The New York Post has been a vocal cheerleader for the hacksaw education policies of the Bloomberg administration, yet its reporters are usually first-rate journalists, and they exposed terrible conditions at PS 106. Now, it published an article by an experienced teacher who left the school.
The Post exposed dreadful conditions at P.S. 106, where the principal ruled with an iron hand when she was present. The school had no curriculum, no textbooks, no discipline, and the Post called it “the School of No.”
The principal was just fired by the de Blasio administration after an investigation.
There is more to the story. The principal was a graduate of Bloomberg’s celebrated Leadership Academy, a fast-track program to train school leaders and eliminate the usual training and experience needed to become a school principal. Many in the city called it “the Jack Welch Academy,” to acknowledge the GE leader’s role in designing the program. The CEO of the program was a software executive who never taught or worked in a school. These new leaders were supposed to bring business efficiency to Bloomberg’s hundreds of new schools. Toughness was in, kindness was out.
Patricia Walsh, the special education teacher who wrote this article, said:
“Retaliation was common. When a teacher signed her name to a letter sent to officials expressing her concerns about educational practices that are adversely affecting children in our school, she was reprimanded for more than one hour by two supervisors from the Department of Education. Teachers learned to remain anonymous.
“Letters began to flood the district office, superintendent’s office, mayor’s office, chancellor’s office, UFT and the special commissioner of investigation just three months after Sills took the leadership position. But rather than addressing our concerns and dealing with the cause, the staff was reprimanded and scolded for not signing individual names. Now see why! Sills strategically targeted and harassed staff.
“Meetings, letters, e-mails, reports to the teachers union . . . all proved to be futile. Every letter, every complaint reiterated her absence, lateness, inappropriate interaction with children, parents, staff, even falsification of reviews….
“What happened of course is that anyone who could left PS 106.
“The transfer rate of staff members soared to 60%.
“Then the students left. Parents transferred their children to other public schools and charter schools to escape what they saw as an institution that the city had given up on.
“Enrollment declined from more than 600 students to just 250….
“To show just how clueless and uncaring the administration was — in December 2013, PS 106 received a glowing report. At the time, there was no mandated gym, no special-education teacher (I had left and wasn’t replaced), no books, no art and no extended-day services!”
“Patricia Walsh, a graduate of Teachers College at Columbia University, taught for 27 years, and was a special education teacher at PS 106”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
In today’s world, this is NOT so UNBELIEVABLE! And the deformers talk about critical thinking. DUH…
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The Bloomberg’s administration’s boy-genius-Joel Klein espoused the philosophy/policy that “Accountability will replace supervision.” In other words, principals were no longer supervised. Rather, they were “held accountable” by an accountability system based on slicing and dicing test-score data, which could be, and often was, manipulated by feckless administrators like Ms Sills. Which meant that NO ONE SUPERVISED THIS NUT CASE. His ideologically-driven strategies destroyed PS 106, a perfectly fine elementary school. He unthinkingly ruined undreds of children’s educational lives. BUT JOEL KLEIN BELIEVED HE WAS A HERO BECAUSE HIS “METRICS” TOLD HIM PS 106 WAS DOING JUST FINE.
Why don’t the NYT or the WSJ do an in-depth analysis of the effects of the policy of accountability replacing supervision? Twelve years of Bloomberg profligately spending public dollars on mindless fads, and what’s the result? — most of our kids are no better off, and some are worse.
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But they weren’t held accountable — remember — accountability is code for “we can fire teachers at will.”
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That’s lower than the 80% of transfers by the new NYC Chancellor. It takes great skills of bullying teachers, ergo their students, to force teachers to leave. I have seen it. Administrators make surprise visits to rooms and take over classes, sniff around standards that are posted on the walls. Kids made to feel uncomfortable. Many that couldn’t hold the sandals of the teacher. It mostly happens to higher paid senior teachers.
Groups of teachers leaving at the same time, which shows that the problem was not the teachers. Then schools complain about kids bullying in schools. Kids are always learning, the question is, “What are they learning?”
Funny the problem is discovered on the first day of the DiBlasio Administration.
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Sounds like LAUSD>
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I am glad they actually fired her. Usually these principals are moved around or given desk jobs when they mess up.
This may be a local story, but this is a victory for students and teachers.
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I agree, so glad that the writer shared the truth of what was happening in that school. A lot of principals are BULLIES and they are allowed to supervise schools with little or NO education background. Teachers and parents should NOT be afraid to speak up, write and complain when necessary about a principal. Enough is Enough!!!!!
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On second thought, the Post said in the linked article Sills was merely “removed.” “Removed” is not being fired. She could have been merely reassigned to a central office desk job instead of actually being fired from the DOE.
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This reminds me of the time we had a principal who had a substance abuse problem. Because of his erratic behavior, the teachers became alarmed that he might hurt a child or staff member. So a group of teachers went to see the superintendent and reported our concerns. The next week she came to a staff meeting and scolded the teachers for “gossiping.”
The very next month this principal went to the home of a teacher and threatened her with a loaded gun! Fortunately the man did not pull the trigger but of course the teacher called the police, who arrested the principal. At that point, (once it became public knowledge) the man was fired. The teachers never received an apology. I was tempted to call the local newspaper to relate the story but did not do so because the principal’s wife taught in our district and was a very nice person. We didn’t want to cause her more pain.
Teachers really need good journalists right now. A thorough investigation will show that the fight against due process rights for teachers is really a quest to break the union and get rid of senior teachers. Here’s the truth about “tenure:”
“Tenure” for teachers is really “due process” similar to what all government employees have.
The probationary period for a teacher is two to three years, much longer than most government employees. During this time they are “at will” and cannot appeal when their contracts are not renewed.
Like all other workers, a teacher can be dismissed on the spot for criminal behavior.
There is a process for dismissing a teacher. When it takes “years” and $100,000 to dismiss a teacher, it’s often because the courts deem her dismissal as unfair or arbitrary.
Almost 50% of all teachers leave during the first five years, making K-12 teaching the most self selective of all the professions. Many of these people do not have their contracts renewed, while others are counseled or pressured out.
The only districts that complain about their “bad” teachers seem to be places like Los Angeles, New York and D.C. Now why would that be?
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Some states call civil service protections “tenure laws” when they aren’t “tenure” at all.
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On third thought, this article says the DOE is seeking actually termination: http://nypost.com/2014/02/22/my-time-at-the-school-of-no/
I suspect it will take awhile before she goes through a hearing to fire her, if she actually does. I wouldn’t be surprised if she resigns in lieu of it.
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Here in Dallas, Mike Miles started a “Fellows Academy” to train some chosen ones to be principals so they could skip the pesky apprenticeship model that involves being an assistant or associate principal first. 50 are chosen each year; existing principals are demoted (but still paid full principal salaries) or fired to make room for the graduates of this academy if enough current principals don’t cave into the constant harassment and quit on their own.
The “Academy” is costing Dallas taxpayers something like $5 million A YEAR. The “Fellows,” as they are called, are paid full salaries to attend trainings instead of teaching or learning on the job as assistant principals.
The complete lack of preparation and judgment many of these Fellows display is stunning,
In December, a Spence Middle School student committed suicide at her home. Shortly after, another student attempted suicide at the school, followed by 3 or 4 others since.
The principal of the middle school (Spence Middle School) is a Fellow and teachers have had to go to the media to complain that neither they nor the kids nor the parents are getting any counseling, support or anything else to deal with the deadly outbreak of behavior.
The teachers are going over their Fellow principal’s head and reaching out to the media for help because 2 teachers who did speak up were placed on admin leave.
Last week, Miles, who has not said a public word or visited the school to meet with the teachers or parents about the suicide attempts, went instead to DC to spend 15-20 minutes with Arne Duncan.
Miles has unleashed these people on our children in Dallas and there is no accountability for any of them. They do what they please. It has become a matter of life and death at Spence Middle School.
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The Jack Walsh Academy sounds very much Iike Denver’s Ritchie program to train school leaders (named after Denver University’s benefactor Dan Ritchie). Denver has many of these school leaders now and is concurrently the recipient of a Wallace Foundation Grant to help provide extra training for these non-educators to be great school leaders. One of the first things the grant has done is to provide mentors for these struggling school leaders. Another thing the grant has provided for is funding so Denver district level administrators can “reduce the span of control” , a fancy business phrase to say the supervisor – in this case instructional superintendents – will have fewer people to oversee. I ask: which school leader wouldn’t love to have fewer folks to supervise, which classroom teacher wouldn’t love to have fewer children to supervise and teach, and finally, which students wouldn’t benefit greatly from having a smaller student to adult ratio, thus “reducing the span of control” for all affected? More ridiculousness from the business world. But why is this only being implemented for district level administrators? Ugh.
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Bayard Rustin HS, the school I taught at for over 20 years was a “victim” of the Leadership Academy types. When the school was redesigned into small learning communities the leaders of each SLC was a graduate of the Leadership Academy. Three of the four new AP’s had only a few years teaching experience which resulted in a more than doubling of their salaries. That was the prime motivator for becoming an AP. The three of these AP’s only cared about passing rates in order to secure their positions or risk being “demoted” to teacher status and a cut in salary by over one half. I personally witnessed (I was the programmer who was instructed to enter the grades) students receiving unearned course credits in order to protect graduation rates. Bloomberg’s educational policies along with Gates funding of the small school movement resulted in the closure of what once was an excellent public school.
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Michael Brocum: thank you for pointing out a public school “worst practice”—massaging, torturing and inventing numbers—that has been carried to new extremes by the charterites/privatizers.
It has taken me five years of following the ed debates, but at this point my first reaction to any “data-drivel” claim of the education establishment is twofold:
1), Show me how you got the numbers and their statistical payoffs so we can see how firm or squishy they are.
2), Use logic and facts to prove that it matters. So many times we are given something like high-stakes test scores in place of any verifiable proofs that genuine teaching and learning is going on.
As Andrew Lang said many years ago: “He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp posts — for support rather than for illumination.”
Thank you for your comments.
😎
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Crowning data leads to a fear-driven culture. Where are billionaires fluent in Maslow when you need them?
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There are many, many, schools in NYC that have administrators like Sills. It is time to clean house , top to bottom.
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This is what happens when you make the principal “CEO” of the school. There are no checks and balances in the NYC school system. Where was her supervisor? Why is she not being held accountable? Where was the union’s voice? All Michael Mulgrew and his minions will tell teachers is to file a grievance. Yes, put your name on a piece of paper which will condemn you to bullying and harassment. Really, there is no safe way for NYC teachers to speak out against these abuses.
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I read a piece recently that quoted a best selling historian who said he was approached by a wealthy individual from another country who wanted to pay him handsomely to write a history of his country and his family.
When the historian told him it might not be flattering to the wealthy person’s family, the man said if it wasn’t flattering then the deal was off.
The story went on to point out that more and more the wealthy and powerful from all over the world are doing what they can to control what’s written about history before it happens to make sure that the final product says what they want it to say.
In other words, to achieve whatever goals these people want, they want to manufacture history as it happens to help them achieve their goals.
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Thanks Lloyd
Very interesting!
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Where is the NYC teachers union when the new Chancellor “encouraged” 80% of her teachers to leave when she was principal. Who was that chapter leader? Unions don’t care anymore. They welcome her with open arms. “We can work with her” “She is experienced”
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Where are the teachers willing to work in union with one another? There are too few teachers ready and willing to stand up for their profession and the children in their classrooms. Michael M. does not have to be the leader of the teachers in NYC if the teachers in NYC have lost faith in his leadership.
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An example of the prisoners running the prison. Political connections have no end to the damage they do for regular hard working people.
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I’m certainly no fan of the Leadership Academy, but to say that the new chancellor rode in and cleaned house isn’t entirely accurate, in my opinion. This was Fariña’s statement after she dispatched her second-in-command to PS 106Q for an assessment in the wake of the Post’s revelations:
““There is significant room for organizational improvement,” Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña said. “But [Deputy Chancellor Dorita Gibson reported] that classrooms are orderly, teachers are dedicated, and students are learning. Going forward, I will have field staff at the school weekly to make sure those organizational changes occur.”
The Post’s reports on the shocking conditions at the school were accurate and confirmed by numerous people on the ground. The chancellor would have been well within her rights — and wouldn’t have violated the principal’s right to due process — to remove her from the school immediately pending an investigation. Instead, they kept her in place because they deemed the school was functioning well.
It was only because of Sills’s carelessness AFTER the investigation began that the SCI managed to put together a solid case for termination–phone calls that Sills made to a custodian to summon him to her car to help her with her bags (good grief) and let her into the building were being made between 7 and 7:30 am, not between 9:00 am and noon as they were before the Post’s reports. Were it not for that lucky break, Sills could still be the principal of PS 106Q–her supervisors either refused to testify about or were unaware of her failure to work the mandated minimum number of hours. (In the absence of such solid testimony, I predict her 3020-a hearing will be resolved in her favor, and she will be kicked up to a network/administrative job, earning six figures and cruising toward her pension. Only in New York City!)
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This principal may be the tip of the iceberg of other administrators in the previous administration. It seemed like a death knell when the former Chancellor Walcott praised his successor as a “good choice”. This was not what was expected from our progressive mayor.
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Walcott who?
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