Here is what I posted over at Amazon.com:
Having been familiar with author Karen Horwitz's organization, the National Association for the Prevention of Teacher Abuse (NAPTA), and also a victim of wrongful dismissal and harassment from my school district, I was anxious to read this book. It is a good book, with an abundance of documentation to prove beyond all doubt teacher abuse is rampant in public schools. I knew from personal experience the public school system is the most corrupt, unethical institution in terms of employee relations, but reading this I discovered I wasn't alone.
I will say, though, the book is probably too long, has a few typos in it, and needs some editing to pare it down a bit. It gets repetitious in places. I also want to point out that in Horwitz's section about "blacklisting," which is probably the biggest factor in keeping teachers in line, it isn't just the possibility of one school district contacting a previous district for references and those references being negative that causes blacklisting; it's the fact almost all public school districts AND teacher licensing boards ask "character" questions on applications in which you MUST disclose any "disciplinary" action or terminations under threat of not being employed or being fired or prevented from having your teaching license at all or having it revoked. You have to reveal information in order for you to be blackballed in almost every state and every school district in the United States. These questions should NEVER be allowed on any employment application because they are designed solely to blackball teachers from ever getting employment. I am not referring to the necessity of preventing truly unfit teachers, such as predators, from becoming teachers (criminal checks are okay), but if your previous employer wrongfully terminated you for petty offenses, you still have to disclose it. You as a terminated teacher are guilty until proven innocent in this filthy system. You are never told in teacher college or when you first hire on a public school that you had better be lawyered up, for if you are unlucky enough to have a truly horrible administrator, he or she can ruin your life.
At one point Horwitz brushes aside the likelihood she was fired because of her age since she didn't have that many years logged into the system; however, it isn't the salary that made her an expensive hire: it is the increased health insurance premiums and the district's desire to cheat her out of full retirement benefits that were likely the reasons she was harassed to begin with. This stuff is rampant in public education, as I found out through personal experience.
This book needed to be written, and I am glad she wrote it.
One thing citizens should demand is that ALL hearings, including disciplinary and termination hearings, be open to the public and to the media. I think this alone would greatly reduce teacher abuse. If administrators KNEW the public was watching them, they would be extremely careful before disciplining or firing a teacher.
I posted this at the Reno Gazette-Journal, which will no doubt delete it, so I am putting it here:
Perjury, alteration of documents, tampering with witnesses so that they will lie in hearings, bringing about fake charges in order to terminate older teachers and cheating them out of health and retirement benefits, bribing witnesses with lucrative district jobs so they can't testify on the targeted teacher's behalf, administrators illegally approaching teachers to violate federal special education laws and retaliating against teachers thus laying the groundwork for terminations based on bogus charges, defamatory statements made to parents by administrators, discriminatory actions against students denying them the right to take classes because administrators didn't want to hire extra teachers, special education students not being put in least-restrictive environments, the list goes on and on and on. I know the public wants to believe public school districts aren't capable of these offenses, but they are, including this one. These offenses are all true and rampant .
6/3/2009 10:02:48 AM
No comments:
Post a Comment