I always get nervous when I look at the scholarship reports for my class. No one at my school is silly enough to say so, of course, but it's easy to feel like the pass/fail rates say something profound about you as a teacher.

For about 20 years I've lived very close to the water. Sometimes it comes to visit us, so we've got two sump pumps in our crawl space to discourage it. That usually seems to work. In case it doesn't, I've been paying FEMA for flood insurance for, oh, 20 years. I'm a pretty good customer.

So when Hurricane Irene came calling, I wasn't too worried. After all, I was insured. My little family evacuated that night and went to visit my brother, whose home was much farther away from the water. He lost power hours into the storm, but things went as well as they could.

When we got home, we couldn't help but notice that our garage and utility room had had four feet of water flow through it. Goodbye, washer. Goodbye dryer, hot water heater, boiler, and oh my gosh, that foundation is not looking too good. It took a few weeks before anyone bothered to look at it. I had to lay out for a hot water heater, because, well, you can't go running to friends' houses for showers indefinitely. As October approached, I figured I'd better replace that darn boiler, because who knows? It might get cold.

Now I'm looking at the last warm spell, so I'm having the foundation fixed. That's a little costly, but no one does cement work in the cold. My flood insurance doesn't cover possessions, so I applied to NY State to reimburse us for the washer, and waddya know? I just got a check. Now if I hadn't been paying flood insurance for 20 years, I could've had one for the boiler too.

Instead I call FEMA every week. Last week my case was so serious they were going to contact a supervisor. This week it appears someone will call me. But they're in no rush. If I didn't have the money on hand to lay out, we'd be in sad shape indeed.

I know our troubles pale in comparison to those of the people in New Orleans. But from what little I've seen of Barack Obama's FEMA, I see no indication it represents any improvement whatsoever.

Among the many changes being made (maybe, if the State can actually afford it!) to Regents exams is a move away from teachers grading their own students' exams. I actually have mixed feelings on this one. It is hard, I think, to be impartial when you're grading the Regents exam of a student you know. I know I've graded exams of students that I sat and tutored one-on-one, students I know struggle and fight for every word. Who wants to be the one to give that kid a failing grade? Nobody. You have to be fair, but boy, it's not easy.

There is a crisis in this country. A crisis of unprecedented proportions. Apparently, there are billions of dollars being poured into this education thing, and many hedge fund managers are not getting even a fraction of this cash. What to do? Most importantly, we have to get rid of this whole union thing so we can stop frittering away vital resources on salaries for teachers. Of course, that message would not sell well enough to accomplish the goals of redirecting the cash.

Thus, there is a crisis in this country. Apparently, the public schools the children of hedge fund managers would not attend on a bet need fixing. The problem? Teachers, the very people preventing the hedge fund managers from wetting their beaks, need to be removed before things can be set right. Therefore, we need evaluation systems like the one in Tennessee that will enable us to remove as many of them as possible. Since it would not be cost-effective to deal with poverty (After all, hedge fund managers tend not to be impoverished anyway.), we'll need to blame all student defects on the teachers. Then, we can get rid of them and their inconvenient job protections, and hire temps to do the job for a few years for almost nothing.

Here in New York, we have a system, a system designed in conjunction with the UFT, NYSUT, and the geniuses who run the State Education Department. This system is so flawed that more than half of Long Island's principals have come out against it. Diane Ravitch applauds them, as principals with principles.

Governor One Percent, Andrew "I am the government." Cuomo, has unveiled a mini Race to the Top, designed to pressure districts into accepting a new evaluation system. Who cares whether or not they work? Governor Andy's priority is protecting millionaires, and indeed, he's taken a principled stand against asking them to pay taxes. That's for the little people, like school teachers, and if they lose their jobs for no reason, why the hell should he care?

Whether or not systems are effective is of no consequence to him, other corporatist politicians, or the corporate media. In fact, days after Michael Winerip hammered home the flaws of the Tennessee system in the pages of the NY Times, its editorial board strongly endorsed it, apparently not having bothered to read their own paper.

Here in NY, trials of the new evaluation system are a disaster, and the writer of the framework the DOE uses doesn't much care for the way it's being used. Is it asking too much for the DOE to bother comprehending the framework it claims to support? Apparently, yes it is.

In any case, if the union wishes to help the billionaires realize their vision of having more money at our expense, it will rush to place an evaluation, any damn evaluation, in place ASAP. After all, how else will NYC get Governor Andy's grant money--money which cannot be wasted on things like reducing class sizes or hiring more teachers, but will be fully dedicated to "reforms" to ultimately place money wasted on schools in the pockets of billionaires.

If, on the other hand, the union wishes to help actual working people, it will take all the time in the world to make sure any evaluation system actually works. And it's an uphill battle, considering that at least 20% will be based on "value-added" metrics, not proven to be effective anywhere for anything.

Who thought it was a good idea to send ATR teachers from school to school from week to week? How does that help anyone? The stories I'm hearing and seeing would be beyond belief it it weren't for the fact that, under such an agreement, they were virtually inevitable.

A female ATR was instructed to do secretarial duties.  For those unfamiliar with the concept of contract (for example, the administrators who issued this instruction) secretarial duties are to be performed by secretaries. The teacher declined, saying she was a teacher and wanted to teach. The administrator's conclusion?

"This is why none of you guys are able to get a job."

How outrageous that a teacher would want to do her job. Another ATR was instructed to do hallway duty. He was upset, but the administrators insisted that the halls were a mess, and that they needed patrolling. The school looked to be in pretty bad shape. "Don't you have any kids who need tutoring?" asked the teacher.

Apparently not. Helping kids with academics was not the way this school wished to use teachers.

In my own school, an ATR teacher who cried to me the other day came to visit me. She actually thanked me for speaking to her, strongly suggesting there were people in other schools who did or would not.

Tell your colleagues, but for a whim of fate or a stroke of a pen, we are all ATRs. Should the UFT ever give up their contractual employment protections, you'd better believe that the DOE will make tens of thousands of ATRs, causing teacher jobs to be no more worthwhile than those in McDonald's or Walmart. That's the long-cherished goal of the "reformers" who monopolize our news media, and they will stop at nothing and leave no billion dollars behind to achieve it.

If you meet them, offer them the support they should be getting from everyone else. There, but for the grace of God and our own determination to prevail, goes each and every one of us.

In a move that comes as a relief to many public sector workers, Issue 2 won by a landslide in Ohio on Tuesday. Issue 2 is the ballot question that repealed the stripping of collective bargaining rights from public employees, including teachers and, more pointedly for the Issue at hand, police officers and firefighters.

There are a lot of things you can do if you don't wish to investigate a situation beyond whatever you hear on the news. You could continue watching your TV and believe whatever it told you. You could join a cult, perhaps. Of course, a far more desirable option is to get a column with the New York Times, the paper of record, and spout whatever gibberish happened to catch your fancy.

To Joe Nocerra, Steven Brill's book is revelatory, Never mind that it's largely billionaire-sponsored nonsense. The important thing, as Mr. Nocerra sees it, is that Brill's goals can be easily achieved by courting former part-time UFT President Randi Weingarten.

I don't doubt he's correct. After all, Ms. Weingarten decided to make Bill Gates the keynote speaker at the AFT convention. Can you imagine the conversation that led to that?

Weingarten: I have a great idea. Let's have Bill Gates be the keynote speaker at the AFT convention.

Toadie #1: Love it, RW!

Toadie #2: I love it more, RW!

Toadie #3: You are a genius, RW!

Weingarten: The motion is passed.

The spectacle of those who disapproved being ridiculed at the podium by Weingarten was an absolute disgrace. And Gates thanked her and the AFT by attacking teacher pensions the following week. If I'm not mistaken, he soon came out for higher class sizes, echoed by Arne Duncan.

More recently, Weingarten actually hosted a party for anti-union, anti-teacher Steven Brill. I'm proud not to have made the invitation list. Brill suggests in his book that Weingarten should be chancellor. No doubt he's thrilled about the piece of crap contract she managed to shove down the throats of UFT members in 2005. Thanks to that contract, 1200 teachers are running all over the city like gypsies, week to week, place to place. I met one today who cried to me. I've had ATRs email me, for years now, of the discouragement and depression this placement has caused them. One wrote that she was moved to resign, no doubt a big victory for folks like Bloomberg, Gates and Brill.

Joe Nocerra knows little or nothing about what really goes on in schools. He knows, like Rod Paige before him, that Randi Weingarten never met a giveback she didn't like. He knows that she's a new kind of union leader, the kind that doesn't worry about getting more money or better working conditions. Unfortunately, what America needs is not worse conditions for teachers, but better conditions for everyone.

And while I don't expect someone as incurious and sloppy as Mr. Nocerra to bother reading Diane Ravitch, or any reality-based education writers (Nocerra prefers to call anyone opposing "reforms" status quo, and to quote blatantly stereotypical nonsense from KIPP, another outfit he can't be bothered researching.), there is something for the UFT to learn here.

In a nutshell, appeasement doesn't work. Gates thanked Weingarten by stabbing her in the back, and Brill, who trades in pushing a billionaire point of view, is hardly likely to help working people. After the 2005 contract, the tabloids praised the UFT for about five minutes before going back to trashing us for our cushy jobs and lavish lifestyles.

There is no point in giving these people anything, They are parasites. They claim to put "Children First, Always," but cut their budgets, overcrowd their schools and overload their classes without a second thought, They allow ten percent of their teachers to disappear by attrition and take responsibility for nothing. They allow schools to close, because they "failed," but the failure is never, ever attributable to them. And the abundance of high-needs kids in those schools, the ones who either don't make the charters or are "counseled out," are sheer coincidence.

Never sell out the ATRs. Don't give them an evaluation system they can manipulate, just as they've manipulated the one in the "transformation schools."  Don't do anything, ever, to get the fleeting approval of the NY Post editorial board.

I don't have high hopes for Nocerra. But if we don't learn, we may as well pack in the union, sign ridiculous contracts like the one at Green Dot, and give up altogether.

Miss Eyre had to go home sick a few days ago, something that throws quite a bit of a monkey wrench into one's day when one is a teacher. At an office job, most likely you'd just tell the boss, send an e-mail, maybe cancel an appointment or two, and be out the door. But here's my "oh God I can't take it anymore I HAVE to go home" routine:

by special guest blogger Reality-Based Educator

Governor Andrew Cuomo was all smiles last week with the news that PEF, the Public Employees Federation union, had agreed to his contract offer that gives employees furlough days, 0% salary increases for most of the contract, and much higher health insurance premiums after he threatened to lay off thousands of them if they didn't take the contract. 

PEF members had rejected the contract the first time, but the PEF leadership, along with Governor Cuomo, redid one or two things in it (not making it any better, IMO), and this time around, the PEF members agreed to it. 

I know one PEF member and she voted for it the second time because she felt she had to or she would see many of her co-workers laid off.  (I would have voted no, btw, but that's me...)

This is the second contract negotiation Cuomo has won by threatening to lay off thousands of state employees if the unions did not agree to huge concessions.

CSEA, the Civil Service Employees Association, also agreed to a contract with huge concessions after Cuomo threatened layoffs

Here is how Governor Cuomo did his victory lap for the PEF vote:

"This shows that collaboration works," Cuomo said at a news conference after the vote. He drew a contrast between New York ‘s labor negotiations and those in other parts of the country that have been more contentious. “This is slowing people down, providing the information, removing the emotion and cooler heads prevailing for a better outcome for all.” 

Oh, yeah - there's nothing "contentious" about threatening to lay off thousands of employees unless they take your garbage contract offer that will cost them thousands of dollars a year in lost pay and extra health care costs.

That sure sounds like "collaboration" to me.

Tell me how "cool" it is to threaten to lay off thousands if they don't agree to concessions?

Cuomo is smarter than some other union-busting governors around the country because he has gotten the shills running the unions to not peg him as the union-busting oligarch that he is. 

But make no mistake, Andrew Cuomo is no different than union-busters like New Jersey Governor Chris Christie or Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker or Ohio Governor John Kasich.

He is defending the 1% of this country on the backs of the 99%.

Cuomo has made ending an income tax on millionaires and billionaires the signature achievement of his administration, he has happily (and greedily) gone after the unions to take huge concessions or face layoffs, he has slashed the state budget for education and health care for senior citizens even as he has opened up the state to polluters in the gas industry who want to hydrofrack.

And if you don't like what he's doing, well, Cuomo doesn't want to hear from you.

Not at all.

A protest group modeled on Occupy Wall Street has sprung up in the state capital.

They call themselves Occupy Albany.

The Occupy Albany group has turned their protest to Governor Cuomo, who they have dubbed Governor 1% for his refusal to keep the millionaires' tax in place even as he slashes the state budget to the bone. 

They call their encampment "Cuomoville."

Cuomo, famously thin-skinned and vindictive beyond belief, wanted the Occupy Albany folks arrested and displaced from their place of protest.

He called on Albany Mayor Jerry Jennings to have the protestors arrested and the protest ended.
The mayor tried to do Cuomo's bidding but was rebuffed by the police chief of the city who said he would not use any police officers to

"monitor, watch, videotape or influence any behavior that is conducted by our citizens peacefully demonstrating."

In addition, the Albany DA said he wouldn't prosecute any protestors arrested for exercising their First Amendment rights.

Cuomo, not used to losing political battles these days and certainly not used to have people under him like an Albany County district attorney or police chief tell him that they're not going to do his dirty work for him, backed down from the confrontation.

In public, Cuomo's people say the story about his demanding Occupy Albany arrests was not true.

I guess they're trying to "save face."

But make no mistake, Governor 1% backed down when students, middle aged parents and senior citizens protesting his policies in Albany didn't run from him, didn't agree to concessions or give him his way.

Here is how the NY Times viewed Cuomo's "defeat" by the Occupy Albany protestors at Camp Cuomo:

"Perhaps, as the governor’s men now say, Mr. Cuomo never sought this conflict and his aides never pressured Mr. Jennings, who they suggest may have suffered a failure of will. Or perhaps a willful governor watched others take a step back, and despite himself acquired a dose of wisdom."

Perhaps.

Or perhaps Governor Cuomo, like all bullies around the world, backed down when somebody stood up to him.

Which is  exactly what PEF and CSEA should have done in their contract negotiations.

Every few days our comment section gets spammed. Sometimes the spammers choose posts from years back, perhaps thinking I won't notice. The spammers who love this site best are those who are selling term papers. Here's one of their most recent comments:

It is absolutely an fantastic advice and gives abundant advice about education. Thanks for providing such affectionate of advice with us. Thanks for sharing.

You have to wonder who would want to buy a term paper from someone who wrote like that. I suppose you'd have to be not only pretty desperate, but also naive enough to believe the person who wrote it was a native English speaker.  Sometimes the spammers try flattery:

This is a really good read for me. Must agree that you are one of the best blogger I ever saw.

I suppose they think that will persuade me to leave their ads up. It seems to me, though, that if I don't make money from this site, they shouldn't either. Sometimes they get really enthusiastic:

HEY; congratulations a lot for brilliant performance; really
you guys performed fairly well; all the very best to your all; keep continuing
as like.

Wow. Thank you very much. Miss Eyre and I had tears in our eyes when we zapped your comment. Here's one from some outfit pitching high school diplomas:

I have heard so many things about NYC Educator and suddenly came across this blog. The information is very informative and thanks for sharing such kind of things to us

You know, with that degree of specificity, I have to wonder whether the writer ever got a high school diploma. Well, with Bloomberg and his stats, and NY State grade inflation, it's entirely possible. Here's one from a first class essay service:

The more you are growing up, the more such things make you feel embarrassed. Kids are so ... "look I'm so bossy here", I don't know how to explain it.

Of course you don't. So naturally, I'm willing to shell out my hard-earned bucks to have you write an essay for me. If I'm lucky, my teacher won't actually read the essay. Now that's entirely possible. I once had a young student whose essay landed on the desk of our department office.  She got an A, from an AP no less. I took one look at it and knew it was 100% plagiarized.

I went to the girl's classroom.

"You're not going to tell Ms. Braindead!" she protested.

"No I'm not," I told her. "But if I can see it, so can a whole lot of other teachers. So don't think you'll get away with this forever. I'd fail you if you tried that with me."

I wonder whether she bought it from one of these outfits. If she did, they certainly bought it from someone else. It's amazing they can't find spammers who can write competent English.

Until they do, I'm gonna keep zapping their comments. And when and if they do, I'm gonna zap their comments anyway.

Usually, after a trying day with the children, checking in with the adult world has the effect of, if not cheering me up, then at least keeping me real. Reminding me that I do not have to base my self-worth on the evanescent opinions of 15-year-olds is, generally speaking, a healthy exercise. And, hey, there's politics and humor and literature out there in the adult world with which I can engage and remind myself that my work is to prepare my students to engage with those same things, so I have to keep myself fresh with that wider universe as well.

A friend at Long Island City High School contacted me a few weeks ago, expecting a whole new schedule. How can they change your schedule two months into the term, I asked. That's nuts. Oh no, said my friend, it's not just my schedule, it's everyone's schedule--every kid, every teacher, everyone who actually has a schedule.

I couldn't believe it. How could anyone even contemplate anything so utterly stupid? I kept it to myself, but when I read about it at the Times I figured, wow, they're really going through with it. LIC is a "transformation" school, so the alleged goal is to improve it one way or another. Apparently, the geniuses entrusted with this task felt causing abject chaos was the way to go.

They apparently had a lot of vacancies, but didn't see fit to hire replacements. They thought having kids sit in the auditorium for a few months was a better way to "transform" the school. When that didn't work as well as they'd anticipated, they simply killed the small learning communities and electives programs.  After all, courses that don't culminate in standardized tests won't get you a better grade from the DOE and are therefore useless.

Some kids still have holes in their programs. Under the new paradigm, you might find a kid attending periods 1-11, with four free periods but no math. Teachers met with the principal, who in true DOE style, appears neither to have listened nor addressed their concerns.  I'm told the network leader (Where would we be without network leaders?) showed up and helpfully suggested the problems were the fault of the teachers.

Imagine a school full of thousands of kids who've already received textbooks, but not from the teachers they now have. Imagine the task of collecting books from 170 kids who may just be anywhere. Imagine the empty bookrooms staying that way until the teachers, already nuts from dealing with their new schedule, track down those 170 math books.

I first started teaching in mid or late October 1984. One of my biggest problems was overcoming the resistance of a group of kids whose teacher had simply walked out on them on her retirement day. This is ridiculous, thought the kids. They knew there was no continuity, that something was wrong. And they knew that this was the time to test me, their utterly inexperienced teacher.

Kids test teachers all the time. That's kind of their job. For me, at least, by this time it's largely over. They know what to expect from me for good behavior or bad. That's because I've put quite a bit of energy into responding to their tests. I'm very glad so many are over and done with.

But for every teacher and every kid at Long Island City High School, it's back to square one. What can I get away with in this class? Will this teacher really call my house if I throw just one cheeseburger at her? My last teacher was a pain in the ass but maybe I can do whatever I want here. What the hell. If the people running the school gave a golly goshdarn about me or my education they wouldn't have let me spend two months wasting my time with classes that are now completely meaningless. Why did I do all that homework? Should I really waste my time with more? How do I know they won't change us again come Thanksgiving?

Kids are pretty smart. They may not say these things outright, but they certainly know what's going on. And they're certainly going to react, one way or another. Any principal not cognizant of this has likely not spent the Leadership Academy's requisite five minutes as a teacher.

Well, happy November, which means one thing for many of us: time for parent-teacher conferences! Just like on The Simpsons, we'll be preparing for Let's Share the Blame Fest Fall 2011 for the next couple of weeks as the first report cards see the light of day and the honeymoon period concludes (if it hasn't concluded for you already).

The ATR agreement, negotiated last year by the UFT and the DOE, has proven to be a money-saving bonanza for city high schools. For example, it appears schools no longer need to invest their precious budget dollars on art teachers. In fact, one high school now simply gives a box of assignments that can be handed out to kids by any ATR teacher--art, English, science, or whatever.

The teacher distributes the assignment, and the kids do it. Or they don't. Or they copy it from a kid who does do it. Or whatever. When they're finished, the assignment goes into the magic box. From there, all that happens is someone, somewhere, checks off a name, and Voila!  Instant art credit!

Think of the possibilities. Why should this process be limited to art? We could "teach" math, science, foreign languages, or whatever this same way. Why screen kids for AP classes? We could just put out the box, have them fill out the papers, right, wrong, whatever, and ZAP! Our kids now have college credit. And there'll be none of this nonsense about whether or not they're college ready. They'll already have the credit.

In fact, there's really no need for any teachers whatsoever under this system. We could simply pay anyone 8 bucks an hour to pass out the papers and dump them in the box. Think of the money this could save Mayor Bloomberg and his buds in taxes. Governor One Percent will be thrilled, and the Koch brothers will have even more money with which to decimate that pesky middle class.

Is this the goal of the "reformers?" Judging from the agreement that sends ATR teachers from school to school, from week to week, it's tough to dispute. It would be one thing if the ATR teachers were simply covering for absent teachers. But the fact that a system like this even exists indicates that vacancies are meant to remain vacant. Ask ATR teachers just how many kids they've met who haven't had a regular teacher since September.  Then ask the principals who've allowed the vacancies why they haven't hired ATR teachers.

After all, under this system, they get a full five days to watch them teach subjects they've probably not certified in before committing to retain and pay them for a full year. Or, after draconian budget cuts, they could save tens of thousands of dollars by leaving the positions vacant and hoping for the best. Who would be cynical enough to think many principals have opted for the latter, simply because many principals have opted for the latter?

I suppose the answer is---anyone who's watched this system in action. This is most certainly not a product of anyone who puts, "Children First, Always." Heads would roll, justifiably, if such nonsense were practiced in nearby suburbs. But Mayor4Life bought that law change and third term fair and square, has staked out his absolute power at the PEP, and can do pretty much whatever the hell he wants until and unless mayoral control is repealed.

Our copying machine has been humming along for some time now with no problem. We also have a Risograph, which enables us to do higher-volume copying. Sadly, the English Department next door has had no such luck. Consequently, they're always visiting us and our happy little machine.

Last week, a new machine appeared in our office. In fact, it was so new it was covered in plastic. Naturally, an expert from the company arrived to install it. It worked fine. Just like the old one.

The old machine was then placed in the spot the new machine had occupied, and one of my colleagues had an idea.

"Why don't you bring the old machine to the English Department?"

"Oh, we couldn't possibly do that."

"Why not? Theirs is broken and this one works."

"Well, they're not scheduled for a replacement."

"Doesn't it make sense to let them use it while they wait?"

"No, we've got to bring this machine back. That's the way we do things."

Further discussion yielded nothing. That's the way it's done, and it has to be done that way. So I guess the English teachers will be visiting us more frequently.

Sometimes I weary of things that make absolutely no sense whatsoever. But when you live in Mayor Bloomberg's New York, the best advice is to get used to it.

Running late this morning. Overslept after Open School Night. Leaving you with this profound image for now, but more later.

One of my own biggest pet peeves as a high school student (back in the Dark Ages) was the disgusting state of my school's bathroom. Smoking was more popular when I was in school, so the bathrooms were usually smoky, as well as filthy and smelly. At one point in my school career, I had gone two entire years without using the bathrooms at my school. That's how bad they were.

Check out The Traveling ATR for school ratings based on firsthand experience, as opposed to the torturous, convoluted and incomprehensible Tweed formulas.

NY Governor Andrew Cuomo does not much care for those who'd occupy Albany. So he directed the police to arrest them. No namby-pamby First Amendment tolerance for him. Oddly, the police, perhaps cognizant of the fact they are working people, decided it was a bad idea, and declined to follow up. The protesters moved and police decided provoking a riot might not ultimately prove beneficial, despite the Governor's druthers to the contrary.

Why is Governor Andy so miffed with the protesters? Well, it could be their new nickname for him, Governor One Percent. After all, Governor Andy has taken a principled stand against taxing the richest one percent, opting instead to cut schools, services for the poor, and cap salaries for people who actually need to work. After all, how will he get tens of thousands of dollars from the Koch brothers if he stands up for those unwashed working people?

It appears, though, that Governor Andy is a sensitive guy. He doesn't much care for people disagreeing with him, you know, democracy and all. If he could just lock up those darn protesters, maybe those local newspapers would stop covering them! But darn it, when he gets involved, they just keep, you know, writing about it. That damn freedom of the press thing has got to go, if Governor Andy is to govern in the style he chooses.

And this is curious, because then Attorney General Andrew Cuomo stated politics had no place in policing. The thing is, though, with ruthless opportunists like Governor Andy, neither politics nor principle can get in the way of an overriding philosophy like, "I'm me, I can do what I want, how I want, whenever I want."

It's pretty scary when people with such juvenile mindsets attain positions of such power.


Thanks to Reality-Based Educator

So the high school progress reports were released yesterday. The principal here at TMS2 was, justifiably, excited about our results and sent out a warm all staff e-mail as soon as he got the report. Whatever you may think about the progress reports, and they remain controversial, no one's going to argue much with a good one, and doing well on it does typically mean less harassment from the higher-ups.

ATR teachers are now being rotated faster than the speed of light. Five days here, and ZAP! They're off to another school. This was a by-product of the agreement the UFT made with the DOE that precluded teacher layoffs (until next year).

UFT sources at the time told me they did not think the DOE had the wherewithal to carry out this plan. After all, they're inept. They hired Cathy Black. They can't give a coherent rationale that anything they do will actually improve education, if you actually look at, well, statistics, studies, reality, or any of that other stuff that Bill Gates and Arne Duncan can't be bothered with.

But now that the DOE is actually doing this, I'm hearing now that this will give principals wider exposure to ATR teachers. In a way, that's true. Last year, your school got only a handful of ATR teachers, but this year you can factor that by up to 40. So there's a wide assortment. You have to wonder, though, how many principals actually have the time to run around observing those teachers passing through their halls. After all, principals already have others to observe, sometimes in the hundreds, and it's possible that an extra 50% worth of observations may not be precisely what they're looking for.

On the other hand, last year the principals didn't have to pay ATR teachers out of their school budgets. This year, if they want to keep them around more than a week or two, it appears they do. With their budgets slashed for the last few years, principals may not be jumping on that ATR bandwagon so quickly. Thus, in the city that places "Children First, Always," the Spanish class might well be taught by the science teacher who doesn't speak a word of it today, and the English teacher who doesn't speak a word of it tomorrow. Maybe they'll have a real Spanish teacher next week, but the week after that? Are you kidding?

And then there are the ATR teachers themselves, wandering week to week, school to school, program to program. They're largely precluded from having regular classes, from developing meaningful teacher/ student relationships, pretty much from doing everything or anything that brings joy or professional fulfillment. And on top of that, they're now precluded from long-term friendships with peers, going into some strange lunchroom every day and leaving by the time they get to know anyone.

You'd think the DOE was trying to discourage them, demoralize them, and make them quit.

Gee, would Mayor Bloomberg really do such a thing?

There's a lot of controversy in my school over who gets rooms with Smartboards. Some people love them. Some fear them. Me, I can't afford to care one way or the other. After all, I'm trailer trash, and the only technology out there is the iPad I carry in my bag. And yes, I use it. I can't draw my way out of a paper bag, and when an ESL student asks me what a fax machine is I can pull out a picture on Google images and there you go.

If I had a Smartboard, I'd use that too. There would be an advantage in that I wouldn't have to walk around like a kindergarten teacher with a Dr. Seuss book showing the picture. And I'm sure with time I'd figure out other ways to use it too. But I don't need it. I don't need the iPad either, though I love it. I've drawn preposterous things on the board and then had kids come up and improve on them, showing me what they could do. They're usually delighted to mock my lack of artistic ability.

If I did actually need a Smartboard, I'd be less of a teacher. What the hell would I do in the inevitable instances the ancient DOE computers went down? Well, I could write on the board. And if I didn't have a board, I could buy some tape and tape paper to the wall. I think being a good teacher requires being able to improvise, to think on your feet. All the great teachers I've had were very smart, could argue their subjects in great detail, and none had or even imagined such a thing as a Smartboard.

How many crappy Powerpoint presentations have you been subject to? How many times have you sat through some tedious presentation of Lord knows what while some insipid so-called educational leader read it aloud to you? How many times have you wondered, "Geez, why doesn't that idiot print out this nonsense so I can read it in the 2 minutes it likely doesn't even merit before throwing it in the trash?"

Technology is a great tool, and I'll use it if it comes my way. I've seen creative and funny uses of tech. But it doesn't make you a better teacher. And it's still garbage in, garbage out if what the presenter offers happens to be garbage.

Yes you can use it. And yes, if you use it, it may help. But you can do well without it too. For those who can't, it likely won't matter what they come up with, no matter how cool they think it is.

We had an ATR teacher in our school for the first month, and I liked him. I chatted with him in the teachers' room and thought that he would be a a good fit for our school in the long run, and I hoped that the administration was considering him for something permanent. That was before the so-called "deal" with the ATRs that allowed them to be shuffled around on a daily basis. So now we have a revolving door of ATR teachers. I talked to this week's ATR on Tuesday.

Governor Andrew Cuomo is standing up. His Dad Mario felt very strongly that the death penalty was a moral outrage, and though public opinion was against him, he vetoed death penalty bills repeatedly. Andy has decided to do the same, except his issue is the millionaire's tax. Who will stand up and demand rich people not pay taxes? I guess it's the guy who took 87K from Tea Party zillionaire David Koch and his wife.

So we now have a governor, ostensibly a Democrat, who has no problem going after unions, but is willing to take a principled stand to save David Koch a little cash. As a lifelong Democrat, this is a little tough for me to take. I didn't vote for Governor Andy, throwing my vote to Howie Hawkins of the Green Party. Some of my friends told me I was wasting my vote. Sure, the Republican who ran against Andy appeared a little out of his mind. But as a teacher, a working person, a unionist, how can I vote for someone who swears to go after unions? With Democrats like those, who needs Republicans?

I'm going to call Governor Andy's office and express outrage that, with schools being cut, teachers being laid off, and working people suffering all over, that all he can worry about is saving David Koch another billion. I'll tell him I'm a lifelong Democrat and he won't be getting my vote in the future if he doesn't sharply reconsider his priorities.

Too bad, after not having a raise for the last 40 months, I haven't got $87,000 to persuade him further.

Thanks to Reality-Based Educator

It's really hard to do quality reading during the school year, especially if you're an English teacher and you have to stay on top of the texts you're reading with your students. Most evenings, it's all I can do to kick back with one of my dog-eared David Sedaris collections or the latest issue of New York or Time Out.

EdNotes offers an important idea--that of linking Occupy Wall Street to education. Readers of this blog know well that the billionaires are trying to work their magic on our careers, just as they did to the economy, and that even the supposed Democrat, Barack Obama, firmly supports their baseless hare-brained schemes. Arne Duncan can't wait to do whatever the hell Bill Gates tells him to.

If we can get our message out, that the same people who tossed the economy into the crapper want to do the same to our children, we'll have accomplished something truly worthwhile. This is a long-term project that can't be accomplished overnight. The occupiers of Wall Street had to wait weeks before even being acknowledged by the mainstream media, and we'll likely have to wait even longer, having been tarred and smeared ever since we propelled President Hopey Changey to his current position.

But it appears the public is growing weary of years of nonsense upon nonsense. Who will speak the truth? Teachers, of course. If we can tell kids how things are, why can't we tell adults as well? After all, we have the welfare of their kids in mind. Do we want our students growing up into a world where they have to have both parents working 200 hours a week to pay rent? Do parents want that? I know I don't.

Teaching is a political act. We're making young people smarter, better-informed, and that's a threat to the corporate interests currently running our country and pretending to be Democrats. Doubtless smarter and better-informed adults are even more of a threat--and that's precisely why we need them right now.

A kid in my level two ESL class doesn't really belong there. The second day of class I went to my supervisor and told her. He doesn't understand the work very well, and kind of sat there mystified. I thought it would be a good idea to move him down a level. But somehow, in summer school or someplace, he'd already passed.

I figured OK, I'll do the best I can and try to drag the kid where he should be. But then he cut the rest of the week, including a test, and things didn't work out. My class was at the end of the day, and learning English was of no evident importance to the kid, so he simply went home early---but--bad luck--somehow he got transferred to my midday class, and skipping out was no longer so convenient--he'd miss all those vital classes in his first language, the one he needed no instruction in whatsoever.

So he showed up on Tuesday. I gave him the leaflet I'd made up so he could do the work. At first, he responded. But he didn't like it when I made him repeat things. He didn't like it when I made him say things in an audible voice, and honestly, who the hell needs English in the United States of America anyway. So he walked up to my desk, dropped the leaflet there, and simply answered, "No English," when I called on him. That would teach me to waste his time with this ridiculous language nonsense.

It was pretty jarring to me. We have a two period class, and here's this teenager determined to do absolutely nothing. It made me tired watching him not answer questions, not mix with his classmates, and not do anything. I would not have the patience to sit and do nothing for 90 minutes, so in a way I have to give the kid props.

It's been a long time since I threw a kid out of class, and I toyed with the idea, but decided not to. I went to his guidance counselor, one who speaks his language, with a written description of his behavior. She told me he had come to her, complaining I was too strict, and saying he wanted to drop down a level. She told him he couldn't stay at level 1 forever, particularly since he'd already passed it.

The next day I was out, but she dragged the parents up for a conference. I don't know what she said or did, but the kid came in yesterday a new person. He's trying to do the work, trying to answer questions, and that defiance has disappeared absolutely. It's like she did magic while I was out.

I'm really lucky to know someone who can help me like that. And the kid is lucky to have her too, though he probably won't acknowledge it for a long, long time.

Like all city high schools now, my school administered the PSATs to our sophomores and juniors yesterday. I proctored the first half of the exam, then switched with another teacher to take my lunch. In the staff lounge, a few other teachers who had recently been relieved were working.

When I see stories like this one, I'm not remotely surprised. When you put a gun to the head of a principal and say, "Get higher grades or I'll kill you," that principal may just decide the hell with all that achievement nonsense--I'm just gonna pass everyone any damn way I can. Then, said principal will pressure staff to do the same.

In fact, this has been going on for years, in varying degrees, in just about every school in the city. Teachers are told it's their fault if kids fail, and run around trying to figure ways to pass every kid. So what if he's asleep every day. He passed that test three months ago. Sure he copied, but that showed initiative.

This mania for testing will not end well. It's not at all surprising that kids with apparently good grades are not college ready. But when it's entirely the fault of the school when kids fail, that's what you get. Who wants to have 500K per year Geoffrey Canada label you a "dropout factory." Canada doesn't tolerate such things, which is why he dumped an entire grade rather than have them make him look bad. And, of course, if we had such preposterous options, we'd always look good too.

It's a whole lot easier to blame teachers and schools than to eradicate poverty. In fact, the biggest "reformers," like Mayor4Life, while constantly bitching about those darn teachers, actively contribute to poverty by firing working people. At the same time, they insist millionaires can't spare another dime in taxes.

With such patently ridiculous values, if they can be called that, it's not surprising that they can't imagine anything to improve education other than constantly rising test scores, meaningless though they may be.

We were welcomed back from the long weekend by not one, not two, but three malfunctioning copiers. Two were completely out of ink and a third was mysteriously and repeatedly jamming. As you can imagine, a school full of teachers anxious to hit the ground running on a new week and three malfunctioning copiers is not really a great combination.

Tenure is under attack all over. Chancellor Dennis Walcott doesn't support it, because Michael Bloomberg doesn't support it and New York's school chancellor is only permitted to support what Michael Bloomberg supports. Theoretically, a chancellor should represent schoolchildren, but under mayoral control, he represents a billionaire tycoon, as does our fake school board, the PEP.

Acquiring tenure, according to the "reformers," entails hanging around for a few years and being able to produce mist on a mirror. For me, it was not so simple. I could never find a position teaching in my license area, and actually had to change it. I think it took me at least six years. I have no idea when I actually received it.

A few years ago, a young teacher told me she thought she'd gotten tenure, and wanted to ask the principal. Would I come with her? It can be scary going to see the principal, so I said okay. The principal had no idea, but checking the dates it appeared she'd crossed the threshold. He wanted to do something for her, but had no idea what.

"Here, have this plant," he said, grabbing one of the potted plants the secretaries had lying around.

We've come a long way from those days. Now, the DOE sends out a certificate. I know because a young teacher showed me one the other day. This is a pretty nice thing to do, I think.

Perhaps it's the exception that proves the rule.

Mayor Bloomberg, because he puts Children First, is cutting school budgets by 2%, after having cut them even more extensively last year. Children are indeed the first to be cut, the next to be cut, and next year, it appears he'll cut them yet again.

Because jobs are important in Mayor Bloomberg's New York, he's firing 700 low-paid DC37 workers. This will make our city a better place. After all, we need money to make up for the millionaire's tax that's about to sunset. We're gonna lose 5 billion dollars a year. Those DC37 workers would likely have spent it on things like clothes, rent, food and other things that would keep other people working.

Fortunately, billionaires like Mayor Bloomberg know better what to do with money. They can invest it in companies that will pay out to top execs, who will invest it in something else, none of which will create jobs, encourage jobs, or help the unemployed DC37 get jobs. That's Mayor Bloomberg's genius, and that's why he needed that third term.

And every day Murdoch's lackeys at the Post wonder why Wall Street is occupied. I only wonder why it didn't happen years ago.

The scene: Small group work in a 10th grade English class. Keep in mind that nearly all of these students had English together last year, and many of them went to middle school together, too.

He strolled in 20 minutes late, like he owned the place. I had never seen him before.

"Excuse me?" I said. But he was too cool to answer.

He selected a seat and plopped down his bag.

"Excuse me?" I repeated.

Reluctantly he looked at me. He gave a tired sigh, weary of my ridiculous demands.

"Who are you?" I asked. Another weary sigh.

"New student," he replied.

It should be obvious. It should go without saying, Why is this idiot teacher making such endless, ridiculous demands?

"Did I say you could sit there?" I asked, getting all territorial and stuff.

The kid threw up his hands. Here I am. I told you I was new. What the heck more could you possibly want.

"May I please see your program card?"

This was too much. I mean, I take the trouble to show up here, almost on time, and this stupid teacher is nothing but demands, demands, demands. Alright, you wanna see my program? Fine. Let's put an end to this nonsense once and for all. I'm not gonna be trifled with by some New York City schoolteacher. Bill Gates says you're a bunch of losers anyway.

"You're in the wrong class. Go to the trailer on the other side."

My entire class burst into laughter. It's hard to look cool in the face of such a thing. Lost new kid muttered some incomprehensible comments so I'd know who was boss, and walked out, making several more incomprehensible comments to put me in my place once and for all.

I was making some phone calls to parents yesterday afternoon since, believe it or not, a month of school is nearly over. For some of us, that means that we're already halfway, or more than halfway, to the first report card of the year. So I figured it was time to check in with the guardians of my lovelies and give them some updates.

As the Border's book chain folds, several of its employees have put out a list of all the things they really thought when customers made requests.

It NEVER bothered us when you threatened to shop at Barnes & Noble. We'd rather you do if you're putting up a stink.

Most of the time when you returned books you read them already--and we were onto you.


Oprah was not the "final say" on what is awesome. We really didn't care what was on her show or what her latest book club book was. Really. (Given her pro-corporate education stance, I really like this one.)


It's true that we lean to the left and think Glenn Beck is an idiot.


We greatly dislike the phrase "Quick question." It's never true. And everyone seems to have one.

We hate when a book becomes popular simply because it was turned into a movie. (Me too, because then when I teach it, some kids try to watch the film instead of reading the book. This is particularly egregious when the idiot film producers change the story and kids write about the film version.)

So here's what I'm wondering--if Mayor Bloomberg were to have his druthers, save valuable tax dollars by closing all the schools and having our kids run around the streets like the ones in Salaam Bombay (You see--I just told what I thought about Mayor Bloomberg there.), what truths would teachers tell?

What truths would the kids say about us?

And what truths would the "reformers" have, were they remotely familiar with the concept?