An ATR responds to the Post's anti-teacher opinion column

Subject: Today's Post Opinion

Dear Mr. Cunningham,

(Editorial-page editor) 

  Do you really believe that the educational crisis in our country stems from the abundance of incompetent teachers or is there another agenda you are fostering?

  It is really not a sensible premise when it is seriously analyzed.

  Teachers have a Masters Degree-plus, in their subject areas. They must go through three years of probation in which they are observed multiple times. How then can there be so many incompetent teachers?

Rather, the problem in education stems from a system that socially promotes rather than holds students to high standards and accountability.  It is also a cultural problem of entitlement instead of valuing achievement. 

 Standardized testing is an important assessment that has revealed the low levels of student performance. Many would like to bury their heads in the sand by ending standardized tests.  However, holding teachers accountable for student test performance is unacceptable as there are many factors that contribute that are out of teachers' control. Testing has always been an assessment tool of monitoring how well the student has learned but at the end of the day, it is the student's responsibility.  Did the student pay attention in class, do homework, study for exams? Was the student excessively absent? All these are critical factors in the learning process.

  Making teachers scapegoats for the failing system will only weaken our educational institutions further. We are going down the wrong path and heading for the cliff.

  The one issue that I agreed with in your editorial was your opposition to weakening the NYC Discipline Code.  The main deterrent to learning in our public schools is a lack of student discipline. Charter schools seem to understand this principle that an environment conducive to learning must be achieved for learning to take place.

  Your paper is also way off base on the ATR issue. These educators should be placed in vacancies (they are employed by the DOE not the individual school) and evaluated like other teachers. Instead, they are stigmatized and vilified for being in the ATR pool. The City wastes over 100 million a year by its policy, as well as maintaining a central ATR unit with 30 roving supervisors.

 There is so much "wrong thinking" concerning education. If you want to "fix" the system, one must have the courage to address the real problems. Maybe, you should consult with teachers for real insight. 

Sincerely,

James Calantjis

Public School Educator

An ATR sends a correction letter to the Post for their imbalanced article on ATRs

  An ATR sets the record straight, correcting Yoav Gonen's article in the New York Post. And meanwhile, the NYC DOE has been holding job fairs, through the summer, for new recruitment. Why haven't ATRs been informed of these fairs? Some schools are even recruiting on Craigslist, and at least one school is openly saying that licensure is not required. These new recruits are getting positions that could be filled by ATRs, fully licensed, experienced teachers. Why can't the UFT get a hiring freeze to prevent this displacement? Meanwhile, ATRs have submitted dozens of applications through the Open Market Transfer system, to no avail: no interviews. This has many ATRs thinking that this program is a hoax.

Dear Yoav,

   Your article on ATRs is not balanced.

   Even though teachers (and guidance counselors, social workers, librarians, Assistant Principals) lost their jobs 'through no fault of their own"(UFT quote), principals have not been hiring them since 2011 due to their higher salaries which are charged to the school budgets.  This is a fact as the new contract has a clause that now assures that the average teacher salary of a school will not increase if an ATR is hired.

  Since 2011, principals have used ATRs to fill vacancies and leaves and then dismissed them at the end of the semester or leave, hiring new teachers.  They saved money as they were not charged (or were charged very little) for the ATRs service during the semester and then save money on a permanent hire of a new teacher.

  To say teachers are "unwanted" or "ineffective" because they are in the ATR pool and are not being hired, in effect because of DOE budget policy, is demeaning to these educators.  Are the other staff in the ATR pool ineffective because they have been in the pool since 2011, such as guidance counselors?

  Susan Edelman in her article last Sunday at least had a more balanced piece, acknowledging the budget issue in hiring ATRs.Your piece gave three paragraphs quoting Students First NY, which is anti-ATR.

   Put ATRs in the classroom and evaluate them like other teachers rather than demonize them for being in the ATR pool. You should also provide the ATR perspective to readers.

   In addition, you should FOIL to find out how many ATRs were permanently hired (not "provisionally" and tossed back into the pool) since 2001. I have been trying and DOE has not been forthcoming.

Sincerely,

James Calantjis

Educator.