Blogger Perdido Street discovered an astonishing part of the newly adopted New York state budget. If a teacher should change his or her address and fails to notify the State Education Department, he or she will be subject to “a moral character review” by the state.
Certificate holders shall notify the department of any change of name or mailing address within thirty days of such change. Willful failure to register or provide such notice within one hundred eighty days of such change may constitute grounds for moral character review under subdivision seven of section three hundred five of this chapter.
Words fail me.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Holy bejeezus. Anyone who has a firm grasp of history and how teachers have been marginalized, targeted, and vilified and where that ultimately lead should be chilled to the bone by this.
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You’d think we were sex offenders or something. I wonder if online maps will soon follow, with little markers indicating where public school teachers live. Why any young person would consider this profession at this point is, frankly, beyond me.
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Ah! A Waze for teachers! Don’t give them any ideas.
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This makes me think about Yelp! for teachers. I read about this a few days ago…don’t remember where (this blog?). I can see how the theory would appeal to parents. However, parents should not be burdened with having to shop around for the best school or teacher for their child. Teachers are public servants not businesses.
And, I’m sick of being tracked. What is the reason for tracking addresses with such urgency and seriousness?
Moral character investigations? That makes as much sense as racketeering charges for cheating on the tests.
I hope the educators in MS are paying attention. It takes time, but what happens in NY and other big cities always trickles down here eventually…especially after it has already failed to work for those big cities! We need to keep our eyes open!
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Our teachers are being treated like criminals.
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We really have entered a new age. This looks more like some regime of the past.
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Yup. Right there in the language of the bill. Basically the now codified legal assumption in NYS is that public school teachers are all probable sex offenders that need strict tabs kept on them. Name one other group in society that has this provision attached to them. Sex offenders.
Hence the humiliating nature of this absolute and total defeat for organized teachers that this legislation is.
Elections have consequences and 2016, 2018, and opt out can’t change these consequences.
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All legislators are inherently idiots. Only a few show a glimmer of genius from time to time. this only shows that they will do anything to find cause to fire reliable teachers and replace them with worthless toadies. (I.E. those who will be gone in less that three years)
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One of the only real specific and true things we can say about legislators in NYS is that NYSUT has no voice/pull/influence with the bulk of them.
All I need to know as a teacher here.
About them being self-serving, worried-only-about-their-political survival, willing to squash people’s rights for even the slightest gain…..well that doesn’t surprise me at all. No shock there. All the Enlightenment figures understood that clearly. They are politicians after all! We need to read history more and lower out expectations of them….come on!
The organization that I pay bi-monthly has 0 influence over them. That’s the take away.
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You are wrong. There are many smart and conscientious legislators. It’s just that they tend not to constitute the majority.
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“Smart and conscientious” are not part of my requirements for a legislator.
Just “to what degree will their ideas and self-preservation instant infringe on my rights and, in this case, my career.”
I believe in good government. Big government. I’m an unabashed liberal of the new deal variety. However I never assume too much virtue on those called to politics.
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We need to raise the profile of education as a profession! We need to get the best and the brightest to become teachers! We need to pay teachers better! it is hilarious to listen to educational reformers talk about getting better people into the profession as they denigrate and insult the ones who are there. Everyone is checking to see how long before they can retire and teacher colleges are going to have to close here because no one wants to teach. Nice work Quid Pro Cuomo.
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Bite your tongue, teacher in NY! Haven’t we heard enough about the best and brightest? We need to have a serious discussion about what that means because it sounds too much like we need ivy leaguers with high test scores. In the meantime, NY is treating teachers like sheep and currently is engaged in culling the herd. I’m sure someone can identify your legislators who have been acting as the governor’s Judas goats.
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Reblogged this on CNY Teacher and commented:
This is truly amazing. The state has attacked and vilified teachers like never before. What next?
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Every teacher in NY should send a card to State Ed saying that they just wanted to make sure that the state had their current address. If we did that every 6 months, the letters would inundate the system.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE smartphone
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That’s the spirit!
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I agree maybe the first day of school next year?
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Great idea DrNick4math!!
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The only problem is there really isn’t much of state ed left. They’d just leave them there like they probably haven’t looked at any of our “scores” or evaluations either…
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GOOD IDEA!! each person should send in a letter with a minor change or addition like the last four digits of their zip code or an apartment number or a suffix to their name or change their address to a relative’s or a friend’s address for a few months (while some fictitious renovation is taking place).
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Every teacher should send a certified letter on the same date. Make SED sign for every one.
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“Moral character review”??? In the 21st century, that’s a thing? Whose morals? What do we mean by “character”?
On the other hand, “character” seems to have morphed into “grit”, and anyone still teaching has that in spades.
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I have a professional license in an area other than teaching. We are required to notify State Ed. within 30 days if we change address. Failure to do so may be considered “professional misconduct.”
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“Certificate holders shall notify the department of any change of name or mailing address within thirty days of such change. Willful failure to register or provide such notice within one hundred eighty days of such change may constitute grounds for moral character review under subdivision seven of section three hundred five of this chapter.”
Not to justify this, but the legislation only applies to a “willful” failure to notify, and only after 180 days failure, not 30, and the moral character review is not mandatory, as the law is written. This is all of a piece with new safety concerns which the politicians are responding to. In Pennsylvania we have a new law requiring us, and any non-teachers who have contact with the kids, to have FBI fingerprinting and state criminal and child abuse background checks every three years, whereas before it was only a precondition of hiring, and if you stayed in that position, that was it. So now my district, and others around the state are scrambling to get this done this year, and we are now having difficulty scheduling field trips (assuming there is money budgeted for same) because we don’t have enough parent chaperones with clearances.
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Then don’t justify it. Misery loves company? It’s the tone of the law not the content so much. After all everyone wants to make sure there are no screw ups when it comes time to send something really important to all NYS teachers.
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In Utah, we have to get new fingerprinting and background checks every five years. We also have to inform the district within 48 hours if we are arrested for anything. Failure to inform the district results in automatic action against our license.
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The 3 words that come to my mind when I read the new law: bully, sexist, control freak and elitist. We are 75% women, he went to a private school, and it’s “his way or the highway”.
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“Legislating Morality”
“Immoral judging moral”
Now there’s a novel thought
Like tone-deaf judging choral
Or new-born judging “Hot!”
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Since when did we work for state DOE? We work for local districts!
Who wrote that law, Bradbury or Orwell?
This s- – t gets more and more absurd!!!!!
Dave Greene It’s April 4th, not 1st, right?
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Does this law apply to any other profession? It needs to be challenged in the courts. It’s one thing to be required to provide employers with appropriate contact information, but this is far beyond. It is Orwellian, and Orwell was satirizing totalitarian governments of 1930’s and ’40’s Europe.
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Marian Higgins,
This law applies to educators.
I don’t of any other profession so closely regulated by the state.
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To me, it is another form of harassment coming from on high. I can’t wait to see how much it will cost to renew our licenses, too.
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Maybe the Governor and legislators should wear ankle bracelets so we know where they are at all times. Better yet, Gates-funded “skin galvanic monitors” to make sure they are among the living.
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Not merely living Diane but “engaged” — just like Bill wants our students to be.
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Thank you Teachers Unions for backing the same political party over and over again until you made this possible. This is completely on the backs of the Teachers’ Unions and their horrible track record of backing Anti-freedom Big Government Stateists. The very politicians we are all now railing against are the ones that our Union dues have gone to elect.
This is our bed we now must lie in it because we failed to STAND UP and DEMAND that we be fairly represented politically by our own UNION. Now they stand up but is it too late?
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BS freelyn… and you are saying the republican party is better on education? This is not a partisan issue. Stop trying to make it one.
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Amen Freelyn. I’ve been saying this for years. Betsy, if teachers voted for a Republican just once, Democrats would stop taking your votes for granted.
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I wonder why this requirement. Are they going to require teachers now live in the district they teach? Is this used to correlate teacher wealth (?) with test scores? Is this an attempt to limit licensure by location? Is this to ensure opponents of teaching, politicians, and media have direct access to teachers for public reporting – publish the addresses of all teachers ranked “ineffective”?
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MathVale,
I was thinking the same thing.
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I’d be the last person to defend the NYS legislature, but the change of address charge is totally bogus. Most, if not all states require licensed professionals(not just teachers but all licensed professionals) to inform the board or department of a change of address within 30 days of said change. Here is just one link, this one for Illinois:
https://www.idfpr.com/applications/licensereprint/
That above link covers things such as Funeral Directors, Auctioneers, Barbers, Insurance agents and Vet techs and dozens of other professionals.
Here is a link for nurses in New York state:
http://www.op.nysed.gov/prof/nurse/np.htm
It says “NOTE: Once you are licensed, Education Law requires that you notify the Department of any change in your mailing address or name within 30 days of that change. Failure to do so may be considered professional misconduct. ”
This is nothing new.
I could supply hundreds of links for dozens of professions in dozens of states that have a required change of address notification.
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Interesting, given how often teachers say that they want to be treated as other professionals.
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Good point. HOWEVER, I think this is about timing and wording. The word choice is poor, the timing is wrong. Trust has been broken. The situation is bad. At this point, everyone is suspicious of anything this legislature/governor does. It speaks to much larger problems.
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Bravo for having the curiosity to obtain readily available information.
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For those citing other professions, I’ll just ask…so that makes it a good thing to require this? I don’t get it. What “professional misconduct” comes with not notifying some “board” of your address in 30 days and why the need for such draconian penalty for such, regardless if one is a doctor, engineer or teacher? Just because other “professions” might do something doesn’t mean it isn’t ridiculous and ridiculous overblown in threat of penalty. I’m calling bullshit on the whole idea of such practice (especially the threat), teaching included.
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“Professionals” must be licensed to practice their profession. The state has a monopoly on granting that license and sets the rules for obtaining and renewing the license. Failing up follow those rules is therefore misconduct. As for why the state would care, one reason is that the licensing body has an interest in being able to send notifications, such as notifications for license renewals or notifices of professional misconduct complaints, to licensed professionals with confidence that they’ll be received.
These rules are almost never enforced, by the way, so there’s no need to panic. The main purpose is probably to head off complaints from licensees along the lines of “but I never received the notice you claim to have sent me!” The state’s position on that is, you want to practice your profession, these are the rules.
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Do the bastards making these laws have the same restrictions/mandates on themselves?
Thought not!!!
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Cuomo does not want to take responsibility for property tax increases on his domicile owned by his paramour.
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Howard Beale,
I was thinking about that. Ok, fine if you want a change of address. But to bring a teacher up on a “moral character review?” That’s pretty harsh language for something so petty. Teachers have been battered for so long. I just tend to see it as more harassment, distrust and another way we’re gonna getcha.
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Many professions that involve state licensing have “moral character” requirements. Attorneys are one (and we are required to notify the state of address changes within 30 days). Architects are another. There are probably a lot more.
A good rule of thumb, when you see a statute that doesn’t seem to make sense or seems outrageous on its face, is to consider the possibility that there’s something you may not understand. In this day and age, you can usually clear that up in under a minute by Googling something like, for example, “address change state license 30 day notification” or “state license moral character” etc.
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Hmmmm….How about legislators who vote yes on bills without knowing what’s in them? That’s just to name one instance of someone who might be due for a “moral character review.” I don’t see why failing to notify State Ed. of a change of address would warrant a review of my moral character. Seems a bit harsh to me. And how will they prove if I’ve “willfully” failed to notify them???
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Flerp,
So, I’m thinking that since now teachers will have to renew their licenses every 5 years, they had to put this address change provision in there to be able to notify of the issues you state in your above post. Ok, I can see that, but I still think moral character review is just too much.
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FLERP says
“Many professions that involve state licensing have “moral character” requirements. Attorneys are one…
“These rules are almost never enforced, by the way”
Naw, really?
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Cuomo is going to destroy education just as he has done with so many other things in NY. All the teachers who voted for him should be ashamed of themselves. It was all there in front of you and many chose to ignore it and voted for him anyway. NYC, Westchester and Long Island supported this egomaniac while the rest of the state did everything they could to prevent it. For those of you who live in the NYC and metro area, well now you see what the rest of thenstate was screaming about… And now we all have to live with your mistake!
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These reforms reek of what the French were subjected to under their Vichy government. Register. Report. Next thing they knew, people of certain heritage and perceived dissenters were being rounded up, imprisoned, then, later, put to death. Neighbors were questioned. Individuals were threatened. It all began with register and report. Why must teachers register and report when the “outside evaluators” do not have to do so? Do dentists, or lawyers, or doctors do this in NYS? Nope.
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I hope this is a joke. If not, it’s time to say,
“The cuckoo bird is cuckooing!
It’s time for us to join and sing!
March is gone, and still we’re mad!
What a way to start the spring!”
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Are we returning to the 1950s mentality with the McCarthy trials but instead of of going after communists, they are going after teachers? Moral character reviews if you move or change your name? This is frightening.
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Talk about Big Brother! Under earlier forms of communism, in both the Soviet Union and China, workers were not allowed to move unless they could prove they had a job at the new location. This requirement sounds eerily similar. Those teachers enjoy much too much freedom.
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Ridiculous! I’m planning to move within my borough in July. With all that has to be done to move, now I also have to think about notifying the NYS Ed. Department, too????
Otherwise, I’ll be considered to be of poor moral character and thought unfit to teach…. simply for MOVING?????
WHAT is going on in the heads of these legislators? Seriously, if Canada weren’t so cold, I’d move THERE in a heartbeat. More and more, I see the USA going into a downward spiral, sad to say.
Two more years to go in teaching, if I make it. Who ever thought that when I entered this profession, I’d be treated like a criminal, along with all of my other colleagues, simply because all I wanted to do was teach?
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Sounds like gaijinaizing practice of public school teachers by giving out a new resident card. Is NY State Ed turning into NY Ministry of Justice?
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Ken, you’re doing a bang-up job in “The King and I.”
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I wonder if Pearson will be making the Moral Character Review Test.
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