As a Teacher, You Have NO Rights

Thanks to all kinds of loopholes in the law, school districts don't have to follow the law. What targeted teachers go through is quite similar to the old Stalinist Russia. The Bill of Rights doesn't apply to administrative law.

Here's another casualty of administrator abuse of teachers. This one was treated even worse because he was a substitute:




More gory details are here.

Another Outrageous Case of Teacher Abuse

Yet another teacher committed suicide, but her family is trying to teach the school district a lesson by planning to file a wrongful death lawsuit.

I hope the family gets a huge settlement out of it. The bullshit against teachers must stop.

People outside of education don't truly understand how devastating it is to be harassed out or illegally fired from a school district, one's finances ruined and everything one has ever worked for down the drain, while the culprits involved act like a bunch of sociopaths who couldn't care less about who they ruin as long as they feed off the taxpayer trough.

The case:

A series of incidents led to Jennifer Lenihan taking a stress leave, which left her in such financial turmoil that she took her own life July 1, the day her mother went to give her money to help with rent, according to Manuel Jaramillo, her stepfather.

“We believe she was driven to suicide,” Jaramillo said. “She had journals, she had emails, she has other friends that are willing to come forth in the trial.”

In the documents she left behind, Lenihan spoke of being harassed in front of students and other staff members, Jaramillo said. He declined to give names because it could hurt his future case.

A fellow employee who spoke anonymously out of fear of retaliation said she recalled two administrators, Robert Reyes and Jimmy Lima, the principal and assistant principal respectively, yelling at Lenihan in a courtyard in front of teachers and students. A friend of Lenihan said she told him of also being talked down to in her classroom while students watched.

Of course the asshole administrators continue on with their harassment knowing they will NEVER be held accountable for it.

As far as I am concerned, this is nothing short of murder.

The Sounds of Silence [Updated]

I have decided to write Reno's KRNV once again to see if the station plans on ANY followup on the administrative leave of the Lemmon Valley Elementary School principal which began about two months ago.

I have heard rumors or whatever that the reporter who was covering the story for the station is no longer there, but I will find out if that is indeed true.

School districts are more secretive than the CIA. I am almost dead positive Washoe County School District told KRNV to back off.

Update at 10:45: This is what I received from a KRNV staff member:

Ben [reporter who was working on the story] left for a job that paid him much more money than we could. I have [sic] very happy for Ben, but disappointed for us.

This story is by no means dead. I think you will be very happy with the story we are working on right now.

Stay tuned for further information.

Ed Etc.

Record numbers of teachers are walking out of the Houston Independent School District in large part because of the shitty treatment they are getting from principals:

Gayle Fallon, Houston Federation of Teachers president, said one reason so many teachers are breaking their contracts this year is that they have been mistreated by principals.

"A lot of our campus administrators are absolutely abusive," she said. "They scream at people. No one wants to be told to sit down and shut up in a faculty meeting, or be yelled at in front of students, parents or their peers."

Other problems, Pasternak said, include a subjective evaluation system and principals' reluctance to discipline students.

As phone calls have come in to the union office from teachers planning to quit without approval, Fallon said union representatives have counseled them that breaking a contract will be considered a termination, which will stay on the teacher's record.

"We warn them the sanction will be there forever," Fallon said. "What we're getting back is, 'I don't care. I can't do this any more.'"

Teachers don't much care about that if they are treated like shit. Of course, Texas doesn't have real unions since it is a "right-to-work" state, so teachers doubtless don't believe these associations do one thing for them.
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Bob Somerby of the Daily Howler doesn't think much of John Merrow's valentine to Michelle Rhee. Somerby used to be a teacher.
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Could this defiance spark a national trend?

I hope so.

Another Day, Another Terrible Principal

Yet another NYC principal comes under scrutiny for being a vindictive tyrant out to destroy careers.

“We have a no-bullying rule for the schools,” parent Heidi Rotondo told Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott at a District 21 Community Education Council town hall meeting on Jan. 11. “So what are you doing about the principal at PS 90 who’s doing the bullying?”

Walcott dodged the question, insisting he couldn’t deal with “personnel specifics publicly.”

Rotondo was one of more than two dozen parents from Coney Island’s PS 90 who turned out at the town hall meeting to complain about Greta Hawkins, the principal since September 2009 and a New York City Leadership Academy grad.

Parents and teachers want her gone.

I doubt they will get anywhere. People protested against Iris Blige, another notoriously bad principal, and nothing was done to her of any consequence.

That's because these principals, while they may be naturally unfit for the jobs, are doing the bidding of the higher-ups.

Hawkins is regularly reviewed over at Teacher Voice.

Suicide Isn't the Answer,

but sometimes teachers who have been abused by administrators and find there is no way to stop the abuse feel there is no other way out. Naturally the school board gives lip service and will continue to allow the administrator to keep his job.

As far as I am concerned, this school board has blood on its hands:

The suicide note that Mary Thorson left centered on frustrations at the school, and her death spurred some of her co-workers to speak out at the public meeting.

Teachers described an atmosphere of fear and intimidation in the two-school district, where little things snowballed over time.

"We don't feel like we can speak out because we have been intimidated," teacher Rose Jimerson said at the meeting. "We have signs all over the building about anti-bullying. … Our staff gets bullied."

Co-workers and friends said in interviews that Thorson was deeply upset by her job and was worried she was on the verge of being fired. She had been suspended in April after allegedly striking a student and again a week before her death, records show. The second suspension was for allegedly cursing at a student, a co-worker said.

Trumped-up charges, of course.

Remember, it is very difficult if not impossible to go back into teaching once fired. One has to basically move to another state in order to resume a career, provided a job can even be found.

Getting a Teaching Job

these days is a crapshoot, but keeping one is like playing Russian roulette.  It is a rare teacher who goes through a career without having experienced workplace harassment by principals and other administrators, and a rarer teacher who manages to survive the abuse.

Just about the only teachers who have real "careers" are those who have family members who are teachers or are administrators in the same school district.

The Education Wars: Bullying of Teachers by Principals

Good, lengthy letter to an elected official over at NAPTA about this pervasive problem:

Let’s not forget here that we are not talking about using bullying as a tool to get rid of “bad” teachers. There are procedures for that; if you want to argue for changes in that system, let the administration and unions look at those procedures for effectiveness and simplicity, but don’t try to argue that bullying is a good way to “clear out the deadwood.” It isn’t used for that most of the time. We are talking about principals who have a psychological need for power and use bullying as a way to show their power. A targeted teacher is not one who “deserves” to be bullied any more than an autistic child “deserves” it. A teacher is targeted because s/he is a threat to the principal-is more popular with staff and students, is the union rep, knows more about education, doesn’t kiss up, etc. It has little, if anything, to do with competence.

How quickly can this all happen? Our abuse began in the spring of 2003. By the time I left MMS in March 2006, the gang included the principal and his chief enforcer-the office manager, both of my teaching “teammates” (I was literally sandwiched between them in the middle of three rooms), the other union building rep (!), and four or five other members of the “in” crowd. On Day One, my English teammate (who had less teaching experience than me and who carpooled to work with the chief enforcer/office manager [attacks were obviously coordinated during the commute]) and I were assigned to coordinate our curriculums. She presented me with the course syllabus for her English class and when I asked where she was leaving room to support me in my National History Day curriculum as the previous (senior and bullied into retirement) teacher had, She told me that I wasn’t supposed to be doing NHD (with her nose in the air as if mentioning it raised a foul odor)-that eighth grade was going to do that; I just looked at her and laughed. My wife was eighth grade social studies and I knew for a FACT that they haven’t even had the conversation much less come to a decision; in the end, my wife did NHD and the others chose to do easier work. So much for collaboration, except that English had the gall to ask me several months later to teach her district-required unit on Shakespeare because she “doesn’t understand it” and “you’re in theatre so you can do it.” The other union rep, in the meantime, had tried to get me to resign as union rep because I was “too upset” by being moved from eighth grade to seventh (for no educationally valid reason, mind). At one point, she chaffed and denied being an “administrative lackey” (her words) when she resurrected a failed plan of the principal’s to impose sanctions on teachers for committing specific “offenses” which were obviously directed at specific targeted teachers. With the other pack members, the school was not a “safe” place to be. Suspicion was everywhere; it permeated the air. The place was poison. Even the annual “climate survey” showed it, even though bullies and union denied it.

I was not the first to leave; I was in fact, the fifth or possibly the sixth to leave due to bullying and possible sexual harassment. I WAS, however, the first to go loudly. From the end of the 2005 school year to the end of the 2006 school year, fourteen people left the building out of about 45 faculty and staff; I was kicked out, the principal was politely put on a leave of absence (only to appear a year later as a finalist for an upper administrative job), the office manager was told “to go somewhere else” (sweet justice, that), another senior teacher “retired” early; several others went to other districts or just left education altogether.

And the bullying didn’t stop with the exit of our bully; the next principal took up right where our bully left off, bullying one transferring teacher (who was bullied at HIS previous school in the district) from the first day of teacher prep days and utilizing my former “teammates” to spy on him and report any questionable remarks or comments to her as she wrote up a stream of disciplinary paperwork, even scheduling a “counseling” session with him on Thanksgiving Day! By the end of October, he was very distraught over his situation. In speaking to him, I presented his two options: stay and be miserable or leave and save his sanity. He left. She also continued to bully my wife, who worked until December when she hit 60 and, as a PERS I employee, “retired” early. Any district explanation of the bully as a “rogue” employee clearly was false to anyone who took the time to look at the facts.

Administrators' attitude seems to be this: There are 400 or 500 people standing in line to take your job, and if you don't like the way I am running things, quit, or I will force you out and will destroy you.

Until people vote with their feet and quit going into this field will things even have a chance to change.

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?

link

The Education Wars: Sounds Like My Case

I have to share this bit from NAPTA about an over-50 teacher:

During my entire time at the school, the principal broke all appointments by not showing up for my classroom observations. I had to be proactive and reschedule the observations myself. I was given excellent evaluations (6 in total) during my first two years. The state in which I live requires teachers with a negative annual evaluation be given 90 days to improve. I was given 2 days (for one questionably adverse evaluation before being fired.)

My livelihood was taken away because of an irresponsible principal who didn’t do the required work concerning my job either in my first, second or third year. It was easier to get rid of me than to complete the mentoring program. It was easier to discredit me than to have the principal’s incompetence and negligence revealed. The principal admitted to me that I “fell through the cracks.” (No, you dropped the ball!) Meanwhile, this principal is being considered for a higher administrative job within the “system.”

I utilized the school’s mediation process to be heard, but it was a sham kangaroo “court.” I didn’t look for monetary relief; I only wanted the principal to complete my portfolio for my professional certificate. The principal refused, even as the mediator directed the principal to take the book and work on it. The mediator didn’t show up for the second session of the mediation, citing he was “booked up.” I got a message that he’s sorry he couldn’t help me and he’s closed my file.

Losing a job over slight imperfections in my teaching style is one thing, but now I cannot teach at all. The irony is that I became a better teacher while at that school, proactively correcting past mistakes to make my performance more effective, and I got fired for it. The vindictiveness of someone exerting their position of power by using fabricated, contrived reality to ruin a person’s career (without allowing me to face my accusers) is one thing. The lack of compassion and unwillingness to work with a new teacher to support them is unconscionable. The worst effect of this fiasco however, is that it teaches our students that manipulation and bad behavior is rewarded.

link

These administrators are great role models for students. They lie, cheat, steal, and do every other illegal or unethical act with impunity. And taxpayers are footing the bill for these crooks.

But then there is a case not at all like mine that is unreal. This was in 2005:



More details

The Education Wars

This post on Teachers.net shows I am not bullshitting about my case:

Many law firms both in Carson City/Reno and Las Vegas will NEVER go
up against entities like WCSD and CCSD. The reason is simple: both
of these school districts have "deep pockets" and because they can
intimidate these law firms and have also the ability to coerce
their employees. Yes, they both will make sure their witnesses will
lie. If you think that teachers will stand up to the school
district, you are absolutely naive. Even if you win, both
districts will appeal, and they will continue to do that until you
are worn out. Remember it's not their money ---- it's the money
they get from the state. After you are worn out, and your law firm
sees the handwriting on the wall, they will drop you and your
case. Both of these school districts know this game, and as result
they continue to win.

I know of a case with a teacher in CCSD who was terminated. The
principal stated unequivocally on the stand that she "violated his
civil rights." He won the case, but CCSD is still appealing the
monetary award. That was 8 years ago. He's still waiting for
compensation. BTW - the principal the following year was named
Administrator of the Year. She also received the Milliken award
for $25K. There is no justice in this world

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That's what is so bad. School districts get away with all sorts of criminality because they can, and because the public actually believes they are benevolent organizations, like churches.

For the Few Readers of This Blog,

bear with me for a couple of days. I am very, very, very worried I will be completely destitute; there is some kind of delay with my UI claim, and I am worried to death I will no longer get any money at all...I may end up living out of my car.

This was very thing I feared about this state UI, and that I would be stuck here for another 25 years, or else wind up on public assistance. That's going to do me no good on rent, the amount of which is outrageous.

What I am planning to do here on this blog is I want to publish all of the letters I have written to three separate law firms in northern Nevada concerning not only the fake lawsuit involving two of my former students plastered all over the place by Associated Press and other media outlets, with the Reno Gazette-Journal actually having published my name and that of the counselor accused in the case), but also the events leading up to and including the fake termination and hearing. I believe I need to get this out there; of course, I have to redact all of the names in these letters. To my knowledge, no settlement in the civil action has occurred; I was told by the district's claims adjuster it takes two to five years for a civil action of this sort to run its course.

I could have written a book on this. Every word of it is true to the best of my knowledge. People need to understand what really goes on in public education, and it is not pretty. They need to know where their tax money is going, and it is often going to things that would get people on the outside thrown in prison.

I want to get hold of the media in this; however, I have discovered very often they are afraid to report the truth. School districts have a LOT of power because they are not truly held accountable, and it helps greatly they have an unlimited amount of money which to bury peons like me in court.

I still have some time to find an attorney who would take this as a wrongful termination, but I lack the resources with which to pursue it.

Note: Comments are closed on these posts.

The Education Wars

Here is a story I saw on the NAPTA message board (typos from the original included):

I would like to find closure. I have yet to find someone to help.

To make a VERRRYYY long story short:

I was targetted , at a time when I was most vulnerable. I was tittering on depression due to family illness . I was dedicated and creative. The school had a clique that was politically connected and were particulary vicious. They seemed to enjoy hurting people, weilding power. One of the gang leaders was actually the union rep. She was the science teacher . The science room was fille with old dusty tanks and other dusty materials. She had a business that she ran after school so she would come to work tired and actuallu nod off in class. Her sister was the librarian. They were the pack leaders. The school population were poor minority children and these two women and their sycophants would get away with verbal abuse and very little teaching.

I will not get into all of details but each day became so I was afraid to go to work. The principal would dislike and go after anyone the clique did not like. He would remove the severe behavior problems of the favored teachers and palce them in my room. I was naive and wanted to actually help these children but there were too many with major issues.

I began to see the pattern of loading up my classroom with really difficult children and all throughout the year. The better behaved students would be removed.

One odd thing that was ongoing is that my bulletin boards would be sliced as if with a razor or knife. I liked changing the board each month and showing the projects we had completed. I had a hands on classroom, theme based and always culminated in a project.

My boards would be ripped each week and I would do them all over. The principal NEVER made and announcement and never looked for the culprit. I began to wonder whether he was involved.

The custodian was sexually harassing me and I told the principal ( after MANY months), nothing was one. I FEARED bringing it up but finally did after MONTHS. I discovered that the custodian had a habit of being fresh and at lease 2 teachers brought in their husbands to talk to him. The principal and he were friendly.

I think it is possible that the custodian was slicing my bulletin boards.

There were so many things happening. It seems that when the SHARKS in a school building see that you are targetted they join in. The "nice" people pull away.

I am an empathetic person . I am also reserved but when ever I saw an fellow teacher in trouble I woudl at least treat her with kindess and let her know she was not looseing her mind.

I myself had NO help. I became so depressed that I was absent often and I was written up given a U rating the dismissed.

EACH day going to work, my stomach hurt. I suffer migraines and I would get more.

On one occasion I left parent teachers conferences due to a migraine. It was afternoon conferences and I waited until the principal came back from dinner ( 3:00-6:00). I was nauseous and grey .

The nest day I had a letter in my file stating that my leaving because of a migraine was UNPROFESSIONAL. One of his crony teacher mocked me say, " oh I have a migraine but I stayed to work"..

This person can't fight it except to try and hire a lawyer who will take the case. It's an uphill battle, however.

The Education Wars

Here is another excellent post at Teachers.net regarding our throwaway teachers society:

I do not have a solution to help you with your sense of loss and
grief, only to tell you that you are not alone. The despondency
that you feel works to the advantage of your suppressors, because
a person who is in a condition of shock and despair is hardly one
who will be in form to retaliate by taking legal action,
especially if there is no one in sight who is willing to help, as
you might have noticed.

The number of teachers who mysteriously “disappear” from their
classrooms is growing exponentially. Make no mistake, this
practice is very intentionally suppressed by a cooperating circle
of pubic school administrators, school attorneys, state
politicians, judicial supporters and finally, the media. These
agencies protect schools from bearing any consequence of any
crimes, misconduct and violation of laws, and taxpayers pay the
tab. More than any other government organization, school
administrators are beyond any review and not accountable to
anyone.

By contrast, teachers are accountable to everyone, and there is
no protective agency or advocate for teachers. As long as the
existence teachers whose rights have been grossly violated is
denied, there will be no rehabilitation or assistance from
society, and that is why this exploitation continues. The
struggle to suppress their voices is one that continues gets more
difficult for the powers that be.

But at the same time certain groups actually profit by this whole
scenario, and the stakes are high should any teacher be allowed
to win any battle against administration. Each day the struggle
to snuff out teachers “quietly”, many times behind closed doors,
gets more difficult – like trying to hold back a dam that is
about to break. Should only one teacher slip through the cracks
and be allowed to win a legal battle, it would be a victory
against an entire system, the house of cards would start to
tumble. That is why so much money is spent, desperately trying
to prevent publicity of the fact and preventing teacher from
gaining any ground legally. So your sense that it more than one
person you are fighting, but in fact an invisible “mob”, is not
paranoia, it is real.

Among those who profit by your misfortune are:

1) Your attorney who will charge you a fee for every petty
procedure

2) The notorious multi-billion dollar law firms who protect the
districts and chancellor. This is their business, this is their
gravy, and they welcome your misfortune.

3) Judges who often times make deals with the union to sweep the
cases of aggrieved teachers under the rug

4) Superintendents, who get to reward friends and relatives with
jobs and who are also rewarded for teacher turnover, since subs
are cheaper

5) Principals, who are rewarded for firing teachers

6) Administrators, because it keeps them employed by u-rating
teachers, hiring and firing teachers, etc., etc.

A Few Words of Caution

for those foolish enough to aspire being public school teachers:

Not only on DOE/NYC in WestLaw data base. Also check out the decisions
of the NYS Commissioner of Education Website if you would like to find
a plethora of cases where teachers lose. Districts always WIN. It
makes things very simple for the commissioner to rule on cases using
this simple formula. Of course the Department of Education also has a
plethora of precedents they can use to support the decisions in favor
of the districts. Everyday they have more and more precedents to
support the cases because every day the teachers lose and districts
win. So everyday they have more and more cases to reference as
precedents. It probably takes the Commissioner’s secretary less than
half an hour to plug in the precedents with her legal software to
support the dismissal of a teacher’s case.

Favorite quote found at the end of the Commissioner of Education
decisions is “DISMISS”, also “APPLICATION DENIED”. Favorite stock
quote of the commissioner is:

“In light of this disposition, I need not address the parties’
remaining contentions.”

Translated, this means he is not going any further to examine all the
evidence that you have submitted to him to support the legitimacy of
your case. He doesn’t have to bother with any points that you have
raised beyond the first page. No need to address violation of laws.
No need to address violation of teachers rights, or denial of due
process of law. No need. Not when you are the commissioner.

So he dismisses your case and you are out + or - $40,000 of your life
savings for attorney’s fees that you have thrown away in an attempt to
salvage your teaching career. Not to mention the 2-10 years of your
life that you have wasted in the “waiting game” which is also part of
the "litigation process” for teachers. If the commissioner is somehow
compelled to act, and he will act only if pressure is put on, since
more than a few times no decision will be made at all. Good chance
your case could also land in legal “netherworld”. However, if he is
compelled to make a decision on your case say after 2-10 years, he will
again dismiss the teacher’s case because too much time has elapsed and
your case is no longer “timely."

Many teachers are starting to get it. We are just trying to warn
aspiring teachers to consider this before they make an investment into
public education.

This is from a NY teachers discussion board, but this is true everywhere in the United States. Reporters, of course, swallow the swill put out by school districts that it is "difficult" or "next to impossible" to fire teachers.

If districts don't "win" on the merits, they merely cheat in order to "win" as happened in my case.

The Education Wars

Since districts from all over the country are trashing teachers right and left and then whining about how they can't find enough "qualified" teachers to fill the openings, they are turning to overseas applicants to be hired and spit out in a few years.

Interesting the columnist mentions Jaime Escalante. He is also prominently featured at the National Association for the Prevention of Teacher Abuse website, with an article mentioning he, too, was shit upon by administrators.

If This Report

of an event from a few years ago doesn't make you mad, I don't know what will:

Education Wars

Philadelphia's public school system is already one of the worst in the United States and is rife with teacher abuse, but Superintendent Arlene Ackerman, an Eli Broad hack, promises there will be more purging of troublesome teachers and administrators and thus more problems.

Jerry Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, said that "it isn't helpful for principals or administrators to be on a witch hunt" and that struggling teachers need more support from the district.

Jordan said he could not say whether more teachers should have been rated unsatisfactory last year.

Michael Lerner, president of the principals union, said his organization has "never advocated that people who are unable to do the job be maintained in the position."

But Lerner said he saw no problem with zero disciplinary actions against principals last year. "I would attribute to that to the excellent selection process the school district has in choosing its administrators," he said.

Ackerman probably needs to ditch some of the principals, but it will never be the shitty ones, only the ones who dare to make trouble in a good way.

Let the disciplinary hearings be public, and then we will see if Ackerman's claims have any merit. The secretiveness of these taxpayer-financed hearings (to the tune of tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars per case) helps create the scapegoating and abuse of teachers.
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It's all well and good to think you have all of the answers to problems with public schools, but if the problem of workplace abuse against teachers by administrators isn't addressed, nothing will change.

Get outstanding students to go into teaching and treat them like professionals, not blue-collar workers in dead-end jobs. That means putting teachers in charge of their schools.

Nobody in his or her right mind would go into this field. Ideally, public education should be about the kids, but unfortunately, it isn't. It's all about politics and seeing what an administrator can get away with.

Regarding workplace abuse, this would easily remedied if all disciplinary hearings and arbitration proceedings were open to the public. After all, taxpayer money is being used for these more-often-than-not fake tribunals, and people and the media should have total access to them. Believe me, administrators would think long and hard before targeting teachers for abuse and termination if these hearings were open to the public.

White Chalk Crime

I am finishing NAPTA founder Karen Horwitz's self-published book, White Chalk Crime, which proves beyond a shadow of a doubt public school districts (hell, private and charter schools, too) are cesspools of corruption which would shame private industry.

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

More Education Wars

I wish teachers in Nevada could appeal to real courts--not fraudulent arbitrators--when there is an unfair disciplinary action.

This guy won, and it sounds like the principal, as well as the district, was using every excuse in the book to get rid of an older, long-time employee.

Snip:

But five years later, Mr. Storman, 57, is embroiled in a legal dispute over allegations that he committed corporal punishment. A 27-year veteran of the school system, Mr. Storman denies hitting the student and is seeking to erase an unsatisfactory rating that a principal gave him. The Department of Education, however, has defended the rating, arguing that Mr. Storman did indeed touch the student, who was in the fifth grade.

The case shows the difficulties teachers can face in disputing the ratings they receive each year from principals. The ratings can determine whether they are eligible for lucrative teaching opportunities outside of the normal school year. The case also sheds light on the fine lines of interpretation surrounding the question of corporal punishment: Did Mr. Storman’s paper brush against the student? If so, was that intentional, and did it rise to the level of corporal punishment?

Teachers who receive unsatisfactory ratings are allowed to appeal to a court, and this month a judge in Manhattan ruled in Mr. Storman’s favor, saying she did not find evidence of corporal punishment. The unsatisfactory rating, wrote the judge, Acting Supreme Court Justice Shirley Werner Kornreich, “shocks the conscience, was arbitrary, capricious and an abuse of discretion.”

How true. As I said, Storman is one of the lucky, lucky few teachers or counselors to win and still be employed.