Newark's Crooks: Cami Goes After ATRs - Wants Tenure Abolished - Asks Cerf for Ruling

Will this be CamiGate3 or 4? I'm losing count. The Three C's -- Cami, Cerf and Cristie -- are aiming a missile at Newark teachers. Hey [NTU leader] Joe Del Grosso and [AFT Pres] Randi Weingarten, how has that contract you raved about not even a year and a half ago worked out?

Bob Braun's Ledger has the gory story:

He [Del Grosso] said he believed Anderson, a former executive director of Teach for America (TFA), is invoking the rule to protect the jobs of many TFA graduates hired by the Newark schools. Under the program, recent college graduates with six weeks of training can be hired to teach, usually in inner-city schools. Although many drop out after an initial two-year term, they do provide schools with cheap, if untrained, labor.....

Cami asks state approval to ignore seniority in teacher layoff 

Duhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Gee, I'm shocked, just shocked, gambling?

Well, let's not pile on over the horrendous policy pushed by our own unions that lead to them going over the cliff. Randi is not an idiot -- she knows full well what the results will be -- she may actually think they can buy time by giving up some rights.

One of my sources has indicated that senior teachers are already being pushed with inordinate demands in an effort to "find something" on them.

Chief among Anderson’s targets apparently are the so-called “employees without placement”—or hundreds of school employees who, for a variety of reasons, have not been assigned to specific schools. Many were caught up in so-called “renew” schools where employees must reapply and be rehired–or not–every year.

Here in NYC we saw how the UFT's signing on to allowing schools to close without placing the teachers has led to the ATR situation. The goal all along was to bring in TFA as replacements and then engage in a public relations and extralegal battle to protect them if layoffs should hit.

“She is totally ignoring not just the idea of tenure but the changes made in the tenure law just enacted. It’s an end run around the new law and frustrates its provisions.”
The new tenure law, pushed through at the height of Gov. Chris Christie’s anti-teacher and anti-union initiatives, gives teachers time to try to overcome poor evaluations in order to avoid the elimination of their tenure.
Not only does the “waiver or equivalency” provision ignore the new tenure law but it also trashes decades-old seniority rules that would allow teachers with seniority to “bump” more junior teachers in the face of what schools call “RIFS”—or reductions in force.

You know those millions the UFT has spent on those commercials? Did you see one word explaining tenure and defending ATRs? Maybe this explains the Revise (Rebury NYSUT) fear of Cuomo -- maybe the thug threatened them that he will go this route too.

Maybe there is some hope.

The plan has provoked stiff opposition from many community members and their cause has been picked by Ras Baraka, a mayoral candidate. His rival, Shavar Jeffries, has supported Anderson.
The controversy has become heated, especially after Anderson suspended five school principals after they criticized her plan and banned a parent leader from his children’s school for posting notices of a meeting that was viewed as critical of “One Newark.”
Earlier this week, a special legislative inquiry began into the way Anderson has handled “One Newark.” State Sen. Ronald Rice (D-Esssex), the co-chairman of the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Public Schools, has said he would ask for subpoena power to conduct a full investigation of the plan.
Del Gross said he expected opposition to the plan when the Newark school board meets Feb. 25 and the state Board of Education  meets March 5.
He also said the union would seek a court injunction against the planned layoffs.

The mayoral race will be a key and it I were a Newark teacher I would get my ass onto any Raz Baraka unburned campaign bus I could. 

 Full story here.