1,800 Teachers in the Absent Teacher Reserve

SchoolBook has published a report with some important numbers regarding the ATR, plus a few typical innacuracies and insults.  Notice, for example, how they write about the city trying to "get rid of" teachers in the ATR.  That goes in the category of insult, not inaccuracy, because it is, unfortunately, exactly what the Mayor would like to do with every single teacher in the ATR. 

The last recruitment event of this year’s hiring season takes place Wednesday, as the number of teachers out of work more than doubled to 1,800 over the summer. 

The job fair, at the Armory on the Hudson in Upper Manhattan, is by invitation only and teachers must register in advance. 

Education officials said the pool of teachers looking for permanent positions spiked after approximately 1,000 teachers lost their positions at the end of last school year.

But the city is trying to reduce the annual ATR pool size and ultimately get rid of those teachers who are being paid for full-time work but are not actively looking for jobs, or can’t get hired. Last year there were just 800 excessed teachers on the city payroll, something both education and union officials said was the result of a new system of rotating teachers to different schools each week, giving them more exposure to schools that may want to hire them permanently.

Click here for the complete article. 

GEM/ATR Meeting on September 20

The GEM/ATR Committee will meet at the Starlight Diner at 402 W 34th St. (SW corner of 9th Avenue), Manhattan, at 5:30 PM, on Thursday, September 20, 2012.

The committee will address ATRs’ concerns and how to accomplish these goals.

The Curse of the ATR

We thought that we had heard it all, but this one's really novel: a fellow lands in the ATR after being accused by his Principal of trying to put a curse on her.  This new contributor goes by the name of Burn Down the House. 

That I was accused of "putting a curse on" my Principal, which she said while testifying at my 3020a hearing, and that I was accused of therefore having caused her to have two car accidents and of causing her house to burn down, should not be any great surprise. After all, she had no teaching experience, and went straight from being a Parent Coordinator at the district office,  to assistant Principal, and then to the Leadership Academy to become the Principal of a Brooklyn high school.

She, like her cronies--the two assistant Principals who belong to the same sorority--doesn't have the background to see beyond theoretical teaching practices. This triumvirate is totally consumed by teaching jargon and the educational theory du jour.

I say all of this about them not necessarily to judge them to be "bad people." But they don't know any better, and they have been well schooled by Bloomberg and his DOE business pals. In fact, they'd probably say that they are only "doing their jobs," as they understand their jobs to be.

In other words, if the manner in which I "check for understanding" doesn't specifically involve an "exit slip," or having the "scholars" hold up fingers--one to five--to signify understanding; if I simply look at student work, or talk to them, I'm not really "checking for understanding"! The DOE is more interested in appearances than actuality.

Never mind that my students had the highest Regents outcomes for all transfer high schools in the borough, in the subject I teach: Chemistry.

Unfortunately, the DOE, like the UFT, has become too big to fail. Both are self-serving giant machines that are not "aligned" (another favorite buzzword) with truly serving the students. My former principal and her cronies felt so threatened by an experienced teacher of a subject she clearly had no grasp of (by the way, I taught her own daughter in summer school, who then passed the Chem Regents at the end of that summer) who didn't fit into the convenient boxes she'd been fit into at the Leadership Academy, that she seems to believe I actually had the power and ability to "put a curse on her" and to cause her house to burn down. Go figure. 

A scene from the film "Stand and Deliver"

There's so much more I could say, and perhaps I will in a future post, such as this can of worms: How many teachers' standardized test outcomes relate more to students' poor attendance, social promotion, and their own personal impediments to doing homework, showing up to school rested, etc.? Is it really ALL the teachers' fault, if the outcomes "on paper" are not reminiscent of "Stand and Deliver" -- which incidentally took 10 years in real life for the kids in that underperforming school to finally do so well on the AP exams? (The movie makes it look like it only took about a year!)

I am not a "rest on your laurels and pull out the same old tired lesson plans from years ago" teacher! I prepare PowerPoints and SmartBoards, and I practically stand on my head on a daily basis if I think it will cause my students to better understand and apply the concepts. (Never mind that I also had to beg, borrow, and steal from other teachers, to gain access to an out-of-date SmartBoard, while most of the faculty enjoyed the benefits of the school being an "I-Zone" School!)

Bottom line, for now: I just wish I could get out of the ATR pool and get back to teaching the "second-chancers" that I've taught most of my career. I'd gladly work in prisons, suspension centers, or transfer schools, if that's the only regular teaching gig there is for me. In fact, I'd be thrilled to teach kids in these kinds of places, OR in a regular school--whatever regular classroom assignment I could get. Why can't these huge machines, the UFT and the DOE, just allow me to use my talents for what I was hired and trained for over these years, to do what I do best, and what I love to do--teach?

The many layers of bureaucracy make it impossible for even a teacher vindicated from 3020a charges, like myself, to get back on track! Who ever heard of a Board of Education that can't simply assign a teacher to a school (other than as a temporary substitute)?

Old Papa Pedagogue

Back when I was a novice teacher in swaddling clothes, a grizzly veteran sat me down on his knee and taught me a lesson I would never forget. "Little Teacher Boy," he growled, "listen well to Old Papa Pedagogue: When Administration says, 'It's all about putting the children first,' what they really mean is, 'SCREW THE TEACHERS.'" 

Papa Pedagogue's words have always proven true, although I have rarely seen them in print.  Even when this new-fangled internet gizmo came along, and ink went the way of the buggy-whip, one can Google-search for a mighty long time and hardly find an author who states Old Papa's words of truth.

The dry spell is over, however.  That great crusading journal, The Los Angeles Times, has learned that which Old Papa taught me lo those many years ago.  Here's what the Times writes about the Chicago teachers' strike:

The administration can talk about this being all for children, but there's a vested interest in hiring younger, less experienced and thus much less expensive teachers. That might be good for school budgets, but it's not good for the future of the teaching profession or the long-term future of schools. If teachers have no job protection over time, if in fact their very experience counts against them, the job becomes just that -- more a job, less a career. That's not how we attract bright young people to the profession. Layoffs don't necessarily happen because a teacher is bad, and yet those teachers could be permanently out of jobs while principals bring in new people. How much loyalty can teachers have to a system like that?

For the full article, click here. 

Dumped ATR sings a sad song

A veteran contributor, Dumped ATR, reflects on her first day back to school, and back in the ATR. 

Why don't they mention the pain?

Chita Rivera

When Kander and Ebb wrote the song "Why don't they mention the pain?" for Chita Rivera's autobiographical cabaret act, they were giving a veteran and a star a moment to be both comic and honest about the difficulty of performing even for someone talented and fortunate in her career. It is tremendously ironic for me to invoke this song in discussing the substance of my conversation with other ATR teachers on this first day of school. But, I remember what it felt like to hear this song: to look into Rivera's eyes and feel the physical and spiritual torture that comes from trying to succeed as a dancer. 

Five ATR's showed up at a medium-sized high school in Queens. Two of us had done leave-replacements last term--and all of us had filled in for another teacher more than once. We were all in our forties, with over twenty years of experience. We should have been able to get our rooms ready, make copies for the upcoming days' lessons, touch base with colleagues about their summers, etc. Instead, we attended meetings with the faculty who shared their concerns and congratulations. We tried to be helpful and offered our advice too eagerly to people who don't know us in an effort to show our knowledge and usefulness. At lunch, however, we talked about "the pain." The times we expected to be hired and weren't. The school supplies we bought for classes we weren't offered, after all. The many times we blended into the wildness and the chaos of schools in which we didn't know students' names. 

The supervisors who made use of our energies, who lent their phone numbers to our lists of references, who were thankful, but did not make us permanent staff, may not have been thinking of us this afternoon. But, we were thinking of them--of their demands, and in some cases, their gall. The supervisor who threatened to put a letter in a file, and then tried to "pull us from the rotation"--use us an ATR for a few weeks without even the dignity of a provisional hire for a leave replacement. The supervisors who went out of their way to try and keep us and couldn't. The students we would probably never see again. 

It's especially difficult to have spent a good part of your professional career having tried to make a difference in students' lives, and now find yourself "disappearing" almost as soon as you begin to teach classes of kids. I don't know where most of the students I taught in a leave-replacement two years ago went to college. Principals don't invite you to graduation--they have more pressing things to do, but you still wonder what happened--did the kid who was struggling to pass math ever score above a 75, or is she heading for remedial math in college? If you do find out that the latter is the case, you feel guilty. Of course, other people taught that student after you moved on. But you will never be sure that you got any one part of your lesson right--did the skills stay with that kid in September? People are busy with the kids and demands in front of them, and so are you. 

I have managed to stay in touch with some colleagues and that has been wonderful. But, as I went to my assignment today, I missed what I might have shared with the people I worked with last spring as a leave- replacement for someone who is now back. What did they decide to do about that 11th-grade curriculum question? I'm still thinking about it--sure, I've texted back and forth, but I'm way behind the conversation. It's like tweeting to players on a sports team after the regular season is over--they are in their playoffs. The question is no longer the same.

And they know I wish I were there. And that it's painful. But, I mention this for my colleagues who are in pain and who may not be acknowledged by anyone. And for all of us for whom the pain is also cumulative.

Hardship Travel Update: ATR teachers catch a break

                                                        Philip Nobile reports:

ATR teachers will no longer have to cross the
Verrazano Bridge.

Reversing course, the DOE seems to have ended all ATR travels between Brooklyn (HS District 76) and Staten Island.  According to Brooklyn (BASIS) District Representative Tom Bennett, ATR teachers will be assigned henceforth to schools in their own boroughs. At least one Brooklyn ATR was sent to Staten Island in the August 30 notice, but he got a no-go the following day with a new assignment in Brooklyn.

What is up with the DOE that previously could not have been any meaner about sticking ATRs with these inhumane and totally unnecessary commutes in two escalating grievances last year? Why didn’t Tweed wait for the upcoming arbitration? Did the UFT have any role in the policy shift? Will either party make a public notice? 

Will the new Discipline Code lead to fewer suspensions and more ATRs?

We would guess that most teachers in NYC are not happy about the DOE's recent changes to the Discipline Code.  The new Code will prevent principals from suspending students for many categories of first-time offenses; instead, the offenders will be "treated" with:

                                *"progressive discipline";
                                *"collaborative negotiation";
                                *"restorative approaches"; and
                                *"circle processes" (see here).  

The NY Daily News refers to these techniques as "psychobabble and touch-feely gobbledegook," and we think they've got a point (see also Marc Epstein's kind words in the New York Post about the new policy). 

There are some teachers who aren't just unhappy about these changes.  These teachers are positively jittery.  That's because they work for the Alternate Learning Centers, which is where students are taught during their suspensions.  A friend of ours who works at an ALC sent in the following:

Will fewer students be suspended because of the new Discipline Code?  And will that ultimately lead to ALC teachers being excessed and forced into the ATR [Absent Teacher Reserve]?  

This question was raised today at our beginning-of-the-year meeting with Anthony Orzo, the Superintendent of District 88, the citywide district that includes all the ALCs.

Mr. Orzo had a really interesting answer.  He said he thought that suspension numbers would actually go up--because of changes in Special Education policy.  The new policy will force principals to keep Special Ed. students in their zoned schools, where they will be taught in Integrated Co-Teaching (ICT) classrooms (see here).  In another words, students with academic and emotional difficulties will be taught in the same large groups that everyone else finds themselves in these days.  

Mr. Orzo predicted that many of these children will become frustrated, will act out, and will be suspended.  Bad news for them, but good news for me and my colleagues at the ALCs.  

The NYC DOE's Modus Operandi

How does the New York City Department of Education go about its business? A recent article at the NYC Public School Parents blog reveals the secret:

poor planning, mismanagement, top heavy spending on “network” and “cluster” leaders, and a concurrent disinvestment in actual classroom teachers, as well as an apparent total disinterest in how people on the ground are experiencing their policies...

Click here to read the full article. 

What to do about Hardship Commutes for ATR Teachers

For the teacher who must be mobile,
Here's some advice from Philip Nobile.

Article 18D of the Collective Bargaining Agreement allows grievances for hardship commutes--i.e., one-way travel from home to school via public transportation exceeding 90 minutes.

Unfortunately, the UFT did not put that provision in the ATR agreement. So when I grieved repeated 90+ minute treks from Brooklyn to Staten Island last year, the heartless DOE said tough luck and the Chancellor’s Representative denied at Step 1 and Step 2 (see here).  Showing surprising solidarity, the UFT agreed to take the case to arbitration, which could be months away. 

Pending our sure victory bye-in-bye, you don’t have to lay down and ride out the hardship, especially a six-weeker. Here are some recommended moves that could help.  

►Email Amy Arundell and your District Representative and ask them to call Lawrence Becker, head of Human Resources, requesting a healthier and more humane commute in your case.  Offer Becker, an extreme travel hardliner, a golden bridge of retreat. If Becker says no, you go to the principal. The UFT must get its hands dirty and not leave all the work for us.

►Either the DR or you calls the principal and explains your situation; the principal can overturn your assignment for any reason; maybe he won’t want a tired and possibly resentful teacher in his building. No skin off his nose if you go elsewhere.

►if you prefer less fuss, schmooze the school's ATR person on your circumstances, and say in a nice way that you won’t arrive until second period. At least you won’t lose sleep, the most hateful hardship for me.

Any other suggestions or anecdotes ?

Who said it? (#3)

Time for another round of "Who Said It?"  Here is today's quotation:

"Behind every poor teacher is a poor administrator."

 Who said it?

     a. Michael Mulgrew

     b. a public school principal

     c. Norm Scott

     d. Bill Gates


Click here for the answer.