A copy of the letter Ms. Liebowitz sent to the City Council as written testimony. Doug
---------- Forwarded Message ----------
My name is Adele Leibowitz. I have been teaching for almost 31 years. I started my career at Tilden High School in 1973 , then Lafayette High School and now have been teaching at Canarsie High School since 1984. I started the Nurse Assistant Program at Canarsie High School in 1989. I feel that Mayor Bloomberg should not run for a third term and should not have total control of the NYC School System.
Mayoral control of the New York City School system has not allowed any teacher or parent input into the school system. This total control demonstrates that the teachers educational training and experience has no value or importance.As a teacher for so many years I find this unacceptable. The veteran teacher now is not respected by the school system. This manner of running the school system must be changed. There are no checks and balances to counter act any decisions made by the DOE.
I am teaching at Canarsie High School which has been directed by the DOE to phase out and close by 2011. Due to the mismanagement of the DOE the school has been under the leadership of many Principals sent to us by the DOE. Presently we have just been assigned a ninth principal. We the teachers have no say who will be the principal of the school. We have also been sent students who are ill prepared to enter because they are below level in reading , writing and mathematics. Yet the teachers are blamed for the poor regents grades and low graduation rates. We the teachers are also blamed for the poor school environment which is out of our control since we have no say in security agents assigned and the discipline code that is set up by the DOE.
I see a double edged sword that we the teachers have been given to deal with. The DOE takes no responsibility for students and principals sent to the school. Yet the teachers are blamed for all. The faculty of the school has no way to address these problems regarding how the school is run or receiving low level students. The principals we are sent just follow the directives of TWEED because they know if they do not to they will be removed form running the school.
There is no way the teachers can go through a chain of command through the DOE because since mayoral control there is no CHAIN OF COMMAND. What ever is deemed by Joel Klein that is what is expected to be done by principals and teachers. Superintendents today have not power any more. Superintendents cannot make any changes regarding student placement or staff. Even the parents have no one to go and complain if they are not satisfied with what is going on in a school when they feel the principal cannot resolve an issue at hand.
Joel Klein was chosen by the mayor to run this vast educational system in New York City. Joel Klein does not have the educational credentials/certification in education. He really does not have any classroom teaching experience yet he was given the job.It is as if an intern was sent in to perform brain surgery without any training or experience.
Joel Klein under the approval of the mayor has hired many high salaried consultants from other countries to evaluate our school. These consultants come in and spend a few days to determine if we the teachers are doing our jobs. They make decisions without even talking to the faculty or parents of the students. They do not understand the type of students that enter by evaluating their past academic performance before entering high school and how they progressed since attending high school. They do not evaluate the many problems the students have while attending high school. We have many students who do not live with their parents but relatives , or they live in group home or shelters.The quality review teams are not interested in what the faculty feels is needed to improve student performance. Instead of trying to help improve the school they are there to help dismantle the school.
The way the school is evaluated by a Report Card is vague at most. It stated in the Report Card that the following were used to grade the school: parents(who are these parents?), Learning Support Organizations( teachers never met any of the members or spoke to them in the school so how can they evaluate us?)and student parent questionnaire( few parents answered the questionnaire ) Yet under the leadership of Joel Klein and condoned by Mayor Bloomberg the school is given a Report Card grade. If this method was used to evaluate city hall I think they would fail also.
Yet all the money spent by the DOE and approved by Mayor Bloomberg continues and no one is allowed to say anything against the way the DOE is administered. To me this does not demonstrate accountability of one person, it displays tyrannical control by one person. One is not allowed to question orders in fear of retaliation or removal.
Now that Canarsie High School is phasing out many teachers have put into ATR status. These teachers have been excessed from their positions at Canarsie High School. Many of the teachers and guidance counselors who are in ATR status(Absent Teacher in Reserve) have not been able to find jobs in the open market hiring systems due to the fact that they are veteran teachers. Budgets issued principals cannot afford to hire a veteran teacher/guidance counselor. Now many of these teachers/guidance counselors with satisfactory records are now deemed unfit by Joel Klein. He feels if they are not hired no one wants to hire them. This is a set up by the DOE to force out veteran teachers/guidance counselors. The DOE prefers to hire new teachers who cost the city so much less on the salary scale. How does this leadership by the mayor help our students?
We at Canarsie High School have already experienced the unfairness of the mini schools versus the phasing out school. The mini schools at the Canarsie High School Campus have been given more money to set up their schools than Canarsie High School has seen in the last 15 years. The disparity of this has made not only the faculty upset but the students upset at Canarsie High School. We the students and teachers have no one to complain to, since the DOE has made its decision.
I will be in ATR status once Canarsie High School Closes. I am NYS Certified to Teach Nurse Assistant and have a NYC License to teach Nursing. I have been teaching and coordinating the Nurse Assistant Program at Canarsie High School since 1989. Due to the phasing out of schools the only schools that have a Nurse Assistant Program in Brooklyn are Clara Barton High School , Sheepshead Bay High School in Brooklyn. None of the mini schools now in NYC have a current active Nurse Assistant Program. The mini schools are theme schools and do not follow the CTE(Career and Technical Education Curriculum set by the NYS/SED. Now will I be considered to be an unfit teacher by Joel Klein if the principals of those schools with Nurse Assistant Programs cannot afford to hire a veteran teacher such as myself? I have an excellent record as a teacher and NYS Registered Professional Nurse that I am proud of.
Term limits was put into place to prevent one person from obtaining to much power. I am a citizen of NYC and feel that two terms are more than enough time for a person to be in office. Let the democratic process work and give other well qualified individuals a chance to campaign and be elected by the citizens of NYC. One person should not be continuously in power because then a democracy is replaced by tyranny and anarchy. Michael Bloomberg has had his time in the spot light, give others a chance to lead with fresher and better ideas.
Adele Leibowitz RN
Nurse Assistant Teacher
Canarsie High School
Showing posts with label ATR's. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ATR's. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Thursday, October 09, 2008
Some Staff, Students Upset Over Canarsie H.S. Changes
http://www.canarsiecourier.com/news/2008/0925/TopStories/014.html
Editor's note: The following was written by two veteran members of the Canarsie High School staff, who want the community to be aware of the situation since it was announced last year that the school was being "phased out" and replaced by three smaller schools in the 1800 Rockaway Parkway building.
Although we are well aware that Canarsie High School is "phasing out," let it be known that the remainder of the student body and staff is being treated unfairly.
Last Friday afternoon, prior to the end of the school day, four assistant principals, four counselors and 18 teachers were given their "walking papers" to become ATR's (Absent Teacher Reserves) and "waste the taxpayers money" to sit and do nothing at other schools. Students were hysterically crying and screaming as they watched faculty members pack up never to return.
On Monday, there was utter chaos in the school. Teachers were re-assigned several periods to teach "out of license," overcrowded classes, while students scurried all over trying to find out which class they belong in and who their counselors were now.
This is the second shake-up for students who not only had their principal replaced during the last school years, but were told that school was closing. Last week, the school was informed that the replacement principal would be leaving shortly.
By Monday, students should be smoothly sailing with the first marking period ending October 10, instead students programs were changed causing bedlam in the school.
The students who remain here should get the same education opportunities that all students in the public school system receive. A counselor that was removed, phoned to inform us that she is sitting in another school doing clerical work, while 2 others report they are sitting doing nothing all day!
ATRs get the blame for "wasting taxpayers money" when it is the NYC/DOE who is assigning them to unprofessional duties at other schools at the expense of the students. The blame should not be on teachers or counselors who want to do their job. Students are paying for the price for the mismanagement of the DOE.
Canarsie High School parents need to be informed of the injustice being done to their children by the NYCDOE. It is funny how there are funds for the "mini schools," but no money to keep teachers and counselors here for the remaining CHS students.
*****
The following are excerpts from an E-mail sent by a current senior at Canarsie High School.
To Whom It May Concern:
I'm writing this so everyone can be aware of the disaster that is currently happening in Canarsie High School.
In the spring of 2008 I heard my school was going to be closed down and I was excited because of all the issues that was (sic) going around, but when I finally realized that Canarsie High School was coming to an Era, I was devastated and so was (sic) teachers, staff, and my fellow peers. Then a few weeks later there was a rumor that there were going to be three mini schools so we all were shocked because the same was done to South Shore and the outcome was a disaster, so we were all frightened.
So come the first day of school on September 2nd, I entered and was informed there were changes made throughout the building…and I walked around the school and saw on one side of the building students in uniform and new classrooms with new furniture and behind every classroom a sofa bed. I was shocked…everyone should receive the same value and equal education."
I went to my Guidance Counselor and he explained that those were the new schools, so, from then on, I kept everything cool and attended classes daily. Then, around the second week of school the principal, Tyona Washington, reported she was assigned to a new school and will be leaving for "an opportunity and was taking it."…A few days past (sic) and news was going around the school that she changed her mind and was staying, so that caused disruption throughout the classes in progress and we haven't heard from her since.
Last Friday, September 19, my guidance counselor told me he has just received a letter from the DOE stating he was just excessed and reassigned to a part time position till (sic) he finds a school to work at. I felt like I was just stabbed because it really hurt that out of any staff member it would be him because I was losing someone very close to me. I was so emotional, I started crying hysterically not even realizing that it would make a change but it hurt not only me, but over 100 students gathered in his office crying and thanking him for his help and motivation.
Not only did they remove him but also our college advisor, so it's just so much pressure on us during senior year to have to have new staff who (sic) doesn't know us and for us to be reassigned to new counselors is just beyond ridiculous. They could have at least remained with us till (sic) the school year was done.
At that point I wanted to transfer to another school but I couldn't because I would have been leaving a lot behind. I'm basically writing this to make a change for the better, because I'm a very great student and want to let everyone know what is currently going on at Canarsie High School and need help trying to get some of our staff back to Canarsie High School. Thank you for your time and cooperation!
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Let ATR Teachers Teach
Teachers:
TAGNYC was contacted by Marjorie Stamberg, a UFT activist fighting on behalf of ATRs. Make no mistake. All teachers are potential ATRs. A year ago TAGNYC warned that the creation of the Absent Teacher Reserve was a way to remove teachers permanently. This ATR scheme is also known as the "Chicago Model" after the city where it originated . Teachers there are placed in non-permanent - ATR- positions and given one year to find a permanent classroom position. If they do not find a permanent classroom position within that year, they are terminated.
Marjorie's campaign is detailed below. This is not her fight. It is our fight. Randi Weingarten has been a failed labor leader. She must be made to 'walk the walk' and deliver. For those who want to contact Weingarten directly: rweingarten@uft.org
TAGNYC
Hi everyone,
I'm working on a petition campaign to the UFT, asking the union to call a rally at the NYCDOE to "Let ATR Teachers Teach." We want to present it at an upcoming Exec Board, and Delegate Assembly.
The last couple weeks, there's been a lot of buzz (from the press, from UFT members) that the union is close to some kind of "deal" on the ATRs. Last week's article in the New York Post that there are almost 1,400 ATRs in the system, and that the UFT and DOE are "talking" is very interesting.
Meanwhile, the situation of teachers in the ATR pool is urgent. Obviously everyone is affected. With classrooms more overcrowded than ever, it is outrageous that some 1,400 teachers are being prevented from teaching. This is a direct result of the union's sellout of seniority transfers in the 2005 contract.
The union must act. Attached is a petition calling on the UFT to organize a mass citywide rally to demand that the ATRs be given positions before any new teachers are placed. I would like to ask colleagues to take this up in their schools and the various teacher groups that they participate in. Let's try to have a meeting of those interested in working on this, quite soon.
I hope people at TAGNYC will be interested in working on this. People can get back to me by e-mail, or cell 917-545-5671. Petitions could be faxed back to me at 212 614-8711.
Thanks,
Marjorie
Let ATR Teachers Teach
As the new school year starts, schools are more overcrowded than ever. State money budgeted for reducing class size is used for other purposes. More than half (54 percent) of New York City schools have seen their class sizes or student-teacher ratios increase in recent years. At the same time, there are almost 1,400 teachers sitting in Absent Teacher Reserve, who are ready and able to teach! These are highly qualified teachers, many with years of experience. They are being prevented from teaching because their schools have been reorganized out from under them, and in many cases principals find it "cheaper" to hire less experienced teachers.
The huge ATR pool is a direct result of the 2005 UFT contract which sold out seniority transfers. Previously, tenured teachers were guaranteed a position; today they’re sitting in the Teacher Reserve. So after the DOE created this mess, now City Hall and the media are blaming the ATRed teachers. The "New Teacher Project," funded by the DOE, calls for ATR teachers to be put on unpaid leave after a year – in other words, that they be fired. The DOE says it is talking with the UFT leadership about this. Others are floating the idea of "buyouts," in which teachers will be forced out with minimal severance pay. (Even if they are supposedly "voluntary," many will be pushed out the school door.)
This issue affects all teachers. If tenured teachers can be forced out on a large scale, what job protection is left? And it’s bad for students and parents. When the DOE refuses to reduce class size while keeping qualified teachers out of the classroom, kids suffer. The United Federation of Teachers must speak up and insist that there be no firings, no concessions on the no-layoffs clause, and demand that all ATR teachers who want them be given permanent assignments to classes.
We the undersigned call on the UFT to organize a mass citywide rally calling on the NYC Department of Education to reduce class size and give assigned positions to all teachers in the Absent Teacher Reserve who want assignments before any new teachers are placed.
________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________
Fax petitions to Marjorie Stamberg at 212-614-8711. PRINT NAME E-MAIL SCHOOL
TAGNYC was contacted by Marjorie Stamberg, a UFT activist fighting on behalf of ATRs. Make no mistake. All teachers are potential ATRs. A year ago TAGNYC warned that the creation of the Absent Teacher Reserve was a way to remove teachers permanently. This ATR scheme is also known as the "Chicago Model" after the city where it originated . Teachers there are placed in non-permanent - ATR- positions and given one year to find a permanent classroom position. If they do not find a permanent classroom position within that year, they are terminated.
Marjorie's campaign is detailed below. This is not her fight. It is our fight. Randi Weingarten has been a failed labor leader. She must be made to 'walk the walk' and deliver. For those who want to contact Weingarten directly: rweingarten@uft.org
TAGNYC
Hi everyone,
I'm working on a petition campaign to the UFT, asking the union to call a rally at the NYCDOE to "Let ATR Teachers Teach." We want to present it at an upcoming Exec Board, and Delegate Assembly.
The last couple weeks, there's been a lot of buzz (from the press, from UFT members) that the union is close to some kind of "deal" on the ATRs. Last week's article in the New York Post that there are almost 1,400 ATRs in the system, and that the UFT and DOE are "talking" is very interesting.
Meanwhile, the situation of teachers in the ATR pool is urgent. Obviously everyone is affected. With classrooms more overcrowded than ever, it is outrageous that some 1,400 teachers are being prevented from teaching. This is a direct result of the union's sellout of seniority transfers in the 2005 contract.
The union must act. Attached is a petition calling on the UFT to organize a mass citywide rally to demand that the ATRs be given positions before any new teachers are placed. I would like to ask colleagues to take this up in their schools and the various teacher groups that they participate in. Let's try to have a meeting of those interested in working on this, quite soon.
I hope people at TAGNYC will be interested in working on this. People can get back to me by e-mail, or cell 917-545-5671. Petitions could be faxed back to me at 212 614-8711.
Thanks,
Marjorie
Let ATR Teachers Teach
As the new school year starts, schools are more overcrowded than ever. State money budgeted for reducing class size is used for other purposes. More than half (54 percent) of New York City schools have seen their class sizes or student-teacher ratios increase in recent years. At the same time, there are almost 1,400 teachers sitting in Absent Teacher Reserve, who are ready and able to teach! These are highly qualified teachers, many with years of experience. They are being prevented from teaching because their schools have been reorganized out from under them, and in many cases principals find it "cheaper" to hire less experienced teachers.
The huge ATR pool is a direct result of the 2005 UFT contract which sold out seniority transfers. Previously, tenured teachers were guaranteed a position; today they’re sitting in the Teacher Reserve. So after the DOE created this mess, now City Hall and the media are blaming the ATRed teachers. The "New Teacher Project," funded by the DOE, calls for ATR teachers to be put on unpaid leave after a year – in other words, that they be fired. The DOE says it is talking with the UFT leadership about this. Others are floating the idea of "buyouts," in which teachers will be forced out with minimal severance pay. (Even if they are supposedly "voluntary," many will be pushed out the school door.)
This issue affects all teachers. If tenured teachers can be forced out on a large scale, what job protection is left? And it’s bad for students and parents. When the DOE refuses to reduce class size while keeping qualified teachers out of the classroom, kids suffer. The United Federation of Teachers must speak up and insist that there be no firings, no concessions on the no-layoffs clause, and demand that all ATR teachers who want them be given permanent assignments to classes.
We the undersigned call on the UFT to organize a mass citywide rally calling on the NYC Department of Education to reduce class size and give assigned positions to all teachers in the Absent Teacher Reserve who want assignments before any new teachers are placed.
________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________
Fax petitions to Marjorie Stamberg at 212-614-8711. PRINT NAME E-MAIL SCHOOL
Saturday, September 27, 2008
UFT Urges Department of Education to Save City Funds
By Helping Reserve Pool Educators Find Permanent Posts
Sept. 25
The United Federation of Teachers today reiterated its call for the city Department of Education to help hundreds of seasoned and solid educators do what they are paid to do: teach kids on a full-time basis rather than fill day-to-day vacancies in schools.
Citing the “Let Us Teach” theme of the affected educators, UFT President Randi Weingarten said 1,400 qualified educators in the Absent Teacher Reserve (ATR) are being denied permanent teaching positions because the department did not manage its personnel situation properly.
“By using the ATR teachers to fill vacancies in the way we are proposing – particularly during this period of fiscal uncertainty – millions of dollars can be saved and thousands of kids can be served,” she said.
“Here we have hundreds of dedicated and experienced educators who, through no fault of their own, were excessed from their teaching jobs and are still looking for permanent jobs after many months of trying to get interviews,” Weingarten told reporters during a press conference at UFT headquarters at 52 Broadway in Lower Manhattan. “We have canvassed 160 of them so far and they all report that they have applied for 20 or more vacancies in schools without getting a single interview,” she said.
One such ATR is Camille LoParrino, a 20-year teaching veteran and reading specialist who is currently substituting at the Globe School for Environmental Research. “As an ATR, my experience has been overlooked by the Department of Education so that it can hire less expensive teachers,” she said, adding, “People with 20 or 30 years of experience should be highly regarded, not turned into substitutes.”
“I want to teach and I love to teach, but I have been pushed away,” said Lawrence Teller, an eight-year veteran social studies teacher currently teaching technology classes at Far Rockaway High School. “This is a horrible situation for children and teachers. The best person for the job has been kicked out of the classroom because the Department of Education wants to hire cheaper teachers.”
Weingarten’s salvo against the DOE came in response to The New Teacher Project (TNTP), a non-profit organization that gets a significant portion of its operating revenues from working with the Department of Education to help recruit new teachers, reissuing a report from last spring on the ATRs with an updated afterword bashing the UFT earlier this week.
“Back in the spring we called The New Teacher Project a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Department of Education. We were wrong,” Weingarten said today. “We submitted a Freedom of Information or FOIL request for their financial records and it turns out they receive a third of their contract funding from the DOE. It’s clear they have a financial stake in doing what they’re doing, which only makes things worse.”
“It just didn’t make sense to recruit thousands of new teachers to fill vacancies when there is a pool of seasoned and talented teachers who have been trying for many months to secure permanent positions,” Weingarten noted. “The DOE actively helps new teachers land positions by promoting their availability via e-mail to administrators, organizing job fairs and sending them on interviews. It should do as much for the ATR teachers who are truly facing an uphill battle. They are not being placed or sent on interviews, and the burden is completely on them to find new positions.
“It also doesn’t make sense that there are built-in disincentives deriving from the current funding formula that essentially make it hard for principals to accept a seasoned teacher in a school,” Weingarten said.
“What is most angering about The New Teacher Project’s irresponsible blast fest against the union is that they and the DOE ignored our call for a real moratorium on new hiring until the ATRs are placed,” she said. “Rather than give the ATRs a chance, the DOE hired new teachers knowing full-well that this would happen, and then they had the audacity to blame us.
Weingarten went on to say that the DOE’s restructuring and phasing out of schools has resulted in more and more veteran teachers being placed in the ATR pool.
“The DOE’s treatment of teachers in the ATR pool essentially punishes them for having the courage to work in at-risk schools,” Weingarten said. “It’s not fair to ask great teachers to work in challenging schools, close the schools later and then tell the teachers, as The New Teacher Project proposed, ‘You’re on your own and you may be fired.’ Who would want to take on such a challenge?”
Adding insult to injury, no matter how qualified they might be, many ATR teachers are considered financial liabilities by principals because under the current funding formula individual schools – rather than the central Department of Education – are responsible for the salaries of their teachers. As a result, a principal can save money by hiring a new teacher with a lower salary than that of an ATR teacher to fill a vacancy. The principal can also save by continuing to use ATRs on a day-to-day basis – with the cost covered by the DOE – instead of hiring the ATR to fill the position permanently and assuming responsibility for that teacher’s salary.
“If a principal is benefiting from an ATR teacher paid for by the DOE, the principal has no incentive to hire that teacher,” Weingarten said. “So the ATR pool will continue to grow as long as the DOE continues the status quo.”
Weingarten noted that the union has worked hard to help ATRs find permanent jobs, having filed an age discrimination suit against the DOE as well as a union-initiated grievance that is pending. The union has also sought to negotiate a moratorium on new hires to give the DOE a chance to place ATRs and has cited the funding formula for its negative effect on them. Today Weingarten reiterated her call for the DOE to cover the additional salary costs of ATRs and end the pay disincentive for principals in order to put them on equal footing with new teachers in terms of seeking placements.
She added that in light of Mayor Bloomberg’s latest rounds of budget cuts, the DOE should:
* Establish an immediate hiring freeze at the central DOE and at schools for any license areas where there are people in excess and available for placement.
* Embark upon a redeployment of teachers and other excessed personnel in the ATR pool.
* Develop a program to recertify excessed personnel in additional license areas so that they are available to fill vacancies as they arise.
“Instead of blaming teachers, the DOE would do well to work with the union to find permanent jobs for them,” Weingarten said. “They want to teach, and the kids want and need the benefit of their experience. That’s the solution that works for everyone.”
Sept. 25
The United Federation of Teachers today reiterated its call for the city Department of Education to help hundreds of seasoned and solid educators do what they are paid to do: teach kids on a full-time basis rather than fill day-to-day vacancies in schools.
Citing the “Let Us Teach” theme of the affected educators, UFT President Randi Weingarten said 1,400 qualified educators in the Absent Teacher Reserve (ATR) are being denied permanent teaching positions because the department did not manage its personnel situation properly.
“By using the ATR teachers to fill vacancies in the way we are proposing – particularly during this period of fiscal uncertainty – millions of dollars can be saved and thousands of kids can be served,” she said.
“Here we have hundreds of dedicated and experienced educators who, through no fault of their own, were excessed from their teaching jobs and are still looking for permanent jobs after many months of trying to get interviews,” Weingarten told reporters during a press conference at UFT headquarters at 52 Broadway in Lower Manhattan. “We have canvassed 160 of them so far and they all report that they have applied for 20 or more vacancies in schools without getting a single interview,” she said.
One such ATR is Camille LoParrino, a 20-year teaching veteran and reading specialist who is currently substituting at the Globe School for Environmental Research. “As an ATR, my experience has been overlooked by the Department of Education so that it can hire less expensive teachers,” she said, adding, “People with 20 or 30 years of experience should be highly regarded, not turned into substitutes.”
“I want to teach and I love to teach, but I have been pushed away,” said Lawrence Teller, an eight-year veteran social studies teacher currently teaching technology classes at Far Rockaway High School. “This is a horrible situation for children and teachers. The best person for the job has been kicked out of the classroom because the Department of Education wants to hire cheaper teachers.”
Weingarten’s salvo against the DOE came in response to The New Teacher Project (TNTP), a non-profit organization that gets a significant portion of its operating revenues from working with the Department of Education to help recruit new teachers, reissuing a report from last spring on the ATRs with an updated afterword bashing the UFT earlier this week.
“Back in the spring we called The New Teacher Project a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Department of Education. We were wrong,” Weingarten said today. “We submitted a Freedom of Information or FOIL request for their financial records and it turns out they receive a third of their contract funding from the DOE. It’s clear they have a financial stake in doing what they’re doing, which only makes things worse.”
“It just didn’t make sense to recruit thousands of new teachers to fill vacancies when there is a pool of seasoned and talented teachers who have been trying for many months to secure permanent positions,” Weingarten noted. “The DOE actively helps new teachers land positions by promoting their availability via e-mail to administrators, organizing job fairs and sending them on interviews. It should do as much for the ATR teachers who are truly facing an uphill battle. They are not being placed or sent on interviews, and the burden is completely on them to find new positions.
“It also doesn’t make sense that there are built-in disincentives deriving from the current funding formula that essentially make it hard for principals to accept a seasoned teacher in a school,” Weingarten said.
“What is most angering about The New Teacher Project’s irresponsible blast fest against the union is that they and the DOE ignored our call for a real moratorium on new hiring until the ATRs are placed,” she said. “Rather than give the ATRs a chance, the DOE hired new teachers knowing full-well that this would happen, and then they had the audacity to blame us.
Weingarten went on to say that the DOE’s restructuring and phasing out of schools has resulted in more and more veteran teachers being placed in the ATR pool.
“The DOE’s treatment of teachers in the ATR pool essentially punishes them for having the courage to work in at-risk schools,” Weingarten said. “It’s not fair to ask great teachers to work in challenging schools, close the schools later and then tell the teachers, as The New Teacher Project proposed, ‘You’re on your own and you may be fired.’ Who would want to take on such a challenge?”
Adding insult to injury, no matter how qualified they might be, many ATR teachers are considered financial liabilities by principals because under the current funding formula individual schools – rather than the central Department of Education – are responsible for the salaries of their teachers. As a result, a principal can save money by hiring a new teacher with a lower salary than that of an ATR teacher to fill a vacancy. The principal can also save by continuing to use ATRs on a day-to-day basis – with the cost covered by the DOE – instead of hiring the ATR to fill the position permanently and assuming responsibility for that teacher’s salary.
“If a principal is benefiting from an ATR teacher paid for by the DOE, the principal has no incentive to hire that teacher,” Weingarten said. “So the ATR pool will continue to grow as long as the DOE continues the status quo.”
Weingarten noted that the union has worked hard to help ATRs find permanent jobs, having filed an age discrimination suit against the DOE as well as a union-initiated grievance that is pending. The union has also sought to negotiate a moratorium on new hires to give the DOE a chance to place ATRs and has cited the funding formula for its negative effect on them. Today Weingarten reiterated her call for the DOE to cover the additional salary costs of ATRs and end the pay disincentive for principals in order to put them on equal footing with new teachers in terms of seeking placements.
She added that in light of Mayor Bloomberg’s latest rounds of budget cuts, the DOE should:
* Establish an immediate hiring freeze at the central DOE and at schools for any license areas where there are people in excess and available for placement.
* Embark upon a redeployment of teachers and other excessed personnel in the ATR pool.
* Develop a program to recertify excessed personnel in additional license areas so that they are available to fill vacancies as they arise.
“Instead of blaming teachers, the DOE would do well to work with the union to find permanent jobs for them,” Weingarten said. “They want to teach, and the kids want and need the benefit of their experience. That’s the solution that works for everyone.”
Friday, September 26, 2008
Union, City Dig In Heels Over Fate of Reserve Teachers
Union, City Dig In Heels Over Fate of Reserve Teachers
By ELIZABETH GREEN, Staff Reporter of the Sun | September 26, 2008
http://www.nysun.com/new-york/union-city-dig-in-heels-over-fate-of-reserve/86684/
There appears to be no easy agreement in sight in a battle between the city teachers union and the Department of Education over what to do with teachers who are on the city payroll but not in full-time teaching spots.
The debate kicked off this spring when a nonprofit group reported that the teachers cost the city $81 million between 2006 and 2007. A second round launched this week when the same group, The New Teacher Project, projected that the teachers will cost the city $74 million this year alone.
The report led the union and the department to relaunch private discussions about the issue — and led each to issue public letters with their most detailed proposals yet on how to resolve it.
Both sides say the pool is a waste of taxpayer dollars, but they differ sharply on how to drain it.
The pool of teachers, known as the Absent Teacher Reserve, was created as a result of the 2005 teacher contract, which required that both teachers and principals consent to every placement of a teacher in a school.
The result is that teachers whose positions are eliminated have no guaranteed spot at a school, and they remain on the city payroll without a full-time position unless a principal agrees to hire them.
To deal with the glut — which grew this year by more than 700 teachers, to a total of more than 1,000 — each side is proposing a different solution.
The president of the city teachers union, Randi Weingarten, is proposing that the city halt all hires of new teachers until the teachers in the reserve pool are placed.
Mr. Klein is instead proposing that the city remove teachers who are in the pool if they do not find a placement after a certain period of time.
Neither side is prepared to budge. Ms. Weingarten is calling Mr. Klein's proposal an abandonment of the job security she negotiated for as a condition of allowing the 2005 contract's open-market principles.
She is also saying that Mr. Klein's idea would hurt the city's efforts to attract quality teachers to difficult schools.
Many of the reserve teachers lost their positions when their schools were shut down by the city, and Ms. Weingarten said that allowing their jobs to be cut could send a bad message to possible teachers.
Mr. Klein is fighting back, pointing out that Ms. Weingarten's recommendation to freeze new hires would create a situation in which a principal could only choose his new hires from the reserve pool.
Mr. Klein is saying that tying principals' hands in this way would be a return to the pre-2005 contract, in which teachers were forcibly placed in schools according to seniority, whether prinicpals wanted them or not.
By ELIZABETH GREEN, Staff Reporter of the Sun | September 26, 2008
http://www.nysun.com/new-york/union-city-dig-in-heels-over-fate-of-reserve/86684/
There appears to be no easy agreement in sight in a battle between the city teachers union and the Department of Education over what to do with teachers who are on the city payroll but not in full-time teaching spots.
The debate kicked off this spring when a nonprofit group reported that the teachers cost the city $81 million between 2006 and 2007. A second round launched this week when the same group, The New Teacher Project, projected that the teachers will cost the city $74 million this year alone.
The report led the union and the department to relaunch private discussions about the issue — and led each to issue public letters with their most detailed proposals yet on how to resolve it.
Both sides say the pool is a waste of taxpayer dollars, but they differ sharply on how to drain it.
The pool of teachers, known as the Absent Teacher Reserve, was created as a result of the 2005 teacher contract, which required that both teachers and principals consent to every placement of a teacher in a school.
The result is that teachers whose positions are eliminated have no guaranteed spot at a school, and they remain on the city payroll without a full-time position unless a principal agrees to hire them.
To deal with the glut — which grew this year by more than 700 teachers, to a total of more than 1,000 — each side is proposing a different solution.
The president of the city teachers union, Randi Weingarten, is proposing that the city halt all hires of new teachers until the teachers in the reserve pool are placed.
Mr. Klein is instead proposing that the city remove teachers who are in the pool if they do not find a placement after a certain period of time.
Neither side is prepared to budge. Ms. Weingarten is calling Mr. Klein's proposal an abandonment of the job security she negotiated for as a condition of allowing the 2005 contract's open-market principles.
She is also saying that Mr. Klein's idea would hurt the city's efforts to attract quality teachers to difficult schools.
Many of the reserve teachers lost their positions when their schools were shut down by the city, and Ms. Weingarten said that allowing their jobs to be cut could send a bad message to possible teachers.
Mr. Klein is fighting back, pointing out that Ms. Weingarten's recommendation to freeze new hires would create a situation in which a principal could only choose his new hires from the reserve pool.
Mr. Klein is saying that tying principals' hands in this way would be a return to the pre-2005 contract, in which teachers were forcibly placed in schools according to seniority, whether prinicpals wanted them or not.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Randi Weingarten and Joel Klein exchange letters on ATR's, Budget
September 24, 2008
Hon. Joel I. Klein
Chancellor
New York City Public Schools
Department of Education
52 Chambers Street
New York, NY 10007
Dear Chancellor Klein:
The latest effects of the Wall Street lending crisis has left us all with a deep sense of
uncertainty and unease, but it also presents us with an opportunity to stand together for
the children of this city. With families across the five boroughs already struggling, it is all
the more imperative that we do all we can to insulate our students and their classrooms
from this economic crisis and ensure that every student has a strong, safe and stable
learning environment.
As we navigate through this crisis, tough decisions obviously need to be made. As is our
practice, we have some ideas and proposals on how we mitigate some of the challenges
ahead without adversely affecting the classroom. Creative thinking and smart choices
protected schools from cuts earlier this year, and I strongly believe that we can duplicate
that success now.
In the spirit of partnership and collaboration, we urge you to adopt and implement the
following three measures:
1. An immediate hiring freeze at the central Department of Education, and at the school
and district level for any license areas where there are people in excess and available for
placement.
2. A redeployment of teachers and other excessed personnel in the Absent Teacher
Reserve (ATR) into vacancies as they arise.
3. Develop a program to recertify excessed personnel in additional license areas, so they
are available to fill vacancies as they arise.
The first two measures should help the Department of Education recognize immediate
cost savings, and the third recommendation would be a valuable investment in personnel
management.
We look forward to discussing these ideas and others in the days ahead.
Yours sincerely,
Randi Weingarten
Cc: Deputy Mayor Edward Skyler
Commissioner of Labor James F. Hanley
Deputy Chancellor Christopher Cerf
Klein responds
Dear Randi:
Thank you for your letter yesterday regarding the fiscal challenges facing the City and their impact on our schools.
I wholeheartedly agree that our priority should be to limit the impact of the budget reductions on classrooms and I welcome the opportunity to work with you and your team toward this end.
However, I want to reiterate that we will not alter our policy on forced placement of teachers. It makes sense to try to limit the significant and growing cost of unselected excessed teachers in the Absent Teacher Reserve, but doing so by forcing these teachers into schools is not the answer. A return to this discredited practice, which harmed our schools for decades, would, once more, require schools to accept teachers regardless of whether principals and faculty believe they are the best candidates or good fits for positions.
At our announcement of the School-wide Performance Bonus awards last week, you and I both emphasized the critical need for teacher quality and effective collaboration among teachers and supervisors. You said, “We know, and I think there has become a real consensus in this City, that teacher quality and collaboration are real keys – pivotal keys – to turning around student achievement in schools.” Forced placement contradicts both of those goals. It would be far better to give excessed teachers a reasonable period of time to find a position before they are placed on unpaid leave. Such a policy would mitigate the cost while maintaining fairness and obviating the need for forced placement and all the negative repercussions a return to that system would bring.
I look forward to continuing our conversation on this critical issue and to receiving your input as we work to address our current budget situation.
Sincerely,
Joel I. Klein
FACT SHEET ON EXCESSED TEACHERS (from DOE)
Background
· Fact: Most Excessed Teachers Are Finding Jobs
o Only about 9% of the 2,742 teachers excessed in 2006 are still in excess. Well over 1,000 excesses – across all seniority levels –found regular teaching positions by applying for vacancies, interviewing with principals, and demonstrating that they were the best candidates for the positions. More than 14,000 positions across the city were filled since 2006.
o Of the 1418 teacher excessed in 2007, only 351 are still in excess after one year.
o Of the 2,039 teachers excessed in 2008, 758 are still in excess today.
· Fact: Excessed Teachers are Provided with Extensive Hiring Support
o The New Teacher Project provides excessed teachers with newsletters, workshops on resume writing and interviewing, one-on-one job-search assistance, bulletins with vacancy lists, job fairs across the City, and an on-line application system exclusively for excessed teachers.
o In the summer of 2008, TNTP sent bi-weekly newsletters to excessed staff with job fair information and job search tips, maintained a web site for excessed staff with job search tips, offered 15 skill-building workshops, answered 1,000 calls to a hotline set up for excessed teachers, and reached out by phone to excessed teachers who appeared to be inactive in their job searches.
· Fact: The Excessed Teacher Pool includes Junior and Senior Teachers, and Senior Excessed Teachers Have Been Hired at the Same Rate as Junior Teachers
o Excessed teachers who haven’t been hired are just as likely to be newer teachers as they are to be more experienced teachers.
Seniority of Excessed Teachers as of 9/5/2008
0 to 3 years 343 24.6%
4 to 6 years 245 17.6%
7 to 12 years 305 21.9%
13 to 19 years 262 18.8%
20+ years 240 17.2%
Total 1395 100.0%
o Excessed teachers across experience levels are equally likely to be hired to a position at another school:
· 35% of teachers excessed in 2006 with 0-3 years experience were hired by April 2008.
· 41% of teachers excessed in 2006 with 4-6 years experience were hired by April 2008.
· 47% of teachers excessed in 2006 with 7-12 years experience were hired by April 2008.
· 45% of teachers excessed in 2006 with 13-19 years experience were hired by April 2008.
· 38% of teachers excessed in 2006 with 20+ years experience were hired by April 2008.
o Another approximately 40% of excessed teachers are reabsorbed into the school from which they were excessed when positions opened up.
· Fact: The DOE Offers Schools a Subsidy for Hiring Senior Excessed Teachers
o The DOE pays the difference between a hired excessed teacher’s salary and a starting teacher’s salary (which could be as much as $55,000) for the first year, and half that difference for the second year, when a school hires a teacher who has been in excess for at least 6 months.
· Fact: Unselected Excessed Teachers Applied to Fewer Jobs
o Of the 235 unselected teachers excessed in 2006, about half did not apply for any teaching vacancies through the open market system, and they attended fewer hiring fairs.
o Of the 351 unselected teachers excessed in 2007, 62% did not apply for any teaching vacancies through the open market system in 2007 and 75% of these same teachers did not apply for any teaching vacancies through the open market system in 2008.
o Of the 758 unselected teachers excessed in 2008, half did not apply for any teaching vacancies through the open market system.
o During 2007 and 2008, more than 4,500 teachers were hired by schools through the open market system.
· Fact: Unselected Excessed Teachers Are More Likely to Have a History of Unsatisfactory Performance
o As of December 2007, nearly 15% of unselected excessed teachers had been rated unsatisfactory by their principal in the past 10 years, compared to only 5% of selected excessed teachers.
o As of December 2006, 20% of unselected excessed teachers with 13 or more years’ experience had prior unsatisfactory ratings compared with 7% of more junior teachers
o Excessed teachers who have been rated unsatisfactory by a principal at least once were hired at less than half the rate as excessed teachers who had never been rated unsatisfactory between December 2006 and September 2007.
o 7% of teachers excessed in 2008 who have not yet been hired by a school had previously been rated unsatisfactory, compared to 2% of teachers excessed in 2008 who have been hired.
o Approximately 1.8% of all teachers overall were rated unsatisfactory last school year.
· Fact: The Cost of Excessed Teachers in the Absent Teacher Reserve for a Year or More is Substantial and Growing
o The cost in salaries and benefits for the 635 unselected teachers excessed in 2006 and 2007—who have been in the excess pool for a year or longer—could be as much as $60 million in this fiscal year.
Hon. Joel I. Klein
Chancellor
New York City Public Schools
Department of Education
52 Chambers Street
New York, NY 10007
Dear Chancellor Klein:
The latest effects of the Wall Street lending crisis has left us all with a deep sense of
uncertainty and unease, but it also presents us with an opportunity to stand together for
the children of this city. With families across the five boroughs already struggling, it is all
the more imperative that we do all we can to insulate our students and their classrooms
from this economic crisis and ensure that every student has a strong, safe and stable
learning environment.
As we navigate through this crisis, tough decisions obviously need to be made. As is our
practice, we have some ideas and proposals on how we mitigate some of the challenges
ahead without adversely affecting the classroom. Creative thinking and smart choices
protected schools from cuts earlier this year, and I strongly believe that we can duplicate
that success now.
In the spirit of partnership and collaboration, we urge you to adopt and implement the
following three measures:
1. An immediate hiring freeze at the central Department of Education, and at the school
and district level for any license areas where there are people in excess and available for
placement.
2. A redeployment of teachers and other excessed personnel in the Absent Teacher
Reserve (ATR) into vacancies as they arise.
3. Develop a program to recertify excessed personnel in additional license areas, so they
are available to fill vacancies as they arise.
The first two measures should help the Department of Education recognize immediate
cost savings, and the third recommendation would be a valuable investment in personnel
management.
We look forward to discussing these ideas and others in the days ahead.
Yours sincerely,
Randi Weingarten
Cc: Deputy Mayor Edward Skyler
Commissioner of Labor James F. Hanley
Deputy Chancellor Christopher Cerf
Klein responds
Dear Randi:
Thank you for your letter yesterday regarding the fiscal challenges facing the City and their impact on our schools.
I wholeheartedly agree that our priority should be to limit the impact of the budget reductions on classrooms and I welcome the opportunity to work with you and your team toward this end.
However, I want to reiterate that we will not alter our policy on forced placement of teachers. It makes sense to try to limit the significant and growing cost of unselected excessed teachers in the Absent Teacher Reserve, but doing so by forcing these teachers into schools is not the answer. A return to this discredited practice, which harmed our schools for decades, would, once more, require schools to accept teachers regardless of whether principals and faculty believe they are the best candidates or good fits for positions.
At our announcement of the School-wide Performance Bonus awards last week, you and I both emphasized the critical need for teacher quality and effective collaboration among teachers and supervisors. You said, “We know, and I think there has become a real consensus in this City, that teacher quality and collaboration are real keys – pivotal keys – to turning around student achievement in schools.” Forced placement contradicts both of those goals. It would be far better to give excessed teachers a reasonable period of time to find a position before they are placed on unpaid leave. Such a policy would mitigate the cost while maintaining fairness and obviating the need for forced placement and all the negative repercussions a return to that system would bring.
I look forward to continuing our conversation on this critical issue and to receiving your input as we work to address our current budget situation.
Sincerely,
Joel I. Klein
FACT SHEET ON EXCESSED TEACHERS (from DOE)
Background
· Fact: Most Excessed Teachers Are Finding Jobs
o Only about 9% of the 2,742 teachers excessed in 2006 are still in excess. Well over 1,000 excesses – across all seniority levels –found regular teaching positions by applying for vacancies, interviewing with principals, and demonstrating that they were the best candidates for the positions. More than 14,000 positions across the city were filled since 2006.
o Of the 1418 teacher excessed in 2007, only 351 are still in excess after one year.
o Of the 2,039 teachers excessed in 2008, 758 are still in excess today.
· Fact: Excessed Teachers are Provided with Extensive Hiring Support
o The New Teacher Project provides excessed teachers with newsletters, workshops on resume writing and interviewing, one-on-one job-search assistance, bulletins with vacancy lists, job fairs across the City, and an on-line application system exclusively for excessed teachers.
o In the summer of 2008, TNTP sent bi-weekly newsletters to excessed staff with job fair information and job search tips, maintained a web site for excessed staff with job search tips, offered 15 skill-building workshops, answered 1,000 calls to a hotline set up for excessed teachers, and reached out by phone to excessed teachers who appeared to be inactive in their job searches.
· Fact: The Excessed Teacher Pool includes Junior and Senior Teachers, and Senior Excessed Teachers Have Been Hired at the Same Rate as Junior Teachers
o Excessed teachers who haven’t been hired are just as likely to be newer teachers as they are to be more experienced teachers.
Seniority of Excessed Teachers as of 9/5/2008
0 to 3 years 343 24.6%
4 to 6 years 245 17.6%
7 to 12 years 305 21.9%
13 to 19 years 262 18.8%
20+ years 240 17.2%
Total 1395 100.0%
o Excessed teachers across experience levels are equally likely to be hired to a position at another school:
· 35% of teachers excessed in 2006 with 0-3 years experience were hired by April 2008.
· 41% of teachers excessed in 2006 with 4-6 years experience were hired by April 2008.
· 47% of teachers excessed in 2006 with 7-12 years experience were hired by April 2008.
· 45% of teachers excessed in 2006 with 13-19 years experience were hired by April 2008.
· 38% of teachers excessed in 2006 with 20+ years experience were hired by April 2008.
o Another approximately 40% of excessed teachers are reabsorbed into the school from which they were excessed when positions opened up.
· Fact: The DOE Offers Schools a Subsidy for Hiring Senior Excessed Teachers
o The DOE pays the difference between a hired excessed teacher’s salary and a starting teacher’s salary (which could be as much as $55,000) for the first year, and half that difference for the second year, when a school hires a teacher who has been in excess for at least 6 months.
· Fact: Unselected Excessed Teachers Applied to Fewer Jobs
o Of the 235 unselected teachers excessed in 2006, about half did not apply for any teaching vacancies through the open market system, and they attended fewer hiring fairs.
o Of the 351 unselected teachers excessed in 2007, 62% did not apply for any teaching vacancies through the open market system in 2007 and 75% of these same teachers did not apply for any teaching vacancies through the open market system in 2008.
o Of the 758 unselected teachers excessed in 2008, half did not apply for any teaching vacancies through the open market system.
o During 2007 and 2008, more than 4,500 teachers were hired by schools through the open market system.
· Fact: Unselected Excessed Teachers Are More Likely to Have a History of Unsatisfactory Performance
o As of December 2007, nearly 15% of unselected excessed teachers had been rated unsatisfactory by their principal in the past 10 years, compared to only 5% of selected excessed teachers.
o As of December 2006, 20% of unselected excessed teachers with 13 or more years’ experience had prior unsatisfactory ratings compared with 7% of more junior teachers
o Excessed teachers who have been rated unsatisfactory by a principal at least once were hired at less than half the rate as excessed teachers who had never been rated unsatisfactory between December 2006 and September 2007.
o 7% of teachers excessed in 2008 who have not yet been hired by a school had previously been rated unsatisfactory, compared to 2% of teachers excessed in 2008 who have been hired.
o Approximately 1.8% of all teachers overall were rated unsatisfactory last school year.
· Fact: The Cost of Excessed Teachers in the Absent Teacher Reserve for a Year or More is Substantial and Growing
o The cost in salaries and benefits for the 635 unselected teachers excessed in 2006 and 2007—who have been in the excess pool for a year or longer—could be as much as $60 million in this fiscal year.
Monday, September 22, 2008
The "Cost" of ATR's- 3 articles today
Report: Absent Teacher Reserve Draining City of $74M in 2008
By ELIZABETH GREEN, Staff Reporter of the Sun | September 22, 2008
http://www.nysun.com/new-york/report-absent-teacher-reserve-draining-city/86316/
At a cost of $74 million to taxpayers, nearly 1,000 teachers will be on the city payroll this school year despite not holding full-time jobs in public schools, a report being released Monday projects.
That total is on top of an estimated $81 million the city spent in 2006 and 2007 combined on teachers who were not hired for full-time positions.
The report is the second attempt by the nonprofit that wrote it, the New Teacher Project, to draw attention to a deadlock between the United Federation of Teachers and the Department of Education on the question of what to do with the teachers creating the excess costs.
The teachers, part of what is known as the Absent Teacher Reserve, are on the payroll as a result of the 2005 teacher contract, which converted the public schools' hiring process for teachers into an open market, meaning both teachers and principals have to consent to every placement in a school. Previously, schools had been forced to hire the most senior teacher looking for a job.
Teachers move into the Absent Teacher Reserve if they are pushed out of their jobs, or "excessed," without being fired, and cannot find a new full-time position in the system.
Under the current contract, both tenured and untenured teachers receive full-time salary and benefits even if they remain in the reserve pool forever.
Some untenured teachers are also earning tenure — a designation that comes with extra job protections and benefits — while sitting in the reserve, sometimes after teaching in a classroom for less than a year.
As of last September, 30 teachers had become eligible for tenure while serving in the reserve, and 51 more in the reserve could become eligible for tenure this year, according to the report.
Some older teachers complain about being put in the reserve, saying the reason they cannot find placements is that they have higher salaries and therefore cost more to principals already under a budget crunch. (The department offers an incentive to hire senior teachers in their first year out of the reserve, but the incentive disappears after that.)
Both the teachers union and the Department of Education have said they would like to address the situation.
Hopes were raised that some kind of solution would be reached when the New Teacher Project released its first report in April, offering proposals such as placing a time limit on how long teachers can stay in the reserve and making senior and novice teachers effectively cost the same amount to principals. However, the president of the New Teacher Project, Timothy Daly, said he has no evidence that the union and the Department of Education have held meetings on the subject.
The sticking point may be the idea of a time limit, which would mean that teachers who cannot find positions would lose their salary and benefits.
A spokeswoman for the department, Melody Meyer, said the department supports adding a time limit that is "reasonable" but not "unreasonable," presumably meaning one that is not too long. The department listed a time limit of one year as a reasonable option.
The president of the teachers union, Randi Weingarten, said in a statement responding to the report that she supports evening the financial playing field between senior and junior teachers. She did not offer support for a time limit, and she also criticized the New Teacher Project as a "wholly owned subsidiary" of the Department of Education that is only pushing for novice teachers to be hired.
Mr. Daly acknowledged that his group holds contracts with the Department of Education, but said that the group's duties include not only recruiting new teachers but also advising senior ones.
Teachers in Absent Teacher Reserve cost New York City $74M - study
BY MEREDITH KOLODNER and CARRIE MELAGO
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Sunday, September 21st 2008, 9:40 PM
The city will pay out-of-work teachers $74 million this year to fill in as overpaid subs, according to a controversial report due out Monday.
The teachers - about 1,395 of them who lost permanent jobs because their schools closed or a program shrank - fill in as substitutes as part of the Absent Teacher Reserve.
"The amount of money is too big to ignore," said Timothy Daly of the New Teacher Project, which did the study.
Most are paid directly by the Education Department, not by individual schools, giving principals little incentive to hire the in-limbo educators.
Many also are at the upper end of the pay scale - another potential knock against them when competing for jobs with less expensive newbies.
A similar report issued in April estimated the city would spend $81 million from 2006 through June 2008 on teachers without permanent assignments.
Daly wants the Education Department to put those in the reserve group who can't find a position within a year on unpaid leave.
Randi Weingarten, president of the United Federation of Teachers, said the report is biased because it was done by a group paid by the Education Department to recruit and train fresh, new teaching candidates.
A report in Sunday's Daily News found there are still 229 brand-new recruits with no classroom assignments.
"Instead of implementing a moratorium on new hires until most [of the Absent Teacher Reserve] are placed, the [Education Department] has exacerbated this situation by continuing to hire new educators from around the nation when there were no jobs for them," said Weingarten.
Teachers in the reserve group say they are being portrayed as incompetent, even though most lost their jobs through no fault of their own.
"They downsized my program," said LezAnne Edmonds, who is in the reserve group at Manhattan's Independence High School. "I don't have anything to do with being in this position."
An Education Department spokeswoman said it makes little sense "to pay teachers who for years are unable to find another position or unwilling to look for one."
"We hope the UFT will work with us to find a solution which ensures that every teacher on the excess list has a reasonable amount of time to find a new position," the spokeswoman said.
mkolodner@nydailynews.com
September 22, 2008
City Teacher Pay Practice Comes in for Fresh Criticism
By JENNIFER MEDINA
New York City might have to pay teachers whose positions were eliminated in the last academic year and who have yet to find a permanent job at another city school more than $74 million to be substitutes or replacements, according to a report expected to be released on Monday by a nonprofit group.
A similar report released in April estimated that the city had already paid about $81 million to teachers whose positions were eliminated in the 2006 and 2007 academic years. Under the teachers’ union contract, teachers whose positions have been eliminated from one school and who cannot find another school to hire them or who do not look for a new job are assigned to fill in as substitute teachers or temporary replacements. They receive full teachers’ salaries and benefits.
The teachers are part of the so-called teacher-reserve pool, which was an outgrowth of an agreement between the city and the teachers’ union to end seniority rights in staffing decisions and to stop automatically transferring teachers who have been cut because of shrinking enrollment at some schools, the closing of large schools or the elimination of programs.
Chancellor Joel I. Klein has said that he would rather absorb the costs of the teachers in the reserve pool than force principals to accept teachers they did not want, based on seniority.
Timothy Daly, the president of the New Teacher Project, a nonprofit that recruits and trains new teachers, and the principal author of the report, said that the policy of not forcing principals to accept senior teachers should remain intact, but that immediate action was needed to prevent the city from spending millions of dollars on such teachers.
In 2008, 2,039 teachers were newly placed in the reserve pool, according to the report. The majority of them, 63 percent, found a new job at another school, were given a different job at their former school or quit, the report said. It also said that of the 1,400 teachers now in the pool, 637 have been without permanent jobs for at least a year.
“The data suggest that the number of excessed teachers without classroom positions will continue to increase annually,” the report said.
But Education Department officials said on Sunday that roughly 230 of those in the reserve pool were new teachers who were hired by the department, largely through programs to attract nontraditional teaching candidates, like Teach for America and the city’s Teaching Fellows program.
Randi Weingarten, the president of the United Federation of Teachers, issued a statement responding to the report, dismissing the New Teacher Project as a “wholly-owned subsidiary” of the Education Department. She said that more than 200 of the city’s newest teachers were still without a permanent placement.
The New Teacher Project runs the city’s Teaching Fellows program under a $4 million contract that expires in 2010.
“They might have pointed out how irresponsible it was for the Department of Education to bring thousands of novices into a teacher market where the supply already far outstripped the demand,” Ms. Weingarten said, suggesting that the department instead propose a moratorium on hiring new teachers, until all teachers in the pool are placed.
Although the current contract would not allow the city to unilaterally open up negotiations with the union, Melody Meyer, a spokeswoman for the Education Department, said that officials hoped that the union would “work with us to find a solution” to the reserve pool.
By ELIZABETH GREEN, Staff Reporter of the Sun | September 22, 2008
http://www.nysun.com/new-york/report-absent-teacher-reserve-draining-city/86316/
At a cost of $74 million to taxpayers, nearly 1,000 teachers will be on the city payroll this school year despite not holding full-time jobs in public schools, a report being released Monday projects.
That total is on top of an estimated $81 million the city spent in 2006 and 2007 combined on teachers who were not hired for full-time positions.
The report is the second attempt by the nonprofit that wrote it, the New Teacher Project, to draw attention to a deadlock between the United Federation of Teachers and the Department of Education on the question of what to do with the teachers creating the excess costs.
The teachers, part of what is known as the Absent Teacher Reserve, are on the payroll as a result of the 2005 teacher contract, which converted the public schools' hiring process for teachers into an open market, meaning both teachers and principals have to consent to every placement in a school. Previously, schools had been forced to hire the most senior teacher looking for a job.
Teachers move into the Absent Teacher Reserve if they are pushed out of their jobs, or "excessed," without being fired, and cannot find a new full-time position in the system.
Under the current contract, both tenured and untenured teachers receive full-time salary and benefits even if they remain in the reserve pool forever.
Some untenured teachers are also earning tenure — a designation that comes with extra job protections and benefits — while sitting in the reserve, sometimes after teaching in a classroom for less than a year.
As of last September, 30 teachers had become eligible for tenure while serving in the reserve, and 51 more in the reserve could become eligible for tenure this year, according to the report.
Some older teachers complain about being put in the reserve, saying the reason they cannot find placements is that they have higher salaries and therefore cost more to principals already under a budget crunch. (The department offers an incentive to hire senior teachers in their first year out of the reserve, but the incentive disappears after that.)
Both the teachers union and the Department of Education have said they would like to address the situation.
Hopes were raised that some kind of solution would be reached when the New Teacher Project released its first report in April, offering proposals such as placing a time limit on how long teachers can stay in the reserve and making senior and novice teachers effectively cost the same amount to principals. However, the president of the New Teacher Project, Timothy Daly, said he has no evidence that the union and the Department of Education have held meetings on the subject.
The sticking point may be the idea of a time limit, which would mean that teachers who cannot find positions would lose their salary and benefits.
A spokeswoman for the department, Melody Meyer, said the department supports adding a time limit that is "reasonable" but not "unreasonable," presumably meaning one that is not too long. The department listed a time limit of one year as a reasonable option.
The president of the teachers union, Randi Weingarten, said in a statement responding to the report that she supports evening the financial playing field between senior and junior teachers. She did not offer support for a time limit, and she also criticized the New Teacher Project as a "wholly owned subsidiary" of the Department of Education that is only pushing for novice teachers to be hired.
Mr. Daly acknowledged that his group holds contracts with the Department of Education, but said that the group's duties include not only recruiting new teachers but also advising senior ones.
Teachers in Absent Teacher Reserve cost New York City $74M - study
BY MEREDITH KOLODNER and CARRIE MELAGO
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Sunday, September 21st 2008, 9:40 PM
The city will pay out-of-work teachers $74 million this year to fill in as overpaid subs, according to a controversial report due out Monday.
The teachers - about 1,395 of them who lost permanent jobs because their schools closed or a program shrank - fill in as substitutes as part of the Absent Teacher Reserve.
"The amount of money is too big to ignore," said Timothy Daly of the New Teacher Project, which did the study.
Most are paid directly by the Education Department, not by individual schools, giving principals little incentive to hire the in-limbo educators.
Many also are at the upper end of the pay scale - another potential knock against them when competing for jobs with less expensive newbies.
A similar report issued in April estimated the city would spend $81 million from 2006 through June 2008 on teachers without permanent assignments.
Daly wants the Education Department to put those in the reserve group who can't find a position within a year on unpaid leave.
Randi Weingarten, president of the United Federation of Teachers, said the report is biased because it was done by a group paid by the Education Department to recruit and train fresh, new teaching candidates.
A report in Sunday's Daily News found there are still 229 brand-new recruits with no classroom assignments.
"Instead of implementing a moratorium on new hires until most [of the Absent Teacher Reserve] are placed, the [Education Department] has exacerbated this situation by continuing to hire new educators from around the nation when there were no jobs for them," said Weingarten.
Teachers in the reserve group say they are being portrayed as incompetent, even though most lost their jobs through no fault of their own.
"They downsized my program," said LezAnne Edmonds, who is in the reserve group at Manhattan's Independence High School. "I don't have anything to do with being in this position."
An Education Department spokeswoman said it makes little sense "to pay teachers who for years are unable to find another position or unwilling to look for one."
"We hope the UFT will work with us to find a solution which ensures that every teacher on the excess list has a reasonable amount of time to find a new position," the spokeswoman said.
mkolodner@nydailynews.com
September 22, 2008
City Teacher Pay Practice Comes in for Fresh Criticism
By JENNIFER MEDINA
New York City might have to pay teachers whose positions were eliminated in the last academic year and who have yet to find a permanent job at another city school more than $74 million to be substitutes or replacements, according to a report expected to be released on Monday by a nonprofit group.
A similar report released in April estimated that the city had already paid about $81 million to teachers whose positions were eliminated in the 2006 and 2007 academic years. Under the teachers’ union contract, teachers whose positions have been eliminated from one school and who cannot find another school to hire them or who do not look for a new job are assigned to fill in as substitute teachers or temporary replacements. They receive full teachers’ salaries and benefits.
The teachers are part of the so-called teacher-reserve pool, which was an outgrowth of an agreement between the city and the teachers’ union to end seniority rights in staffing decisions and to stop automatically transferring teachers who have been cut because of shrinking enrollment at some schools, the closing of large schools or the elimination of programs.
Chancellor Joel I. Klein has said that he would rather absorb the costs of the teachers in the reserve pool than force principals to accept teachers they did not want, based on seniority.
Timothy Daly, the president of the New Teacher Project, a nonprofit that recruits and trains new teachers, and the principal author of the report, said that the policy of not forcing principals to accept senior teachers should remain intact, but that immediate action was needed to prevent the city from spending millions of dollars on such teachers.
In 2008, 2,039 teachers were newly placed in the reserve pool, according to the report. The majority of them, 63 percent, found a new job at another school, were given a different job at their former school or quit, the report said. It also said that of the 1,400 teachers now in the pool, 637 have been without permanent jobs for at least a year.
“The data suggest that the number of excessed teachers without classroom positions will continue to increase annually,” the report said.
But Education Department officials said on Sunday that roughly 230 of those in the reserve pool were new teachers who were hired by the department, largely through programs to attract nontraditional teaching candidates, like Teach for America and the city’s Teaching Fellows program.
Randi Weingarten, the president of the United Federation of Teachers, issued a statement responding to the report, dismissing the New Teacher Project as a “wholly-owned subsidiary” of the Education Department. She said that more than 200 of the city’s newest teachers were still without a permanent placement.
The New Teacher Project runs the city’s Teaching Fellows program under a $4 million contract that expires in 2010.
“They might have pointed out how irresponsible it was for the Department of Education to bring thousands of novices into a teacher market where the supply already far outstripped the demand,” Ms. Weingarten said, suggesting that the department instead propose a moratorium on hiring new teachers, until all teachers in the pool are placed.
Although the current contract would not allow the city to unilaterally open up negotiations with the union, Melody Meyer, a spokeswoman for the Education Department, said that officials hoped that the union would “work with us to find a solution” to the reserve pool.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
ATR's Galore
http://www.nypost.com/seven/09162008/news/regionalnews/new_math__teachers_with_no_class_soar_129307.htm
By YOAV GONEN, Education Reporter
Posted: 4:17 am
September 16, 2008
The number of teachers without classroom assignments at the start of the school year - but receiving full pay - jumped by more than 13 percent since last year, according to new data.
The pool of teachers known as the Absent Teacher Reserve - which grew from 1,220 teachers last year to 1,395 this year - has grown annually since a 2005 teachers' contract amendment gave principals more say over hiring decisions.
The agreement gave principals the freedom not to hire teachers who had been cut from shrinking or closing schools - yet guaranteed the teachers who couldn't find new jobs their full salaries to work as substitutes.
The pool has cost the city as much as $81 million over the past two years, according to a study conducted earlier this year by The New Teacher Project, an organization that's paid to train teachers for the city.
The nonprofit agency's April report called for putting teachers on unpaid leave after they had spent a year in the ATR pool as a way to reduce the city's bills and to encourage teachers to actively seek permanent assignments.
Mayor Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein supported the report's findings - but education officials said talks with the teachers union have not risen to the level of "negotiation."
One potential remedy - buyouts - has not been broached yet because a price per teacher has not been worked out with the union.
Education officials also said they're wary that teachers who were looking to exit the system anyway might use it as a lucrative escape hatch.
"The buyout isn't a long-term solution, it's a one-time fix that, if it was used as a policy, would be subject to abuse," said Department of Education spokeswoman Melody Meyer.
Officials have ruled out forcing principals to hire teachers from the pool - as was the case before the 2005 contract - because they say it wouldn't be fair to hold the administrators accountable for their schools' performance without giving them a full say on staffing.
Michael Mulgrew, chief operating officer for the United Federation of Teachers, said the city wasn't doing enough to connect the teachers to vacant positions.
"We're not calling for forced placements or anything of that nature, but there should be a process that is helping these teachers in a more active way," he said.
Sol Stern, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, said the situation may worsen.
He said some teachers might not be looking for jobs hard enough, while others might be getting rejected from positions because they came with higher price tags.
yoav.gonen@nypost.com
COMMENTS (1)
Report item as: (required) X
Comment: (optional)
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abuse463 wrote:
As a 30 year veteran, who is a satisfactority rated
teacher who has been without a permanent position for
the past 2 years, stop telling the PARTIAL STORY!
1. The reason that I have been without work has nothing to do with my efforts to find work. No principal is willing to pay for a veteran teacher who
earns top salary when they can get about 3 teachers for my salary. 2. The reason that I and others have been without work is because of the "wonderful" small
schools that everyone especially the Mayor and the
Chancellor have been raving about are being opened and the large high schools are being closed and the NYDOE is unable to absorb the personnel displaced from these schools.
3. If the DOE was truly concerned about placing the
ATR's then they wouldn't have hired 4250 new teachers
at $40,000 year salaries.
By YOAV GONEN, Education Reporter
Posted: 4:17 am
September 16, 2008
The number of teachers without classroom assignments at the start of the school year - but receiving full pay - jumped by more than 13 percent since last year, according to new data.
The pool of teachers known as the Absent Teacher Reserve - which grew from 1,220 teachers last year to 1,395 this year - has grown annually since a 2005 teachers' contract amendment gave principals more say over hiring decisions.
The agreement gave principals the freedom not to hire teachers who had been cut from shrinking or closing schools - yet guaranteed the teachers who couldn't find new jobs their full salaries to work as substitutes.
The pool has cost the city as much as $81 million over the past two years, according to a study conducted earlier this year by The New Teacher Project, an organization that's paid to train teachers for the city.
The nonprofit agency's April report called for putting teachers on unpaid leave after they had spent a year in the ATR pool as a way to reduce the city's bills and to encourage teachers to actively seek permanent assignments.
Mayor Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein supported the report's findings - but education officials said talks with the teachers union have not risen to the level of "negotiation."
One potential remedy - buyouts - has not been broached yet because a price per teacher has not been worked out with the union.
Education officials also said they're wary that teachers who were looking to exit the system anyway might use it as a lucrative escape hatch.
"The buyout isn't a long-term solution, it's a one-time fix that, if it was used as a policy, would be subject to abuse," said Department of Education spokeswoman Melody Meyer.
Officials have ruled out forcing principals to hire teachers from the pool - as was the case before the 2005 contract - because they say it wouldn't be fair to hold the administrators accountable for their schools' performance without giving them a full say on staffing.
Michael Mulgrew, chief operating officer for the United Federation of Teachers, said the city wasn't doing enough to connect the teachers to vacant positions.
"We're not calling for forced placements or anything of that nature, but there should be a process that is helping these teachers in a more active way," he said.
Sol Stern, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, said the situation may worsen.
He said some teachers might not be looking for jobs hard enough, while others might be getting rejected from positions because they came with higher price tags.
yoav.gonen@nypost.com
COMMENTS (1)
Report item as: (required) X
Comment: (optional)
User Image
abuse463 wrote:
As a 30 year veteran, who is a satisfactority rated
teacher who has been without a permanent position for
the past 2 years, stop telling the PARTIAL STORY!
1. The reason that I have been without work has nothing to do with my efforts to find work. No principal is willing to pay for a veteran teacher who
earns top salary when they can get about 3 teachers for my salary. 2. The reason that I and others have been without work is because of the "wonderful" small
schools that everyone especially the Mayor and the
Chancellor have been raving about are being opened and the large high schools are being closed and the NYDOE is unable to absorb the personnel displaced from these schools.
3. If the DOE was truly concerned about placing the
ATR's then they wouldn't have hired 4250 new teachers
at $40,000 year salaries.
Thursday, September 06, 2007
The Chief: Transfers Lead To Teacher Turmoil
Hundreds Still Not Placed
Transfers Lead To Teacher Turmoil
By MEREDITH KOLODNER
Hundreds of veteran Teachers from the re-organized District 79 will work as permanent substitutes for the foreseeable future, even as thousands of new Teachers have secured full-time jobs around the city.
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An Insult
"It's an affront to Teachers that served these students who are very bright and very needy," said Carolyn Mollica, who won Outstanding Teacher of the Year at a District 79 Bronx school last year and will be an ATR at Bayside High School starting in September.
District 79 schools serve older students who have not been able to complete their studies at traditional high schools. They include GED programs as well as schools for incarcerated and suspended youth. DOE officials said the reorganization was necessary because the schools were performing poorly.
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)
United Federation of Teachers officials said they repeatedly expressed willingness to work with the DOE to make necessary changes.
Misplaced Blame
"Those programs could have been completely filled up," said Michael Mulgrew, UFT vice president for career and tech education and alternative high schools. "You can't blame the Teachers for your mismanagement. This is the most difficult population, and these Teachers wanted to work with them."
Ms. Mollica and several of her colleagues believe that the reorganization has targeted older Teachers, hoping to push them towards retirement. She and several other Teachers reported that the majority of those who showed up in Long Island City last week to receive their ATR appointments were over 40 years old and had more than a decade of experience. They believe the DOE is trying to save money by pushing out veteran Teachers who have higher salaries. "They can get two for the price of one," said Ms. Mollica, 63. "But I'm not ready to retire. If I'm enthusiastic and I love my job, why should I leave?"
The UFT negotiated a hiring process with the city that included specific criteria by which hiring decisions would be made. Those criteria included attendance records, job performance and licensing, and varied by position.
Can File Grievances
A committee composed of DOE and UFT officials made decisions about whether Teachers who applied met the criteria, although Mr. Mulgrew advised any Teacher who believed the process was unfair to file a grievance. The UFT also convinced the DOE to hire 100 percent of the Teachers deemed qualified into the available slots. In most school closings, the city is only required to hire 50 percent of Teachers who meet the criteria. Teachers who received an unsatisfactory rating within the past three years were not allowed to apply.
Some Teachers did not want to take a chance with the District 79 process and found jobs in other parts of the city. "I went crazy looking for a job," said Jeff Kauffman, who taught at District 79 Second Opportunity School and this week will start at a high school in Brooklyn. "I didn't trust how it would all work." The hiring process was supposed to commence after July 4, but the interviews didn't begin until August. Some Teachers, who say they were committed to staying in District 79, were interviewed as late as last week. When they were turned down, it left them little time to seek other jobs.
'Joke' of an Interview
LezAnne Edmund, who has taught GED classes for 11 years, wanted to continue to work with the same population of students, but didn't get an interview until two weeks ago. "I got a phone interview that lasted maybe 12 minutes," she said last week as she waited for her ATR assignment. "I had to answer how I would instruct a certain groups of students in a certain scenario. It was almost a joke."
DOE officials said the late start to the interview process was due to delays by the union. UFT President Randi Weingarten took sharp exception to that claim. "They come up with a plan at the end of May and think they're going to reorganize all this stuff and treat people as chattel, and they didn't expect their union was going to say you can't do it like this?" she asked.
UFT officials said the agreement was done by the end of June but that the DOE mishandled the implementation. They said DOE officials failed to show up at interviews and that Teachers had to enter their placement preferences twice over a space of several weeks into DOE's computer system. The glitches were so widespread, however, that the union insisted that the DOE see all the ATRs in person in Queens last week so they could once again lodge their preferences and ensure that they got placed in one of them. "This is not the Mayor," said Ms. Weingarten. "This is a district being run by someone who decided she knew much better than the Teachers how to teach at-risk kids, and this is the mess that got created."
Had Some Latitude
Teachers assigned to be ATRs were allowed to choose a group of schools they preferred to work in and were placed based on seniority and need of the school. They will continue to be paid their full salary.
Even some of the Teachers who secured jobs within District 79 said the timing of the reorganization and hiring decisions was going to make the start of school chaotic.
"I have no books, and I have no idea what I'm going to be teaching," said Rosalind Panepento, who will be teaching at one of the revamped GED programs in Manhattan.
Ms. Panepento, who was the UFT chapter chair of the Auxiliary Services for High Schools and has taught for 35 years, said she feared that the city would try to use the growing number of ATRs to get rid of Teachers. During the last round of bargaining, the city proposed laying off Teachers who had been excessed for more than 18 months. "Luckily, the union held strong against it," she said, "but I think that's what they're going for."
Fears Impact on Kids
Mr. Kauffman said that he is happy with his new placement, preferring it to his old school where he said most of the staff had ongoing problems with the administrators. But he said he was concerned that all of the changes, coming as late as they did, would have an adverse impact on District 79 students.
"These kids don't need another disincentive to not come to school," he said. "They see a disorganized classroom and school, and they're gone."
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Outrage--Hundreds of teachers excessed in District 79
From Marjorie Stamberg. See Comments at the Ed Notes Online blog.
Hi Colleagues,
When school starts Thursday, there will be hundreds of GED, ESL and other teachers "excessed" from their jobs in District 79. I am sending this out to alert teachers and educational groups throughout NYCDOE, CUNY and the New York area who need to know of this outrageous attack on NYC teachers.
The huge "reorganization" and closure of 5 GED programs for older at-risk students was announced by Joel Klein on the Friday before Memorial Day weekend. The DOE intended to just ram this through, but the UFT insisted that a measure affecting some 700 teachers was subject to emergency "impact bargaining". This has thus far prevented the DOE from hiring new (lower cost) teachers to fill jobs in the reorganized GED-plus program. Nonetheless, the union acquiesced to disbanding the programs, and to a grotesque "re-interview process". This meant teachers had to "re-apply" for the jobs they had held for years, and has meant literally hundreds of teachers have been declared "unqualified" to take the new positions.
These teachers are all proven, qualified, dedicated teachers, with S ratings for years! Many have one or two masters degrees, doctorates, supervisory certificates, years of experience in teaching at-risk older and second-language students. These experienced and in many cases, highly talented educators, have been put on the chopping block to fulfill Klein/Bloomberg's mania for asserting "managerial control" through one hair-brained scheme after another.
All this at a time, when the drop-out rate of black and hispanic students is the largest in the country, when over 40 percent of English Language Learners in NYC drop out before finishing high school, when dedicated teachers of at risk and GED students are needed more than ever!
In the D79 "reorganization", many terms of the final agreement which the union signed off on June 29, have been violated by the DOE, and have gone unchallenged by the union. In fact, the UFT leadership has never provided to the teachers effected the actual text of this agreement. In June, teachers were told that if excessed, they would be in an ATR (absent teacher reserve) pool at D79, available as soon as new jobs in the District opened up. Not so. Instead, it turns out they will be put in ATR pools in other districts, so our teaching staff will be fractured and ripped apart.
Teachers at the Schools for Pregnant Teens were all "excessed" in June, after having been made the target of a vicious racist smear job in the press, which came straight out of Tweed. After teachers and community groups protested, teachers were told they would be given jobs in the LYFE centers which would be kept open. We don't have complete information at this point, but in at least one of the Pregnant Teens sites, all teachers have been excessed, and only one offered a job in another district. This gives you an idea of the scope of the purge.
At ASHS (Auxiliary Services for High Schools), about 50 percent of our staff have been excessed. We are trying to collect the figures from Career Educational Services, Vocational Education Center, Off-site Educational Services (CEC, VEC, OES, respectively).
So what has been the UFT's leadership's response? The UFT has told teachers to individually appeal and grieve if they feel they were unjustly rejected in the interview process! If they win their appeal, they will be reinstated in the "next reorganization" of D79, which could be as late as 2008. And what is this "next reorganization", about which we know nothing? This issue is not about individual appeals. This is a collective massacre of teachers' jobs!
Clearly this is part of the DOE's plans to pressure longtime teachers to retire, possibly with incentive of a "buyout" if that is a part of the next contract. Also, worrisome is the possibility of contractual acceptance of an 18-month ATR period and then you're out. Other teachers unions have swallowed this; the UFT says it won't, but who believes it?
And behind it all, is the rampaging corporatization and privatization of public schools, where teachers, kids, parents, critical thought, are reduced to the "bottom line." That's the reality of "public education" in this epoch where capitalists like Bill Gates call the tune. That's their program for OUR kids, OUR teachers--"THEIR" kids will go to private school and cruise along in a two-tiered world of the "elite" and then there's everybody else.
Meanwhile, the silence from the UFT leadership is deafening. NOT A WORD has been said in "New York Teacher" about massive excessing in D79. Clearly the UFT tops want this done without a murmur! But we are the union and we must fight.
We must get the word out about this atrocity--in the media, at parents and community meetings, at the next delegate's assembly. We have to demand that the UFT act now to STOP the massacre! We are also hearing about excessing of SpED teachers in other districts, and middle school teachers. If anyone has any information about this, please let us know.
Thanks,
Marjorie Stamberg
ESL teacher, GED-Plus
D79
Hi Colleagues,
When school starts Thursday, there will be hundreds of GED, ESL and other teachers "excessed" from their jobs in District 79. I am sending this out to alert teachers and educational groups throughout NYCDOE, CUNY and the New York area who need to know of this outrageous attack on NYC teachers.
The huge "reorganization" and closure of 5 GED programs for older at-risk students was announced by Joel Klein on the Friday before Memorial Day weekend. The DOE intended to just ram this through, but the UFT insisted that a measure affecting some 700 teachers was subject to emergency "impact bargaining". This has thus far prevented the DOE from hiring new (lower cost) teachers to fill jobs in the reorganized GED-plus program. Nonetheless, the union acquiesced to disbanding the programs, and to a grotesque "re-interview process". This meant teachers had to "re-apply" for the jobs they had held for years, and has meant literally hundreds of teachers have been declared "unqualified" to take the new positions.
These teachers are all proven, qualified, dedicated teachers, with S ratings for years! Many have one or two masters degrees, doctorates, supervisory certificates, years of experience in teaching at-risk older and second-language students. These experienced and in many cases, highly talented educators, have been put on the chopping block to fulfill Klein/Bloomberg's mania for asserting "managerial control" through one hair-brained scheme after another.
All this at a time, when the drop-out rate of black and hispanic students is the largest in the country, when over 40 percent of English Language Learners in NYC drop out before finishing high school, when dedicated teachers of at risk and GED students are needed more than ever!
In the D79 "reorganization", many terms of the final agreement which the union signed off on June 29, have been violated by the DOE, and have gone unchallenged by the union. In fact, the UFT leadership has never provided to the teachers effected the actual text of this agreement. In June, teachers were told that if excessed, they would be in an ATR (absent teacher reserve) pool at D79, available as soon as new jobs in the District opened up. Not so. Instead, it turns out they will be put in ATR pools in other districts, so our teaching staff will be fractured and ripped apart.
Teachers at the Schools for Pregnant Teens were all "excessed" in June, after having been made the target of a vicious racist smear job in the press, which came straight out of Tweed. After teachers and community groups protested, teachers were told they would be given jobs in the LYFE centers which would be kept open. We don't have complete information at this point, but in at least one of the Pregnant Teens sites, all teachers have been excessed, and only one offered a job in another district. This gives you an idea of the scope of the purge.
At ASHS (Auxiliary Services for High Schools), about 50 percent of our staff have been excessed. We are trying to collect the figures from Career Educational Services, Vocational Education Center, Off-site Educational Services (CEC, VEC, OES, respectively).
So what has been the UFT's leadership's response? The UFT has told teachers to individually appeal and grieve if they feel they were unjustly rejected in the interview process! If they win their appeal, they will be reinstated in the "next reorganization" of D79, which could be as late as 2008. And what is this "next reorganization", about which we know nothing? This issue is not about individual appeals. This is a collective massacre of teachers' jobs!
Clearly this is part of the DOE's plans to pressure longtime teachers to retire, possibly with incentive of a "buyout" if that is a part of the next contract. Also, worrisome is the possibility of contractual acceptance of an 18-month ATR period and then you're out. Other teachers unions have swallowed this; the UFT says it won't, but who believes it?
And behind it all, is the rampaging corporatization and privatization of public schools, where teachers, kids, parents, critical thought, are reduced to the "bottom line." That's the reality of "public education" in this epoch where capitalists like Bill Gates call the tune. That's their program for OUR kids, OUR teachers--"THEIR" kids will go to private school and cruise along in a two-tiered world of the "elite" and then there's everybody else.
Meanwhile, the silence from the UFT leadership is deafening. NOT A WORD has been said in "New York Teacher" about massive excessing in D79. Clearly the UFT tops want this done without a murmur! But we are the union and we must fight.
We must get the word out about this atrocity--in the media, at parents and community meetings, at the next delegate's assembly. We have to demand that the UFT act now to STOP the massacre! We are also hearing about excessing of SpED teachers in other districts, and middle school teachers. If anyone has any information about this, please let us know.
Thanks,
Marjorie Stamberg
ESL teacher, GED-Plus
D79
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