Arthur Goldstein is a veteran New York City high school teacher and blogger.
He went slightly ballistic when he read an op-ed article in The New York Times by Marc Steinberg, who became an instant principal during the Bloomberg-Klein regime and left to join the rightwing billionaire Walton Family Foundation, as director of its K-12 program. The Waltons despise public education and spend hundreds of millions backing charters, vouchers, and other modes of privatization. The WFF claims credit for funding one of every four charter schools in the nation. The Waltons individually spend millions on political campaigns to support privatization and undermine the teaching profession. They are avowed enemies of public education, the teaching profession, and collective bargaining.
Sternberg was a golden boy in the Bloomberg-Klein era. He graduated Princeton in 1995, joined Teach for America, picked up an MBA and MA in education at Harvard. Only nine years after finishing college, he was a principal in New York City. He quickly became a Klein favorite and moved up to become Deputy Chancellor in a few short years.
Now, at the pinnacle of rightwing power, with hundreds of millions to dispense every year, what really annoys him is that Mayor de Blasio plans to place hundreds of displaced teachers into classrooms. These are the teachers known as the “Absent Teacher Reserve,” where teachers are assigned when they have been accused of misconduct but are still awaiting a hearing or where they have been placed because their school was closed and they haven’t found a new job. Why haven’t they found a new job? If they are experienced, their salaries are at the high end of the salary scale, and principals don’t want to hire a permanent teacher whose salary is $90,000 instead of two young teachers for $45,000 each.
[ADDITION: Arthur Goldstein wrote at the end of the day to tell me I had confused “the rubber room” and the “Absent Teacher Reserve.” He explained:
[ATR teachers are not rubber room teachers. Rubber room teachers are those who are awaiting hearings. They don’t have rubber rooms anymore, so those teachers are placed in offices or schools. We had one in our school last year. He was given a job running our tutoring room.
[Teachers facing charges are generally not allowed to teach….ATR teachers are often displaced from schools. Some of them have been through hearings. They may have been found guilty on minor charges and fined. None of them have been found unfit. Had they been found unfit they would have been fired.]
As it happens, a friend of mine lost his job when the large school where he taught was closed and replaced by five or six small schools. He has a Ph.D. in history, but that didn’t help him find a new job. This highly educated, highly experienced teacher involuntarily became a permanent substitute, assigned to the Absent Teacher Reserve (ATR), bounced from school to school in a humiliating fashion. Marc Sternberg considers him a “bad teacher,” although he was never given a bad rating as a teacher. Mayor de Blasio wants him to get a permanent job. Sternberg thinks he should be fired.
Arthur Goldstein responds here to Marc Sternberg:
“I’ve never been in the Absent Teacher Reserve (ATR), so I can’t speak from experience here. My experience is limited to being an occasional substitute teacher, not one of my favorite things. I was in my school a few times this summer, and one day a secretary asked me to cover a class. I thought I’d maybe help out, so I asked, “Which class?”
“She told me she needed a teacher for a day, and that there were three classes, two hours each. I told her thanks but no thanks. Six hours is a long time to work as a substitute teacher. It’s far different teaching students you don’t know. A classroom culture takes time to build, but goes a long way.
“Now imagine that you’re an ATR teacher, and your stock in trade has been showing up and teaching whatever to whomever. Physics today, Chinese tomorrow. And then there are the principals, quoted in the press, who say how awful ATR teachers are. I’d only hire 5% of them, maybe, they say. And there are two issues with that.
“Issue number one, of course, is if I were teaching Chinese or physics, I’d be totally incompetent. I know virtually nothing about either. Even if a teacher were to leave me lessons all I could do would be follow instructions, watch the kids, and hope for the best. On this astral plane, I get lessons for subbing well less than half the time I do it. Sometimes I hear that ATRs should simply give lessons in their own subject areas. Mine is ESL, so it would be ludicrous to give such a lesson to native speakers. But even if I were to give one in ELA, imagine the reaction of a group of teenagers when a sub they will likely never see again gives a lesson on a different subject. And even if it’s the same subject, it’s ridiculous to compare the class culture of a regular teacher to one of a sub.
“Issue number two is that administrators, already overworked, now have to do at three to six observations for most teachers. If I were a principal, it would not be a high priority to observe teachers who were just passing through. I’m chapter leader of the most overcrowded and largest school in Queens. My job is nuts (and believe it or not, I’m not complaining). The principal’s job is crazier than mine. There is no time to fairly assess teachers who aren’t around very long. Frankly, I question where principals who cavalierly toss out percentages even find the time to look.
“I wonder if any writers who attack ATRs ever had or saw a substitute teacher. To compare a classroom with a culture, developed over time, with one led by a total stranger the students expect to never see again is preposterous. Watching hedge funded “Families for Excellent Schools” organize a dozen parents to protest the ATR is beyond the pale.
“This year things will be different for a lot of ATR teachers. The new plan is to place a whole lot of them, provisionally at least, in schools. You’d think that the people who bemoaned the cost of the ATR would be jumping for joy. By making teachers, you know, teach, they’re no longer throwing away all that city money they claimed to be so concerned about.
“To the contrary, they’re complaining. What if they’re no good? A parent wrote an op-ed in the Daily News saying she didn’t want her kid taught by them. Some guy on the Walmart payroll wrote virtually the same nonsense in the NY Times. You read in Chalkbeat about principals threatening to observe newly place ATRs to death. What ever happened to innocent until proven guilty, or incompetent, or at least something that merited a conversation?
“Let’s be frank here—it seems that ATR detractors simply want all of them fired without due process. That’s a slippery slope. We are all ATR teachers. It’s just a matter of being in the wrong place at the right time.
“Here’s something you won’t read in the papers—with the help of UFT and my administration, we’ve placed at least four ATR teachers permanently at Francis Lewis High School. Three are in my department, and one is an English teacher working mostly with ELLs. 100% of them are doing fine.
“ATRs need a chance, and Lord knows NYC kids need teachers. Yesterday, I counted 248 oversized classes in my school alone. It’s time for ATR critics to shut up until and unless they discover something worth talking about.”
Wouldn’t it be amazing if the Walton Family Foundation stopped acting as an echo chamber for Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos and began to use its billions to address the real problems of students and schools?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I’m wondering if there is any sort of breakdown of the ATR population, teachers awaiting re-assignment, vs teachers awaiting a hearing?
ATR teachers are not awaiting hearings. If they were charged with anything, they were not found unfit by arbitrators. Had they been found unfit, they would have been fired.
It seemed from the quote below from Diane’s post that this was the case, parents have little knowledge of what ATR is and how it works. It seems to me that the teachers in this limbo would have quite a story to tell.
“These are the denizens of New York City’s infamous “rubber rooms,” known as the Absent zteacher Reserve,” where teachers are assigned when they have been accused of misconduct but are still awaiting a hearing or where they have been placed because their school was closed and they haven’t found a new job.”
The elephant in the room is the “Fair Student Funding” system Bloomberg put in place whereby individual schools have a finite budget. Prior to this ridiculous budgeting process, teachers’ salaries were picked up by the NYC Dept. of Ed. Now, when there is an opening, principals are forced to make a Sophie’s Choice between a less expensive newbie and a more expensive, more experienced veteran teacher. When you have class sizes of 45, you might want to opt for two teachers instead of one. De Blasio is forcing principals to take $120,000/year ATRs without changing anything else. We still have the same (or even less) budgets. What this is doing in decimating the student/teacher ratio in many city schools. Ironically, my colleague was excessed on the last school day in June to make room for higher salaried ATRs. Now, she has become an ATR. It simply doesn’t make sense for salaries to be budgeted to individual schools. We still have the same number of teachers, whether they are ATRs or not. The city still has to pay them. Why not change the “Fair Student Funding” system? Anyone? Anyone out there? By the way, I watched the Democratic Mayoral primary debate between De Blasio and Albanese. De Blasio’s responses on education were dismal. He kept repeating the mantra of pre-K and now we have 3-K. While this is wonderful, we still have other students to education. Robbing Peter to pay Paul is criminal.
The “Fair Student Funding” system is the result of more billionaire tinkering. Billionaires should stick to things they understand, and it most certainly is not public schools or their funding.
retired teacher,
You should be Secretary of Education for this country.
Don’t expect the UFT to fight against the FSF. The FSF was put in place with the backing of the UFT in the 2005 contract which also established the ATR pool. The UFT supported the FSF for the same reason Bloomberg/Klein wanted it: they wanted to get rid of higher cost veteran teachers and replace them with lower cost new teachers. The UFT saw it as an opportunity to increase the dues the union gets since all teachers pay the same amount in dues regardless of your salary level. So for every veteran that can be forced out, two new teachers doubling the union’s take, can be had for replacing that veteran.
I thought that the DOE had addressed that and was going to subsidize the salaries of the ATR teachers, at least at the beginning. Am I wrong about that?
There have been several initiatives to force principals to take on ATRs. The problem is, at the end of the subsidized period, the full salary is appropriated on to the school’s budget.
ok, but you need to explain that because this is the first time it has been tried. Once the subsidization period is over (how long is that?) it could be extended. Isn’t that important thing that they are being subsidized NOW? So why say that a school is beng “forced” to take a $120,000 teacher when it isn’t costing them $120,000? You could correctly say that at some point in the future (2 years? 3 years?) if that teacher remains it could cost them that.
From my understanding, there is no incentive this year. ATRs are being forced placed. You don’t need to entice principals with an incentive when you are forcing them to accept an ATR assigned by the computer.
RL,
I am very confused about your point. First of all, you are wrong as I looked it up and the city will pay half the salary costs if the teacher is hired before Oct. 15. If not, it is the school’s responsibility.
But I still don’t get what you are upset about. Should the city just keep those teachers sitting in a room doing nothing?
If your “excessed” colleague was replaced, and she was good, isn’t it terrific that principals have pressure on them to look closely at her instead of simply dismissing anyone in the ATR pool as unworthy of being hired?
And universal pre-k didn’t “rob Peter to pay Paul”. It was extra money from the state and they had no intention of giving it up until de Blasio called Cuomo’s bluff by lobbying for a small tax cut on the wealthy that the MAJORITY of NYC residents supported but that Cuomo was afraid of.
^^^to be clear, I do agree with you on principle that the teachers should be off-budget. But according to what I have read, that had been the case for the last couple years and it still wasn’t getting ATR teachers hired.
Principals should be putting them in classes of 45 so there are 2 teachers. But there is something off about a principal having 45 students in classes and not having money. Where is it being spent if other schools can have one teacher per 30 students?
RL,
Thanks for the context for the ATR pool. The rubber room was created by Klein. He always had the power to force arbitration but he preferred to create an issue, hoping to fire these teachers without due process.
Buffalo has a similar policy as New York, but salaries aren’t taken into consideration, instead they use staffing levels. The principal can have so much staff and sometimes has to choose (for example) between a librarian, an instrumental music program, or an extra math teacher. This results in a compromise with a ton of part time staffing so the school can have a half time librarian, one day of instrumental music, and a couple of days of Title One math (out of a six day week). The six day schedule saves on personnel, since you need less gym, music, and art teachers than if the regular Monday through Friday work week was in place. There’s a lot of part time going on in those areas as well.
Splitting your time between schools is a pain in the butt, especially if you’re assigned to more than two buildings, and I say this from experience (after being diagnosed with high blood pressure from the stress).
Everyone in the education field should boycott ALL Walton stores.
Right! But they won’t…
Suggested correction: Everyone should boycott ALL Walton stores. Everyone. I have only set foot in a Walmart once in my life, it was a momentary lapse of reason that regret to this day. I’ve never done again. (On a side note, I will run out of gas before I go to a BP station after their complicity and negligence in the Gulf oil spill. I hope everyone will add BP to the boycott list.)
…I regret to this day…
In Texas you just get fired and no reason is necessary. The principal can just ruin your reputation and take away your livelihood, and you have no recourse whatsoever. The culture maintains the myth that “these principals are not out to get you.” If you are in Houston, the HFT might be able to help you, but for the most part everyone thinks it has to be that you are a sorry teacher or you wouldn’t be having any problems. I know of a certain charter school chain that bestows principalships on their favorites, and some of these favorites have no certification or higher degree. Some of these favorites only taught for a couple of years before they were promoted. So teachers have to put their faith in a person that may not have the ethical or moral attributes necessary to be a great school leader, but no one cares because it’s the principal. That’s just ridiculous. Retaliation and bullying is overlooked, even applauded.
In Denver the game has been to force a majority of veteran teachers out of buildings producing low scores, force-placing them into district teaching positions elsewhere, almost always in other low-scoring schools. Then, the newly “placed” teacher population is blamed for a continuance in the production of low school scores and principals at the teachers’ new schools are allowed to force out the recently “placed” teachers who may then be force-placed somewhere else or, now, with new legislation, considered to be legally fireable. Blame, rather than addressing truth, reigns.
Don’t forget micromanaging.
How about the fact the Marc Sternberg sends his three children to private school.
That is consistent with Sternberg-Walton connection. They look down on public schools as fit only for the poor. Not them.
A couple of days ago I heard the story of a doctor who is head of the medical division of a local hospital. He had refused to take a patient from the ER in the middle of the night—not just once, but a number of times. Seems like he prefers not to work at night. He has thrown up various roadblocks: a surgeon must first see the patient and approve transfer; a scan (with no technician on duty) must be taken and evaluated first. He has thus jeopardized the health of a number of patients. Consequently, the hospital has required that he engage in counseling sessions. Meanwhile, he retains his job.
I could multiply this instance many times, partly through personal experience, especially in emergency rooms in otherwise excellent hospitals. I haven’t heard any swelling chorus of complaints about incompetent or indifferent medical personnel. Wanna bet that the problems are as widespread as those some claim exist in education? But the battle over private control of health resources, like hospitals, has largely been won by the privatizers. It’s still being fought in education. So the propaganda drumbeat about poor teaching in g’uvmint schools goes on and on, financed primarily by those who stand to make a buck—many bucks—from privatized schools.
Every time you hear a screed against “incompetent” teachers, like the one Arthur Goldstein has shattered here, think “Goebbels.” Big Lies. Perhaps we should offer a monthly Goebbels award for the biggest fabrications.
“Perhaps we should offer a monthly Goebbels award for the biggest fabrications.”
There wouldn’t be room for any other posts, then!
This is a time when competence means nothing. It’s all about the money. Charters receive our public funds without any competence or accountability. Berating a teacher or teachers whose only crime is being a veteran and maybe older is criminal to me. That’s why having qualified, highly trained teachers means nothing in education today. I am sad that our unions have been compromised leading to low pay and mistreatment on the job. Will it ever change? When our public funds are not controlled by private interest maybe. As for the kids, we’ll lose for those who. An’t afford it.
DON’T MISS THIS –>
If you want to SEE the PLOT& the PLOT to demolish public education by taking the professional out of the institution of PUBLIC EDUCATION.
Know this:
I was one of the most celebrated teachers in the city and state of NYC, and in the NATION.
AFTER THE PEW, RESEARCH I was one of 20,000 teachers observed for 2 years, who was chosen for uniquely SUCCESSFUL CLASSROOM PRACTICE.
MY resume AT THIS LINK here where I now write a series about the travesty OF PUBLIC EDUCATION
http://www.opednews.com/author/comments/author40790.html
FIRST: GO TO THE LINKS BELOW, which demonstrate ‘HOW TO DESTROY A PROFESSIONAL TEACHER —
Then… READ MY STORY, and realize this was NYC, the largest system in the 15,880!!!!
If they could do it here, they could do it anywhere!
SOOOO…. the went on to LA the 2nd largest.
THEN THEY WENT AFTER ALL THE TEACHERS… WHILE DUNCAN spread the ‘bad teachers ‘gotta’ be tested nonsense, and the MEDIA TRASHED TEACHERS IN FAKE NEWS — JUST LIKE THE CRAP IN THE NY TIMES…17 years after this happened to me!
http://www.perdaily.com/2011/01/lausd-et-al-a-national-scandal-of-enormous-proportions-by-susan-lee-schwartz-part-1.html
Betsy Combier had a blog where she wrote about the NYC RUBBER ROOM!
http://nycrubberroomreporter.blogspot.com/2008/12/north-bellmore-ny-teacher-dania-hall.html
and in LA
http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/LAUSD-OR-TARGETED-TEACHERS-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Deception_Evidence_Fired_Innocence-150720-360.html#comment555646TARGETED-TEACHERS-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Deception_Evidence_Fired_Innocence-150720-360.html#comment555646
http://www.perdaily.com/2014/06/lausds-treacherous-road-from-reed-to-vergara–its-never-been-about-students-just-money.html
http://endteacherabuse.org/index.html
MY STORY– IN BRIEF– they had been harassing me in a thousand ways for years, and then, they came for me , when I was The New York State ‘Educator of Excellence in 1998, and CHOSEN as the Pew cohort for the Harvard Standards research!
When High SCHOOL STUDENTS graduated with honors, they were asked who was the most influential teacher… and thus, I was 4 times, included its WHO’S WHO AOMONG AMERICA’S TEACHERS.. .the last time, while I sat in a rubber room, and Klein cronies, erased me from EAST SIDE MIDDLE SCHOOL, and emptied my employment folder of 40 years of dedicated, excellent service, so they could (as the union look the other way) fill it with slanderous ‘documentation” of my sudden incompetence.
They came for me, because I WAS THE ONE who had written the curriculum FOR for the entire seventh grade IN THE NEW MAGNET SCHOOL on the EAST SIDE of Manhattan. Thus, for 8 years, during which time my students were THIRD IN THE STATE on the ELA tests, and I was famous I perfected this writing and communication curricula to meet the state OBJECTIVES !
Book offers came in…how did I do it?
Pew & HARVARD RESEARCHERE asked that question , too, and then, they watched me, and filmed my practice.
SO ASK YOURSELF: How were they going to get me USE TO us the Common Core Crap?
Well, first level allegations of corporal punishment -although NO CHARGES WERE MADE. I sat in that rubber room for SIx MONTHS WITH NOT A WORD FROM THE UNION! No union rep said…”hey Sue…”
The union stood by and did nothing. UNTIL six months later when I had a meeting, where I was told that I had been FOUND GUILTY OF CORPORAL PUNISHMENT, for allegedly cursing at a girl.
LOL! Sounds like me, Right?
Superintendent of NYC District 2, ELAINE FINK, said (in a letter she wrote) that I HAD BEEN FOUND GUILTY, No hearing or investigation… just judge Elaine and a pen.
…because NO ONE HELD HER ACCOUNTABLE.
THAT, MR Steinberg, is the way teachers ended up in ‘rubber rooms’ and then in ATR servitude.
Having lost everything, their reputation, their livelihood their career, NOW they are bad mouthed by YOU in the NEW York Times.
For SHAME!!!
BACK TO MY STORY:. one which I could not have written as a playwright
.
I hired an attorney at the cost of 26 thousand dollars TO MAKE IT CLEAR that ‘corporal punishment’ was bogus, and that I HAD NEVER EVEN BEEN CHARGED OR SEEN AN ACCUSATION,. (MY attorney, made it clear that even if I had ‘cursed’, this was NOT CORPORAL PUNISHMENT, and then he quoted NY State law. My 26k did what the union failed to do… UPHOLD THE FREAKEN LAW!
Like Trump, Superintendent Elaine Fink could function in this bureaucracy– a microcosm of the larger government– and say anything she wanted with no fear of any consequences! She was the model for top-down administrators across almost sixteen thousand school districts, in fifty -two states.
WHY? BECAUSE THE UNION REPRESENTS THE LAW FOR TEACHERS
Period!
Yes, My attorney got me out of the rubber room, where I had languished while they trashed my room and gave a way the 1000 book library that Had purchased for my students…
YES–> I was back in the school, given no curricula, and no instructions, and housed in a storeroom. The day I returned, the new principal, this woman who knew me so well, threw a list of kid in my face, and when I asked what was I to do, in this new program, “You’re the teacher. Teach!”
I was to ‘instruct’ a few kids, each period in a program that had never existed.
TO KNOW THE CORRUPTION that occurs when administrators can do anything they wish to teachers, you must know that this ‘principal’ was the ‘point man’ for the research in NYC District 2, when she was DIRECTOR OF CURRICULUM . IT WAS SHE WHO took MY WORK around the country. “THEY LOVED YOUR WORKIN CHICAGO’. She had recommended me for a special award!
Now, before they made her a SUPERINTENDENT IN BROOKLYN, she was DEMOTED to a principal ship at my tiny school! She was put there to ensure my assassination. Daily, she harassed me with ‘observations’ and documented my INCOMPETENCE.”When I confronted her, ‘How can I be wonderful one day, and failing the nest?” this bully with a ph’d spit in my face: “That was then, this is now.”
SIT DOWN: this is what happens when the LAWs are not enforced;
So, how did I end up back in THE RUBBER ROOM????
I was SENT back in the rubber room, BECAUSE a teacher in the school in which my school was housed, said that “I had threatened to kill the principal.”
YUP. THAT’S ME… child abuser and potential assassin.
My, husband called Randi Weingarten, the UFT president, and he got through to her by accident; Randi got me a medical leave, and arranged arbitration. She ‘rescued me’ into RETIREMENT,—which reduced my pension and social security, because I was about to reach the longevity raise.
IFI RETIRED it would all go away and my employment folder would be restored.
FOIA requests have not been answered; I have no idea if they removed the bogus ‘documentation’, guilty letter, or all the lies, and restored my employment folder which had allay awards and Evaluations BY PRINCIPALS WHO RECOGNIZED MY VALUE TO THE SCHOOL, AND THE KID Service, in the time of Bush and Duncan and Obama.
Yes, Randi knows me well. She knows the whole story, and we communicate to this day. Her UFT attorney met with me and verified the union skullduggery by my site rep, who never pursued my grievances, and demeaned me at the school, while I was in the rubber room,. Mr Tiger, ‘ left’ NYC (with his pension intact)… for a cushy job in Albany. Only teachers lose everything.
This is what happened to me, and to YOU, because the collective bargaining rights of teachers VANISHED. I filed grievances… and the UFT head of the Manhattan, not only ignored me, he told me to shut up!
If you teach today, you are no more than a paid servant… and in NY, the governor wants to enact a law that would not require a teacher meet the rigorous educational standards of the past.
And THAT is my story, Mr Steinberg,!
This reminds me of an incident in the Buffalo Public Schools about ten years ago. Every year the teachers can apply for a transfer (anonymously so the principal doesn’t find out). Now they don’t have to take the transfer, they just get to see if there’s an opening in a “better” school that they might like to try. One administer referred to this as “The Dance of the Lemmings”, implying that the “bad” teachers bounced from school to school. However, if 90% of the staff at a particular school ALL asked for a transfer and 50% actually left, I think it actually indicates that there is most likely a problem with the principal, not the teachers.
Luckily, Buffalo has a strong Union which protects teachers from being pushed out of a job to make room for “friends and family”, although I can’t say this never happens. As far as those “bad” teachers, they usually get moved up to an administrative paper pushing “desk” job (unless there is a legitimate reason to fire them).
Wouldn’t it have been a lot better if Randi Weingarten didn’t work so hard to get support for the 2005 contract that enabled all of this. I still await Randi Weingarten’s strong public defense of the vast majority of ATR “members”, and, critical review of the reformer’s goals.
Exactly!
Michael,
Weingarten has no use for veteran teachers period.
So true. Since the union gets the same dues from veterans or new teachers it is in its interest to replace a veteran with 2 newbies and double the fees it gets.
Yes, but that gross short-sightedness is going to bite Unity Caucus in the rear end when the Supreme Court strikes down agency fees in the upcoming Janus case, and young teachers (and others), many of whom have no idea what a union is, stop paying dues.
The union mis-leadership has benefitted for years from the willful suppression of rank and file engagement, and that is now going to be their downfall.
The entire budgeting process for NYC schools used to be centralized funding. If a school needed a teacher it picked the best candidate regardless of the cost. Bloomberg created individualized school budgets to keep veteran teachers out of schools. It also has the added effect of penalizing a school the longer it keeps any particular teacher on staff. This hasn’t changed. ATRs are being paid by the city, but would be quickly hired if it weren’t for the individualized funding – a.k.a. Fair Student Funding. Even the term Fair Student Funding was chosen to thwart inquiry into this devilish plot. There’s a real push to make teaching a 3-5 year job and be rid of unions. There’s a heck of a lot of money to be made by private industry. That Farina continues Fair Student Funding with no out cry from the UFT is disturbing, to say the least. Happy to see Arthur writing here, there are other publications that are in dire need of his input.
Diane — your statement linking the ATRs to rubber rooms is wrong and in essence you are reinforcing the lies being told about this pool. Only one third have faced charges which means 2/3 are in the pool due to closing schools and budget cuts – and are also on the higher end of the salary scale. I have attended some of the hearings of people now in the ATR pool and saw first hand how many of the charges were bogus – hearing officers agreed and in some cases fined them. Witness the situation at Central Park East where 2 top level teachers were bought up on bogus charges and luckily the hearing officers found them totally innocent. In most cases the arbitrator splits the baby and finds them guilty of one minor charge which gives the DOE the opening to toss them into the ATR pool. So we are talking about 280 teachers or so who are in this category in a system of 100,000 educators. That all these attacks have been taking place by so many ed deform hitters is a sign of the real agenda — to use the ATR as a wedge issue to end any semblance of seniority protections for all teachers.
Norm, at arthur Goldstein’s recommendation, I corrected the post, delinking the rubber room, which no longer exists, from the ATR Pool. Please re-read it.
A little more context is needed here too.
What has been the timeline of ATRs since FSF came into effect and Principals became empowered, and bumping became a thing of the past?
-First, Central paid for them, this incentivized Principals to excess staff they wanted but didn’t want to pay for them – ATRs were initially allowed to stay in their original school
-This was undesirable for Central office – so they started rotating them – this rotation has I believe (not having been an ATR myself) has fluctuated between weekly and monthly rotations, always limited to your original district. I also think the original excessing school paid for them (except where that school ceased to exist) until they left the pool.
-Central has offered incentives for people to leave the city, or to offer to pay for ATR salaries in part or in whole for a year or 2. They’ve also forced ATRs to interview for positions.
-Central now will place them and any rotation will be in the borough, not just the district
What remains unresolved is that while placement sounds like a commonsense approach, and it is really, what remains the elephant in the room and what probably truly spooks ATRs is that as multifaceted as the evaluation system is now, the Principal’s evaluation still has a massive impact on the evaluation of teachers (and it should!).
However, by placing them this way, while Principals are “empowered”, they leave the Principals one of 2 choices – either find a way to absorb this person or people into their budget, or, because of budget issues or maybe they simply hate having personnel foisted on them, in order to get them out they must downrate them.
I think central will be happy with either solution – either a Principal finds a way to pay for them, or, the paper trail starts to be built for getting them out – something they haven’t been able to do all to well with the rotation.
This becomes not about the people though, it becomes about the money driving a decision. Truthfully, I have met some ATRs who do love the system – they get almost no professional responsibility, are overpaid subs, and wouldn’t have it any other way.
What this will do to the ATRs is while yes it will give them a chance to show they are good teachers – depending on the professionalism and humanity of the Principal, they may also be removed because the Principal has no other way to remove them than to downrate them.
This is why having the continuing disconnect between building level staffing choices, building level budgets, while having a city systemwide that must employ teachers removed for non-professional reasons, is going to continue to face problems.
However, legally, ATRs like any other teacher who gets downrated for a political reason, won’t have a leg to stand on. Maybe in that sense it will incentivize some of them to find good placements before they need to face a Principal who has this built in incentive to get rid of them.
When I started teaching new teachers were excessed. Now veteran teachers are. How do you incentivize a veteran teacher that has been excessed via school closings through manipulated statistics? Especially since almost all schools have had their budgets cut. The city still pays the ATR salary, because the ATRs salary is intended to stop the principal from hiring that ATR via individualized school budgets. The initial incentive disappears and the ATRs seniority thwarts that of newly hired teacher that is much less expensive. A potential career killing prospect for every principal that is graded on statistics and the funding that enables positive statistics to be created.
One would think that a paper like the NYTimes would have offered an explanation like this before publishing an op ed piece that misleads the public about a decision made by the mayor… It’s posts like these that make me appreciate this blog and the commenters who add to the understanding of what is really going on!
We’ve some subs from the ATR over the years. Very capable and qualified. Unable to land full employment.
This is not just happening with the ATR personnel. I have colleagues looking to transfer to other schools who are being turned down specifically because of their age/seniority.
For anyone thinking this is debatable, please remember that Bloomberg stated numerous times on public media, that if he had his way, he’d fire half the teachers, double the salaries of the remaining half, and double the class sizes as well. He also made a point of saying it made all the sense in the world to go with new teachers over old because you get two for the price of one.
Just to add to this insanity in the New York City schools, ATRs are not only limited to teachers. The ATR pool has guidance counselors, social workers, secretaries and even Assistant Principals in the pool!!! I am a guidance counselor and have been in the ATR pool for several years!!! Every year I apply to 15-20 schools and never even get a response back so no wonder ATRs cannot get a job in the system!!! The real losers in this are the students who so desperately need social emotional help through counselors and social workers but Bloomberg just wanted to fire every one because of his love for money. Bloomberg worshiped money and lost sight of what the kids needed but rather Klein and Bloomberg was blind to the ol mighty dollar. Such a shame. I am still waiting for the DOE to place me.
I have been an ATR since…2013…The first couple years I found provisional placements…in terrible schools with abusive principals. Last year I decided I wouldn’t say yes to the first offer that came my way. Did a few maternity leaves, got to visit different kinds of schools. My supervisor was sane (a rarity it seems). I applied to schools starting in April. Zero response. This is my 11th year! I go into schools and see these teachers who say they get rated effective and they do PowerPoint and talk!
Schools I am at now has a few first years. On one sense I empathize with them and want to help. On the other hand I am wondering why these kids get jobs when so many of us are better qualified to work with these kids. I know it’s about money, still it really sucks (pardon my French). We have no allies, the Times is a mouthpiece e for charters, the only one who comes close is the Post but they have no loyalty to anyone. The union has disregarded us.
Even in my current school I am referred to as ATR. I don’t think it’s meant to be insulting, but I’m like, hey, I have a name. Though on the other hand u try to think of it how they refer to the top security person as Level 3.
I was an ATR for a year during my third year in the DOE. It was by far the most degrading, horrifying experience of my teaching career. Everyone from secretaries to administrators look down on you like you did something wrong, even if you had not. Kids treat you like you are garbage, other teachers treat you like you are a pariah. In one school, I was placed in an “office” with a bathroom and expected to stay there all day, no allowance to leave for even lunch. Wi-fi passwords to even check your email was a closely guarded secret. When you were in a classroom, you were a glorified substitute, and the kids treated you like that.
When you did get observed, it was by an “ATR supervisor”. Their only job was to observe ATRs in a snapshot lesson you planned. I was lucky that i got a supervisor that was not out to get all of us, but others were not so lucky.
I was never so happy to get a teaching license in another subject and get placed at a really good school
Arthur Goldstein,
I seem to remember a contract negotiation, long ago, where upper administration wanted to assign teacher salaries to individual school’s budgets. Prior to this, the money came from a centralized DOE budget, if my memory serves me right.
This was a big deal because the rank and file was very concerned about admins opting for the “2 for 1” sale of younger vs older teachers. Non-tenured vs tenured.
The change was made and our fears have been justified.
There had been a class action suit filed for age discrimination, but it was dropped in favor or a quick 13 page contract when Bloomberg sought his 3rd term. A contract for the good of all UFT members “trumped” fighting for high prices ATRs. And the subsidized salary is only if the ATR is hired permanently. Provisional hires are paid out of FSF.
What really amazes me is the waste of good ATR’s. I worked at Arthur’s school last year, had 6 amazing observations in special education ELA classes, scored above average in all categories of the teacher survey, and showed up (after a 6:30am request) to teach those 6 hr long summer school classes. With all of those things on the plus side, you would think I would be guaranteed a job (2 were advertised vacancies). Did I forget to mention that I am at the top of the salary scale? I was passed over for the job, even after coworkers and students requested that I stay. Thankfully, another high school hired me. FLHS’s loss is their gain. Not every ATR is a bad, or even mediocre teacher. My observations, colleagues, and students all tell me I’m pretty darn good at my job. However, the almighty $$$$ is better. Why buy a Cadillac when you can buy 2 VWs?
Give ATRs a chance…they just might surprise you!