THE NEW "SENIOR ADVISER FOR TALENT MANAGEMENT" IS JUST ANOTHER DOE WASTE OF MONEY

NYC Educator and Chaz have already written about the Department of Education creating a new position called "Senior Adviser for Talent Management." Who was the genius who created this title? His job will be to find positions in schools for Absent Teacher Reserves according to the Daily News.

Breaking News: ATR's already have jobs. We are teachers who work for the NYC school system.

The cost to the taxpayers for the Senior Adviser for Talent Management will be $185,298 per year. My understanding is he will have a staff in the ATR office. NYC Educator is cautiously optimistic about this new position. Chaz is more skeptical. I see it as comical. We don't need a Senior Adviser for Talent Management. We need someone to just place the Absent Teacher Reserves and end the program. It would be very easy to accomplish this task. I could do it for free.

This blog came up with a solution to this totally fake crisis that we proposed back before the latest UFT contract was settled in 2014.

We described the history of the Absent Teacher Reserve system, how the pool exploded under Mayor Bloomberg and we proposed a quick, easy answer.

We explained how right wing and neo-liberal, union haters want hiring and firing of teachers to be up to principals exclusively. This flies in the face of civil service laws which were put in place to cut down on what was massive government corruption back in the late 19th century. We also discussed seniority and unionism.

Seniority rights are a basic union principle.  If the DOE wants to terminate a tenured teacher, they have to go through the legally mandated 3020A process, which still exists although it certainly is weaker under the new teacher evaluation law.

We also pointed out why Absent Teacher Reserves, who are usually senior teachers, are generally not hired for permanent positions in schools.

If a principal were to hire someone like me with twenty-eight years experience, I would take my rightful place on the school's seniority list and probably be one of the senior people in that school in the Social Studies Department.  If that school then was downsized due to decreased enrollments or there was a budget cut (always a possibility), the Principal would be stuck with me and have to place into excess a newer teacher.  I understand why principals would want to protect their junior people who will more than likely not be tenured and can be made to do whatever administration wants (for example pass every student) as opposed to someone like me who might have some problems with that.

Looking back, I predicted my own future. I have been an ATR-Provisional Teacher since Jamaica High School closed in June of 2014. Most of the time I have been at Middle College HS as a Provisional Teacher replacing someone who has been on Child Care Leave. If I am appointed permanently, I would become the senior teacher in the Social Studies Department and a junior teacher would then be put at risk if the school is downsized due to budget cuts (always a possibility). I don't blame the Principal, a wonderful human being and excellent administrator, for being reluctant to hire me permanently although we are trying to work something out. As of today, I'm still officially an ATR. A one year subsidy doesn't really help her much.

How can this fake problem be solved citywide? It's easy.

We had the answer back in 2014. Go back to a version of the system we used before Randi Weingarten and Joel Klein created this mess in the 2005 UFT contract. Let teachers teach where they want to. Here is what I proposed:

The best way to get the ATRs back in the classroom this fall would be to make hiring decisions for people from closing schools (and other ATRs) in a similar manner to the way it was done before the horrific 2005 contract.  Back then teachers were given placement choices within the widest range possible by the Board of Education if a school was closed or reorganized (old Contractual Article 18G).  Senior teachers were not seen as ogres who caused schools to shut down in those days (nor did we cost principals more on their annual budgets).

A teacher was given a wish-list of six schools and then was sent to one of them. Since some principals are reluctant to take veteran teachers in the current educational climate because we may talk too much, there would have to be a deal reached to influence some of them to accept ATRs.

The DOE should give ATRs the six school wish-list but instead of sticking ATRs on principals and making them pay on the school budget, the DOE should pay for ATRs centrally for their entire salary for as long as necessary (maybe up to a decade) when an ATR is placed in a school. A principal would not be charged a dime from the school's budget.  There would be no extra charge for the city taxpayers either as it's just a matter of paying for people on a central budget-line as opposed to a school budget-line.  Any subsequent downsizing caused by budget cuts or declining enrollments would be neutralized by this real subsidy. ATR's could be used to lower class sizes and guidance caseloads, a not so novel idea.

Under this plan, no ATR who had an ounce of sense would apply for a school that had a vicious anti-teacher principal unless they didn't do homework on schools.  (Yes I know principal turnover is high but at least ATRs could start out at places where they want to be.)

The 2011 policy, still in effect, of forcing ATRs go to a different school every week as highly compensated substitute teachers makes no sense and is a complete waste of  resources. 

Other proposed ATR solutions that keep provisional hiring going - a teacher stays at a school for a year and then can leave or be sent back to the ATR pool by a principal or yearly substitute rotations - will just keep a class of teachers going around from school to school for decades until the last ones retire. Why not just end it now? 

If someone is so bad, document it and use the 3020A process.  Principals could even make someone a co-teacher, as the ATR would not cost them any money, if they are seriously concerned about damage done to children by a specific ATR.  Administrators would actually have more control than they have now as ATRs are sent weekly to different schools to cover classes and principals must accept a different set of ATRs each week.

Fast forward three years to 2017 and watch the city waste more money to hire a "Senior Adviser for Talent Management" and give him a staff to try to find jobs for people who are already working in the system. 

Place the ATRs and save that $100 million as well as the millions that the ATR bureaucracy is costing the city taxpayers.

How about someone at the Daily News or somewhere else writing about how this new job is just adding to the out of control DOE bureaucracy? It is more money being spent on the school system that is not going to the classroom. Where is the press?