Ich Bin Ein ATR

UPDATE: ATR MEETINGS THIS WEEK:

Bronx and Manhattan: Tues., Sept. 21, McGinley Ballroom, 441 E. Fordham Rd, Bronx 10 am to 3:30
Queens: Thurs., Sept. 23, Citi Field, 12-01 Roosevelt Ave., Flushing 10 am to 3:30

I'm often asked why teachers in Chicago seemed to rise up against their Unity-like union leadership and the Chicago ed deformers. One area if difference has been the way excessed teachers from schools being closed have been treated. They can be fired within a year. All Chicago teachers realize that anyone of them can be an ATR.

The fact that at this point they can't be fired in NYC - though treated in ways that might encourage then to leave - and that there are still a relatively small number of teachers affected compared to the majority, has kept the issue under the radar of most teachers and has allowed the UFT to sort of bury the issue.

Most teachers don't realize that their day could come even though as the charters school movement infiltrates neighborhoods and steals kids from public schools, more schools are feeling the pressure and teachers are getting more conscious as their schools shrink.

Here is a parsing of the UFT position on ATRs by Julie Woodward who teaches High School music - when she is not being bumped around her school as an ATR.

The UFT's position on ATRs in writing

“The ATR problem is a result of Tweed's mismanagement."

[JW comment:  Everyone except apparently the union knows this ATR thing is not a question of ”mismanagement" but unionbusting. And they're  very good at it. It's about the  only thing this chancellor  was actually trained to do and he's not bungling any of it.]

  

“The union will stand by educators in the ATR. They are good people who were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and they deserve our support."

[JW:   Good people?  How condescending and simplistic.  ATRs are about as good or nondescript as any other bunch of educators. 

          More importantly:  The union has in fact been exceptionally poor at supporting ATRs. The leadership sabotaged a rally for them a couple of years ago, and they entered into a Side Agreement that did nothing or worse to improve their continual marginalization and second-class status. It does seem, however, that the union is holding the line on Klein's wish to fire them all. For this contract they're negotiating anyway.  I've heard nothing to the effect that ATRs might be sold out.]

  

 “Don't think it couldn't happen to you. Any one of us can become an ATR if the DoE decides to downsize or close our school.”   

[JW:  Very true, but not nearly the whole picture. We can become ATRs for a host of other reasons as well: union activity, personality clashes, nepotism and playing favorites, directives from the DoE, etc. Almost at the snap of a finger. ]