Paul Schroeder

Posted on 10/16/09

Overcrowded Classes

As a teacher in NYC for over 35 years, I've noted that
teacher morale is at a new low. For one reason, it is
virtually impossible to manage and educate grossly
overcrowded classes. (what DO you say to yourself, looking
at a class of over forty pupils; "I shall give that child
one minute of attention and that pupil four minutes and
that one thirty seconds?). Having nearly forty pupils or
more per class in a high school setting nullifies the
individualized attention often needed for pupil success.

Monsters in Suits

In addition, administrators except in rare cases seem
predominately and uniquely unqualified to administrate the
teaching of teachers. They have been trained specifically
in only one regard and that is to perceive administration
as the use of gross and harsh bullying tactics towards
teachers often using tactics that we as teachers would come
under fire for if they were used in our own classroom
management. Administrators are also uniformly the poorest
role models for new and even seasoned teachers as they
unerringly conduct inane, tedious and boring faculty
meetings and teacher training workshops lessons that would
surely fail in the classroom and quickly lose our pupil's
interests if we endeavored to employ them.

A Failing System with 50% Dropout Statistics

The insoluble problems to New York City education persist
in badly outdated curriculum, crumbling school
infrastructures, an a priori pupil ennui, widespread
parental carelessness and untrained and inept assistant
principals and principals who are unprofessional as well as
untrained except in a new tactic of widespead mean -
spiritedness.These principals are taught in closed
workshops and secretly encouraged by the Mayor's office and
the Chancellor's office to rule by such bullying. Under the
Mayor's new total control, these principals have new found
medieval powers over teachers in the New York City
educational system.

Bully Tactics

A teacher interviewed by me recently had spent many months
in a rubber room after being falsely and unfairly accused
of insubordination by such an unscrupulous principal. And
this, after 27 years of unblemished service. Removed from
the classroom and sent to Linden place in Queens he was
suddenly aloft and facing pending charges, sent to a
holding cell crowded with teachers from all walks, also
charged with similar frivolous and goofy charges. It was
truly a illegal detention of a professional Union.

Like a Fish Out Of Water

The psychological damage of sudden detention for months and
for some, years, in a crowded holding pen with dozens more,
locked in a rubber room, with many more such rooms hidden
away around the city, did enough damage to those around
him, all accomplished and dedicated teachers.This daily
inglorious restraint destroyed all of his teaching muscles
and challenged his morale. Eventually, it forced him and
other senior teachers to resign. "We can make these charges
all go away,if you resign", is what DOE attorney Fox told
him and others; where's the due process in that?

Guilty Before Proven Unfairly Guilty

These suddenly burgeoning rubber rooms are illegal
violations of Civil Liberties and due process. He observed
that swift fair adjudication and fair treatment was given
to much younger teachers accused of similar charges.They
didn't languish for long months or years for adjudication
that strove to prove them guilty; it was odd that younger
teachers were treated fairly. Senior teachers as a group
were forced out; could this reflect a systemic move by the
State Legislature and State Senate to balance the State
budget by removing senior staff everywhere, or is this
Mayor Bloomberg's rancor at the UFT? These teachers have
been abandoned by their union and are forced into a
semblance and a cynical facsimile of due process.

865 teachers awaiting charges

Whoever has ordered this sudden unfair treatment that
bounces teachers antiseptically from schools into "rubber
rooms" and paints them all with the same punitive brush has
doubled the rosters of detained and tightly corralled
teachers for similar charges of insubordination.This is
unprecedented in the history of New York City.
The injustices abound. When 'troublesome' teacher's
classroom lessons are observed,assistant principals watch
with 'unfriendly eyes' and the observation reports are
twisted into"unsatisfactory" ratings by these vendetta
seeking A.P.s and power crazed principals,perverting the
observation 'tool',itself, into just another weapon in
their unscrupulous hands.Teachers are left unable to defend
themselves against the lies and distortions purposefully
put into those'reports.'

Bloomberg's fascism

Why does the teacher's union, the UFT, allow these rooms to
exist and persist? No other so-called professional Union
would tolerate such treatment of its members. But
principals continue to remove teachers who show any
personal unionized initiatives in questioning principals or
their new bullying tactics and clearly the blame rests at
the Mayor's door.
(Bloomberg will likely be re-elected as the public knows
nothing of his fascist inklings. His evil, behind the
scenes regime against teachers will continue to gut the
UFT.)

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