Random Thoughts

A lot of thoughts have been rattling around in my head lately (no cracks about all the room in there), and I'd like to write detailed posts about many of them, but since I don't have the time I'll just throw a few random thoughts out there.

Seniority: The bill currently in Albany to do an end run around seniority worries me. I don't think it has much of a chance of passing, but we are moving in that direction. Young teachers don't seem to care much about seniority, mostly, I would guess, because they don't see themselves in the system for an extended period or they think this law would never apply to them. Personally, I think it's nothing more than a money making scheme for the city and state--a way for them to hire teachers on the cheap and make sure that pensions never have to be paid in the future. There's an interesting conversation going on about this at NYC Educator's blog, where Miss Eyre came out in favor of proactively changing the system before the legislature changes it for us. I totally disagree with her; seniority should be sacrosanct. We could easily garner the support of every union worker in the state, because let's face it--if teachers lose seniority, every other union member in the state is in jeopardy.

Florida: Who'd have thought that Charlie Crist, a Republican for God's sake, would veto a bill that would have eroded seniority rights, tenure, and introduced merit pay based on test scores? He got 65,000 calls and emails opposing the bill, and only 3000 in support. In addition, Miame-Dade teachers staged a sick out, showing that they mean business. Why the UFT can't take some serious action when it so obviously works?

Principals: If seniority was taken away, would you want to have your future determined by a leadership academy principal like this one? Another reason to fight tooth and nail to keep it.

Rubber Rooms: I'm glad they are gone, but the devil is always in the details. I'm taking a wait and see attitude on this one. The UFT has been bested in so many negotiations with Bloomberg that it's embarrassing.

Negotiations: Why are we negotiating AT ALL? Again, I'm glad we are getting the rid of the RRs, but shouldn't this have been part of contract negotiations? Why are we giving the city ANYthing while they are holding our raise hostage and threatening to lay off 8500 of us?

The Law: If any lawyers can help here, I'd appreciate it. Seniority for layoffs is not just a matter of state education law, it is also part of our contract. Can the state simply overturn a collective bargaining agreement by passing a law? It's been a long time since I took a law class, but I kind of remember that a contract is pretty tough to break when both sides willingly entered into it.

UPDATE! Found Via GothamSchools, it appears one of the cosponsors of the bill has dropped out, because the he believes the contract clause of the constitution bars states from interfering with current contracts. So if I figured that out, why didn't the UFT lawyers?

Layoffs: If a teacher is one year away from retirement and gets laid off, wouldn't that person be entitled to a full pension anyway, considering that for 24 years that person worked under a contract that pretty much guaranteed them a full pension as long as they didn't do anything to get fired? Would the city have to refund some or all of the pension money paid in? What about the additional 25/55 funds that were voluntarily given under current layoff rules? Wouldn't the city have to give those back? Would those laid off be entitled to their jobs as soon as hiring restarted?

Relief: Read some hilarious detention slips here.

Fidgety Teach is Back!

A big welcome back to blogging for Fidgety! I really missed her insightful blog posts. She's a huge asset to the education blogosphere and if you're not sure what all the fuss is about Rubber Rooms, you need to add this to your blog list.

How Not To Negotiate, Part Two

In case you didn't read How To Negotiate, Part One, here is it. I didn't call it that because I had no idea the UFT would stoop to even lower levels of stupidity, but they've outstupided me again. According to GothamSchools, the UFT is trying to work out a deal with the city regarding the rubber rooms outside of contract negotiations.

Excuse me? The rubber rooms are a huge black eye to the city in times of fiscal crisis. They'd love to announce some kind of victory in advance of a contract settlement. So my question is, why is the UFT seemingly willing to hand the DOE a victory with a ribbon wrapped around it while we are fighting to get ourselves a contract? Why not tie any changes to the Rubber Room system to a 4% contract with no givebacks?

Trust me, I fully understand that many of our colleagues are languishing in those hell holes, and some movement towards getting them out would be a boon. But the UFT has done nothing for the past 7 years while the RRs continued to get bigger and bigger, so why the sudden need to negotiate when the city has not budged an inch in our contract talks?

It would be different if I thought that the UFT had any chance of coming out on top in these negotiations, but their history is--shall we say--somewhat spotty? Let's not forget that it's already in the contract that RR cases are supposed to be settled in 6 months--the city has steadfastly refused to follow that rule.

Gotham suggests that the UFT may give in on suspensions without pay, with the caveat that anyone found not guilty would get backpay of 150%. That sounds good, except that given how long the DOE drags these cases out, a person could lose their house or starve before getting that back pay. They've dragged their feet on cases for years, so what's to make us think the DOE will expedite them now? It would benefit the DOE not to resolve such cases in the hopes that the accused teacher would go bankrupt and have to resign in order to find a new job. And it seems to me it would be pretty easy to recoup that 150% with fines.

Let's face it--the DOE is looking for a way to empty the rubber rooms by firing people. They have no intention of expediting cases or holding fair hearings. If they wanted that, they could do it right now, without any kind of negotiations. The UFT has an abysmal track record on these issues, and there's no reason to trust them now.

Especially as they're not even using this as a bargaining chip. Don't forget that we are headed into our 6th month without a contract. If the DOE wants the rubber rooms on the table, they should sit down at the negotiating table. Now.

It's Not What You Say...

Today's email regarding the upcoming contract negotiations struck the right note. Almost.

On the positive side, Mulgrew sounds angry. That's something that Randi couldn't even fake. About the ATR situation, he says "This is an inexcusable waste of human capital and mismanagement of resources." Regarding the Rubber Rooms, he says, "If the DOE’s ATR policy is the leading example of management ineptitude, the so-called “rubber rooms” are a close second."

Good stuff. But what I felt was missing was what Mulgrew didn't say.

He didn't say that we will never, under any circumstances, sell out the ATRs.

He didn't say that we will make eliminating rubber rooms a lynchpin of our negotiations.

I hope he meant those things, but I'd feel a lot better if he said them.

A Matter of Principals

A lot of talk has gone back and forth about how to improve teacher quality, empty the rubber rooms, and solve the ATR problem. Unfortunately, almost all of the solutions involve firing 'bad' teachers.

Of course, 'bad' is hard to define and harder to measure. To me, 90% of being a good teacher is the ability to maintain discipline. You can write, or buy, the best lesson plans in the world but if students are dancing the rhumba on their desks and launching paper projectiles at you, good plans won't help.

Once you get the discipline down (no small feat, believe me), then the next step to teacher greatness is delivering those lessons. A lot of teachers with good discipline stink on ice when it comes to content. I pulled my own daughter from public school because she was going to be saddled with a teacher who had no discipline problems but also had no desire to teach the curriculum. This teacher was a diva, as I discussed here---a principal's pet who could teach whatever nonsense she wanted as long as it was flashy and reflected well on the school in terms of elaborate plays and multi-dimensional bulletin boards.

The third, and IMO, least piece of the puzzle is being engaging. It's wonderful if your students like you, but in truth, your job is to teach, not to be liked. Generally, if you have good discipline and you teach good lessons, your students will like you and be interested in what you have to say.

It's insane to believe that individual teachers have control over all these things all by themselves. Discipline, for example, depends to a great extent on the school. Teach at Stuyvesant, like our friend Matt Polazzo, where the kids are top notch and motivated, and the discipline is so easy that you have time to call for the firing your fellow teachers who aren't as blessed as you. I'd like to drop Mr. Polazzo into a school like the one I used to teach in--a school consumed by poverty and where gangs owned the neighborhood--and see how good he really is.

What gets lost in these discussions is how much principals can affect teacher quality. If we want to make schools better, we have to hold principals accountable in a number of ways:

• Discipline starts at the top. It's ridiculous to claim that a teacher is incompetent when the school is out of control.
• Principals should stop allowing Divas to infect their schools. Make them teach like everyone else does.
• Since principals can hire whoever they want, they should have their feet held to the fire when they grant tenure to someone who turns out to be a dud. Principals have three years to evaluate teachers before granting them tenure or firing them. Teachers can be fired for any reason in that time frame.
• Penalties should be instituted for principals who grant tenure to teachers who later are brought up on incompetence charges. It is extremely rare for a good teacher to turn into a lousy one just because they were granted tenure. What really happens is that teachers with tenure begin making more money as they get their master's and climb the salary steps. They become more involved in union activities and become more vocal--not the puppets they were in their probationary years. Principals often file incompetence charges against teachers who make too much or talk too much to suit them.
• Principals should be forced to tell the truth at 3020a hearings. As the law now stands, principals can flat out lie at a hearing and there is no penalty. What kind of fair hearing is it when one side can lie with impunity? Principals who lie at 3020 hearings should be charged with perjury and subject to civil penalties for slander.
• When it's found that rubber room charges were unfounded, principals should be penalized. Read the story of Daniel Smith and you'll know what I'm talking about. If it turns out these are trumped up charges, the administrators involved should be fired and hit with massive civil penalties.
• Principals should not be allowed to flaunt the contract by refusing to hire ATRs in their schools. There are many--mostly--high quality teachers in that pool, despite the outlandish claims of newbie teachers like Ariel Sacks. Yet principals refuse to hire them, preferring instead to skirt the rules and costing the city millions of dollars and priceless teaching talent.

I don't want to make more of this than what it is. Some principals are a part of the problem, as are some teachers, as is the mayor, the chancellor, and {{{gasp}}} some parents. Unfortunately, teachers, as the most visible face of education, are the sole scapegoats when things go wrong.

If Campaign Ads Told the Truth

Yes, I know it will never happen. But if Bloomberg put out a truthful campaign brochure on his education record, it would look quite different than the swamp of paper currently clogging everyone's snail mailbox.

Bloomberg--Change You Can Fudge with Data.

Here are some of Mayor Mike's Education Accomplishments:

• Kept class sizes from growing much larger, despite massive cash infusions from the CFE lawsuit.
• Brought pride to the parents of even the worst students by dumbing down tests to the point that an amoeba could pass them.
• Used those tests to promote more students than ever despite an end to social promotion.
• Raised teacher salaries to the point where they are a mere 40% less than some suburbs.
• Ensured that few teachers would earn those salaries by increasing the rubber room and ATR pools.
• Increased graduation rates through innovative programs such as "seat time" and just not counting a whole lot of kids who don't return to school.
• Spent 80 million on a data collection system that virtually no teacher actually uses other than the nightly log on to prove he/she uses it.
• Spent another 200 million to close schools and pay teachers to be permanent subs.
• His chancellor, Joel Klein, imposed a hiring freeze until those subs are placed, after implying that these subs are lazy and incompetent.
• Created many charter schools by allowing them, in a Blob like fashion, to eat up space that could be used to alleviate overcrowding in regular public schools.
• Did away with wasteful and time consuming nuisances such as parental input and teacher involvement.
• Eva Moscowitz.
• Ditto Joel Klein.

Can we afford not to give Michael Bloomberg another term? Probably, but he can afford to buy it anyway. So Vote to Re-Elect the Mayor. If he can't fix it, he can fudge it.