Ed Notes Online: Origins of the ATR Pool: A Short History

Friday, September 30, 2011

Origins of the ATR Pool: A Short History

Originally Posted 2:45, updated 1PM

Look for an upcoming ATR flier for distribution and sharing.

Thanks to Teachers for a Just Contract for sending this clarifying information:

The ATR pool is not, in fact, directly related to the right to seniority transfer. It is related to what is mentioned in the small type: the end of the practice of placing of excessed appointed teachers in nearby unencumbered vacancies (although that was not a seniority right, see below).

These are two entirely separate rights. The seniority transfer required that schools post half their unencumbered vacancies in the early spring. (This is a slight simplification, since there was also transfer for racial balance, but let's leave that aside) Teachers then could apply and the most senior in the specific license applying for a position was hired.

Excessing would take place long after the deadline for the seniority transfers, at the very end of the school year.    Before the 2005 contract, the excessed teachers would be placed in nearby vacancies in their licenses. This took place even in schools that had already opted out of the seniority transfer system by adopting the SBO transfer. (This btw was not a seniority right. There was no bumping. They were placed in vacancies, or displaced only unappointed teachers.) What changed to stop this was that principals got the power to decide who their school hired. Even if the seniority transfer were to be restored, without the right of excessed teachers to be placed, there would still be ATRs, since teachers who already have positions could get the positions posted on the seniority list, and schools only had to post half their unencumbered vacancies.

I know this doesn't make much difference, we should have both rights.

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Reminder:
Next week the UFT is holding borough ATR meetings at the borough offices. We believe this is a response to the agitation around the ATR question. The ostensible purpose of these meetings is to reasure ATRs that they will not be laid off out of seniority but will not address the underlying issues that ATRs are bringing up regarding being moved from school to school.

The flyer says they will answer questions and address your concerns. Bring your stories.

Just last night I got an email from an ATR in south Staten Island who was assigned to a school in Bushwick. There is some physical handicap involved and the ATR has to use public transportation. On purpose? I bet it is.

Thanks to ICE's Jeff Kaufman for this related info:

District 76 is BASIS which covers all of Staten Island and schools in South Brooklyn, Williamsburg and Bed Stuy among other neighborhoods. The rest of Brooklyn is Brooklyn HS which is district 73. It appears the ATR is being assigned within the district. While BASIS is terrible just think about my old district, 79, which has a city-wide reach.

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Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...: If District 76 is BASIS why are there different superintendents for different schools. For example, schools such as Grady and Lincoln have one superindentent listed under BASIS while schools in Williamsburge and South Brooklyn are listed under a different superintendent in Brooklyn superintendency.; Friday, September 30, 2011 at 1:20:00 PM EDT
ed notes online said...: Supt are based on Districts. BASIS covers a wide range of disricts. DOE has purposely made them irrelevant.; Friday, September 30, 2011 at 1:31:00 PM EDT
zulma said...: I'm trying to understand how the 2005 contract affected (runined) the seniority transfers and how excessed teachers are treated.

So principals are supposed to indicate vacancies, yet they still hide them.

Open Market applies to all applicants who would like to work in that school, yet principals rarely choose veteran teachers or they tell the candidate that they plan to create and post the vacancy for that particular teacher (cronyism is still alive).

We have a 2005 contract, two MOA for the ATRS and I still hear from others that the provisions agreed upon are still not enforced.

I'm still confused why the 2005 contract was voted in favor of not keeping seniority transfer and the placement of excessed teachers. Somewhere along the line we lost alot of rights. Our veteran teachers as ATRs have jobs, but all respect and rights for their profession have taken a toll.

The open market transfer (misnomer) only benefited the principals and TFA, etc. It was never intended to provide options for veteran teachers. I truly feel that we need to demand a change to this process or teachers will end up losing much more, eventually their jobs.; Saturday, October 1, 2011 at 10:07:00 AM EDT
Anonymous said...: I know an ATR who is physically handicapped. He went to the UFT and they were able to place him in a school for the entire year where he wouldn't have to do a lot of traveling.; Sunday, October 2, 2011 at 7:13:00 PM EDT

"A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

What media call "philanthropy" for the public schools are actually seed monies to establish a private "market" in publicly-financed education - an enterprise worth trillions if successfully penetrated by corporate America. Cory Booker, one of the "New Black Leaders" financed by the filthy rich, is key to creating a "nationwide corporate-managed schools network paid for by public funds but run by private managers.

"Ed Reformers" want to cash in on public education and to control its content and outcome, not improve it. Provide great education? Baby boomers had as close as this country has ever gotten to it when we were growing up. The Ed Reform Movement has no interest in seeing such a well-educated, democratically astute population ever again.

http://blackagendareport.com/content/cory-booker-clear-and-present-threat-public-education

History of the UFT Pre-Weingarten Years

This award-winning series of articles by Jack Schierenbeck originally appeared in the New York Teacher in 1996 and 1997.

Naturally, from a certain point of view. But, despite certain biases, Schierenbeck, a great guy, was one of the best NY Teacher reporters so this is worth reading. Jack suffered a debilitating stroke many years ago (I used to get secret donations to ed notes from him through a 3rd source.)

This chapter looks interesting:

Class struggles: The UFT story, part 3

“The schism in the union over radical politics [is] a major reason for stalling the growth of a teacher union for decades.” Revolutionary politics and ideology take center stage, as the original Teachers Union becomes a battlefield, pitting leftist against leftist and splitting the union.

Clarence Taylor's "Reds at the Blackboard" focused on the old Teachers Union which disbanded in 1964 after suffering from anti-left attacks.

Of course for another view, check out the review at New Politics of the Kahlenberg Bio on Shanker by Vera Pavone and me: Albert Shanker: Ruthless Neocon

Effective Union Organizing

A video series put together by Jason Mann from the British Columbia Federation of Teachers about social media and how to use it for effective union organizing.

The first series was called New Media For Union Activists Roadmap and it's still available on-line at:
http://www.newmediabootcamp.ca/welcome/
I watched some of them and need to rewatch as they are loaded with information.

The second series started last week and it's called "Online Campaigning for Union Activists"

You can sign up for this free series at :
http://act.bcfed.ca/online-campaigning-for-union-activists/

You Don't Have A Choice - Join the Revolt

Ex-Harlem Success Teacher Comments on Eva the Diva

Ex-HSA Teacher has left a new comment on your post "Fear and Loathing at Evil's Harlem Success Empire ...":

I am a former Harlem Success teacher. Not many people who work/worked for her like her very much. I once made the comment that she is very nice when I first was hired. Two of her closest colleague responded immediately almost in unison, "Eve is not nice!" Over time I realized that there was a lot of political games going on. Another colleague once said to me that he was tired of "being part of a political campaign." Sending out 15,000 applications for only 400 seats in a school is reprehensible. The money that paid for those mass mailings could have paid the yearly salary of another teacher not to mention the heartache of all those parents who applied but did not get a spot. She does good work trying to give disadvantaged students a quality public school education but at a great cost to staff AND the school's educational budget! school budget.

Davis Guggenheim Compared to Riefenstahl

“Waiting for Superman" is the second most intellectually dishonest piece of documentary work I have seen. It is surpassed only by Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will," the pro-Hitler propaganda classic, in that regard. Uses personal narratives of adorable children to create narrative suspense that overrides public policy discussion with pure emotion in unscrupulous attack on teachers and their unions, among others

Timothy Tyson
Professor of African American Studies and History
Duke University

How Teaching Experience Makes a Difference

Even as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Michelle Rhee and others around the nation are arguing for experienced teachers to be laid off regardless of seniority, every single study shows teaching experience matters. In fact, the only two observable factors that have been found consistently to lead to higher student achievement are class size and teacher experience, so that it’s ironic that these same individuals are trying to undermine both.
- Leonie Haimson on Parents Across America web site

Full article with charts here.

Weingarten/Gates Foundation announce drone-driven teacher evaluation

According to a press release issued by the Gates Foundation, the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, these three have entered a ground-breaking partnership to evaluate teachers utilizing the drone technology that has revolutionized warfare in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. A bird-size device floats up to 400 feet above a classroom and instantly beams live video of teachers in action to agents at desks at Teacher Quality Inspection Stations established by the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

When asked if the drones were authorized to drop bombs on teachers who exhibit inadequacy, Chester E. Finn, Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, replied, "Don't be ridiculous. Gates money puts other methods at our disposal."

Randi Weingarten, president of the 1.5-million-member American Federation of Teachers said the powerful union has signed on to the drone project...

More at Substance

The Real Reason Behind Push for Standardized Tests: It's All About the Adults

On standardized testing in our schools

A must read article about the standardized test industry.
Written by an insider who has worked as a test scorer, the article outlines a multinational industry based on an army of temporary workers paid by the piece at $0.30 to $0.70 per test, translated in the need to grade 40 tests per hour to make a $12 salary. The article goes on to show how the companies gauge the grading "results" based on the need to ensure new contracts to continue profiting off of our youth. The original article is from Monthly Review. Here it is on Schools Matter blog.

http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2010/12/on-growing-use-of-corporate-test.html

Parallels between America today and Germany in the 1920's and early 30's

"Resentment and obstruction are all the right wing in America have to peddle. Their policies are utterly discredited. Their ideology - even by its own standards - is a sham. They are so bereft of leaders, their de facto leader is a former drug addicted, thrice-divorced radio talk show host. That is literally the best they can muster. But they have built a national franchise inciting the downwardly mobile to blame the government, not the right, for their problems, exactly as Hitler did in the 1920s."

The US Is Facing a Weimar Moment

Published on Sunday, March 15, 2009 by CommonDreams.org

Chicago View of Unity/UFT on Charters

After many meetings and debates, the Chicago delegation succeeded in working with the New York United Federation of Teachers, Local 2 (UFT) to push the AFT to take stronger stands on charter school accountability and school closings — though many delegates from Chicago would have liked the language to have been even stronger.

Generally speaking, the New York delegation represented organizing charters as the best model for handling their role in reshaping unions, despite the fact that according to many reports few charter schools in New York have been organized as is the case in Chicago. This logic is the same touted by the Progressive Caucus of the AFT. The few that have been organized are a part of the UFT local though they have separate contracts negotiated with the help of UFT. The Chicago delegation reflection the mindset that allowing new charters to continue to proliferate while attempting to organize existing charters is an end game in which public schools and the union lose.

Jen Johnson, CTU, Local 1 in Substance

Ed Notes Greatest Hits: HSA Rally and Founding of GEM

SEE MY VIDEO ON HARLEM SUCCESS RALLY 2009:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEp7rg_L5JI

Angel Gonzalez and I attended that rally and used the footage to promote our conference on Mar. 28, 2009, which is where the concept of a group like GEM emerged. Until then we had basically been a committee of ICE working with the NYCORE high stakes testing group. The actions of Eva and crew helped spawn GEM. Mommie Dearest!!

I have more video somewhere. I was hoping to get Leni Riefenstahl to edit it but she died. We would have called it "Triumph of the Hedge Fund Operators."

Ed Notes Extended

Friday, September 30, 2011

Origins of the ATR Pool: A Short History

4 comments: