The City Council is weighing a package of bills that would create a city agency to help senior citizens find jobs and require the city to investigate age discrimination in the workplace.
“We’re tired of being swept under the rug,” said City Council Member Margaret Chin at an Oct. 8 City Hall rally. “Age discrimination creates a toxic workplace culture that results in job loss, financial strain and perpetuates the myth that when you hit a certain age, you are no longer valued in the economy.”
60% Report Bias
More than 60 percent of workers across the country 45 or older reported experiencing or witnessing age discrimination on the job, according to an AARP survey. A report by the Urban Institute and ProPublica using data from the University of Michigan Health and Retirement Study found that 56 percent of respondents 50 or older said that they were pushed out of a longtime job. Just 1 in 10 were able to find another job paying the same salary.
Fair Student Funding where schools have to pay more on their budget to have a senior staff and closing or redesigning schools to get rid of senior teachers are examples of age discrimination. It would be helpful if we have more recourse to fight this type of discrimination based on age.
YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT IS AGE DISCRIMINATION IN THE DOE? I'll tell ya. It's that it is impossible for anyone who has been in the system more than 15 years to be able to get a new position via the Open Market Transfer System. It is a total sham. Only fresh faced Barbie's can transfer out of hell hole schools in the DOE.
ReplyDeleteThe UFT is complicit in its silence and refusal to take action against FSF or the Open Market. Lest, I forget how long is Bloomberg’s ATR debacle going on for? In all that time Mulgrew couldn’t get his nose out of any proffered anus to put an end to it? You know what teachers do in the burbs over crap like this? They sue and their unions sue. The UFT canceled its age discrimination suit against the city. Why? Open your eyes to what the UFT is - a corrupt, facade run by self-serving racketeers and nothing will change unless people refuse to continue to let the UFT get away with their fraud. James, you are a perennial optimist - your words and actions for the UFT are wasted. They stole the election from you, turned you into an ATR and then made sure you got a teaching position and were there long enough to get elected, to prove their ATR discriminatory actions weren’t discriminatory. They used and abused you and you still stand by them. You’re a good man and so am I. Monetary dues are the least of it - they no longer get my written, spoken or monetary support.
ReplyDeleteThe UFT knows that older teachers are being targeted, and abused. They are in with the DOE. That is why more ATRs are over 45. It is so obvious .
DeleteAre these new laws going to appply to city agencies?
ReplyDeleteWe live in a society that is so sensitive to immigrants and treating people as EQUAL....Its pretty much everywhere...yet in the DOE atrs are treated like people living on the street and its pretty amazing how they really do not care as its right in your face simple and clear,,,discriminate against atrs....yet we are living in a society that one can see themeselves being sued for something that happened 50 years ago....bizarre times bizarre organization....
ReplyDeleteI have thought long and hard about this and I am going to resign from my teaching position at my school. It is my first year in the DOE, but this school is just too much for me to handle. I fear that If I remain here any longer while being targeted without ANY support, I will have a mental breakdown. I have also experienced physical aggression from students with little to no consequences. It seems that the same things that have been reported for years to the news/doe/city council are still happening in my school.
ReplyDeleteWho do I need to address the LOR to? I know that I should include my Principal and DOE Human Resources. Do I also include the UFT office? Superintendent? If so, do I address it to anyone specific?(District Rep? Any individuals at HR?)
I have tried to stick it out and have never quit a job in my life. Obviously there are many things happening here that have led me to this decision. I was going to give 30 days notice, but I honestly fear for my mental & physical health if I remain here.
11;21, Please email us at iceuft@gmail.com.
DeleteI’m sorry James that my comment was so terse. The ATR system continues to take a brutal toll on many and I had just gotten word that yet another close ATR friend had a massive heart attack. @11;04
ReplyDelete11:30, Best to your friend. Wishing your friend a speedy recovery.
DeleteMy second year of teaching is harder than my first!! Someone please pray for me because this year is going to test my strength and weakness as a teacher.
ReplyDeleteLike many first-year teachers, Luisana Regidor has a lot on her mind. There are lesson plans to write and papers to grade as well as a dozen other things: evaluations, observations, fundraisers, class trips. It's overwhelming.
ReplyDelete"Last Wednesday, I left here and I got in my car and I just cried," says Regidor, who teaches U.S. history at Schurz High School in Chicago. "Everything was hitting me at once."
Regidor, 31, says other teachers warned her that the first year could be rough, but in September she was full of ideas and energy.
"Then, six weeks in, it happened," says Regidor. "Last Wednesday, I definitely felt like I should probably throw in the towel and do something else."
Regidor isn't alone in that feeling or its timing. One in 10 teachers will leave the classroom by the end of their first year, and teachers are particularly vulnerable in October and November.
Ellen Moir, CEO of the New Teacher Center, which runs mentor programs in roughly 200 districts nationwide, has decades of anecdotes to show that October hits hard. She even has a name for this time of year: The Disillusionment Phase.
As they get six or seven weeks into school, they realize how tough it is to be a really good teacher," says Moir. "They need someone saying, 'You are not horrible. You are not a fraud.' "
ReplyDeleteFirst-year teachers who have someone they see as a mentor are more likely to stick it out. So, what about the new teachers who feel like they are out there on their own, with nothing more than a pat on the back and their own good intentions?
For them, veteran teacher Roxanna Elden has developed a free "disillusionment power pack." After one week, more than 1,000 people have signed up to receive a month of motivating emails sent every few days from Elden, an English teacher at Hialeah High School near Miami who has been teaching for more than a decade.
Her goal: get new teachers to Thanksgiving break.
"The aim is to say what I always wish someone had said to me in a meeting," says Elden, 36, who has also written an advice book for teachers called See Me After Class. She added that she hopes the emails, which allow teachers to write back, will create a safe place for those who might not have one.
"Lots of jobs are hard," says Elden, "but with teachers, it's like, 'Wow, I'm hurting kids because I'm as bad as I am.' You have these exaggerated thoughts like, 'Well, what if I break my leg? I'd get three weeks off.' "
The emails are a combination of personal stories and advice. One includes a photograph of a journal entry she wrote during her first year. Below it, Elden writes, "The students from this class are in their 20's now. I'm friends with many of them on Facebook, and they don't seem to have been permanently scarred by the mistakes."
ReplyDeleteElden's worst day of her first fall in the classroom happened in late October. Her students were acting up, so she assigned them a long list of math problems even though she knew homework shouldn't be given as a punishment. Later she realized it was Halloween and that she had most likely only ruined the night for the kids who would do the homework — the ones who had been behaving anyway. It was the last straw: She broke down crying in her car.
Elden's emails alone might not make the difference if a teacher is seriously considering quitting. The more comprehensive a mentoring program, the more likely a new teacher is to stick around, says University of Pennsylvania professor Richard Ingersoll. But the emails might nudge a struggling teacher to seek more help elsewhere.
Back in Chicago, Regidor has been reaching out for support — to her mom, who is a principal at another school, and to the experienced teachers on her team.
"I look at them, and I go, 'Oh, they're still here,' " Regidor says. Despite the tough days, she stresses that she loves her students, her school and her job.
11:42, I posted but please cite the source. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteNpr.org...new teachers, it's ok to cry in your car. How sad, how pathetic.
ReplyDeleteIt’s ironic that in the DOE, as well as in life in general, the very young and very old have similar problems ; the newly hired teachers and senior teachers also have similar problems. They are under a microscope, often targeted and the Uft does virtually nothing to protect them - it is only concerned with squeezing them for dues. If they are lost there always new hires to replenish their coffers.
ReplyDeleteThe UFT knowds, the lawyers they are all in cahoots to push older teachers out.
DeleteGM deal, 3% annual raises AND $8k signing bonus. Wow, what a difference. How embarrassing.
ReplyDeleteYeah, where is unity to compare? We get 1.3%, over a long run. Most recent deal got us under 2%. That's over a decade with under 2% raise average. Who needs to keep up with inflation. But keep paying that $62 per check. You guys are delusional.
ReplyDeleteAnother uft failure. We always manage to get undone, in every facet of the game.
ReplyDelete