While NYC's Rubber Rooms are Closing,

it doesn't necessarily mean the process will be more fair to teachers; it could well be the same or even worse:

Unfair Investigations:

There are no changes to how investigations are done. When a Principal goes after a teacher the final result is the teacher is removed. I have previously wrote about these unfair investigations Here, Here, and Here. An independent investigator would make this a fairer investigation and would require the teacher to fully participate in it.

No Consequences For "False Accusations":

The agreement does nothing to ensure that either the DOE or UFT go after administrators or students that were found to have given "false accusations" against a teacher, despite language to do just that in the previous "rubber room agreement". To date, no Administrator has been disciplined for giving "false accusations" against a teacher.

The Expansion Of The Hated & Unfair "Probable Cause" Provisions:

The awful "probable cause" provision was expanded to include violent assault. Despite Leo Casey's advocacy for this provision, mere hearsay is enough to get a teacher offline for up to three months. Now we are adding another accusation to remove more innocent teachers.

Shortening The 3020-a Hearing Process:

You might think that this is a good thing. However, there is real concern that the hearings, with their stringent timelines could pressure Arbitrators from hearing character witnesses for the teacher because of the requirement of meeting the timelines (teacher witnesses go last). The hasty hearing process may turn out to be unfair to the teacher.

Hold the Celebration Over the Rubber Rooms

as the devil is in the details over the agreement to get rid of them. Education Notes notes:

NBC reports the following:

* A teacher will only be able to be removed from a classroom for 60 days. If by then the teacher has not been charged, he or she can return to the classroom unless there are serious accusations involved.
* The deal gives the city greater ability to suspend teachers without pay in more severe cases, and saves taxpayers from spending $30 million a year to pay teachers to essentially do nothing.
* The hearing process will be expedited in part by hiring more hearing officers to adjudicate. In less serious cases, there will be an expedited hearing processs in which the case will be resolved in three hearings over a period of two weeks.



The key is who doesn't get paid in the more "severe" cases. Look for these to be expanded to a wide level - like anything having to do with a child. I'm not talking things like sexual charges (which is already a reason to not get paid - and teachers have been exonerated based on false charges). I'm thinking things like ANY physical confrontation. Who knows what else? Will there be enough ambiguity to give the DOE wide latitude not to pay people?

And what are "serious" accusations? Does anyone trust the UFT to assure bullet proof protections? Will they tell you to file a useless grievance? Expect a report from experts Jeff K and James E on the ICE blog soon.

Ed Notes

Hell, I wasn't paid while I was "suspended" for eight months because those bastards at WCSD wanted me to settle. Mind you, this was over a fucking clerical error on an FMLA form, which the principal lied and said I committed "dishonesty," "negligent of duty," "inefficient," and a host of other slanders resulting from my having been so seriously ill.

While I Mentioned the "Rubber Rooms" in the Previous Post,

apparently in a deal between BloomKlein and the teachers' union, these will be closed as of next fall:

Mayor Bloomberg and the city's teachers' union are set to announce today an agreement that will shutter the controversial teacher reassignment centers known as "rubber rooms," The Post has learned.

The centers won't close until the fall under the deal, sources said.

The centers house more than 600 teachers accused of misbehavior -- ranging from educational incompetence to sexual abuse -- who wait for hearings for months and years on end while doing nothing at full salary.

The Post has campaigned against rubber rooms for months. Columnist Andrea Peyser wrote in February, "Rubber rooms have become the symbol of everything in city government that makes one's head want to explode. These oases of waste and neglect exist in all five boroughs, playing host to a whopping 660 educators who've been accused of everything from sexual abuse and stealing to incompetence."

Under the deal, teachers accused of lesser charges will now report to Department of Education administrative offices or schools to perform clerical duties, sources said.

NY Post


Interesting this deal has been reached right before the premiere of the documentary about the rubber rooms.

What is it Like to Be Assigned to a "Rubber Room"?

This report, including an audio report, gives a little bit of a hint:

“The first day we were reassigned here I fell,” Brandi Scheiner, 57, says, pointing to the gravel path. Scheiner is a former elementary school teacher and is walking toward a compound of red trailers outside George Washington High School in Washington Heights. The security guard’s booth happened to be empty at 7:30 a.m., so it was easy to walk through the chain-link fenced gate. There are at least 120 teachers assigned to the eleven trailers here. Scheiner taught in Manhattan for 21 years and was assigned to Trailer 14 last fall.

“When we got here there were only two tables,” she says, looking around the fluorescent-lit room. She shows me clusters of desks and a bulletin board she decorated. “So I set it up this way, you know like the way you would set it up in a classroom.”

The bulletin board does look like what you would see in an elementary school, only it’s covered with newspaper clippings instead of vocabulary words. Crowded schools often use trailers for extra class space, but this is the first time they’ve been used as rubber rooms. Scheiner wasn’t thrilled with the amenities.

“This is our bathroom,” she says, walking into a room with a stainless steel sink. “When we came here there was no hot water so now we have hot water.” She pushes a lever and the water does flow, but only from one side. “It’s broken. You see it’s broken.”

Scheiner was suspended in 2007 when her principal accused her of incompetence and insubordination. She claims it was really a case of age discrimination.

Of course she was "too expensive," just as I was.

The Education Wars: More About the Rubber Rooms

This article is from across the Atlantic. The more people know about these outrages going on in our public school systems, the better:

Dr Joy Hochstadt, the lawyer representing them, says rubber rooms are being used by heads to get rid of whistle-blowers.

“Again and again, I see these nonsensical specifications in 3020-a charges (also known as Teacher Tenure Hearings, similar to a General Teaching Council hearing in England and Wales). Never have I seen it where a teacher taught substantively incorrect concepts, facts and ideas,” she says.

Dr Hochstadt, a former teacher who spent time in the rubber room but was subsequently cleared of the charges against her, cites the case of Brandi Scheiner, a primary teacher for 24 years. She was sent to a reassignment centre for seating her pupils in the wrong way on the floor during story time and acceeding to a request from a five-year-old pupil for more glue.

“Mrs Scheiner is loud, funny, round and cuddly, the perfect type of kindergarten teacher and surrogate caretaker for students,” she says. “These criticisms were not against her teaching: they were against Mrs Scheiner personally and against her top-scale salary.”

US campaign groups such as Teachers 4 Action and the National Association for the Prevention of Teacher Abuse claim that the rubber rooms provide a route for heads to get rid of high-salary teachers. They claim that the Department of Education hopes that teachers will get so fed up with the rubber rooms that they resign, allowing the school to save on their salary.

And what in the hell is an INNOCENT teacher doing still being in the rubber room after ten years?

I read with real amusement how the New York Post reported about a teacher, Alan Rosenfeld, who has been sitting in a DOE "rubber room" for almost a decade while collecting his full salary. What the New York Post seemed not to understand is that the real cause for Alan Rosenfeld receiving his full salary for doing nothing for nearly a decade is Chancellor Joel Klein himself.

A little history is need here. Alan Rosenfeld was charged under New York State Law 3020-a by the DOE and he went through a full 3020-a hearing and after the independent Arbitrator heard all the evidence against Mr. Rosenfeld, decided that he was only guilty of one minor charge and gave Mr. Rosenfeld a one week suspension without pay. This Arbitrator dismissed all the remaining charges as being unfounded hearsay and expected Mr. Rosenfeld to be returned to the classroom. However, along came Chancellor Joel Klein who decided that a person like Alan Rosenfeld should not be in the classroom and sentenced him to a permanent stay in the "rubber room". This is known as "Chancellor discretion".

Now I ask you. Who is responsible for Alan Rosenfeld receiving his full pay while spending a decade in the "rubber room"?

Was it the New York State "due process" law?

How about Alan Rosenfeld's somewhat abrasive personality?

Could in be the teacher union contract?

Or was it Chancellor Joel Klein's fault?

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The Education Wars: Rubber Rooms

Last night's report by NYC's WCBS-TV, not surprisingly, was edited down quite a bit:

I was alerted by a source a few hours before the story aired at 11 PM that the in depth story that Legendary and well known and widely respected CBS Reporter, Pablo Guzman had spent weeks researching and filming had gotten the thumbs down by the Editors at WCBS Television News.

Another source disclosed to me earlier in the day, before the CBS Rubber Room story aired, that apparently news of the story had been leaked to those who run the City, especially individuals whose names end with the letters "Esq" and work in the Chambers Street area of Manhattan.

It seems that massive pressure was apparently exerted on person or persons unknown at WCBS News to have the story killed or so edited (read Butchered), that it was the predominantly innocent, Railroaded Teachers, incarcerated in the so-called "Rubber Rooms", themselves, who were made to look like "the problem" and not the victims of multiple miscarriages of Justice that have continued for years.

I can not describe what a personal Tragedy this is for me personally but also for the whole cause of Teachers nationwide.

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This is what aired. It is under the title "CBS 2 Hidden Camera: Inside Teacher "Rubber Rooms."

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Another link is right here.

Unless a station does a special report, naturally only a fraction of it is going to make it to the 11 o'clock news. It is extraordinary it got broadcast at all. This is the first television broadcast I am aware of even mentioning this.

The Education Wars: Rubber Rooms

This is the WCBS-TV link to the report tonight.

Hopefully there will be a YouTube and if so, I will post it here.

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On the right-hand side.

The station's video library:

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The title of the report: CBS 2 Hidden Camera: Inside Teacher 'Rubber Rooms'

The Education Wars: Rubber Rooms

I hope somebody in NYC will YouTube this upcoming report about the lawsuit against NYC's DOE with regard to the rubber rooms:

This interview is about the class action lawsuit against DoE
initiated by a group of teachers in the rubber rooms

History will be made by CBS Channel 2 Television News
When: Monday 11 PM
Where: Channel 2, CBS, NYC

Who: Legendary News Reporter
Pablo Guzman
Interviews:

Attorney Dr. Joy Hochstadt, Esq.
Representing and with:
David Pakter
[some others]

The Education Wars V: The Rubber Rooms

In the Financial Times of all places, "detained" NYC teacher David Pakter describes what it is like to be a political prisoner in the New York City school district:

When I began teaching in New York City 37 years ago, if you were reported for serious misconduct, you were sent to a Board of Education office until the matter was resolved. But as the system grew, removing teachers from the classroom became standard for even the most trivial offence. The board’s offices got so crowded they began leasing buildings around the city to use as “reassignment centres”, nicknamed “rubber rooms”.

As many as 800 to 1,000 teachers are in rubber rooms on any given day; it’s an academic Guantánamo Bay. Many go stir-crazy. Brooklyn’s Chapel Street rubber room is huge but so crowded that people are almost falling out of the windows.

When I was first sent to one of these rubber rooms, it took me six months to establish what the complaints were. Meanwhile, like everyone else, I turned up every day, kept the same hours and received my salary. But there was nothing to do except wait. It’s known as constructive termination. In the worst rubber rooms, there are people who’ve been there for up to five years.

The Education Wars: Suggestions on the Rubber Room "Problem"

Although this post is about NYC teachers, there are some good suggestions about putting more fairness into termination hearings, which aren't "due process" hearings at all but kangaroo courts:

First, any teacher who is not arrested for criminal or sexual issues could only be removed from his or her assignment after a three person mediation panel, paid for by both the DOE and UFT, interviews the major players, including the accused teacher to determine the seriousness of the charges. If the three person panel agrees that the charges are both real and serious. Then and only then can the DOE remove the teacher from the school. If the three person panel decides that the charges have been embellished, distorted, perverted, or false and does not raise to the level of serious. The Principal can only give the teacher a letter to his or her file. This would limit the "rubber rooms" to the serious cases.

Second, to ensure a fair investigation, a UFT assigned investigator will work with the DOE investigative agencies to determine the extend of the alleged teacher misconduct. The UFT assigned investigator will sit in on all witness interviews and will write their own report. If the UFT assigned investigator report is at odds with the DOE investigation report, both reports will be given to the three member panel as evidence for determining the level of seriousness of the charge and the removal of the teacher to the "rubber room".

Finally, the three member panel can also recommend action be taken for administrative misconduct when it is discovered that the charges against the teacher are bogus, discriminatory, or greatly exaggerated. Fines against the administrators can be issued when the three member panel determines such administrative misconduct.

Firing teachers is serious business, for a teacher's career is totally destroyed and he or she CANNOT reclaim a teaching career in public education thanks to districts requiring disclosure of terminations, resignations in lieu of terminations, etc. Districts no longer take dismissals seriously except to blackball teachers systemwide in the hiring process; they regard a termination hearing as nothing but a joke, and they treat legal proceedings as if they are above the law--hell, school districts now think they ARE the law.

Unfortunately, the trend is to turn public school teaching into "at-will" employment for ALL teachers, as long as there are too many people graduating from universities gullible enough to want to be teachers.

The Education Wars III: About the Rubber Rooms

This is a very lengthy response to Stephen Brill's bullshit article in The New Yorker about the so-called "rubber rooms." The response was written by an attorney.

This jumped out at me:

The Teacher Reassignment Centers as these warehouses are officially called but better known as “rubber rooms” are specifically designed to be hostile work environments, where the tenured teachers are treated as Pariahs and disdained by other DOE employees, especially by clerical level employees, or uniformed security guards who are assigned to oversee their confinement and record their movements. No work is allowed in the rubber rooms, no electronic devices, no visitors. The process is aimed at the demoralization of “reassigned” tenured teachers so that they will resign rather than undergo years of confinement without any duties followed by months to over a year of the disciplinary trial itself only to have to relive all the false accusations with which they were harassed in the first place. Then having to be subjected to false testimony, from several witnesses, was a dejecting and dispiriting ordeal.

....

A tenured teacher who has even been mildly disciplined with a reprimand is thus guilty, the decision becomes public (albeit under FOIL @ $.25/page and decisions are typically 50-90 pages), all states exchange disciplinary information barring the teacher from future employment at any public school. That is how DOE coerces teachers to enter into a settlement agreement to resign, or to become an ATR without the “conviction” on their State Education Department record. While the DOE saves the cost of the Arbitration and the teacher is spared its ordeal, the DOE gains far more. It requires the withdrawal of all litigation claims until the date of the settlement agreement for the §3020 and it usually contains an automatic termination clause should the conduct ever be repeated. Thus, a teacher with a long commute was coerced into agreeing that if she ever exceeded a cumulative maximum of 55 minutes of tardiness in any academic year she would be automatically terminated without further due process. An outstanding teacher at NYC's premier High School who Mr. Brill calls "Patricia Adams" who was a recovering alcoholic signed a similar clause; her father was dying and she returned home to California for a few weeks, other family members drank heavily, she relapsed briefly, but not so briefly as to lose consciousness at a staff workshop with no students present, very shortly after she returned to NYC immediately after the burial, and the system lost an outstandingly talented teacher who had only once in 10 years been observed with any symptoms by a student. In another case, at the summer school of that same premier High School, a student attempted to extort a passing grade for her failing beau (both students enrolled at other schools during the regular school year) by threatening another outstanding teacher who taught summer school session there as well (open to all students from all schools, public or independent) that she would claim the teacher had inappropriately touched her unless he passed the boy who was failing. After grades were distributed, she carried through with her threat. The teacher was coerced to resign; now every school district to which he applies inquires as to the circumstances surrounding his departure from his most recent position, and he has been out of work and denied unemployment benefits.

I am not sure that would apply to me, as I was blatantly wrongfully dismissed. I am still trying to get a lawyer before the statute of limitations passes.

The Education Wars II

Good luck to those teachers gutsy enough to take on Bloomberg/Klein and the infamous rubber rooms, which should be outlawed:

Some 2000 schoolteachers say New York City is discriminating against them by confining them on trumped-up charges in infamous "rubber rooms" until they retire. Rubber rooms are study hall-like places where teachers are paid full wages to do nothing -- sometime for years.

The class of tenured teachers claims School Chancellor Joel Klein is following Mayor Michael Bloomberg's orders: to abolish the public schools' tenure system by firing tenured teachers or forcing them to quit by making their work life unbearable.

Mayor Bloomberg took administrative control of the city's public schools in 2002. The named plaintiffs - Marie Anne Thomas, Leverett Holmes, Josefina Cruz, Brian Salazar, David Pakter and Paul Santucci - all were brought up on disciplinary charges after Bloomberg took over the schools.

They say Chancellor Klein had no educational experience when he was appointed, and was given the job with a directive to abolish the public school's system of tenure, and to either fire tenured teachers or force them to quit by making their work life unbearable.

The Education Wars II

Stephen Brill, who wrote a hit piece on public education teachers for the New Yorker regarding NYC's infamous "rubber rooms," doesn't know what in the hell he is talking about.

No reporter has a clue what REALLY goes on with teachers who go through these kangaroo hearings since they are usually conducted in secret.

However, being re-assigned to a “rubber room” is often as simple as the Principal doesn’t want you, and doesn't want to train you or assign you to a class that is appropriate for you. The Principal can pick up the telephone or open his/her email, and let someone know at the NYC BOE that teacher X stole something, scrubbed test scores or harmed a child, and need not have any evidence or proof. The teacher is not informed of the allegation until the Gotcha Squad has “proven” the allegation, and he/she is on the subway, in a bus, or is driving to a TRC. Often, the employee does not know even then why he/she is going away from the students who are waiting in the school. The NYC BOE would like to get rid of the Union protection and fire the individual on the spot, but the UFT stops the firing of any tenured employee, and gives the employee a chance to gather evidence and prove his or her innocence. The UFT also provides, as I wrote above, some of the best lawyers in town, free of charge to its members for 3020-a hearings.

But the NYC BOE is not interested in finding the “right” classroom for an employee, and does not want people who have a conscience, are courageous, are too experienced, lose a loved one and must attend funerals, gets sick or has operations, or in any way impedes the business of education. Notice I did not say “educating.”

But even this blogger doesn't have it right:

A tenured teacher accused of incompetence or misconduct not only has Union protection from being fired until the charges against him or her are "proven" by a preponderance of evidence, but the teacher also gets free legal representation from NYS United Teachers, or NYSUT, based in Latham New York. Most of these Attorneys are the best in the business, they know the rather unusual procedures followed at the arbitration hearings, they know the arbitrators, they care about their teacher-clients, and do thorough jobs.

The charges by school districts, my friend, are usually made up. Evidently she hasn't heard how unions collude with administration, and how the school districts commit all kinds of criminal acts, including perjury, fraud, bribery, witness tampering, and all kinds of other acts, which if committed by you or me would be grounds to throw us in prison. She evidently hasn't heard the hearing officers are typically in the tank for districts. She makes lots of good points, but she hasn't actually been THROUGH these jokes of "due process." She has observed, but she hasn't been a target. In the next paragraph, however, she alludes to the core problem in public education and why there needs to be huge reform of the system.

The problem with public education in a nutshell is because of the way school districts are set up, principals, unlike managers in private sector jobs, are NOT closely supervised. Their "supervisors" are typically clear across town and are usually clueless as to what is going on. The principals, drunk with power with the knowledge they will NEVER be held accountable for their actions, for they have the school district's vast legal apparatus and oodles of taxpayer money from which to feed in case they DO get into trouble, abuse teachers who get in their way, such as yours truly. Then it's over for the teacher--ALWAYS--even if the teacher "wins" a kangaroo hearing. The administrators, unless caught in bed with students, go on to bigger and better things. No wonder the public education system has been fucked up for years.

The Education Wars

Who would have ever thought it would be Democrats who would lead the way in the destruction of American public education?

That's what is so outrageous about Obama and Duncan in this matter. They are trying to foist neoliberal ideas on the country.

On a somewhat similar vein, teachers all over the country had better be fucking scared about New York's "rubber rooms," for propaganda like that spewed in the New Yorker article about only incompetent teachers are fired is very effective and very much inaccurate.

Teachers are being shitcanned all over the country and tenure laws and regulations are being subverted as a way to save money on budgets. Yes, there are a few who are whistleblowers and a tiny number who really deserve to be sacked, but the vast majority of teachers have their careers destroyed because of filthy, corrupt, downright evil administrators, those people who are almost impossible to get rid of.

Remember once fired, a teacher can almost never again teach because most states and almost all public school districts require teachers reveal terminations. Since there can be hundreds of applicants for a single public school teaching job, a terminated teacher has virtually no chance of being interviewed, much less hired.

In New York it is even worse. If you are denied tenure after three years, you can have your license revoked, and you don't have to do one goddamned thing to deserve being terminated. You are an "at-will" employee, and administrators can do whatever the hell they want.

Something MUST be done to prevent this widespread abuse of the system, but if nobody knows about it, nothing can be done. Kids' lives and well-being are at stake.

More on this outrage here, including the comments section:

When Joel Klein changed how teacher salaries are paid, it made economical and administrative sense for principals to hire people with low seniority. Not only are new teachers cheaper, but without tenure they're more manipulatable and easier to terminate. What is not being reported is that higher paid veteran teachers who apply for jobs rarely get even a single interview, even when they've been rated Satisfactory their entire career and frequently enough been considered excellent educators. I have spoken to many secretaries who say their principals do not even want to see these applications, just discard them (two for the price of one, and all).

Moreover, there is no way, as Brill claims, that any ATR offered a job can "refuse" to take it. If a principal wants to hire one of these people, that person must take the job or resign. In the past couple of years, the DoE has been avoiding its contractual duty to work towards placing excessed teachers, for they rarely send people out to interview at another school as they had done in the past. Many think their passivity on this issue is a strategic maneuver, for if you want to trim the top salaries off the budget, let the ATR group grow. The PR team can then easily convince the public that it's somehow the teachers' fault they've not been placed.

These bastards found a way to get around the requirement "excessed," experienced, and tenured teachers must be placed in jobs in order to hire cheapo bimbos who will be sacked in three years and never be tenured, must less be vested in retirement. The "U" rating, which can cause a teacher to be fired, is being abused by the Klein clone sociopaths for the sole purpose of preserving the bottom line, regardless of the fact schools are NOT businesses.

The Stephen Brill article is here as well. Brill used to have a magazine devoted to journalism years ago, but it seems to me this lawyer-turned-journalist or whatever doesn't know anything about education and the absolute destruction of public education by these Enron-type clones.

Education Wars

Here is another bullshit article about NYC's "rubber rooms" which tries to persuade those of us who know better it is "extremely difficult" to get rid of teachers.

Where in the fuck do reporters get the idea it is hard to fire teachers? It is a lie; in fact, "at-will" employees in the private sector have far more employee rights than do teachers. All a teacher has to do is work for a sociopathic principal and it's all over for the teacher--forever--because of the blacklisting of teachers nationwide. Somehow this is legal and has nothing to do with teachers convicted of wrongdoing with children or committing crimes.

This is public education's dirty little secret. People think public school districts are not political institutions, but they are, and perhaps the most political--and corrupt--of all.

Many if not most "targeted" teachers are older, more expensive teachers, and those who are whistle-blowers of wrongdoing by administrators. As for young teachers, principals can simply deny them tenure, and their careers are ruined--forever--thanks to the "blacklist" questions asked by most state departments of education and school districts.

Philip Nobile is a journalist who has written for New York Magazine and the Village Voice and is known for his scathing criticism of public figures. A teacher at Brooklyn's Cobble Hill School of American Studies, Nobile was assigned to a rubber room in 2007, "supposedly for pushing a boy while I was breaking up a fight." He contends the school system is retaliating against him for exposing wrongdoing.

He is spending his time working on his case and writing magazine articles and a novel.

"This is what happens to political prisoners throughout history," he said, alluding to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. "They put us in prison and we write our `Letter From the Birmingham Jail.'"

Some food for thought:

Administrators have so much power that they can make almost anyone believe that each teacher is worthy of the abuse they used against her. That is their most powerful weapon against us and is our biggest obstacle to overcome. Much of this power evolves from the naivete of our society.

Administrators buy psychiatric reports with taxpayers' monies. Administrators cover for each other as part of a Good Ol' Boy Network. Administrators simply deem a teacher insubordinate and the teacher is wrong.

Do you really believe the world of education exists on a plane above the rest of our society? The truth is business operates on a higher plane, and I can speak from experience. If for no other reason, businesses have an obligation that schools do not have; they have to be successful or they go bankrupt. Schools are bottomless pits of excess waste and unless an honest board is elected, there is no one overseeing this. No one.

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