A new start of the school year and very little has changed. Only a handful of ineffective or vindictive principals have been removed, the punitive Charlotte Danielson rubric is still in force, "junk science"is still used to evaluate teachers, and fair student funding continues. In other words the Bloomberg education policies remain largely undisturbed under Mayor Bill de Blasio. While the terrible 2014 ATR agreement sunsetted, there are still over a thousand ATRs without a classroom (1,162) and the field supervisors are coming to "U" rate them if they can.
The field supervisors (assassins) are now introducing themselves to the ATRs in rotation and they will tell you that they are there to assist you in improving your teaching and getting a permanent position. Unfortunately, the field assassins are not telling the ATRs the truth. The field assassins are there to thin the ATR herd. Their job is to “U” rate as many ATRs that they can and force the ATRs to either resign or retire rather than face 3020-a termination charges. In fact, the section dealing with field assassins responsibilities were changed from supporting the ATR‘s pedagogy torecommending to the Superintendent 3020-a termination charges.
According to one informal source 120 ATRs were charged under section 3020-a in the last year, mainly by field assassins “U” rating them. How accurate the number is I don’t know but certainly even one ATR who was terminated, based on a field supervisor recommendation is one too many. While the union did the right thing and allowed the terrible 2014 ATR agreement to sunset, due to an overzealous DOE prosecution of the ATRs, the union needs to go much further and challenge the DOE’s use of field supervisions at PERB or by filing a lawsuit. How unfair is it to observe a teacher in a classroom of strangers, with no ownership of their grades, and no idea how much rigor to put into a lesson since the ATR has no idea of the students’ academic ability? Yet our disconnected union leadership ignores the issue and allows the DOE to run rough shot over the hapless ATR.
My advice to the ATRs in rotation when the field assassin shows up with a smiling face and promises to assist you in getting a permanent position, remember the saying “Beware of the Greeks bearing gifts”. In this case the gift can be termination.