A first-person account of an ATR teacher in New York City Public Schools - Seeing The Positives

I've told my story (Attacks on ATRs is Spear at All Teachers Plus Why Not Have a Permanent Corps of ATR) of being an ATR in my first year and a half as a teacher from Sept. 1967-Feb. 1969 -- an experience that I believe turned me from a no-nothing 6-week summer trainee -- ala TFA -- into a confident teacher. So I found this email from Ed Notes reader Nick Weber confirms my thesis that using a permanent ATR corp for beginning teachers as a sort of apprenticeship would make sense --  also cost so much less because it would consist of beginning teachers -- we need subs anyway so why not make use of them but add the mission that schools they are attached to would also function like teaching hospitals? Re-branding the ATR program in this way would lead to buy in -- having extra hands on deck in schools can never hurt.

Here is Nick's intro:

As one of the youngest ATR's in the city (30) I have been an ATR for the past three years, and have been reading the accounts from "journalists" that fail to even ask an ATR their take on the process. While I note the difficulties inherent with not being given a restroom key, unfair evaluation, and being treated by some as a second class citizen; this is not the totality of my experience.

As the old adage goes, when life throws us lemons...  In light of this sentiment, below you will find my positive take on the experience, and the positive experiences I have been able to collect from it.  It has provided me one of the most unexpected life experiences, and one that has enriched me as a professional and person.   I humbly offer the following account below, in the hopes that you may publish it with my name, so that we may turn the tide on the representation of what is a cadre of highly trained and brilliant professionals, enriching schools across our City in wonderful ways.

----ATR Nick Weber

I can imagine the storm this posting will incur from a certain segment of the besieged ATR community. Nick is 30 years old and has a long way to go in the system so he has a perspective that may differ from long-time teachers. I do want to echo some of the points he makes about being able to visit many other classrooms as opposed to the isolating experience when you are a "normal" teacher. We know from some prominent ATRS - Eterno, Portelos, Zucker that they have managed to handle things pretty well -- James is the only one who has had a stable situation - relatively.

The press doing reporting on ATRs might want to chat with Nick and get his perspective. 

A first-person account of an ATR teacher in New York City Public Schools 

The Traveling Teacher

It is a rare and select opportunity for an educator to receive an invitation to visit another classroom within their own school site, let alone a chance to visit over three dozen school sites as a faculty member of each community.  In spite of the rarity, my assignment for the past three years within the Department of Education has been to do just this:  teach students in classrooms across schools, grade levels, and content areas.  It has been an unexpected blessing that provided me an opportunity to grow in unique ways I never imagined possible. To help populations of students I never imagined that I would work with, and learn from dozens of professionals who, in total, have several millennia of classroom years of experience. This account of my experience has to be abridged in order to present some of the insights of my time as an ATR.  It is an account that reveals, a side of being an ATR which has been beneficial to increasing my teaching ability and practice. 

The assignment of schools for ATR teachers remains a veiled calculus that is beyond analysis.  For our purposes, ATR teachers are sent into literally any DOE institution and regardless of their licensure and work to “cover” any topic or grade level.  My personal experience teaching as an ATR ranges from Pre-K all the way through senior year. A non-exhaustive list of content domains I have taught are as follows; Algebra, Geometry, Calculus, Chemistry, American History, Global History, Art, Design, Physics, Spanish, Latin, American-American Literature, American Literature, Theater, Music, Economics, Physical Education, Business Marketing, Coding, and library sciences.  This constant rotation has afforded me insight into how students learn, across content areas, and among the most diverse student population in the world. It has granted me the opportunity to peer into diverse school communities and learn how they function from my interactions with principals, assistant principals, teacher leaders, teachers, students, food service workers, School Safety Agents, and custodial staffs.  With reflection, these experiences have enabled me to understand public education in New York City as an ingrained member of a school community, with teaching obligations parallel to fellow educators, yet under a rotating set of conditions.  

Switching both the school and classroom setting permits an amazing level of professional growth, should one engage in the teaching process with fidelity.  My experience being an ATR was to treat every classroom, as my classroom.  Every lesson, as if I had weeks to craft it, not merely hours.  Every student, as my student.  

Working with over seven thousand students and hundreds of colleagues, it is a rare day that goes by when I don’t run into someone who I taught or worked with over the past few years. Sharing a smile and pleasant conversation to catch up with them, has been a true blessing of this constant rotation.  Updates abound with their college success, career growth, entrepreneurial endeavors, volunteering, military service, and persistent growth and learning, among a cadre of students who face no shortage of adversity against them.  The more students I teach and professionals I work with -- the more I discover that the human condition is categorically similar.  When we invest with kindness, support, and care for a generation; the result is a success all around. 

ATR teachers are often considered merely substitutes. This is an unfortunate understanding,  and should the ATR view themselves as such, would result in a self-fulfilling prophecy.  The facts are less glamorous than sensationalist accounts.  In contrast to the experience of being a substitute, the average ATR teacher has years, even decades of experience.  Hence, divergent from a substitute walking into a classroom, ATR educators are full-fledged teachers, who understand classroom dynamics, pedagogy, learning theory, and evaluation. 

That is to say, ATR teachers who constantly strive to perfect their teaching methods and reflect on every lesson, are able to experience an enormous amount of growth within a framework where change is the rule, rather than the exception.  With every class and student I teach, I reflect on what aspects of the lesson were successful, and what aspects of the lesson should be altered next time for improvement?  Research and our own personal experiences reveal that when teachers remain static, their lessons slowly ossify, and student interest decreases. Any pedagogue will acknowledge, that decreased student engagement results in lower student learning.  Teachers who remain, avid learners, are the ones who meet the greatest success. 

Within the United States, the current method of teacher preparation frequently compartmentalizes teacher training into both grade and subject-level specializations.  Frequently, this specialization comes at a cost of understanding the continuity of learning from pre-K to grade 12. While it is imperative to prepare teachers to understand the content and pedagogy with respect to subject domain (i.e. Middle School math, high school Chemistry; grade level 12 Economics), the process of teacher preparation may serve to isolate the teacher beyond what is needed or beneficial.  Teachers must be able to understand how learning occurs, and see the connections across grade level, student populations and understand barriers to learning. 

Evidence of hyper-specialization within education abounds. Teachers often identify strongly as history teachers, math teachers, and science teachers.  Yet, does not every subject impact another?  Should teachers (and administrators) not understand how students learn across content areas? Are not the most brilliant discoveries often found by researchers working outside their field of direct experience?  If so, we must expressly ensure teachers see connections, strategies, and methods across content areas. 

The world of today places great emphasis and opportunity on students who can see connections across domains and specializations. Our economy values individuals who have diverse skill-sets, and are able to reach across specializations. Innovation demands that we prepare students to create, rather than solely to perform within a limited task range. Thus, our teacher preparation must reflect this. 

Preparing an English teacher to teach High School, results in teachers who encounter challenges with supporting who enter high school reading at the 6th-grade level.  Alternatively, middle school math teachers, may not understand the rigors of Algebra on the 9th-grade level and thus fail to prepare a continuity of instruction for their pupils to engage with instruction on the high school level.  This is not a fault of the teacher, but rather a system of teacher preparation that focuses on a single subject and grade level.  I title hyper-focused content area specialization,  ‘silos of instruction’. These silos, unfortunately, carry all the way through teacher preparation and are maintained within many schools.  My integration into around three dozen school communities, permit me to see the inefficiency many schools experience with single subject content area teams.  An example of this is when high school math departments, fail to realize many of their English language students perform poorly on state math exams as a product of language deficits, rather than mathematic difficulties.  A partnership between these departments could address such concerns.  

Teaching across student populations and content domains,  aided my ability to view how student psychological, social, and academic development occurs.  In contrast to remaining with solely one student population, being an ATR grants insight into how students acquire knowledge at all grade levels of the public school. The ATR teacher, given their expansive placement with regard to grade and content domain; has the opportunity to see not only grade level benchmarks but additionally content area connections.  They have the chance to see the connections between literature on the elementary level, and mathematics benchmarks on the tenth grade.  No other teaching opportunity within our City or nation provides this diversity of applied growth and learning for teachers.  For rather than being an observer there to 'evaluate' learning, ATR teachers are in the classroom as a co-constructor of knowledge.  For example, I have witnessed how deficiencies regarding reading, translate as barriers to understanding math concepts when instructed and evaluated with a high degree of written instructions.  Using the tools  I have gained while teaching both concurrently,  has helped me to facilitate student learning to address these challenges. 

Teaching methods are critical to engaging students in the learning process.  One of the benefits of ATR rotation is the chance to acquire new "tools" or teaching methods.  Working with around 70 co-teachers (classrooms with both a special education and general education teacher in the room) I have had the chance to acquire a host of teaching strategies. One of my favorite teaching growth activities is to adapt and implement strategies in unconventional manners to increase student learning.  Take for example my use of "foldables" (a  project most often associated with English Language Arts methods) to increase Algebra passing rates.  Along with a co-teacher, we planned lessons using these manipulatives and found that students increased their pass rate of the state Regents Exams to one of the highest in the school.  The process of working with so many different and amazingly talented educators in the City, has been one of true joy and a professional honor.  Viewing how teachers adapt to students, integrate their interests and needs into the lessons they teach, and passionately support students far beyond the scope of their duties, reveals the level of professional dedication of so many teachers.  While the role of ATR is particularly suited to working with diverse professionals across content areas, I encourage regularly assigned teachers to simply ask around their school to find amazing educators, and engage in peer observation with fellow teachers. 

ATR assignments to school communities for myself have ranged from a single week to around eight months in duration.  Within so many school communities, I have discovered that the school climate and culture may be radically divergent. The diversity of school environment is something to be encouraged.  For example, students at Art and Design High School in Manhattan often express their creativity via sketches and artwork they draw in their portfolio notebooks, purchased in the school store which sells them to students at cost.  In contrast, schools such as Grammercy Arts, focus their artistic expression most profoundly through theater arts such as drama and dance.  To comparatively evaluate the “quality” of such radically different environments, using the same basis, is a fool’s errand.  Success in the classroom is similar to success in real life, it simply looks different for everyone.  Different populations of students with unique needs and teachers with unique skill-sets are invariably different. Society must come to embrace the diversity of excellence, and how it manifests across schools. 

Successful schools tailor their course and extracurricular offerings to match the student and staff interests and abilities.  Student interest is a critical ingredient for school success.  Being an ATR has allowed me to witness how the same student, engages in learning across different content areas and classes. That is to say, a student who thrives in group work in a History class, may be reserved and quiet in a science class.  Discovering indeed that a particular student learns best through group activities, may be a critical piece of information that educators fail to notice with some students. Why would they not? Indeed the single content area focus, as well as departments based on subject area, often place barriers in terms of teacher's  knowledge of students. Exploring how an individual student learns, is a critical feature of student success, and one that must be understood by members across of a school community. In an ATR role, it becomes apparent that every student has learning preferences, and these must be understood to best support student learning on a student-by-student level. 

Overall, rather than viewing the ATR experience as one of diminished responsibly and growth, I have engaged these past years in this role in a manner which illuminated me to the experience of learning within the public schools of New York City.  Teaching in a plethora of schools, across grade levels, across content domains, and with some of the finest educators to wonderful students who strive forward each day in spite of the many obstacles, has been one of the most enriching teaching experiences I could have ever imagined. 

- Nick Weber, ATR

Eva/Success Academy mum on Chairman Loeb racial barb

Sen. Cousins is one of the most impressive and classiest people in Albany- while Loeb is a thug who will try to bulldoze anyone in his way -- including in this case, those he can't buy off to support his school privatization agenda. ... Leonie Haimson

hedge fund manager Daniel S. Loeb, a prominent supporter of charter schools and a major financial backer of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and congressional Republicans,accused the African-American woman who leads the Democrats in the New York State Senate of having done “more damage to people of color than anyone who has ever donned a hood.” .... NYT - Daniel Loeb, a Cuomo Donor, Makes Racial Remark About Black Leader

These hedgehog charter backers are such a joy to report on.

Mr. Loeb made the reference, apparently to the Ku Klux Klan, in a posting on Facebook in response to an article in The New York Times this week in which the Democratic leader, Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins, confronted Mr. Cuomo about prejudging her based upon race and gender.

Loeb is chairman of Success Academy charter.

Mr. Loeb has been a prominent player in New York politics, as the chairman of the Success Academy charter school network and as a major political donor. In 2015, protesters objecting to Mr. Cuomo’s ties to wealthy donors marched outside a fund-raiser that Mr. Loeb hosted for Mr. Cuomo at his home in the Hamptons

 Eliza Shapiro, ed reporter for Politico -- not my fave -- did lead with this good headline:

Success Academy stays mum on chairman's racial barb

I wonder how parents of color in Eva's schools will react to this one. Watch Eva squirm. Oy Joy!!!!

Leonie commented:

Loeb retracted- only after NYT reported on his toxic slur of Sen. Cousins, Cuomo has put out critical statement as has Jeff Klein (weakly) but Eva stays mum on her board chair's remarks. 

http://www.politico.com/states/new-york/city-hall/story/2017/08/11/loebs-racial-comment-threatens-moskowitzs-moment-113900

More here https://mobile.nytimes.com/redirect?to-www=/2017/08/10/nyregion/democrats-new-york-blacks.amp.html

And here https://twitter.com/tweetbenmax/status/896000857401176065

More background on Loeb here http://hedgeclippers.org/rogues-gallery-dan-loeb/ and 

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/dan-loeb-simultaneously-solicits-betrays-pension-funds-20130411

Finally, Democrats are looking in the mirror. That's reason for optimism - Thomas Frank

Faced with this cornucopia of good choices, however, our modern Democrats managed to pluck out a lump of coal. Schumer prefaced the rollout of A Better Deal by saying: “In the past, we were too cautious; we were too namby-pamby. This is sharp and bold.” 
Modern-day Democrats are constitutionally incapable of sharp and bold; Nancy Pelosi’s op-ed announcing the Better Deal in the Washington Post, for example, is swimming in the same sort of ambiguous futurific formulas that Americans are wary of but that Democrats seem to love...... The Guardian

After reading this article I don't see reason for optimism. In fact I see the possibility of the demise of the Democratic Party if the 2018, 20 elections prove to be a disaster -- and with so many senate seats up for grab the Republicans have a chance to increase their majority, even if they lose seats in the house. We are heading to a one party system nationally and locally -- except for urban areas.

Read Schumer’s op-ed and you discover that what this actually means is giving employers tax cuts to encourage them to “train workers for unfilled jobs”.
That’s right: it’s a reference to the so-called skills gap, one of the most backward but fact-resistant articles of faith in the Washington credo. Accepted by leaders of both parties, it essentially blames unemployment on workers themselves: the reason people don’t have jobs is because they aren’t skilled enough to get those jobs, presumably because they didn’t study the right thing in school.
Everything comes back to education, which makes a lot of sense to an elite that rationalizes its rule by educational credentials. But in truth, what American business leaders need in order to fill those vacant positions is not a tax cut – they need to offer more pay.

I'm tracking articles on the internal issues facing the Democratic Party -- a good chunk of my discussion with a caller from the Dems yesterday trying to raise money was related to this issue. Ed Notes reader Abigail Shure sends me loads of these, including this one. He argued with me about this Better Deal stuff -- I wish I had read this before he called. I raised the dysfunction of the NY State Dems - and this NY Times piece makes that very point-  Tensions Flare as Cuomo Confronts Democratic Rift - the headline in the newsprint editions was starker about Cuomo's role -- State Democrats' Rift Looms Larger as Cuomo's Star Rises

I mentioned Cuomo, Booker and Rahm Emmanuel as "stellar" Dems.

I emphasized the Dem Party abandonment of unions, their base. Just look at Emanuel in Chicago and his war on the teacher union -- which he seems to be winning.

Frank makes this point:

Making it easier to form unions is another idea that would pay off hugely for Democrats down the line, as workers discover the power of solidarity and begin to identify once again with the other constituencies of the left. Truth be told, there are dozens if not hundreds of Reagan/Clinton/Bush policies that Democrats could promise to reverse that would open the door to working people.

Below is the first part of the article with a link to the rest.

At the end of July, the leadership of the Democratic party bestirred themselves from their comfortable Washington haunts and paid a visit to a small town in Virginia, where they assumed a populist guise and announced before the cameras of the world that they were regular folks just like you.

The occasion for this performance was the launch of a Democratic party manifesto that bears the uninspiring name, A Better Deal. Its purpose, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer wrote in the New York Times, was to “show the country that we’re the party on the side of working people”.

Famous for being one of Wall Street’s greatest friends in Washington, Schumer makes for an unlikely populist. Still, reacquainting Democrats with their working-class roots is a worthy goal, and a politically necessary one these days. 

Working people have been deserting the Democratic party for decades, making possible numerous Republican triumphs. Furthermore, it shouldn’t be hard to figure out how to appeal to them in the fourth decade of the great race to the bottom.
Adopting some of Bernie Sanders’s proposals would be eminently suitable for such an endeavor: universal healthcare, free college, going after the big banks, to name a few. 

Making it easier to form unions is another idea that would pay off hugely for Democrats down the line, as workers discover the power of solidarity and begin to identify once again with the other constituencies of the left. Truth be told, there are dozens if not hundreds of Reagan/Clinton/Bush policies that Democrats could promise to reverse that would open the door to working people.

“It is time,” she writes, “to ignite a new era of investment in America’s workers, empowering all Americans with the skills they need to compete in the modern economy.”
Empowering Americans with skills for modernity? If the Democrats mean, workers will be paid more, why not just say it? Even the noncontroversial promise (noncontroversial among liberals, I mean) to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour is clouded on the Better Deal homepage with enough wishy-wash to make one doubt the sincerity of the party’s Solons. 

Besides, one can’t help but remember that the liberals have had many opportunities to act on their good ideas. Take their determination to “aggressively crack down on unfair foreign trade” and their many vows to take action against high prescription drug prices. Both would be awesome! 

But then recall: just last year, the Democratic administration was aggressively doing exactly the opposite, working hard to pass the wildly unfair Trans Pacific Partnership, which (among other things) would have increased Big Pharma’s power to gouge consumers of prescription drugs.

A Better Deal is not even particularly liberal. Consider the vague promise that I mocked about giving people skills for the “modern economy”. Read Schumer’s op-ed and you discover that what this actually means is giving employers tax cuts to encourage them to “train workers for unfilled jobs”.

That’s right: it’s a reference to the so-called skills gap, one of the most backward but fact-resistant articles of faith in the Washington credo. Accepted by leaders of both parties, it essentially blames unemployment on workers themselves: the reason people don’t have jobs is because they aren’t skilled enough to get those jobs, presumably because they didn’t study the right thing in school.
Everything comes back to education, which makes a lot of sense to an elite that rationalizes its rule by educational credentials. But in truth, what American business leaders need in order to fill those vacant positions is not a tax cut – they need to offer more pay.

Wages need to go up. Then there will be incentives for properly skilled workers to drop what they’re doing and take those jobs, while other people will go and get the training, etc.

But business leaders don’t want to do that, and so here come the Democrats to get them off the hook with a tax cut. This is completely 180-degrees the opposite of a pro-worker solution.
Now, let us compare the Democrats’ manifesto with one that actually succeeded. For the Many, Not the Few was the title of the Labour party’s proposal to voters as the UK headed for its general election in June, and as you might surmise from the manifesto’s title, it was made of considerably sterner populist stuff than its American counterpart. 

Both documents bang away at a “rigged” system; both acknowledge the alienation of ordinary people in these post-recessionary times, but the British iteration is strong where Better Deal is weak; its demands are clear where ours are vague; it is remarkably free from New Economy cant and quite specific about its aims. For example: a national investment bank. Public ownership of public utilities like water and the mail (!).

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/10/finally-democrats-are-looking-in-the-mirror-thats-reason-for-optimism?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+USA+-+Collections+2017&utm_term=238818&subid=18260840&CMP=GT_US_collection

MORE, New Action, UFT Team Up to Back Charter-Spectrum IBEW Strikers

Give James Eterno a lot of credit. He has his eye on the labor union ball - even when it is not the UFT. He brought the strike against the swine at Spectrum to our notice the on the the ICE(caucus) blog.
He contacted Mike Schirtzer with a suggested resolution of support by the UFT. Mike shared it with Jonathan Halabi (New Action) and he made some revisions. The reso was then sent by Mike to Leroy Barr who said he would pass it on to the Executive Board for an email vote -- it passed. 

Read it at the ICEUFT Blog 

UFT SUPPORTS CHARTER-SPECTRUM IBEW STRIKERS 

 

Now I will not claim that cooperation with the UFT leadership is an earth shaking event but making our enormous membership aware and causing our people and their families to make the point to the Spectrum sales force that they will not use them (they are the former Time-Warner- and note stories that they are cutting back on NY1) -- it might have some effect.

Of course, ideal would be to find a picket line and show support.

 

RTC Roundtable: The Producers -- Video Podcast

John Panepinto, (Franz Liebkind in The Producers), sits down with  major characters for a deep dive into the theater. A brilliant conversation about community theater, acting as a profession and what it would take, favorite roles, dream roles -- and how they got here.

Published on Aug 2, 2017

Host, John Panepinto, sits down with the cast of Rockaway Theatre Company's "The Producers" to discuss their backgrounds, process and love of all things theater.

Featuring:
Jeremy Plyburn
Craig Evans
John Panepinto
Erech Holder-Hetmeyer
Brian Sadowski

And Catherine Leib

Shot by: Danielle Fisher, Andrew and Alexandrea Guzman.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcXdUAC2N_A

Ed Deformer and Netflix Founder Reed Hastings is Why the Democrats Have a Problem

This morning I got a call from someone in North Carolina connected to the Democratic Party pleading for my contribution to stop the right wing/Trump agenda. I told him NO. He seemed astounded to hear that coming from someone who was clearly left leaning. I ranted about the Dems not supporting unions, their core constituency -- Clintons and Obama - and what did former Labor Secty under Obama try to do for unions? Remember Wisconsin? And how about that they did to the teaching profession and their support for ed deform?

I told him to call someone else and he was wasting his time but he wouldn't give up -- I said the Dem Party has a long way to go to win my trust, especially on ed policy. Finally, his supervisor told him to hang up.

Then I turn to the NY Times and read this article about Google firing the employee who expressed his opinions on women and tech: 
Rising Dissent From the Right In Silicon Valley: The Culture Wars Have Come to Silicon Valley
 
http://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/08/technology/the-culture-wars-have-come-to-silicon-valley.htm

I imagine people on the left cheering his firing. I'm not. I do believe we can't run a one way track to free expression --- the left justifies themselves by branding comments as hate speech and that gives them the right to oppose it.

The article talks about Trump tech supporter Peter Thiel, who is in many ways despicable for his views but I don't have problems in his expression of them.

But look who is acting as a cop for the left?

Mr. Thiel, a member of Facebook’s board of directors, was told by Mr. Hastings, the chief executive of Netflix, that he would receive a negative evaluation of his performance on the board because of his support for Donald J. Trump.

Reed fuck'n hastings? Hastings, who supported Hillary, is a reason I won't give a dime to Democratic Party. Here are a few links to Hastings and education deform.

Thiel, Hastings

1. Reed Hastings' donations, students boo DeVos, remediation ...

   www.latimes.com/local/education/la-essential-education...

   May 11, 2017, 5:00 a.m. Reed Hastings' donations, students boo DeVos, remediation reform: What's new in education today

2. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings Launches $100 Million Education ...

   fortune.com/2016/01/13/reed-hastings-100-million-education

   Netflix CEO Reed Hastings' education fund kicks off with a $1.5 ... Hastings has been interested in education reform for ... FORTUNE may receive compensation for ...

3. The battle of Hastings: What’s behind the Netflix ... - Salon

   www.salon.com/2016/10/...netflix-ceo-reed-hastings...partner

   Oct 14, 2016 · And much of Hastings’ school reform ... a former Virginia elementary school teacher who now writes and consults on education issues. “Reed Hastings ...

4. Netflix's Reed Hastings has a passion for education r

   Jan 01, 2014 · Netflix co-founder and CEO Reed Hastings may be best known for upending the entertainment industry, but he has also built a reputation as an ardent ...

Chalkbeat, Subsidiary of Ed Deform, Beats the Anti-ATR Drum

...why should they talk to working teachers when Students First and others pay people to spout The Gospel According to Gates and Walmart, both of whom fund Chalkbeat?... NYC Educator

Have you been wondering about the obsession of ed deformers over the ATR question, not exactly the most pressing education issue of our time? I and others have talked about what is behind this. But count on their shills in the press to keep the issue going hot and heavy.

Chalkbeat, that paragon of ed deform journalism, once again leads with the ATR issue in Monday's morning report

Rise & Shine: Who is in New York City's controversial Absent Teacher Reserve?  Five things we still don’t know about who is in New York City’s Absent Teacher Reserve

By Daniela Brighenti  -  

Oh, goody -- they are finally going to talk to ATRs to get some answers. Let's see now:

A 2014 report from the advocacy group TNTP estimated that 25 percent of teachers in the ATR pool then had been brought up on disciplinary charges. 

You mean that TNTP, founded by Michelle Rhee 20 years ago? Now there's a group to believe. I wonder if they contribute to Chalkbeat.

Let's see, maybe after TNTP they actually talked to some ATRs:

Even if teachers are strong performers when excessed from their schools, one principal told us, the time they spend outside the classroom and in the ATR could be harmful, since they are unlikely to receive the same professional development as teachers in full-time positions.

Of course, go talk to principals and cite "some critics":

New York City principals balk at plan to place teachers in their schools; some vow to get around it

More principals' opinions -- this one is a fun one:

some critics have raised concerns that the teachers would be placed primarily in low-income areas of the city, in the struggling schools likely to suffer most from teacher vacancies.

Wow - they are so worried about placing ATRs in low income areas but have no qualms about hiring brand new teachers. Yeah, trust principals.

This is the Chalkbeat lead-in:

Much of the debate around the Absent Teacher Reserve revolves around the qualifications of the teachers in the pool, and what kinds of schools they work in. We rounded up questions we've asked the education department and union officials about the ATR, but haven't gotten answers to. ... Chalkbeat

Really? Much of the ed deform debate we read (here, here, here)
revolves around how ATRs are treated, how they are products of bad ed policy and bad union policy, how fair student funding incentivizes principals to not hire high salaried people, etc.
I think of the great crew of teachers we met last year in the struggle over the closing of JHS 145 in the Bronx. Are some of them ATRs?  Our CPE1 pals could have very easily been ATRs if they were found guilty of even the most minor charge -- their principal was removed the day after they were exonerated - proving she fabricated the charges -- we believe in consort with higher ups at the DOE - yet she is still functioning somewhere in the DOE.

After all, she vus just following orders.

But Chalkbeat must present the anti-ATR position and they do so by raising questions they don't have answers to -- a tactic used to create doubt. They have been criticized for not talking to ATRs -- there are only a thousand and I guess they are hard to find -- though we see them all over the blogs.

DRAIN THE POOL A new policy for placing educators from the Absent Teacher Reserve into schools -- even potentially against a principal's will -- has raised many questions and pushback. Here's what we still don't know about the educators who are in the pool, despite multiple requests for information. Chalkbeat

Look at the title -- Drain the Pool -- remind you of someone we know who was going to drain something but loaded it with more swamp creatures. But then again deformers try to brand ATRs as swamp creatures.

[By the way - at least one reader claimed I was mistaken to say I was an ATR back in 1967-1968 when I was exactly that - we were on the organization sheet under that category- but on one school.]

Arthur did good job of savaging Chalkbeat - read it here:

Monday, August 07, 2017

Reformy Chalkbeat Doubles Down on ATRs, Informs Readers It Knows Nothing

RBE: The UFT is a Company Union

RBE [Perdido Street School] has left a new comment on your post "Attacks on ATRs is Spear at All Teachers Plus Why ...":

Klein didn't run rings around Randi. The givebacks from Randi were intentional. They're on the same team - both Clintonistas out for the destruction of a unionized workforce. It's WWE shit. They play adversaries in public, but it's all a show and behind the scenes they yuck it up while they strip workers of rights, compensation, protections, etc. They may not have liked each other personally, but make no mistake that personal animosity puts them on separate teams.

The UFT is a company union. We see this even more so with de Blasio, where they don't even bother to mount a defense as the DOE goes after veteran teachers, ATR's, etc. The big giveaways started under the "hostile" Bloomberg, they continue unabated under the "friendly" de Blasio. It will be interesting to see what percentage of the rank and file flee the UFT post-Janus. UFT leaders will call for "unity" and "solidarity," but that's just empty, meaningless Orwellian rhetoric from a union leadership that has sold out its membership time and time again. 

I agree that the UFT/AFT/NYSUT complex has been complicit, especially in the early decades of ed deform going back to Al Shanker. Joel Klein and Randi are both centrist Democrats and thus...

Our union(s) are fundamentally neo-liberal in outlook. They do believe in the free market and when deformers apply it to education and charge that public schools are a monopoly, even if they don't agree, they have a hard time framing an adequate response and a campaign to counter this view. 

When it comes to guns and butter issues where defense eats up a massive amount of money, they always support those expenditures. Same with jingoistic foreign policy. 

And then there are the ties to the centrist wing of the Democratic Party and its policies that enforce the above -- I mean who is calling for a new Cold War against Russia, which is a fairly weal country in many ways?

These outlooks in essence turn our unions into a company union - if we view "company" in broader terms.

Attacks on ATRs is Spear at All Teachers Plus Why Not Have a Permanent Corps of ATRS

Obviously, this is about more than placing a few hundred teachers out of a system of 80,000 to teach classes that don't have a regular teacher over a month into the school year. Ed deform leaders know that if they finish off our seniority rights, it's basically over for the unionized teaching workforce (see Chicago teachers for some evidence). Ending seniority rights altogether is the holy grail of union busting that Joel Klein pushed for and is still the treasured goal of the zealots who want to destroy our profession. ... James Eterno, the ICE Caucus Blog

The other day I raised the issue of why the billionaire backed ed deform movement - On "Fair" Student Funding, ATRs, Chalkbeat Deformer Reporting with such shill organizations as Families for Excellent Schools (FES), Students First, Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) are so obsessed with the fates of a relatively few ATRS, people who are on the margin of the system - people who have in essence reduced the need for hiring pile of substitute teachers by creating a permanent, though often unwilling, pool of people to do a necessary job.

I mean, why not actually create an ATR pool of volunteers to that job in some kind of organized manner? I was an ATR for a year and a half in one school at the beginning of my career. By covering classes I learned a lot -- it was a good training ground -- and when there was no one absent they assigned me to handle a bunch of other issues that the school never had people to take care --- even helping in the supply room --- remember those days when we had loaded supply rooms?

There is a corps of Homebound teachers who visit kids who are sick. Why not an ATR pool, especially for newbie people who can benefit from a hands on training period?

But of course the attacks on ATRs is part of the decade assault on seniority, teaching as a career, union protections, tenure, etc --- call it---

The Road to Making Teachers Individual Contract Workers 

James Eterno has an important piece delving into the history of that is a must read--

THE REAL AIM OF THE RENEWED ATTACK ON ATRS IS TO BUST UNION

I would not have framed it as just an attack to bust the union -- after all as James points out, the UFT agreeing to the 2005 contract was a peg on the road to the union busting itself.

At pre-2005 city council hearings on education - run by Eva Moskowitz -- Randi testified agreeing with Joel Klein in essence on seniority transfers. Klein at that point claimed that the transfers drained poor schools of senior teachers -- barely true as the rules allowed many loopholes --- a shill ed deform argument -- and then flipped the argument by claiming senior teachers were burned out.

You may hate Klein - but admit he was a genius in running rings around Randi - he is one of the great heroes of ed deform despite proving to be so incompetent in a everything else -- I mean the guy can't hold one job for very long - other than his 8 years in office -- if not for the UFT compliance he would have been an object failure even at ed deform -- his greatest success -- even greater than the victory over Microsoft.

Klein owes oh so much to Randi Weingarten.

Memo from the RTC: The Producers – Eat Your Heart Out If You Missed It

Published in The WAVE, Aug. 4, 2017
www.rockawave.com

-->

Memo from the RTC:  The Producers – Eat Your Heart Out If You Missed It

By Norm Scott

Last week I raved about the six leading performances by Jeremy Plyburn (Bialystock), Craig Evans (Bloom), John Panepinto (Franz Liebkind), Brian Sadowski (Carmen Ghia), Erech Holder_Hetmeyer (Roger), Catherine Leib (Ulla) of the Rockaway Theatre Company production of Mel Brooks’ The Producers.

But this just scratches the surface. I’ve lost count of the number of cast members. The dressing room often looks like a subway car at rush hour as people race in and out for their scenes, many costume changes, or stage crew duties (everyone has to do some scenery moving in an elaborate schedule set up by Jenna Tipaldo, our 20 year old stage manager supreme (who also does the light cues in many performances). There are so many excellent performances supplementing the Big 6, I would have to use the entire WAVE to mention every performer.

I laugh at every joke and cheer at the end of every song and dance even though I’ve seen umpteen times – most of it from the wings, peeking between the curtains in the back of the theater or from the booth upstairs because I have stagehand duties -  moving the French doors when we set up and take down the office, which happens about a million times a show. So I end up running back and forth between office scenes so I can see snatches of the show. (Of course I never get to see the one scene I am in near the end, nor the scene before it since I am setting up to move my prop.) I’m often joined by other performers in the back of the theater who can’t stop laughing. And when we are backstage we are also laughing.

Before one show a theater goer asked me if Jodee Timpone was in the show. “She sure is,” I said. “And you will see Jodee as you’ve never seen her before.  Jodee, playing the part of Hold me-Touch, shows her heart/s is/are in the right place.

Producer Susan Jasper says in her program Notes, “If you have not seen or heard anything to offend you by Intermission, you probably slept through Act 1.” Some of the funniest, and possibly most offensive scenes relate to the LGBT community. A large group from the local LGBTQ social group, Out Rockaway wearing their tee-shirts, attended and I hear there was a lot of laughter coming from their quarter. No pickets - yet. And few people - maybe one guy – walked out due to homophobia.

The audiences have been as responsive as any in the past, some saying this is the best one ever.

I won’t get into some details of the play so those who come the final weekend see the surprises for those who didn’t see the movie or the play. I do want to mention a few behind the scenes people. I’ve talked about the directorial leadership of John Gilleece who has managed the entire project wonderfully. Audiences have been raving about the professional choreography by Nicole DePierro-Nellen. Watch those tap dancers and the synchronicity of complex dances. The opening sequence recalls Fiddler on the Roof. And the chorines in the office scene doing that Rockettes matching kick-line and see how many of them swap into old-lady land tip tapping their walkers. And that solo dance by Ulla – ooh, la, la.

Music Director Rich Louis-Pierre is one of the RTC indispensables, not only leading the band, but playing a small part in the play and doing the sound design while working with the sound technicians Michael Caprio and the heroic Daniel Fay. Danny is a local and a recent college grad who actually got a job in the industry and gives up much valuable time to be at the shows when he can.

There’s the complex lighting by Andrew Woodridge, the RTC lighting guru, who also makes the pigeons do their thing, which got an ovation at last Sunday’s performance – watch Adolph salute. Andrew hasn’t developed the technology – yet – of having them fly around the audience and crap on their heads, but maybe one day.

Dan Guarino, president of the Rockaway Artists Alliance, who is not in the show but volunteered to assist with the stage crew and is my partner in moving the French doors without killing anyone, and has done yeoman service.

I’ll have more next week in my final piece on this show (after which I will take a little RTC break). This Monday, I join master demolisher Tony Homsey in taking down the set before working with his twin, Tony the master builder, to put up the set for the upcoming Frank Caiati directed Elephant Man.

When not destroying sets, Norm uses his pen as a sledgehammer on the NYCDOE, UFT Leadership, the Democratic Party, and charter schools on his blog at ednotesonline.com.

School Scope: Health Care - Educating People Honestly is First Step to Reform By Norm Scott

The WAVE - www.rockawave.com -- Aug. 4, 2017

-->

School Scope: Health Care - Educating People Honestly is First Step to Reform

By Norm Scott

If you are looking for commentary on education let me remind you this is summer vacation for most ed news, other than to say that the de Blasio/Farina operation of the schools is not as different from BloomKlein. One of the big stories this week was the Susan Edelman expose in the NY Post of the scandals in the principal training Leadership Academy, which spawned our very own Marcella Sills. http://nypost.com/2017/07/29/doe-lost-track-of-101m-given-to-leadership-coaches-audit.

I compare the NYC Leadership Academy training to the Nazi SS - where there are stories that they would give a new recruit a dog when they arrived, allow them to bond, and then order them to kill the dog to complete their training. All too many Lead Acad grads act like they’ve emerged from that type of trauma and feel free to engage in vicious, sadistic behavior.

But let’s get back to an equally vicious and sadistic topic. Health care as a follow-up to last week’s column (School Scope: Why Not Medicare for All?) where I talked about single payer around the world with an emphasis on how health stats in Rwanda may one day, if Republicans remain ascendant, may soon surpass ours.

There has been increasing serious media attention (as opposed to mocking commentary) related to Bernie Sanders bringing up a single payer bill, an idea he was ridiculed for a year ago. It is clear there are problems with Obama Care, many of them exaggerated by eight years of Republican attempts to go back to the pre-Obamacare good old days of death panels. The criticisms of Obamacare from both left and right go deep but come at the issue from two entirely different directions.

One of the attacks on Obama was based on his false promise that people could keep their plans. Seven years ago I was tossed out of my UFT plan and into Medicare by law as I joined everyone who turns 65 . I didn’t cry, as Medicare just happens to be one of the most popular government run programs.

I keep repeating that my wife who worked in billing for a major hospital and dealt with every insurance company maintained that Medicare, staffed with career professionals (as opposed to the often revolving door employees in private insurance) was also the most efficient and well-run. I would say this was one of the biggest issues in former Obama voters moving to Trump.  Goodness, is it possible that the big, bad government which comes under attack by so many can out perform privately run operations?

Boys and girls there is a solution, even if a temporary one to stabilize the market while we work to expand Medicare down to younger people. (Bernie suggests we move people who are 55 into Medicare as a first step.)

Obama abandoned the offer of a public option very quickly to appease the insurance companies who didn’t want to compete with the government. (He also ignored please control drug costs to keep big pharm on board). With so many insurance companies abandoning the market at this time, the biggest immediate fix to Obamacare would be to add a government option in every area that is left with few options or none. I find it funny how all the people who believe in competition don’t want the government to compete with private insurance plans.

Now I want to be clear. In a single payer system everyone would be tossed out of their plan and into the same plan. This would be huuuuge and of course disrupting as even employer based plans would end. Some argue that industry offers these plans as a way to lure workers. And many workers make job choices based on health care. By taking the burden of health care off the table, as would happen in single payer, there would be a major bump in earnings for boss and worker – think of taking the money spent on health care and giving raises.

We also should be clear that single payer would wipe out most of the insurance industry with its overhead and high executive salaries – and all those lobbying costs. How can that be a bad thing?

Let me end with a reference to some correspondence I’ve been having with  a WAVE reader who doesn’t agree with my take but does admire the variation of single payer system in Singapore, which forces everyone to pay something whenever they use a health service. (Google Singapore health care if interested in learning more.) I am open to negotiations on means payments and co-payments. My recent foray into health care related to a urinary tract infection taught me a few things. I had to have a picc line installed in my arm to receive antibiotics and it was done at NYU-Langone where two nurses and a doctor did the job (who knew that the line went  directly from my arm into my heart – ugh). They billed for over $15,000. Medicare paid about $600. It was clear before I went in – there would be no cost to me and they knew what they were going to get. Thus an advantage of single payer even with all the waste and fraud ( and over testing) – there is one place to go to get paid and someone makes a value judgment.

Even under single payer, which would replace everyone’s health care costs with a  --- dare I  say the word – tax, people would come out ahead.

If you want to read a medical horror story, check out the recent NY Times exposure (The Company Behind Many Surprise Emergency Room Bills) of scams where emergency rooms have been privatized by EmCare, a rapacious company. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/24/upshot/the-company-behind-many-surprise-emergency-room-bills.html.

Norm blogs about whatever drivel comes into his head at ednotesonline.com.

On "Fair" Student Funding, ATRs, Chalkbeat Deformer Reporting

I blogged yesterday (Farina to Principals - Wink, Wink - Go Get Em - Schools With Placed ATRs Must Absorb Salaries) about that ridiculous Chalkbeat story echoing the Families for Excellent Schools line on ATRS. Why a deformy group would focus so much attention on ATRS -- not exactly the crucial education issue of our time? The answer it that they are using it as a wedge as part of the broader attack on seniority, tenure, highly paid teachers, disparaging certified teachers- the "hey, anyone can teach" etc.

Arthur Goldstein took on Chalkbeat on his blog --

NYC Educator

Reformy Chalkbeat Deems Paying Teachers Inconvenient - Who'd have thought that Chalkbeat NY, after taking all that money from Gates and the Walmart family, would suddenly go all community service on us. Arthur was as perturbed by that phony demo photo used as I was.

 I just adore the photo Chalkbeat chooses to recycle, the one of a dozen people organized by the well-financed so-called Families for Excellent Schools standing around stereotyping ATR teachers. It would take me about five minutes to organize a dozen people to stand outside the Chalkbeat office with signs that say "Chalkbeat Sucks."

Not a bad idea to illustrate a point.

Then there is a parent shill named Nicole Thomas who writes a piece at the Daily News assaulting ATRs. Nicole just woke up one day and decided the existence of 800 ATRs in a system of 100,000 education personnel is the most important threat to her children's education. Nicole is one of those bought parents by the deformies. I bet she was at one of those phony 20 people rallies.

ATR Peter Zucker took Nicole Thomas on and ripped her op ed to piece.

I know where your bread is buttered Nicole. StudentsFirstNY butters it, and butters it well. You want to hang with these people? You think for a moment that StudentsFirst cares about you or your family, or even your community? You are being played like a fiddle and when you outlive your usefulness, see how long, if ever, it takes Jenny Sedlis to return your calls.

But if you want to hang with these people, know that StudentsFirst is the evil spawn of Michelle Rhee. Read this and tell the world how you would feel if Rhee was your child's teacher. These are the type of people you are being a sycophant for.

SOUTH BRONX SCHOOL Open Blog Post to Nicole Thomas (ATR Basher) Parent at PS 256 in Brooklyn

Now we know that one of the wedges used to attack teaching as a career is the fair student funding formula.

Leonie Haimson savages the Fair Student Formula in a must-read blog: https://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2017/08/fair-student-funding-atr-system-two-bad.html

NYC Public School Parents

Fair student funding & the ATR system - two bad policies undermining NYC schools

Today Chalkbeat covers the budgetary ramifactions of the new agreement between the UFT and the NYC Department of Education in which the DOE will place ATR teachers (on Absent Teacher Reserve) in schools with vacancies, whether the principal chooses these particular teachers or not.  In addition, unlike earlier years, the principal will have to pay the full amount of their salaries – which are often much higher than the average teacher salary, even though the school only receives funding for the average salary under the Fair Student Funding system, implemented by Joel Klein in 2007, after much controversy and protest.

Let's look at how our stalwarts at the UFT are handling the situation. Arthur comments:

 I'm also disappointed in UFT leadership, which seems to believe that, even with the idiotic so-called Fair Student Funding, that there will be no issue hiring senior teachers. In fact, schools themselves now have to pay teachers out of their own budgets. Why would a principal hire a 100K teacher when a 50K teacher would do? After all, who values experience anymore? You could stock your whole building with newbies and turn them over every three years before they get tenure and start speaking up.

 Mulgrew, given an opportunity to point out certain essential truths, punted. I will urge our high school ex bd people to hold their feet to the fire on making a strong stand -- including educating the public - on the damages of FSF.


 

Bernie Sanders attacks 'greedy' Nissan for waging anti-union campaign - Where are Other Dems?

Vermont senator, writing in the Guardian, says: ‘The truth is Nissan is an all-too-familiar story of how greedy corporations divide and conquer working people’... The Guardian.

Where are the other Democrats? Most don't want to support unions even with a 10 foot pole.

Bernie Sanders has attacked Nissan for doing “everything it can” to stop workers from unionizing at its Mississippi plant despite making “obscene” profits.

Nissan dispute could go down as most vicious anti-union crusade in decades

Bernie Sanders

Read more

In an editorial for the Guardian, the former presidential hopeful weighs in as Nissan workers prepare to vote on joining the United Auto Workers (UAW) union.
Echoing union officials and their supporters, Sanders says Nissan’s campaign “could go down as one of the most vicious, and illegal, anti-union crusades in decades”.
Nissan is being investigated by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the independent US government agency responsible for enforcing US labor law, after warning workers they could lose wages and benefits if they back the union vote.
Other workers have been told they will receive increased benefits and pay if they vote against unionising. “Workers should never have to endure this type of threatening campaign or walk through a minefield just to vote for a union,” Sanders writes. “The truth is Nissan is an all-too-familiar story of how greedy corporations divide and conquer working people.”
The Nissan vote is the latest in a series of attempts by unions to grow membership in America’s south, where many manufacturers have moved to take advantage of low wages and non-union workforces. Unions have faced similarly hard-fought battles to gain recognition at plants run by Boeing and Volkswagen – and lost.
Sanders, the actor Danny Glover and leading labor officials have all campaigned in support of the UAW’s attempts to unionise the 800-strong plant.

Mississippi Nissan workers hope for historic win in 14-year fight to unionize

Read more

Nissan has union representation in 42 of 45 of its plants throughout the world, writes Sanders. “But the company does not want unions in the US south, because unions mean higher wages, safer working conditions, decent healthcare, and a secure retirement.
“Corporations like Nissan know that if they stop workers in Mississippi from forming a union, wages will continue to be abysmally low in this state.”
Sanders says Nissan made $6.6bn in profits last year and paid its chief executive officer, Carlos Ghosn, more than $9.5m last year.
“Those kinds of obscene profits are a direct result of corporations’ decades-long assault on workers and their unions,” he writes. “The American middle class, once the envy of the world, is disappearing while income and wealth inequality is soaring. We have got to turn that around.”

Gothamist: Eva Moskowitz’s Privileged ‘Bipartisanship’

Nice to see mainstream press (sort of) exposing Eva Moskowitz hypocrisy - actually, she's a Trump-level outright liar - though the writer doesn't go into the schemes she uses to phony up the rep of Success.

Some excerpts:

Ms. Moskowitz can’t hide behind a self-serving and privileged version of bipartisanship.... It takes a lot of privilege for Ms. Moskowitz to somehow believe that the policies that Democrats and the Resistance across the country represent somehow do not apply to her students.

Black organizations like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (the N.A.A.C.P.), afters years of internal debate, in October called for a moratorium on charter schools, like the charter network Ms. Moskowitz runs in New York City. In response to the N.A.A.C.P. moratorium and report, Ms. Moskowitz attacked the N.A.A.C.P.’s credibility and authority to speak on education for black children. Despite the fact that Ms. Moskowitz's schools have come under scrutiny for controversial admissions policies and disciplinary practices, which Ms. Moskowitz usually leaves to be resolved by her private consultants and lobbyists....

it seems strange that Ms. Moskowitz repeatedly attacks the mayor, a fellow Democrat, for budgetary reasons yet she doesn't criticize the federal secretary of education, a Republican, who is proposing cuts worth more than $9 billion to national education programs and resources.

Gothamist

August 01, 2017 | by Kenneth Campbell

http://www.gothamgazette.com/opinion/7093-eva-moskowitz-s-privileged-bipartisanship?mc_cid=fbd1eba5eb&mc_eid=1a6c9e0292

Farina to Principals - Wink, Wink - Go Get Em - Schools With Placed ATRs Must Absorb Salaries

At the very least, one Bronx principal said, he’d be wary of the hire. “If someone automatically puts an ATR into my school,” he said, “I would go in there and observe them quite a bit.” --- Chalkbeat

Chalkbeat as usual doesn't get to the heart of the matter. That the DOE is making sure not to provide financial backing to schools taking ATRs - schools I am betting will be chosen based on the ability of the principal to be especially vicious. Note not one contact from the reporter with a comment from an ATR.

They are walking in with targets on their backs.

Mulgrew of course is exposed as a sham supporter of ATRs - instead of screaming about the fair student funding formula he says this:

Principals have historically exaggerated the impact on their school budget of hiring someone from the ATR pool,” he said in a statement. “We have found the impact of hiring a more experienced teacher, whether from the open market or the ATR pool, does not derail a school budget.”

What a crock - of course the higher salary impacts a school budget -- that was the very purpose of Fair Student Funding in the first place -- to incentivize principals to do salary dumps. As usual the UFT comes up on the wrong side of the issue.

The article does at least point up the UFT flip-flop in providing financial support to the school.

Ironically, this is an issue the UFT set out to tackle in its 2014 contract with the Department of Education. A provision in the contract states that schools that hire an ATR teacher would not have that teacher’s salary included in the school’s average teacher salary calculation. That agreement stood for both the 2015–16 and 2016–17 school years. 

“Principals no longer have a reason to pass over more senior educators in favor of newer hires with lower salaries,” the UFT promised in a statement on the 2014 contract posted online.

During the 2016–17 school year, the DOE also offered two options for subsidizing the salaries of ATR members. The first subsidized the costs of permanent ATR hires by 50 percent the first year and 25 percent the next. The second allowed principals to have the full cost of the teacher’s salary subsidized for the 2016–17 year. Ultimately, a total of 372 teachers were hired with those incentives last year. 

But starting in the upcoming school year, neither of those policies will be in place. Schools will not receive the incentives and the salaries of ATR teachers will be included in a school’s average teacher salary once they are permanently hired. 

The UFT declined to comment on the apparent flip-flop, and neither the UFT nor the city’s Department of Education could estimate the average number of years of experience of teachers in the pool.

The article by Daniela Brighenti is oh-so leaning in the direction of the ed deform attacks on ATRs -- behind which is an attack on teacher tenure protections. Daniela might have reached out to some ATRs to get their take -- maybe she thought she would catch something.

This is the lead blurb.

ATR FUNDING When members of the Absent Teacher Reserve are placed this fall, schools will incur the full cost of the new hires, without incentives the city has provided in the past. Chalkbeat

Did Chalkbeat funder Families for Excellent Schools (I'm guessing here) write this piece?

At the top of their article it says: support independent journalism -- my biggest laugh of the day - so far.

Look at the photo that leads their piece -FES gets 20 people out - probably paid - and that becomes the lede.

Look at their headline:

draining the pool [echo of Trump draining the swamp]

New York City’s plan to place teachers from its Absent Teacher Reserve pool could take a bite out of school budgets

Here is the complete article:

 http://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/ny/2017/08/03/new-york-citys-plan-to-place-teachers-from-its-absent-teacher-reserve-pool-could-take-a-bite-out-of-school-budgets/

DE BLASIO GIVES IN BIG TO CHARTERS

Curbing mayoral control of schools should be a priority - local control is the biggest threat to the ed deformers.

Posted by Jake Jacobs at NYC BATS FB:

DE BLASIO GIVES IN BIG TO CHARTERS: You might have missed this but in a last-minute deal for a two-year renewal of mayoral control, Mayor de Blasio agreed to circumvent the legislature, pledging to help charters expand through his administrative powers.

The agreement granted permission to revive so-called “zombie” charters, meaning schools that never open or quickly closed.

The really contentious part was the proposal to let charter schools which SUNY oversees hire unlicensed teachers. The controversial proposal grew out of concessions de Blasio made in last year's mayoral control renewal deal, where SUNY was allowed to change some rules so charters could switch authorizers -- about 50 charters did switch over to SUNY in advance of the unlicensed teacher proposal.

But it's not clear whether SUNY has the legal authority to approve the new rules, which would not only let charters hire uncertified teachers, but let charter school executives grant licenses to teachers after three years, even if they were trained by uncertified instructors.

Mayor de Blasio’s position on the uncertified teacher plan has not been made public, but the proposal dropped around the same time de Blasio secretly negotiated his side-deal for renewing mayoral control.

First wondering aloud if the two were linked, Politico’s Eliza Shapiro later reported that withholding details about the exact concessions made to charters seem to be part of the deal struck between de Blasio and NYS Senate leader John Flanagan.

We can wonder whether de Blasio agreed to letting charters hire uncertified teachers to replace the 40% of teachers they burn through each year, but we know the proposal was first championed by Eva Moskowitz, who supports not only Trump's call to expand charters but private school vouchers as well.

http://www.politico.com/states/new-york/albany/story/2017/06/29/mayoral-control-deal-could-change-de-blasios-poor-standing-in-albany-113160