These Are Clearly Reasons Why Buffalo Schools Should Be Charterized

From the Buffalo News:

A new survey of students in Buffalo Public Schools reinforces the extent of the problems the district is facing – not in the classroom, but in the home.

Fourteen percent of high school students who took the survey said they have been beaten or physically harmed by a parent or adult while in their house.

Sixteen percent have lived with someone diagnosed as mentally ill or suicidal.

Nearly one out of four has lived with someone who was an alcoholic, drug abuser or problem gambler.

More than a third said they have seen someone in their neighborhood shot, stabbed or beaten.

And more than 37 percent said they had a parent or adult in their home swear at or insult them.

All of these are of course the fault of their teachers, who fail them on a daily basis, and keep them from having the kind of achievement they're all capable of if only their schools and teachers didn't suck.

Wanna bet when they charterize whole swaths of Buffalo that the students who are beaten or physically harmed at home, have an alcoholic or drug addict in the home, live in neighborhoods where people are shot or stabbed or have adults in the home with mental illness or who verbally abuse them will have to strictly tow the "No Excuses!" charter line or be dumped out of the charter district and back to whatever is left of the public school district?

Which is to say, charterizing a whole swath of Buffalo won't solve this mess.

But then again, charterizing public schools isn't about solving this kind of crisis or serving students.

It's about making money for the charter entrepreneurs and their politician pals who love the yummy yummy political donations they receive from the charter sector.

Teachers Should Think Long And Hard Before Working At "Struggling" Or "Persistently Struggling" Schools

NYSED has labeled 144 schools around the state "struggling" or "persistently struggling," with 62 of those schools located in NYC.

According to the NY Times article I linked to above, "struggling schools" have two years to make "demonstrable" improvement in graduation rates, test scores and attendance or be given over to "an outside receiver, like a nonprofit group, that will be chosen by the district superintendent or chancellor to oversee the schools."

The Times reports that "persistently struggling schools" have just one year to make the "demonstrable" improvement or be given over to an "an outside receiver, like a nonprofit group, that will be chosen by the district superintendent or chancellor to oversee the schools."

Teachers who currently work at any of the "struggling" or "persistently struggling" schools will have to reapply for their jobs.

Some will not be rehired and will either have to find other jobs in the system or become ATR's.

"Struggling" and "persistently struggling" schools will almost certainly be looking for new blood to replace some of the teachers who aren't rehired at those schools.

The UFT put out this statement regarding that part of the receivership plan:

The UFT is working to support the Renewal program, including by building teacher leadership in the schools and ensuring that all hiring is conducted by joint city-union committees.

Here's what may await any teacher who goes to work in one of these "struggling" or "persistently struggling" schools, per a comment left on another post here at Perdido Street School blog:

Graded regents this week with a teacher who taught at a specialized school. He told me about 5 years ago a friend left to take a job at one of the struggling schools where Math/Science teachers would get a 10k bonus for transferring there. After just 1 year they began phasing the school out and he became an ATR. While he eventually found a job in a decent school it is nothing compared to his original situation.

That's actually the best case scenario, where the teacher becomes an ATR but eventually gets another placement.

The worst case scenario?

Toiling forever after as an ATR (or at least until the UFT completes throwing the ATR's to the wolves and the program no longer exists per a future contract deal) or two-three years of consecutive "ineffective" ratings and a swift trip to the unemployment office.

Teachers should think long and hard about going to work at any of the "struggling" or "persistently struggling" schools on the receivership program list.

Despite Carmen Farina's desire to put asterisks next to the names of "highly effective" teachers who transfer to "struggling" or "persistently struggling" schools, the first people that will get thrown under the bus when these schools do not make the "demonstrable progress" timetable that the state wants will be the teachers.

And it won't matter what a teacher's evaluation rating was before she/he got to the "struggling" or "persistently struggling" school either, because the system is set up with a "What Have You Done For More Lately" gloss and teachers who get dinged as "developing" and "ineffective" at those schools will wear those ratings on their heads like scarlet letters no matter what their ratings were in the years before they got to the receivership schools.

Reformers pay lip service to wanting to reward so-called "excellent teachers" who go to work with the most vulnerable populations, but all it takes for an "excellent teacher" to become a "developing" or "ineffective teacher" is to work a year or two in a school with low test scores.

Reformers, including the governor of the state and the commissioner of NYSED, do not care what a teacher's rating was a few years before, they care only what the most recent rating was - and remember that two consecutive "ineffective" ratings will get you fired under Cuomo's latest APPR evaluation system iteration.

Reformers also constantly demonize "ineffective" teachers in the press, never once noting that maybe some of those "ineffective" teachers were actually "effective" or "highly effective" teachers who transferred into a school with low test scores and had their ratings implode as a result.

So if you're a teacher out there with an "effective" or a "highly effective" rating and you're thinking about going to bring your talents and skills to one of the receivership schools, think long and hard before you make the jump.

In a year or two, you could very well be a "developing" or "ineffective" teacher headed for the ATR pool.

Or, if we're looking at another mayor in two years who gets elected with the backing of the reform community, an ally of Eva Moskowitz and her ilk, you could be looking at a dried up ATR pool and instant unemployment.

The way the system is these days, the only way for a teacher to protect herself/himself is to think and act very carefully around employment decisions.

It doesn't take much to get demonized as "ineffective" and smeared with the "I" scarlet letter on your head - and if that"i" is on your head for two consecutive years, you could be out of a job.