While critics of the BloomWeinKlein reforms of the schools in NYC often focus on the big picture, a snapshot of what happened in 1 school can offer a great insight.
I got such an insight last
night when I had dinner with a group of colleagues from my old school where I spent 27 years as a teacher and 5 more in district tech support. I won't go into all the gory details, but you might have read in this space about the teacher of 22 years removed in handcuffs by 5 cops in front of the entire community on trumped up charges of a parent instigated by the principal.Yes, the principal was the focus of my former colleagues' wrath. Leadership Academy and all that - following the Lead. Acad. Princ. (LAP - dogs) pattern to get rid of every person in the building who preceded her. Only about 7 people remain from when I was there. The departed are in no way poor teachers but the best and most experienced. I was glad to hear the person who I considered one of the best teachers I ever saw (I spent serious time in her classroom) has just flown the coup. She absolutely despised this LAP and was one of the few willing to demonstrate her disdain. Of course the
LAP is probably very glad to see this great teacher, who was so beyond excellent that any attack on her would have been laughed at, be gone.The irony is that even the people handpicked by the LAP are also leaving. I hear so many of these stories repeated from LAP schools. One teacher at another school told me 28 teachers have left in 3 years. In the old days the departure of so many experienced teachers was a warning sign of a principal out of control. In the world of Tweedledee these principals get a bonus.
But the really "fun" stuff were their descriptions of the willy-nilly ways teachers have been forced to teach. The TC model with rugs taking up half the room while kids at their desks were forced into such tight spaces that discipline became so much more of an issue. From a massive binder where all kids of "data" -- yes the big word - that will never be used - are kept. This principal, being in the empowerment zone was able to design her own assessment. So now teachers have to do 5 report cards and spend enormous time filling out useless paper work instead of teaching. Oh yes, there is an Aussie trainer in the building doing more spying than instruction.
One story is that another teacher who left the school and has since left teaching knows someone who was involved in the creation of the balanced literacy training videos Lucy Calkins made. Teachers have complained that there are too many kids that cannot function in this environment and that many more discipline problems result but have been told to shut up and that these problems are the result of their poor teaching. When these video were made, whenever there was a kid who could not focus, Calkins ordered he/she be replaced with a more docile, cooperative kid.
Well, the upshot is that there is not all that much difference in the school's results before the arrival of the LAP when the obvious easier rubrics, easier tests and questionable marking procedures - -the hallmark of the improvement of scores under BloomKlein and discipline is a mess. This LAP has managed to alienate teachers, parents and children with a heartless and arrogant treatment of all.
I could go on - and they did for a few hours last night. They told of teachers with 18-21 years being excessed when the LAP complained that special ed kids brought down the scores. They have avoided ATR status -- not through the Open Market System which failed them utterly - but through personal contacts at other schools. One teacher asked the union how he could be excessed since the contract says if you have 20 years this can't happen. He was told to file a grievance. He asked why he has to go through this since this is such an obvious violation of the contract and he is still left with having to look for jobs since the vicissitudes of the grievance procedure are well known. The union should be able to pick up a phone and get an instant response. They shrugged.
For decades we have called for penalties for administrators who engage in obvious violations -- cut into those bonuses -- but the UFT/Unity leadership just laughed at us.
The hiring halls were a joke as the excessed were separated from the new teachers. Excessed people were given a sheet telling them how to interview. New teachers were given shiny red folders (so it was obvious to the interviewer which group people were in) with maps of districts listing openings.
We ended the evening of ribs and beer with a toast all who have escaped, hopefully to better place, and a wish that the 55-25 retirement package (which we called bogus since it was not to cost the city anything) promised by the UFT/Unity leadership to sell the '05 contract will one day come to pass (probably at the expense of the teachers themselves who will be willing to pay just about anything) to free the rest to go to the promised land of retirement.
Thanks for the historical and structural overview described in the post and the first comment. You can rely on ICE to provide background information on grave union issues such as these, and I regret deeply, both on a personal and a collective level, that the people running this union and ultimately responsible for maintaining our existing job protections break so frequently with long-standing union goals.
I would like to comment on something the Chancellor has pushed for and what he has actually done.
One of Klein's earliest and most continuously iterated goals has been to be able to put good experienced teachers where they are needed, in the more difficult schools. His two recent initiatives, the Open Market hiring system and the way teachers will soon be paid (directly from the principal's budget), have not only hobbled his cause, but have shown him to be duplicitous.
Experienced senior teachers who indeed want to work in tough schools for a variety of reasons (the commute, the level, the challenge) have just become expensive. It is attractive for a principal to avoid calling them in for an interview, let alone hiring them.
Young teachers who spend a year or two in a difficult school are already looking to transfer out, to what they think is a better school in another district or out of New York City altogether. There is no reason for a new teacher to settle into a school with a difficult environment or one they're not happy in when adequate skills and a low salary makes them highly marketable. They'll apply to the schools with good reputations, and by gosh, they'll get those jobs.
It used to be that job vacancies were frozen until excessed teachers were placed, but the Human Resources people are no longer allowed to do this. The vacancies will be filled with new and fairly newly instructors, some of whom do not yet have a Masters. And even before these young teachers get tenure and full certification, they too will get the chance to look for and take that job in a "better" school. This is not conjecture, I already know of many examples.
The Lead Teacher program puts a few experienced teachers in difficult schools - for a salary bonus, and for only half their time teaching. That's a failure for the city's kids no matter how they spin it, and since it's a form of merit pay, it's a failure for labor, too.
There is not one item in the chancellor's agenda that will put good experienced teachers in full-time teaching programs in difficult schools and make them want to stay there.
The Chancellor is a fraud, the Mayor still backs him, and it looks as if Union leadership has a different agenda than what's in our best interest. I can't believe they thought these schemes would be of any use to the profession in the long run. It's something else, and they don't want us in on it.
We should not view the issue solely from the perspective of teacher rights. One issue I would like to deal with is the argument Klein makes that a school system should not be about job protection but about teaching and learning. Weingarten I believe goes along with these beliefs as evidenced from her actions and by info from the inside that she talks about getting rid of bad teachers and not being worried about protections. I believe there's an argument to be made that seniority rules create stability and school cultures that overcome the instances of the bad teacher being protected (I still think there are as many poor teachers if not more since BloomKlein and many people loyal to the principal will be protected no matter how bad they are.) Stable schools include experienced people who often share their knowledge. Kids have long-standing relationships with teachers in these schools. The assault on seniority had done as much damage if not more to the educational institutions as it has to the traditional union perspective that you raise.