There was some hope that an outsider would be appointed Chancellor and"clean house"at Tweed, eliminate "Fair Student Funding", and require that all excessed teachers be placed before"newbies"could be hired. Disappointingly, the new Chancellor, Richard Carranza, did none of the above. While 1,000+ veteran teachers are in the ATR pool, 5,000 "newbies"were hired this school year.
Tuesday, a new school year begins and there are over 1,000+ ATRs, mostly veteran teachers, will find themselves in a strange school for a period of time until the DOE arbitrarily decides to move them to another strange school. Moreover, the ATRs will find themselves observed by both the school administration and the field supervisor while teaching in a strange classroom with students who know that the ATR doesn't control their grade. Finally, the ATR will have no say in the school they are assigned to.
- The school has no parking? Too bad.
- It takes over two hours by mass transit. Tough luck.
- You are assigned to a school without an elevator. So what.
- You have a handicap sticker and the school offers no accommodation. That's your problem.
- You don't like the school climate? You have no say in the matter.
While I can hope for positive change for the ATRs, realistically, I expect.little change for the plight of the ATRs as both the present UFT leadership and the Bloomberg policymakers at the DOE accept the status quo. Therefore, look for the ATR pool to be unaffected and that's a shame.