The United Federation of Teachers backs
the New York City DOE's observation program of teachers in the Absent
Teacher Reserve. Read this 2011 post which reported the UFT's
Secretary Michael Mendel's endorsement of observations of ATRs in
rotation. Yet, the UFT ignores the fact that the field supervisors do not help ATRs find jobs, in spite of the script that field supervisors
recite on their first meeting with ATRs under their supervision, “my
job is to help find you a position.” The DOE and Unity-UFT cannot point
to any evidence of how the field supervisor's work contributes to
ATRs' finding positions. All together, the UFT is complicit with the DOE. Given the facts of the observation program in actual practice, the field supervisor's function is to harass
veteran teachers into quitting. It is no wonder that ATRs are coming together for class action lawsuits.
If field supervisors are finding
teachers to be satisfactory two, three, four years in a row, why are
they not taking these assessments and using these judgments to help
refer ATRs jobs for positions? As there are no sincere efforts to
place ATRs, it is inherently evident DeBlasio-Farina are continuing
Bloomberg's attack on senior teachers. Thus, term one of mayor
DeBlasio's administration is to the right of the first two and a half
terms of Mike Bloomberg's administration (that is, 2002-2011), when
that mayor placed excessed teachers, guidance counselors, librarians,
etc.
So, the question is, why is the UFT so
adamant about backing the field supervision program? It has never
criticized the program in principle. The closest it has come to
criticize the program has been when Amy Arundell has complained in
yearly ATR informational meetings of a few bad apple field
supervisors. The UFT has not sent to every ATR notice of their rights to be observed under the conditions of "Teaching for the 21 Century." The UFT has not posted notice of this on their website. True, the UFT has posted the document but it has failed to give the link the prominence that it warrants. Is it any wonder that the ICEUFT blog in "Queens UFT to ATRs: We'll Fight YOur Unsatisfactory Observations Only When Admin. Tries to Terminate You," called the observation program a colossal fraud? As the ICEUFT blog pointed out these observations violate the spirit of Article 8J of the contract. (Note that since that March 12, 2014 post it has become evident that the DeBlasio administration DOE has increased the rate of U-ratings based on observations. Furthermore, the DOE has initiated 3020a termination proceedings against many victims of these pedagogically unsound observations, with not a peep of protest from UnityUFT.)
It could be that the UFT is trying to play nice with the
sister union, the supervisors' union. If the program field
supervision/observing ATRs under substituting situations is
eliminated, then the roving administrators stand to lose their
positions. The UFT is known to play friendly with the Council of
School Supervisors and Administrators (CSA). See, for example, this notice of a UFT/CSA District 26 social. The UFT's support for the field
supervision program gives critical support for this jobs program for
excessed and retired administrators. Shouldn't the UFT advocate for
ATRs first and play chummy with the CSA second?
