NYCDOE & UFT up to same BS: job crumbs at best for ATRs

So, it's the end of the summer and the same thing has happened:

Earlier in August the NYC Department of Education shut off the open market transfer for a few days and then reopened it. (The farce of the transfer system is addressed here.)

The DOE has held a number of job fairs over the summer and it has not informed actually licensed and experienced teachers (teachers in the Absent Teacher Reserve - ATR) of these job fairs. The job fairs in the last weeks of the month have positions in the hard to staff schools and in the harder to fill licenses: science, special education.

The DOE has the gall, once again, to hire inexperienced newbies over the ATRs who wish to actually teach as they had done for years, before Randi Weingarten gave up the seniority transfer in 2005 (referred to here) and the United Federation of Teachers got teachers to go along with this.

The UFT challenges none of this; and it goes by the same script that it is up ATRs to get a job, when everyone knows that salary is what keeps them from being considered. Adding insult to injuries is that the UFT also crows about 3,000 new teachers being added to the teaching force. (Really, they are happy about adding 3,000 people who will pay dues; so the union actually has an incentive for the city to add newbies into jobs that experienced teachers could have.)

Forget about the line that the NYCDOE/UFT uses: that ATRs won't factor into raising average teacher salary in the school budget. Admins are smart. They know that whatever good budget arrangement that exists this year could be turned around in a future contract. They know that the formula could change three years down the road and the school will have to pay for the more expensive teacher. So, the school administration plays it safe and continues to go for the new, inexperienced teacher. This is why teachers with many years in the system will not get picked up by schools.

Of course, there is an age factor here: the ATRs tend to be over 35 years of age; most: over 50 years old. The newer teachers are in their early or mid-20s.

As to teachers in the reserve that will be placed into positions as opposed to just being assigned to schools in September: the DOE waits until the last possible moment, less than a week before school starts, to inform teachers of which school they will be assigned to. Furthermore, the notice omits information as to which topics they will be teaching. Memo to admins from people that actually teach in the classroom: different grades mean different curricula. Contrast this with other teachers who are informed at the end of June as to what their program will be. All of this means hastier preparation in the days before students return to the classroom.

All of these practices under De Blasio and Carranza are no different from Bloomberg, Klein and Walcott. Actually, some practices are worse under Carranza: giving insanely inflated raises to top administration. Several high level admins got raises ranging from 15 percent to 35 percent --compare this to the two to three percent salary raise in the last teachers contract. There was news last Saturday that there are now 36 administrators earning over $200,000 per year, a greater than 50 percent increase over the number of DOE admins earning that kind of salary in the last fiscal year. So, if the city has the money to give administration favorites, then why isn't this money given instead to the teachers who are in the classrooms?  The NYCDOE/UFT cannot in good name continue to go by the script that there is no money for reverting to the teacher unit system (pre Fair School Funding) when it spends this kind of money.

The UFT needs actually advocate for its members: it needs to press the city to go back to the system that worked in the past: valuing experience. The union needs to give preference to the ATRs, not to the inexperienced.

Deadline of ATR class action suit against the NYC DOE extended to end of month

The deadline for joining the class action suit of ATRs against the New York City Department of Education has been extended to Friday, February 28, 2018.

See the post from last week for details on the excessed teachers' lawsuit.

ATRs are suing the DOE!

EDIT: The class action joining deadline is moved forward.
It's finally happening: New York City ATRs are suing the city Department of Education.

Members of the Absent Teacher Reserve, or ATRs, are getting fed up: fed up with the field supervisors doing bogus observations in classrooms teachers just encountered, principals run amuk, writing up veteran teachers for petty things so that the DOE can quickly lower salary costs and relieve a teacher of full pension, fed up with the blatant age discrimination, and OF COURSE, fed up with the union (the UFT) for saying the DOE's line that teachers could get real assignments, if only they polished their resumes and had modern skills.

The law firm of Glass and Krakower (www.ghnylaw.com) is taking up a class action lawsuit on the case. They are an established practice with successes in challenging cases of teacher abuse. As part of the case, the legal team is looking into ways that teachers that teachers have been abused in their particular cases.

Here is the link. There is a deadline of February 9.

www.ghnylaw.com/atrsuit

And a form, associated with the suit to fill out: http://teacherslawyer.blogspot.com/2017/12/asking-courts-if-fair-student-funding.html?m=1

Weingarten defended ATRs' reputation - We need that today

When ATRs were disparged nine years by Joel Klein and the DOE, then president of the UFT Randi Weingarten defended ATRs' reputation:

"These are good teachers, mostly from closing schools. But rather than create a win-win situation, the system - despite repeated requests - refused to deal with these issues."

She recognized that the school funding system helped prejudice against the hiring of ATRs. The UFT argued that in creating the Fair Student Funding formula the DOE created a disincentive for principals to hire teachers. The UFT reported:

"The lawsuit argues that the DOE essentially shifted from an age-neutral system to one that has a disparate impact on older teachers."

[Sources: 'The New York Teacher,' approximately April, 2008]
Saturday the New York Times published a front page attack on ATRs. As the NYC Educator blog pointed out in 'Doing to the New York Times What the Times Does to ATR Teachers,' the Times engaged in broad stereotyping. The blog piece pointed out numerous instances of gross failures in professionalism in the Times' piece. While every professions has their bad apples, stereotyping a class of teachers is wrong. It is improper and unprofessional for the Times to engage in stereotyping.

There was placement of ATRs in NYC schools up until the 2011 to 2012 academic year, with none of the concerted media attack we see today --something that the DOE and the UFT conveniently ignore today. There was no rotation, a fraudulent program whereby both the DOE and the UFT argued that this would help expose ATRs' skills to schools, enabling them to get picked up --when both entities knew that ATRs face slim chance of placement, given the financial incentive for administrators to go with inexperienced teachers. Rotation (jobs program of field suervisors for displaced CSA members) was a compromise that only came up because Bloomberg wanted to end Last In, First Out., similar to today: the media was running stories contending that veteran teachers were worse than newer ones, and were an impediment to ideal staffing. Again, Weingarten has argued at the national level that students do better with experienced teachers.

The treatment of ATRs was actually better under Joel Klein than under Carmen Farina. Oh, how new times create new thinking!

The teachers and counselors in the New York City Department of Education Absent Teacher Reserve are waiting for the UFT leadership's response to the attack on the dignity and reputation of ATRs.

ATRs, what would you write in response to the Times' calumny?

Why won't the UFT fight for the ATRs? & other questions that ATRs should pose at the official UFT meetings

New York City is poised to do a multi-barrelled assault on teachers: ATRs are being put into the classroom at inappropriate time (mid-October) –holding some teaching positions as vacancies until then is wrong for the kids, as they will have to endure the rocky transition from one teacher to another, a little more than a month into the term. And ATRs are being placed without proper training in Danielson or the Common Core standards.

Secondly, Carmen Farina and Randy Asher (the new chief supervisor of ATRs) have openly declared that the city is aiming to drastically thin the herd, by possibly 50 percent. Sure, this is wrapped in language of "reducing" the pool; but ATRs have heard too many stories of able ATRs being harassed out of their positions. The "reduction" plan smells to the ATRs like a liquidation plan.

The buzz in the newspapers just seems too coincidental. Most of the city non-TV media outlets, including most of the daily newspapers, were running stories about problem teachers returning to the classroom. The one after another pacing of the stories suggests that the DOE might have ignited this with a press release of talking points. This is virtually designed to create a base of hostile parents resenting “those teachers teaching my child," which is sure to set up teachers for trouble in an already challenging assignment, being force placed in October.

The UFT totally failed the ATRs by letting this media smear campaign go on without an equally loud union campaign defending the ATRs. The union should have pointed out that the teachers in the pool that had faced charges (usually around one-fourth of the Absent Teacher Reserve pool) have been exonerated. The city’s placing “problem marks” on teachers is double jeopardy (a subsequent attempt to try and punish someone that has already been cleared of charges, something that is illegal in the United States to impose on the accused). Those ATRs that had been accused have been found as not deserving to be fired. The UFT needs to make the point that not all accusations against teachers are true and that the bar for getting teachers charged with something under Bloomberg was dropped really low. And, the UFT needs to acknowledge and publicize the fact that the majority of ATRs are from schools that had closed down or had lost numbers of teaching positions.

Randy Asher's own problematic history needs to be brought up. He was "managing" Brooklyn Tech High School while he was slow and inept to work on some creepy teachers that we were in need of punitive action. New York magazine reported his history in "Brooklyn Tech Student Sues City Over Creepy, Cross-dressing Teacher." Yet, the city cooperates with the principals union in making sure that truly problem administrators will always find a new job. So, instead of firing Asher or demoting him to an AP position or a classroom position, he is empowered with drastically "thinning the herd" of ATRs. This is very hypocritical for someone with such poor professional judgment in his prior DOE administration job.

In fact, now with Farina’s new get extremely tougher campaign the DOE is taking a very hostile tone by putting letters in files against teachers that have had bathroom challenges. This case involves the DOE actually penalizing a teacher that has bowel difficulties. It's bad enough having embarassing toilet "accidents;" but this penality is additionally humiliating. The bar has dropped even lower than the Bloomberg era.

Then, we have the issue of ATRs and supervision. How is it that ATRs are going to have double supervision (the UFT is cooperating with extension of the field supervisor pursuit of ATRs, even while they have been assigned for a half year or nearly a whole year to a regular assignment in a school). ATRs are going to be supervised by principals and by field supervisors. It is unfair in relation to regularly assigned teachers who do not have to essentially face two principals. And common sense will say that however the principal feels is how the Field Supervisor will treat the teacher. This is not neutral. The principal & Field Sup plan is a tag teaming and the UFT is expecting the ATRs to be gullible for falling for this.

The DOE and the UFT have had the side agreement in the works for assignment and supervision of ATRs settled for a few months now. Why did the union allow months to elapse before properly briefing us on the new changes? The union's very unprofessional procrastination on a very important task is irresponsible and is leaving ATRs vulnerable to a weak transition back to regular classroom assignments.

Here are just some of the other questions that ATRs should pose to the UFT's ATR liasions next week:

*Why did the union agree to these conditions of working under Danielson, Advance and Common Core, when we were often denied the professional development on these topics? To boot, we were often assigned to cover teachers that were getting training in these skill areas.

*When is the union or the DOE going to hold training sessions --on paid time-- on learning all the different evaluation related terms, such as MOSLs, baseline assessments; and preliminary evaluation interviews with principals? The UFT is setting us up to failure if it fails to train us on these very essential questions.

*Why doesn’t UFT stand up for ATRs when they are getting smeared in the media? The DOE talking point is "unwanted" teachers; yet, until the UFT gave up seniority transfers with the 2005 contract, forced placement was the rule. Read here and here. In fact, until Bloomberg/Walcott began rotation in the 2011-2012 year, ATRs were placed or "forced" on principals. The UFT forgets institutional history and allows the DOE and the media to frame the narrative. The UFT's reticence helps keep alive the DOE's and the media's myth that we can't get hired if we try.

*When will the UFT step up to bat on our getting seniority for job openings? The city hires new teachers when experienced ATRs are available.

*Why won't the UFT give us straight answers about how many ATR pool members get truly hired or picked up by schools? They dodge and refer to ATRs as being assigned. They always promote sending our resume around or shining in our performance. But ATRs know many of their own kind and no of hardly any that ever get picked up.

*Why is the UFT always holding these "informational meetings" at 4:00 on days when we're required to stay at schools until some time between 3:35 or 3:50? (And why was one almost held right before a major religious holiday?)

*The city is openly saying that Asher’s task is to thin the herd. Why isn’t the union challenging this?

*Why is the union still tolerating no guarantee of equal bathroom access and elevator key access as is given to any other staff in the schools?

*When will the union fight for ending the fair funding formula?

It is unacceptable that the UFT repeats the same myth as the city, that the only reason why principals won’t hire ATRs is because they are not fresh enough. The truth is that it’s the ATRs’ salaries that keeps principals from considering ATRs, and plenty of principals will openly admit it. The Chaz blogger has laid out some very good proposals for ensuring principals will follow requirements to truly hire us.  Of course, the essential change is that the UFT must return to funding for the whole school on the teacher unit principal. See this quick, clear explanation of teacher units that Bloomberg/Klein ended. The 2007 creation of the fair student funding is a huge incentive to hire the cheaper teachers and avoid experienced teachers. As such, it is an attack on seniority.

The Bronx and Staten Island UFT informational meetings for ATRs have happened. Here are the remaining meetings, all held from 4:00 to 6:00 pm at UFT boro offices: 

Manhattan, 52 Broadway

Tuesday, Oct. 10

Queens, 97-77 Queens Blvd.
Tuesday, Oct. 10

Brooklyn, 335 Adams St.
Wednesday, Oct. 11

ATR Workshop, independent, sponsored by the MORE caucus UFT, November 19

ATR Workshop, sponsored by the MORE UFT caucus.

Saturday, November 19 at 1 PM - 4 PM

The Graduate Center, CUNY

365 5th Ave, New York, New York 10016

History: How the DOE and UFT created this mess starting with the 2005 contract, the 2008 ATR rally, the UFT wine and cheese party, the 2011 deal where ATRS were sacrificed (weekly rotation) for no layoffs, the 2014 agreement plus recent updates.

Know your rights and lack thereof; how to deal with roving supervisors; survival techniques.

We will have an extensive Question and Answer session with former chapter leaders/ATRs on hand to assist you.

Fighting back. What do we want? What can we do to pressure UFT and DOE for change?

Special guests: blogger Chaz's School Daze, Chapter Leaders/Delegates: James and Camille Eterno and UFT Executive Board Member Arthur Goldstein.

Saturday, Nov. 19, 1:00 PM-4PM
CUNY Grad Center, 5th Ave between 34th and 35th St. Bring ID. Room 5414

Sponsored by MORE/UFT and Independent Community of Educators

Field Supervisors, the proverbial DOE Sandmen vs. ATRs

Teacher ratings for the year are out and the DOE is giving career jeopardizing evaluation ratings that arise from teaching in substituting contexts. New York City excessed teachers, ATRs, if you haven't gotten your rating yet, click to this link.

As being covered well at the Chaz blog and the ICEUFT blog, the DOE has been giving U ratings to ATRs in substitute assignments. Read the blogs. Are there any ATRs writing comments defending the DOEUFT's status quo, defending the UFT's performance?

The observations of ATRs in rotating assignments is unprofessional and unacceptable on several counts:

*The ATRs often don't know the students.

*The ATRs often have been covering a class out of license, with or without the regular teacher's lesson plan.

*The ATRs are told to differentiate lessons for the students, but they have not met them or have not been provided their IEPs or other personal data such as ELL status.

*The people tolerating or designing these policies from De Blasio, on down to Farina, to ATR central, to the field supervisors are forgetting what they probably observed from their own childhood experiences – students do not consider substitutes worthy of respect, and the older the students, the less likely that they are to do the classwork.

*The ATRs are being evaluated on factors that are not sanctioned by the DOE-UFT contract: Common Core and Danielson, when the ATRs are supposed to be evaluated under "Teaching for the 21st Century."
*Many ATRs are getting their first stream of U ratings and letters in the file in 21 years. Doesn't it seem like Farina's DOE is trying to beat the clock to prevent teachers from collecting full pensions. 

We ought to recognize the bigger picture of what is happening. Just as with the Sandmen in the film "Logan's Run," who hunt down people for termination the Runners, those people over 30 years of age that refuse to submit to euthenasia, this U-rating process is feeding into larger societal trends of deprofessionalizing, of ending careers of people over 45, of accomplishing the effective breaking of tenure, of evading paying full pensions due, all goals of reformer politicians such as Cuomo. Age discrimination is rampant in the employment field. The DOE is accomplishing the introduction of the larger social trend of terminating or harassment of workers over 45. On the latter, see the report, "Is 45 the new old age in the workplace?" which references "Logan's Run." 

The DOEUFT: The DOE can do all of this, unimpeded because the Mulgrew (Unity & New Action endorsed) and Barr led UFT does not and will not make priorities out of protecting ATRs and abiding the contract. Instead, the UFT continuously refuses to allow ATRs to have their own true representatives. See for example here and here.

Violation of union obligations to ATRs is the by-product of the UFT's dogged refusal to allow true, accountable representatives. While it may not be actual collusion, in end result: allowing the destruction of professional lives, the effect is as though there is collusion.

Things were better under Cathie Black: The UFT actually gains from the absurd system of ATRs in rotation, and playing along with the fraud that ATRs just need to try harder to find jobs during the Open Market Transfer period. From a budgetary perspective it would make sense to place ATRs. However, the UFT goes along with the rotation system, one of the early innovations of Chancellor Walcott. Here's how the UFT benefits: the UFT draws in full dues for the ATRs in rotations plus it pulls in dues from those teachers in positions that the ATRs could have otherwise filled. So, the UFT benefits by getting two dues income streams. It is curious that the UFT treasurer is in a group message to ATRs. Are the DOE and the UFT coordinating on certain levels that ATRs should know about but do not? See the latest post at atrnyc.blogspot.com 

Teacher Settles Age Case for $90,000 Against New York City Department of Education

From an online press release site, March 7, 2014. Not intended necessarily as an endorsement for any law firm. For informational purposes.

    NEW YORK, NY, March 07, 2014 /24-7PressRelease/ -- A male elementary school teacher, who was fired at age 62, settled his federal age discrimination case at mediation, shortly before the case was scheduled to be tried.

Plaintiff, who holds a Master of Arts degree in childhood education, began his employment in 2006 as a public school teacher in the Bronx. After completing two years successfully, he was given an unsatisfactory rating and recommended for termination. This unsatisfactory rating came after complaining to the school's Principal that younger teachers were getting favorable assignments. The school Principal's recommendation was mitigated to an extension of probation for another year. When Plaintiff's school was closed for failure to meet minimum requirements, Plaintiff was transferred to another school where he received a satisfactory evaluation. The new Principal based on pressure from the District Superintendent was forced to give two quick evaluations which were deemed unsatisfactory and Plaintiff's tenure was denied and he was termination from employment.

As it was clear in the depositions of the Principal and District Superintendent, the Department of Education varied from its own rules and standards and the evaluations were flawed and biased.

Plaintiff was represented by Philip Taubman, of Taubman Kimelman & Soroka, LLP. One of the best known employment firms in New York, specializing in all matters of employment discrimination including sexual harassment litigation.

Day 5 in yellow journalism war vs. ACRs/ATRs & no word from the UFT

This is day five since the Daily News began its war against ACRs/ATRs, as discussed here and here. Blame really goes to the New York Times for starting this back in December. Not one UFT official has come to our defense. We applaud chapter leader Arthur Goldstein, who spoke out in our defense, Thursday and today and chapter leader Patrick Walsh, who defended us in his comments at Goldstein's blog.

Goldstein handily rebutted the News' arguments concerning U-rated teachers and formerly accused teachers. Then he wrote in closing, addressing the core point, that there is a lot of stereotyping of ATRs:

Here's my question---how is mentioning these selected cases any different from taking members of a religious or ethnic group, highlighting some accused of behaving in a sensational fashion, and then gently leading readers to the conclusion the entire group was unfit or undesirable?

Our past president Randi Weingarten did produce the 2005 contract which got us here, and she didn't fight the Fair Student Funding formula. But in 2008 she did speak publicly in defense of the pedagogical integrity of teachers in the ATR pool.

"These are good teachers, mostly from closing schools. But rather than create a win-win situation, the system - despite repeated requests - refused to deal with these issues."

What happened to the UFT's age discrimination lawsuit for ATRs in 2009

There are so many interesting news items lurking in the past. Back in 2008 the UFT started a lawsuit against the DOE, on behalf of the ATRs. This was publicized in an April 10, 2008 article in the union's paper "UFT sues Tweed for age discrimination". The UFT argued that in creating the Fair Student Funding formula the DOE created a disincentive for principals to hire teachers. The UFT reported: "The lawsuit argues that the DOE essentially shifted from an age-neutral system to one that has a disparate impact on older teachers." Weingarten defended the ATR's reputation: "These are good teachers, mostly from closing schools. But rather than create a win-win situation, the system - despite repeated requests - refused to deal with these issues."

Yet a year later, the union dropped the suit. Today the age discrimination problem remains. By our survey of our members, which comprise one-tenth of the number in the excess staff (ATR) pool, 86% polled are 50 years of age or older.

Chaz's School Daze wrote on the issue:

Randi & Joel Do It Again - The UFT Secretly Dropped Their Age Discrimination Lawsuit When They Signed The Unenforceable ATR Agreement

It appears once again Randi Weingarten and Joel Klein negotiated an agreement that resulted in the UFT members getting the short end of the stick. JD2718 reports in his blog that an apparently secret agreement between the UFT and DOE resulted in the UFT dropping their age discrimination lawsuit as a part of the unenforceable ATR agreement that has so far resulted in only 16 ATRs given classroom assignments. Time and again the Joel Klein's DOE negotiates in "bad faith" with the UFT and refuses to live up to the negotiated agreements. Be it the ATRs, the "rubber room" or paperwork reductions. The reason is simple. Our union refuses to ensure that any agreement have enforceable provisions. Both sides leave enough "wiggle room" in the language to allow DOE to ignore the intent of these agreements. >

According to JD2718 the age discrimination lawsuit was discussed at last Monday's Executive Board meeting and he summarizes the following:

At last Monday’s Executive Board meeting a question and follow-up about the UFT’s age discrimination revealed:

-the suit was withdrawn, without prejudice, when the ATR side agreement was reached.
-to refile the suit, the UFT would need to collect fresh information.
-members individual suits were not withdrawn.

This is shocking. I was under the impression that the UFT dropped their original age discrimination lawsuit because of legal issues on the use of the data collected. In other words the NYSUT attorney didn't believe the age discrimination case would succeed based upon the information. Now it turns out that the UFT secretly bargained the age discrimination lawsuit away in the unenforceable ATR agreement. How come the UFT didn't report this as a part of the ATR Agreement in their press release? The reason is quite obvious to me. They were embarrassed and afraid to tell the teachers the truth that this is what the union gave up for the ATR agreement. Therefore, they kept the age discrimination lawsuit issue secret to the members. To my knowledge, no teacher who was part of the dropped age discrimination lawsuit was told the truth. They were all apparently told that the age discrimination case had no legal standing. Now that the truth is known, it now makes sense why the UFT is reluctant to file a new age discrimination lawsuit despite he influx of older teacher in the "rubber rooms" and the ATR ranks.

I can only say what my friend Woodlass said in her comments to the information provided in JD2718's article. SHAME, SHAME,. SHAME.