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."
Over the past 7 days the new mouthpiece for bloom bucks, the NY Daily News, has gone completely off on us. Is it bad enough that bloom crud destroyed our careers and in a metaphysical way our lives, with his insane hatred of us? Now that there was a glimmer of hope on Thursday, February 6, 2014, when de Blasio said that he wanted to put us back into our own classrooms once again. It has spilled into an assault on us through this "newspaper" that is reminiscent of the Bloomberg reign of terror. The verbal violence that this rag is oozing is absolutely disgusting!
ReplyDeleteIt is time for all of us to stand tall, proud, firm and demand that the UFT publicly defend us and that the News cease this vile type of abuse against us. If this does not happen then we should post an online petition to the powers that be, Tish James and the city council, whomever to put an end to all of this and get us back into the classrooms, period!