Three developments have fueled the growing numbers of New York City public school ATR educators without regular assignments. First, as a result of the NYC Department of Education’s policy of school closings, there has been the massive displacement of hundreds of educators through no fault of their own. Second, as a consequence of the DoE’s changes to the school budget process, there has been the introduction of budgetary disincentives for the hiring and placement of experienced, senior teachers, a category into which many ATRs fall. And third, there has been the DoE’s gross mismanagement of its educational human resources, which has gone from bad to worse this last year. An intellectually honest account of the swelling ranks of the ATRs would address in a forthright manner each of these three developments. The Mutual Benefits report of The New Teacher Project [TNTP], republished this week, manages to discuss the ATR situation and offer one-sided policy recommendations without discussing even one of the developments.
While it would have us believe that it is an independent and impartial observer of the ATR situation, in actuality TNTP is a central actor in the decisions that have swollen the ranks of the ATRs, culpable for much of what has gone wrong. In particular, it has been a full participant in the gross mismanagement of the educational human resources in New York City public schools. It holds contracts from Tweed for the recruitment, induction and placement of new teachers, with a financial stake in maximizing those numbers. So when Tweed irresponsibly hired thousands of new teachers for the 2008-09 school year with the full knowledge that the supply of New York City public school educators was outstripping the demand, thus swelling the ranks of ATRs and creating an entirely new category of novice teachers without a regular position, TNTP was silent, bereft of any courage of conviction. When Tweed paid TNTP to provide placement services for new teachers that it refuses to provide to veteran ATR educators with years of dedicated service to NYC school children, such as arranging school interviews for open positions, TNTP quietly did its employer’s bidding, without a single complaint. And while TNTP addresses its Mutual Benefits report to both the UFT and the DoE, as if it were an independent entity, it will not speak to the media on the subject of the ATRs without the prior approval of Tweed. Given this silence and acquiescence, this active complicity in the DoE’s mismanagement of its human resources, TNTP has surrendered all moral authority to speak on this subject: it is the arsonist yelling “fire, fire.”
An examination of the Mutual Benefits TNTP report republished this week quickly dispels any illusion that it contains something new, and that it was reissued for any other purpose than an attempt by Tweed to frame the issue in ways that covered up its policy and management failures. This is last spring’s report, untroubled by a single correction of the numerous flaws that had been noted in it, with an addendum of five pages of angry invective directed at the UFT. Take, as just one example of its “damn the evidence, full speed ahead” approach, the calculation of the costs of the ATRs. Last year, we demonstrated that the $81 million cost put forward by TNTP was grossly inflated, and that the true cost was less than one-quarter of that sum. In response to a public TNTP inquiry as to the basis of our estimate, we published our calculations in our white paper, A Study in Partisanship. [On Edwize, see our original post on the ATRs, the TNTP response, and our rejoinder.] Our publication of our calculations stands in stark contrast to TNTP itself, which has yet to explain how it arrived at its original $81 million calculation, much less how it came to its new projected $74.4 million cost of ATRs for the 2008-09 school year. This is not an oversight on their part: TNTP does not want a public accounting of its figures. The simple truth here is that when it came time to account the cost of ATRs for the purpose of school budgets, the DoE used the very same method of calculation that the UFT did when we estimated the cost of ATRs at a fraction of the TNTP numbers: rather than reimburse schools for the entire cost of ATRs who were on the central DoE payroll, they discounted that amount by what the schools would otherwise spend on hiring day-to-day substitute teachers. A full public accounting of these numbers would reveal that TNTP is engaged in the policy equivalent of the three card monte scams done on the street corners of New York City.
The tragedy here is that hundreds of ATR educators who dedicated their professional lives to teaching NYC public school students are being denied the opportunity to provide those services. It is time for TNTP and the DoE to get out of the way, and to let them teach.
3 Comments:
1 OgamiItto
· Sep 23, 2008 at 9:06 pm
Thank you- I am an excessed teacher, who has been trying vainly to find a new position. Last year I received 6 positive observations….I feel I have earned the respect of the students, if not my coworkers….my problem is I am qualified. I have a few years experience but no seniority, a Master’s that cost me $90K…..why would a principal hire me instead of two fresh-faced “alternate path” kids who are still working on certification and degrees? The thugs at TNTP seem proud of the fat that almost 50% of these teachers stay for 5 years! Most leave to teach in fairer climes once the State has paid for their degree.
I still work at the same school…for the same salary….at the same time. It’s hard to explain to the students why I don’t have any classes. Joel Klein says he would “rather absorb the costs” than “force” these qualified teachers on Principals. It wouldn’t be fair, he says, to judge them on their school’s performance if they were unable to hire whomever they choose. Well…we wouldn’t want it to look as though they were poor managers. (My school, by the by, has 12 Assistant Principals, each earning over $100,000 annually. And each of whom teaches ONE class per day.)
2 Phyllis C. Murray
· Sep 27, 2008 at 8:53 am
INSIDE EDUCATION: EQUAL OPPORTUNITY IS THE LAW
By Phyllis C. Murray
“The UFT filed an age discrimination lawsuit in State Supreme Court on April 7 alleging that the more than 700 teachers in the Absent Teachers Reserve (ATR) are victims of the Department of Education’s year-old school funding system that, even with an April 2007 agreement with the union to mitigate it, created a financial disincentive for principals to hire senior teachers.” From “UFT Sues Tweed for Age Discrimination”
On April 7, 2008, the filing of an age discrimination lawsuit by the UFT became a necessity. However, history has showed us that direct discrimination involves treating someone less favorably not only because of their possession of an attribute such as age… but because of their race, religion,and/or national origin, compared with someone without that attribute in the same circumstances.
Therefore, we should look at additional demographics. One article of interest was published by “Teachers Unite in 2006.
” How have the demographics of New York City’s public school population, among teachers and students, changed since you’ve been involved in education?
Sam Anderson: Over the past 40 years New York City’s public schools have gone from being comprised of predominantly white students to one that is now predominantly Black, Latino and Asian students.
However, when we look at the racial breakdown of the teaching and administrative staff, they are still overwhelmingly white to the point that nearly 80% of the teachers are white. All we have to do is look at the Department of Education’s own data. More specifically, when we look at the sixteen year record of the racial breakdown of new hires, we see the re-enforcement of white teacher dominance clearly built into the DOE’s personnel structure. Below are the data from the DOE about new hires (this was not easy to come by. But thanks to the persistent work of an Amsterdam News journalist, it is now in the public light).” http://teachersunite.net/article/December2006
Further research has provided another article of note.:
” Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and state and local fair employment practices agencies have documented a significant increase in the number of charges alleging workplace discrimination based on religion and/or national origin. Many of the charges have been filed by individuals who are or are perceived to be Muslim, Arab, South Asian, or Sikh. These charges most commonly allege harassment and discharge.”The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
“According to the EEOC, race discrimination complaints continue to be the number one complaint made to the EEOC. In 2006, a total of 27,238 such complaints were filed. The EEOC also has seen a substantial increase over the past 15 years in discrimination claims based on color, which have soared from 374 in 1992 to 1,241 in 2006.”Tresa Baldas The National Law Journal March 30, 2007
Therefore, perhaps it is more likely for one to have an inordinate number of ATRs in our public schools, to fill the daily vacancies, who represent Africans,Hispanics , Muslims, Arabs, and South Asians than any other group. Age discrimination may also be evident within this population of minorities. Hence, an age discrimination suit is needed. And in the process of further examination and collection of data, other information might surface regarding the myriad ways minorities may be excluded from equal opportunities for full employment in our public schools.
Thus, even though a lawsuit has been filed by the UFT due to the large percentage of ATRs , who were 40 years or older, we need to see all of the demographics regarding ATRs. In doing this, we can examine the possibility of discrimination becoming a factor in the failure of a principal to hire from the current pool of ATRS ( for long term positions within their school) because of a teacher’s race, religion, or national origin.
If the Board of Education is an equal opportunity employer, a system of the checks and balances must be put in place to ensure that there is fairness in the employment process. In that way the words ” equal opportunity” will never become sheer rhetoric but a day to day living reality. After all, Equal Opportunity is the Law
3 Deb Hathaway
· Apr 28, 2010 at 11:21 am
TNTP is making inroads in Colorado’s school system. This “not so non-profit” institutions marginalizes existing teachers in order to bring unseasoned, untrained but willing graduates into school systems. By vilifying teachers and not holding students accountable, this “non-profit” can leverage the government to use their personnel, take credit if it works/blame others if it doesn’t, and collect government fees the whole while. This is a huge money grab.