.  By doing so, it allowed  the DOE to impose school based Fair Student Funding (fsf).  The result was that it incentivized principals to hire "the cheapest and not the best teachers" for their school. Consequently, student academic achievement suffered due to the influx of cheap "newbie teachers" who lacked classroom management. curriculum expertise, and the experience to handle different student learning styles.

To fix the problem, the Mayor and Chancellor needs to eliminate school based fsf and restore District-based hiring as it was before fsf.  Moreover, all vacancies must be filled by excessed teachers in their content specialty before "newbies" can be hired.  This will eliminate the 1,000 strong ATR pool that drains the DOE coffers, help reduce class size, and eliminate the need for offering a $50,000 bribe to retire or resign from the DOE.

Until the Mayor and his Chancellor restores the old hiring process,   the DOE will continue to pay 1,000 teachers and other educators to babysit classrooms and that's a shame.

Why Doesn't The Union Fight To Eliminate School-Based Fair Student Funding?

In 2005, them UFT President, Randi Weingarten badly miscalculated and agreed to eliminate seniority transfer, which allowed the DOE to impose school-based Fair Student Funding (fsf).  Ms. Weingartem's miscalculation was that she didn't think that the DOE would allow ATRs to be without a classroom and pay 150 million dollars yearly.  However, Chancellor Joel Klein and Mayor Michael Bloomberg believed it was worth the extra cost to eliminate veteran teachers and close schools while hiring inexpensive "newbies" in their "education on the cheap" policy.   Of course Fair Student Funding did not affect the union leadership, only their rank and file members were affected by this perverse and discriminatory policy. 

The main reason the union leadership didn't fight fsf is that they are not affected by the policy.  Moreover, it doesn't hurt that they get double dues from the 1,300+ ATRs and the "newbies" hired by the schools in place of them.  Finally, why should the UFT President, Michael Mulgrew, butt heads with his friend the Mayor?  Better to have 1,300+ ATRs being glorified babysitters, with no right to refuse forced placements,  than advocating for their placement back in the classroom and pissing off his buddy the Mayor.

Will Chancellor Richard Carranza Eliminate School Based Fair Student Funding?

One of the most controversial policies that the DOE employs is school-based Fair Student Funding.  The Bloomberg/Klein administration made no secret that they wanted an "education on the cheap" policy and Fair Student Funding fits perfectly into that policy.

Because of Fair Student Funding, the ATR pool exploded when Bloomberg closed 163 schools and veteran teachers could not get a position due to their salary..  Moreover, over 800 teachers, mostly veterans, were sent to the rubber room due to alleged misconduct or incompetence.  Finally, many senior teachers were pressured and harassed to retire.

Before there was Fair Student Funding, teacher salaries were funded by the DOE and not the schools.  Many knowledgeable Principals knew that veteran teachers were best for their students.  These veteran teachers had excellent classroom management skills, deep curriculum knowledge, and  best of all knew how to adjust to different scenarios. Moreover, seniority transfer allowed veteran teachers to bump untenured teachers from desirable schools and their students ended up with the best teachers.

By contrast, with school-based Fair Student Funding principals were incentivized to hire "the cheapest and not the best teachers for their school".  No wonder the ATR pool is loaded with veteran teachers. In addition the Open Market is a waste of time for veteran teachers who want to change schools because of Fair Student Funding.

Until Chancellor Richard Carranza eliminates Fair Student Funding, l don't look for changes in the discriminatory school hiring practices that only hurt student academic performance..

Fair Student Funding And Our Union.

Over the years I was told by union officials that they had no say on the DOE's use of school based fair student funding.  While that is true the fair student funding would never have been implemented had our union President, Randi Weingarten, had not agreed to eliminate the seniority transfer and bumping provisions in the infamous 2005 contract. 

School based fair student funding discriminates against veteran teachers, especially senior teachers.  Since the school budget is based on the school demographics and principals are more inclined to hire inexpensive staff, in particular, teachers.  The DOE gave principals total control of the hiring process as a result of the 2005 contract so they "hired the cheapest and not the best teachers" for their school.
Moreover, since the union agreed to eliminate seniority transfer and bumping, this allowed the DOE to follow through on their plan to change the hiring process.

Did the union know this would result in the ATR crisis?  The answer is yes. Just read my post of October 17, 2017 and the UFT report of June 2008 clearly shows the union warned the DOE that the new contract will result in an explosion of ATRs and discriminate against senior teachers.  Yet the union still  signed the infamous 2005 contract.

The bottom line the union leadership under President Randi Weingaarten knew full well the consequences of signing the infamous 2005 contract but signed it anyway. 

The ATR Pool Attacked Once Again. This Time By The Citizen's Budget Commission.

The nonpartisan and anti-teacher Citizen's Budget Commission (CBC) in an error filed analysis blasted the City and the UFT that allows teachers to remain in the ATR pool indefinitely.  According to the CBC report, the ATR pool costs the DOE $136 million dollars in the school year   Their solution?  Give the ATRs a six month time limit. While I do not question the number, I do question the CBC's motives and their lack of exploring the real cause of the ATR pool..

In the next few months the City will be negotiating with the unions, including the UFT.  The City will most certainly ask for an ATR time limit as they have done since the creation oif the ATR pool.  Just as certain, the UFT will reject an ATR time limit, reminding the City of the deal that was made between DOE's Chancellor Joel Klein and UFT President, Randi Weingarten that allowed principals to hire whom they pleased while excessing veteran teachers into the ATR pool.  Part of the sleazy DOE-UFT agreement was that there would not be a time limit for excessed teachers who enter the ATR pool.  From the day the infamous 2005 contract was signed, Chancellor Joel Klein has tried to get the UFT to agree to an ATR time limit and has pushed the media to write articles that condemn the ATR pool.  From the Liberal New York Times to the Reformy Chalkbeat, to the Conservative Wall Street Journal and New York Post, all the media demonizes the ATR pool.

Since Joel Klein left the DOE the three other Chancellors have also pushed fir a time limit and to the union's credit, they point out that the time limit is non-negotiable since it was part of the new hiring process agreed to by both parties in 2005.  Moreover, if the union was to accept an ATR time limit, the other municipal unions would loudly object and probably sue as a violation of the Civil Service law since it would set a slippery slope of diminished worker "due process"  as all unions under "collective bargaining" would be forced to accept having excessed members who no longer can bump less senior members out of their job and with an arbitrary time limit can be fired.

The CBC's report fails to discuss the real culprit of the ATR pool,which is Fair Student Funding that penalizes principals who hire veteran teachers and incentivizes schools to "hire the cheapest and not the best teachers" for their school.  It's too bad that the CBC report failed to address the deeper issues like school based fair student funding, large class sizes, poor leadership, and tight school budgets as the real causes of academic underachievement.

Fair Student Funding Shortchanges Schools And The DOE Does Norhing About It.

 

One of the great policy disasters that the DOE has implemented is the school-based Fair Student Funding policy.   The immediate effect was that principals were incentivized to hire "newbie" teachers rather than hire the best teachers for their students.  While sixty school districts across the country use some version of the fair student funding policy, only New York City makes it school based.  The others implemented it District wide and is not school based.  By making it District wide, no one school is penalized for hiring veteran teachers.

New York City's school based fair student funding is also the reason that veteran teachers are being targeted by principals as teacher salaries make up the bulk of a school's budget.   Eliminating a high salaried teacher and replacing her with a "newbie" can save the school $50,00 or more and lower the average teacher salary for the school the next year, with the savings going into the principal's budget.  Moreover, under school-based fair student funding teacher longevity raises are not factored in and once a teacher completes ten years, the school must swallow the raise in their budget.  That's why veteran teachers become a target for termination.

Finally, most schools do not receive their fair share of funding, averaging between 87%-92% of the money they should be receiving.   That's another reason that principals are looking to remove veteran teachers from their budget.

Charkbeat wrote an article that lays the blame on everybody except the DOE in using the fair student funding formula in the first place and you can read it Here.

School Based Fair Student Funding Discriminates Against Veteran Teachers And Hurts Student Academic Achievement.

There is little question that the DOE's use of school based fair student funding has hurt student academic achievement by making it difficult, financially,  for schools to hire veteran teachers and far too many schools have teaching staff with little experience and steep learning curves.  More importantly, the academically struggling and Renewal schools suffer the most as few veteran teachers are hired and the remaining veteran teachers leave those schools for either retirement or a better teaching environment.

When school based fair student funding was proposed by the DOE in 2005, the UFT understood the implications that it would cause an explosion of veteran teachers in the ATR pool and warned the DOE not to impose such a system.  However, instead of aggressively confront the DOE and stop them in their tracks, the UFT leadership meekly allowed the DOE to do as they pleased.  The result is a continuous group of 1,200+ teachers that are excessed and due to their age, salary, and seniority, they cannot obtain a permanent position.

With the imposition of fair student funding principals were now incentivized to "hire the cheapest and not the best" teachers for their school.  The Open Market System is simply a joke for veteran teachers as fair student funding penalizes principals who want to hire a highly skilled veteran teacher.  Moreover, "newbies" are prized because they will actually lower the school's average teacher salary and if they don't work out or leave, so be it, there are other "newbies" to take their place.  Finally, every year between 4,000 and 5,000 teachers leave the system, yet the ATR pool remains stable as the few ATRs who retire are replaced by teachers excessed due to closings and downsizing or won their 3020-a termination hearings.

Please go to Bryan Glass's web page.  the teacher's Lawyer, and fill out the questionnaire, if you are an ATR as a potential class action discrimination lawsuit may be filed if enough ATRs fill out the questionnaire. 

As long as the DOE uses school.based fair student funding, discrimination against veteran teachers will continue and that's not good for student academic achievement.

Mayor Bill De Basio, Its Time To Make Changes At The Dysfunctional DOE.

 It seems increasingly clear that Bill de Blasio will be reelected as Mayor of New York City.  That means we can expect the Mayor to make significant personnel and policy changes as the second term starts in 2018.  Hopefully, many of these potential changes will be at the dysfunctional DOE and here is a list of some of the changes I hope comes to pass.

First, Replace the disappointing Chancellor, Carmen Farina, and let her retire for good to Florida.  The new Chancellor should have a reputation of collaborating with school staff and is highly respected by real educators. Not target veteran teachers like Farina has done throughout her career.

Second, immediately replace the 80% of Bloomberg holdovers that Carmen Farina kept in policy making positions and bring in more educators into these important positions. Her real failure was that she never "cleaned house" at Tweed.

Third, eliminate Fair Student Funding and bring back the unit based staffing out of DOE Central that does not take into salary.  Presently, the DOE policy penalizes principals who hire veteran teachers and forces principals to hire the cheapest and not the best teachers for their school.

Fourth, ensure that all schools get 100% of their funds, based upon the student population numbers and cohorts, no winners or losers as they do now.  P fair funding. presently, most schools receive between 89% to 92% of their fair funding.

Fifth, Eliminate the ATR pool by bringing back the excessing rules before the imfamous 2005 contract.  This would require schools to hire the ATRs for their summer vacancies before they could  hire outside or "newbie" teachers.

Sixth, Reduce class sizes to the State average or the goals set forth in the CFE winning lawsuit that the DOE and New York State refuses to implement.

Seventh, dramatically reduce the administrative bloat at the DOE, especially the legal and accountability divisions.  Moreover, cut contracts by implementing a needs test to see if the contract is necessary.

Eighth, no school should be given permission to have an uncertified teacher instructing students in Core or Regents subjects.  All teachers should be licensed in their content specialty that they are  teaching in, especially at the high school level.

Ninth, Drastically reduce screened high schools and promote academic integration by having all high schools become zoned schools.  This will allow the schools to recruit academically proficient students back to their neighborhood schools.

Tenth, let school staff evaluate school administrators, especially principals and the ones that are given failing grade two consecutive years should be immediately removed and replaced.  Moreover, all new administrative appointees must be approved by school staff and not the Superintendent before the DOE removes the intern acting title.

Is my list wishful thinking?  It certainly is but even if a few of my suggestions become policy, it will make for an improved school system and better prepared students when it comes to academic achievement.

What Do The DOE And Silicon Valley Have In Common? Hiring Cheap.

Tonight, CBS's 60 minuets will have a story how the many Silicon Valley technology companies abuse the H-IB visa that allows companies the ability to hire foreign Engineers and Scientists who have a specific skill set that Americans don't have.  However, the truth is that the Silicon Valley Tech businesses has hardly bothered to seek out Americans when there are thousands of foreign workers who are willing to fill the positions at a much lower salary and less benefits.

The DOE does not significantly participate in the H-IB visa program.  However, the DOE has their own version by forming policies that encourage the hiring of cheaper teachers.  These policies are the school-based "fair student funding" and the "Open Market Transfer System".  Moreover, the results of these two failed programs has caused a pool of excessed educators of approximately 1,500 annually, with the average age in the 50s and salary close to $90,000. They are known as ATRs.  Finally, the DOE encourages school administrators to harass and push out veteran teachers, through resignation, retirement, or termination through 3020-a charges. Every veteran teacher that leaves is replaced by a much cheaper "newbie" with a lower salary, and an inferior Tier VI pension, assuming they make it through their vesting period.

Obviously, the Silicon Valley tech companies and the DOE have similar hiring policies and that is the cheaper the better.

The DOE Sees Nothing Wrong With Large Class Sizes And Fair Student Funding.

This week the NYC Council's Education Committee held hearings on teacher recruitment and retention at City Hall. Appearing for the DOE was Amy Way at the DOE's Office of Teacher Recruitment and Quality and Anna Commitante, Senior Executive Director of the Office of Curriculum. Both DOE Bureaucrats faithfully echoed Chancellor Carmen Farina's famous statements that "80 hours of rigorous professional development weekly" and  "high-quality curricula" is the best strategy to attract and retain teachers.  Of course, most school-based professional development has been a colossal waste of time and the disconnect between the graduation rate and the "college and career readiness" rates show that students are graduating unprepared for college or the job market.

When asked by committee members what other strategies the DOE was implementing to stop high teacher turnover, especially in the high poverty schools, the DOE response was to push for "professional learning communities".  A non-starter to the committee members. At no point did either DOE official mention lower class sizes despite the many studies that show that lower class sizes stems he flight of teachers from schools.  In fact, when asked about any policy to lower class sizes, the two DOE officials simply did not respond.

Another committee member wanted to know how can the DOE expect academic improvement at Renewal schools when classes have 30 or more students and cannot attract veteran teachers to mentor the largely inexperienced teaching staff? The best line was if you child was sick, would you take him or her to a Renewal Hospital to be treated? The DOE response was silence.

The chairman of the Education Committee Danny Dromm, a former middle school teacher, correctly pointed out that lower class sizes and clear student discipline rules that are strictly enforced are needed to keep teachers from fleeing the NYC classroom. However, the DOE seems to ignore these proven strategies and their failure to listen and respond to teacher complaints is the primary factor of teacher dissatisfaction and the cause for the teacher retention problem.

For Mr Dromm, the most disturbing DOE response was about "Fair Student Funding" and how it hurts the schools.  He even suggested that the City Council may pass a resolution to eliminate the Fair Student Funding from school budgets.  Mr. Dromm stated that the Fair Student Funding incentives principals to hire inexpensive "newbie" teachers while trying to offload veterans from their budget. The DOE response, was that they see no problem with the school-based Fair Student Funding.

A more through analysis of the hearing can be found at the New York City Public School Parents blog.

DOE Continues Their Destructive Fair Student Funding At The Expense Of The Students.

Back in 2005, when Randi Weingarten allowed Chancellor Joel Klein to give principals complete control of their budget, one of the most destructive aspects of this new policy was the "Fair Student Funding" (FSF) that was imposed on the schools in 2007 as part of the budget process.  The fsf in conjunction with the elimination of seniority bumping rights and closing schools (162 under Mayor Michael Bloomberg) caused an explosion of excessed teachers.  At last count there are still 1,162 teachers without a classroom, which does not include ATRs who are provisionally appointed or covering a long-term leave. By contrast, this year the schools hired over 5,700 "newbies" who have no classroom experience rather than hiring an experienced classroom teacher.

Why would principals rather hire a "newbie" who must learn classroom management, curriculum, and the culture of the New York City classroom over a teacher who has mastered these skills?  The answer is the fsf.   You see the fsf penalizes schools who hire experienced teachers as the higher a teacher's salary the less money the school has to supply the resources to give to the staff.  The DOE will claim that many school districts nationwide use fsf and that is correct but only New York City makes it school based rather than district based as the rest of the country does.  The result is that principals are forced to "hire the cheapest and not the best teachers" for their school.

To exacerbate the problem, after the 2008 recession, Mayor Bloomberg cut the school budget and the average school received only 86 % of their fsf..  Some of the large comprehensive schools were cut even more as one school in Queens, slated for eventual closing but did not received only 78% of their fsf.  By contrast the new Bloomberg small schools, to ensure they succeed, received 100% of their fsf and the newest schools even more than 100%  (one school received 160% according to the IBO report).  Eight year later, Mayor Bill de Blasio has a 6 billion dollar surplus, yet this year's budget is still only 89% of the fsf and is only expected to increase to 92% of the fsf.  The good news is not only is the school budget increasing, but the schools should all be getting the same percentage of the fsf, no more winners (Bloomberg small schools) and losers (large comprehensive schools). However, the fsf still hurts the schools and the students by penalizing principals who hire veteran teachers.

The blame lies with Mayor Bill de Blasio and his Chancellor, Carmen Farina, who has retained 80% of the Bloomberg policymakers at the DOE and allowed the bloated Central Bureaucracy to continue to suck up funds that could be better spent on school based student services or lower class sizes.  However, at the DOE its still ideology first and children last...always.

Fair Student Funding Hurts High Poverty Schools And Forces Their Principals To Hire "Newbies" To Stretch Their Budget.

Back in 2007 Chancellor Joel Klein, with the enthusiastic support of Deputy Chancellor Eric Nadelstern and his education deformer friends proposed an entirely new way to fund schools.  It was determined upon a weighted average, based upon student needs that has been used in many different parts of the country.  However, the New York City version was so very different, instead of being used citywide or District wide, as was employed elsewhere, the DOE's  "Fair Student Funding" (fsf)  was school based.  The result was that it forced principals to hire the "cheapest and not the best teachers for their school"  If New York City had used the fsf like the rest of the country, there would be no financial incentive for principals to hire the "cheapest" teachers since the fsf is based upon the District or Citywide.average salary. and most principals want experienced teachers.

To make matters worse, 94% of all city public schools are underfunded, based upon the fsf, with the average school getting only 86% of their allocated fsf as found by the Independent Budget Office.  Because of the "hold harmless" provision, it turns out that most of the schools that are in the higher income areas have the most experienced teachers and are more likely to get their full fsf, while high poverty schools, with high teacher turnover, are getting shortchanged by as much as 18% of what they should be allocated for under the fsf.

More interestingly, has been our union's muted response to the DOE's unfair fsf allocations and in particular their acceptance of the school based fsf in the first place that created the ATR fiasco, with 2,197 educators without a permanent position. While both Randi Wiengarten and Michael Mulgrew has occasionally complained about the fsf, most knowledgeable education observers strongly suspect that our union leadership was complicit in allowing the DOE to impose the destructive school based fsf.

Obviously, the proper thing to do is make the fsf citywide rather than school based and eliminate the financial incentive of hiring the cheapest teachers.  Better yet, eliminate the fsf altogether and maybe, just maybe, high poverty schools will obtain and more importantly, retain experienced teachers for their schools.

The Real Problems In The New York City Public Schools.

In the New York Daily News today, Sol Stern wrote an opinion piece on the problems with the New York City Public Schools.  While I agreed with his part on the use of the useless and ideologically driven Lucy Calkins progressive model of learning that then Deputy Chancellors Diana Lamm and Carmen Farina championed, yes the same Carmen Farina who is known as the disappointing Chancellor of today. However, he also blamed the teachers union contract and their lock-step pay  raises as a major impediment for the failure of the public schools. What he failed to address was the large class sizes, the DOE policy that encourages principals to hire" the cheapest and not the best teachers for their school", and the deteriorating quality of school administrators, many of them coming from the failed "Leadership Academy".  Finally, Sol Stern failed to point out the bloated DOE budget that dramatically increases every year while school budgets remain frozen at 2012 levels and are 14% below the pre-recession 2008 levels.

Class Size:  
Probably the most important factor in improving student academic achievement as the lower class sizes that allow for more individual instruction. a less noisy environment, and the ability of a teacher to properly evaluation each student in a timely matter.  Unfortunately New York City Public Schools have the highest class sizes in the State and despite assurance that class size would go down during the Bill de Blasio Administration, it hasn't.

Quality Teachers:
In 2005 the DOE imposed the "fair student funding" policy on the schools which forced principals to seriously consider, salary before hiring a teacher.  By 2008 as school budgets tightened and money was scarce, the principals were forced to hire "newbie" teachers to stretch their budget.   Some worked out, most did not or left the school soon after (84% of the teachers were no longer teaching in the same school they started in five years later).  The high teacher turnover and steep learning curve meant less effective teachers and spelled disaster for the unfortunate students exposed to this unstable school environment.

Principals:
One of the little talked about problems with the New York City Public Schools is the poor quality of principals who are in charge of their schools.  The Leadership Academy taught educators that they should be the CEO of their school and accepted applicants with little or no classroom experience.  While Carmen Farina has made it more difficult to apply without the proper educational credentials, she has made exceptions.  Regardless, 20% of the principals in the New York City Public Schools are "Leadership Academy principals".  Worse, is the DOE continues to protect these bad, dangerous, and vindictive principals, despite the many problems associated with their school oversight.  Just look at the allegations against Principal Namita Dwarka of William Cullen Bryant High School in Queens and the many problems there, yet she is still in charge.  Even in today's the New York Post reported on another vindictive action her administration did to a thirty year veteran teacher.

Merit Pay:
Sol Stern falls into the trap that if only merit pay was implemented, then teachers would work harder and the students will achieve academic success.  Yet Mr. Stern fails to show any evidence that merit pay works in the last century and the reason for that is there is no study that showed merit pay improved teacher and student performance!  The reason is that there is a flawed assumption that dangling a few thousand dollars will make teachers work harder.  The fact is that most teachers want their children to succeed and work very hard to help them. Giving them a couple of thousand dollars will not make teachers work any harder.

Bloated DOE Bureaucracy:
While already tight school budgets have remain frozen since 2012 and "fair student funding" has limited principals to hiring inexperienced teachers to sacrifice quality for quantity, the Central Bureaucracy continues to consume more and more money. while forcing the schools to pick up more of the cost for the school support staff that was once part of the DOE Central Bureaucracy.  For this school year (2016) the DOE budget is 27.2 billion dollars while it was only 19.2 billion dollars in 2012.  That means there was a 42% increased in funds coming to the DOE while school budgets remained frozen during the same time period.  Just imagine if the schools received a 42% increase.  They could hire experienced teachers, reduce class sizes, and provide additional resources.

Poverty & Family:
Let's not forget that the 500 pound gorilla in the schools, the deep poverty and dysfunctional family that is a major reason why many students struggle academically and until those two issues are addressed and solved, the others only add to the lack of student academic achievement.

Mr. Stern maybe you need to rethink your article and see what the real problems are in the New York City Public Schools.

Fair Student Funding And The ATRs.

During the October information meetings the UFT leadership would repeat time and again that the Fair Student Funding (fsf) was not responsible for the failure of principals to pick up ATRs since the ATRs are picked up by the school for the average teacher salary in the first year and for free the second year, if they are appointed!  If that was all this was to it, principals would be fighting to hire the ATR but of course they are not.  However, there is more to the hiring process than the union leadership was willing to disclose at the meetings and deliberately failed to explain or address this to the members.

First, the present ATR agreement is only valid till 2018.  In fact, if either the DOE or UFT wants to change or discontinue the present ATR agreement, next school year (2016-17), it reverts back to the 2007 contract which forces schools to include the appointed ATR's salary in their average school payroll, which is subject to the fsf.

Second, the ATR agreement will have to be renegotiated in 2018 and depending on the political situation, will determine how the ATR agreement will change.  That could mean that the principals who were assured by the DOE and UFT that any ATR they appointed would not cost them more than the average teacher salary could find themselves responsible for the entire ATR salary going forward.  If you ask principals if they trust the DOE to keep their side of the bargain, almost universally they will tell you no!  They remember when the DOE tried to take money principals saved for the next year after assuring them that they had no intention to take a principal's savings. Until and unless the fsf is eliminated and the unit system is reinstalled, no Principal will be willing to appoint a high salaried ATR for fear that the DOE will renege on the ATR budget agreement and be left holding the bag under fsf.

Third, the seniority issue is still a major problem and principals don't want to put their staff at risk for excessing if they appoint a more experienced ATR.  Even the 2009 agreement that allowed principals to pick up ATRs at a "newbie" teacher salary (1A) and DOE Central picking up the difference for the next eight years until 8b, only put a small dent in the ATR pool due to the seniority issue.  Therefore, the DOE and UFT should do what they did in the 90's.  As James Eterno explained to me that to encourage principals to pick up a highly experienced excessed teacher, they gave the school an extra teaching position in that subject area so that the school can protect their least senior staff member if future excessing is required.  Since the DOE is paying for the ATR's salary anyway, this would be a win-win situation since the school gets a highly experienced teacher and would allow the principal to expand the course selection, including more Advanced Placement courses that Chancellor Carmen Farina claims she wants for the New York City Schools,  However, this violates the fsf and the ideological DOE has no intention of changing it.

Finally, by placing the ATRs back into the classroom, it will go a long way in reducing class size, supplying schools with experienced teachers, and provide additional course selection for the students.  However, until the fsf is replaced and the DOE agrees to ensure that the appointment of the ATR will not threaten their most junior staff member in that subject area, nothing will change and that is what the union leadership has failed to address.

Now you know the real story about the ATRs and fsf.

The Quality Teacher Shortage Is Evident In The New York City Schools Based On The DOE Hiring Policies.

Every parent wants a "quality teacher" for their child and school leaders recognized that.  Therefore, principals, who were themselves long-term teachers, did their best to hire the highly experienced teacher for their schools.  The more experience the teacher had, the better.  The result was that the best schools had the most experienced senior teachers who provided the students with deep curriculum knowledge, classroom management skills, and weren't afraid to adjust their teaching to the learning styles of the ever changing student dynamics of the classroom.  To ensure that there was an incentive for schools to hire the best teachers, the DOE did not use a teacher's salary as part of the school budget but provided the school teacher units, based on the student population size.  Therefore, the schools competed with each other for these highly experienced teachers and the best schools had  the most experienced staff.

All this changed when Mayor Bloomberg took control of the City public schools and appointed a non-educator, Joel Klein, as Chancellor.  Chancellor Klein fundamentally changed the school funding requirements and implemented an "education on the cheap" policy that took funding from the schools and added layers of bureaucracy and increased the historically bloated Central Bureaucracy. With the teacher union approval, Joe Klein instituted the "fair student funding"  that was, in theory, to allow high needs schools to attract experienced teachers with more school funding.  However, the real function of the "fair student funding" was not to give high needs schools the extra money but to punish schools with highly experienced teaching staff by reducing their budget and encourage the schools to find any excuse to have them removed from the school and get budget relief.  The result was an explosion of veteran teachers being removed from their schools and dumped into rubber rooms based on phony or frivolous charges..  To encourage principals to remove these veteran teachers the DOE allowed the school to remove the salary of the teacher from the school payroll after 60 days! This resulted in as many as 805 teachers being "rubberized" as these mostly senior teachers, wait for years before their 3020-a charges are heard or the DOE decides to make a deal.

While many long-term principals were reluctant to remove their veteran teachers realizing the collateral damage it does to staff morale and more importantly, the harm it does to the students.  This was not a problem with the newly minted "Leadership Academy Principals" who made up almost 20% of the City's principals.  Many of these principals had little or even no classroom experience, quite a number never were tenured and had little real understanding of the teaching profession.  To the typical "Leadership Academy Principal" it was that they were CEO's of the school and collaboration with staff was replaced with dictates.  Moreover, this "Leadership Academy Principals" were no longer instructional leaders or mentors but administrators that were the point people of the DOE "gotcha system" whose purpose was to discipline teachers and if possible terminated them by any means possible.

The result of the Bloomberg/Klein changes in the public school system meant that principals were pressured to hire the "cheapest and not the best teachers" for their school.   With 163 schools closed during the Bloomberg era, that excessed thousands of teachers, many of them highly experienced and with little chance of being picked up due to salary considerations.  Combine these excessed teachers with the thousand or so teachers who survived their termination hearings and the DOE has between 1,000 to 3,000 teachers without a classroom.  Many of them "quality teachers".  Instead as we start another school, year, the De Blasio/Farina administration has continued with the "education on the cheap" policy of Bloomberg and Klein which means that its still about hiring the "newbie" rather than the "quality teacher".

Chancellor Carmen Farina Has No Clue What An Effective Teacher Is.

Since Carmen Farina has taken over at Chancellor of the New York City Public Schools she preaches to whomever would listen that she wants every child to have an effective teacher in the classroom.  It matters little to her whether her audience are principals, the media, teachers, or even at the secret February meeting with the 3020-a State arbitrators, NYSUT, and DOE lawyers.  Her message is the same;  "I want all students to have effective teachers instructing them".  Nice words if you ask me but as this post will point out the Chancellor fails to "practice what she preaches".

If the disappointing Chancellor really wanted to have effective teachers in the classroom she would be pushing policies that encourage principals to hire experienced teachers to cover their vacancies and implement polices that eliminated the ATR pool by giving schools an incentive to appoint an experienced ATR to their school.  However, Chancellor Carmen Farina has instead, continued the Bloomberg/Klein ideological policy called "education on the cheap" that shortchanges the schools of vital resources and deprives students of proper educational material for their classrooms.  Her freezing of the already tight  school budget for the 2014-15 school year, despite the City's economic recovery and more money sent to DOE Central is a prime example of the continuation of the Bloomberg/Klein policy to starve the schools and the classrooms in their "education on the cheap" policy.

Moreover, rather than save over $160 million dollars annually and place experienced teachers in vacancies, Carmen Farina continues the destructive "Fair Student Funding"(FSF) formula that not only shortchanges schools of proper funding for their students but forces principals to hire the "cheapest and not the best teachers" for their schools.  The result is the most needy students get the inexperienced teachers who suffer from their own steep learning curves in the classroom.  While 50% of new teachers leave the New York City classroom in five years, over 80% will leave the school they started at by that time.  With the Open Market Transfer System, a principal cannot keep an effective teacher if a better school offers that teacher a position.  Therefore, struggling schools suffer from high teacher turnover, which a recent study shows reduces student academic achievement, and lose their best teachers to higher achieving schools.The result is while highly experienced and effective teachers languish in the ATR pool, students in low achieving schools are subjected to many inexperienced teachers who lack the classroom skills to effectively teach and the few who become a "quality teacher" will leave for more comfortable classroom environments in a higher achieving school or district.

Finally, if Chancellor Carmen Farina was really serious about having effective teachers in the 

classroom, she would reduce class sizes to the State average, penalize schools that rely on teachers uncertified in the subject they are teaching in, and ensure that inclusion classes are not being abused by putting too many special education students in the class, a common abuse of Federal and State requirements.  Even in the New York Post, an article showed the problems of having an inexperienced and uncertified teacher instructing poor and minority students. More proof can be found Here!

When it come to Chancellor Carmen Farina she talks the talk but fails to walk the walk.She's shown to be more the problem than the solution.

Bringing Back The Neighborhood High Schools Is The Only Answer In Improvimg Our Struggling Schools.

 

Mayor Bill de Blasio and Chancellor Carmen Farina have a program to improve the struggling schools called the School Renewal Turnaround Program.  They include targeted funding, better oversight, and more programs for the high schools to turnaround them academically.  However, there are some very serious problems associated with these schools that the De Blasio administration has failed to address and I question their prospects for success, especially when it comes to the DOE's misguided school funding policy known as "education on the cheap".. Let's look at the major problems facing the Mayor's renewal high school program.

Student Population The renewal high schools have a very similar student population distribution.  A poor minority student cohort with a high percentage of "high needs" students.  These "high needs" students whether they are homeless, special education. English language learners, or behaviorally challenged,  are associated with low academic achievement.  How does the Mayor's renewal program address that problem?  If you were a parent of a high achieving student, would you send your child to one of these schools?  I think not.

Enrollment:  Many of these renewal schools are under populated and struggle to keep enrollment up.  In a previous post, I showed how many vacant student slots are available in these schools.  The less students, the less money is available to the renewal schools to add courses, services, and hiring quality teachers. Limiting the "over-the-counter- students" for these schools is a double edged sword since less enrollment means less funds for the schools.

Fair Student Funding:  The renewal schools are still subject to the 800 pound gorilla in the room and that is the DOE's ill advised  "fair student funding" and that ensures that the principals will still be forced to hire the "cheapest and not the best" teachers for their students.  That means high teacher turnover and an unstable learning environment.

Small Schools:  There are just too many small schools that offer limited courses, few extra curricular activities, and suffer from poor leadership.  Worse, these schools are always experiencing high teacher turnover with too many "newbie teachers" who may not have the pedagogy or classroom management skills to be an effective teacher.  These schools are always competing for enough students to fill their schools and many should not exist as a independent entity.  The result is too many schools are competing for a dwindling amount of academically preforming students not selected by the better schools.

Class Size:  Most schools, to save on money and hire fewer teachers have class sizes near the contract limit of 34 students.  This is much too large for proper learning in these struggling schools but for the DOE its always been about the budget and not about what's best for the students.

Longer School Day:  The renewal schools will have a one hour longer school day.  However, the DOE and UFT have not decided on the payment rate for teachers who work the extra hour.  Furthermore, how will the extra hour affect the mandated Professional Development requirements?  In other words, its still a work in progress to schedule the extra hour and how to incorporate it into a daily schedule.

The solution is to reimpose high school zoning, recombine the small schools, have significantly smaller class sizes (20-25 maximum), and bring back the large comprehensive neighborhood schools.  This will allow for more course selection and a better learning environment.  Moreover, eliminating the "fair student funding" will free up the schools in hiring the "quality teachers" necessary to improve student academic achievement.  Finally, each school should have a program magnet that attracts the academically performing students back to the school and provide the school with a solid foundation for attracting experienced teachers to the school and reduce the unacceptably high teacher turnover in the renewal schools.

To The Daily News. It's The DOE's Education On The Cheap Policy That Causes Student Failure.

The New York Daily News ran a series about the New York City schools that was biased and supported Governor Cuomo's badly flawed education agenda.  However, in one of their articles, they did touch on a subject that they, and other media outlets have deliberately ignored in the past. That is the influx of "newbie teachers" and the use of teachers forced to teach in subjects they're are not certified in.  Maspeth High School had an astounding 88% of their teachers who had less than three years of experience while Banana Kelly had 69% of their teaching staff with less than three years of experience.

The Daily News article reported that there were 21 NYC schools that had over 50% of their teaching staff with less than three years of experience and are probably nontenured as well.  Worse yet, are the amount of classes being taught by teachers who are not qualified to teach the subject.  According to the Daily News and my own experience in traveling in the Queens high schools, this is a common problem and the more pervasive the practice, the lower the school's academic achievement ends up to be.  Even the DOE admitted to the Daily News that many schools use their Living Environment teachers (Biology) to teach Earth Science (Physical Science) and the results are uniformly disappointing with the majority of these students who have these uncertified teachers, failing the Earth Science Regents. Remember my article on Excelsior Prepatory High School where the school decided to not give the over 100 students the Earth Science Regents rather than hire an Earth Science teacher?  How's that putting children first?

The question is why does the DOE and the UFT allow our NYC Public School students to be exposed to uncertified teachers instructing in subject areas that they have no business teaching in?  The answer its the DOE's "education on the cheap" policy.  That's right, if you think its about what's best for the students, than you probably believe in the tooth fairy, the Easter Bunny, and yes, Santa Claus.  The truth is that the DOE imposed a destructive budgeting practice on the schools that's called "fair student funding" that forces principals to hire the "cheapest and not the best teachers" for their school.  Add that to the 14% budget cut since 2008 and the rise of the "Leadership Academy Principals", with little actual classroom  experience and you have a receipt for educational disaster.  I have written about this travesty previously and it can be found Here.  Finally, many schools try to save money by assigning phantom teachers to courses and force the unfortunate students to take an online or blended learning course.  Remember this?  Or in today's New York Post.

Its too bad the Daily News didn't bother to dig deeper into this issue but then they would have found out the real truth that its what's best for a school's budget than what's best for the students in the DOE's "education on the cheap" policy and that would bring into question the validity of the Governor's education agenda and their "blaming the teachers theme" for the school system's many problems.

Why Schools Don't Do The Right Thing For Their Students.

As I travel from school to school monthly, I have seen too many teachers who have some real deficiencies when it comes to instruction and classroom management skills.  Quite a few are "newbies" and that's to be expected but some are experienced teachers that are teaching out of license.  Worse, is that I have been in schools that have teachers who have no business teaching a subject they have little knowledge of. One example is Earth Science. In school after school, I have seen students being taught by teachers who are not certified Earth Science teachers and, as you can expect, their students do poorly on the Regents as a result.

Examples of uncertified teachers teaching Earth Science are Richmond Hill and Newtown High schools, where there are multiple classes of Earth Science and to my knowledge, neither school has a certified Earth Science teacher on staff!  Moreover, in the Bloomberg small schools many Science teachers are teaching multiple Science courses that they are not certified to teach and may have four different preps.  You would never see this in the suburbs.


According to the UFT, there are six certified Earth Science teachers in excess in Queens but since they are highly experienced and expensive, the schools will not do the right thing for their students and appoint one of them to improve the chances of their students in passing the Earth Science Regents, since its more important in hiring the "cheapest and not the best teachers" for their school.

While the union could file a PERB complaint and publicize the educational maleficence that hurts the student's academic outcomes, the disconnected union leadership rather ignore this educational abuse and instead aids and abets the DOE  in allowing it to occur.  The union should be going after "fair student funding" and filing both a PERB complaint and informing parents that the DOE is allowing non-certified teachers to teach their students in subject areas like Math and Science.  Instead its business as usual at the DOE practices its "education on the cheap" policy and the union just cheers them on.

Why Common Core Cannot Work For Regents Science Under The Existing NYCDOE Policy.

Its common knowledge that the New York State flawed roll out of the "Common Core" standards has resulted in some very dismal 2013 test scores for grades 3 to 8.  Its obvious to many educators that the State's attempt to repair a plane while in flight has ended up crash landing, even if the NYSED doesn't want to admit it.  Now the "Common Core" standards are being introduced to the high schools.  However, for classes that end with a Regents the inclusion of "Common Core" material is problematical since many of the Regents have not been modified for the "Common Core" and the curriculum associated with these Regents remains unchanged.

Since I am a Science teacher, let's see the problems associated with the implementation of the "Common Core" materials into the existing curriculum.  First, a majority of schools, under pressure to save money and limit the amount of teachers they need to hire, have reduced the number of days for Science instruction from a 5-1 schedule (five days of instruction plus one lab) to a 4-1 schedule (four days of instruction and one lab).  The result is that the students have almost a month less of instruction days and the teachers find themselves under time pressure to finish the curriculum by the end of the school year.  Where once, Science teachers had almost a month to review for the Regents, just finishing the curriculum is a small victory.   Anecdotal evidence has shown that schools that went to the 4-1 schedule resulted in a significantly lower Regents passing rate. This is primarily due to the DOE's misguided "fair student funding" program  that encourages principals to hire fewer teachers with their budget in mind.

Second, the Regents have remained essentially "unchanged" and the Science teachers must cover the multiple units and topics that show up on the Regents.  If Science teachers are pressured to include the more detailed "Common Core" standards into their teaching of the subject, the units and topics will take longer to teach and add to the time pressure these Science teachers already have in the 4-1 schedule.  The result would be that some teachers will skip topics in a unit in the hopes that the Regents doesn't have too many questions on the topics that the teacher skipped.  In other words, its like "robbing Peter to pay Paul" and to me this is not allowing for masterly of the subject by the students.

Finally, principals have found out that neither the DOE or UFT cares or bothered to crack down on schools using teachers not certified in the content specialty that is required by State Education Law.  Look at PS 106, there was apparently no Special Education Teacher for the Special Education students and nobody seemed to care or do anything about it.  How about Queens Vocational and Richmond Hill, amoung many others, who uses non-certified teachers in that content specialty to teach Earth Science?  Can you image asking these teachers to include more rigorous and in-depth instruction in a subject that they are barely able to understand themselves?  In quite a few cases these teachers are only one step ahead of the students they are teaching the course to.

For "Common Core" to successfully be incorporated into a high school Regents curriculum, the following issues must be resolved.

• Eliminate the "fair student funding formula" and allow principals to hire the appropriate amount of teachers for their school.
• Go back to the 5-1 Science schedule like the rest of the State.
• All teachers need to be certified in the content specilty that they are teaching in.
• The Regents must be radically changed by including less units and topics to accommodate the "Common Core" standards.

Presently, the failure of the DOE to do the right thing for the NYC students has hurt student academic achievement and incorporating "Common Core" into the classroom without fixing the existing policy problems in the City schools will only result in the plane crashing.