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?

Do You REALLY Believe That? – In Which the Refurbished ATR Calls Bullsh** on all the Bullsh**

The plan was to enjoy my summer, clean out the basement, and go on a few college visits with my daughter. Yeah, storm clouds are brewing for ATRs, but I made a solemn vow to stay above it all, not allow it to claim any real estate in my head, and enjoy my time off. That worked for a little while, but now the school year is in full swing and the press in on the hunt for the next “bad teacher” story.

So the Times, the Post, and Chalkbeat started banging the drum against ATRs. How we need to “find a job”. How we are “without full time positions”. That there must be “reasons why (we) are not hired”. Nicole Thomas even went so far as to voice her fear that her child may actually be given an ATR for a teacher in her school, and is “very concerned”. And of course, Kate Taylor at the Times had to join the party with this beauty of a hatchet job, and the Editorial Board of the NY Post us up in arms that we may actually be teaching children soon (the horror – teachers TEACHING children!), so now I’ve got to set the record straight.

I feel you, Nicole and Kate. I do. I mean, WHY, ladies, would you want a veteran teacher who has been working with children successfully for YEARS, and who, you know, passed classes and exams and stuff, in “high needs” schools? Much better to have a newbie 23 year old with a sociology degree who wants to help the little brown children by doing some “good in the “hood” before heading off to becoming a charter school principal or investor at Goldman Sachs. And they all look so alike (matching ponytails and sloppy buns, sundresses, and flip flops) that they are virtually interchangeable! So much so that the kids won’t even know when one leaves after a month and is replaced by another one!

I’m going to let you in on a few ATR secrets, Ladies. Just between us. Let’s get the easy stuff out of the way first. ATRs do not have horns and tails. We do not eat young children for lunch (or dinner). We are not the child molesters you see on TV or on flyers in your local deli. We do not spend our evenings plotting how to milk the system and avoid helping children. Sorry to ruin it for you, but we do what other teachers do. We get up, fight traffic to get to work, do our jobs, and fight more traffic to come home and take care or our own families, get the car washed, pay the cable bill, and occasionally go to dinner and a movie. Yet, you make claims that are patently ABSURD about us. Given that I have a particular affection for both theater of the absurd AND the absurdity of life, allow me to point out the ridiculousness of the claims being made against ATRs.

Let’s start with the common fallacy that ATRs “lost a job”. That’s news to me and every other ATR I know. I’ve never been fired, suspended, disciplined, or laid off. I’ve never been on unemployment. I get up and I go to work every day. I am a tenured Reading Specialist with the New York City Department of Education. That is my job. I get paid from the NYC DOE twice a month because it is my job. The fact is that the DOE does not ALLOW me to do the job for which I was hired. My job is to teach children who struggle with reading, to read. But, when I go to work every day, I am given a sub schedule, or I cover teacher preps, or I am the second teacher in an ICT class. So, to say I do not have a job is absurd. I have one. I am just not permitted to do it. And that is not my problem. It is the DOE’s.

It is also said that ATR teachers are “without full time positions”. Again, this is not true. We go to work daily and teach full schedules. Five periods a day, every day. That is a FULL TIME position. I get paid my FULL TIME salary because, Nicole and Kate, I work FULL TIME. The fact that I am not being given work that correlates with my job title is, again, not my problem and not under my control. I cannot give myself classes or groups of students. Administrators do that.

My dear ladies, you insinuate that ATRs are guilty of crimes but are unable to be fired. That is an absurd statement. Any teacher who is found guilty during a 3020a is NOT sent to the ATR. What happens to them is called “FIRING”. Any teacher who is an ATR after a 3020a is there because the 3020a did NOT find CAUSE for termination. You know, it’s that whole guilty vs. not guilty thing. Like Law and Order. But with real teachers, not actors. Before the ATR they would be simply placed back in their classrooms. But the ATR now provides a very nice dumping ground for teachers a principal wants to be rid of. It’s brilliant, actually. Make some sh** up about the teacher, and even if they win the 3020a because the principal lied her behind off, you STILL have that teacher out of your hair (and off your payroll) because they will be dumped into the ATR. Never mind that many principals want to be rid of certain teachers because they have issues. Issues like, oh, let’s see…. maybe being in a position that the principal has earmarked for a crony, or maybe the principal has a bunch of sorority sisters she has promised jobs, or maybe the teacher is making too much money coupled with too much seniority, which makes it impossible to just excess the teacher. Maybe this teacher knows her contractual rights and insists on abiding by them. Maybe she tells other teachers what their rights are and calls bullsh** when she see it. Or this teacher may even be planning to run against the chapter leader you have in your pocket and may actually win, messing up your ability to ignore the contract. Any of those reasons are enough to get a principal to trump up bogus charges against a teacher. You see, my dears, principals can be vindictive, power drunk dictators who will stop at nothing to create a staff of syncophants. But you’d never know that from reading Chalkbeat, the New York Post, or the Times, because, according to these publications, all principals are above reproach, all the time, and want nothing more than to run schools where rainbow unicorns run the halls, and everyone emits rose scented farts.

Now, I’m sure your StudentsFirstNY friends, you’re The74 buddies, and your Families for Excellent Schools pals will disagree. Because when you are taking Gates and Walmart money and cozy up to Betsy DeVos, things get filtered through the prism of cash. But my dear ladies, have no fear. If your child is given an ATR teacher this September, she or he will be in good hands, regardless of who his or her parent is. We’ve been doing this a long time, and believe it or not, we’ve got this.

NJ ATR fought her set-up tenure termination and won

Earlier this year a Newark teacher fought her tenure termination and won in state arbitration. The infamous Cami Anderson, who had overseen schools in New York City correctional institutions, and then ruled Newark Public Schools, sought to tighten the pressure on our displaced teacher counterparts, "Educators Without Placements," (EWP). Remember that the righteous Anderson was driven out of office after intense protests by Newark Public Schools students.

Bob Braun's Ledger:

How Newark set up a tenured teacher to fail

Tenured Newark school teacher LaRhonda Ragland—a former member of the Alvin Ailey dance company and a New Jersey Nets cheerleader—was set up to fail  by the  state-run school administration, a state-appointed arbitrator has ruled. In a 41-page decision reinstating the teacher after the district tried to fire her, the arbitrator described how Ragland, a single mother with a teenaged child, was declared an “educator without placement” (EWP)  by the administration of superintendent Cami Anderson, then transferred from  Maple Avenue School to Arts High  where she was given non-teaching duties to perform. She was assigned to teach  only when administrators wanted to evaluate her–then gave her poor evaluations.

“The District set Respondent (Ragland) up to fail and simply marked time until it could file tenure charges against the teacher,” wrote state-appointed arbitrator, Timothy Brown.

Brown described how Ragland, who had appeared in the Off-Broadway show “Jam the Groove,” was made a hall-monitor and some-time substitute teacher of non-dance subjects at Arts High where administrators made it clear early on in her stay there that she was not welcome.  She was only evaluated for the few days she was assigned to teach high school-level dance classes, something she had  not done in her previous nine years in the Newark public schools.

“It is fiction to believe that Respondent would succeed in observations of
her teaching high school students at a high school devoted to the arts
when Respondent had previously taught dance only at the elementary
school level and had been assigned hall monitoring and substitute
teaching in non-dance subjects at the arts high school,” Brown concluded.

The arbitrator made it clear that the administration wanted Ragland to fail.

“By its actions and inactions….the District pursued a course of
conduct that assured that, rather than conduct observations of a dance teacher teaching a
dance class of the teacher’s students, the District could conduct observations of a
substitute teacher/hall-monitor attempting to teach students for whom the teacher had no
teacher-student relationship. The outcome of such observations were effectively
determined before they began….”

Throwing tenured teachers out of their jobs and making them EWPs has been a favorite strategy of the state administration under Anderson. By the beginning of this school year, Anderson had assigned more than 400 teachers to EWPs positions in the apparent hope that many would quit rather than be paid for doing nothing.

Many, however, did not quit and Ragland’s experiences shows what happens–they face being set up to fail by being assigned to jobs they are not trained to do.

The arbitrator also found the administration had no intention of helping Ragland overcome whatever problems she may have had in her difficult transition from an elementary school teacher to a EWPs position in high school. Such efforts to help teachers with alleged problems are required both by the new teacher tenure law and the district’s contract with the Newark Teachers Union (NTU).

“TEACHNJ”–the new teacher tenure law–”contemplates that, before he or she may be terminated from a teaching positions (sic), to improve the performance of the struggling teacher, such a teacher will receive a real – rather than feigned – prolonged effort to provide guidance and mentorship from the most advanced and knowledgeable educators in the teacher’s school: the principal and high-level administrators. Here, the District, through its administrators at Arts High School, predetermined that Respondent would never improve and could not be successfully reformed and arbitrarily withheld such efforts from Respondent, ” the arbitrator wrote.

Brown, the arbitrator, describes just how unwelcome the school administration made Ragland feel. He wrote, ” Only a week or two before her first observation,
Respondent was unambiguously advised in a disciplinary write-up from
principal (Lynn Irby-Jackson) that ‘…you are a EWPS teacher…you are not
an Arts High School dance teacher…’ Such
reflects Respondent’s status as an outsider at the school and the
Principal’s view that Respondent was not at the High School for
purposes of teaching dance.”

Brown also noted that the principal called Ragland “functionally illiterate” and said she was “outraged” that she was allowed to teach at Arts. Clearly, whatever the motive Anderson may have had for sending her to Arts as a EWP, Irby-Jackson didn’t want her there.

The NTU, which has represented Ragland and nearly a dozen other teachers brought up on tenure charges by Anderson, has won all its tenure cases this year and has repeatedly called on the superintendent and state Education Commissioner David Hespe to stop the efforts to fire tenured teachers,

The other cases were thrown out because Anderson insisted on using evaluations in both the 2012-2013 and 2013-2014 years as admissible against teachers under the new anti-tenure bill, TEACHNJ. However, both law and regulations considered that first year to be a “pilot” year and evaluations conducted then could not be used.

Under the anti-tenure law, any teacher who receives two years of bad evaluations must be brought up on expedited tenure charges.

The arbitrator in the Ragland case cited that reason for dismissing the tenure charges against her but he also pointed out that the district failed any effort to try to help the teacher improve.  The efforts, he said, were “feigned,” and not real.

Ragland, 44, was raised in Chicago and began her dancing there. She moved east in 1993 and worked professionally as a dancer until 2005 when she was hired by the Newark public schools as a an alternate route teacher.

Robert Pickett, the West Orange lawyer who defended Ragland, called the arbitrator’s  decision “a major victory, not just for Ms.Ragland, but for all teachers who must rely on the new tenure law to keep their jobs.”

Pickett said he already has demanded that Ragland be reinstated “in a position that is consistent with her license and her experience.”

Ragland said she would not comment on the case.

(If events like this trouble you, you might consider signing this petition: If events like this trouble you, you might consider signing this petition: http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/petition-for-the-resignation-1

Ras Baraka did).

"Be happy you have a job" -- The true national trends in teacher displacement and placement

The main phrase that we're told over and over is "Be happy that you have a job. Everywhere else, teachers in your position lose their job in a few months." Not true. Actually, cities such as Chicago and Washington, D.C., are more the exception to the rule, as we see in a very informative webpage. The percentage that dismiss displaced teachers, "ATRs" in the New York City Department of Education, is quite low. And it is also revealing that in most places seniority protects displaced teachers. In New York City it works against displaced staff, as the group of ACRs and ATRs is blatantly lopsided against older, longer tenured staff.

The article is from a site which is targeted towards administrators, the National Council on Teacher Quality, nctq.org. The article, "Tr3 Trends: Teacher Excessing and Placement", from the site, surveys 114 districts, including Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, New York City, Washington D.C., and smaller districts such as Little Rock. It doesn't address the issue of evaluation of teachers while out of the classroom in an excessed status. Notice that in other cities seniority protects senior teachers in other cities, yet New York City is one place where seniority works as a penalty against teachers.

The contrast of better situations for excessed teachers in other cities suggests that we should be armed with this knowledge as the NYC DOE and the UFT move forward with contract negotiations as well as negotiations over ATR status.

These patterns can be overlapping and include:
1. districts that use performance and other factors in deciding whether to retain teachers
2. districts that lay off teachers
3. districts that hire without consideration of seniority (27% of the survey), includes Chicago, Dallas, Fort Worth, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York.
4. apparently, LA & NYC are two of seven districts that place teachers in sub work pools until they are placed in a school.
5. 34 districts (29.8% of the survey, and including Jacksonville, Pittsburgh, St. Paul and St. Louis) have the district assign the teachers back into schools.
6. four districts (including Cleveland, Las Vegas, Little Rock and Spokane) allow teachers to choose positions based on seniority.
7. only six districts are in the worst category: five districts lay-off teachers or place them on un-paid leave (this includes Chicago teachers after 10 months); another, Washington, D.C. gives options of resignation, buy-out or eventual termination after a year if the teacher is unable to find a job.
8. about half the surveyed districts (65 of 114) do not address the issue of what to do with teachers that cannot find jobs.

Here's the article, Tr3 Trends: Teacher Excessing and Placement. Go to the original page link, for the charts on the teacher displacement and assignment trends.

PDQ: Pretty Darn Quick Blog
Tr3 Trends: Teacher Excessing and Placement

03/28/2013

In this month's Tr3 Trends, we take a look at teacher excessing: what factors determine which teachers to excess, how excessed teachers are assigned to schools, and what happens to excessed teachers who cannot find new assignments. 

But first, what is excessing and how is excessing different from a layoff? 

Excessing is the shifting of teachers from one school to another that results from a school reducing the size of its faculty due to a drop in student enrollment, a change in budget, programmatic changes, or because the school is being closed, redesigned or phased out.  Unlike being laid off, teachers who are excessed are still employees of the district and, in most cases, are still entitled to a teaching position at a school, but just not the same school that they left.

We've analyzed scores of excessing policies in districts' contracts and board policies.  Here are the trends that stand out:

In over half of Tr3 districts, seniority is the primary factor considered in excessing decisions.  

Only five districts--Denver, Douglas County (CO), Cypress-Fairbanks (TX), New Orleans, and Louisiana Recovery District--use performance to select teachers to excess without considering seniority.  Three districts--Wake County (NC), Baltimore County, and St. Louis--only consider the best interests and needs of the school or district.  Many districts look at a variety of factors when making excessing decisions. Washington, D.C., for example, uses a rubric with four different factors, of which seniority can only account for up to 10%. 

The "other factors" districts use to make excessing decisions run the gamut from diversity factors to extracurricular responsibilities.

We also looked at how excessed teachers were matched with new placements.

In about a third of the districts, principals or other site-based administrators choose which excessed teachers to hire, as opposed to being placed on the basis of seniority status or assigned by the district's HR office.

Thirty-one out of the 114 districts in our database use "mutual consent" to hire excessed teachers, which allows principals to interview and hire teachers of their choosing without regard to seniority. Los Angeles, New York, Miami-Dade, Chicago, Dallas, Fort Worth, and Minneapolis all use this approach.

Duval County (FL), St. Paul, Sacramento, St. Louis, and Pittsburgh are a few of the districts in which Human Resources places excessed teachers in schools without seeking input from the principal--at least according to the teachers' contract.
 
In Cleveland, Clark County (NV), Spokane, and Little Rock, teachers are allowed to choose placements based on their seniority.
 
In only six districts in our database, teachers are exited out of the school system--via layoffs, unpaid leave, early retirement, or buyouts--if they are excessed and then unable to secure a new assignment.  In most districts, excessing does not lead to layoffs. 

The six districts include Clark County (NV) and Manchester (NH), which lay off teachers unable to find positions after they are excessed.  These districts' contracts do not specify how long teachers have before they are laid off.

Little Rock, Chicago, and Douglas County (CO) give teachers temporary assignments (in Little Rock they serve as substitutes) and then if they are still unable to find permanent positions, they are laid off or placed on unpaid leave.  In Chicago, teachers have 10 months to find a position and in Douglas they have 12 months.  Little Rock's contract does not specify how long teachers have to find a position.

In Washington, D.C. excessed teachers unable to find placements are given three options:

• They can immediately receive a $25,000 buyout,
• They can elect early retirement, or
• They can accept a year-long temporary assignment and continue looking for a position.  If they cannot find another position within that year they will be laid off.

 

Day 8 of yellow journalism war - Educator appeals to Mulgrew to speak up

Day 8 in the yellow journalism war on displaced teachers (ATRs) and the leaders of the UFT still have not spoken up.

An ATR writes an open letter to president Mulgrew, asking him to counter the aspersions.

Dear Mr. Mulgrew,

  It is disappointing that the UFT is not defending the professionalism of the ATRs from the disparaging aspersions by newspapers such as the Daily News and the Post, which affect public opinion.

  As you know, ATRs are not being hired by principals. Those that receive "provisional" positions for vacancies are dismissed after the semester and new, untenured teachers are hired. The principal saves on his budget by using the ATR during the semester and in hiring a new teacher afterwards.

  Therefore, it is no fault of the ATRs that they are not attaining permanent positions.They are experienced educators and valuable resources that should be in the classrooms. The UFT is partially to blame for negotiating the weekly rotations which have caused hardships and the "provisional" assignments for vacancies, which the DOE has perverted. 

  The UFT needs to speak out publicly defending ATRs and negotiate with the DOE to have ATRs placed in permanent positions before new hires. The DOE should revert back to the unit values for paying teacher salaries.

  On a related matter, it is shameful that the UFT is silent in allowing DOE roving supervisors to harass ATRs with teaching observations that clearly violate the contract and the professionalism of teachers.

Roving supervisors arrange a period in a subject to observe the ATR teaching a lesson, which has nothing to do with their responsibilities as ATRs. They are being observed in an arbitrary and capricious manner which could be grieved under Article 20. The ATRs are asked to teach content or generic lessons in  environments in which they do not know the schools or the students. or have access to resources. They are being "set up to fail" by being held accountable for unattainable standards by the supervisors. Article 7A requires that teachers have daily programs,subject classes with students,room assignments and also that a preference sheet be completed. in some cases Article 8J (pre and post observations) is being violated. For ATRs to be put in this position is clearly unprofessional and an abuse of their rights as teachers under the contract.

  The UFT should acknowledge these abuses and work to end their practices. In fact, The UFT should begin a law suit to negate all observations of ATRs by roving supervisors.

  In conclusion, I am hoping that the UFT will end its silence and publicly stand up for the ATRs, including Guidance Counselors and Social Workers,

Sincerely,

James Calantjis

Educator 

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."

ACRs/ATRs tell the truth of the situations after another New York Times slight

The New York Times again ran an article slighting ACRs/ATRs. However, the UFT leaders fail to publicly speak up for us and fail to dispel misleading generalizations of how staff became displaced. On the side many in our union who want our support buy the Campbell Brown sort of line that we are "bad teachers". Displaced staff speak up and give their accounts of why they are ATRs, and why they do not have permanent assignments or real appointed positions.

1) Based on DOE documents ACRs/ATRs have obtained, roughly 3/4 of displaced staff are in pool because of school closings or co-locations

2) Displaced as ACR/ATR due to fraudulent charges

a) any student charge will be validated if the principal or the investigator wishes, with principals freely soliciting fabricated stories made up on the spot

b) teachers surviving the accusation stage pay a mob-style shakedown fine and then return to the classroom

3) Vast majority of teachers (80%) at the last figure in long term assignments had satisfactory ratings (May 2011 Gotham Schools); others are getting their first U ratings observations while in rotation, with coverage (substitute) classes they just met, have no relationship with, do not have the power of entering a grade for them, do not have the parent or guardian phone numbers for them.

Positions are eliminated as UFT reading volunteer program undercuts literacy coach positions, as teachers are given college adviser duties for advisories, undercutting guidance counselors, as many guidance and social work positions over-all are given to outside private contractors.

4) Principals have played favorites and have replaced ACRs/ATRs with their own staff preferences

5) Not hired because fair student funding has encouraged principals to hire cheaper teachers

a) job fairs are a fraud

b) at the fairs established teachers are forced to compete with Teaching Fellows, Teach for America recruits and other new people

c) experienced educators are passed over for positions for which they are qualified, while unqualified teachers take their place

Instead of fighting the displacement process the UFT has repeated the DOE line that we need to retool our resumes or beef up our wardrobes. We are supposed to be protected by tenure. Why is the union cooperating with this tenure-crushing ploy that we need to reapply for jobs? This is a back-handed breaking of tenure. ACRs/ATRs did not leave their jobs. They were displaced as new hires took the places they would have had when new schools replaced old schools.

The union seems to have forgotten that by ignoring the hiring of Teacher for America recruits and other novice teachers, the DOE violated on-again, off-again hiring freezes, freezes that they used to insist on. The DOE opened the door for their displacement of veterans with the excuse that they filled shortage areas, then the UFT allowed that to happen for all licences.

Here are some of the stories of how ACRs/ATRs entered the pool. We tell them, since the UFT gives us no page in the union newspaper.

I am a guidance counselor, excessed by new principal because she said she had no money in budget to pay my salary, and she illegally lowered my caseload to 11 students. Yet she hired another gc for a few days a week, instead of keeping me for those days. Where is the help the UFT promised us? Several principals have said to me that no money in budget is no excuse.

The school that I taught in for twelve years was closed,and I was put into the ATR pool. In thirty years of teaching I have 1) been teacher of the year, 2) had thirty years of satisfactory ratings, 3) been one of the teachers that was asked to create the music curriculum that the city used, 4) helped several students get scholarships, 5) had the highest number of students from any one junior-high school in the all-city junior high school orchestra, 6) trained students that have gone on to professional careers in music. I have been completely ignored ten times when I have applied for positions that were posted via the DOE website. On the two occasions when I was asked to come to a group interview, all of the other candidates (who for the most part were much younger that me) gave up and said "there is no way that we can compete with this guy". However, I was never even invited back for the second round of interviews. So far this school year, as I have been traveling through the schools (which I don't mind so much really) I have come across three of my former students who are now teachers, and they all said that I helped to inspire them to become teachers (guess I haven't done such a bad job after all).

Then there is this testimony, which echoes disturbing stories that are coming in privately every few days: that ATRs are getting U ratings for observations of lessons in substitute situations. The UFT knows that the DOE wins nearly every U rating appeal, yet it agreed to this evaluation program from the outset, going along with the ploy that this was just a pilot program in just a few districts. What a way to end a career.

I am 64, after 18 years of service my school closed and was replaced by two new schools with young principals who in turn hired young, inexperienced teachers. During 18 years, I never received a U rating. Recently, I was observed out of my subject and grade, and I received my first U because I could not control three students. I was told that even though I did not know their names and they did not know me, I am supposed to be able to control them and teach, although their own classroom teacher could not control them. I will retire soon in Florida.

Another blog's overview of ATRs, their history and situation: "A Look Inside the ATR Purgatory"

A journalist's history and analysis of the displaced teacher situation in New York City:

Originally from NYC's Best, Brightest, and Worst, May 19, 2013 

Life in Limbo: A Look Inside the ATR Purgatory

Polo Colon, 63, is wearing a spiffy brown suit–accessories include suspenders and a matching fedora. He orders camarones fritos, aguacate, and maduros (fried shrimp, sliced up avocado, and fried plantains)–all in Spanish, of course. He points to the small park outside the diner window, and describes the diversity and convenience of his neighborhood – Bushwick. He grew up in the area, attended Bushwick High School, and raised a family of his own there. Bushwick is his stomping grounds, he said. 

Just last week, Colon– a teacher in the New York City public school system since 1971–was asked to sign in at the middle school he was teaching at for the week rather than slide his attendance card across the board. For someone outside of the public school system, different ways of clocking in may seem meaningless, but it is telling of the hierarchy within the school’s staff: teachers with a permanent job assignment at a school can merely slide their card into the “present” box, whereas visiting teachers must sign in. 

“I told her [the secretary] that I’m only doing this for her,” he said.

For Colon, someone who has been a teacher for over forty years, being asked to “sign in” isn’t customary. But as a teacher in the Absent Teacher Reserve pool, the practices he would normally be awarded are expired.

Colon is one of approximately 800 ATRs roaming the New York City public school system. These teachers are no longer treated with respect – not by the United Federation of Teachers, and not by the Department of Education. The ATR pool is comprised of fully licensed, fully certified teachers who have lost their permanent job positions, typically because of school closures. They find themselves roaming from school to school on a weekly basis, essentially being assigned the work of a substitute teacher.

These teachers, who have devoted years of their lives teaching students in New York City’s public school system, are treated as dispensable and are reminded of their expendability everyday.

*****

The absent teacher reserve serves as an intermediary between the guarantee of a permanent position and actually being laid off. Teachers in the ATR pool receive the same salary and benefits, but their new job description fits that of a substitute teacher. They are no longer employed by one public school, but are employed directly by the Department of Education, and float from school to school on a weekly basis.

In 2011, Mayor Bloomberg jeopardized the jobs of over 4000 teachers, with his contested policy of shutting down “failing” schools.” Through bargaining between the United Federation of Teachers and New York City’s Department of Education, the Absent Teacher Reserve was created in 2005, for teachers who found themselves in the “rubber room”– either unable to find a permanent job because of a closing school or because they were targeted for termination.

Sam, who chose to use a different name, has been a teacher in New York City for twelve years. One year after he transferred to a different middle school, it was shut down, and he became an ATR. “I’ve been an ATR for three years, and with this colocation situation, where the DOE uses one building for three to five schools, the original school loses teachers because it loses space for its students,” he said.

 Many of these ATRs are just like Colon, who has been a teacher for over forty years–teachers who have devoted years teaching, and are now unemployable.  This is because of the Department of Education’s “fair market funding formula,” [fair student funding or fair school funding] according to Norm Scott, a former New York City public school teacher. Scott, now retired, worked as a public school teacher from 1967 until he officially retired in 1997. Even after that, he continued to work in New York City public schools until 2005, coordinating robotics programs at schools in his district.

 “You could have a school full of $100,000 teachers, or full of $50,000 teachers. What Joel Klein (the former Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education) did was penalize schools by limiting the number of teachers with these salaries and put a penalty on schools that hired these people,” Scott said. [The NYC DOE replaced the teacher unit formula with Fair Student Funding in 2007.]

Sam described the ATR position as a way to “deprofessionalize the profession, to weaken job seniority, and job security,” with, what is often, “a humiliating rotation.”

***** 

Colon began his career as a teacher in 1971, as an assistant preschool teacher at a daycare program in Harlem. “I just enjoyed it,” he said. “As a musician, I could do music and art with them–I just love watching children develop and helping them to develop.”

Soon after, Colon got married and had two daughters. Because of his family, Colon decided to further pursue his career in education. He became certified in Early Childhood and Early Childhood Education (degrees for teaching in preschools and elementary schools) and he earned a Common Branches License for teaching core subjects. He even completed the School Administrative Supervision and School District Administrative licenses for principal certification.

 In 1989, Colon began working at P.S. 120 in Bushwick. After seventeen years of working there, in 2006, he launched an investigation against the school’s new principal, Liza Caraballo. He accused her of violating the No Child Left Behind Act and the New York City Health Code.

 After the incident, Colon was assigned to a rubber room in downtown Brooklyn. He explained that the rubber room was full of teachers who had been charged with various things and were on their way to termination, but were still employed by the DOE.

The room was set up like a cafeteria, with long, six-person tables. Teachers could spend weeks or months there, but in many cases they were stuck in the rubber room for years. Since there were no students to teach, and no assignments to do, teachers would sit at the tables and either linger and waste time, or try their best to be productive.

“People wrote books–actual books,” said Colon. One woman, he explained, got a PHD, allowing her to get another teaching license.

Colon spent three years in the rubber room, seeing his colleagues come and go. He is finally able to work in schools again, and as an ATR, he is given weekly assignments,  never in one school for too long.

*****

Marc Epstein taught history at Jamaica High School in Queens for 16 years, and in the 2011-2012 school year, he received a letter from the Department of Education informing him that he–along with half of his fellow teachers at Jamaica–were now a part of the Absent Teacher Reserve pool.

Epstein, who has continually written about violence in public schools, wrote a piece called “New York City Ronin Teacher,” which, after being published in the Huffington Post, found its way onto the blogs of ATRs, ATR community pages, and the websites of education reformers.

“At the end of the day the teacher-ronin [ATRs] are expendable. After all, when you go to the movies and buy popcorn, does it matter who puts the popcorn in the box, or if there is a new person behind the counter every three weeks?” Epstein wrote.

Sam recalled when he was told he would become an ATR. “It was a really curt debriefing. ‘Okay, we’ve lost some numbers, we had to let some people go,’ – that’s how it went,” he said. “it was a debriefing but it was a little too curt for my taste.

Feeling like a substitute teacher is inevitable for an ATR. Teachers aren’t even able to make their own classroom lesson plans.

“100k a year to do nothing,” said Colon. But he remains optimistic because he loves his students.  “I see myself as a specialist that comes in. I have to impress on [students] that I’m not just a sub.”

One of Colon’s greatest concerns as an ATR is that he finds the DOE takes no issue in violating its own health and safety codes. For the last few weeks, he has been teaching in middle schools, for which he does not have his license. He has reached out to the DOE and UFT in regards to the matter. All of his complaints have been ignored.

“We often get put into things that are outside of our licensed area,” said Sam, in reference to his weekly rotations. “We’re either doing the best we can under challenging curriculum if we’re working outside of our licensed area, or we’re bringing lessons that have been made up already for the grade level.”

However, ATRs also face struggles outside of the classroom.

“A lot of us struggle with the idea of being a substitute. Substitutes don’t have multiple years of experience, and aren’t entirely certified unless they’ve retired already,” said Sam. “But students don’t really refer to us as that–staff does. So we take that as a professional slight.”

[The NYE DOE and the UFT agreed on rotation in late June 2011. Guidance counselors and social workers began rotation in Fall 2012.]

*****

Since the implementation of the ATR policy, forums and blogs have popped up all over the internet, not only criticizing the creation of the absent teacher reserve pool, but condemning Bloomberg’s idea of education reform. NYC ATR and NYC Rubber Room are two of the more well known blogs that cover news from the absent teacher reserve pool, and allow teachers in the pool to communicate with their fellow co-workers in the same situation.

Teachers in the absent teacher reserve pool do not have their own classroom, their own students, or their own community. And they have resorted to the internet to–a majority of the time–anonymously sending in accounts of their struggles in their new positions, just to cope.

Colon is not bitter despite what he has been through in his final years as a teacher. He is optimistic and is looking forward to finally retiring in Spring 2013, so he finally has time to pursue his musical interests.

However, the future for other ATRs remains bleak. The DOE recently implemented more teacher evaluations, especially for ATRs, which the UFT has supported. Norm Scott, who has worked alongside ATRs, explained the tension within teachers in schools.

“You walked into a school [as an ATR] and you were branded as being a loser,” he said. “They created this ATR system for teachers who could not get jobs and they vilified them. Each year it was a competition with the next round of ATRs, so people are being attacked as incompetent teachers.”

New York City’s Department of Education has hosted several job fairs, advertising them specifically to the ATR community. However, the job fairs are not only for ATRs, but for anyone interested in a teaching position. Sam, who is still stuck in the system, emphasized the union’s failure to support teachers in his situation.

 “We go to these job fairs and its really a show. What goes on is that they hire quite openly and are very solicitous towards the people who are just finishing up their education studies and they literally give a cold shoulder and left handshake who have fifteen and twenty years in the school system,” said Sam.

“We have gestations of being sold out not just by the city, but by the union,” he said. “What they should be doing is respecting the contract.”