One of the Department of Education's routine methods to torment teachers is to
extend the probationary period. Probation used to be almost automatic if a teacher survived three years in the classroom but has been routinely extended starting in the Joel Klein era. It has not changed much under Bill de Blasio.
This is from Chalkbeat:
Sixty-seven percent of the nearly 6,000 eligible teachers were granted tenure in the 2016-17 school year, a 14 percentage point increase since Mayor Bill de Blasio took office, according to new data provided to Chalkbeat.
Under Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who promised to move toward “ending tenure as we know it,” tenure approval rates plummeted from 89% to 53% at the tail end of his administration, before de Blasio took control of the school system in 2014.
Bloomberg argued that too many teachers were earning tenure too quickly, and the city began delaying decisions for a large portion of eligible teachers. After being awarded tenure, teachers earn due process rights that make them difficult to fire.
Under de Blasio, teachers have been more likely to win tenure as soon as they are eligible. But the statistics show that de Blasio has not returned to the approval rates of a decade ago, when more than 90% of eligible teachers earned tenure protections.
The tenure rate ticked down last school year, though officials cautioned the data is not comparable. For one, far fewer teachers were eligible last year due to a change in state law requiring at least four years of service instead of three before a teacher can earn tenure. And the pool of eligible teachers was skewed toward those whose tenure decisions had previously been deferred, a pool that is less likely to win the protection.
What a mess.
Forcing teachers to jump through stupid hoops to be tenured just makes many want to leave the profession. I don't see any rationale for extending probation other than to intimidate teachers. A strong union would be fighting this by not cooperating with administration. The UFT tells teachers they are lucky to have a job.
President Michael Mulgrew did comment here:
In response to the latest figures, teachers union chief Michael Mulgrew said in a statement that “the real issue is not a tenure numbers game, but the fact that thousands of teachers — tenured and untenured — decide every year to walk away from their New York City public school classrooms.”
Many of them might not leave , Mike, if a robust union actually had their back.
I wonder what the figures are for extending probation for other city employees such as police or firefighters.
The jumping through hoops is ridiculous. I bet there are newbies who sign up for the UFT due to fear on the tenure issue mistakenly thinking the UFT will help.
ReplyDeleteHere's one way to get tenure -- offer to do personal stuff for the principal. Pick up their cleaning etc
I wonder what percentage of people really need an extension after 3 years. Most of this is manipulation - political - a quota - to avoid NY Post headlines saying 90% get tenure. Remember the numbers of people who leave before even trying to get tenure -- we should have these numbers because they should be taken into account for the cohort. Let's assume a certain number of people are not cut out for teaching. It takes around 2-3 years before reaching some level of competency.
One teacher I know had attendance problems in two of the three years so it made sense to extend a year to be sure. For others, the tenure portfolio is pure sadistic DOE behavior. We could stop it quickly if we had a union.
ReplyDeleteI got another call from a terrified discontinued teacher this morning. This is the second in two days. Each tale of woe is worse than the last. I don't say that flippantly, but with true commiseration for those abjectly disaffected educators looking at a loss of career and income. The horror stories of crazed administrators I was told would be unbelievable in a work of fiction. Both educators are single parents and devastated. They don't trust the UFT to do the right thing and fight for them. The way the rules are laid out they have very little recourse. Why is the UFT taking dues from these folks, when they can’t and/or won’t do anything to help them? I tried my best to calm them down and told them to go the UFT regardless of how they feel.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first began to hear about people being discontinued many years ago, it didn't seem possible that they could just do this so easily. The UFT was barely conscious and nothing has changed. But I'm not sure exactly what they could do for individual cases once that die is cast. The should be fighting for a change in the rules either in the contract or other venues like legislature. But in a transactional union they don't want to waste political capital on the untenured. They assume many will leave anyway and they also think that where there's smoke there's fire and are more likely to accept the judgement of the principal. Why is the UFT taking dues from them? Because they can. And they don't have to pay dues any longer but fear does work even if UFT does nothing they are afraid they would do even less than nothing for non-dues payers. Actually the more you think of it this may be a strategy for the UFT- the threat of discontinuence and insecurities of being a new teacher counters Janus and UFT reaps benefit -- if they are discont they get replaced by the next victim.
ReplyDeleteA primary responsibility of a union is to protect its members. If a lawyer like Bryan Glass can win some of these probationer's cases, then the UFT should be fighting hard for some also, particularly when teachers are rated Effective and still discontinued.
ReplyDeleteI was told by someone who works at LaGuardia that the former principal Mars didn’t send the binders of most of the people up for tenure. I heard that after she was promoted and everyone found out about the binders, the Superintendent got the binders from the Union.
ReplyDelete