NYC and Chicago/Where Are They Hiding the Rubber Rooms?

Why are Chicago teachers so ready to strike? They have had enough after 17 years of ed deform attacks. The Portelos story is just one of many in NYC but not enough yet to create a critical mass amongst NYC teachers to get near reaching the stage Chicago teachers have reached. It will take the impact and slaughter of the new evaluation system that has to be signed here by January to really shake the tree. I spoke to the wife of a newly minted ATR last night and she told me a story of having proof that the principal actually told this teacher's best students not to show up for a regents in order to make the teacher look bad. It will get worse.

sadly say that I too believed, before I was a teacher, that these people should be “fired” and not sit and collect our tax dollars. Wow, I feel horrible and am sorry. ---Portelos is on the case

Let's take a brief break from coverage of the Chicago teacher strike but to touch on a related issue -- the overwhelming power to destroy a teacher's career in a relative instant. The Francesco Portelos case provides a perfect illustration. A top level STEM teacher and former engineer, he was sent to the rubber room last April for exposing the corrupt principal in his school, IS 49 in SI, ironically a school getting over a million dollar STEM grant from the Obama administration while their top STEM teacher sits in the rubber room. Portelos, not one to mope over his situation strikes back:

I’ve made the decision to publish the 15+ allegations made against me. The time has come for all to know why countless students were placed dead last on hidden agendas in and out of my school. As my colleagues go in and administer their noble craft of educating students, I will sit at a cubicle over an hour away, read and educate myself.

Now with time on his hands Portelos is tracking the location of all the rubber rooms, not tucked away in nooks and crannies and no longer an embarassment to Tweed and the UFT, which is perfectly happy to not have to answer questions about the RR or be embarrassed, which of course is one of their prime directives. Here is the link to his post. Feel free to leave comments with any RR locations you are aware of. Or email him or Betsy Combier with any info you have as directed below.

http://protectportelos.wordpress.com/rubber-room-registry/

Rubber Room Registry

“Rubber Room” is the nickname that was given to enormous rooms, around NYC, where teachers were reassigned to pending investigations. I want to come out and sadly say that I too believed, before I was a teacher, that these people should be “fired” and not sit and collect our tax dollars. Wow, I feel horrible and am sorry. I felt this ideology was wrong before I was sent to one. How could I ever imagine that there was a modern day Salem Witch Trial in progress within education. What about the students?

In 2010 they “supposedly” closed down all these so called Rubber Rooms:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-mulgrew/closing-the-rubber-rooms_b_539745.html

They are now scattered around the city where reassigned educators are placed along with Children First Network offices personnel. 6 people could be in an elevator, going to different floors, and no one would know who is who and how many of the 6 are Rubber Room teachers. Brilliant idea. My hats off to you!

Here is a list that we are forming.

Location: 8201 Rockaway Blvd. Queens, NY    Approximately 8. Longest one there from January.

” Another RR at 4360 Broadway in Manhattan. As of end of June, 2 were sitting, including an AP. This network office is located in PS 48. Ironic how those deemed “dangerous” to schools and students are mingling with such.”

Source: sobronxschool@gmail.com

335 Adams Street, Brooklyn

333 7th Avenue, Manhattan

Source: Betsy Combier

Email me, mrportelos@gmail.com or betsy.combier@gmail.com to register location and approximate number. No names will be published.

Rubber Souls

They are true nowhere men and nowhere women. People who were in the rubber room and released back to the schools after being found innocent or fined for some infraction. Forever marked. Living in fear. Walking targets. Many become ATRs. Given the lowest level assignments. Forced to grovel for any crumb.

A lot of them are older - in their 50's. Many are second career people with not enough years in the system to retire, even if offered a buyout.

Then there are ATRs in this same age and pre-retirement status category. They go from school to school begging for a permanent job. I met one woman in her 50's who told me she was treated with a lot of suspicion by her younger colleagues when she got to the school, given a chance by a sympathetic principal – for teachers looking for jobs these people begin to seem like gods. She admitted she wasn't up on the new terminology at first, but learned fast. She was a jack of all trades and offered to do anything - even move people's cars when needed, giving up her lunch hours and preps, hoping the principal would hire her permanently for next year.


City Hall News chose UFT leader Michael Mulgrew as one of the 12 most effective labor leaders. with his 91% victory being the single thing they could point to (do you wonder what the results would be if the election were held today a scant 3 months later?)

Ask these nowhere people just how effective the Mulgrew/Weingarten UFT leadership has been.

Insulting the UFT’s Executive Committee While Mulgrew Skips Open Mike

Guest Editorial

By Philip Nobile

I intended to hand President Mulgrew a copy of my contrarian essay on the rubber room agreement at Monday’s (May 3) Executive Committee meeting. The cover letter read:

Would you please consider publishing my essay “Out of the Rubber Room, Into the Pyre” in the New York Teacher and post it as well on Edwize?

I also request that you respond to my questions in a companion article in the same spots.

As you will read, there is widespread dissatisfaction in the TRC’s with your agreement with Chancellor Klein.

Regrettably, you chose to negotiate in complete secrecy without consulting the reassigned. You can begin to remedy this mistake by calling us to a meeting as Randi did in October 2007.

Thank you.

But the President was late for the 10-minute Open Mike that opens every meeting. Only three cabinet members were present in addition to Secretary Michael Mendel who ran the show.

I was the first of four speakers—three rubber roomers and a delegate. I had a lot to squeeze into 2 min. and 30 sec. And it would be my one and only shot. Annoyed at my routine of exposing the leadership’s many failures of nerve, Mendel changed the rules: no more serial appearances. Open Mike was closed but for a single time a term.

In Mulgrew’s absence I shifted my plan of attack. I began by noting the censorship that chokes the union, meaning the limits on speech at Executive Committee meetings and the gagged NEW YORK TEACHER which has not carried a story on TRCs since October 2007. Apparently, this was too much for a Committee member. When I said “I came here tonight …, he finished my sentence “… to insult us.”

“There is so little dissent in this body,” I replied, “that you take criticism as an insult.” Mendel asked for silence even if I was not telling the truth. (Thanks a lot, Michael.)

I went on to say that the TRC agreement was flawed by Mulgrew’s failure to consult with us rubber roomers and contrasted this neglect with the hundreds of rank and file members involved in the contract negotiations. With seconds ticking away, I mentioned my Jeffersonian request regarding publication and response in THE TEACHER and read the first of the seven questions for Mulgrew embedded in my essay: “Will you meet with current rubber roommates and seek to renegotiate terms deemed unfair by them?”

Did the assembly erupt in applause and shouts of “Long live union democracy and death to UFT surrender to corrupt DOE investigations”? You wish.

The highlight of Almost Open Mike was Elvira Sacco, a recently sprung roomer from my home port, Brooklyn’s Chapel St. TRC. She blasted the union for failing to protect teachers from the Chancellor’s rogues, daring to say. “I am ashamed to be a member of the UFT.” Now that’s an insult, but right from the heart. If the Committee was provoked, they did not reveal it.

As if on cue, Mulgrew walked in after us four Voltarians were done. Mendel stepped aside as the President gave his report. Although I resent Mulgrew’s stonewalling—he refuses to answer my emails—he seems like a nice guy. The affection from the audience was palpable. TRCs were off the table, of course. Instead he updated the meeting on the Senate’s vote on the charter cap, which he dismissed as dead-end. Then he played a smart UFT radio commercial, starting today, deploring the politics of teacher bashing in a time of crisis. He warned that the Mayor’s executive budget, to be released on Thursday, would be “a catastrophe,” adding that there was “no respect or trust” for the DOE boys in Albany. Then he dashed out. I was tempted to follow and make my case in private as he waited for the elevator. But I stayed in my seat, against type and avoiding spectacle. I left it to Mendel to pass on my papers.

A lone and friendly committeeman consented to pursue my meeting proposal with Mulgrew. I had less luck with a second committeeman, a former foxhole buddy and Chapter Leader, who once helped me thwart a sleazy principal who tried to fire me for flunking too many students. This ex-stalwart defended Mulgrew’s reluctance to discuss the TRC agreement with disgruntled roomers, saying that he was probably too busy. “But what do you really think?” I asked, “Off the record, should he meet with us?” Nothing doing. He refused to venture an opinion. “You’re better than this,” I said, recalling his past solidarity. This was a painful moment. Walking away, he replied, “You wouldn’t say that if you knew what I was doing.”


Ed Note Afterthought
Where have the New Action Exec Bd members been all this time while rubber room people have to scrounge for their 2.5 minutes?

It seems that Mulgrew (and Weingarten before him) make sure to skip the open mic opening of the meetings and only make their appearance when it is over. I'm still not sure why Nobile wants to meet with Mulgrew.

Also looks like a new Mulgrew cult of personality is beginning to grow in Unity. That will lead Mulgrew down the Weingarten path to unglory.

Rubber Room Movie a Hit With Audience

With the recent publicity over the UFT/DOE settlement, last night's premiere of "The Rubber Room" at NYU's Puck Building attracted such a large audience, the screening had to be held in three separate spaces. That the settlement came a day before the premiere was not lost on the participants. Since the film was getting so much publicity it seemed to act as a spur to the UFT and DOE to avoid further embarrassment.

The audience was an interesting mix of current and former denizens of the RR, activists associated with the RR, and a large number of young people who are undoubtedly students. I was curious why they attended. Was it the very idea of a free movie? But then I saw them bring out the wine, cheese and cookies at the follow-up reception and the answer was clear.

The film moved smoothly through 75 minutes. There was so much potential material to use and so much to focus on, that making these choices where to go with the theme must have been very difficult. One thing everyone seemed to agree on: Joel Klein comes off looking like a total ass. If I were doing the film I might have gone in other directions, but there is not doubt the film is entertaining. In the Q&A afterwards, Jeremy Garrett and Justin Cegnar said they used the most interesting people. I can understand that. I sat through 3 hours of one of their interviews with a 5 year denizen of the RR and they used about 5 seconds of that footage. I don't blame them.

The film does make the point that RRs have existed for 20 years but doesn't go into some of the reasons behind the rubber room intensification under BloomKlein as a way to create enough fear at the school level as to make the union ineffective. One New Action/Mulgrew apologist blogger was already celebrating (prematurely): "A huge obstacle to rebuilding, or building from scratch, real chapters in the scores of mini-schools – the threat of being rubber roomed – that obstacle is history." Sure, dream on.

In the Q&A it was clear that people believed that though the rooms as an entity may be gone, the fear and loathing entailed in unchecked power in the hands of principals may continue. Of course people are counting on the time limits (60 days) to be adhered to. Of course the current time limits (6 months) were not adhered to. Will teachers be told to file a grievance? I didn't look closely enough but if someone finds a monetary penalty for the DOE for NOT adhering to time limits, let me know.

We have been in touch with the filmmakers Jeremy Garrett and Justin Cegnar almost since the beginning of the project. They attended an ICE meeting and some of their initial trailer had many ICE member comments embedded. They have this great quote from ICE's Gene Prisco at their Five Boroughs web site: "In American jurisprudence you have the right to know the charge, who made the charge and to defend yourself. This is a system designed by Kafka and carried out by Mussolini." I wish that made it into the film.

There's a short segment in the film with Jeff Kaufman but by and large, the film stays away from the actions of the union and focuses on a group of the more interesting and colorful people who were affected.

The film makes some important points while also being entertaining. There were quite a few burst of laughter from the audience during the film and I had a sense people really enjoyed watching it. There are a few uneven spots and some of the early sequences were a bit confusing to people who are not involved with all the aspects of education in NYC. There was a lot of titling on a black screen. That is a choice filmmakers must make as an alternative to having a narrator. From my own experience it seems that when you have a paucity of good b-roll action footage, the choices Jeremy and Justin made seem to make sense.

There is an interview with Randi Weingarten whose appearance caused some snickers in the audience, a hilarious sequence where an outraged UFT member is seen screaming about the union as the camera pans to Randi holding a bull horn and looking like a deer in the headlights as she didn't know how to respond to the outburst.

I filmed the same sequence Jeremy did from another angle since this event was filmed at the ATR rally in November 2008, the day of the notorious wine and cheese party at the union HQ that attempted to subvert the ATRs waiting at Tweed, where I was attacked by Randi for filming. As a matter of fact, Jeremy also tried to film that event and wasn't allowed, so he waited outside while I was shooting in the room. (That event led to the DA passing a reso that no filming was allowed.) Jeremy headed over to the rally at Tweed while I filmed the scraggly march of what UFTers were left from 52 Broadway up to Tweed, where the outraged ATRs were awaiting Randi. If you haven't seen that yet, check it out.

The Video the UFT Doesn't Want You To See: The ATR Rally


Add-Ons
See Rachel Monahan and Meredith Kolodner with a sympathetic RR piece in the Daily News
Kimani Brown waited in the rubber room for 1 1/2 years; he hopes for faster justice for others

Note: Meredith was working at The Chief years ago and did an interview with one of my colleagues who was arrested and railroaded into the RR 3 years ago and is still there.

See Chaz for his take and comments. Mine was:
I believe that principals still had to get permission from above to send someone to RR. They were always supported. Now the question is what the network will do. Has anyone seen any enforcement penalties for the DOE? What they did accomplish is breaking up the mass of the RR and putting individuals in more isolated places. As one RR person said to me at the premiere of the movie last night: it will be harder to organize or get info out to people. Most RR people initially go into a real funk and the union doesn't do much for them other than to tell them to wait it out with the argument they are getting paid. So for some it will be worse. Isolation. Now we know how these arbitrators work and how someone who rules too much for the teacher is let go - see the Pakter guy Douglas Bantle who is being let go and seems like the fairest guy I've met. By the way, what ever stopped the DOE from hiring more people all along? Someone should keep count and get a list of these people and when they work.

Click here: "Law & Order" episode to feature teacher rubber rooms - NYPOST.com

Check back later for a clip I shot of Jeff Kaufman commenting on the rubber room which I am trying to locate.

Report from the Rubber Room

By Philip Nobile
April 16, 2010

“Everytime Klein gets in trouble, he trots out the rubber room,” thundered Brooklyn Borough Rep. Howie Schoor yesterday in the 25 Chapel St. TRC. He denounced the DOE’s archipelago of Devil Islands as “a tool to attack the UFT.”

His tirade was introduction to the grand announcement that rubber rooms, Klein’s Bay of Pigs, were history. No longer would the Chancellor have us to kick around when things went bad for him.

Oozing solidarity, Schoor lamented the fates of many of us who have sat around for weeks, months, and years waiting. as in pre-Magna Carta times, to learn the nature of our crimes and to confront our accusers in a due process hearing.

He said that the agreement to streamline the investigation and prosecution of UFT members was opposed by Klein but embraced by the Mayor. Why? Because the TRCs became a public scandal. Full pay for no work, costing the city $50 million a year, was too crazy to last.

Schoor listed the key reforms. For us already reassigned, we would be offered mediation without possibility of termination (a miraculous concession) or a hearing guaranteed to finish by December 31 (enabled by hiring more arbitrators).

Alleged malefactors in the future would be guaranteed inquiries of no more than 60 days. Teachers accused of incompetence would be charged within 10 days. If not, they would be returned to their classrooms.

Starting in September, all reassigned members would be put to work in some fashion in schools or DOE offices. Further details, Schoor said, would be available in the text of the agreement posted on the UFT website.

The not entirely unexpected news aroused the expected gamut of emotions—liberation from a space of official disgrace, relief from threat of termination, apprehension that speeded up reforms would come at the expense of fairness, and anger that the UFT had allowed TRC to flourish without much resistance.

During the Q & A, this correspondent asked Schoor why the UFT did not protect teachers from the corruption of OSI investigators in league with hostile principles who are primarily responsible for condemning members to reassignment (though the DOE is the ultimate decider). Schoor was reminded that the DA passed a resolution against “biased” OSI probes last May and that Schoor himself had said that most rubber roommates were victims of “trumped up charges.”

Schoor passed the query on to Special Rep Arthur Solomon who handles all OSI cases in Brooklyn. Before Solomon spoke, he was reminded of his past lectures to chapter leaders, saying OSI was stocked with rogues and should not be trusted. Yet he and Special Reps like him offer little real advocacy at the earliest, delicate stages of investigation when our fates are set in motion.

Solomon routinely advises members to keep quiet during OSI interviews and refuses to share copies his interview notes until hearings.

Solomon was defensive in reply. He revealed that two OSI cops were recently fired and hinted that he was to blame. “I am vocal and articulate in the interviews,” he said. "I have been active with the Director [Candace McClaren] and have made some inroads. Anyone represented by me knows that my job is to protect your job.”

Tell that to Peter Principe, a former Brooklyn dean repped by Solomon during a strange corporal punishment interview with OSI investigator Dennis Boyles. According to Principe, Boyles said “It’s my job to find you guilty. You don’t pay my mortgage. The DOE does.” Solomon testified at Principe’s 3020a hearing last year that Boyles had chilled their conversation with an a priori declaration of his client’s guilt. But Solomon’s witness counted for nothing against Boyles’s denial and his own neglect to produce incriminating notes or any other exculpatory evidence like a contemporary letter of protest to Director McClaren. No inroad in this case. Consequently, and perhaps unnecessarily, Principe was terminated.

In sum, the disappearance of rubber rooms is a revolutionary achievement for the UFT, but as Diderot would say if he were a member, teachers will never be free until the last rogue DOE gendarme is strangled with the entrails of the last cruel Chancellor.

Watch for the Snarks and Boojums on Rubber Room Agreement- Updated

Updated 11pm, Apr 15

The announcement is coming soon, but I wanted to make a few points of prediction.

NBC reports the following:

• A teacher will only be able to be removed from a classroom for 60 days. If by then the teacher has not been charged, he or she can return to the classroom unless there are serious accusations involved.
  
• The deal gives the city greater ability to suspend teachers without pay in more severe cases, and saves taxpayers from spending $30 million a year to pay teachers to essentially do nothing.
  
• The hearing process will be expedited in part by hiring more hearing officers to adjudicate. In less serious cases, there will be an expedited hearing process in which the case will be resolved in three hearings over a period of two weeks.

The key is who doesn't get paid in the more "severe" cases. Look for these to be expanded to a wide level - like anything having to do with a child. I'm not talking things like sexual charges (which is already a reason to not get paid - and teachers have been exonerated based on false charges). I'm thinking things like ANY physical confrontation. Who knows what else? Will there be enough ambiguity to give the DOE wide latitude not to pay people?

And what are "serious" accusations? Does anyone trust the UFT to assure bullet proof protections? Will they tell you to file a useless grievance?

See the report on the ICE blog: The Rubber Room Deal: Breakthrough or Missed Opportunity


TAGNYC commented:

After building up public sentiment against teachers who 'sit doing nothing on the taxpayers dime", after repeating over and over in the press that it is the 'teachers' who delay the due process process", after making sure that voices contradicting this lie- the DOE has total control over how long a person sits in a Reassignment Center-are never aired in the media, after watching the UFT abandon teachers and others' within the schools, now the DOE and UFT have once again entered into an agreement that will turn teachers into ATRs more quickly, does not address the arbitrary and unchecked power of principals to remove UFT personnel for 'a good reason , a poor reason, or no reason at all" (employment at will), and will of course not hold arbitrators to any standard of ethics in rendering their decisions. Will these new hearings be any different than the kangaroo court that hears appeals of U ratings? (Remember, Weingarten was going to address this.) The problem is WHY teachers are being put into reassignment rooms.


ATRs- beware. See the April 13th piece in the NY times reference a bill to change how lay-offs occur.

TAGNYC

Bogus Charges Hurt Effort to Remove Teachers Who Should Be Removed: Teacher says, "Take a lap (run)"

....sees words twisted into asking a student to "sit on his lap." DOE turns it into sexual harassment charge and 2nd year rubber room assignment.

"I have something that I normally say. I say take a lap and sit on your spot. Students are assigned floor spots. This young lady said, 'Oh, I have to sit on your lap?' and I said, 'No, you heard what I said. You'll take a lap and then sit on your spot,'" Smith said.

See NY1 report.

It is cases like these (and there are so many of them) that undermine and discredit any move to get rid of teachers who should be removed and makes all teachers dig in their heels to assure their protection.

Some may cast doubt on the teacher's version, but I don't doubt he is telling the truth because of the stories coming in.

A teacher at my old school served 15 months in the rubber room and was completely exonerated for a case of having her words twisted. She told a child that if he didn't do his homework he would never get it (the concept they were learning) and unless he did his work he would never learned. She was removed because of a charge she said black kids would never learn. Of course, the principal hated her because she spoke her mind about the mindless policies of the principal.

Last week I attended the 3020 hearing of another teacher, who also resisted this same principal's machinations and was railroaded. She is coming on the completion of her third year in the rubber room. She is charged with putting her hand on the shoulder of a child who had been repeatedly running out of the room pushing her into her seat. In doing so, they claim her finger caught the shirt and 2 buttons came off (her buttons could have been lost). The principal seized on the opportunity and urged the parent to call the police. Thus, a teacher who had been in the school for 22 years with absolutely no record of any incidents, was taken out of the school in handcuffs by 5 police.

At the hearing, large sized photos of supposed bruises were shown. The child's mother testified they were taken by the principal immediately after the incident. We all looked intently for any sign of a bruise, but there were none. By the way, the child had been coming to school with the remnants of a black eye and the teacher had been calling for an investigation before this incident. The child been out of school for weeks and the teacher had talked to the mother as recently as the afternoon before the incident. The principal did nothing.

It came out that the police were totally sympathetic to the teacher, especially after a detective went to the school and investigated. I spoke to the cop a few weeks later. I'll paraphrase what he said: this is clearly trumped up and the principal was behind it. The parent testified that a group of cops sat around her in a circle and urged her to drop charges.

The teacher was released and should have been back in the school soon after. But the DOE is pursuing 3020 charges. Think of what this case is costing them. They pay the teacher 3 years salary to sit in the rubber room, pay the costs of the investigation, bringing in witnesses, pay the DOE lawyer, pay at least 500-800 bucks a day or so for the hearing officer, some of whom sometimes take a nap, as reported by the NY Times' Jennifer Medina yesterday, who I invited to join me at one of the upcoming sessions in this 3020 open hearing and she said she just may do so. (Teachers must request in writing an open hearing before it begins if they want witnesses.)

And then there are those 20 math teachers at Bronx High School of Science where these vendettas go on all the time.

Tenure protection anyone?

Until the DOE stops the witch hunts engaged by principals using the lack of oversight by the DOE, any attempt to make it easier to remove bad teachers will meet stiff resistance. Offer those teachers out of classroom positions (maybe in the press office of Tweed, which has plenty of room). There are certainly things they can find for people to do and it will be much cheaper in the long run.

Teacher Letter on New Yorker's Biased Aricle on Rubber Rooms

Laura Castro does a pretty good job here exposing the biased New Yorker articles on the rubber room and ATRs. Paul Simms wrote a biased follow-up commentary on Steve Brill's original article, which Ed Notes critiqued , Laura mentions the point about the ease with which the rubber room could be emptied if Klein only hired enough arbitrators, something the biased press doesn't raise and if they do, they accept Klein's "union obstructionism" argument. "Could this be because Bloomberg wants a wedge issue in his showdown with the union" Laura asks? It's more than a wedge. Klein loves the runner rooms, which are his creation, intentionally, so he could get articles like Brill's to create outrage . He'd rather spend that money as an investment in anti-teacher PR. And it works like a charm. Of course the fact that many people in rubber rooms are exonerated or are there for reasons such an argument with the principal gets buried in the avalanche. The union, afraid of attacks - and they get attacked anyway for doing little - does not make even close to as good as stand as Laura does.

Dear Editors,

Paul Simms article "The Rubber Room" in this week's New Yorker zeroes in on what appears to be an Achilles heal for the teachers' union, but fails to ask important questions. It thereby exhibits disturbing bias. For example, if the "rubber room" is a disgrace, why doesn't the city spend additional money hiring arbitrators, so cases don't wait years to be concluded? And why not give rubber room teachers desk jobs as in other cities? Could this be because Bloomberg wants a wedge issue in his showdown with the union? Simms never asks. (Not until the last page, in fact, do we hear that the 600 teachers accused of incompetence or malfeasance are in a system of 87,300 teachers - the largest school system in the country.)

The salient issue here is not the so-called rubber room, however, or even the union, but that the article pushes the overall Bloomberg/Klien agenda without consulting progressive educators for a different perspective. Simms appears to scoff at Democratic lawmakers in Albany for not renewing mayoral control of the schools more quickly, and apparently accepts without question the Bloomberg administration line on student achievement and improved graduation rates. Nowhere in the article is it mentioned that there have been serious concerns that mayoral control has left parents out of the educational equation. Nor does the article mention testimony by Ann Cook (Performance Assessment Standards Consortium) at the mayoral control hearings in Albany that, alarmingly, students of color have been dropping out of public school at a higher rate under Bloomberg/Klein.

Simms' article concludes by touting Secretary of Education Arne Duncan's decision to deprive states of stimulus money if their schools do not attach teachers' pay to their students' standardized test scores, and laments that New York may loose money on this account. Yet the article never questions the popular dogma that continual testing of children is the answer to good education. (If standardized testing is really so conducive to learning, why is it, one wonders, that students in New York's elite private schools, whose graduates grace the halls of Ivy League colleges, don't take city or state tests – not even the Regents??)

I hope that The New Yorker will balance this article with one that probes the issues of education from a more progressive point of view. This would include investigating the issue of standardized testing by interviewing some of the country's leading progressive educators – like Linda Darling Hammond, reputedly on Obama's short list for Secretary of Education, or Ann Cook of New York's own Performance Assessment Standards Consortium. As an educator, I challenge The New Yorker to bring to light some of the successful alternatives to standardized testing right here in New York's schools and to ask whether the educational dogmas de jour adhered to by Bloomberg/Klein, and even Duncan, really serve our children.

Sincerely,

Laura Castro

Brooklyn, NY 11218

Steven Brill Leads Major Assault on ATRs and Rubber Room

Whenever I have had the opportunity at PEP meetings where I could address Joel Klein directly, I have pointed out that as long as even one teacher was hounded into the rubber room for political reasons, he would have more difficulty in removing even those teachers who should be removed. I called on him to monitor these political cases carefully to protect the integrity of a process to remove teachers who should be removed. And let's make no mistake about it, there are teachers who should not be teaching. I always make the point that if teachers were given power over running the schools, these people wouldn't last long at all.

NOTE: Check comments section where comments on the article from listserves are inserted.

Was Steven Brill commissioned as a hit man on the rubber room and ATRs?

A long article in the New Yorker by Steven Brill (posted on Norms Notes Biased and One Sided Article on Rubber Room and ATRs) goes after the rubber room people and ATRs. Brill uses selective interviews with principal Anthony Lombardi and Joel Klein with comments thrown in by Randi Weingarten.

The article is clearly designed as the opening salvo in a PR blitz to pressure the UFT to give up some protections in the current contract negotiations. The problem for the UFT is how to do it without causing members to go crazy. One way out for the UFT is to put up a weak fight to keep tenure law from being weakened by claiming they couldn't stop the state legislature from wanting to get some of the Obama/Duncan stimulus money. The contract supersedes the state law I believe and was already weakened in previous negotiations (thus, teachers have less protections that they would under current state law).

We have been predicting the coming assault on the ATRs and rubber room. We laid out the plan for ATRs over the weekend: Creating ATRs a Key Part of Privatization Plan pointing to the various phases. Though expensive, Bloomklein made an initial investment by agreeing to pay ATRs for a period of time with the goal of using the press and public opinion to force the UFT to give up something in exchange for raises.

Clearly, Brill was allowed access to rubber rooms. (When filmmaker Jeremy Garrett of "The Rubber Room" movie attempted to enter Brooklyn's Chapel St.rubber room he was arrested.) He selectively interviewed certain people who could help make his case. He even attended an open hearing. Note that he did not attend the most famous and often advertised open hearing, that of David Pakter.

Let's look at the writer who is making these judgements.
Brill (I'm assuming this is the guy, but correct me if I am wrong) himself has had some controversy. Hamilton Nolan wrote this past June in The Persistent Failure of Steven Brill. Check the site directly for the links, but here is the text.

Steven Brill has a reputation for being a media wise man—a deep-thinking mogul who's always spotting the opportunities of The Future. Which is kind of strange, since the majority of his projects have been ostentatious failures.

Brill's latest company, "Clear," which was supposed to save rich people a half hour standing in security lines at airports in exchange for $128 a year, is shutting down. Let's do a quick and dirty balance sheet of Brill's successes and failures—keeping in mind that to do your best is all your mom really asks.

Successes

The American Lawyer: Brill launched what would become the nation's leading legal magazine in 1979. This is not an unqualified success, though, since American Lawyer Media (now Incisive Media) is having problems right now.

Court TV: Brill created the network (now truTV) in 1991. After receiving a huge popularity boost from the OJ Simpson trial, it was sold it to Time Warner in 1997. For which Brill got a tidy sum.

Emily Brill: Steven's daughter, the ultimate narrator.

Failures

Brill's Content: Launched in 1998, this mediacentric mag was supposed to capitalize on America's insatiable thirst for news about the news! Turned out not that many people really care about the news about the news. Not enough to pay money, at least. Stopped publishing in 2001.

Contentville.com: A website selling "a variety of content ranging from thesis papers to ebooks." Closed in 2001.

Inside.com: The legendary media site that launched the careers of many top media reporters and also failed to make any money. The magazine version of Inside was merged with Brill's Content, and the website was part of a convoluted plan with Primedia to corner the market on media trade publications, but the whole thing was shuttered in 2001.

Clear: In the post-9/11 world, Brill noticed, airport security sure was a hassle. People would pay to be "verified" beforehand so they could breeze right through! Right? 165,000 people did, reportedly, and Clear raised more than $100 million from investors, but now it's dead, unable to afford to keep going.

Brill also wrote a couple books which didn't sell all that well and a column for Newsweek, but you can judge those on their own merits. He's not out of the game, though—his other ongoing venture is Journalism Online, a company that plans to help various magazines and newspapers charge readers for online access. Bet on it!

Hmmm. Steven Brill with a persistent record of failure, now reduced to writing about rubber rooms and ATRs.

If they had rubber rooms for the things people like Brill do, he'd be writing about himself.


The hearing Brill doesn't want to cover:

3020-a Teacher Trial of David Pakter

Continues Sept 8, 2009

49 Chambers Street, 6th Floor, 10 AM
Please request Hearing Room of the Hon. Douglas J. Bantle, Esq.


Thanks to Jeff Kaufman for posting the article.

AP's Karen Matthews Distorts Rubber Room Story to Fit Agenda

Many people learn to mistrust the media, which so often gets a lot of stuff wrong. So when they come calling, beware what you say and how you say it. AS often as they get things wrong, many also have their own bias and no matter what you say, they will distort it to meet the point they want to make. Fair and balanced? Blah!

When I was referred reporter Karen Matthews from the AP, I could tell by the tone of her questions there was an axe to grind:

"I am working on a story about rubber rooms. As you probably know, the DOE says about 650 to 700 teachers are in these reassignment centers drawing their full salary for doing nothing. Is this something that you are concerned about? Are there people I may not have thought of who I should speak to about this issue?"

I was one of the people she spoke to. Nothing, not one word, of what I said, made the article.

Naturally, the rubber room gang was offended.

Judy Cohen said: I am embarrassed to be part of this article. I donated the photo to show the world the terrible conditions I sat in awaiting due process. Karen Matthews cherry picked things for her story that people said, including what I said. She had an agenda and I thought it was to help us. Who knew? When Jeremy Garrett, producer of The Rubber Room Movie, sent me her contact, I assumed she was an advocate for us. I was wrong. Somehow we must keep trying to get the word out otherwise we fade away in anonymity. Judith Cohen

Joy Hochstadt said:
Karen Matthews of AP called me for an interview about the RR. I told her the real story about the nonsense older teachers, whistle blowers were being accused of. How many people got sick there; how mean clerks are to professionals, how the fire stairs are blocked off, how they harassed me, but all she was interested in was the crap that she wrote about and I kept steering her to the real story until she said she had to call others! I would not speak to anyone at the tabloids but it appears AP is no better. The only fair story was in the NY Times by Sam Freedman. If no one agreed to speak to anyone but him then these other stories could not appear -- Matthews selectively took 1% of what I said, and 1% of what others said and made it into the rag she wanted or was being paid to make it into! Mumm in toto should the word to anyone we do not absolutely know and trust.

Here is TAGNYC's response:

To: Media

TAGNYC has so far received 11 emails forwarding to us a copy of the Associated Press article “700 NYC Teachers Paid to do Nothing”. The sentiment accompanying the forwards is one of anger, disgust, defeat, or all three sentiments. Representatives of TAGNYC were approached to speak to the reporter. We are extremely suspicious of the printed word which is often edited to fit the ‘sexy’ story the media wants to pedal and we cautioned people against speaking to the reporter. Although the article referenced the ludicrous nature of some charges, the main story of the article, and what people will remember, is that 700 hundred teachers are playing scrabble, cards, painting, etc., on the taxpayer’s dime. And this during a national fiscal crises!

So editors, DOE, UFT, New York City Council, NYS Legislature, lets get the FACTS straight. The facts are not ‘sexy’, but they reveal the truth that needs to be hidden so the private aspirations can be realized- political ambitions and increased paychecks and newspapers that sell. You know and we know: It is NOT about the children.

FACTS:

1. The Temporary Reassignment Centers (TRCs) are the crown jewels in Bloomberg and Klein’s plan to destroy teaching as a long term career in NYC’s inner city schools. The TRCs are the backdoor to the street. Principals can selectively place any teacher who is too old, costly, or outspoken in these rooms. In the majority of cases, competence has nothing to do with placement. This is the reason why the number of personnel removed from NYC schools has increased greatly within the last five years.

2. The TRCs were meant to hold personnel accused of ‘serious allegations’ that mandate removal from the school because such persons pose a ‘danger to the students" or the accusations warrant criminal investigation.

3. The Union contract does not protect the NYC teacher. State law, Education Law 3020-a, mandates that no tenured employee within the State of New York can be disciplined without a hearing. Suspension with pay is part of this law. The UFT copied this law into its contract.

4. The Union has decreased the protections NYC teachers get under the 3020-a Law. NYC teachers have less due process rights than our colleagues in the rest of the State. State law allows the UFT to modify the process .

5. The teachers and others in the Reassignment Centers (aka rubber rooms) have nothing to say about how long or how short their stay in the TRCs will be, contrary to the lie that Klein made in his February 8, 2009 interview on Eyewitness News Up Close. Repeat, persons in the TRCs have no way to hurry or delay the process.

6. There is nothing in the UFT contract which stops the DOE from assigning work to persons in the TRCs. The DOE is the employer and as such can assign tasks. Humans interact. It is not human to sit and stare for 6 hours 40 minutes.

7. A tremendous injustice is being committed against many competent and dedicated teachers. Incompetence should be rooted out but we can assure you that that is not what is happening. And that is a fact and can be investigated by anyone with the integrity to NEED to know the truth about what is happening in the inner city schools under the Bloomberg -Klein administration.

TAGNYC

bcc: Press, Education Committee of City Council, NYS Assembly Education Committee, R. Weingarten, J.Klein

Leonie Haimson for UFT President

I can't tell you how many people have said Leonie Haimson would make a better UFT leader than you know who. Here she responds to a reporter's question on rubber rooms with a more rigorous defense of teachers in a way I have never heard from the UFT, which tries to obfuscate (throw up flack) the issue so as not to make it appear they are making too much of a defense of teachers.

Q from reporter:
I am working on a story about rubber rooms. As you probably know, the DOE says about 650 to 700 teachers are in these reassignment centers drawing their full salary for doing nothing. Is this something that you are concerned about? Are there people I may not have thought of who I should speak to about this issue?

Leonie:
I am copying this message to Patrick Sullivan, Manhattan rep to the PEP who has made this one of his central concerns. Yes I think all parents are concerned about the incredible waste of manpower and money involved in more than 600 teachers sitting idly in the rubber room, month after month, when class sizes are going up and kids do not get adequate attention.

Not to mention the violation of human rights this entails. No charges are brought against these teachers for years at a time. Some of them haven’t even been informed of what the allegations are that were made against them. In some ways, it’s our Guantanamo.

Leonie Haimson
Executive Director
Class Size Matters

I was contacted by the reporter and sent this message
I'd be glad to give you some background on many of the people in the rubber room, who are indeed being paid to do nothing. But that decision to have them do nothing is not theirs, but the DOE's. I can guarantee there is some useful work they could be doing even if they have to be away from kids. Leonie hit the nail on the head about Gitmo.

Yesterday I spoke to a former colleague who has been in the RR for 3 years. Another colleague recently got out after 14 months. The "charges" against them are rediculous. Yet they are forced to sit in the same space with some teachers who are truly disturbed. That is like putting people who get parking tickets in the same cell with murderers. The goal is to make things so untenable they will resign.

Most RR who get back to their schools (and most do, some after a serious fine) are so scarred and scared they are never the same and wouldn't talk on the record because they think they are permanent targets.

The other day I was at a robotic tournament and a young lady who was volunteering was doing a fantastic job. One of the organizers was so impressed he said we have to get her more involved and introduced me. In our brief conversation she told me she is a former Teach for America who is a grad of the rubber room, which led to her leaving teaching. She said she would love to expose what is going on.

Cheers,
Norm Scott
Commentary on education: http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/
917-992-3734

Exposing The “Rubber Room:” Bloomberg-Klein Hypocrisy and Teacher Injustice

Press Release

Contact: Sam Anderson- 212.252.2997

10 June 2009

Exposing The “Rubber Room:” Bloomberg-Klein Hypocrisy

and Teacher Injustice

Black New Yorkers for Educational Excellence (BNYEE) is holding a press conference at 10AM Thursday 11 June at District 13 headquarters at Park Place & Underhill Ave in the Prospect Heights section of Brooklyn.

We will be there to reveal to the citizens of New York, the intolerable conditions thousands of educators endure annually when they face charges of ethical, behavioral or political misconduct. These educators languish in horrendous and demeaning administrative purgatory in eight Temporary Reassignment Centers (aka "administrative reassignment centers” ) found throughout the boroughs waiting for their hearing which may not occur for a year or more.

We are especially concerned about the disproportionate numbers of Black and Latino Educators found in the “Rubber Rooms.” Last year, Black and Latino educators made up 65% of all educators in these demeaning centers. Yet, Black & Latino educators comprise less that 30% of all NYC educators.

BNYEE will be joined by current public school educators, parents and concerned citizens who are outraged by these “Gitmo” styled conditions.

###

RELATED:

First cut of "The Rubber Room" Movie

Defend Chapter Leaders Sent to Rubber Rooms

With the triennial chapter leader election season taking place, the attacks on chapter leaders as a way to undermine the union, particularly by Leadership Academy principals, has become an issue prospective CL's have to consider. This leaflet is to be handed out at today's Delegate Assembly and raised in the new motion period - if Weingarten ever stops filibustering. So don't count on it.
Full text published at the ICE blog. Click to enlarge.

Catching Up: Update 1.5

I've got over a week's worth of stuff to go through. Here's the first update with more to come.
I've included a bit of text. Click on the links to read in full.

Columbia journalism student Kyla Calvert reported on the Harlem Education Fair in February.

...55 Harlem charter, parochial and traditional public schools were vying for their attention, many with full-color banners and professionally-printed brochures. The five traditional zoned public schools represented had a rough time getting noticed with only homemade displays to advertise their wares. "I agree with the philosophy that competition breeds excellence,” said Charles DeBerry, principal of P.S. 76, a school with about 370 students in kindergarten through sixth grade. “But color copies are expensive. One of these costs me $.25,” DeBerry said, holding up a simple brochure created by some of his staff members. “I look at the things the charter schools are sending out and there’s just no way I can compete with them.”
[A teacher] was frustrated about having to man a recruiting table instead of teaching in a classroom. “We are no longer in the business of educating students,” she said. “We are in the business of enrolling students.”
The business of enrolling students is a highly competitive one, and sometimes beyond the public schools’ budgets.

Now Kyla is doing a follow-up article and is tracking some verrrry interesting information about charter creaming. We'll post a link when it is published.


TAGNYC: DOE's Dirty Little Secret
(Click on the link above to read the flyer with RR facts and figures.}

The Temporary Reassignment Centers have been relegated to the back of the bus in the struggle to preserve public education and the careers of the NYC public school teacher. But we are critical to the plan to dismantle and discredit public education. The TRCs are in the front line "representing" as we do the repository of arbitrary power of principals as memorialized in the 2005 UFT contract; "representing" as we do tangible evidence of the incompetence and moral turpitude of the NYC teacher;"representing" as we do the best PR tool Bloomberg-Klein have to overthrow tenure' 'representing' as we do the face of a union too cowardly to defend its members while they are in the school; representing as we do the means by which Bloomberg-Klein chill all opposition within the schools- chapter chair leaders included. And lastly, providing the back door to the creation of more ATRs- and we know what is going to happen to the ATRs.

Also read Meredith Kolodner's Daily News article on the rubber rooms.


Jeff K posted this on the ICE blog:
SUPREME COURT JUSTICE SLAMS DOE FOR REFUSING TO REMOVE “DISCIPLINARY “LETTER TO FILE

In a strongly worded decision Justice Sheila Abdus-Salaam has criticized the DOE for its failure to remove a letter to the file and arguing, as it had before, the same legal argument that was rejected by the court last year. As we reported here before Justice Salaam was one of the Justices who forced the removal of disciplinary letters as no due process hearing was afforded the tenured teacher.

On NY1, Weingarten floats making the word “tenure” optional
On the supposed battle between Moskowitz on Weingarten on NY 1, who did you think would be the one to say "give"? Phylissa Kramer reports at Gotham Schools:

[Weingarten] said charter schools should be considered incubators for innovation, reiterating a statement she first made last week at an event hosted by the conservative Manhattan Institute. “Let’s make them great laboratories of labor relations as well,” she said. “I would love it if we could do some contracts in your schools,” Weingarten said to Moskowitz. Later, Weingarten said, “Eva, listen, let’s try to not continue a path of conflict. … In your schools, let’s find a way to do due process without the word tenure.”

she spoke with KIPP founder David Levin yesterday as the two prepared to testify in front of the House of Representatives education committee about creating a contract for his schools.

I'll be putting up a separate post on the DC teachers situation and how Weingarten is working to undermine them.

The Wall of Silence About NYC's Rubber Rooms

This guest column is by Jennifer who sent this to the NYCORE listserve. Her raising the rubber room in the context of social justice and humanitarian activism is an important angle to consider as she challenges radical teachers to address the issue. NYCORE's increasing interest in labor/union issues is a very welcome addition to the debate.


Rubber Rooms are the most glaringly obvious example of the Bloomberg Administration disregard for Human Rights. The "buzz" is that talking about the rubber rooms is dangerous. Teachers and organizations that deem themselves radical won't even breach the subject.

What does this say about us as Teachers, Social Leaders, Humanitarians and/or Activist when we sit back silently and allow the current administration to use rubber rooms to destroy innocent Teachers,Whistle blowers and students lives.

The public has been made aware of the Rubber Rooms by a few journalist and media outlets who have been willing to share the story but to-date there has been little to no activism around the issue of the Rubber Rooms by the Teachers.

The guestimation is that over 1000 Teachers are languishing in rubber rooms all over the city yet, they too remain virtually silent about this national tragedy.

A big rally was held for the plight of the ATR's but their story is just the tip of the iceberg and nothing compared to the unethical use of rubber rooms as a political weapon against Teachers and their student.

The current crisis of Rubber Rooms and our silence as Teachers about their illegal use is saddening.

This story and the silence we are maintaining about it is one of the greatest shames of the city today and we teachers, as a whole are helping to perpetuate its deadly impact.

When I think about the reality of the part Teachers played in the deep south during the Civil Rights Movement of the 60's, I'm reminded that in truth, it was the Teachers who were the last ones to join in the fight for justice and humanity for African Americans back then.

In Alabama at the height of struggle, students began to become anxious to join in the city marches against Jim Crow. As they gathered among themselves at their schools, they began to become more and more agitated about remaining in the schools while marches against the system were taking place in town.

It was Teachers and their Administrators who under fear of losing control of the students, locked the gates to barricade them inside. In response, students jumped over school gates and joined the marches and propelled the Civil Rights Movement forward.

Teachers are we on the wrong side of history again? What example are we really setting for the children when we lay silent about the current administrations' use of Rubber Rooms and why do we do it?

Jennifer

The Way They Were...

....and The Way They Are Today

Fidgetyteach blogs:

Before my reassignment, an ordinary teaching day was active and productive. Along with my colleagues, I yearned for the Pre-Kleinberg, Pre-"Robo-Principal " days when my school was like a second home. I knew the ins and outs of the school and I knew what to expect. When my principal was having a bad day, we too, had to be in a bad mood. When my principal was happy, in turn we had to act ecstatic. It may not have been perfect, but we knew how to survive. My principal wore her moods on her sleeve and we monitored them like the weather. When her mood changed, warning signals were transmitted throughout the building in a flash.

The arrival of Robo-Principal changed everything. There were no changing facial expressions or moods to read. There was only one stone face and one mood and no one knew what that was. Fear permeated throughout the building, almost as if someone had died. He didn't like laughter or noise and reminded us to keep it down. In discussion, he never made eye contact and wrote everything down. He responded only through email. Communication as we once knew it had died. Everyday we mourned the loss of human contact. Teachers walked around saying, "I don't know." We were in the dark about everything. That is why it came as such a surprise when I was 'served' my rubber room invitation. MORE

Report on Panel for Education Policy meeting (Monday, February 17).

Read Marjorie Stamberg's report below on tonight's surreal PEP meeting at Tweed. ATRs, rubber rooms (Jeremy Garrett from the Rubber Room movie was there filming), angry special ed parents because the special ed discussion was removed from the agenda because Jim Liebman had to explain the Aris system, and more. I mean, I didn't get home 'till almost 10:30. I did some taping but the battery ran out just as Leonie was about to talk. But I did get Patrick Sullivan suggesting Jim Liebman tends to drone. I think Liebman's droning drained my battery.

I spoke and read sections of this piece in today's business section of the NY Times about how Circuit City tried to save money by getting rid of its most experienced higher priced employees and is now bankrupt. A must read for its parallels to the policies at Tweed.


Well, let Marjorie tell the rest of the story.


Tonight’s PEP meeting was a vivid demonstration of the way in which the Department of Education is trampling underfoot the most heartfelt concerns and interests of students, parents and teachers. There was an outpouring of anger--from teachers confined to the “Rubber Room,” from parents and advocates for Special Education, from the ATR teachers denied positions, and from students fighting against military recruitment in the schools. Below is a brief summary of the ATR remarks shortly. But first…



The outrageous treatment of those who had come to speak on the point on “Special Education Update” was breathtaking. They, and everyone else had waited patiently for well over an hour as the Chancellor’s close associate Jim Liebman (architect of the totally bogus school report cards, supposedly based on dubious high stakes tests) droned on about the new ARIS “accountability” system. Then someone from the DOE budget cuts office unveiled a power point presentation about the “four buckets” (I kid you not, this is the way they think) where cuts will take place. When they finally got to the Special Education point, for which parents and advocates had prepared for weeks, the Chancellor suddenly ruled there was no time, the point was off the agenda until a future meeting.



People stormed angrily out of the meeting and we were all aghast that a schools chancellor would just blow off the concerns of children with disabilities! Later, an advocate for the children reluctantly came back and spoke during the public comment session. Ms. Connelly, from the Citiwide Council on Special Education, said it was a sad commentary that the Chancellor’s Panel was doling out the same cavalier treatment that special needs students too often find in this society.



Several people from the ad hoc committee to support the ATRs spoke, including myself, Angela De Souza, and Roz Panepento. We noted that the vendetta against ATRS was part of an assault on teacher tenure, and that parents should be outraged that at a time when classes are larger than ever, teachers are being kept out of classrooms. We emphasized the November 24 rally, demanding a hiring freeze until all ATRS who want positions are placed and that there be no firing of teaching fellows. Our central message is “Let Teachers Teach”—The DOE should stop vilifying and victimizing the teachers who are the heart of public education.”



Three ATR teachers spoke very powerfully about their situation – this is the real story of how DOE arbitrariness rips up people’s lives. Here are some excerpts.


Dr. Lezanne Edmond, ATR, said:

“There are over 1,600 ATRs, who are languishing and their experience and talents wasted on being bathroom and lunchroom monitors, or substitutes, instead of being utilized in the classroom, where they need to be, doing their jobs -- teaching.

“As an educator, with a doctorate in learning styles, with over 10 years of instructional experience, as well as having contributed to over 150 students obtaining their GED, I find having the talents of myself and my colleagues squandered in such a manner unconscionable, as well as an enormous disservice to the city’s students. What needs to cease is the viewing of education as a business, and instead proceed with the business of education.


Mary Najaddene, former citiwide mentor and ATR

“We, the ATRs, are the new class or rather underclass of teachers who have masters and other advanced degrees, and many years of satisfactory service. And yet we have been told unofficially by principals, ‘I’d love to have you here, but I just can’t afford you. I can get two new teachers for your salary.’ That can’t possibly be the reward you alluded to with regard to excellence in teaching.”


Robert Bobrick , ATR at Lafayette HS, said:

“‘Why is the DOE doing this,’ people ask. They can’t understand why the DOE could be so stupid as to pay hundreds of qualified people not to work, or at least not in full-time positions. You might say it is the union contract that doesn’t allow the DOE to fire incompetent pedagogues. But I say our teaching records demonstrate that we are not incompetent, we are in excessed positions because of bad DOE policies--closing large schools instead of supporting them, over-hiring new teachers and teaching fellows. Moreover, you are denigrating and defaming through mouthpieces such as the New Teacher Project -- your most dedicated teaching and school staff.”

Rubber Room Suit Out - Kaufman Comments

Elizabeth Green writes about the tossing of the rubber room suit by a state judge in today's NY Sun. Jeff Kaufman provides more extensive background on the case by Teachers4Action and comments on the ICE blog. Head over and read Jeff's entire piece. Here are a few excerpts:

Back in January a group of rubber room teachers who called themselves “Teachers4Action” filed an action in Federal District Court against the City and the UFT (the UFT was not originally named but was later included as a necessary party which resulted in the loss of union representation for the charged teachers) in an effort to shut the rubber rooms down. Erin Einhorn of the Daily News reported that “The suit alleges that the rooms are part of a "scheme" to discriminate against experienced teachers and "reduce salaries by forcing teachers to quit or be fired.

Teachers4Action is to be congratulated for having the courage to bring these proceedings. They have clearly been instrumental in maintaining the pressure on the both the UFT and the DOE to help stop the abuse that rubber room teachers are subjected to every day.

While kudos go out to Elizabeth Green of the New York Sun for covering this story it is important to note that Justice Payne did not throw out the case because “there was no evidence that the arbitrators were biased against the teachers.”

While the judge made a side comment about the lack of evidence he never heard any evidence since the case was dismissed because Teachers4Action filed the wrong paper.

We hope they will continue to fight.

Why Didn't The UFT Demand An Independent Investigation For Alleged Teacher Misconduct...

... Asks Chaz's School Daze.

Chaz writes:

The UFT spin machine is at it again as they proclaim in their propaganda rag, The New York Teacher, about how they won a great victory for the "rubber room" teachers. I have already commented on this phony UFT victory here. However, what was wanted by all teachers was a truly independent investigation procedure. Presently, all investigations are done by SCI, OSI, and the principal. In all cases the investigators either work for and are paid by the DOE. They assume that the teacher is guilty and their job is to get enough evidence to embellish, pervert, or to change the information to substantiate the alleged misconduct.

At a June 2006 Executive Board meeting, ICE EB member Jeff Kaufman asked the UFT to do exactly what Chaz asks for by hiring paralegals and investigators to look at the evidence before DOE investigators and principals with vendettas begin their machinations.

Randi Weingarten ridiculed his proposal. Imagine the costs! What would those do to the patronage mill? How would they be able to spend millions of dollars sending 1000 Unity Caucus members on junkets to NYSUT and AFT conventions? If money were spent on giving teachers charged a chance at a fair shake how would Unity be able to create enough union jobs to satisfy the desire of Unity members to get out of their schools?

This was just one event at Executive Board meetings that so grated on Unity Caucus and led to the co-endorsement of New Action so they could replace the ICE/TJC reps.

When it comes to teachers charged, UFT policy is to let sleeping dogs lie. If the member makes no noise and goes like sheep to the slaugher, so be it. That was why we started bringing rubber room people to Ex. Bd meetings to make the wheel squeak.

Jeff wrote about the issue on the ICE blog in June '06:

When I was in the rubber room last year a member told me “his story” about an allegedly forged medical note. It appeared that after the teacher spoke up about the number of special ed student in his class (he worked in District 75) he was injured by an autistic student. He went to the doctor, who according to the eventual allegations, filled out a note which the teacher changed. The teacher claimed that the note was changed by the doctor. The doctor divulged the teacher’s medical records to DOE investigators which indicated that the note had a different (later) date than the records.

I asked the teacher what contact he had with the doctor and he told me he was specifically told not to talk to him. Did the NYSUT attorney send an investigator or make any attempt to contact the doctor or in any way investigate the matter?

Recently, a NYSUT attorney amazingly told me that there are no investigators and that the attorneys are overwhelmed with cases to provide the defense that our members need.

This might explain why, at a recent 3020a hearing I attended I was not subpoenaed nor had contact with the NYSUT attorney until the night before my testimony.

The only way we, as a Union, tolerate this misrepresentation of our members is because we don’t really care about these members. Just remember, however, the next rubber room reassignment might be for you!

Jeff's full post.

NYC Chancellor Joel Klein, Esq.'s Dirty Secret For Purging Teachers

The New York City Board of Education's Infamous "Rubber Rooms"
by David Pakter
guest column

A highly respected commentator's remark about stopping by the Chapel Street Rubber Room recently certainly brought back many memories for me. I cannot refer to them as "bitter-sweet". Those heady days three years ago when I was stationed there (which now continues, somewhere else, by the way), defy placing any sort of understandable descriptive term to them, at least to the non Rubber Room detainee or graduate.

Like the Lotto, "You have to be in it- to win it", or at least comprehend it. Surrealistic, bizarre, self-contradictory, humorous, pathological. One or even all of these terms, alone or fused together in any which way one chooses, hardly can convey what it means to experience the process of being placed and then "surviving", in one of Chancellor Joel Klein, Esq.'s Rubber Room gulags.

During all the decades I taught, now approaching four decades, I, as all teachers were aware that from time to time a fellow teacher in a school would suddenly, as often occurred during Argentina's darkest years, be "disappeared".

Suddenly there is that "Space in the Air", as Jon Silkin once described it in a powerful poem, an empty vacumn, where a colleague, perhaps respected and/or beloved, once stood but stands no more. Wherever did he/she go?

Even thirty years ago teachers were from time to time suddenly "disappeared". But most teachers did not give it that much thought, at least not in the way they do today. Of course for a few days we all shared and passed on the ridiculous and predictable gossip and preposterous rumors that inevitably spread around the school when something out of the ordinary happens.

"Maybe Mr. Jones was caught kissing Miss Baker in the store room of the school Library"

( Note: The term "Ms." had not yet been invented.)

Lions and Tigers and Bears-oh my!

We imagined, so very long ago, that poor Mr. Jones was sitting in some district office at an empty corner desk next to some pathetic looking wilting potted plant, near the window, under the watchful eyes of some grey suited Assistant Superintendent, awaiting his well deserved Fate.

Obviously such types of fraternizing as "kissing" in a public building, no less a school, could not be tolerated.

What if children actually realized that grown adult human beings were capable of having real feelings? What would the world come to?

But certainly no teachers imagined that people were "disappeared" due to some dark and malevolent grand scheme hatched by high ranking school officials meeting behind dark oak paneled doors in Board of Education conference rooms "downtown",wherever"downtown"was supposed to be.

But now fast forward a few decades. And what a difference a few decades can make. As the years passed and the world continued to turn and change, things in the city's schools became quite different.

The frequency with which teachers became "disappeared" increased, at first slowly and then escalating ever more quickly, into a steady drumbeat. In schools where a teacher was at one time "disappeared" once in a blue moon, say once in ten years, it became once in five years, then once in two years, then every six months and then, was it even possible, once in three weeks.

Was it possible some virus had arrived on our American shores, that was suddenly causing so many teachers to start sneaking clandestine kisses in Library storage rooms. Or was the blame to be placed on all the spores of dust on those old library books, extolling the achievements of Christopher Columbus who had supposedly "discovered" The New World. Though I never quite figured out how you "discover" a place where people have already been residing for thousands of years.

But now here we are in the present. The newest age of Enlightenment in which whatever is sufficiently old- is now magicly "new". If the tactics of the Spanish Inquisition were good enough for the friends of Christopher Columbus, then they are surely good enough for we who live in these "modern times".

And thus "my friends", (if I may borrow a term from my friendly neighborhood library, often employed by a man who is convinced he is qualified and prepared to become President of the United States of America), behold the latest reincarnation of the largest urban school system in America.

Can anyone be surprised that so many more teachers are being "disappeared" at a time when the person appointed to be the Chancellor of the School System is a former Federal Prosecutor whose job was to- surprise of surprises-"prosecute" people.

And so any person, reporter and/ or curious visitor who happens to visit the now famous detainee center known as the "Chapel Street Rubber Room" cannot be surprised that this very large and long room, in spite of its generous dimensions, is bursting at the seams with its continuously ballooning prisoner population of "disappeared" former educators.

How ironic that when, from time to time, these "disappeared" teachers look out their prison windows, they find themselves staring down at an old historic Brooklyn Church whose claim to Fame is that a Pope once visited that ancient House of Worship. An engraved plaque next to the entrance says so.

"Get thee there to that Chapel, all ye teachers, with all due deliberate speed and ask, perhaps beg, for Forgiveness. And for all ye former educators who may have a tinge of guilt upon your Souls for having offended Mr. Chancellor/ Prosecutor and his countless stooges, lapdogs, lackeys, and assorted hatchet people, may the Good Lord, in his Mighty Mercy, have pity on your sinning Souls.

"There is yet time to repent of your Sins. Grovel and search for Redemption if ye have it in you to still do so, for you have sorely offended the New York City Board of Education."

And let us now bow our undeserving heads, and pray.
_______________________________________________________________________

David Pakter, M.A., M.F.A. (Artist and Instructor of Medical Illustration)

Decorated by former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in New York City Hall
as "Teacher of the Year" for Exceptional Achievement in Education

contact at: david@OldMasterPortraits.com