Chaz's School Daze

Yet another "Leadership Academy Principal" who was removed in November is under investigation for having raffles for underage students with prizes such as Ipods, Ipads, laptops, and sporting goods. All in violation of Chancellor's Regulations, New York State General Municipal Law, and State Wagering Board Regulations. The New York Post article went on to say that one teacher claimed that some of the electronics raffled off had stamped"property of the Department of Education"on it. According to the DOE the investigation is still ongoing.

The article states that Ms Urena's DOE issued credit card shows thousands of dollars of charges from the Apple store and Sporting Goods stores that are usually not the recipients for school-related supplies. Ms. Urena, like most of the "Leadership Academy Principals"who find themselves removed from their schools end up on their feet. In her case she works for Tweed doing"quality reviews". It seems that the DOE leadership always seem to find a place for these "Leadership Academy Principals" when they get in trouble and are removed from their schools.

Back to Arisleyda Urena, a 2007 graduate of the "Leadership Academy" who mentored under the infamous Anthony Rutunno of JFK High School, and who has had a "checkered past"of her own as the founding Principal of the Academy of Language and Technology. She has a reputation of having an abnormally high teacher turnover rate with over 40% of the teachers and over half her staff leaving annually. She also seemed to take pleasure in abusing her Assistant Principals who seemed to come and go with great frequency. In fact, when Mayor Bloomberg threatened layoffs back in 2012, it was Ms. Urena's school that would be hit the hardest as the school would lose 33% of their teachers according to the New York Times. The reason for such a high turnover rate has to be put at the feet of Ms. Urena who has been known to be very vindictive and to press thumped up charges against teachers, especially those teachers who are untenurerd. In an article. Fransesco Portelos has published a post on the abuse that Ms. Urena did to Maria Gomez, a teacher at the Academy of Language and Technology. He also wrote about the abuse a bilingual guidance counselor went through at the school by Ms. Urena. When you read the two posts not only do you feel sorry for the staff at the school but questioned why was she protected all these years?

Now, I have been contacted by another untenured teacher who was unfairly discontinued by Ms. Urena who filed "trumped up charges"to get the teacher removed but failed to do an investigation or tell the teacher what these phony charges were. Ms. Urena has a "pattern and practice" of going after teachers who ask for mentoring, question a decree that makes no sense, or tries to make sure the contract is followed. She was a very vindictive Principal and yet because of her friendship with the people at Tweed, she was allowed to abuse her staff until they left or were discontinued since she had a large percentage of untenured teachers. You would think with a staff turnover rate that's higher than the average charter school, one would think that a Principal like Ms. Urena would have been removed long ago. If you look on the My Teacher Stories blog, there are more comments about Principal Urena's methods at the school.

One of the priorities that Chancellor Carmen Farina should concentrate on is the removal of the leadership at Tweed and the useless "Children First Networks" who has protected and encouraged terrible principals like Arisleyda Urena.

Yesterday, Michael Mulgrew was interviewed by Anna Sale of NPR on the Brian Lehrer Show. Mr. Mulgrew caused quite a stir in the media when he admitted that "retroactive raises" are very important. What I don't get is that Mr. Mulgrew only stated what everybody knew to be true, that "retroactive raises"are extremely important. In fact, now that the De Blasio Administration agreed to the "City Pattern" including full retroactive raises for the 200 Environmental Officers it makes it very difficult for Arbitrators not to give the Teachers and Nurses Unions the two 4% raises, including "retroactive raises" for the established "City Pattern" during the 2009-2010 budget years. However, how the next three years of a contract play out is highly uncertain.

The "City Pattern":
There is broad consensus that the two arbitration boards will uphold the "City Pattern" for the teachers and nurses. Therefore, the question is will the "retroactive raises" be paid upfront or stretched out over the next three budgets? Both the City and UFT would like to stretch it out but it might not be possible if the State takes the side of the Bloomberg Administration's claim that under "Generally Accepted Accounting Principles"a Municipal budget cannot account for deferred raises by pushing it into future budgets. The State has not ruled on the Bloomberg Administration's claim.
Regardless how this plays out, look for the UFT and NYSNA to get the"City Pattern" and "retroactive raises" How the "retroactive raises"will be handled will depend on the State's decision on the Bloomberg Administration's attempt to force the City to pay it out of this year's budget or stretch it out over three budgets..

Future Contract:
The next three years for all the Municipal employees including the UFT, CSA, and NYSNA will probably not be negotiated until the City has finalized agreements with the teachers , supervisors, and nurses. Once these contracts are completed, Bob Linn, the Chief negotiator for the City will have a better idea of the City finances and will negotiate from a"zero raise floor". Bob Linn under the Ed Koch Administration was known to do just that. Therefore, it's not surprising that this will be the City's position in negotiations. Of course, the Municipal unions will want raises at least equal to the City inflation rate for the three year period, averaging 2.31% yearly. The negotiated number will probably be between 1% and 2% annually with "retroactive raises" that may be deferred to future years if the State rules against the Bloomberg Administration's claim. Otherwise, a more creative solution will be implemented including bonuses.

UFT Members:
I look for negotiations to be completed by June of this year and will include our two 4% raises, minus 0.58% that we owe the City for the two days before Labor Day.The"retroactive raises"will be stretched out for three years and might include bonuses for the "retroactive raises"owed to us for the final three years. To save money the City will require the DOE to impose a"hiring freeze" and save $160 million dollars yearly by placing ATRs in the classrooms. This will have the added benefit of reducing class sizes as well. I also see the City telling the DOE to eliminate many of the managers, lawyers, and accountability experts and to severely limit the many and unnecessary consultant contracts. This will save the DOE three billion dollars or more and by eliminating the useless "Children First Networks" and giving Central the school staffing responsibility. That will allow the schools to hire the "quality teachers"they desperately needs while freeing the school to use their budget on resources to the classroom.

While I am not a psychic, the final contract should be very similar to what I proposed and we should see a "pot of gold" at the end.

When the students and staff return to PS 106, it will be a new day for them. They will not have to suffer under the questionable and vindictive policies of ex Principal Marcella Sills. Ms. Sills has been reassigned, pending her 3020-a termination hearing. The Special Commissioner of Investigations (SCI) has substantiated that Ms. Sills failed to show up at the appointed time or in some cases not show up at all. The entire SCI report can be found Here. A summary can be found at the New York Post in today's paper. Unfortunately, for Ms. Sills "time and attendance" charges are the easiest for the DOE to prove and things look dismal for the "Leadership Academy Principal".

My question is why didn't Chancellor Carmen Farina remove her when the New York Post reported it in the first place? I guess its that "double standard"that the DOE practices and that the new Chancellor has apparently not changed. Moreover, why was Marcella Sills protected by the District 27 Superintendent, Michele Lloyd-Bey who admitted that she spoke to Ms. Sills about her time and attendance two or three years earlier when the Superintendent was made aware by various sources of the tardiness of the Principal. Yet the Superintendent didn't even bother to give Ms. Sills a disciplinary letter when made aware of the "time and attendance"issues nor did she require Ms. Sills to document her attendance. In other words, the Superintendent didn't do her job and worse seemed to protect Ms. Sills by not providing proper oversight when alerted to the problems at PS 106 under Marcella Sills.

While ex-Principal Marcella Sills will now face 3020-a termination hearings for "time and attendance"and maybe the more serious charges of "theft of service", the DOE's Office of Legal Service's Administrative Trials Unit (ATU) will most certainly charge Marcella Sills with additional charges since that is how they operate. Regardless, it appears the days that Marcella Sills will be getting a paycheck from the DOE are numbered.

Should the investigation end here? I think Chancellor Farina should investigate the actions of Superintendent Michele Lloyd-Bey and the useless "Children First Network" 531 in protecting Marcella Sills and their lack of corrective action on the problems that beset PS 106. Furthermore, what did the people at Tweed know about the issues at PS 106 and why did they fail to take action? For more information on Marcella Sills you can find them on my previous posts Here and Here.

The continuing fallout of the reassignment and eventual removal of "Leadership Academy Principal"Marcella Sills has now spotlighted the actions of District 27 Superintendent Michelle Lloyd-Bey who apparently allowed the abuse at PS 106 to go on for years. Interestingly, the Superintendent was once Principal of the very same PS 106 and one would think that she would have a more focused interest on the school's operation. However, it appears that Michelle Lloyd-Bey was "asleep at the switch" as the many complaints crossed her desk from PS 106.

In 2007 Michelle Lloyd-Bey was named District 27 Superintendent by Chancellor Joel Klein. Later on, the first letter from a teacher came across her desk about the problems at PS 106 that year. What followed was many other incidents and complaints that resulted in many articles written about the school in the local newspaper called "The Wave". Norm Scott was kind enough to include them in his Norm's Notes blog and can be found Hereand Here. In addition, under Michelle Lloyd-Bey's watch many complaints came to her attention about the abuses at PS 106 and apparently she did nothing about it. According to the New York Post as many as ten letters that are in the newspaper's possession either was sent to Michelle Lloyd-Bey or passed to her from other DOE officials.

Finally, when the issue of Ms. Sills "time and attendance" was brought to the Superintendent's attention back in 2011. Her only action was to remind Ms. Sills that she must adhere to the hours of her position and tell her who was in charge when Ms. Sills wasn't there. No disciplinary hearing, no collecting of time cards, no oversight whatsoever. In fact, this is what Superintendent Michelle Lloyd-Bey told the SCI investigators.

Lloyd-Bey recalled that, approximately two or three years ago, she had a
conversation with Sills concerning arriving late for work. Lloyd-Bey said that “people
started to talk about it” and, as a result, Lloyd-Bey contacted Sills and instructed her to
advise Lloyd-Bey when she was going to be late. Recently, after the New York Post
article, Lloyd-Bey had a disciplinary conference with Sills concerning her time and
attendance. Sills now was required to punch a timecard on a daily basis.

Why hasn't Michelle Lloyd-Bey been held accountable for the actions of Principal Sills. To me its obvious the District 27 Superintendent ignored the problems at PS 106 and failed to take corrective
actions that could have improved the atmosphere at PS 106. Michelle Lloyd-Bey was "asleep at the switch" and her failure to discipline the Principal and take corrective actions at PS 106 should result in her removal as the District 27 Superintendent.

Most educators knew that the school grades assigned by the DOE do not represent the actual school environment and student learning. However, many principals were told how to "game the system"to achieve artificially high grades for their school. A prime example is none other than PS 106 and "Leadership Academy Principal" Marcella Sills who ran her school using questionable methods and had poor staff morale. Yet until last year her school received either an "A" or "B" for the years 2010-12 and was rated "proficient" in the 2008-09 school year. I'm sure if it wasn't for the relocation of the school due to Hurricane Sandy, the school would have received another "A" or "B". Yes PS 106 receive high letter grades from the DOE despite the numerous complaints by staff about Ms. Sills, the lack of a special education teacher for the students with special needs and no payroll secretary. The high staff turnover rate also didn't seem to affect the school's letter grade and the failure to give the school's students Physical Education and Art was omitted in determining the bogus letter grade assigned to the school. If that wasn;t bad enough the school library issue where money allocated to it was apparently diverted and the school administration was not held accountable to explain where the library allocated funds went to. These school letter grades are useless and not worth the paper it was printed on.

Veteran teacher Patricia Walsh wrote an article for the New York Post and described in detail how PS 106 deteriorated and what it was like to teach under Marcella Sills until she left the school in 2009. Ms. Walsh's story just reinforces everything we were told about the horrible situation at PS 106 under Marcella Sills watch. The numerous complaints and actions taken against staff since Marcella Sills became Principal has been written aboutin this and other blogs as well by the New York Post and now that the Principal has been reassignedand faces termination under State law 3020-a. The real question is why as these abuses occurred at her school the DOE still gave her school one "A" and two "B"s in the last three years it earned a grade?

Will heads roll at Tweed because of their failure to take appropriate action against the abuses that Marcella Sills was allowed to get away with at PS 106? Of course not since only teachers are held accountable not administrators who allowed this travesty to occur and when alerted failed to take action.

"Children First"? Only if you believe in the "tooth fairy"when it comes to these no accountable DOE administrators like District 27 Superintendent Lloyd-Bey,Children First Network 531, and the leadership at Tweed.

We all suspected that teachers who work with disadvantaged students, minorities, English Language Learners, and Special Education will have much lower test grades under the badly flawed and unfair Teacher Evaluation System (TES). Now combining the flawed TES with the untested Common Core has resulted in teachers who instruct "high needs"students with very disappointing results. One of the most important and respected educators in our State, 2013 "Principal of the year", Carol Burns has published the results of the 8th grade New York State tests for 2013 and the numbers for all the groups are bad, real bad. The table below shows the percentage of New York State students who passed the 2013 Common Core based test.

Group.....................................................% Passing

All............................................................34
Poverty Level.............................................20
Hispanics...................................................16
Black........................................................12
English Language Learners.............................7
Special Education........................................5

When you look at the highly complicated "value added method" (VAM) in the State "junk Science" equation. I guarantee you that the adjustments for the five groups are not adjusted for the actual ratios found in the 2013 test scores but at a much lower percentage difference. The result is that teachers who are instructing the five groups will get much lower VAM scores and in danger of being labeled ineffective". Worse, for New York City teachers, if their VAM numbers are deemed "ineffective" they will be rated "ineffective"no matter how well they do on the other parts of the TES.

The use of Common Core in the 2013 State test has dramatically widened the income/racial academic achievement gap to grossly unacceptable levels. Below, the table compares the percentage difference between the academic achievement gap for the 2012 State test with the 2013 Common Core based test.

Group................% Difference 2012................ % Difference 2013

Disadvantaged....ELA 6....Math.7.....................ELA.22......Math.19
Black/White........ELA.7....Math.10...................ELA.27......Math.30
Hispanic/White....ELA.8....Math 7.....................ELA.24......Math.22
Special Ed..........ELA.34..Math.33....................ELA.49......Math.47

Its obvious that the State Department of Education has failed the students by bringing out the Common Core without setting up and testing a curriculum to properly implement it. Furthermore, the State failed to provide or fund "professional development"for teachers to understand how Common Core will be taught. The result are poor student scores, low teacher morale, and most importantly "ineffective" teacher ratings that will lead to unfair teacher terminations. The most "at risk" are those teachers who teach "high needs" students, the very teachers the students need the most and that's a shame.

NYC Educator has also wrote about the State's flawed roll out and how it affects his students and himself.

Ex-Tweedie and District 79 teacher destroyer, Cami Anderson, the State appointed Superintendent who now heads the Newark Public Schools (NPS) has proposed a plan to dismantle the City's Public School System. She calls this the "One Newark Plan". The proposed plan closes schools, lays off teachers, adds charter schools, and sell off school property. No where in her "One Newark Plan"does it talk about concrete strategies to improve student outcomes but of course, the idea is to save money not improve student academic achievement.

Ms. Anderson's "One Newark Plan" would allow NPS to lay off 700 teachers, many of the"quality teachers" while adding up to 300 Teach For America (TFA) "newbies"to replace them. You think money is an issue here? Interestingly, in the "One Newark Plan" it talks about having more"quality teachers"in the classroom. However TFA "newbies"are not considered "highly qualified teachers"as defined by No Child Left Behind (NCLB). Yes, its about the money! The only thing standing in the way is that Ms. Anderson needs a State waiver to layoff the 700 teachers. Unfortunately, the State Commissioner is another ex-Tweedie and fellow ed deformer Christopher Cerf. Therefore, there is a strong chance that the State will approve the waiver and seniority based layoffs will be overridden by the waiver.

Cami Anderson's "One Newark Plan" is to reshape the Newark schools to the ill-fated and failing New Orleans model. Meaning that most of the schools will end up as charter schools and many public schools that close down that are not used as charter schools will be sold to real estate interests.

The "One Newark Plan" is simply an "education on the cheap" policy that will do nothing to improve student academic outcomes and with "unqualified newbie teachers" can actually hurt student academic. achievement. When ed deformers take charge of a school system they implement policies that don't improve classroom instruction but try to impose questionable programs that don't seem to work. When this happens they blame teachers,school administrators, and union rules while never being held accountable for their own failures.

Children first? Not when ed deformers like Cami Anderson are put in charge of school systems since their primary concern is to run the school system as a business and ignore the very real social-economic factors, like poverty, The result are lean school budgets,"unqualified teachers", and programs that don't work in the classroom. Does anyone really think that improves student academic achievement? I don't, how about you?

For more information on the Newark Schools go to the Bob Braum's Ledger blog. Another Blog of interest about the Newark schools isJersey Jazzman

Its common knowledge that the New York State flawed roll out of the "Common Core" standards has resulted in some very dismal 2013 test scores for grades 3 to 8. Its obvious to many educators that the State's attempt to repair a plane while in flight has ended up crash landing, even if the NYSED doesn't want to admit it. Now the "Common Core" standards are being introduced to the high schools. However, for classes that end with a Regents the inclusion of "Common Core"material is problematical since many of the Regents have not been modified for the "Common Core" and the curriculum associated with these Regents remains unchanged.

Since I am a Science teacher, let's see the problems associated with the implementation of the "Common Core" materials into the existing curriculum. First, a majority of schools, under pressure to save money and limit the amount of teachers they need to hire, have reduced the number of days for Science instruction from a 5-1 schedule (five days of instruction plus one lab) to a 4-1 schedule (four days of instruction and one lab). The result is that the students have almost a month less of instruction days and the teachers find themselves under time pressure to finish the curriculum by the end of the school year. Where once, Science teachers had almost a month to review for the Regents, just finishing the curriculum is a small victory. Anecdotal evidence has shown that schools that went to the 4-1 schedule resulted in a significantly lower Regents passing rate. This is primarily due to the DOE's misguided "fair student funding" program that encourages principals to hire fewer teachers with their budget in mind.

Second, the Regents have remained essentially "unchanged"and the Science teachers must cover the multiple units and topics that show up on the Regents. If Science teachers are pressured to include the more detailed "Common Core" standards into their teaching of the subject, the units and topics will take longer to teach and add to the time pressure these Science teachers already have in the 4-1 schedule. The result would be that some teachers will skip topics in a unit in the hopes that the Regents doesn't have too many questions on the topics that the teacher skipped. In other words, its like"robbing Peter to pay Paul"and to me this is not allowing for masterly of the subject by the students.

Finally, principals have found out that neither the DOE or UFT cares or bothered to crack down on schools using teachers not certified in the content specialty that is required by State Education Law. Look at PS 106, there was apparently no Special Education Teacher for the Special Education students and nobody seemed to care or do anything about it. How about Queens Vocational and Richmond Hill, amoung many others, who uses non-certified teachers in that content specialty to teach Earth Science? Can you image asking these teachers to include more rigorous and in-depth instruction in a subject that they are barely able to understand themselves? In quite a few cases these teachers are only one step ahead of the students they are teaching the course to.

For "Common Core" to successfully be incorporated into a high school Regents curriculum, the following issues must be resolved.

Eliminate the "fair student funding formula"and allow principals to hire the appropriate amount of teachers for their school.
Go back to the 5-1 Science schedule like the rest of the State.
All teachers need to be certified in the content specilty that they are teaching in.
The Regents must be radically changed by including less units and topics to accommodate the "Common Core" standards.

Presently, the failure of the DOE to do the right thing for the NYC students has hurt student academic achievement and incorporating "Common Core" into the classroom without fixing the existing policy problems in the City schools will only result in the plane crashing.

The airwaves and newspapers are being bombarded with pro charter school commercials about how important they are for the children of New York City and don't take away parental choice. However, what these commercials don't show is the dark side of the charter school story and the "uneven playing field" the charters enjoyed under the Bloomberg Administration that allowed them an increasing part of the DOE budget while exempting them of oversight. This "gravy train" allowed charters to thrive and expand as Randi Weingarten failed to challenge then Chancellor Joel Klein on co-locating charter schools in public school buildings. Now that the De Blasio Administration has decided to take another look at the recent co-locations, he found that 9 of 45 were not appropriate and that 3 of Eva Moskowitz's Success Academies co-locations are to be revoked. Moreover, many of the charters will soon be paying rent that will result in another outcry from the charter schools and their supporters. Finally, look for many of the rules that the charter schools were allowed to ignore, such as auditing to be imposed on the charter sector.

Let's look at the dark side of the story about charter schools. Many education reformers hail the charter schools as a step forward in education. However, the reality is very different. Overall, despite the claims, charter schools are no more successful than their District schools and experience very high teacher turnover, usually most charter schools have a complete turnover in staff by the third year. Furthermore, the charter schools expel students due to academic, behavioral, or attendance issues and fail to replace these students. They also are accused of consoling out students by threatening to have them repeat a grade if they don't leave, especially when the student is going into a testable grade. Here sre some statistics about the Harlem Success charter school that provide some context to this issue.

83 students entered kindergarten in 2006-07, the school’s first year of operation. When that class reached 4th grade in 2010-11, it had only 53 students — a drop of 36 percent. Harlem Success also took in a 1st grade class with 73 students in 2006. When that group reached 5th grade, it too had shrunk appreciably — by 36 percent. The attrition accelerated as the classes advanced.....

For a more detailed review of Eva Moskowitz's charter school student attrition rate read Ed Notes online blog. In addition, the Chicago Public School system reported that the Chicago charter schools expel 12 times more students that the public schools and there is little reason to believe its any different for the NYC charter schools.

Moreover, the charter schools focus on the testable subjects like English and Math to show artificially high test scores. Many of these schools give little attention to a genuine total education of the student, its just "drill and kill" for the English and Math tests for the remaining students left in the school. Additionally, the charter schools exclude Special Education and English Language Learners from their school by claiming they don't have the resources to provide the services they need. Finally, every dollar that the DOE gives to a charter school is one dollar less for the NYC public schools so its like "robbing Peter to pay Paul".

Once the charter schools are subject to the same rules and regulations that the public schools are subject to and has a representative and diverse student body (segregation in charter schools have always been a problem) a fairer comparison can be made between the district and charter schools.

In reality, the charter school miracle is simply "smoke and mirrors" and when their operation is scrutinized the"dark side"of this so called "miracle" shows a pattern of exclusion of "high needs" students, lack of a community representative student body, and a failure to provide a stable and certified teaching staff necessary to give a complete educational experience, not just constant and never ending "test preparation". My other stories on charter schools can be found Here.

Many of the NYC public schools and almost all the charter schools hire "Teach For America" (TFA) "two year wonders" because they are cheap and not because they are "quality teachers". In fact, hiring TFA "newbies" is simply hurting student academic achievement by not hiring the "quality teachers" necessary to improve student academic outcomes. To help the student academic achievement of the school, the Principal needs to hire experienced teachers not the TFA "newbies" . Education reformers may say they are "quality teachers" but their simply "full of crap"..

The Gary Rubinstein blog states that over 80% of the TFA "newbies" leave the classroom after their fourth year of teaching. In fact, the majority leave the classroom without ever achieving tenure. No wonder the TFA "newbies" are known as the "two year wonders".

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) states that a "highly qualified teacher"is properly credentialed in their subject area, has experience, and possess classroom management skills. By contrast the TFA "newbies"are not credentialed, have no experience, except an inadequate five week training course, and usually has poor classroom management skills.

Despite the obvious problems associated with the TFA"newbies", the media, politicians and their education reformer friends will falsely proclaim that the TFA "newbies" are just as good as experienced teachers. Didn't Mayor Bloomberg once say that teacher experience doesn't count?

The bottom line is you get what you pay for and if you practice "education on the cheap" by hiring TFA "newbie teachers"then as Principal of the school you have nobody to blame but yourselves when your hire a "two year wonder" from the TFA and can't understand why the TFA "newbie's" students don't improve academically.

This week selected guidance counselors have received e-maIls from the DOE asking them if they want to be placed in one school for the rest of the school year. Interestingly, the DOE email didn't say anything about being placed in their District or in their grade level. However, this is an acknowledgement that the DOE is starting to think about what's best for the students and not the previous ideological policy that made the guidance counselors go weekly to different schools that didn't benefit anybody. Add this to the CSA winning a grievance that stopped the DOE from rotating Assistant Principals monthly and we are now seeing a slow transition away from the useless and self destructive ATR rotation system.

I predict that the excessed teachers will all be "placed" in their District schools in September as there is an average of 5,000 vacancies that will allow for almost all of the 2,000 plus ATRs to fill a vacancy. Without the ideological reason to waste $160 million dollars annually it makes little sense not to place the ATRs. There will be some exceptions where the ATR has an obsolete or specialty license. In those cases, the UFT and DOE should arrange for training to have these teachers get a subject license and become a "push in" or second teacher in a class until they are properly credentialed.

For this program to work the following issues must be resolved. First, the "fair student funding formula" must be eliminated and the teacher salary reverts back to a "unit". The DOE pays for all teachers not the school as it presently does. This eliminates the incentive for the Principal to hire the :cheapest" teacher and they can now hire the"best" teachers for the classroom. Second, the DOE must impose a strict and complete "hiring freeze" until all the ATRs in their District are placed. Any Principal caught hiding a vacancy will have the vacancy removed from the school and receive a "disciplinary letter" for educational malfeasance. To minimize "forced placements", the principals will be allowed to interview up to five ATRs in seniority order of that content specialty and must decide on the one that best fits the school culture. To ensure the Principal is playing by the rules, failure to select one of the five ATRs will result in the school losing the vacancy for the school year., Finally, all ATRs hired should receive a "provisional contract" that allows both the teacher and Principal decide if"its a good fit". Once both sides agree, the teacher will be automatically appointed and gain their building seniority. In no case can the school and teacher sign a second "provisional contract"the following year.

Its common knowledge that the City and UFT will finalize a contract by June 30th. Therefore, if the UFT insists on these few simple requirements, the schools will be getting an influx of experienced teachers, many of them "quality teachers"that will help reduce the inequity of teachers in the school system and reduce class size. To me its a win-win no matter how one looks at it.

Now that Chancellor Carmen Farina is trying to find a location to place one of Eva Moskowitz's charter schools, how about putting them in those decrepit, moldy, and dirty trailers that too many public school students are forced to learn in. I believe that with all the money that Eva rakes in, she can either spruce them up or replace them entirely while paying appropriate rent for the privilege. Meanwhile the public school students can be placed in newly freed space in the schools that would have had charter schools squeezed into their building.

Interestingly all the media outlets, the Governor, and now Regent Meryl Tisch has asked that the City find an appropriate place for the charter schools. Where were the media outlets and these people when the Bloomberg Administration put thousands of children in trailers that outlived their useful life year after year? Many of these trailers are cramped, smelly, and require children to face the elements to travel to and from them. However, I never read a complaint from the media and their editorial boards, about the trailers. Did anyone hear the Governor, the Commissioner, or the Regents Board complain about the trailers?.

Another thing, had the Moskowitz Success Charter middle school moved into the PS 147 building in Central Harlem would have reduced space and displace students with disabilities as it was projected to have up to a 132% utilization capacity, a totally unacceptable use of building space for learning.. In other words the inclusion of 194 carefully selected students would displace the City's most needy students with disabilities. While others would receive services in the hallways or common areas. How interesting that the media and the politicians don't seem, to mention that outrage?

The bottom line, all these charter schools should be paying rent for using the City school buildings and use the money to provide the proper resources and instruction that the Bloomberg Administration failed to do for the public school students..

When Mayor Bill de Blasio replaced the Bloomberg Administration, Michael Mulgrew claimed at the delegate assembly there was a change of tone at the DOE and that the leadership was apologizing for all their anti-teacher actions and demonizing of the profession. Nice words, but when it has comes to actual deeds, there has been NO CHANGE IN HOW THE DOE TREATS THE TEACHERS! Every school I go to the teachers are under stress trying to fulfill the punitive Danielson rublic, the dubious rigor of Common Core, and the low morale.

I know it takes time to see changes and that this school year is a transition time between the punitive Bloomberg Administration and the De Blasio Administration. However, Chancellor Carmen Farina has failed to make the changes necessary to instill confidence in her. She has made few leadership or policy changes, made inappropriate statements, and backed down on the charter school issue. Worse, it seems that she's taking no action against the DOE bloated bureaucracy and punitive leadership who protected "bad principals" and has apparently backed away from placing the ATRs in schools that could benefit the schools with extra teaching support by using them as "push in teachers" in their subject area or as co-teachers.

The result is that until the next school year the New York City Public School students will suffer from inadequate resources, inexperienced teachers, and worst of all, the lack of accountability by the DOE administrators, like the useless "Children First Networks" that simply suck up much needed funds that could go to the classroom instead.

Every school I go to have funding issues. There's no money to fix broken smart boards that were placed in a middle of a blackboard, making instruction very difficult. Many schools require teachers to supply their own copy paper and quite a few schools require teachers to buy their own classroom supplies. Worse, in almost every school I walk into there are broken copy machines, lack of preventive maintenance, and wi-fi networks that don't have adequate bandwidth and are insufficient for use for classroom projects. Accountability for these problems are dumped on the schools while the bloated DOE bureaucracy denies any responsiblity for these problems.

Unless Chancellor Carmen Farina starts to do some major housecleaning, its not a change of tone that UFT President Michael Mulgrew claims he sees but the "same old song" when it comes to what's actually going on in the schools when it comes to the the dysfunctional, DOE with the children the real losers.

If you read all the media outlets in the Metropolitan area, one would think that the Eva Moskowitz's charter schools were taking over vacant space and not causing any negative consequences to the existing school. That's far from the truth. Besides taking precious funding from the public schools. The Harlem Success Charter School #4 (middle school) will have 194 carefully selected students who survived the extremely high student attrition rate approaching 50%, to make it into the middle school. To make sure the "elite 194"has enough space they will take over many areas that are used for the PS 149 "Special Education:" population such as    the Science, Art, and Music rooms and causing some services to be preformed in storage closets, hallways, and anywhere else the staff can squeeze into to give these Special Education students services that they are required, by law to have.

Had the City approved the Eva Moskowitz charter school for the "elite 194", it would make the PS 149 building at 132% of capacity. How was the Bloomberg Administration going to get the building back to the 100% utilization rate? Let's just kick out the Special Education students in PS 149! That's right, the most needy and severely disabled of students were to be removed from their only school they knew for the "elite 194".   Yet, except for Juan Gonzalez, no media outlet bothered to show what would happen to the Special Education students when the Harlem Success Academy charter school moved into the PS 149 building.

Where will the severely disabled students be bused to for their services? Probably to the already overcrowded District 75 "Mickey Mantle school" on the West side of Manhattan which already lost space to Eva Moskowitz's Harlem Success Charter School #1.   Or to schools further downtown. Did the Bloomberg Administration care what the community thought? The answer is no of course.

I can't understand why the De Blasio Administration doesn't counterattack and show that Eva Moskowitz's Success charter schools are taking away space from the severely disabled students in the NYC public school system. The very same "Special Education"students that will never be accepted to Eva's charter schools in the first place, add these students with other no-entry students such as English Language Learners, and "high needs" students with academic, behavioral, and attendance issues. Heaven forbid that Eva allows these students to attend her "elitist schools"and take the State and National tests. No way would any of these students make it to the"elite 194". Only the best make it and goodbye to the rest.

Its too bad the other side of the charter school story is ignored by the media but its been that way for years and with Chancellor Carmen Farina bumbling her way through the school year, I expect nothing will change.

P.S. Leonie Haimson was on MSNBC last night and did a great job in presenting the case against charter schools.   You can find it on her blog NYC Public School Parents Here.

There is no secret that Mayor Bill de Blasio was saddled with 152 expired contracts as Mayor Bloomberg irresponsibly refused to negotiate with the municipal unions. While the City's economic recovery smartly progresses with a surplus that increased another 225 million dollars above the previous surplus, primarily due to increased tax receipts and better economic conditions, its still a problem for the City. The March Comptroller report that shows the increased City surplus can be found here. However, the "retroactive raises" alone from the previous "City pattern" for the teachers, supervisors, and nurses will be 3.5 billion dollars, wiping out this year's and most of next year's surplus. Of course the City can pay the "retroactive raises" in yearly payments (three years) but still the City must negotiate with the other unions for the last three years and the total cost could approach 7 billion dollars! Now it seems that the De Blasio Administration has come up with a novel way to handle the irresponsible Bloomberg stance on municipal union contracts.

The PBA, in one of its blogsclaimed that the De Blasio Administration has raised a "trial balloon"that would eliminate or severely limit "retroactive raises"by replacing the raises with years of service credit. The City has proposed for the four years the police has been without a contract, the members would receive four years of service credit in liu of the "retroactive raises". Part of the agreement would also require the police to pay a minimal part of their health benefits. This would also free up the City to hire more "Tier 3" police as the more expensive "Tier 2" members would retire.

This novel approach may be applicable to some degree for teachers, who will be without a contract for five years. Would the members be willing to give up all or a significant part of the "retroactive raises" for service credit? Maybe, but the devil is in the details. Will it include the two 4% raises? or just the last three years? How much of our health benefits would we pay? 1.5% or 25%? Will there be adjustments to per session and coverage pay? How about retirees?

To me, its very intriguing and I certainly would like the union to explore it and poll its members if the City wants to offer a similar package to the teachers. Would you give up "retroactive raises"and pay some of the health benefit costs for three, four, or five years of service credit? Interesting to say the least. Let's see how this actually plays out. We live in an interesting time.

Lost in the million dollar propaganda blitz by Eva Moskowitz and her allies in the Senate and Governor Andrew Cuomo is the coming shortage of teachers as many veteran teachers are expected to retire in the next five years and the new State requirements to be a teacher will discourage many would be teachers from joining the profession. It certainly doesn't help when the ed deformers continue to demonize teachers and want teaching to be a stopgap job as it is in the charter schools. Presently NYC teachers are subject to an evaluation system that can lead to "ineffective ratings" and eventual termination based upon "junk science", wheretoo many teachers leave the system, and as the recession continues to wane, fewer people will be interested in going through theincreasingly difficult requirements to be certified by the State.While the New York City school system continues to have a teacher attrition rate of close to 5,000 annually, the new contract, whatever it will be, will probably increase the attrition rate as many veteran teachers take the money or service credits and leave the system for good. To stem the ever increasing teacher attrition rate the City realizes they must not only raise teacher salaries to competitive levels but reduce the hostile classroom environment that existed under the Bloomberg/Klein/Walcott administration and still exists now. Only a combination of factors that includes significant pay hikes, classroom improvements, and teach respect will keep the veteran teachers from leaving the system. A real balancing act to say the least.

That brings me to the contract being negotiated by the City and our union. The New York Times reported that the De Blasio Administration has suggested a 9 year contract with the retroactive raises spread out for the nine years of the contract. The good news is that we get our full "retroactive raises", the bad news its in drips and drabs and a few of us will be dead before we see it in our pension. I prefer the City proposal to the PBA and exchange retroactive pay for service credit. The problem giving service credit to teachers is the difficulty to hire enough certified teachers to replace them and the City would probably rely on Teach For America and Teaching Fellows to fill the gap. Having an influx of these untested and poorly trained "newbie teachers"is not conducive for improved student academic achievement. Retaining veteran teachers not pushing them out should be the main objective for the City. Therefore, the contract being negotiated will probably be what the New York Times reported. However, I do hold out some hope that the "retroactive raises" are only stretched out three years not nine. Also maybe a limited "buyout option" that gives a person an extra two years of pension credit if they retire within a given time period.

I don't believe there will be an ATR pool next year as both the City and union needs the teachers back in the classroom to reduce class size and to provide the ever increasing ICT classes a second teacher in the classroom. Furthermore, the ideological reason to waste 160 million dollars annually left with Bloomberg. To achieve this it will require the elimination of the"fair student funding" formula and an immediate hiring freeze until all the excessed teachers in a district is placed. Finally, I do believe the City and union will agree to a more reasonable teacher evaluation system that will make it less time consuming and appropriate for both the teacher and the administrator.

Chancellor Carmen Farina has stumbled her way through the first 75 days of her tenure. She experienced a"Cathie Black moment", backtracked on the charter school issue, and has not taken decisive action against the DOE leadership that protected principal Marcella Sills and other"bad principals". Moreover, Ms. Farina is faced with the Bloomberg/Klein/Walcott toxic ideology that is pervasive throughout the highest levels of the DOE. A case in point when the new Chancellor discussed with her staff about putting the ATRs back in the classroom, the DOE leadership immediately leaked it to the press so that the newspapers could write editorials calling the ATRs "bad teachers". In response, the Chancellor backed down, for now, about the ATRs returning to the classroom.

Chancellor Carmen Farina needs to understand that she must do a "spring cleaning"and get rid of the stench of the Bloomberg Era that permeates the DOE, especially at Tweed. It's no secret that there is a legacy of mistrust between the DOE and the teachers in the classroom caused by the Bloomberg education policy. Most teachers believe the DOE is the enemy and care little for what's best for the public school students. Instead the classroom teachers believe the DOE has made teaching in the classroom a hostile experience. Furthermore, teachers believe that the DOE has instituted a "gotcha system" that is trying to terminate or force veteran teachers out of the system "by any and all means possible". This adversarial relationship must change and the only way it can happen is for the Chancellor to do a through "spring cleaning". To expect the existing DOE leadership who have been indoctrinated for 12 years under the vile Bloomberg Administration to change course is naive.

The Chancellor should vastly reduce the 700 lawyers and 300 accountability experts that has greatly contributed to the "gotcha system mentality" at the DOE. An example of the vindictive mentality at the DOE is the persecution of superstar teacher and blogger, Fransesco Portelos, who wrote a spoof piece on "How to hack the DOE payroll portal and give yourself a raise". How did the DOE react to this spoof? They filed a criminal complaint of "Official Misconduct"with the NYPD who asked Mr. Poirtelos to turn himself in and was eventually jailed for 33 hours. The loads of paperwork and obscene data mining that takes up too much of a teacher's time and is basically a waste of resources is a direst result of all these useless "accountability experts" and the consultants that the DOE has employed. The Chancellor shoulkd take a page from the new Police Commissioner, William Bratton, who has forced three top NYPD officials to retire and moved around over one hundred top officers who couldn't be fired but are now encouraged to either resign or work in an entirely different position and away from their power source in a "do no harm"move..

Presently, the DOE acts as a"bully" when it comes to the teaching staff. Carmen Farina can't simply"rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic"and expect that the very same people who treated the schools and the teachers with disrespect and as disposable cogs and the students as widgets in a perverse business model to earn the trust of parents, students, or teachers. Only a complete "spring cleaning"by the Chancellor is necessary and instead of a staff of non-educators, only long-term successful educators should be at the highest levels at the DOE. Moreover, the Chancellor should streamline the bloated DOE Bureaucracy, reduce the use of the high-priced consultants and eliminate the useless and money sucking "Children First Networks", the unaccountable accountability and legal units, and finally, the remainder of the "gang of eighteen"that still inhabits the highest levels of the DOE.

Its no secret that I consider Chancellor Carmen Farina a disappointment so far. However, to be fair, this school year is a transition period and the real changes will be put in place by September of this year. My advise to the Chancellor is to stay firm and bring the joy of teaching back to the classroom for the sake of the students and please don't praise "Common Core" when it doesn't work without a completely understood and tested curriculum that goes with it.

In too many schools the administration, lead by Principal looks the other way when students misbehave. In some of these schools the Principal will automatically take the word of the student over the teacher's and give the teacher a "letter to the file". However, since the teachers have ownership over the student's grade, the student will usually think twice about misbehaving in the school for fear of failing the class and the Principal may not be willing to take the student's word as true considering the student's discipline history.. Unfortunately, under the twelve year Bloomberg administration onslaught to demonize the teaching profession and having willing allies in the media, the students grow up with little respect for their teachers. To make matters even worse under the new "restorative discipline policy", students know there is little or no serious consequences by the school for their bad behavior.

In this environment of poor student discipline and school administrative inaction the ATR shows up for his or her weekly assignment at the school. Once the ATR shows up in the classroom the misbehaving students of these schools will revert back to their normal behavior of walking into class late, fail to do any work, refuse requests by the ATR to follow the rules and in some cases antagonize the teacher and rile up his or her followers to be disobedient. The result is usually a chaotic and noisy classroom. The ATR, in trying to either maintain or reassert control as we are trained to do ends up in a confrontation with the misbehaving student.Sometimes this leads to an incident that has negative consequences to the ATR.

Too many times I have heard of ATRs who, in trying to maintain control of a chaotic classroom, confronts the misbehaving student Guess which side the school administration takes in these altercations? The misbehaving student who has a discipline record a mile long or the ATR? You guessed it the misbehaving student. The result is that the ATR ends up being charged with either Corporal Punishment (Chancellors Regulation A-420) or Verbal Abuse (Chancellor's Regulation A-421). and gets a "letter to the file" and a "U rating".

What can an ATR to do? Its not easy, in the worst schools you can only hope the students don't destroy the classroom but try to talk to the class to do their work and "do the right thing". However, in no case should the ATR confront a student or use language of a threatening, racial, or sexual manner. Calling a student disrespectful or undisciplined is fine but don't tell them they are lazy, stupid, or ending up in prison. That will earn you "U rating" and never touch a student even if they are blocking you from closing the classroom door. Just call the dean or an administrator. Its not worth the chance that the student claimed you committed corporal punishment or worse. Just wait for help, don't be a hero, it can cost you your job!

The DOE has made the ATR job a "babysitting position" your job is to hand out the work left by the classroom teacher, walk around the room and encourage the students to do the assignment and if they don't, they don't. Be on time, and don't use your cellphone in class. Nothing more is expected of you and don't add to the stress by going the extra mile. The result could be disastrous.

Remember one of my quotes in my blog is:
The DOE motto "Students lie.....except when it's about their teacher". Especially if you're an ATR!

Many people who have little clue how education works thinks that the teaching profession is just "glorified babysitting of their children". We get the summers off, only teach nine months out of the year, and, spend less than seven hours at school. While the reality is that a teacher's day really is twelve hours a day between before class preparation and after school lesson planing, calling and writing parents, and unit development. Moreover,many teachers spend large parts of their weekends on grading, correcting, and developing academic tasks for the week ahead. This does not include the fact that teachers must maintain their certification by taking courses, getting their graduate degree, and pass their content specialty test. Most intelligent people know that teaching is a high stress job and the summer and holidays are necessary to reduce the ever increasing stressful classroom environment and to recharge the batteries of teachers. However, let's leave all that behind us and let's agree that teaching your child is "glorified babysitting" and concentrate on what is a teacher's value really is worth?

First, lets assume that teachers make the New York State minimum wage of $7.75 per hour to"babysit"each student under their supervision. Since the teacher works six hours and fifty minutes daily and let's take off the 45 minute lunch period and you come out with $7.75 x 6.1 hours = $41.28 per day to "babysit the student". However, the average class size for teachers are 30 students. Therefore, its $41.28 must be multiplied by the 30 students = $1,418 daily. Where not finished just yet. Since the minimum school year is 180 days of instruction time the daily rate of $1,418 is multiplied by 180 days. Therefore, the calculation is $1,418 x 180 = $255,240 annually That's right, according to those non-educators who believe that teachers are simply "glorified babysitters for their children", by paying the teacher the minimum wage that "babysitters" get we are, at present, vastly underpaid by between 61% and 82% .

I propose that the union, in negotiating with the City, demand the State minimum wage that"babysitters" get. Now that's what I call a raise appropriate of what the New York City teacher is really worth. This will make every teacher happy, even those traitors at Educators 4 Excellence who want "newbie teachers" to make the same as veteran teachers. Give all teachers the minimum wage for each student they supervise and for those without a classroom or teaching self-contained Special Education the default value will be used which is the average student classroom size in their District and grade level as not to penalize them. Consequently, most teachers will be adequately compensated for "babysitting the children". Now that's a contract that I can support.

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Previously, I wrote an article claiming that the DOE took an ATR field supervision pilot program in Brooklyn and extended it throughout the City which has resulted in many unfair "U observations" to ATRs. When I first wrote the article I was only hearing rumors of some ATRs getting "U observations" and likely "U ratings". Now I have been hearing numerous complaints about how the ATR field supervisors are observing teachers not in their content specialty or in classes that the ATR meets for the first time. How unfair is that!. Worse yet, some ATRs are being given "letters to their file" by these very same field supervisors. How can an ATR, who has no ownership of the students be observed? Furthermore, how do you develop an improvement plan when the ATR is constantly rotating?

This week I was in a school that is considered to have poor academic issues and behavioral problems. The other ATR I was with told me that his field supervisor, a retired Principal, was coming to observe him. I told him that I didn't think it was a good idea for him to be observed in this school considering what we experienced there. He assured me that the field supervisor was fair and would make sure he had one of the better classes to observe him in. Yeah right, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.

The day of the observation came and the field supervisor selected the 8th period class full of "out of control" 9th graders. To make matters even worse, the ATR field supervisor told the classroom teacher to leave telling the classroom teacher, "I want to see how he handles the class without you there". That's right the teacher was dumped into a class that the teacher never had before and was supposed to control a bunch of rowdy 9th graders as if he was their classroom teacher.

The result was that students walked around the room, walked out the door without permission, and took their cellphones out to text message or listen to music. No matter what the ATR did, the students wouldn't listen to him. After, the class was over, the field supervisor curtly told the ATR"you will be hearing from me next week". He expects he will receive a "U observation"and a likely "U rating". Interestingly. the next day the classroom teacher heard about the class behavior and told them how disappointed she was in them. She told the students that the ATR was being observed and you probably hurt his chances to teach again. The students were very remorseful and even the "knuckleheads"were sorry they acted badly. However, the damage was done and now this ATR, who was set up by the field supervisor, will have to fight hard not to get a "U rating".

Why doesn't our union file a PERB complaint and expedited grievance to put a stop to this transitivity? Is this the union's attempt to encourage ATR's to retire? James Eterno in the ICEblog explained how useless the union was when he wanted to take a "U observation" case further. President Michael Mulgrew claims he sees a change in tone at the DOE. Really? I must be tone deaf since to me its the same old "gotcha game" practiced by the very same people who were in power during the vindictive Bloomberg/Klein/Walcott administration.

Arisleyda Urena Another Leadership Academy Principal Who Found Herself In Trouble.

A Pot Of Gold Looms At The End Of Contract Negotiations.

Leadership Academy Principal Marcella Sills Reassigned And Will Be Charged Under 3020-a

Why Is Michelle Lloyd-Bey Still The District 27 Superintendent?

Why School Letter Grades Are A Joke - PS 106.

Teachers Who Work With High Needs Students Are Screwed Under The Flawed Teacher Evaluation System.

Ed Deformer Cami Anderson's "One Newark Plan" Is A Way To Dismantle The Public School System.

Why Common Core Cannot Work For Regents Science Under The Existing NYCDOE Policy.

The Dark Side Of The Charter School Story.

Schools Who Hire Teach For America "Newbies" Are Not Doing What's Right For Their Students.

Its Starting To Look Like The End Of The Useless ATR Rotation System.

To Chancellor Camen Farina. How About Placing Eva Moskowitz's Schools In The Trailers?

Where Is The DOE's Change of Tone? It Seems To Be The Same Old Song To Me.

The Media Only Cares About The Elite 194 And Ignore The Many Severely Disabled Students At The Public School Who Will Be Displaced.

Has The De Blasio Administration Found A Solution To The Retroactive Pay Issue?

The Contract, Teacher Retention, And The Upcominig Teacher Shortage.

Chancellor Carmen Farina Must Clean House At The DOE...Now!

Don't Let School Administrators Make ATRs A Scapegoat For Their Student Behavior Problems.

What's A Teacher's Monetary Value Really Worth?

The Union Needs To Take A Stand Against The Unfair ATR Field Supervisor Observations.