Yesterday, Chancellor Carmen Farina told Chalkbeat that ATRs will not be placed in Renewal Schools and that ATRs who were subject to discipline would not be placed in any schools. The interview with the Chancellor clearly shows that she hates ATRs and believes they are inferior teachers. Moreover, it also shows how she believes that all ATRs who faced discipline, were guilty, even when an arbitrator, faced with the evidence, found that the teacher was not guilty of the charges.Finally, the Chancellor continues to vilify ATRs.
To me. its not surprising that the Chancellor feels the way she does since she was a Deputy Chancellor under Joel Klein and retained 80% of the Bloomberg policymakers when she was appointed Chancellor under Mayor Bill de Blasio. Moreover, as Principal of PS 6 in Manhattan she pushed out 80% of the teachers in her school and as Chancellor she went to various schools to seek out poorly performing teachers and advised principals how to start a paper trail to terminate them.
As for the ATRs? Chancellor Carmen Farina has made it clear that she shares the Bloomberg/Klein ideology that ATRs are "bad teachers" and that the ATR pool must be drained by any means possible. While few ATRs would want to work in a Renewal School and we ATRs can celebrate that we will not be dumped into these low performing schools. I feel sorry for the students in those Renewal Schools who will continue to academically struggle as they experience high teacher turnover and a steady stream of "newbie"teachers that have a steep learning curve themselves. . In other words the Renewal Schools will continue to be separate and unequal when it comes to student and teacher quality.
The Chancellor did gave herself some wiggle room by saying that ATR hiring will be on a case by case basis and that principals will be able to accept or reject the ATR placement. This seems to contradict what the DOE said about vacancies after October 15 in which principals would have no say in who the DOE sends the school from the ATR pool.
It seems to me that the Chancellor has made it clear she hates the ATRs and our union leadership continues to remain silent in rebutting the erroneous assumptions that ATRs are "inferior"or "bad"teachers. Then again, the UFT leadership has never stood up for the ATRs so why would I expect the unaccountable union leadership to do the right thing and stand up for their must vulnerable of members?