Tsk, Tsk, Principals Are Upset That There Are No “Rubber Rooms” To Send Teachers They Don’t Want Or Like Out Of Their Schools And Must Still Pay Them.

One of the most important aspect of the April 15^th 2010 “rubber room agreement” was the DOE commitment to keep teachers in schools while awaiting disciplinary 3020-a hearings. Before some of you tell me that I was against the “rubber room agreement”. I should remind you that I thought the agreement was the right thing to do. I questioned the potential lack of enforceability if Tweed reneges on parts of the agreement and of course I have been proven right. However, one of the main reasons to close the “rubber rooms” was to make it more difficult for principals to remove teachers and kick them off their budget and that has in fact happened.

A Chapter Leader contacted me with a story about his “Leadership Academy Principal” complaining to him about his failure to remove two teachers he wanted out on trumped up charges of corporal punishment and was told by the DOE to reassign the teachers in the school. The DOE official told the Principal that unless it is criminal in nature he was to keep the teachers whom were already removed from the classroom and place them in an Administrative setting in the school. Wait to he finds out that there is no sixty day rule since the teacher reassignment is in the school and that only goes for reassignments outside the school.

The closing of the “rubber rooms” had many advantages to both the City and the UFT. However, the reason that Tweed objected to the closing down of the “rubber rooms” was that Joel Klein encouraged the principals to remove teachers from their schools for the most frivolous of reasons and jettison their salary after sixty days. This fell in line with the Chancellor’s temporary and replaceable teaching staff in his “education on the cheap” policy. If it wasn’t for the recession and the hiring freeze imposed by the City, we would not be talking about the agreement today. The result of the agreement was that principals could no longer dump teachers they did not like or want and warehouse them out of the school. Furthermore, the principal could no longer remove the teacher from the school’s budget after sixty days since the teacher was left in the school to await their charges and go through their 3020-a hearings. This has in fact been happening as few, if any, teachers have been sent to DOE offices or the CFN’s to do work. Instead they are being left in the school, out of the classroom and still interact with the school staff. This has made the principals uncomfortable and it doesn’t help that they must pay the teacher’s salary until the entire 3020-a process is complete, which from beginning to end can take a minimum of six months even under the best of circumstances. Furthermore, it is quite possible if the reassigned teacher is in the school and goes through the 3020-a hearings and is not terminated (80% are not), the teacher may be placed back into his or her position whether the Principal likes it or not. However, time will tell if that is what will actually happen.

Finally, many of the DOE offices have used reassigned teachers for years to do jobs that they have no manpower to do because of previous budget cuts which disproportionally affected the regional and district offices as Tweed actually increased their headcount. The graph by Gotham Schools shows it best Here.With even more budget cuts coming, the need for reassigned teachers is that much greater. Especially, as the remaining reassigned teachers whom work in those locations go back to schools as ATRs, there are no free replacements to do the ever increasing volume of work that the reassigned teachers were doing.

Finally, with principals unable to pull teachers out of the school at their leisure, it should reduce reassignments and stabilize the teaching profession. There are now financial consequences for principals who reassign teachers not just the collateral damage they do the children when their teacher is removed but to the school’s budget as they must hire a substitute to run the reassigned teacher’s classes while having the teacher on the school’s budget.

Tsk, tsk, don’t you feel sorry for these principals? Yeah, right.

Even The New York Daily News Finds Chancellor-Elect Cathie Black Unqualified. How Come Our Union Leadership Doesn't?

Mayor Michael Bloomberg picked one of his rich and powerful friends to become the next Chancellor of the New York City Schools. The nominee is magazine CEO Cathie Black who had no educational experience and who's children went to a ritzy private school. Further, she admits that she is clueless on how the New York City Pubic Schools work. Even the Mayor's usual media mouthpieces, the New York Daily News and the New York Times questioned her lack of qualifications. Most disturbing was the lack of any competition for the job. It appears that she was selected because she was in the Mayor4Life's inner circle of friends. Of course the New York Post didn't see why the Chancellor needs to have educational qualifications. Now it is up to the State to grant a waiver for the unqualified Cathie Black to become the next Chancellor of the New York City Public Schools.

You would expect that our union would take the lead as opposition started to question this selection of an unqualified person to be Chancellor. This was the time for the powerful UFT to take a stand and write a letter to State Commissioner Stiener to deny a waiver for the Chancellor-elect. Shockingly, I could not believe my eyes when the UFT President, Michael (don't call me Mike) Mulgrew stated the following:

“When I met her, I thought she was very nice and I’m looking forward to working with her,” Mulgrew said. “When someone is new you have to be optimistic. You can’t go in with any preconceived notions and that’s the only way I am going into this.”.

Instead of leading the opposition our UFT leadership is actually welcoming the unqualified Chancellor-elect. Just unbelievable!. Now the opposition is being lead by real education reformers and politicians like Tony Avella, and even the head of the City Council's education committee, Robert Jackson, have expressed their displeasure with her and set up online petitions to express there disgust of Cathie Black's lack of educational qualifications and deny her the waiver she need sto be Chancellor. If there is one silver lining in this is the mass resignation of many of Joel Klein's top aids at Tweed Here. Moreover, look for others to follow.

Our union should be taking the lead in opposition of the unqualified Chancellor-elect, not welcoming her.

Petition One:

Petition Two:

A Teacher’s Perspective On The Real Legacy Of Joel Klein During His Destructive Tenure As Chancellor Of The New York City Schools

I was watching the local FOX affiliate and almost gagged hearing their praise of Joel Klein as Chancellor of the New York City Schools. They heaped praise over the improved test scores, graduation rates, and student achievement. Further, they stated that under Joel Klein we saw more teacher accountability, the elimination of the “rubber rooms” where teachers stayed for years doing nothing at full pay, and the rise of Charter schools. I think it is time to take a closer look at what Chancellor Joel Klein has actually accomplished in his eight year tenure as Chancellor of the New York City Public Schools.

Student Test Scores: Despite the propaganda from the Bloomberg/Klein Administration and their media mouthpieces, , student test scores have remained relatively flat throughout their tenure (see the NAEP results) and the income/racial achievement gap actually widened in some cases. “Dumbing down” State tests only showed the constant test preparation did not result in real academic achievement and that was evident in the 2010 New York state test results.

Graduation Rates: One of the most abused statistics that Joel Klein takes credit for. During his tenure Tweed has found many methods to artificially raise graduation rates. Starting with “credit recovery”, online courses, Principals changing grades, manipulation of dropout rates, and even foreign credits. No questionable methods were rejected, no matter how outrageous, if it resulted in artificially higher graduation rates without increased student academic achievement.

Teacher Disrespect: Under Joel Klein’s leadership, teacher disrespect was at an all time high. Paperwork in the classroom increased threefold during his tenure and a “one program fits all “approach took away teacher independence and individuality, especially in the elementary schools where incompetence allegations rose dramatically. Moreover, in Joel Klein’s inner circle of eighteen there was only one educator and who had direct access to him and her program was one of the few cut at Tweed. Furthermore, it was under Joel Klein that there was an increase in reassigned teachers from less than 100 to over 800, (not including hundreds of others reassigned in their schools because of lack of space in the TRCs) resulting in overcrowded “rubber rooms” until the Mayor finally put an end to this embarrassment by negotiating an agreement with the union over the objections of the DOE and Joel Klein, to end the “rubber rooms”. However, the DOE appears to have the last laugh as Tweed has reneged on some of the sections of the Agreement. Finally, the Chancellor practiced “a top down approach” that excluded school based personnel from any real decision-making ability that affects the schools.

Exclusion Of Parents: One of the hallmarks of Joel Klein’s tenure as Chancellor was his exclusion of any community and parent input in education policy. Parent complaints were ignored by Tweed and the only time parent complaints’ were taken seriously was when it was against a teacher. Joel Klein’s disregard of parents was legendary and time and again when parents stood up for their schools or complained about a Principal or ill designed education intuitive, Tweed just either ignored them or dismissed their legitimate complaints. Under Joel Klein, the DOE turned a deaf ear when parents would show up at PEP meeting to complain about various injustices. In fact, Joel Klein used to play with his blackberry while the parents aired their grievances and seemed unconcerned about their issues. Sometimes he even left the room as parents poured their collective hearts out to him to reverse school closings that the courts eventually stopped.As for his claim of "children first", it was really a shame. When a student e-mailed him for help, he just brushed her off and you can read this disgusting saga Here.

Rising Class Sizes: During Joel Klein’s tenure as Chancellor the CFE won a lawsuit mandating that the State set aside funds to reduce class size. The Chancellor, rather than following the law, used the CFE money to reduce class size apparently cut a deal with the State to divert the CFE money to other undefined purposes. The result has been raising class sizes over the last three years, in violation of the CFE lawsuit.

ATR Crises: The travesty of having between 1,700 and 2,400 teachers without a classroom is entirely the creation of Joel Klein who let principals hire who they pleased and resulted in the DOE wasting $160,000 million dollars yearly, not including benefits,. It was only the recession that forced the Mayor to tell the Chancellor to place the ATRs in vacant positions as he imposed a hiring freeze in most subject areas. However, as more schools close, more teachers will become ATRs unless the new Chancellor changes the rules once again.

School Funding Fiasco: Under Joel Klein Tweed imposed the “fair student funding” formula that hamstrung principals from hiring experienced teachers without taking a hit to their budget. The original iteration of the “fair student funding” formula had a hold harmless provision that did not penalize schools that had a majority of high salaried, experienced teachers. However, in the present version principals are encouraged to hired inexperienced teachers just so that they can meet the ever shrinking budget imposed on the schools by Tweed. The result is less experienced teachers in the classroom and collateral damage to the children.

Lack Of Transparency In Funding: How many times have people complained on the lack of transparency on who gets cut and who does not. Even in this recession, under Joel Klein’s tenure the headcount at Tweed just keeps going up and only the education based instruction group has showed significant reductions. Moreover, Tweed plays with headcounts by falsely claiming they are reducing the Central Bureaucracy when it is really direct support services and Regional/District school support offices that are being cut. Furthermore, Tweed has misspent money that was to go to needy schools and students to fill a budget gap and tried to hide it.

Arrogance At The Top: Joel Klein’s popularity rating was an all-time low of 30% with the general public and was not welcomed in Albany or at the City Council where he routinely ignored their requests for information only to claim that they are anti-education when they questioned his demands for additional funds or authorization for his friend’s pet projects that had questionable educational impact on the schools. He long ago lost the respect of parents, politicians, and teachers due to his arrogance and autocratic rule.

Consultant Services And No-Bid Contracts: Another legacy of Joel Klein is the many no-bid contracts that he rammed through the PEP and the questionable hiring practices at Tweed. Do you remember this? Even during this recession, business as usual is still going on at Tweed. Accountability is only for the schools and not for Tweed.

Charter/small school favoritism: Joel Klein turned a blind eye to the lack of special education and English language learners being in the Charter/small schools and his staff at first denained such shenanigans were going on only to admit it was and then ignoring the issue. His love letters to “Eva Moskowitz” tells all about how he feels about Charter Schools and the uneven playing field the neighborhood schools in competing with them.

The legacy of Chancellor Joel Klein's academic accomplishments can be best summed up as all "smoke and mirrors"with little, if any, real student academic achievement and his "top down approach" showed it was never what was best for the children but was best for him and his non-educator friends at Tweed. Hence his identification with the “children last” and “education on the cheap” policies.

To Joel Klein “goodbye and good riddance don’t let the door hit you in the butt on the way out”.

Oh What A Wonderful Day, Chancellor Joel Klein Finally Resigns.

Finally, the day almost every classroom teacher has been waiting for, Chancellor Joel Klein has resigned. Oh happy day. Gone is his anti-teacher rhetoric, pro Charter school policies, and the top-down management that resulted in little or no student academic achievement during his eight year tenure.

Already, Mayor Bloomberg has appointed another non-educator for
Chancellor and that brings up the possibility that Joel Klein was forced out after his claims of academic improvement was found to be all "smoke & mirrors" once the State's 2010 scores were released. Moreover, his resistance to closing the "rubber rooms" which has caused considerable embarrassment to the Bloomberg Administration resulted in the City overruling the DOE and negotiated a deal with the UFT. Finally, Joel Klein's low popularity numbers with the public and his relationship with both the State Legislature and the City Council was antagonistic and many of the City's education proposals were ignored or rejected because of their dislike of Chancellor Klein.

Well, Michael Mulgrew this is the time to demand that the Chancellor be an educator, Haven't we seen enough damage when non-educators run the City schools? How about some real guts and not just weak rhetoric. We will be watching closely how the union leadership reacts to this one-shot opportunity to make sure an educator is returned to head the schools. We will be watching very closely.

Will There Be An ATR Time Limit In The Future? It Would Appear Not If The Union Stands Their Ground.

There are widespread rumors circulating through the schools that the next contract will include an ATR time limit as the major “giveback” in the next contract. It appears the rumors originated from school Administrators who heard it from clueless DOE administrators at the local Children First Networks. Fortunately, it is only “wishful thinking” as the ATR time limit is one of the three areas where the union refuses to negotiate with the Bloomberg/Klein Administration on. The other two being seniority during layoffs and tenure protections. While it is true that the Bloomberg/Klein Administration has proposed an ATR time limit in their contract proposals to PERB. It is highly unlikely that the PERB Arbitrators will include it in any tentative contract without the approval of the union. Remember, the teacher’s contract is the last one subject to the old “City pattern” and if the union shows intestinal fortitude, PERB will have little choice to agree with the union that the “City pattern” be followed, with some massaging along the margins. For the Bloomberg Administration not to accede to the “City pattern” puts the City at risk to be slammed in the next contract by the woefully underpaid police who’s union then can claim that the City abandon the “City pattern” and they should be paid a salary consistent with the surrounding communities. This would have a negative effect on the City finances as all the uniformed services have a “me too clause” and would cost the Bloomberg Administration millions more than anticipated.

Presently, the union has shown no indication of weakening on the ATR time limit and I don’t expect them to. Especially since in Chicago the opposition faction won the election because of the union agreeing to a 18 month ATR time limit that resulted in quite a number of teachers being removed from payroll, many due to age and salary. Furthermore, the ATR crises was the sole creation of Chancellor Joel Klein who (with Randi Weingarten’s agreement} eliminated the excessing requirements that required a district to hire excessed teachers before new teachers could be hired in a subject area. Finally, the history of Chancellor Joel Klein’s DOE is to come to an agreement with the union only to either renege or ignore the parts of the agreement that Tweed does not like or find inconvenient. To believe they will suddenly change their way of thinking is beyond belief.

The economic and financial pressures on the DOE and the increasing transparency on how the DOE spends its money will force Tweed to pressure the Principals to hire the ATRs and for our union to acquiesce to an ATR time limit would be like “snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory”.

As long as our union stays strong, the ATRs will eventually find themselves in the classroom and teaching the children they care about.

ps. If you are an ATR and want to know how the expiring ATR agreement with Tweed affects you. Under Assault provided the following information.

ATR AGREEMENT TO EXPIRE, BUT NOT ALL OF IT

There was some talk in here about what happens when the ATR agreement ends, but payment arrangements for the ATR salaries will continue. The Nov.2008 side agreement:

12: This agreement will expire on December 1, 2010 although paragraphs 4, 5 & 6 will continue to apply to hiring done on or prior to that date, according to the specific terms set forth above.

4 . When a centrally-funded ATR is hired to fill a regular position in a school (other than the school from which the ATR was excessed), on or after November 1st of the calendar year in which they were excessed, central DOE will pay the difference between the actual salary of the teacher and a starting teacher salary, and then, in subsequent years, will continue to pay the difference between the actual salary and the subsequent steps on the salary scale (for example, in year 2, the difference between actual salary and step 2A on the salary scale). This subsidy will terminate once the excessed employee has been in the position 8 years.

5. Until November 15, 2010 a school that hires a centrally-funded ATR to fill a regular position (other than a school from which the ATR was excessed) on or after November 1st of the calendar year in which they were excessed, in addition to being charged in accordance with ¶4 above, central DOE will credit the hiring school's budget one-half of the starting teacher salary that would otherwise be paid by the school under 4 above.

6. After November 1, principals can offer to hire centrally-funded ATRs for the balance of the school year on a provisional basis whereby ATRs accepting this offer can be excessed, regardless of seniority, at the end of the school year in which they are hired, or can opt to be placed in excess again at that time. If the ATR is not excessed again at the end of the school year, and does not opt to be placed in excess at that time, the ATR will become a regularly-appointed pedagogue at the school. The subsidies provided for in ¶4 & ¶5 above will not apply to ATRs hired provisionally pursuant to this paragraph, but will apply should such an ATR become a regularly-appointed pedagogue at the school.

Dare To Be Remarkable And Expect To Be Punished For Your Efforts

I have a friend who was assigned to a school that has a motto "Dare To Be Remarkable". The teacher believed that the school's Administration was actually serious in wanting innovative and interactive teaching in the school. He had been in a previous school where the students considered him the best teacher in the school but alas, he was excessed as the school cut back staff However, to the teacher's surprise and disappointment the "C Rated" Principal had other ideas. Now the teacher is being falsely accused of "verbal abuse" and was given a Letter-To-File (LIF) for his efforts to "dare to be remarkable". As you can guess there is a story to this.

My friend, let's call him Josh, is an ATR and was assigned to the "C Rated" Principal's school this school year. Everything seemed to be going well when he was told to take over a program that was not in his subject area for a teacher who suddenly left for a long term medical emergency. He instantly connected with the students and many of the students enjoyed his storytelling and easy to understand method of teaching. However, there was one boy who resented the teacher because he was not certified in the subject. He then told his parent things about what the teacher said. Most of it untrue. It did not matter that all the other students liked the teacher and that the teacher had warned the "C Rated" Principal about the problem with the student previously. The teacher felt threatened in this climate of students filing false accusations and being believed by the Administration so he requested at least twice for the student to be transferred to another class since it could only end with the teacher being continually harassed by the student's parent. The "C Rated" Principal assured the teacher that she knew the parent and her complaints about the teacher were being ignored and he shouldn't worry. Unfortunately, the parent kept complaining about the teacher and eventually the "C Rated" Principal felt the heat and started an investigation of "verbal abuse". The "C Rated" Principal's investigation upheld the "verbal abuse" allegation based on the one child's testimony! It did not matter that all the other students supported the teacher and claimed he was a "great teacher" and refused to say anything bad about the teacher. The "C Rated" Principal, under pressure from the parent, upheld the "verbal abuse" allegation and removed the "great teacher" from the classroom and made him a day to day substitute. Now the children are upset and many parents have complained to the "C Rated" Principal but to no avail.

This teacher "dared to be remarkable" and refused to teach scared. However, in the end the accusations of one student and his parent was enough to derail a "great teacher" and remove him from the classroom hurting the 150 children in his classroom. DOE's "children last" just keeps on continuing.

The DOE Does It Again! They Reneged On Another “Rubber Room Agreement” With The Useless & Clueless UFT. What Else Is New?

On April 15, 2010, with much fanfare the DOE (with Mayor Bloomberg putting pressure on Tweed) came to an agreement with the UFT on closing the infamous “rubber rooms” once and for all. The “rubber room agreement” closed out a very embarrassing period to both the City and the teachers’ union which was made worse after Chancellor Joel Klein took over and made it much easier to remove teachers from the classroom. At its peak the “rubber rooms” citywide, had 800+ teachers and this did not include the hundreds more that were removed from the classroom but were not yet sent to the “rubber rooms” mostly due to the TRCs (Temporary Reassignment Center – aka “rubber room”) being overcrowded. For the most part, the DOE has abided by the latest “rubber room agreement”. However, in a very important area the DOE has totally ignored one of the conditions of the agreement.

The “rubber room agreement” required the DOE to charge any reassigned teacher who had been taken out of the classroom before September 1, 2010 and who were not under any criminal action and/or an ongoing SCI investigation to receive their charges by November 1, 2010 (sixty days). Failure by the DOE to issue 3020-a charges by the November 1^st. 2010 date would require the DOE to automatically return the teacher to his/her school and back to the classroom position. There were no exceptions according to the agreement. However, just like many, if not all, past agreements the DOE picks and choose what they want to follow and in this case has reneged on following the sixty day time limit to charge reassigned teachers. This is not the only part of the “rubber room agreement” that the DOE has ignored but it is the most obvious and serious. On the very last paragraph of the April 15, 2010 “rubber room agreement” it states the following:

For all employees who were assigned to a TRC prior to August 31, 2010 and were not charged prior to August 31, 2010, the 10 or 60 day period to charge the employee or return him/her to his/her prior assignment, shall run from September 1, 2010. Effective September 1, 2010, the parties will implement the new timelines set forth in this Agreement, which shall apply to all cases charged after September 1, 2010.

Nowhere in the “rubber room agreement” is there an exception for the DOE not to meet the timelines. However, the DOE has apparently decided that the union cannot enforce timelines and is willing to ignore their own agreement. Remember, the DOE has time and again ignored agreements with the UFT including the first “rubber room agreement” back in July of 2008. Jeff Kaufman on the UFT-ICE blog wrote an accurate and what turned out to be a true analysis of the unenforceability of the previous “rubber room agreement”. I also wrote two posts showing how the previous “rubber room agreement” was a farce. Here and Here. Now we have another apparently unenforceable “rubber room agreement” that the DOE wants to ignore.

While we are talking about less than 50 teachers (10 in Queens) that are being affected by the DOE’s refusal to abide by their own agreement, this is only the most glaring of examples of the DOE not following the agreement. Other areas that the DOE has not abided by is the continuation of the Joel Klein/Richard Condon pact for teachers backlogged in the 3020-a process. For many teachers, that SCI recommends for terminationit, are difficult to mediate a settlement unless it is resignation and they must go through the entire 3020-a hearing process. Furthermore, the mediation process is more of a teacher extortion program where mediators are pushing the teacher to take the DOE imposed settlement or face termination. Mediators are supposed to be impartial and supportive not pressure and threaten the teacher. Unfortunately, teachers have informed me that some of the mediators are being accused of doing just that. One teacher told me that the mediator told him to take the deal or his Arbitrator will terminate him. In a few cases, the mediation requirement was ignored by the DOE and the teacher had to go through the full 3020-a hearing as if mediation did not exist. It is important that teachers subject to the mediation process read what TAGNYC wrote in the “Under Assault” blog and follow their advice.

It is unfathomable that the union did not see this coming and have a contingency plan in place to handle this situation. What the union should have done was to escort each and every affected teacher back to their building and show the Principal the agreement which requires the DOE to send back the teacher to his or her school assignment. Today would have been a good day to do it since the students were not in school and the chaos that would occur would be limited to the school Administration and Tweed. However, the union’s position is that they are studying the situation. This is just another example of our union being reactive and not pro-active when the DOE violates their agreements with the union. It was only last month that Chancellor Joel Klein reneged on the teacher data evaluation program by trying to publish the teacher names and scores after signing an agreement with Randi Weingarten not to name the teachers or use it for evaluation purposes. How many times does it take for our clueless union leaders to realize that he double-dealing DOE cannot be trusted to live up to their promises without some enforceability?

In conclusion, when you make a deal with the devil, you can expect to be burned and in this case it is the reassigned teachers that pay the ultimate price not the out of touch and uncaring union leadership that represent their own interests and not of their must vulnerable of members. Remember the old saying “Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me”. How many more times will our union be fooled by Tweed? Shame on them for trusting Tweed to honor their agreements.