Leonie Haimson writes here about the disastrous legacy that Joel Klein and Michael Bloomberg left to the New York City public schools.
https://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2017/08/fair-student-funding-atr-system-two-bad.html?m=1
One is called the Absent Teacher Reserve, wa pool of teachers who had been left jobless because their school closed or they were awaiting disciplinary proceedings. Now hundreds of teachers are in the lowly ATR pool, where they are treated disdainfully regardless of the reason they are unassigned.
The other policy is Fair Student Funding, which Leonie explains in her post.
The ATR pool costs the city more than $150 million per year. The Department of Education says it will assign these teachers to schools even if the principal doesn’t want them (most are experienced and thus expensive).
Arthur Goldstein thrashes the website Chalkbeat for demonizing ATT teachers. Klein used to use the very existence of the ATR pool to denounce tenure, seniority, and the union.
http://nyceducator.com/2017/08/reformy-chalkbeat-deems-paying-teachers.html?m=1
He attributes Chalkbeat’s coverage of ATR’s to their funding by Walton and other anti-teacher foundations.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Two bad policies, to put it mildly, sold aggressively to UFT members to approve the 2005 contract that enabled these policies by the infamous Randi Weingarten.
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Why is my comment awaiting “moderation”? Is it due to “infamous”?
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Sorry, Michael. I was offline
Nothing personal
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Michael,
Had this conversation with Diane, yesterday (posting it so Diane doesn’t have to re-explain again):
WordPress your intelligence in determining which of my comments go in moderation is unassailably incomprehensible. I give up, you win!
dianeravitch
August 5, 2017 at 12:15 am
Duane,
I don’t understand either why some of your comments go to moderation while others do not.
I went to the movies tonight and saw Dunkirk. I had high expectations. I was very disappointed. It was all violence and death. No narrative. No character development. Ugh!
As soon as I got home, I removed your comment from moderation.
Duane E Swacker
August 5, 2017 at 7:50 am
Thanks for the movie review. It seems that blood, gore and guts is what sells movies these days, and has for quite a while, decades.
I know that the moderation problem has been ongoing and must be as frustrating for you as it is for those of us to whom it happens. I know you get to them as soon as possible. It just makes more unnecessary work for you. I’ve come to take it with a bit of humor which is what I meant by the comment I made. Normally, I believe myself to be pretty good at figuring things like that out, but I haven’t spotted a pattern that has made sense. Oh well, some things in life are unexplainable, eh!
dianeravitch
August 5, 2017 at 10:47 am
Duane,
It is worse than you imagine. Some comments end up in spam for no reason. If I don’t catch them and restore them, the writer gets banned forever. I have spent many hours trying to rectify the situation of people who were banned from receiving posts or commenting. For a while, I tried scanning Spam, but there is so much spam that it was hopeless and I stopped doing that.
Duane E Swacker
August 5, 2017 at 12:43 pm
Wow! I wish I could help somehow, but I have no idea what can be done. You might make a post about the problems you have and someone a lot more versed in IT than you and I might help.
Duane E Swacker
August 5, 2017 at 7:51 am
I was really going to chuckle if my last comment went into moderation, but alas, it didn’t!
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Duane,
I have repeatedly complained to WordPress, especially when I hear from someone who writes “I have been a regular reader and commenter on your blog, and I don’t receive it any more and am not permitted to post.”
When I contact WordPress, I get a timely response from a “Happiness Engineer” who says he or she is very sorry, and the aggrieved reader should sign up again.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.
My own brother was kicked off, as well as many people who are good friends. And never able to get back on.
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And I certainly appreciate all you do, much less all you do to try to get the site to wok properly for you. It has to be frustrating as hell. I was just trying to show MB, the frustrations you’ve had so that you wouldn’t have to repeat over again those frustrations. Every time you add to those frustrations it makes me wonder how you get it all done! Great job and Thanks a billion!!!
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Sometimes my comments await moderation, and sometimes they just disappear altogether. It could be WordPress or it could be my iPhone, but I blame grizzlies every time. It never gets old.
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You also have to watch out for covfefe.
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Fair Student Funding is the reason principals need veteran (and expensive) teachers out of their schools. If the “average teacher salary” of a principal’s school is too high, that principal is unable to lower class sizes, purchase materials etc. Is it any wonder they go after older teachers to the detriment of the school. Ending Fair Student Funding will be a huge positive step in right direction.
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Do I correctly understand that there are 822 teachers in New York City who are paid but who do not go to schools where they teach? Do I further understand that many of these teachers are rejected by principals because they are older and cannot fit under the salary cap imposed by the system requirements? Have I not read that class sizes in NYC are not increasing?
I knew there was a reason why I studied the Byzantine Empire. Who said my ancient history would not do anything for me?
This situation is attributable to bad government. Right wing pundits will no doubt use this as an example of government, all of which they consider bad.
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AMEN, ROY!
It’s disgusting. WE KNOW that EXPERIENCED Teachers MATTER!
The deformers are pathetic. They care not a wit about anything except their pocketbooks.
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I totally agree with you. The right wing pundits would most likely blame the union for this failed policy. The city needs to stop leaving principals holding the financial bag for these senior teachers. The problem teachers should have a hearing, some of which may be terminated. The bulk of these experienced teachers in the pool through no fault of their own should be reassigned to reduce class size in overcrowded schools.
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I don’t find it coincidental that this same problem has occured in Boston, where the acronym is SPC, Suitable Professional Capacity; i.e. teachers waiting for an opening in a suitable professional capacity. The BTU took it as our task to so name these teachers because they are being slandered.
The Boston teachers have never been in a “rubber room”; indeed most are evaluated as exceptional or proficient, but they lack positions because they are returning from an extended leave (for example, maternity or illness), or because their schools have been visited by the Turnaround Demon. (The state has taken over several BPS schools, due to low test scores among our lowest income, ELL and SWD populations. All of these takeovers have been abject failures; so bad is it that this fall they are giving one back as things worsened on the state’s watch!) When a school is churned around, teachers must reapply for their jobs, their contractual protections are diminished and many teachers either are not rehired or choose not to work under these conditions, preferring to find a position at another school within the system. The teachers are protected by tenure and seniority and cannot be fired outright, as there is no cause to do so under MA law.
Previously, this was an issue for only a handful of teachers, but the school department has contracted with outside vendors like TFA or Boston Teacher Residency, who sign contracts specifying X number of positions will be reserved for these novices. They are cheaper, more easily “managed” by inexperienced administrators and therefore more desirable than the grizzled veterans in the SPC pool. Principles can also receive a stipend of $6,000 – $8,000 per novice teacher for “mentoring”.
The SPC teachers who are not placed in a fulltime position for which they are qualified and certified may find themselves working as building substitutes or as a second banana in a classroom with a teacher with less experience, indeed even in that of a novice. They are entitled to a full salary, which is billed to the central office, not to the school in which they are placed. Nonetheless, it can be very demeaning and can feel quite tenuous. Some have quit in response.
So-called watchdogs (one who lives outside the city and has no official role at all) regularly call publicly for these teachers to be fired as they are a “burden” on the “financially strapped” system. Mayor Walsh is cutting $11 million from 49 schools this fall, though the city is flush with cash, but they continue to contract with outside vendors to bring in novice teachers for guaranteed slots that displace proven veteran teachers.
In Tibet, the Chinese have slowly destroyed that nation’s traditional culture by settling more and more ethnic Chinese within Tibet’s historical borders. This policy seems to me a tactic of the reformsters to accelerate the erosion of tradtionally trained teachers’ expertise and influence from within.
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*principals (some seem to sorely lack any principles, and others are no one’s pals)
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READ this comment, AND THE NEXT 2, and learn about The PLOT to privatize our SCHOOLS, which PIVOTED ON RIDDING THE SCHOOLS OF THOSE WHO KNEW WHAT LEARNING LOOKED LIKE.
FIRST, THINK ABOUT THIS:
IMAGINE IF THEY TOOK THE DOCTORS OUT OF THE HOSPITALS and installed novices and medics.
Showing a human child how-to learn SKILLS takes talent, education and EXPERIENCE IN A PRACTICE.
Teachers are PRACTITIONERS, and when top down mandates from non -educators do not interfere, they create CLASSROOMS that show our children. how to LEARN, HOW TO CREATE STRATEGIES AND HOW TO DO WORK!
SO, Thank you Leonie, for revealing the FINAL vestige of the PLOY to remove the expensive, experienced teacher-practitioner from the classroom, removing their salary and benefits for a profit of over 60k, and MOREOVER, silencing the voices of the PROFESSIONAL who would never use the Gates common Core crap or bogus tests to evaluate the children who they were tasked to teach how to learn.
IN NYC. long before the remaining experienced professional teacher-practitioners were turned into substitutes, there was THE GOTCHA SQUAD that fired the best —http://nycrubberroomreporter.blogspot.com/2009/03/gotcha-squad-and-new-york-city-rubber.html This method took tens of thousands of our top, experienced professionals out of the classroom in NYC so this would happen. https://vimeo.com/41994760
KNOW THIS: The union was COMPLICIT!
HERE IS THE TRUTH! http://www.perdaily.com/2011/01/lausd-et-al-a-national-scandal-of-enormous-proportions-by-susan-lee-schwartz-part-1.html
I know because I was a celebrated educator http://www.opednews.com/author/author40790.html when they alleged not merely incompetence, but fabricated criminal allegations. I hired an attorney for $25,000, because my fate would not be to be made an ATR, substitute teacher. In the nineties teachers who were targeted were fired. MY 40 year career, would have ended.
As it was, I never saw my professional practice again. MY story occurred SIXTEEN YEARS AGO… and because this lawlessness was allowed, the ATRs are the last vestige of the assault on the teacher.
Right now, Francesco Portelos is fighting back, http://protectportelos.org/green-light-for-trial-by-jury-portelos-v-doe-et-al/
Look what lawlessness in NYC did to him YEARS AGO, BEFORE THEY TURNED HIM INTO AN ATR SLAVE and ran him around the city: http://educatorfightsback.org/does-workplace-bullying-continues-my-33-hrs-behind-bars/
AND If you have never visited th site that Lenny Isenberg put up when they took him away from his classroom in hand-cuffs http://www.perdaily.com/2010/02/yesterday-i-was-removed-from-class-in-handcuffs.html
for blowing the whistle on Social promotion, http://www.perdaily.com/2014/07/social-promotion–lausds-prime-mover-for-continued-and-predictable-student-failure–do-they-really-w.html
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principals *
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2 WHY TAKE OUT THE TEACHERS…
It is and always has been about LEARNING… so the national conversation was turned to one about teaching, to the public could be sold Magic Elixir: No Evidence required!*
. http://www.opednews.com/articles/Magic-Elixir-No-Evidence-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-130312-433.html
*Just this week, we learned in The NY TImes, that Pearson, the big test publisher, is selling computer learning….no teacher required!
The NYC story is just one BUT IT IS THE LARGEST of the FIFTEEN THOUSAND EIGHT HUNDRED systems.
BLAME the experienced teachers, the professionals.
TakeTHE PRACTITIONERS out of the practice (classroom) and replace them with trained personal… because anyone can teach… according to Deasy and Cortines AND TFA
It worked… Fabricated charges emptied the schools. ONE YEAR ALONE, 10,000 teachers WERE charged…ALL fired!
$$$ danced in the eyes of the privateers, and they also went to the second largest system LAUSD, here they perfected fabricating charges and removing teachers. http://www.perdaily.com/2014/06/lausds-treacherous-road-from-reed-to-vergara–its-never-been-about-students-just-money.html
Of course, this PLOY only works when the union looks the other way http://www.perdaily.com/2014/07/former-ctc-attorney-kathleen-carroll-lays-out-unholy-alliance-between-union-and-public-education-pri.html
Lest you think that NYC is alone in this war on teachers Here is a video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIF2kVwW1r0&sns=em of the lawlessness that took out Montana teacher Lorna Stremcha, and her book. https://www.amazon.com/Bravery-Bullies-Blowhards-Lessons-Classroom/dp/0991309936/ref=cm_sw_em_r_dpop_dD1Kvb1ERS2PX_im
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Thank you, Susan.
I just wanna SCREAM! I have my lust if people to scream at. HORRIBLE! What is WRONG with this country? Have we just become a commodity or liability for the profiteers? I sat, “BOTH!”
The wh is a perfect example of mobsters and thugs in charge.
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Goodness, I hope anyone who read my comment used context. Several typos in it. This topic just makes me so upset. My fingers fly amok. Sorry. Use syntax and semantics and use the word I meant to type.
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3- HERE IS A SITE where the plot and the ploy are revealed in the real stories of thousands of teachers across the nation. NAPTA http://endteacherabuse.org was created Karen Horwitz, author of White Chalk Crime | End Teacher Abuse http://www.whitechalkcrime.com
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The two policies were part of the 2005 UFT contract. Randi Weingarten, UFT president, aggressively pushed the membership to vote for the contract that enabled these horrible policies.
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They do the same thing here in LA, but at least the teacher salaries don’t come out of individual school budgets. That’s an age discrimination nightmare in NYC! Odd to have unresolved discipline issues be part of this in NYC too. When teachers are displaced due to enrollment drain from charters here in L.A., they are just placed in another school (and being forced to move is bad enough). Reformster Deasy tried to lay them off, or keep them in the substitute pool forever when he couldn’t lay them off.
Principals do not like administrative transfers only if the principals have drunken the koolade and come to wrongly believe that youthful enthusiasm is always superior to experience and wisdom. Those principals should change professions instead of mistreating transfers. They are bad principals. That’s everyone’s problem. Those principals can cry me a river, or wake up and smell what they’re shoveling. Six of one, half dozen of the shovels. Good principals — I haven’t met one yet, but I know they’re out there — welcome displaced teachers and students with open arms and a great deal of sympathy. That’s right, I said students! They get force transferred or kicked out sometimes too. I welcome them! I would like to be treated with dignity too. It’s a public place, for crying out loud!
(Hey, by the way, off topic, I googled my username for laughs yesterday, and found that one of my comments here in May had been made a post on David Kristofferson’s blog. That was pleasing to find. Thank you, David! https://eduissues.com/2017/05/17/la-school-board-now-has-a-majority-in-favor-of-charter-schools/)
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You’re welcome!
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Has any people or organizations studied this MALADY? It’s right here … a big, ugly spot! Can’t miss it.
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Mayor DeBlasio and Commissioner Farina can put an end to this, but they don’t. The question is why not? I was just at a teacher workshop where one of my colleagues spoke about teacher turnover in her high needs school. It is not unusual to have 2 or 3 teachers come and go in the same year. When I questioned her further, she said they were TFA. Studies continuously indicate that students benefit from smaller class size and an experienced teacher. So, the question remains. Why? Who is donating to Mayor DeBlasio’s re-election? Why is Carmen Farina, a holdover from the Bloomberg administration, in charge?
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