DOE Decides to Torture New Teachers For A Change

The NYC DOE has become pretty adept at torturing teachers. Up until now, they've pretty much stuck to shoving bamboo shoots up the fingernails of veteran teachers, however. We've endured rubber rooms, ATR pools, public shaming by the puppet chancellor, and the TDR fiasco. Newer teachers have pretty much gone unscathed. They're the ones the DOE calls talented and energetic, and who the DOE tried to spare from layoffs. That looks like it's about to change.

I personally know of two new teachers who have been publicly humiliated by the DOE using an entirely new method. Even though they work in different districts, the same thing happened to them, which I have never heard happen to anyone before, so I assume it must be a new DOE strategy for making teachers miserable.

Both were up for tenure this year. Both are extremely hard workers and beloved by their principals. Both deserved tenure and both were recommended for it. Both received it, and got official letters telling them the good news. They shared their good news with their teacher friends, and there was much rejoicing, partying, and back-slapping.

Then the DOE took their tenure back.

A teacher at my school was notified that his tenure was revoked because despite having the required three years in the system, he has only spent two of those at my school. The other teacher I know, in another district, had her tenure revoked because superintendent didn't like one of the comments that a supervisor made in the teacher's observation last year, despite the fact that the teacher obviously corrected that deficiency and was recommended for tenure by the principal.

If I know of two cases of this happening, I can only imagine how many times this has happened across the city. The DOE spends a lot of time talking about how important it is to retain talented new teachers. Why is it treating them like this?

Because it can. Because if you are a teacher, you are the enemy. Because it wants to let teachers know that this isn't a job they should expect to have for very long, even if they are granted tenure.

Get used to it, new teachers. Don't expect to get through the 40 years or so you'll need under the new retirement system to call it a career. The DOE is planning ways, even now, to get you to quit or to fire you well before you've ever climbed the salary scale or become vested in the retirement system.

And expect them to humiliate you along the way, no matter how good you are.

Michael Mulgrew's Pick Up Lines

I don't know whether the NY Post's story about Michael Mulgrew's dalliance with a guidance counselor in his wood shop at William Grady HS is true. If it is, my guess is that Randi Weingarten was behind it all and set the whole thing up. You see, Mulgrew was a rising star in the UFT at the time. Randi needed to know whether Mulgrew was capable of screwing UFT members. If he couldn't screw one, he'd surely be unfit to be UFT President, where he would be called upon to screw the entire membership on a regular basis.

Now, nothing personal, but Mulgrew doesn't exactly look like a chick magnet. It got me thinking about what kind of killer line Mulgrew must have used to lure this woman into his lair. I'd like to suggest a few possibilities:

How'd you like to come over to my shop and see my wood?
Wanna ride the saw horse?
If you like those tools, I've got a surprise for you.
Weingarten isn't the only one who's randy.
I bet when we're done, you'll give me a Satisfactory.
That bird cage isn't the only thing in here I'd like to drill.
You and I could make our own union.
My head isn't the only thing I shave.
It's not the contract I want to violate.
Yes, I have my master's. Plus eight, if you get my drift.

Frankly, I hope all these allegations against Mulgrew are false. It wouldn't hurt him to find out what it's like for teachers who are wrongly charged with improper conduct. Maybe he'd understand why it's not OK for teachers who've done nothing wrong to be sent to the ATR pool for years.

Mostly I hope it's false because I want to believe he cares more for the members in his union than the one in his pants.

Why a 4+4 Raise Is Still Possible

There's been a lot of buzz on the blogs about Mayor4Life Bloomberg's decree that there will be no retroactive money for teachers. While Uncle Mikey is certainly talking tough, he (or perhaps more likely, his eventual successor) may well have to cough up that 4% plus 4% that was given to all other municipal workers other than teachers.

The reason? Pattern bargaining. The city has, for a long time, used pattern bargaining (in which one union agrees to a paltry raise and the city says that the rest of the work force has to also settle for that amount) as a way to keep costs down. Even PERB has insisted that this is the way to go and forced teachers to accept contracts that have kept our salaries far below those offered in surrounding areas.

If Bloomberg keeps his promise, or if his successor sticks to it, it breaks the pattern and all bets are off in future contract negotiations for all unions throughout the city. So if DC37 (for example) accepts a piss poor raise as they have done in the past, it would not establish a ceiling for the rest of the unions. If anything, it would establish a floor for all other unions, who would all demand far more. The city would be unable to claim that all the other unions must accept whatever DC37 got because it established a pattern.

It seems to me a more likely scenario that the city agrees to give us the 4+4 for 2010/11 and asks us to accept, as a quid pro quo, a tiny increase (say, 1% a year for the next three years). That way, the city could set the pattern for all the unions going forward and keep pattern bargaining in tact. While it would be a shitty thing to do to the other unions, Mulgrew would leap at it and the city would save billions in raises with the other unions.

Remember if the city claims that it doesn't have to adhere to the pattern in bad financial times, then unions can rightly claim the they don't need to stick to the pattern when times are better. And that will, in the long run, cost the city far more.

Bloomberg's Impeccable Logic

The New York Post gives Mayor4Life Bloomberg an A for his logic on teacher evaluations. You see, Mike is concerned that if teacher privacy is preserved to even a small extent, as in giving the information only to parents, that it will result in harm to teachers. “It would lead to just chaos — and it would be very bad for our teachers," said Bloomie, who is world-renowned for his deep concern for educators.


You see, he's afraid that by giving teacher evaluations to parents, the information might be collected on some rogue website put together by some vindictive parents. And if that happens, says Mike, "the information it presents would be unreliable — and possibly misleading."

Of course, one might argue that this is a reason for the parents not to get the data at all.

I see what's happened here. While I fully believe Mike when he shows his compassion for teachers, there may be something else at play here. You see, what Mayor4Life is truly afraid of is that parents might be trying to infringe on some of his territory.

If there is any harm to be done to teachers, Mike would like to do it himself. He practically has a patent on harming teachers. How dare rogue parents even think about taking some of that action? And when it comes to unreliable and misleading information, who does it better than Uncle Mike? He managed to pay millions for a TDR system that has an 87% margin of error. Who do parents think they are--potentially posting even more misleading data for free?

You can understand why Mike is steamed. He has worked damn hard to harm teachers, and he's not going to let parents take over his turf.

Chaz Gets a Hearing in the Media

Long time blogger Chaz, who was tarred and feathered in the press as a 'pervy' teacher even after his case was resolved in his favor, finally gets a public hearing in a piece by Arthur Goldstein in the NY Times. 

Read it to understand how the DOE can take a single spurious allegation and ruin a teacher's life, not to mention spending what must be at least a half a million dollars to carry out its vendetta.

Frankly, I hope Chaz sues the DOE for sending news organizations letters that were unfounded and removed from his file, and the NY Daily News for printing this seemingly libelous material.

Kudos to Mr. Goldstein for this piece, and to Chaz himself for having the fortitude to endure the slings and arrows of the DOE and the media.

The New Holy Grail of Union Busters

Politicians, including so-called Democrats such as Cuomo and Obama, have held the coats of union-busting Republicans as they attempt to dismantle unionized labor in this country. There has been some backlash, such as the recall effort of Scott Walker in Wisconsin, but not nearly enough. Unions themselves are complicit--the UFT, for example, continues to grant concessions such as the Race to the Top evaluation fiasco, even as the city has denied us raises they granted to other unions and as they refuse to negotiate a new contract with us.

You might have thought the union-busters were done. They didn't get LIFO, but the new evaluation system make seniority moot in many cases. They didn't get tenure, but they managed to get the UFT to agree to shift the burden of proof in 3020 hearings--the city used to have to prove a teacher was incompetent, but now a teacher with two ineffective ratings will have to prove his or her competence, which is virtually impossible. So the union-busters have been winning hands down, but they aren't done. Their next target is the Triborough Amendment.

The Triborough Amendment is part of the Taylor Law, and you can read up on it here. But the basics of why union-busters want it abolished are simple: it guarantees that when a contract expires, the terms of any current union contract remain in effect until a new contract is signed. In return, unions are heavily punished if they strike. Republicans hate this law because even though an expired contract is essentially a wage freeze, other provisions of the contract, such as step and longevity increases, remain in effect. Republicans argue that this gives unions little reason to negotiate, as workers will continue to receive 'raises' even without a new contract.

That, of course, is nonsense. Bloomberg decided all on his own not to give teachers the same 4% + 4% two year contract that he offered other unions, and we continue without a contract to this day. We are approaching three years without a contract, despite trying to bring the city to the table with a PERB complaint (anyone know why THAT is stalled?). So we are, at least, down 8%, and by the time a new contract is signed, presumably with a new mayor, it is virtually certain that we will not see that money. Why should the city negotiate when they can save a fortune by stonewalling, and the unions are prohibited from striking by the same Taylor Law?

You might think that Cuomo, an alleged Democrat, would oppose any change to the Triborough Amendment, but you'd be wrong. According to the Times:


Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat who has taken on labor over several issues, has yet to express a position on the Triborough Amendment, but a top aide, Lawrence Schwartz, said last year that the administration would explore options, including proposing the suspension of the amendment.

When Cuomo starts exploring options, union workers need to hold on to their wallets. He's the one who pushed through the new evaluation system, put a wage freeze on state workers, and engineered a new pension tier that will punish future union workers.

If they can abolish Triborough, municipalities can force unions to agree to almost any concessions, as  contracts would become null and void when they expire.

Luckily, it seems that there will be no action on this for the current legislative year. Still, this looming attack makes it even more important that the UFT ends up backing a genuine union supporter in the next mayoral election, such as De Blasio or Liu, rather than some Bloomberg sock puppet like Christine Quinn who will basically give Mayor4Life the fourth term that even he doesn't have enough money to buy.

Why Chaz MUST be fired

I hate to do it, but I must disagree with my fellow bloggers and side with the Daily News in the case of Eric Chasanoff, AKA Chaz of Chaz's School Daze, and call for this unrepentant teacher's ouster. Despite the fact that he was cleared to return to the classroom after 4 1/2 years in the rubber room by an independent arbitrator, we simply can't take the chance that he will stop his outrageous behavior, which consists of telling a high school girl that he "could kiss her" for doing well on a test because he was proud of her. If we allow a poor choice of words to stop us from firing a teacher, what will be next?

Actually, I'll tell you what will be next. I know of an outrageous case going on right now. In a case of sexual deviancy that has gotten little attention so far, a sicko has been found to have entered a salacious relationship with a minor. It's hard to believe, but this individual has posted pictures of this girl on a public web site. The pictures include highly suggestive shots of this young lady posing in a bikini and bunny ears, just in time for Easter, I suppose. And there's more. This pervert has also apparently posted pics of this young victim in a Santa bikini and in a white dress reminiscent of Marilyn Monroe's iconic Seven Year Itch photo, with her skirt blown upwards and her underwear clearly visible. In one of the more disgusting photos, this underage girl is shown lying on the floor in shorts and a bra, the strap of which is pulled dangerously low on her bosom.

To make matters worse, this scoundrel has also posted some of this girl's suggestive tweets. For example, 'Come get down & dirty w/me while we floor flash together!' and 'OMG, I'm so ... wet."

So I think you see where I'm coming from. If we allow Chaz to get away with a poor word choice, it will embolden sickos like the one above, who will feel free to exploit even children in the most despicable manner without fear of punishment. We can never allow our children to be exploited in this manner, and I think any sane person would agree that a teacher who could post such explicit pictures and tweets as those above should be fired.


Of course, it wasn't actually a teacher who did such heinous things to a minor. It was the Daily News.


Yes, my friends, see for yourself, if you can stomach it. The Daily News, paragons of virtue that they are, went out of their way to post a slide show of 22 photos of Courtney Stodden, a 17 year old girl, including all the poses and tweets mentioned above. I found this because it was on linked on the FRONT PAGE of their website today, where thousands of other people will no doubt see it as well.


So, you see why Chaz has to be stopped, don't you? I call for his immediate firing--as soon as every single member of the NY Daily News who had anything to do with posting those pictures of a minor on their web site has been fired, as well.