Thanks, Vicki Bernstein

Notice how with the threat of 15,000 lost jobs they still seem to be luring people to NYC and into the TF program.

From a Teaching Fellow:

This is the email that RTR teachers received from Vicki Bernstein, the DOE's Executive Director of Teacher Recruitment and Quality as forwarded to me by a now-former Teaching Fellow:

As you have been previously advised and pursuant to an arbitrator's award, your employment as a teacher in the Teacher Reserve would extend to the end of the term (February 2, 2009) only. Unfortunately, as of this date you have not secured a position outside of the Teacher Reserve and I am writing to inform you that you are being terminated from employment as a regular substitute teacher effective the end of today.

Because you have failed to meet the requirements of the New York City Teaching Fellows program, which requires that you maintain good standing as a teacher, you are also being removed from the Fellowship effective immediately. As previously communicated to you, you may choose to reinstate with the next cohort of the program. More information about the reinstatement process will follow later this spring as details of the Cohort 18 program are finalized.

Please do not continue to report to your Teacher Reserve assignment or to your university. If you have questions regarding pay or benefits, please contact HR Connect at 718-935-4000. Information regarding continuing coverage of health benefits under COBRA can be found at
http://schools.nyc.gov/Offices/DHR/DHRForms/default.htm (scroll down to look under "Health Benefits").

I am sincerely sorry you were not able to find a position at this time but hope you will consider pursuing reinstatement.

Sincerely,

Vicki Bernstein
Executive Director of Teacher Recruitment and Quality

So Much For Retention

A Voice at Chancellor's New Clothes took a brief break from her vacation from blogging to send along this comment on her "New York City Teaching Fellows-Biting the Hand that Feeds Them" post.

I was a [NYC Teaching] Fellow, until today. I feel like the Fellows [program] did not support me at all when I was having a lot of trouble at my school. From lack of everything, textbooks, to a mentor to union issues (we didn't have one), to an administrator that did nothing but attack, to a bogus investigation she called for against me. I made it through all of that in my first 3 months. Today is the second day after break, and I walked out of the school handed in my keys and left. I've wanted to be a teacher my whole life. I never want to do it again.

Teaching Fellow RTRs Rally at Tweed

Despite a driving drizzle a hardy band of NYC first year Teaching Fellows who have not yet been appointed and are threatened with being fired, losing their provisional teaching certification and being tossed from the Masters degree grad program, attempted to meet with DOE officials at Tweed yesterday afternoon. Marjorie Stamberg from the Ad Hoc ATR committee and Michael Fiorillo from ICE were there to show support. No one from UFT officialdom showed, But they only show if there might be press around. The RTRs do not seem to expect much help from the UFT in defending their jobs.

Kelly Vaughan from Gotham Schools was there to report. (Photo by Kelly)

According to DOE spokeswoman Ann Forte, 115 new Teaching Fellows are still without jobs, down from 139 in mid-October. Teachers tonight told me they are working as substitutes and assistants while they seek permanent positions

Read Kelly's full report here. I'm borrowing Kelly's excellent photo as I only had a video camera. I will put the interviews up if they came out ok.

Robert from ICE posted this on ICE mail:

Although the numbers were modest, the RTR rally today in the rain at Tweed was spirited. We had signs supporting the RTRs and ATRs. Several RTRs were there, including concerned relatives of the one of the RTRs. Members of the Ad Hoc Committee to support the ATRs were also there, as well as members of other groups. Passersby were engaged, and several stopped to talk and get more information. Dan, the coordinator of the RTR group, dressed in the prison suit of a condemned man, gave a speech on the steps movingly pleading the case for a reprieve of the RTRs. Then the entire body ascended the steps of Tweed in an effort to go inside and talk someone in Chancellor Klein's office. Although Tweed is a public building, it is managed by a city agency and Tweed is a tenant of this entity, and security personnel of the management barred the way. A DOE representative was fetched, however, and took material to bring to the Chancellor's office. A reporter for the Gotham Schools blog took interviews.

We must keep up the pressure on the DOE not to fire the RTRs and work to ensure a maximum turnout for the ATR rally on the behalf of the ATRs on November 24.

Robert

John Thompson in the Trauma Ward

I often get tongue tied when trying to discuss what it was like teaching elementary school in one of the hard core poverty areas of Brooklyn. Or finger tied when trying to write about it. One year I'd have the sweetest kids. Another a difficult, problem-laden class (but still with a lot of sweet kids - mostly girls.) They all looked the same - 65% Hispanic and 35% black. But, oh what differences.

Thank goodness for John Thompson over at TWIE who says in two short paragraphs what would take me 5 pages.

If you do not understand why high poverty magnet schools have little in common with neighborhood schools, check out my neighborhood’s middle school..

It's the Trauma. Duh!

Welcome to the hut, Steven!

"People generally believe that education is what you make of it … Well, I don't know about you but if I were to ask you to cook your Thanksgiving dinner and all I gave you to make your feast was $5, a kitchen-less hut, and a granola bar you'd be pretty screwed. That's the same situation society puts me in."


A new beginning for public education?
By: Steven Lee
NYC Teaching Fellow
Posted: 9/3/08

New York City teachers reported to their schools this week to start professional development in preparation for the upcoming school year. Our school was hit hard by recent city-wide budget cuts and our principal, who is a very resourceful and competent leader, revealed some bureaucratic "baggage" that can only be attributed to the failed policies of the current Bush administration and their optimistic No Child Left Behind legislation.

Our principal educated us on the statistics of our small school in the past year. Our graduation rate was approximately 74 percent, but the Department of Education calculated our statistics at an abysmal 38 percent. Where's this discrepancy coming from you might ask?

Well, upon further investigation, we found that the source of these additional students came from sudden transfers from a district 79, from a non-existent school numbered 510. When I say non-existent, I mean the building itself doesn't exist and that there's no teachers and the students most likely don't even know they're attending that institution. To look up a school by the number 510 in a district 79 would be impossible on the schools.nyc.gov Web site.

These students have supposedly "transferred" have been circulating the computer systems of the Department of Education, and in the attempt to cover-up the outstanding failures or omissions on the register, they've transferred these names onto the rosters of unsuspecting schools that actually perform their duties. So our report card grade suffers because children are in fact being left behind in schools that don't exist.

This is the illusion that I call urban education. Society believes that it's a null issue or that there's nothing really wrong with education since test scores keep rising, right? Data doesn't lie, right? Well to let you guys know, test scores are scaled to boost student averages. The passing score on the standardized science exam is a 39, which is scaled to a 65.

In all my discussions with fellow pedagogues and administrators, there seems to be a sort of settled attitude about these things. We know that there's really nothing that we can do to change these things. What bother me are the stories I hear of incompetent administrators and principals where teachers wonder how they even became administrators. There's a serious lack of competent leadership in education. I couldn't imagine how long I would be teaching at my school if my principal was as incompetent as some of the others that I have heard about.

This coming election is America's chance to turn the tide on the failed legacy of foreign policy and to kick start America's economy by starting an educational revolution. The lack of in depth educational policy between the Obama and McCain presidential campaigns is pretty terrifying to me. They seem content on either somehow modifying or tweaking No Child Left Behind and aren't really too keen on listening to the suggestion of those who work on the front lines. But then again, I recall through the stories of bad principals how sometimes you don't have to be the most competent to earn the title of decision-maker …

Summer vacation has been a time of reflection for me. Finishing my first-year teaching high school science in the South Bronx has opened my eyes to a new level of social neglect that I didn't think existed. Many people ask if this is what I really want in life or if this is something I want to do for a long period of time, but I usually tell them that I couldn't imagine another place where I'm so desperately needed.

I have literally killed myself this past year taking graduate school classes, lesson planning, sleeping less than four hours every night, neglecting friends and family, and paying upwards of $1,000 out of my own pocket on class materials for a generation of students who are not only looked down upon, but are neglected or ignored by those who are in a position of power and privilege. Politicians don't send their sons and daughters to urban public schools. I wonder why? The educators seem pretty dedicated, right?

People generally believe that education is what you make of it … Well, I don't know about you but if I were to ask you to cook your Thanksgiving dinner and all I gave you to make your feast was $5, a kitchen-less hut, and a granola bar you'd be pretty screwed. That's the same situation society puts me in. And all I can do is write angry blog entries or letters to the Targum.

Steven Lee is a Rutgers College Class of 2007 alumnus. He is currently working as a teaching fellow in New York City.

Posted at The Daily Targum, "serving the Rutgers Community since 1869"


Welcome to the hut, Steven!
School report cards and grades are part of the distraction to undercut such a movement by making natural allies fight and compete with each other - you know, each school is an island and we have to beat the other guys.

Of course, you will be accused by the "ed reformers" of making excuses. Yes, do the best you can. But it doesn't stop at writing letters. True ed reform will require teachers to go beyond the classroom into political action to create a movement for change that will shift money from bailouts and corporate welfare so we can tear down that hut and build an education system that will serve children, parents and teachers instead of politicians and Walmart, Gates, Broad and the other privatizers.

I suggest you begin with a movement to reform the UFT, a union that all too often lines up with the phony reformers while going along with the corporate agenda. Without a strong, progressive union willing to fight back on all levels instead of undercutting and coopting progressives, there is little chance that the hut will go away soon.

My school applauded itself last week

A Brooklyn elementary school teacher writes:

My school applauded itself last week when we got back the ela and math scores. I even felt somewhat proud of one of my 5th grade SETSS kids who has an extreme math disability. For the first time in her school testing career, she received a Level 2 on the math test. Maybe all of her (and my) hard work paid off. Hours of practicing counting by 2's and 5's. Great Leaps for math facts, manipulative's for number work, mnemonics to remember when to regroup and how to round numbers to the nearest 10's and 100's, etc.etc.

So I asked her to do some review work and gave her a few subtraction problems. Guess what. She forgot when to regroup.Then she did some number rounding. She could do it after I reminded her how.

I still am proud of my student because she tried very hard and has learned a lot this year. She knows the importance of doing what you believe is right and not falling prey to peer pressure when it will have a negative outcome. She is beginning to think about what it means to "grow-up" from a little girl to a 'teenager". Her taste in reading has widened and she enjoys spending time with books more then ever before.

But she still can't subtract with regrouping even if she got a Level 2.

Pay for Performance Destruction

A brilliant piece that exposes what teaching and learning is all about by Jamiaca HS teacher JB McGeever in the City Limits. Delving into the kind of choice teachers face when test scores are used to evaluate their work, it is an impressive expression of the destructive impact merit pay schemes have on the teaching/learning process.

Teaching Fellows in The Village Voice

A great read in The Voice this article reveals many of the fault lines in the Teaching Fellows program. The answer to the problem - paying them as interns and using them as assistant teachers in the classroom for a year - will not be forthcoming. Tweed finds it perfectly acceptable to have this turnover rate even when when in the words of the Fellows themselves the kids are severely shortchanged in the first year and possibly 2nd year of teaching. It is always interesting for the "No Excuse" administration at Tweed to always make excuses instead of taking a problem and solving it.

There's a lot more to say since I entered teaching out of a similar program in many ways in the late 60's, a program I am sure Joel Klein also came out of, something you never hear him talk about. Know why? Because it was hell - he got out in about 6 months and seems to have banished the memory.

Look for an update to this post later. The full article is posted at Norms Notes.

The CEO of a Major Corporation....

... decides he's had enough of being a captain of industry.

So he does something meaningful with his life. He becomes a NYC Teaching Fellow. That is the fastest way to get into the classroom with certification. And get part of your Masters paid for. He is assigned to a large high school where the notorious Mr. Ogre, renowned for his ability to humiliate and destroy teachers he doesn't care for, is principal. Does Mr. CEO know that going in? Even if he did, he probably thinks his background and credentials will do him good, even with Mr. Ogre. But MR. O is never happy with having another Alpha Male around, especially one with this high level background who will easily see through some of the games he likes to play.

About a month into the term, Mr. CEO is having the usual struggles new teachers have. Nothing catastrophic. With some experience and administrative support things will work out - eventually. But the word "eventually" doesn't exist in Mr. Ogre's vocabulary. He calls Mr. CEO in for a conference and reams him out with a withering attack that is totally humiliating. Mr. CEO emerges and says in all his years in industry he has never been subjected to or witnessed this type of behavior. He packs up and quits. After one month, saying that he has no interest in continuing to work in a system that will tolerate the Mr. Ogre's of this world.