A DELEGATE ASSEMBLY THAT LEONID BREZHNEV WOULD HAVE BEEN PROUD OF

UFT President Michael Mulgrew took dictatorial control of the Delegate Assembly to new depths that one time Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev would have been elated with. The issue at the special DA today was the worst part of the new agreement with the City-Department of Education that will permit the DOE to reassign Absent Teacher Reserves to new schools every week.

The low point of the meeting was not the agreement that contained some positives including a no layoff agreement and new procedures to help ATRs get hired. The nadir was that the president had to be forced before he would allow anyone to speak in opposition to his new agreement. When he opened up the floor for debate, multiple loyalty oath signing members of his Unity Caucus heaped praise on him for preventing layoffs. (Unity members must sign a statement saying they will support the decisions of their caucus [political party] in public and union forums.) We certainly agree that not having layoffs is an excellent outcome. Only after a Unity person moved to close debate did I stand and raise a point of order so I could have the opportunity to defend the Absent Teacher Reserves who in the new agreement are being shoved to the back of the bus if they can’t secure a position.

Roberts Rules says, "Debate of a question is not ended by the chair's rising to put the question to vote until both the affirmative and the negative are put;" I read this clause verbatim to the Delegates. Roberts Rules goes on to say, "A member can claim the floor and thus reopen debate.” That is exactly what I was attempting to do. Mulgrew passed to the UFT's parliamentarian who the president noted is paid for by the UFT. (By the way, I read Roberts Rules closely tonight and a point of order [procedures not being followed] takes priority over a motion to close debate.) The parliamentarian abruptly ignored Roberts Rules and told Mulgrew he had to have a 2/3 vote to let someone speak against the motion (the ATR and no layoff agreement) at this point. Mulgrew then improperly asked that the rules be suspended to allow someone else to speak. He got the vote to suspend the rules which was ridiculous but at least we thought were going to be heard.

We were still muzzled, however, as President Mulgrew for some reason did not call on me but instead called on a delegate from my school who yielded his time to me. That wasn't good enough for the president who at this point quickly said the delegate couldn't yield time to me and called on someone else who didn’t speak at all about the ATRs. What is the president so afraid of? Were 900 or so members of the Unity Caucus going to vote against their leadership and side with me because of my rhetorical skills? I doubt it very much. At least the DOE gives us two minutes to speak at their Panel for Educational Policy meetings before they cast aside what we say.

Mulgrew didn't even afford me any time to make the important points I made in tonight’s earlier piece. Leonid Brezhnev would have been so happy with the way our union conducted its business.

CITY BUDGET BEING BALANCED ON THE BACKS OF UFT'S ATRS

• We have an agreement between the UFT and the city that eliminates the possibility of over 4,000 layoffs this year. We also gain increased hiring opportunities for Absent Teacher Reserves to be hired provisionally and to get considered for positions at reduced costs to principals. In exchange the UFT has agreed to suspend sabbaticals for 2012-2013 and to allow the DOE to move Absent Teacher Reserves who are not lucky enough to secure a permanent position from school to school on a weekly basis.

  
  

  UFT President Michael Mulgrew's report at tonight's emergency Delegate Assembly highlighted the no layoff part of the agreement, which we are all happy about. Nobody in their right mind wants to see over 4,000 teachers lose their jobs. Mulgrew also thanked everyone for doing work with the state and city council. He told us the mayor said he wanted non seniority layoffs. He talked about opposing the mayor with the city council. He didn't, however, talk for too long about the part of the agreement that dealt with Absent Teacher Reserves becoming nomads.

  The new agreement forces each principal to interview at least two ATRS per semester if they have vacancies and they are supposed to hire ATRS for vacancies and leave replacements. I don’t quite understand what happens if they interview two and don’t like them. Can they then hire someone from outside or give the classes away in a secondary school as a sixth class for special per session pay or to substitutes? UFT leadership believes these new procedures will lead to a big reduction in the ATR pool. I hope they are correct because anyone unfortunate enough to be left behind in the ATR pool risks becoming a teacher gypsy.

  The agreement on page three contains the following ominous clause: "An Excessed Employee/ATR shall be assigned to a school within his/her district/superintendency each week. A 'week' shall be Monday through Friday, or shorter if the work week is less than five(5) days." Then there is clause C which says: "An Excessed Empoyee/ATR shall be notfied no later than Friday (or the last work-day of the week) if he/she will be assigned to a different school the following week and, if so, to which school. An ATR who has not been notified that he/she has been assigned to a different school by Friday shall report on Monday, or the first work day of the work day of the work week, and for the duration of that week, to the last school to which he/she was assigned." In other words, if a teacher does not find a permanent job on his or her own, buy a good GPS.

  Besides the obvious problems of ATRS not having stability from week to week and not being able to bond with students, or know which person in each particular school to go to in order to resolve issues with payroll or their sick bank days or other items, this makes it virtually impossible for ATRs to do any per session work (extra activities for money that are pensionable.) We are truly worried that ATRS will now become third class citizens.

  One of the worst parts of the horrible giveback laden 2005 contract was the loss of placement rights for members whose schools close or are excessed because their school or program is downsized. Since then, there has been a pool of teachers ranging from the hundreds to thousands called ATRs who have no permanent job and must substitute. Under current rules, ATRs usually stay in a school for a year and then can be reassigned. It is not a very professional existence but we are told by UFT leaders that at least the ATRs have jobs. In 2008 the DOE and UFT came to an agreement to allow principals to hire ATRs and only get charged on their budget the cost of half of a starting teacher for seven years. (The teacher still gets full pay.) The UFT predicted this would basically end the ATR problem but it didn't. The reasons ATRs are not hired are either because they have obscure licenses or they are activists who are not going to say, "How high?" when a principal tells them to "Jump!"

  UFT Secretary Michael Mendel told me the ATRS will have a much greater chance of getting a full time position under this new agreement. Again, I truly want him to be right but I fear he might be wrong. The subsidies didn't lead to the withering away of the ATR pool and neither will this as I see it because unfortunately some principals don't care about cost as much as they care about control. Furthermore, having teachers do coverages is much cheaper than hiring someone they don’t know.

  Balancing the budget on the backs of ATRS is not quite as awful as balancing it on the backs of newer teachers who would have been laid off but it was totally unnecessary. With Bloomberg’s poll numbers on education sinking to "Bushian Post Hurricane Katrina" levels, the UFT was holding all of the cards and should have insisted that to save money that the DOE should be compelled to place all of the ATRS into positions in their districts. That would save some money for sure as it would eliminate the ATR pool if DOE was not allowed to do any new hiring until every ATR in a license in a district was placed. Any remaining ATRs could cover classes in an individual school so as not to create the potential chaos that this agreement could bring.

  Teacher bashing continues. When firehouses close, the firefighters aren't blamed and they are sent to another firehouse. When police precincts redeploy whole precincts because of corruption scandals, the clean cops who worked in the corrupt precinct don't have to apply to other precinct captains. They are transferred. Only teachers face the indignity of having to pound the pavement to seek a job because a program was downsized or closed.

  President Mulgrew said this union leaves no educator behind. This is not totally true as the ATRs have certainly been left to basically fend for themselves.

THE LAST MINUTE BUDGET AGREEMENT: IS IT GOOD OR BAD?

It is very hard to comment on the UFT agreement with the City-DOE that was announced last night. It is certainly a very positive development that over four thousand teachers won't be laid off. On the other hand, the teaching force will be reduced by thousands through attrition, while student enrollments are increasing; this will invariably result in larger class sizes which is educationally unsound to say the least.

It is also not so good that we gave up sabbaticals for 2112-13, which will save pennies, while nothing has been done to control ballooning administrative costs within the DOE.

However, this sabbatical concession is not my central concern. We live in the real world and the national and state political climates are definitely anti teacher and anti union. We know that the sabbatical giveback for a year is not a fundamental loss.

It is the ATR part that concerns me. Absent Teacher Reserves are teachers who have been excessed because their school or program has been closed or downsized. They are in that position through no fault of their own and policy now is to usually send ATRs to a school for a year so at least they have some certainty in their lives.

ATRs at my school are currently utilized to cover classes for absent teachers on a daily basis before any day-to-day subs are called. If through this agreement the DOE is truly going to be compelled to deploy ATRs into vacant positions, then this is a positive development. If, however, the UFT just gave the DOE license to shuffle ATRs around on a weekly basis to different schools within a district, then ATRs who already are treated like second class citizens will have become third class UFT members.

Until I see the language of this agreement, I will reserve judgment. Yes, the devil is in the details.

I would hope that the UFT would send out the actual agreement before Tuesday's emergency Delegate Assembly meeting so we can discuss it with our members before we break for the summer.

For a detailed analysis, read Perdido Street here.

TWO TEACHERS STEP UP TO FIGHT DOE ON THEIR OWN

We constantly hear people complain that they are paying over $48 a check in UFT dues and don't get proper services from the Union. While the UFT should be everyone's first line of defense when under attack, it is certainly not the only avenue available to battle back against horrible administration. Two teachers who I know are taking their fight outside of the UFT.

Dena Gordon is a social studies teacher at East West School of International Studies in Flushing. She works for administrators (Principal Ben Sherman and Assistant Principal Mala Panday) who have abused the staff continually. The harassment and intimidation have been so severe that the last two UFT Chapter Leaders were compelled to leave the school and now they do not have a chapter leader. Can anyone blame people for not taking the Chapter Leader job under those circumstances? Dena was a UFT Delegate previously so Sherman has targeted her all year with illegal observations where she is denied mandated pre-observation conferences and letters for file over inconsequential issues that are ignored with other teachers.

Dena has filed multiple grievances that are clogged up in the interminable grievance process. Step I is the principal and Step II is the Chancellor. Basically, teachers have very little chance of having an objective hearing at both steps. The Union has a limited number of arbitration dates available where grievances would be heard by a neutral third party so grievances back up for years at times while administrative harassment continues. We need to expose what is happening and get help to teachers like Dena.

Dena decided she could not wait a second longer so she has hired her own lawyer and taken the principal to the state Public Employees Relations Board charging him with anti union bias. We believe she has a very strong case as clearly she is an activist who has been targeted by an administration that is more interested in controlling the Union than in educating kids. Union buster Ben Sherman truly deserves the designation: "Principal From Hell."

Gagan Diwan is a math teacher. He taught successfully at Humanities and the Arts High School in Queens until 2009 when suddenly administration turned on him.He asked administration for an accommodation to have classes on one floor and a key to the elevator as he has muscular dystrophy.

Administration ignored his requests and went on to terminate him several months later. UFT would only file a U rating appeal, which as we know is basically a kangaroo court where we almost always lose. However, Gagan would not accept the loss of his job so he hired his own lawyer and filed a complaint with the New York State Human Rights Commission. A few weeks ago they found there was probable cause that his rights were violated and now the case will go to a hearing. The NY Post covered this story.

The point of all of this is to tell our readers not to give up when confronted with a seemingly impossible situation. There are people out there who aren't going to take the employer abuse and are finding ways to help themselves either inside the union or if they are not satisfied, then outside.

GRADUATING STUDENTS SPEAK OUT

The piece linked below by Anna Gustafson, an excellent education reporter, is from the Queens Chronicle. It needs to be read by everyone.

Anna interviewed a bunch of graduating students in our school slated for closure. The kids talk about their hopes and also the obstacles they confronted in high school. I'm quite confident this story could be repeated all across the nation. There are consequences on real life people when school officials starve a school of resources. These kids succeeded in spite of what was done to them by the New York City DOE.

Please read and comment.

http://www.qchron.com/news/queenswide/article_9badb0f7-fcfa-5e19-af5e-1074e576b975.html

Also, we totally support the lawsuit that has been filed by the UFT, NAACP and others like State Senator Tony Avella to save our schools.

PREMIERE OF INCONVENIENT TRUTH BEHIND WAITING FOR SUPERMAN

Last Thursday I attended the premiere of the Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting For Superman along with around 700 other people in Harlem. This educator and parent produced film is the response to the highly misleading documentary glorifying charter schools called Waiting for Superman.

What a pleasure it was to see the new movie in which teachers and parents worked together to produce a quality work that tells us what is really going on inside our nation's public schools.

It is a hopeful sign when you see regular people take the "Do it Yourself" philosophy to a new level. It also felt good to watch young veteran teachers Brian Jones and Julie Cavanaugh as the stars of the film.

The audience at the premiere was a diverse group of educators, parents, students and activists.

The Grassroots Education Movement that produced the film consists of retirees, veteran teachers, new teachers and non teachers too. People who are united by a common agenda to support public education and fight back against the so called reformers who are actually trying to destroy our public schools.

In addition, this was the first time I have ever heard Diane Ravitch speak live. She led a panel discussion after the film along with a student, a parent and two teachers that was quite enlightening. Professor Ravitch lives up to the hype and we thank our lucky stars that a person of such high regard is leading the battle against so called school reform.

Finally, it wouldn't be a James Eterno story if I didn't put in a plug for the kids from my school. So with an apology to the reader who hates that I like to talk about Jamaica High School, a school that is at the center of the school closing controversy, the names of the two students from Jamaica who appear in the film are Syeeda Nasim, a sophomore, and Kevin Gonzalez, a senior. I hope in future editions they get credited.

UFT Chapter at Aspirations HS Stops Charter School in Its Tracks

A Joint Hearing scheduled for Thursday evening for the colocation of a new charter school for just released incarcerated students and other "disconnected youth" was abruptly cancelled by the proposed school. A Charter School Association representative stated that the failure of the new proposed charter to obtain a principal caused the sudden withdrawal for the application while others understood that the pressure by local civic leaders and Aspirations High School staff brought to bear was too much for the DOE and the proposed Charter.

The building at 1495 Herkimer Street in Brownsville was converted from a sewing factory in the early 1990's and was the home for neighborhood school, EBC/ENY High School for Public Service and Law until its closing for poor management and performance by the Klein administration. In 2008 Aspirations High School, a transfer school for under-credited and over-aged high school students was opened in the building to occupy one half of the space. The remaining space left by the vacating EBC/ENY High School was then offered to Roads Charter School, a school for newly released incarcerated students.

Roads, which boasted new teacher salaries of up to $100,000 per year and a plan to take over large parts of the building, concerned the staff at Aspirations and others. The UFT Chapter at Aspirations voted, almost unanimously, to oppose the new charter. Community leaders and some parents also recognized that the proposed colocation of the Charter school the existing public school was a real estate grab for the DOE's preference for privatizing public education.

"The colocation of this school was just wrong at every level," said United Federation of Teachers Chapter Leader at Aspirations High School Jeff Kaufman after the application for the school was withdrawn. Kaufman had taught incarcerated students for many years at Rikers Island before joining the staff at Aspirations.

"We have learned precious little since Brown v. Board of Education," [the landmark US Supreme Court which outlawed segregation in education.] "Segregating released students further stigmatizes these at risk students," he argued. "Newly released incarcerated students need to be carefully integrated into the community."

Kaufman also stated that concentrating newly released incarcerated students in the vacant space would have posed a risk to the students at Aspirations and the neighborhood around the school."

Kaufman cited the failure of Community Prep High School, a DOE public school attempt to segregate this population which was closed soon after it opened in a segregated facility on the East side of Manhattan.

It is not clear, at this time, how the DOE will utilize the newly vacated space.

NEVER SAY DIE JAMAICA WILL RALLY AGAIN ON SUNDAY

We refuse to quit. Thanks to the energy of Senator Tony Avella, Jamaica will be out there again rallying to show the world our school that is scheduled for phase out is still alive. This time it is the alumni leading the way. Alumni include musical group the Cleftones, who will be performing at Sunday's rally, Councilman Leroy Comrie, State Assemblyman David Weprin, Councilman Mark Weprin, CBS Sunday Morning's Nancy Giles and plenty more. Hopefully, they all will all be there on Sunday and you are invited too.

Jamaica is located at 167-01 Gothic Drive in Jamaica. Take the F Train to 169th street, go to the back of the station and walk two blocks up the hill on 168th to the school. See you on Sunday at noon.

Michael Fiorillo Warns Not to Celebrate Black's Departure; Leonie Haimson Gets it Right in the NY Times

Hello All,

This is not a good development. Every day that Black was Chancellor, she further undermined Bloomberg and revealed his contempt for students, parents and teachers. Walcott will follow the same smash-and-grab agenda, but will be far more adept at it, and his being black will provide a partial shield from criticism.

After all, if people are motivated by power and greed, better for the rest of us if they are incompetent and the butt of jokes. Black was a gift from the Gods of Absurdity, which they have sadly taken back from us.

Let's all hope that this comes too late to revive people's view of Bloomberg, but it makes our job harder, not easier.

Best,

Michael Fiorillo

She Inherited a Mess

Leonie Haimson, a New York City public school parent, is the executive director of Class Size Matters, a citywide advocacy group.

New York City has the largest school district in the country, with 1.1 million students. Unfortunately, as the experience of Cathie Black shows, having a good record in business is not enough to be a successful chancellor.

Cathie Black inherited a huge mess from Joel Klein, who made one mistake after another.

You have to understand something about teaching and learning, how to listen to stakeholders, and how to work collaboratively with communities to move their schools forward. Joel Klein came in with an attitude that he knew best, that the schools were his fiefdom to control, that parents had nothing of importance to communicate, and proceeded to make one disastrous policy mistake after another.

He coasted for many years on effective public relations, increased budgets and test score inflation. When he started cutting school budgets and the test score bubble burst, he had nothing left to rely upon and departed for greener pastures.

Cathie Black came in and inherited a huge mess. One-fourth of all elementary schools have waiting lists for kindergarten because of overdevelopment and incompetent planning. One-tenth of eighth graders were not admitted to any of their high school choices. In a system supposedly based on expanding choice, this administration has taken away the most basic choice of all: to be able to send your child to a neighborhood school.

Class sizes are larger in the early grades than they have been in more than a decade, schools have lost art, music and science, and are forced to focus on test prep; and parents’ desire that their schools be helped to improve, rather than threatened with closure or lose precious space to a charter school is routinely ignored.

Dennis Walcott has a big job ahead of him. He clearly has more experience and political skills than Ms. Black. But what he needs to do is convince parents that he cares about their priorities for their children, show teachers that he knows something about the challenges they face every day, and demonstrate to all New Yorkers that he is ready to take the school system in a new direction. Whether that will happen is unlikely; but one can always hope.

MLK VIGIL MONDAY ON BAI

I'm scheduled to be on with Mimi and Ken from the vigil on Monday between 7 and 8 pm. Hope to see some of you there or at least know you are listening on WBAI (99.5 FM).

WBAI’s Radio Building Bridges: Your Community & Labor Report
Produced by Mimi Rosenberg and Ken Nash
Monday, April 4, 2011, 7 – 8 pm EST, over 99.5 FM
or streaming live at http://www.wbai.org
******************
Martin Luther King’s Economic Justice Agenda

From Memphis To Wisconsin

Forty three years ago, a struggle by 1,300 sanitation workers for economic justice

brought Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to Memphis. On the eve of his death, hours after

marching with the AFSCME sanitation workers, being denied the right of collective

bargaining & facing down the armed forces of a city & state, Martin Luther King, Jr.

declared: “work that serves humanity…It has dignity and it has worth.”

WE ARE ONE

Today in Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, Florida and more than a dozen other states,

well-funded, corporatist politicians are trying to take away the union rights Dr. King

gave his life for. This year, to commemorate his sacrifice, the AFL-CIO has called

for nationwide events and actions to link the struggle of 1968 to the challenges we

face today, We Are One. And, Building Bridges will be there to bring you the

April 4th protests and continue the legacy of Dr. King.
*******
Carrying On The Legacy Of Dr. Martin Luther King
with
Dr. Vincent Harding, an associate of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, has written

numerous books, including "Martin Luther King: The Inconvenient Hero". On this

43rd year since the death of Dr. King, speechwriter, confidante Dr. Harding

discusses Dr. King’s economic justice activism and its relevance for us today as

workers battle for the survival of their labor organizations, against give backs,

stagnating wages and unemployment
****
From Ground Zero Of the War on the Workers: Reports from
Wisconsin and Ohio
with
Peter Rickman, Teaching Asst., LaFollette Law School , Univ. of Wisconsin,

& member of the Teaching Assistants’ Assn., AFT Local 3220
and
Joseph Rugola, Exec. Dir., Ohio Assn. of Public School Employees, AFSCME

The Ohio legislature just passed Gov. Kasich’s union busting bill which nullifies public

employee rights. Meanwhile, Gov. Scott Walkers’ rush to cut public sector worker

benefits, and bust their unions in Wisconsin has been stymied by court action. But

the workers in both states aren’t taking the assaults lying down, we’ll find out how

they’re carrying on the legacy of Dr. King and attend the We are One demonstration

in Madison Wisconsin.
***********
Carrying It On: They Stay Get Back, But Workers Rally For A Living Wage
On Anniversary of Dr. King’s Death

We'll go live from the Bethel Baptist Church in Brooklyn where a community/labor

coalition is demanding passage of the Fair Wages for New Yorkers Act, to address

the plight of the working poor in New York City. More than $2 billion of our tax dollars

is being spent annually in the name of economic development and job creation, but

is actually creating poverty wage jobs, rather than living wage jobs.
***********
Workers' Rights Are Civil Rights - NYC Teachers Fightback on April 4
with James Eterno, Chapter Chair, UFT, Jamaica High School

The UFT is drawing inspiration from Dr. King and will stand in solidarity with workers

under attack across the country with a vigil at Battery Park. We’ll join this protest live

where the UFT with labor and community activists protest Mayor Bloomberg’s plan to

lay off thousands of NYC teachers, shred their seniority and pension rights and close

26 public schools while expanding charter schools.
*************
Listen on your Smartphone
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smartphones. For more information, go to http://stream.wbai.org

Listen When You Want
Building Bridges and most WBAI Programs are now being archived
for 90 Days. These links will be live ca. 15 minutes after the program ends.
To listen, or download archived shows go to
http://archive.wbai.org/show1.php?showid=bbridges

Visit our web site -
www.buildingbridgesradio.org

Mayor Laguardia vs. Mayor Bloomberg, Unions and The Rest

By David Pambianchi

The Mark of Greatness - The Mark of Infamous
Prelude: As New York City's Bloomberg Administration exposes itself, at last the people see. At last they know as corporate America reveals itself, not as the provider of opportunity, progress, free enterprise and the promise of the American Dream, but a warped entity of human failing and degradation, a corruption so contrary to the fabric of the American conscience and the vision of the founding fathers that it sickens the body and soul and makes a mockery of everything wholesome and good.

Dollar after dollar flows into the media and into politics, drummed into the ears of our citizens attempting to deafen hope, brainwash and convince the people that we must distrust our neighbors, question our friends, keep our place, and obey those who usurped our financial security. We shall not. All the golden lies spread across the land by billionaires cannot make the people believe in their hearts that teachers fundamentally do not care about children or that police and fireman fundamentally do not care to protect us and prefer to make a buck.

The people begin to sense the truth, see the truth and understand that our children will pay for the corruption and greed of the few. The children of the middle class will watch the birthright left to them by generations of working ancestors crumble, and the children of the poor will pay with thicker chains of poverty. And while they pull the wool over our eyes, the audacious position of the Bloomberg Administration that pounds at our doors, inundates us with messages from a Yellow Press with hate, threats and fear, is that the wealthy must save us from ourselves.

Billionaire Mayor Mike Bloomberg vs. War Hero Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia Illustration: Ekaterina "Katie" Aksenova

Since Billionaire Mayor Mike Bloomberg fancies himself the greatest mayor of all time, a brief comparison is in order between him and who many "thought" was the greatest mayor, War Hero Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia.

Lifestyle

LaGuardia lived modestly in East Harlem with his family, had no major campaign contributions for his election and after his death left only his legacy.
Bloomberg bought and coerced a third mayoral term and "somehow" managed to triple his billions, while the country went through one of the greatest market crashes since The Great Depression.

Where LaGuardia and Bloomberg stand on Unions

Who is the Union?
The union is the police, fireman, teachers, sanitation, transit, communications, garments, electricians, painters and carpenters, auto workers, teamsters and represents every other trade in New York. Workers and their families, for the people, by the people, this is the Union. And the Union delegates have a basic responsibility: to collective bargain for fair wages and hiring practices, health benefits and workplace safety, pension after years of faithful service and the like.

LaGuardia supported the people and as Dr. Martin Luther King later understood, Unions were one of the best ways to fight racism and nepotism in the work place. The Norris-LaGuardia Act outlawed yellow-dog contracts that prevented workers from joining unions. While LaGuardia promoted Unions in the private sector, he feared the striking power of Public Unions, however (for better or worse depending on your point of view); this concern is moot as the Taylor Law of 1967 paralyzed Public Unions by making it illegal for municipal employees to strike. In out-of-time context, the NY Post still quoted LaGuardia concerning, "keeping young teachers during a layoff," for a false comparison with Bloomberg. They would never print what LaGuardia also professed, "...let all the money of the taxpayers go into schools instead of politicians." Then, he opened and modernized schools.

"I think the reporter should get his facts straight before he distorts them." - Fiorello LaGuardia

Bloomberg diverts funds to strangle and close schools. First the Puritans, then Thomas Jefferson, and then Benjamin Franklin gave America the concepts of free education. When the Bloomberg administration has exhausted all funding, Elementary and Secondary school will no longer be free. Likewise, Freedom of the Press has become a farce and an anathema with the majority of the media already under Bloomberg influence and control.

Day after day, the papers still mock public intelligence and knowledge, relentless in their attack on the "Bad" Union Teachers. History repeatedly teaches the imperative need for unionization. March 25th 2011 marks the Centennial Memorial of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, the worst industrial disaster in U.S. history with 146 workers that burned, asphyxiated or jumped to their deaths. (No one was found guilty of negligence, but a later lawsuit won compensation in the amount of $75 for each deceased person.) New York was full of low-wage sweatshops with horrendous working conditions and still the corporate powers stymied safety laws and kept employers safe from punishment. It took this tragic disaster to bring about the expansion of the International Ladies' Garment Union (Now, a merger of unions called UNITE HERE).

But like today's teachers, the laborers are still under fire from Corporate America, and still there is no punishment for destroying livelihoods or the economy by stealing and defrauding the American people. One name is recognizable, Bernie Madoff, punished for stealing from the rich. Senior company partners continue to collect billions in bonus checks, which included the public's "Bailout" money under the concept we cannot tamper with "Contracts," and in the next breath demand an end to Union Collective Bargaining Contracts lest a laborer needs to go to the dentist. We must continue to fight for community and solidarity, the decency of job security, medical insurance and something other than a "gold watch" as we are "sent out to pasture," or the "glue factory."

Nonsense in newspapers continues to blame unions for any industry's failure, negating factors such as a company's poor judgments and direction and lack of vision concerning foreign competition. A Television commercial pressures the public to become anti-union because union members get paid more and have medical benefits over non-union workers. The Robber Barons think people are so shallow that this logic will upset the segment of the American people they already hold down into turning against unions when many will think, "We need more unionization." One hack writer for the N.Y. Post stooped so low as to do the unthinkable: refer to the coal mining union as an example of "siphoning wealth" from businesses. The old mining industry conjures the quintessential images of horror that includes horrendous and dangerous working conditions, The Company Store, cave-ins, Black Lung disease, long work hours, child labor and death. In essence, the writer then comes to the "unique" conclusion that since government employees are paid from tax dollars rather than private, the taxpayers are providing them with a "Free Lunch."

"We must close union offices, confiscate their money and put their leaders in prison. We must reduce workers salaries and take away their right to strike"
- Adolf Hitler, May 2, 1933

Bloomberg despises anyone or anything he cannot control, the teachers' union in particular. He would spend a hundred trillion tax dollars of an education budget on consultants, private contractors and cronies' programs (and privatization that would eventually bring profits back to him), before he let an extra nickel of "good" slip into a classroom, all the while professing that the Union and its members greedily seek benefits like medical insurance, job security, modest pensions, and non-hostile work environments. We watch as Wisconsin and Rhode Island teeter on the brink of descending back to the turn of the century coal mining days and the Bloomberg "Company Store." Something out of Star Wars's Intergalactic Empire "for a more safe and secure society," Michigan Governor Rick Snyder has started the process to toss away Democracy and the U.S. Constitution altogether dissolving laws, elections, contracts and unions under the guise of "Emergency Management" based upon his "discretionary" budget predictions. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42115121/ns/politics-more_politics/
Compromise year after year, take piece by piece until nothing is left. New York is next. Bloomberg first stuck the STOP Last In First Out bull-ring in Long Island's Senator John Flanagan's nose who is pulling the "Band Wagon" trying to make a name for himself. Since Governor Cuomo hopped onto the cart, Union members fear another Union compromise will be the "Final Sellout."

"In Washington DC, former Chancellor Michelle Rhee, announced a budget crisis, laid off vets and then "unannounced" a budget crisis and hired newbie TFAers....It is interesting to note, that despite a lingering recession, budget crises and widespread teacher hiring slowdown, TFA teachers are being hired at a steady pace. The growth is often times coming at the expense of veteran teachers who are losing their jobs- in some cases to make room for TFA teachers who typically are hired at much lower salary levels. Remember the 266 mostly veteran teachers who were laid off in 2009 subsequent to the hiring of hundreds of TFA'ers? A recent study from the Education and the Public Interest Center report titled: "Teach For America: A Review of the Evidence" found that the learning curve and turnover rate of TFA teachers does harm to vulnerable students who are in need of highly trained and highly skilled teachers." http://thewashingtonteacher.blogspot.com/2011/03/veteran-teachers-need-not-apply.html

Bloomberg future quote:
"Ask not what your mayor can do for you, but what you can do for your mayor."

The time has come for Federal Investigators and Prosecutors to take an interest in the Intentional Fraudulent Misrepresentation and Deceit of the above and the likewise dealings of the Bloomberg Administration to include his Patronage and the accountability of Federal, State and City funds in the public and private sectors.

In Vision and Character
LaGuardia denounced Germany's Nazi Party and warned America of impending danger.
As Bloomberg decimates the school system and irrevocably mars the teaching profession, his education representative Chancellor Cathie Black compares her "decisions" to the movie "Sophie's Choice," where a woman is forced to choose which of her children is carried off to a Nazi death camp. Bloomberg emphasizes, "It's just a joke. Let's move on."

On Bias
Mayor LaGuardia championed Women's Suffrage.
Mayor Bloomberg settled many sexual harassment lawsuits.

Parks and Recreation
LaGuardia read the comics to children over the radio, built playgrounds, opened the 1939 Worlds Fair and renovated the Zoo.
At the Zoo, Bloomberg gets bit by Chuck the Groundhog and calls him a "Son of a bitch."

Combat Record
During World War I, LaGuardia insists on flying dangerous bomber missions through enemy cross-fire. He becomes Unit Commander.
During the Vietnam War draft, Bloomberg receives multiple Student Deferments and years later at the Zoo, gets bit by Chuck the Groundhog and calls him a "Son of a bitch."

LaGuardia worked for the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and campaigned against Child Labor. He fought organized crime and government corruption.
Bloomberg makes charitable donations to hedge his reputation, reminiscent of the Robber Barons of the early 1900s, except they did not use public funding to make amends the way the mayor plans to renovate the Manhattan shoreline.

Infrastructure

LaGuardia built 2 airports, Floyd Bennett Field and the other named after him, bridges, tunnels, highways and much of the infrastructure we know today.
Bloomberg puts in bike lanes doubling traffic and auto exhaust pollution. Perhaps a dozen bicycles used the Bronx bike lanes since September and during the infamous snow storm a few lay buried tied to trees at the Prospect Avenue unemployment center. So that Elites can sit along Broadway sidewalks sipping tea, traffic and truck deliveries are backed up and down the streets along with angry cab drivers who must buy and maintain a GPS system they cannot use. Bloomberg calls it an improvement in the quality of life.

(A NY Post spin claims park crime is up because people are not watching their belongings. As if it is your fault that criminals rob you and not the Bloomberg administration's fault for not hiring enough police. New Yorkers should be pleased to know that so far in 2011, crime is down, "except" for a rise in murder, rape, robbery and felony assaults. The number of parking and traffic violation tickets has skyrocketed.)

LaGuardia opened fire houses.
Bloomberg closes them or shrinks crews endangering the public.
LaGuardia opened hospitals and medical centers.
Bloomberg closes them.
LaGuardia unified the transit system and reorganized the Police department.
Bloomberg demoralizes every agency in New York.

LaGuardia brought NY out of the great depression, revitalized the city, provided quality low-rent housing and restored the faith of the people. Bloomberg brings us back into depression, destroying the people's faith in just government and the press.

We can surmise that Bloomberg "profits" not merely in monetary terms. He and his cronies have spent enough funds on a slander campaign against educators that by now could have quadrupled the number of city teachers. The most likely explanation is that Bloomberg believes someone with 20 Billion dollars must be 20 Billion dollars happier. Bloomberg and his type cannot tolerate the idea that a bus driver at the beach watching his children play in the sand or a cab driver working the family grill on a summer day can be more satisfied with life than he. So he must make them suffer, reduce their wages and insurance benefits and make their families beholding to his majesty, never understanding that these actions cannot lift the shadow of his miserable existence and the reality that like us all, he cannot escape his mortality.

"When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible but in the end, they always fall - think of it, ALWAYS." - Mahatma Gandhi

There is no happy ending to any comparison for our Greatest Mayor is from a time gone bye. LaGuardia will forever be cherished and remembered as "The Little Flower." Bloomberg will forever be despised and referred to as, "The Little Despot."

Illustration by Ekaterina "Katie" Aksenova

Visit David's Website: "Writer's Edge"
http://davidmtc.web.officelive.com/

THE GHOST OF FUTURE SCHOOLS

My colleague Marc Epstein has looked into the future and only we can stop this future shock with our actions.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marc-epstein/the-education-reformers-e_b_840831.html

COMPUTER PROBLEMS KNOCKED ME OUT BUT FIGHT FOR PUBLIC SCHOOLS GOES ON

Haven't had a computer the last two weeks so no posting. It is interesting living life without a computer these days.

August Martin, Jamaica and PS 30 had rallies last Friday. We thank Senator Tony Avella and Councilmen Leroy Comrie for their support. Big rally coming on Thursday and another Fightback Friday will be here in a few days.

Thanks to Gustavo Medina for his you tube video at Jamaica and to Norm Scott for posting on Ed Notes.

Let's keep those flames burning.

An Open Letter from Newer Teachers of New York State

February 21, 2011

Dear parents, students, colleagues, school administrators, elected officials, and members of the public,

Currently, New York State's seniority rule protects experienced teachers from layoffs, a policy sometimes known as "last in, first out." In recent budget negotiations, Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Black have pressured Governor Cuomo to overturn this rule. We, the undersigned teachers who have been teaching in New York State for five years or less, stand in solidarity with our more experienced colleagues and strongly support maintaining the seniority rule.

As newer teachers, we rely on our more senior colleagues for guidance and support.  Senior teachers offer us their advice, their formal mentorship, and their connections with communities.  Without more senior teachers, we would lose our bridge to lessons learned through years of dedicated work in the school system.

In addition, the rates of black and Latino new teacher hires in New York City have steadily declined since 2002, while the vast majority of New York City public school students are black and Latino. Opening up more senior teachers to layoffs would risk further decreasing the already sparse ranks of teachers of color.  These teachers provide guidance for younger teachers of all backgrounds, and play an important role in the lives of our students.

We also believe that Bloomberg and Black's so-called "merit-based" system for retaining teachers will foster competitive, fearful school cultures that are detrimental both to teachers' professional development and to student learning. In addition, Bloomberg and Black seek to measure teacher performance by student test scores, an imperfect measure at best, and one that encourages narrowly test-focused curricula.

Finally, Bloomberg and Black's arguments against the seniority rule are based on the fact that newer teachers work for lower salaries than our more experienced peers; allowing experienced teachers to be laid off would therefore reduce the total number of necessary layoffs.  This argument, however, fails to account for the true cost of professional development and adequate support for newer teachers.  It also ignores the fact that teacher experience is one of the most reliable predictors of student learning.  If student achievement is the priority, then experienced teachers are more than worth their cost.

Ultimately, the debate over who to lay off is a distraction from the root causes of inequity that continue to affect our profession and the lives of our students; budget cuts should not include any teacher layoffs.  Education is an investment in our future, and cuts to education are ultimately short-sighted.  We reject political tactics that raise the specter of massive teacher layoffs in efforts to divide the workforce and pit parents against teachers.  In the interest of our students, we stand with senior teachers in supporting the seniority rule.

 
 

Sincerely,

Newer Teachers of New York State 

Click below to add your name:

 

http://bit.ly/eCXaC8

 

“White Paper” on a Roll: How Ed Deformers Distort the Record on Seniority Layoffs

On February 14, 2011 Educators 4 Excellence, a mouthpiece for the current movement attempting to reverse the current law on seniority based layoffs issued a press release announcing what they termed a "first research-based proposal" contained in a "white paper" entitled, "Keeping Our Best Teachers: An Alternative to Seniority-Based Layoffs."

As our Union remains conspicuously silent on this issue, preferring to argue against the need for layoffs rather than the method, it is time to take this piece of alleged research apart to see what supports their recommendations and whether these recommendations truly support their main thesis; that seniority-based layoffs hurt students and cause some of the "best teachers" to be terminated.

The format of the "white paper" is fairly straight-forward containing an introduction, an explanation of the current system and recommendations.

The Law

The law on seniority-based layoffs requires all layoff decisions to be based on total seniority including substitute and paraprofessional service within license. The literature dealing with layoff scenarios misses this point. Not surprisingly so does the "white paper"." When a layoff decision is made the DOE can layoff certain licensed teachers and hold back on other licenses. Thus hard to staff licenses like special ed or ESL might be totally spared layoff or high school teachers might be laid off before junior high or elementary school teachers. Education Law Section 2588 already gives the DOE the discretion to choose which license and how many teachers to lay off.

The impact of this discretion is nowhere assessed or even discussed. Yet the "white paper" concludes in its introduction that the impact of a layoff would be greatest felt in schools with a large percentage of newly hired teachers which they conclude are more often concentrated in the lowest income communities.

The "white paper's" Introduction

In order to save our schools from being torn apart (their words, not mine) the E4E deformers recommend that layoffs be based on Chronic Teacher Absentees, Principal Evaluations and being assigned to the Absent Teacher Reserve Pool.

"These categories are clear indicators of teacher performance and student achievement," the paper claims. Yet the next paragraph cautions, "In the absence of a more comprehensive system, our framework is a better way to conduct layoffs because it protects great teachers."

This tautological expression undergirds the thesis of the paper. We can't really know who the best teachers are but somehow by laying off by measuring teacher absence, principal evaluations and the fact that you are an ATR will avoid terminating "great teachers."

The introduction continues by asserting that based on a study done last year by the Calder Urban Institute demonstrates that "most of the teachers who would be laid off in a seniority-based system would be substantially more effective than even the best teacher laid off using a value-added system, or a system that includes teacher effectiveness." Does this mean that value-added systems don't measure teacher effectiveness?

Despite the inartful wording of the "white paper's" introduction the Calder Urban Institute (a collaboration of mostly southern university ed researchers who defend Waiting for Superman and most of the ed deformer agenda) claims, as the E4E paper does that seniority-based layoffs will cause effective teachers to be laid off. But how did they determine effectiveness?

The Calder study used 4^th and 5^th graders from New York City and the "value-added" model that has been demonstrated to be inaccurate and misleading to determine teacher effectiveness. A bit more academically responsible than the E4E crowd Calder states its assumption right up front, "assuming readily available measures of teacher effectiveness actually measure true teacher effectiveness, an assumption to which we return below, the differences between seniority and effectiveness based layoffs are larger and more persistent than we anticipated."

The distortions and inaccuracies continue as the "white paper" claims that the diversity of the teacher ranks would be adversely affected by seniority-based layoffs. The paper claims, without support, that "over the last decade, New York has hired many more African-American and Latino teachers to better reflect the population of city students." Seniority-based layoffs will, they claim, cause these newer, minority teachers to be laid off disproportionally. The fact is that minority hiring has dwindled in New York City and other areas served by programs such as Teach for America. No analysis is offered to support this proposition.

What is cited is the recent Los Angeles school system case as evidence of adverse racial impact. Again inaccurate and misleading. The case has been settled in which racial impact, by law, is permissible to be taken into account in protecting certain parts of the school district from layoff. The settlement is a creature of a completely incomparable set of circumstances. The types of abuses cited by the plaintiffs have not been documented in New York City.

The Recommendations

The first recommendation is based on teacher attendance. The "white paper" suggests that absent teachers be divided into 3 tiers in which teachers absent 15 percent or higher (as measured over the previous and current school year) would be in the first round of layoffs. Tier 2 would be at 10 percent and Tier 3 at 8 percent. They exclude absences with doctor's notes and calculate that at Tier 1 for the last 15 months year you would have to absent 41 days to meet the threshold. At an average of 3 days per month it is unimaginable that a teacher, without a doctor's note, would not have been brought up on charges, placed on disciplinary probation under our new time and attendance contract provisions or otherwise separated from employment.

The "white paper" again confuses teacher effectiveness and student affect by citing a New Teacher Project paper that supports their thesis. (The New Teacher Project was founded by ed deformer poster child Michelle Rhee who recently was caught in her own teacher effectiveness misrepresentation when she admitted that her resume could have been written clearer when it suggested she magically caused her own students to increase their test performance from the 13^th percentile to the 90^th percentile).

The study cited as well as this "white paper" mysteriously neglect to mention a New York City Department of Education study, written just prior to Bloom/Klein in which absenteeism did not correlate with student performance. Other studies have demonstrated that there are more effective ways of dealing with teacher absenteeism including disincentives (termination, fine and other discipline) and incentives (buying back unused sick time).

The next recommendation involves using U ratings in layoff decisions. They support this proposed layoff criteria on the broken U rating system claiming that only 2% of the teachers get U ratings. While 2% is still 1600 there is reason to believe that this number is understated. However sine UFT and DOE statistics don't include terminated employees (both tenured and probationer) and teachers who voluntary resigned with U ratings the number is probably much greater.

The broken U rating system, however, in impeccable logic, supports the decision to layoff because, according to the "white paper," when principals give U ratings they must really mean it since they give it so infrequently. Then they take the next illogical step; if they really mean it then the teachers must really be bad. This is absurd and the very reason that seniority-based layoffs were codified into law.

U ratings are given for a variety of reasons many of which do not involve teacher quality. Political, economic, personality differences and age discrimination reasons are just a few.

U ratings rarely lead to teacher termination for tenured teachers due to the subjective nature of the teacher assessment by the principal and the incompetence of DOE administrators and attorneys. Just like students poor teachers can be taught and with the right mentoring an incompetent teacher can be taught to be competent. A U rating has nothing to do with teacher competence. Seniority based layoffs ensure that illegal and inappropriate discriminatory practices are not perpetrated in a layoff situation.

The last recommendation and my personal favorite is the layoff of ATRs who have not found a permanent job in 6 months. The chauvinism and condescension toward ATRs is evidence of the "white paper's" true mission; the destruction of the collective bargaining system as we know it.

While the ICE/TJC members of the Executive Board when the 2005 contract came up for a vote were the only ones to vote against the contract on the Board and tried to warn the membership of the dangers of this provision (just skim this blog's early entries) the fact is the membership approved of the contract after listening to the lies of union officials who promises this would do away with bumping and the open market was a much fairer way than seniority in determining teacher placement.

In the aftermath of the creation of the ATR pool we have seen overt age discrimination in the attempt to cause more experienced teachers to quit or retire. ATRs fill full teacher programs and are not hired due to the heavier financial burden they place on shrunken school budgets.

When a contract creates an economic disincentive to hire a teacher it is outrageous to insinuate that the teacher's failure to obtain a permanent position is due to incompetence. As schools close ATRs are created. While there was an agreement at one point that recognized the economic disincentive to hire experienced teachers this agreement was never fully funded and totally expired last December.

Additionally the ATR system was established as a result of collective bargaining, where teachers and the DOE traded economic and non-economic demands. What did we give up for the ATR system? Should we permit the DOE to circumvent the collective bargaining process by an end run through the legislature?
And who says ATRs are incompetent?

The "white paper" is replete with inaccuracies and misstatements. It is sad that a group of teachers, who they themselves might, in the future, be U rated, excessed or be absent buy into the ed deformer argument that old is bad, young is good.

Overwhelming Controversies Defame NYC Department of Education

By David Pambianchi, Guest Contributor

Every education issue in the press put out by New York's Mayor, his administrative stooges or Yellow Journalist puppets is fallacious, misleading and corrupt.

The media releases a daily tirade of opinions and articles, spewing false information to unwitting readers who trust the papers, believing that they are being served by proponents of Liberty and a Free Press. The Media have become the proponents of Fraud and Free Gibberish.

The Student Standardized Test Score

The New York Post requested through the Freedom of Information Act the names of teachers whose students failed the state's Standardized Tests. The implication is that they are helping parents and students by exposing "Bad" teachers and giving the Department Of Education grounds for firing them.

The readers get brief arguments about test flaws and unfairness with an overwhelming slant that it is all a Union cover-up. The Logical Truth: Through no fault of his own, if Dr. Martin Luther King taught in a "rough" school and was given up to 150 students, many highly disruptive, disrespectful and emotionally disturbed that told him to "Shut the F... up or I'll kill your mother," and these students refused to do any work and subsequently failed Standardized Tests, Dr. King would be branded publicly as a Bad Teacher, Bum, Dead Beat and the like by the DOE and newspapers.

Bottom line for publishing names: Another excuse to print worthless news and stir up public support to fire teachers.

"Good New Teachers" vs. "Bad Old Teachers"
What exactly is Merit? Converse to common sense, it has nothing to do with ability.

By their own admission, the DOE "Good Teacher" is one that draws the least pay and uses the least benefits. Just out of school and less likely to use medical benefits due to illness, and less likely to have a family, dependents, mortgage and the like, the DOE calls this type of person a "Good" more efficient teacher with "Merit." By DOE definition, every year the teachers work, they are becoming "Bad", less efficient teachers. They draw more money, gain rights and experience and once they secure benefits and pensions, they are unfit for our children. They have less "Merit" and have become "Bad."

Under the new Tier 5 contract, a teacher does not become vested for 10 years (Pensionable), and needs 15 years to secure medical benefits for future retirement. Therefore, a new teacher is a "Good" teacher if he quits or is laid off (fired), before be completes 10 years. The DOE owes him and the family and life he started, nothing; no medical benefits or pension. A decade of his life has passed, his career ended and his license is not even helpful for a street vendor's permit to sell balloons. Seniority and Last in First out is his only protection.

With no logical and ethical alternative to seniority based systems that protect fundamental employee rights around the globe, insider and "specially funded" groups like Education Reform Now and Educators 4 Excellence still oppose seniority. With a false sense of security, they presuppose themselves "Excellent" and more caring of children than other educators, magically more effective, and naturally believe more deserving of remaining on the payroll as they age and become "Bad" teachers.

The Fraud of Charter Schools and School Closings Smokescreen

Last fall, the DOE revved up their attack on public school teachers eagerly anticipating high state test scores for Charter Schools. Nothing less than a miraculous odyssey, the Charter Schools that had hand-picked "New Good" mostly duped nonunion teachers, cherry-picked top level 3 and 4 students and had extensive tax payer money pumped into them. They were OUT SCORED by regular under-funded public schools with "Bad Old Union Teachers" who were left with lower functioning 1 and 2 level students, English as a Second language learners and anyone else the Charter Schools rejected.

We do not hear the outcry every day in the press to close them, that the children and public have been deceived. No. We hear the call for MORE Charter Schools. Bottom line: Continue to squeeze out so called "Bad Old Union Teachers" by dumping them into the Absent Teacher Reserve (ATR). The DOE wants to keep hiring new teachers, coming and going with revolving door policy, wants them coming in from Teach Across America to stay a few years and disappear, wants any NYC Universities to be able to claim they have high college placement for their graduating students, by temporarily dumping them in the school system despite half of them leaving within the first year.

More and more schools MUST be closed in order to get rid of union teachers and redirect the subsequent savings to fund the vast, useless and ever growing administrator positions and outside agencies. (Not to mention their benefits and larger pensions. Teacher pensions average $39,000 of those who can make it to retirement before being hounded until they quit or are forced and coerced out.)

["I counted 22 DOE administrators who earned at least $180,000 as of last June - most of whom I have never heard of; and 74 who made $150,000 or over. What's most interesting is how many administrators there are - including hourly workers: 11,796! More than 10,800 are listed with annual salaries."]

Some Math

With a 3 to 4 ratio, these administrative salaries equal 30,000 to 40,000 teachers, teachers that could be in the classroom with smaller class sizes and more individualized instruction. (Remember the number of teachers in the entire system; 80,000.) Meanwhile, instead of having teachers already in the system become Principals and Assistant Principals, the Leadership Academy is pumping out principals by the hundreds that have as much to do with NYC Education as Chancellor Cathie Black.

More Math

In addition to the above numbers, multiple storey schools (similar to recent phasing-out Jamaica H.S.), staffed a Principal and around 5 Assistant Principals (APs). These schools were closed and replaced with 5 new schools, one for each floor. That means at least 5 Principals and 10 or more Assistant Principals. (They have to find someplace to put the ever increasing number of administrators.) The additional salaries of these administrators equal what could have been another 15 teachers or more in the classrooms of the building.

Furthermore, the strangulation of low achieving "Close Out" schools by deliberately funneling away funds, making false evaluations and comparisons to other schools and withholding support is nothing less than Racism.

Ethically, Often the Best Schools are the Close Out schools

Obviously, Close Out schools are not fudging data. If anything, they are honest in their struggle. Unfortunately in MOST schools, fearful of retribution for having an "Academically" failing school and being targeted for teacher "U" ratings or "Excessed" into the ATR pool, teachers protect their livelihood and forgo ethics. Suddenly, students pass Regents and classes after tests are "Scrubbed" (reexamined through special interpretation), or worse, and students who can barely read, nor do a simple math equation, graduate. Students tossed into the local college to make the High School look "Good," discover they need remedial courses. Many soon drop out.

Some principals manage an "A" School Rating this way. Sometimes these principals and some of those aforementioned administrators, who never stepped foot in a school building get bonuses upward of $25,000. That's more than halfway to hiring a new teacher for a year. For hard working teachers, this is simply an extra slap in the face.

The Absent Teacher Reserve

If the DOE cannot move public opinion and the legislature to overturn Seniority rights, the ATR system (that the DOE created and wasted a fortune on), is another avenue to accomplish teacher removal with the Open Market Scam. Rather than veteran teachers choosing new schools to work by seniority after a school downsizes or closes, Principals now have "Discretion" in hiring. They are "inclined" not to hire ATRs. They hire the aforementioned "New Good Teachers" and not "Bad Old Teachers."

First, "Starve the Beast." Bloomberg's administration mismanaged the budget in order to create a hungry, monstrous deficit, now they want to use the ensuing financial crisis as an excuse to "Feed this Beast" the salaries, benefits and pensions of fired veteran teachers and cover some financial loses. Year to year, ATRs are bounced around the system like ping pong balls (even if they have the skills of Aristotle), and still teach classes usually relieving the parent-school's teachers of their workload by getting a newly formed class-mix of aforementioned Dr King's disruptive students. (ATRs can also fill in as daily substitutes if a teacher is out sick.)

How to fire a "Senior Tenured Teacher:" Blackmail and Criminal Harassment

In essence, Tenure means Due Process and almost every American knows the meaning of "Due Process." It is the core of our justice system and the backbone of freedom and the American spirit. The 80,000 teachers of NYC do not argue that a teacher convicted of a criminal sex act against a child or a drunken buffoon (front page news for certain), should remain in the system. Tenure does NOT protect this type of employee. But the DOE has a different definition of Tenure. Due Process is a hindrance to removing employees that draw higher salaries and benefits.

The newspapers finally published a rare view of what a NYC school has become. An unstable Staten Island Principal made headlines for ranting and raving, threatening to garnish wages over teachers being 5 minutes late who car pooled and managed to struggle to work after a snow storm. But here is what the public does not know. That incident is not even the tip, of the top, of the iceberg. Imagine what the daily animosity between teachers and administrators and the abuse of authority that goes on in this school must be like and then realize that this is becoming the norm in the school system.

Principals are openly blackmailed by the Bloomberg Administration into giving teachers "U" ratings. They must find fault in teachers (preferably those drawing higher salary), or THEY are getting an "Unsatisfactory" rating. Administrators that are a product of the NYC Leadership Academy are more inclined to act accordingly and like the Staten Island Administrator would be considered by the DOE as a "Strong, GOOD principal with vision for the children."

The Principal's "Discretion" translates into Principal's "Discrimination and usually involves Criminal Harassment with impunity."

Once marked for an "Unsatisfactory" rating, the innocent victim can expect any or all of the following:

A. No matter how many years of experience, how well a teacher plans or how excellent their lesson or teaching ability may be, the result will be "Unsatisfactory" observation after observation.

B. Letter after letter of problems with the teacher will be placed on file, some absurd and petty as to stagger thought (like the Staten Island Incident, but the publicity probably saved them that letter)

C. Continuous harassment of various sorts, computer removed from the teacher's room and given to another teacher, along with furniture, or supplies

D. constant walk-ins and class disruptions

E. Threatened with a "U" rating unless he or she transfers or threats they will be brought up on some kind of "charge" if they do not resign E. Classes with disruptive students disciplined for some teachers, but not for the marked teacher left to fend for his or her self causing indirect encouragement of student disrespect toward marked teachers
F. Public humiliation and reprimands before fellow teachers and/or students, even over the loud speaker

The school can expect:

A. A hostile work atmosphere
B. Most teachers afraid to speak out in general
C. Teachers siding with administrators against other teachers in an attempt to look "Good" and avoid targeting
D. A teaching and working staff that hold contempt for the NYC teaching profession
E. Students that sense all of the above

I have seen a highly qualified and intelligent elderly English teacher go through the gauntlet. This teacher took a normally a tough disruptive group of students, using his dramatic style and the fact they respected his age, he got them to do class work and they learned about Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. But he was given the harassment treatment and the more he resisted, the more inflamed the principal became. Some students referred to him as grandpa, and he would buy a birthday cake and take a few "school photos" for students now and then. The principal used one of these "cake photo episodes" to report that the teacher was some kind of pervert to be investigated, and had him sent to the infamous Rubber Room. The principal even coerced a female student to tell investigators that "She felt uncomfortable." She later told investigators she was coerced by the principal. The teacher was exonerated after a year or so and made it back into the school system, but not all teachers are as fortunate.

I have seen a teacher blamed for students starting fires in the class when he turned his back to write on the board.

I have seen a principal and AP, badger a physics teacher over her lesson, once she was marked for a "U" Rating. If she were Albert Einstein, it would have made no difference. Neither administrator had the intellectual capacity to determine anything going on in the room, on or off the board. The teacher was lucky enough to get a transfer.

On and on, just ask a teacher. There are countless stories.

Tenure and Seniority is the only barrier between racism, bias, nepotism, harassment and corruption.

Why does someone become a teacher?

Usually someone first becomes a teacher because he or she believes they can make a difference in a child's life. Second, they discover, what an idea? To make this endeavor an honorable career, have a family, children and retire with dignity. But now in New York, knowing how the current system works, only an insane person would become a teacher. After 6 plus years of college, degrees, certificates, subsequent training and testing, as soon as they put in time and start to draw benefits and salary increases, the DOE by definition determines they are old and "Bad" and must be fired.

All that is left is your children

Tainted press and phony politicians chant the mantra that they care about your children. But from the beginning, it has always been the teachers who care about spreading knowledge to children. They know what is best, and what children need. Teachers must be given the tools, the authority and respect to do their jobs.

Visit David's Website: "Writer's Edge"
http://davidmtc.web.officelive.com/

ICEBLOG SALUTES WISCONSIN RESISTANCE

First many teachers in Florida walked out of schools to defend tenure and won. Now teachers in Wisconsin have walked off their jobs in a huge sickout and they have been joined by students and other public employees to descend upon the capitol to defend public employee collective bargaining rights. They appear to have won a temporary reprieve by their actions as Republicans can't get a quorum to vote on their horrible piece of anti-union legislation.

We are under assault nationally and must fight back to survive.