How Principals Mainipulate The Phony High School Report Card Grades

The DOE continues to waste precious funds on their ridiculous "Accountability Program". According to the Daily News, the "Accountability Program" wastes $352.8 million dollars. Money that could be better used to reduce classroom overcrowding, increase classroom supplies, and bring better technology for the classroom. Part of the "Accountability Program" are those phony school report cards that do not reflect the real conditions of a school. Tweed spends almost $3 million dollars annually on these phony report cards. In this post I will concentrate how high school Principals can "play the system" and improve their school's grade.

An example of how it works. A principal can improve their school's graduation rate by simply changing grades of seniors, against the teachers' wishes or knowledge, to push them out of the school. Pissed off mentioned how her ex-Principal, Suit, secretly passed 300 Math students to get his pensionable bonus and improve the school report card. Unfortunately, high school Principals know how the game works to improve their school's report card and do what is necessary to keep their job.

The most common ploy the high school principals use is to artificially increase the school's graduation rate. This can be done by two methods. The first method (motioned previously) is for the Principal to change student grades, without teacher approval or knowledge, and graduate them. Unfortunately, what Suit did is probably quite common throughout the school system. The other way is to push otherwise failing students into the "credit recovery program" that can give them full classroom credit by simply writing an essay or two. Imagine, a student fails to show up all year or sleeps in the class and can get credit for that class by doing a simply project or two! Finally, many devious Principals have instructed their staff not to report incidents to outside authorities. One high school Principal in particular has been cited by Tweed and NYPD about the failure to report incidents. However, the Principal's failure to report incidents in the school worked to the school's advantage when it came to the school's report card. Go figure.

It is a pity that real accountability is not practiced at the schools or at Tweed where non-educators continue to waste money on their pet projects. "Children Last" continues.

update: please list all the tricks that principals use to raise their school's grades other than real progress. Pissed off already commented on one.

How The DOE Explots Frightened Reassigned Teachers By Threatening Them With Termination

As many of you know there are over 800 teachers that have been reassigned from their classroom duties. Most of them are assigned to the Teacher Reassignment Centers, commonly known as "rubber rooms". These reassigned teachers are removed from the classroom because of arrests, alleged misconduct, or accused incompetence, including time & attendance issues. The DOE claims that the teacher's removal from the classroom is required because they are a " threat to the children" and Tweed begins 3020-a proceedings to terminate the teacher. However, increasingly the DOE will truncate the termination process if the teacher is willing to pay Tweed a significant monetary fine.

Yes, you read this right. Many teachers can magically be sent back to the classroom and be no longer a "threat to the children" simply by paying the DOE a monetary fine. Is this because the teacher is really not a" threat to the children"? Or is it because the DOE knows that only about 10% of the teachers actually get terminated by the 3020-a arbitrators? Regardless of the reason, the DOE is exploiting reassigned teachers by obtaining fines of $5,000, $10,000, $20,000 dollars and more from frightened teachers before moving them back into the classroom. The DOE exploitation of reassigned teachers is disgusting and hypocritical. If a teacher is really a "threat to the children" the DOE should never be making deals with the teacher. On the other hand, if the DOE is making deals with a teacher, that teacher should never have been removed from the classroom in the first place!

It is very obvious to the educated observer that the DOE exploitation of reassigned teachers by charging them significant fines to stop their 3020-a charges is repulsive and brings into question why was the teacher removed in the first place? If the teacher warrants removal, the DOE should not be making settlements. Either a teacher is a "threat to the children" or they are not. Giving Tweed a significant monetary fine should not determine if the teacher is a "threat to the children". To me this is simply a cynical ploy by the DOE to exploit reassigned teacher fears by getting a significant monetary fine rather than have the teacher face the 3020-a hearing process.

Only in the bizarre world of Tweed can a teacher no longer be a "threat to the children" by simply paying DOE a monetary fine. "Children last" continues.

A Message To Barak Obama - Don't Make That Phony Education Reformer, Joel Klein, Your Secretary Of Education

News reports have said that New York City Chancellor, Joel Klein, is on the short list for Secretary of Education. This is a terrible choice since Joel Klein has shown that his tenure as the Chancellor of the New York City Public Schools have been a disaster for the students, parents, and teachers of the school system.

Under Chancellor Klein's phony school reforms the New York City Public Schools have seen little change in student achievement when the gold standard of testing, the NAEP is used. In addition, there has been a decline in SAT scores at the High School level and continued overcrowding of classrooms despite State mandates to reduce class size.. Furthermore, parent involvement in the process is almost non-existent as Klein has made parent organizations impotent. Finally, Joel Klein's deliberate policy of encouraging temporary and inexperienced teachers to be hired by Principals under the "fair student funding" formula has resulted in 1400 ATRs, mostly veteran teachers, are wasted on non-classroom duties, while the students must be taught by teachers that have not mastered either the classroom management or the curriculum.

In Joel Klein's administration there are only two long-term educators out of a staff of 20 that surrounds him. Furthermore, he has developed a "leadership Academy" for Principals and many of them get schools with little or no classroom experience. Moreover, under Joel Klein's leadership we have seen the destruction of the large traditional academic schools, with a variety of programs and activities into small and charter schools, with limited programs and high teacher turnover.

In conclusion, Barak Obama please do not select a non-educator like Joel Klein as your Secretary of State. He has demonstrated that he does not respect teachers, ignores parent organizations, and has not shown improvement in student achievement, while maintaining overcrowded classrooms during his tenure as Chancellor of thew New York City Public Schools.

Why Mayoral Control Is Bad For NYC Public Schools

There is a battle going on whether Mayoral control should continue as is or be modified. Mayor Micheal Bloomberg wants to keep total control while his critics want some changes according to the Daily News. To me changes to Mayoral control is a no-brainer. Under Bloomberg, Mayoral control has been a disaster for the NYC Public Schools. Flat test scores, overcrowded classrooms, no parental involvement, poor teacher morale, and an ever increasing bloated Central Bureaucracy at Tweed. However, Randi Weingarten, who made a big mistake not opposing Mayoral control in the first place, has seemed very reluctant to oppose a continuation of Mayoral control. Therefore, it is time to remind everybody who cares about NYC Public School education why Mayoral control has been bad for the school system.

• Testing under the NAEP and SAT scores have remained flat or drifted downward since the beginning of the Bloomberg Administration. No "smoke and mirrors" can hide that fact.

• The elimination of Parent Organizations that had real input in how their schools are run.

• Tweed has imposed their every-changing "flavor of the day" teaching method on the classroom teacher which results in poor teacher morale and a "one-size-fits-all" mentality that is not conducive to individual student learning.

• Overcrowded classrooms and many of them in so-called temporary trailers. See the Daily News article at one public school.
  

• The transparent Kleinberg policy of favoring the hiring of "newbie teachers" by using the "fair student funding" formula and encouraging principals to hire teachers from alternate certification programs.

• The equally transparent policy of favoring recruitment over retention of teachers, which the UFT leaders has bought into to the shame of our union.

• The ever-increasing ATR problem that has risen to 1400 this year. This problem is a cynical move by Tweed to get rid of senior teachers by any means possible.

• The overcrowded "rubber rooms" with 800+ teachers, many of them removed from the schools based upon a Principal's dislike of the teacher.

• The selection of unqualified Principals to run schools when they have little or no experience in the classroom.

• The doubling of teachers leaving the system in 2007. This is before the 25/55 pension system was in effect. I wonder what it is for 2008 with 25/55 in effect?

Finally, it is no secret that the bureaucracy at Tweed has increased significantly since Bloomberg took over the school system. In addition, the no-bid consultant contracts and high priced non-educators are strangling school budgets as money for the classroom is diverted to Tweed at the expense of the students. I won't even get into the "Charter/Small schools" that cost money and hurt the more traditional schools in the system.

Why is Mayoral control bad for the NYC Public Schools under Bloomberg? Just take your pick of the items listed above.

Tweed's "children last" and "education on the cheap" continues.

The DOE Keeps Wasting Money On Themselves & Keeps The Classroom Overcrowded

Tweed continues to waste money on their bloated central bureaucracy, paying out 5 million dollars on expensive private courier services rather than use emails or other online services for free. I wonder what they don't want us to know? Is it because they are afraid to leave a paper trail behind that might identify the DOE intent In some of the anti-school policies born deep in the offices of the Tweed building? I can only speculate why Tweed continues to waste money at a time of budget cuts. In a New York Daily News article by Juan Gonzales points out that a large part of these costs come from the controversial and bloated Office of Assessment and Accountability which accounted for 2 million dollars alone! Further, the article points out how $50 million dollars have been spend on consultants and private contractors, not to mention the $80 million dollars on IBM's useless AIRS computer system that still hasn't worked properly.

However, DOE does pinch pennies when it comes to the classroom. In another Daily News Article more than half of the high school students (59%) were in overcrowded classrooms and that in the first six years of Bloomberg's tenure less classroom construction was completed than was done in the last six years of the Giuliani administration. In addition, many of the overcrowded schools have classrooms in trailers that, in some cases are barely fit for human habitation, least not an effective environment for learning.

As the DOE's Central bureaucracy spends more and more money on themselves, the schools are increasingly asked to shoulder the burden of ever increasing budget cuts. DOE's "children last" just continues.

update: The Daily News appeared to remove a story about the outrageous salaries and perks some Tweed educrats were receiving. The Gotham Schools blog reported this story and is worth checking out.

The SCI Investigation Of Teachers Is Almost Always One-Sided And Biased. Especially When The Principal Pushes It!

One of the more serious investigations conducted on teachers, short of police detectives coming to arrest you, is a group of ex-police detectives hired by the Special Commissioner of Investigations (SCI) to investigate teacher and administrator misconduct that could lead to criminal charges but in many cases don't. These investigators are usually brought in when an accusation is made of serious misconduct. These investigators have the power to arrest the school employee and in a few cases do just that. However, in many cases SCI is called in by the Principal, who may rightly or wrongly suspect that an employee committed serious misconduct. Unfortunately, the Principal can also use SCI's services when they target a teacher and falsely claim that teacher committed major misconduct.

One of the first questions SCI asks the Principal is how he/she feels about the employee. If the Principal does not like the employee, you better believe that SCI will go out of their way to substantiate even the most minor incident as a cause for termination. The SCI investigators assume teacher guilt and their job is to to collect enough evidence to substantiate their assumption. No matter how flimsy or ridiculous the evidence is.

Unlike the OSI investigation, the SCI investigators show up unannounced and try to trap the teacher in incriminating themselves. They can show up at the school or your home and they have the right to seize your home computer. The SCI investigators travel in twos and in suits and will ask seemingly innocent questions to the naive teacher and use whatever the teacher said against them. Before, SCI interviews the teacher, they have already have put their story together. Therefore, once the tenured teacher speaks to the SCI investigators it only helps SCI firm up their story against the teacher.

Important: "If two people in suits ask to speak to you, do not speak to them, Ask for their business card and contact your Chapter Leader who will arrange for a lawyer to represent you"!

Once SCI substantiates even the most frivolous charge, assuming the Principal wants you out, expect their recommendation to be termination and you will be removed to the Teacher Reassignment Center, commonly known as the "rubber room". In almost all cases the DOE will file 3020-a charges and in an unwritten agreement between Joel Klein and Richard Condon of SCI, no settlements can be made. Only teacher resignations or retirements are allowed. Therefore, the accused teacher will need to go through the entire 3020-a hearing that can take up to three years to complete between the time the teacher is removed until a decision is made by the arbitrator.

The good news is that the 3020-a arbitrators are aware of how SCI conducts their investigations and require DOE to provide witnesses and other evidence to determine the innocence or guilt of the teacher. The bad news, if SCI substantiates anything of a sexual nature, even if there wasn't anything sexual, the teacher could face a "probable cause" hearing and a 60 to 90 day unpaid suspension, without health or welfare benefits.

The SCI investigation is a serious thing and is usually unfair and biased against the teacher. However, in many cases they embellish, twist, pervert, or even invent incidents in their zeal to prove teacher guilt. This may lead to SCI's own undoing at the 3020-a hearing, where real evidence and witnesses are required. So if you are innocent, don't despair, the truth always comes out at the end.

Should We Care About The "Teaching Fellows" ATRs?

There seems to be some disagreement within the UFT if we should fight for the "Teaching Fellows" ATRs. If the 240 "Teaching Fellows" can't find jobs they can be fired in December by the DOE. With the budget problems, look for Tweed to terminate these "Teaching Fellows".


I personally disagree with my many blogger friends and I do not believe that our union should protect these "Teaching Fellows". In my opinion the union should first make sure all ATRs are placed in the classroom before we worry about people who are only not tenured but not even fully certified as a teacher! If the Union had any "guts" they would have challenged the DOE in both the media and the court of public opinion on how the DOE is dumping inexperienced teachers into their child's class. Further, the union could show how many of the small schools have few if any experienced teachers and many of the teachers in those schools are either "Teach For America" or "Teaching Fellows".

How does a staff of inexperienced teachers work with their students? Badly, for the most part. Our union needs to retain their experienced teachers not helping the DOE to recruit uneeded newbie teachers who aren't even fully certified.

A Tale Of Two Teachers - Which One Would You Want For Your Child?

This is a true story. The names of the teachers, the principal, and the school have been changed to protect the reputation of the individuals involved.

There are two teachers, lets call them Mr. Smith and Mr. Jones both teaching at Dominica High School. Mr. Smith is a very popular teacher whose classes are always full and students are always trying to get into his class. Mr. Jones, on the other hand, has an half-empty classroom and students are always trying to transfer out. In fact it was because of Mr. Smith and Mr. Jones that the Principal of Dominica high school was forced to stop the teacher shopping by refusing all student requests for schedule changes.

What made Mr. Smith popular? Simple, he taught at the level of his students. Lessons were simple and explained. Demonstrations were applied to real world situations, and his lessons included applications with other subjects. Everybody who knows Mr. Smith knew that he really cared about his students. Mr. Jones, on the other hand, simply taught the subject and abbreviated many terms which were over the heads of his students. Mr. Jones only cared about his paycheck. The result was that Mr. Smith had twice the Regents passing percentage than Mr. Jones.

You would think that the Principal, Snidley Whiplash, would appreciate a teacher like Mr. Smith. Wrong! The Principal was a very insecure person and felt threatened by Mr. Smith and his questioning nature to some of he Principal's decisions that were not in the best interest of the school. Further, the Principal didn't care to get to know the students in the school and ignored many of the students' issues. The Principal targeted Mr. Smith time and again for "desperate treatment" compared to other teachers. Finally, the Principal was able to have Mr. Smith removed to the "rubber room" on frivolous charges resulting in the school's Regents passing grades to plummet by 50% in the next two years. Did the Principal care about the collateral damage he did to the students? Not one bit. As far as he was concerned, it was more important to remove an effective teacher on "trumped up charges" then what was good for the students. In time the Principal was removed from the school for "just cause" and forced to retire.

What happened to Mr. Jones? You guessed it, he continues to teach and fail the vast majority of his students who he despises and receive a minimal "S' observation from the AP while Mr. Smith the quality teacher every student wants, sits in the "rubber room" for years waiting for his 3020-a hearing to finish and be sent to another school as an ATR....and the DOE's "children last program" continues.

The Slow Destruction Of Jamaica High School By The DOE

There was a report in the New York Post that showed how few students selected Jamaica High School as one of their 12 schools of choice. Only 1,433 students listed Jamaica High School compared to 12, 602 students who selected nearby Francis Lewis High School. This figure for Jamaica High School was the lowest for all traditional schools in New York City and was almost twice as low as the next lowest school, New Dorp High School in Staten Island with 2,619 selections.

It was only 20 years ago when Jamaica High School was a great school with a top-notch student population and staff. However, demographics changed and more lower income and working class families moved into the area, many of them immigrants, and the higher income families chose other schools for their children. However, in the early 2000's Jamaica High School was slowly improving, despite some poor administration, primarily because of an experienced teaching staff and a variety of programs. In fact, many students who had shunned Jamaica High School for other schools gave it a chance and the academics of the school was better than many of the schools in the Borough. However, in came Joel Klein and his non-education managers who started to close many of the failing high schools to the south of Jamaica High School. First it was Far Rockaway High School, next it was Springfield Gardens High School, then Franklin K. Lane. Next, Klein and company allowed many of the other high schools schools to exclude the level 1 8th graders, especially those with behavior and attendance problems. Further, the small schools did not have to take these "not ready for promotion 8th graders" as well as special education and ELL students for the first couple of years. The result? Many of these needy students were dumped into Jamaica High School which caused an increase in student discipline problems and a lowering of both student and staff morale. It didn't help that the school suffered from a weak administration and lacked a backbone when confronting Tweed. Further, to ensure the school's demise, Tweed dumped almost all the students that were released from jail into the school in the Fall of 2006, claiming the school had the space for them. You can imagine what happened next. Right, the school made the most dangerous schools State list. Coincidence? Yeah right. Finally, the final nail in the school's coffin was giving a small Gates school almost a third of the school's space.


While the school is still functioning and has the best damm chapter leader in the City, starving the school of good students and an ever-continuing exodus of experienced teachers is the beginning of the end for a school that should be one of the best in the city.

The DOE Layoff Dilemma

There are rumors going around the education world that New York City may be setting up a layoff list and that layoffs may occur as soon as the Spring semester. It is obvious that the first to be laid off would be school support staff. Teacher's aides, secretaries, school safety, etc. However, for laying off teachers, DOE's dilemma is how to protect the newbie teachers that Tweed has gone out of their way to hire. Unfortunately, for Kleinberg New York State Civil Service & Education Law is quite specific how tenured teachers are to be laid off and there is no way for the DOE to protect the newbies, no matter what they do. To the best of my knowledge the layoff procedure for teachers are as follows:

First, all nontenured teachers are all laid off. No exceptions are allowed.

Second, the most recently tenured teachers are next to be laid off. For example three year tenured teachers are first, then four year tenured teachers, etc, etc. Therefore, the longer the teacher is in the New York City Public School System, the more secure their job is.

It is my understanding that the teacher layoff procedure is not by subject license but by total seniority. Therefore, there could be an over abundance of gym teachers and a shortage of chemistry teachers once the layoffs are finished. That may be unfortunate but that is the way it works. Layoffs by total seniority in the New York City Public Schools.

As you can imagine, this will not go over well with Tweed as they want cheap, newbie teachers who don't question authority over experienced, highly-paid teachers who question idiotic administrative dictates. Therefore, what can we expect from Tweed before they must follow the layoff procedure.

ATRs & Reassigned Teachers: Look for Tweed to start a media blitz complaining how they waste money on ATRs while they must cut the budget. It matters little that the DOE caused this problem and can simply solve it by placing ATRs in the many vacancies that occur during the school year. Spearheading this media blitz will be the Daily News and New York Post with editorials and articles showing the cost of ATRs. As for the reassigned teachers, you can bet that the DOE will propose yet again to put them on unpaid suspension without health benefits. This of course will be rejected by the union as it implies that the accused teacher is presumed guilty and this is not only unfair to the teacher but is un-American and anti-democratic.

Shortage Areas: The DOE will whine about the lack of Math, Science, and Special Education teachers if they follow the layoff procedures. That is just too bad, if the DOE had treated their experienced teachers better, maybe there wouldn't be a shortage of these teachers in the first place.

Union Self-Interest: Klienberg will yell loud and long how the union is unwilling to share the pain by allowing Tweed to get rid of experienced teachers by eliminating tenure, supporting a vastly inferior Tier V pension, and pay more for our health benefits. Of course the same cannot be said at Tweed where the head count and payroll just keeps on increasing.

I can only hope that the Wall Street panic eases and layoffs are not necessary. However, if they are it should be very interesting how Tweed handles it as they are forced to layoff the newbie teachers they spent their time and effort to recruit on their "education on the cheap" policy and "children last" program.

Wanted: OSI Investigators To Send More Teachers To The Rubber Room

In today's Chief , the Civil Service Newspaper, there is an advertisement for investigators for the DOE's Office Of Special Investigations (OSI). I guess it is important to remove more teachers from the classroom. 800+ teachers are just not enough for Tweed. I have taken the liberty to slightly alter the DOE advertisement for OSI investigators below to what the DOE really wants.

Minimum Selection Criteria: To be an OSI investigator the successful applicants must be a high school graduate who has benefited from the DOE's "credit recovery system" and holds grudges against their teachers. Further, ex-law enforcement personnel that were accused of false arrest and fired are especially sort after and the DOE will waive the college credit requirements for these investigators. Documented bias against teachers are a plus.

Duties And Responsibilities: The successful applicant must be able to develop a case, based upon a lying student statement or a vindictive administrator's "false accusation" and not let the facts interfere with a good story that substantiates teacher misconduct. The OSI investigator must be able to twist, embellish, and pervert innocent teacher actions into serious misconduct that results in termination charges against the teacher. To be selected the potential OSI investigator must show the ability to lie about the teacher and sleep soundly at night. Most importantly, the applicant must show that all teachers investigated are presumed guilty while all administrators are presumed innocent. Finally, the OSI investigator must be able to ignore student or administrator inconsistencies that could hurt the case against the teacher and ask leading questions to solicit the proper responses. Most importantly, the successful applicant must show how well he or she disregards a teacher's statement and believes the student, regardless of the past history of lying and bad behavior.

Salary Requirements: The salary range is $54,267 - $70,395 and promotions are based upon how many teachers are found guilty and terminated. Reports that are accurate and finds the teacher at no or little fault are not encouraged and can lead to the investigator's dismissal.

DOE is an equal opportunity employer and the only requirements for the OSI investigator is a driver's license, fake or real, and a dedication to get the accused teacher terminated regardless if the charges are true or not.

The DOE's "Education On The Cheap" Just Results In Hurting The Students

Tweed continues to starve the classrooms with their budget cuts while spending ungodly sums of money for highly-paid consultants, non-education managers, and programs that are best sent to the junk heap. Even before the 7.5% additional budget cuts have been determined by Tweed, the New York City Public Schools already suffer from tight budgets, inexperienced teachers, limited parental involvement, and large class sizes.

Under Kleinberg, the New York City Public Schools have the largest class sizes in New York State, an over reliance of inexperienced newbie teachers due to the "fair student funding" formula that penalizes principals if they hire experienced teachers, and a "one-size-fits-all" learning program that should be sent to the junk heap. Yet Tweed's media puppets see no wrong with this deteriorating system of educational neglect where more and more experienced teachers are leaving the system, only to be replaced by poorly-trained newbie teacher wanna-bees but most never will achieve the status of being a quality teacher. They even ignore the declining SAT scores and flat NAEP results and trumpet the bogus State test scores that everybody knows have been dumbed-down.

Tweed has manufactured the ATR crises and the overcrowded "rubber rooms", most of them over 40 years of age,which has resulted in 2,200 teachers not in the classroom or a waste of $123 million dollars for this school year. Instead of having a hiring freeze to place these experienced teachers in the classroom, the ATR crises is expected to get worse as Kleinberg will not agree to this reasonable cost-cutting measure that would help the students. Further, the DOE has already reneged on reviewing the charges that land teachers in the "rubber room". My previous post mentioned the study done in one of these "rubber rooms" and the dismal results.

Tweed's "education on the cheap" program continues as the goal of the Kleinberg administration is to fire their way to a successful school district, which of course results in the opposite effect. Lower standards, poor morale, and even manipulation of statistics. The final product is that "children last" will continue until the Kleinberg administration is removed.

The UFT/DOE "Rubber Room" Agreement RevisitedThree Month Later

The UFT, with much fanfare and against the wishes of the vast majority of teachers in the "Teacher Reassignment Center" made an agreement with the DOE that expedites the 3020-a process by adding 8 new arbitrators and having them deal with the complicated teacher incompetence charges. This UFT/DOE agreement which the teachers in the "rubber room" had no input or say in, was to make the 3020-a process fairer and bring teachers back to the classroom sooner. However, the reality is quite different in the three months since this agreement was signed.

I wrote in a previous post how the UFT failed the "rubber room" teachers and that the DOE has, time and again, refused to keep their promises. Lets look at what the UFT/DOE agreement promised and see if they were kept.

• The DOE would review charges against reassigned teachers and see if they could be sent back to school. One of the leasions at a borough reassignment center did a survey of all reassigned teachers under 3020-a charges as of June and found that not one teacher had their 3020-a charges reviewed and sent back to school during the summer. In the three months after the signing of the UFT/DOE agreement, no teacher under 3020-a charges had their charges dropped and sent back to their school, not one!

• Principals are still reassigning teachers to the "rubber room" without telling them why they are being reassigned. Another clear violation of the agreement.

• To my knowledge, no administrator has been brought up on charges for making "false allegations" against their teachers. I don't expect that to change despite the UFT/DOE agreement to do so.

The DOE needs to do what the rest of the State does. Only remove teachers that were arrested and subject to felony charges and those teachers that had mental breakdowns that affected their capacity to teach in the classroom. Presently, the DOE removes any teacher the school administration doesn't like. Whether it is salary, ageism, racism, or personality differences. The UFT should demand an independent investigation to determine if a teacher should be taken out of the classroom. Is it any wonder that the "rubber rooms" remain overcrowded? It is difficult to understand why the UFT allows teachers charged with minor infractions to sit side-by-side with accused felons in the overcrowded "rubber rooms". It is like putting a Jaywalker in jail and subject that person to the same charges as a serial killer. No right-thinking person believes the two should be subject to the same punishment. However, the DOE does by painting all reassigned teachers with the same broad brush. The pity of this is our union agrees to the DOE approach.

As for the ATRs? Randi Weingarten is now making the ATRs a priority item for negotiating with the DOE . This is scary. Based on how well she has negotiated for member rights in her previous negotiations with the DOE, if I was an ATR, I would be afraid, very afraid!

Changes In My Favorite Blog List

It is one month into the new school year and it is time for editing my favorite blogs list.

Deletions:
Education in Texas - Just not rel event to what is going on in the New York City Public Schools.

Life After The Rubber Room - This blog started out well but has become quite boring of late and the posts are sporadic.

New York City Public School Blue - My favorite post but he has left the teaching profession. A great loss to both the profession and the educational blogosphere.

Syntactic Gymnastics - Another loss to the profession.

Additions:
Fidgety - Great post about life in the "rubber room". A must read!

Flowers & Sausages - An entertaining post about the special education classroom.

Edwonkette - Great post on how she takes the DOE statistics and shows the real story.

Detention - News items with a humorous twist. Quite funny.

Justice - He is currently on sabbatical but has interesting posts.

Proof Of Life: - A great blog about how an outspoken teacher must put up with administrative abuse and incompetence.


Blogs in danger of being dropped:
JD2718 - Once my favorite blog but lately he rarely provides any real information that is of interest to me. He seems to spend the majority of his posts on math puzzles and his trips. I have not taken JD2718 off my list because occasionally he does post a real interesting article about our union contract and bad schools to work for.

untamed Teacher - She has not posted since June and if there are no posts by next month. I will drop the post.

Would You Want A Novice Surgeon Or An Experienced Surgeon To Operate On You? For The DOE The Answer Is Obvious, The Novice Of Course!

The DOE has started their public relations campaign to vilify the ATRs by saying that they were discarded because of their lack of ability. Not ageism, not salary, and certainly not their knowledge to question stupid administrative dictates. According to the DOE, the ATRs are characterized by their lack of classroom ability. On the other hand, the DOE sees no problem when principals hire loads of cheap and inexperienced newbie teachers. despite documented classroom management and curriculum learning issues with these teachers. Education experts all know it takes a minimum of 3 to 5 years for a teacher to acquire the management and educational skills to handle the classroom. However, in the unreal world of the DOE, this seems to be ignored. In fact, the DOE actually encourages the principals to hire newbie teachers and uses the "fair student funding" program to make it difficult for principals to do otherwise.

This brings me to a simple question. "Would you want a novice surgeon or an experienced surgeon to operate on you or your child"? I would think the answer is obvious, the experienced surgeon. However, the DOE with their "children last" program and "education on the cheap" policy ignores what's best for the student. An experienced teacher can evaluate the various learning styles of her students and can most effectively get the most out of a child's developing brain. By contrast, the DOE seems to want newbie teachers that must follow a steep learning curve to develop as a teacher and are encouraged to use a failed one-program-fits-all curriculum model. Is it any wonder that despite the emphasis on test preparation over a more complete education, the NYC students have shown no improvement on the federal tests?

Only Tweed and their media lackeys, cannot see that it is more important to have a high quality experienced teacher in the classroom than an inexperienced novice teacher. Until the DOE disregards their failed ideology and bring the best teachers back into the classrooms, look for flat test scores to continue.

My Recommendations To Tweed For Reducing The Budget Without Affecting The Classroom

New York City is facing a serious fiscal crises and Bloomberg has asked for cuts of $580 million for the next two years. This is serious money and I have some real suggestions how the DOE can solve the budget crunch without affecting the classroom.

First, freeze hiring of all new teacher hires until all excessed teachers are placed in their subject area. Savings; $148 for the next two years.

Second, let the DOE live up to their promise to review all reassigned teachers under 3020-a charges and send the 90% of them back to school. Savings; $116 million for the last two years.

Third, eliminate all F-status individuals that only drain the school budgets. Savings; $70 million, maybe more, for the next two years.

Finally, eliminate the no-bid, highly-paid consultant contracts that only eat into school budgets. Savings; greater than $ 250 million for the next two years.

In my world of real math, not Tweed's fuzzy math, these recommended actions would result in savings of $584 million dollars, More than enough to meet the city's goal of $580 million in budget cuts. Better yet, none of these cuts would affect the classroom.

Of course, Tweed, in its ever continuing search to cut the school budget in their "children last" program will seek the bulk of the cuts from the schools and of course the classroom.

The DOE Causes The ATR Crises,Then Has Their Flunkies Blame The Teacher.

The newspapers are full of how it will cost up to 74 million dollars to pay teachers, who no fault of their own, have been excessed and are used as substitute teachers in schools for the 2008-2009 school year. The Daily News, The New York Times, and The Sun all have articles that report that the New Teacher Project , a wholly owned subsidiary of the Department of Education, has questioned the waste of money by allowing the ATR crises to get worse. However, instead of doing the obvious by freezing new hires until the ATR crises subsides, Mr. Timothy Daily, President of the company demanded that the ATR's be given a time limit, similar to Chicago (12 months) while encouraging the DOE to continue to hire new teachers.

Not surprisingly, Tweed was quite happy to agree that there should be a time limit of no more than 12 months before ATR's are taken off the payroll. However, for the DOE, the ATR time limit to get a classroom position requires the union to renegotiate the tenure provisions of the contract and amend State Civil Service Law, not even Ms. Sellout, Randi Weingarten, is going to do that. In fact, the ATR time limit is non-negotiable and no union leader will negotiate teacher tenure away. Not now, not ever! Therefore, to stop and eliminate the ATR crises, the following procedures need to be implemented.

1. Freeze new hires until all excessed teachers are placed in their subject area.
   
2. Eliminate the "fair student funding" formula that penalizes principals who pick up higher-paid teachers.
3. Bring back the "seniority transfer system" that allows veteran teachers to have first choice of vacant positions.

Finally, it is time for our union to start their own media offensive and place the blame for the ATR crises squarely on the DOE and their "children last" program.

The ATR Crises Worsens As The DOE Encourages Principals To Hire Newbie Teachers

Just when the ATR crises can't get any worse, the New York Post reports that there was a 13% increase in ATR's to 1395 this year. Based upon last year's figures, the ATR crises will cost DOE over 91 million dollars for the next two years! Unconscionable during a fiscal crises in New York City, how can Tweed justify this misguided policy? Tweed can't and they don't bother to explain it to the public. Instead, Tweed continues to waste funds. Rather than saving money by placing excessed teachers into vacancies, Tweed encourages principals to hire newbie teachers. Posted below is a message that Tweed sent to school principals.

This is from this week's Principal Weekly

New Teachers Available
All schools

Newly-hired, certified teachers are available for you to consider for instructional vacancies. To find out more about these candidates, most of whom are in shortage subject areas, you can contact the Office of Teacher Recruitment and Quality at (718) 935-4080 or contact your HR partner. You can also search and view resumes and essays of these and other qualified candidates using the New Teacher Finder.

Notice how Tweed did not mention the over abundance of well-qualified ATR's? The DOE's disrespect of older and experienced teachers just continues and it does not matter how much money its costing Tweed. Furthermore, the lack of experienced teachers in the classroom only hurts the students since even the best of the newbie teachers take anywhere from 3 to 5 years to achieve adequate classroom management and a real knowledge of how to teach the curriculum.

Kleinberg's misguided emphasis on hiring cheap, and inexperienced teachers as it tries to practice "education on the cheap" just ends up wasting even more precious money and the result is a continuation of their "children last" program.

Update!

The ATR crises is worse than I thought the Daily News reports that there are an additional 229 newbie teachers without a classroom. This brings the total number of teachers who are ATR's up to 1,424. However, this did not stop Tweed from hiring 5,400 newbie teachers this school year. What has our union done about this travesty of wasted talent and money? Nothing!

Both The DOE and UFT Agree - Teachers Have No Rights When Assaulted & Abused

I have brought up how the anti-teacher crusade of Tweed has wasted over $146 million dollars in removing teachers from the classroom, whether it is in the "rubber room" or as an ATR. I also showed that any teacher can be brought up on charges of corporal punishment, verbal abuse, and sexual harassment just on a word of a student and his/her friend she tells that to. However, what about teachers who are physically assaulted, verbally abused, and sexually harassed and assaulted? Not a thing. How many times has a student cursed you out and the only punishment is a slap on the wrist, if any punishment at all. Further, how many teachers had been threatened by students who received no punishment whatsoever. Even teachers who were physically and sexually assaulted by students were ignored by the administrators. Sounds unbelievable huh? Unfortunately, it is so often true.

Let's look at what happened to classroom teacher Theresa Reel, who was sexually harassed, touched, and threatened and both the DOE and the UFT did nothing about it. In an August 15th article in the Chief, Ms. Reel described what happened and the lack of action by either the DOE or the UFT. In fact the administration told her if she continues with her complaints that if OSI is called in, they would treat her as the "guilty party"! Incredible isn't it?

The Chief in the Editor's opinion article "Razzle Dazzle" questioned why the teacher complaints of verbal abuse, sexual harassment, and sexual touching were not acted upon. The answer is quite simple. Teacher rights are not respected by the DOE and the UFT, despite Randi Weingarten's apparent outrage, allows this to happen time and again.

The union must lead the way to recapture teacher rights by ensuring that an independent investigation be done when the teacher and chapter leader inform them of abuse by students and administrators of the teacher. Presently, the union contract ignores abusive action against teachers as incredible as it seems. Was this omission in the contract deliberate or just more incompetent representation by our union? Whichever the case, this omission needs to be immediately corrected.

Is it any wonder that more and more teachers resign, retire, or just plain quit because of the abuse by the students and administrators, aided and abetted by Tweed. Our union? They just look the other way as their members are subject to an increasingly hostile work environment.

The Teddy Smith Saga - How A Biased SCI Investigation and An Arbitrator's Unfair Decision Resulted In An Innocent Teacher Being Suspended For A Year

Many bloggers, including this one, have complained that the DOE investigative process is biased and unfair and questioned 3020-a arbitrator decisions. Therefore, it is important to give an example when the two results in an one year suspension, without pay or health benefits, to an innocent teacher. It all started when Teddy Smith was harassed into teaching a part-time gym class with more than 65 children (often almost 100 at one time) at The Museum School on West 17th street in Manhattan. He also has a heart condition for which he asked his Principal (Lindley Uehling) to be accommodated – although he was and is able to perform his job - but was turned down and his needs were ignored. This started Teddy Smith's journey into the "rubber room" and 3020-a charges. In June Teddy Smith finally won a small victory as a State judge overturned the 3020-a arbitration decision. Betsy Combier's "rubber room news" talks about the case in detail.


The Teddy Smith saga clearly shows the abuse of the DOE investigative process and the closed-door agreements made without a teacher's knowledge. Betsy Combier's "Rubber Room Reporter" discuss how the Special Commissioner of Investigations (SCI) failing to do a fair investigation and the arbitrator for not following 3020-a procedures in determining the penalty given to Teddy Smith.

To get a clearer picture of what happened to "Teddy Smith" it is important to see how SCI took their flawed investigation to the papers and damaged the reputation of the teacher. The Chief published the SCI press release information that smeared Teddy Smith and to the outside world that it would appear that he threatened an arbitrator. In reality, Teddy Smith did no such thing and now he must appear for yet another 3020-a hearing, while on his one year suspension!

The Teddy Smith saga shows that anytime a principal goes after you, the result could be reassignment and potential termination based upon a flawed investigation. Due Process rights? Don't make me laugh,

The CUNY Remedial Course Work For Entering Freshman Really Shows That The DOE High School Graduation Rates Are Bogus!

The Daily News printed an article showing that the.students accepted at City University Of New York (CUNY) have to take more remedial courses to prepare them for college work. In fact about 83% of students entering the City of New York community colleges last year failed placement exams and had to take remedial courses in reading, writing or math - and most graduated from city high schools, records show. Interestingly Chancellor Joel Klein, using his usual fuzzy math statistics, stated About two-thirds of students graduating from city high schools will have to take remedial courses. He also claimed that this figure has went down from previous years. Reading the article the opposite seems to be true. In 1999, when CUNY stopped offering remedial courses at its four-year colleges. The number of first-time freshman taking remedial courses has since grown 20% to about 8,700 last year.This information questions the validity of the NYC public school graduation rates. Obviously, the DOE is graduating many "not ready for college. students " who must take remedial courses before they can do college work.

The rise in remedial course work at CUNY just proves that the high school graduation rates include too many students who graduate with local diplomas (30.2%), aided and abetted by the DOE's bogus "credit recovery program" , and principals pressuring teachers to graduate undeserving students so that the school's report card would reflect progress. Even students who receive a Regents diploma are suspect because of the State's dumbing-down the Regents in many of the subjects. Obviously, the decline in City SAT scores accurately reflect the increase in remedial course work for the entering class at the CUNY community Colleges.

The gimmicks that the DOE uses to artificially increase their high school graduation rates are reflected in the huge increase in students who needed remedial course work at the CUNY community colleges and shows how bogus the DOE high school graduation rates really are.

What Is The Teachers4Action Federal Lawsuit Against The DOE & UFT About?

There seems to be some confusion in the blogosphere about the Teacher4Action's lawsuit against the DOE and UFT. I hope to clarify this lawsuit to teachers and how important it is if the lawsuit is won. Teachers4Action is a large group of teachers who were reassigned by the DOE for various alleged offenses. This group which represents all the reassignment centers in New York City sued both the DOE and the UFT in State and Federal Court. Previously, Jeff kaufman on the ICE blog discussed the problems with regard to the State lawsuit. However, the more important federal lawsuit is alive and well and I hope to summarize the "cause of action" the best I can as an outsider looking in.

The basis of the lawsuit can be summarized with the group accusing the DOE of violating the 1st Amendment (Freedom of Speech), the 5th Amendment (Freedom of Association), and the 14th Amendment (Equal Rights and Due Process Protection) of the teachers. Further, the lawsuit accuses the UFT in aiding and abetting the DOE in violating teacher rights. Specifically, one of those rights was that the UFT failed to properly advise their membership of the impact of changes in Article 21g that was negotiated by the DOE and UFT in 2002 and 2005. The federal lawsuit is based upon the seven issues (cause of action) listed below:

1. Violations/interference of the 1st, 5th, and 14th Amendment rights of the teachers by the DOE.
2. DOE harassment and allowing a hostile work environment for teachers who chose to stand up for their rights.
3. DOE retaliation against teachers that complain about violating their rights to a safe and appropriate work environment.
4. Breach of Contract by the DOE that ignores time lines and proper procedures as defined by the UFT/DOE contract.
5. Failure by the UFT to do their duty of fair representation by teachers in the 3020-a proceedings.
6. Negligence against the UFT who encouraged deals rather then to go through the 3020-a hearings.
7. False confinement to "rubber rooms" causing physical, and emotional injuries.

I can't get into the specifics with each "cause of action" since I am not part of the lawsuit and some of the charges are particular to one or more of the plaintiffs. However, many of the charges are valid for all teachers. For example, the failure of the UFT to protect teachers from DOE retaliation by allowing DOE to have their own one-sided and unfair investigation. Further, the UFT allows the DOE to discriminate against tenured (older) teachers by imposing the fair student funding program and eliminating the seniority transfer system that led to the ATR and "rubber room" problems.

What also seems to be important about the federal lawsuit is how the UFT and DOE made side agreements that are not included in the changes to Article 21g. For example, the elimination of the right for a teacher to request a three arbitrator panel. Or Appendix "H" that allows the teachers to be suspended for up to three months without pay or health benefits simply on hearsay. The result, is the reduction of teacher "due process" rights which I have discussed previously.

Teaching for the DOE has become more and more difficult as Randi Weingarten and gang has negotiated many of our rights away and increased our workload, resulting in a worsening of the classroom teaching environment. If the Teachers4Action lawsuit is successful, it might lead to a more progressive and equal relationship between the teacher and administrator and reduce the teacher abuse that currently resides throughout the DOE.

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