At 1 p.m., UFT President Mike Mulgrew releases a report showing that more than 32,000 teachers walked away from NYC classrooms in the last 11 years, with many going to suburban districts, 52 Broadway, Manhattan.
Yes, Bloomberg, along with his chancellor henchmen, were largely responsible for that.
So were Obama and Duncan.
But so too was the UFT leadership, which made deals with the devil over seniority, agreed to create the ATR pool, agreed to use test scores to evaluate teachers in the infamous Randi Weingarten/Chris Cerf Teacher Data Reports deal that eventually saw teachers' names in the papers tied to ratings with high margins of error.
The latest fiasco that has morale at its lowest level in my 13+ years teaching is the Danielson observation framework. The UFT signed off on Race to the Top, which first brought us the re-do in evaluations, then agreed to drop the lawsuit against the state when they changed the rules of the APPR teacher evaluation system on testing, then said it was swell when Cuomo gave Commissioner King the power to impose whatever the hell he wanted to impose on us.
Now everybody is so busy running around trying to come up with all the compliance paperwork, the seven pages lesson plans per class and all the other junk Danielson calls for that there is little time or energy to actually teach students or grade paperwork.
I can imagine Mulgrew will complain about Bloomberg today and will mention contract stuff and money and respect.
But what he won't mention is how he and Randi Weingarten are as culpable in those 32,000 walking off the job (with more going every day - we have lost at least 7 teachers in my school since the year started.)
And he probably won't mention how the evaluation system that was put into place by Cuomo is meant to do exactly this - burn and churn the labor force, move them in, burn them out, churn them out.
Indeed, 52 Broadway and AFT headquarters in DC is where the so-called reformers have their Stockholm Syndrome-suffering hostages.
ReplyDeleteNo matter the abuse, no matter the lies, no matter the damage done to students, teachers and public education at-large, Weingrew always return, asking, "Please Sir, may I have some more?"
I take a darker view - when Mulgrew says "Please sir, may I have another?" he means more cash in an envelope for selling out his members. Same goes for RW and DVR at the AFT and NEA.
DeleteI would like to mention those who left the teaching position for lucrative pay, position and power are the TFA/E$E deformers. Most stayed for 3 - 5 years in the classroom for their obligatory task of "helping inner city kids" and to poof become principals or chancellors or superintendents or charter school administrators. So I hope that the 32,000 teachers who left the classroom are the true victim of the Bloomberg administration and they were pushed out because the lack of protection from the union. It will be interesting to see the UFT leadership eventually pushed out by the angry rank-and-files votes in May 2016. No pity from me!
ReplyDeleteWe've had almost 10% of the teachers in my school leave this year. Morale is really really bad.
DeleteThat's quite a large number of teachers to leave the NYCDOE in only 11 years. This is the length of time that I've been with the NYCDOE. So many people I worked with either retired ( under duress), or just plain left because they couldn't deal with the DOE and UFT foolishness. Let's hope you're right- that the current incumbents are pushed out when the next election comes around.
ReplyDeleteI actually don't think many incumbents will ne pushed out next election. If one or two could be taken out over this issue, I think we'd be doing well. Alas, hard to take out incumbents (Regents or politicians.)
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