Post a comment about the budget cuts at your school on our interactive comment map. more »
GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools
dirty little secret?
May 11, 2009
Among the new new-teacher pool: some who sat out job search
Members of the Absent Teacher Reserve pool who did extensive job searches spoke at a press conference with teachers union president Randi Weingarten at the start of the school year. (GothamSchools)
A teachers union source surprised me recently by pointing out what the source described as the “dirty little secret” of the Absent Teacher Reserve pool.
The reserve is the group of teachers who will become the main hiring source for principals now that Schools Chancellor Joel Klein has announced a freeze on hiring outside teachers.
It includes teachers who lost their positions at schools that either down-sized or closed, but failed to find new positions, and so remain on the Department of Education’s payroll without holding an official job.
The teachers who remain in the ATR pool are a minority; many teachers who found themselves “excessed” out of schools found new positions quickly, according to a report about the pool. The teachers who did not find new positions seem to be left out for a variety of reasons. Some simply could not get a principal to hire them, despite making major efforts to find jobs. Others remained because they were doing precisely the same job they had been doing before they entered the pool, but, affordably for principals, off of the school’s payroll. (The central Department of Education’s budget covers the salaries of ATR members.)
Another group of teachers, however, the source told me, sat tight in the ATR pool out of a kind of defiance. They simply did not apply for new positions.
The story is supported by figures collected by The New Teacher Project, the nonprofit that hires and trains new teachers and studies teacher job markets around the country. The group found that more than half of ATR teachers who remained without jobs as of December of 2008 had never applied for any jobs through the online Open Market system and never attended a single job fair. That’s 723 out of 1,367 teachers who were in the ATR pool at that time.
Teachers union president Randi Weingarten has emphatically insisted that the members of the ATR pool have been slandered by the Department of Education and The New Teacher Project. At the start of the school year, she organized a press conference with several ATR members who spoke about extensive job searches that turned up nothing.
And in a recent telephone interview, Weingarten told me that not hiring ATR members is a “waste of talent and money.” “A waste of talent and money!” she exclaimed again, for emphasis.
-
May 11th, 2009 1:03 pm
Is this information is supported by non-stakeholder studies and statistics? Not that I want to bite the hand that’s (minimally) feeding me, but TNTP consistently finds data that support its mission - to recruit and hire minimally trained people to be teachers (including myself). As a former journalist, I question whenever they “find” that the ATR teachers are, for lack of a better word, lazy (not searching for jobs out of defiance) or incompetent (multiple U-ratings). And I doubt the ATR teachers were surveyed about their job search methods or lack thereof, for this report. So I wonder where the stats on just how many pool teachers never applied once to a job came from.
-
May 11th, 2009 8:45 pm
I can’t point to any other study of the ATR pool, beyond the one that TNTP did. However, I did think it was interesting that it was a source inside the teachers’ union who suggested I look into the possibility that some ATR members are simply not looking for jobs.
-
May 11th, 2009 9:13 pm
The figure re: open market applications and job fairs may be true, but should be put in perspective. How many teachers have found jobs from the open market or job fairs?
Much anecdotal evidence suggests that sending resumes, calling schools, emailing principals is the way to a new job. The open market in many cases is a formality and not used the way that the DOE claims. In reality, many jobs aren’t posted on the open market until principals have already identified a candidate they want for the job.
Sample evidence of this: job postings on craigslist, school websites, list servs for jobs that aren’t on the Open Market.
-
May 11th, 2009 9:51 pm
umm, I’ve been to three job fairs and have had at least 12 interviews because of it. So yeah, it works
-
May 11th, 2009 11:04 pm
NewTeachingFellow: A wee bit fast on the trigger, and a whole lot of conjecture. There is a hyperlink to the study within this very article.
-
May 12th, 2009 12:15 pm
Have no idea what ATR means, but just like any other profession, just because a person isn’t rating unsatisfactory doesn’t mean they should be standing up in front of kids teaching them. I have to think that there is a reason these people haven’t found jobs. Personally, I believe it’s because they think one should be handed to them without any work. That’s the school system: everything for adults, nothing for kids.
-
May 12th, 2009 1:00 pm
We tried to interview an ATR for a vacancy, in order to help another school in the neighborhood who couldn’t afford to keep paying their salary. I went out of my way to seek him out, invite him to apply, and schedule him for an interview with our personnel committee. He skipped the interview without calling or cancelling. When I ran into him, and asked him about it, he said, “Oh, yeah, I changed my mind.” We had a second ATR placed at our school. Several schools expressed interest in interviewing this person. She declined to even consider some of them–saying they were not the “kind of school” she was looking for. A third ATR sent his resume for a vacancy. He had been at three schools in three years. His explanation–he didn’t have a grasp of the content in his license area, and so therefore his principals and he mutually agreed to place him in excess (three times! three different schools!) out of fear that the students’ chances of passing the Regents would be hurt unless they replaced him.
-
May 12th, 2009 7:32 pm
Is this the same New Teacher Project that is involved in the hiring of Teaching Fellows–the very teachers who won’t be given jobs now that ATRs must be hired first?
What kind of source is that, anyway? NTP claimed that many of the ATRs were “subpar”, but didn’t bother to tell us how many they were or how it was determined that they were subpar.
What ever happened to real reporting? If journalists were held to the same standards as teachers, they’d have to open some new rubber rooms lined with newsprint.
-
September 2nd, 2009 11:57 am
Maybe it’s because ATRs are shut out of consideration, even when we try.
We ATRs are told by the DoE and the UFT to look for jobs. But how can we when the official transfer login site
https://www.nycenet.edu/offices/dhr/transferplane/apps/login.aspxhas the following “need not apply” message?:
“Important Note to All Users – Read Before Attempting to Register or Log In:
This system will not recognize user accounts from the Excess Staff Selection System or user accounts from prior Open Market periods. If this is your first login attempt for this Open Market period, please register as a new user.”
A cookie must indicate that my PC belongs to an ATR, because this subtitle appears early in the webpage:
“Excessed Staff Selection System - Sign In”Activists and reporters need to know: we cannot apply to schools even if we want to. This flies in the face of official policy saying that ATRs have priority.
-
September 2nd, 2009 12:52 pm
I don’t know if ATRs had access during open market, but right now when I try to log in as a regularly appointed teacher, it says:
The Excessed Staff Selection System is currently open to excessed staff only.
Maybe try calling the help desk? Best of luck!
-
September 2nd, 2009 12:59 pm
PS: The “Excessed Staff Only” message comes up on my computer too, so it’s not a cookie. (probably a joke on your part, but I wanted to assuage your worry in case).
PPS: I know for a fact that there are 2 teachers at my school who are ATR and who are not looking for jobs out of defiance. They are getting paid, so why should they? (From their pov). On the other hand, why should principals have the option to hire new teachers right out of school when there are so many teachers who are on the pay roll without positions? Doesn’t that guarantee that the ATR teachers don’t get jobs –IF principals prefer new teachers? I think the hiring freeze is right on for that reason.
By the way, why do principals seem to prefer new teachers over ATRs? Is that a myth, or is there reason for it?
-
September 2nd, 2009 1:16 pm
There are two main reasons why principals prefer teachers right out of school. First and foremost, these teachers are usually very young and view the principal as an authority figure, not unlike a parent. These new teachers rarely “make waves” because they are often in a survival mode and therefore very malleable. The second reason is money. Two teachers can often be hired for the price of one and this a situation that often occurs during a recession when cash-strapped districts become desperate.
It will be interesting to see what happens when the recession is over and there will no longer be captive female workforce to take the place of baby boomer retirees. There could be a golden period ahead for schoolteachers. I hope so.
-
January 5th, 2010 4:38 pm
I am an excessed teacher who started as a teaching Fellow in 2001. I taught in hard to staff schools and continue to teach at one. As an atr I am not being utilized as a music teacher. The students would love t have me teach them instrumental music. I continue to find ways to get involved with the students in a positive way. I am looking for a music teaching position and applying for grants. I am not a lazy person and would welcome a class of music students.
-
January 12th, 2010 9:00 pm
I have gotten a grant from music and the brain. So I will be teaching piano at my present school. I must admit that my principal believes in the power of the arts and this is very important to any arts teacher. I hope to stay at this school next year and hope my principal hires me and takes me out of this atr status. I believe she will after she sees what I will do during the rest of this school year. That is the positive news.
I want to mention that my old principal said i was excessed last June and should go searching for work. When i attempted to do this I was not welcomed at the job fairs because according to their records I was a rehire at my school and not on the excess list. When I informed my principal of this she told me they were wrong and that I should bring my excess letter to the fair. At the fair I was told they searched their computers and the principal had me on her budget. I wasted time and was very anxious about my situation. Finally around august 13 I was again put on the excess list according to The teachers help center. This was not right . Sometimes principals can make your life very unpleasant or be supportive like my current one. I will not dwell on the negative but remember that many people in positions of power misuse it to hurt others and further their careers. These are the same people who say it’s all about the kids. They talk the talk and do not walk the walk. There are many fine teachers lingering in atr limbo who should be teaching students. I will continue to teach and play music. god bless. -
February 24th, 2010 7:49 pm
I was excessed from my chemistry position in July, 2010. I’ve gone on about 5 to 7 interviews since I found out that I was excessed. Lately I’ve started to look on craigslist and the NY Times.
-
July 7th, 2010 6:31 pm
After a satisfactory rating this year and three satisfactory observations I am still an ate.The principal at my current school told me to look for work over the summer because she was going to hire another teacher for music who started working at the school. A few months ago.I have been at the school since the beginning of the year and I believe should have seniority over the substitute. Teacher.after mentioning this to my union Rep the principal was confronted with this news.she informed the Rep that the sub was also an ate.this was denied by the sub when I asked him if he was excessed from a school. This is another example of how some People play games with teachers. I was later told by the principal that I would be welcomed back in September if I didn’t fond work. Of course she would welcome me back as an ate. That is one salary she doesn’t have to take from her budget. By the way for those that think all atr’s are lazy.I am teaching music for the children’s aid society in Harlem. Four days a week on a voluntary basis.
Leave a Reply
Mapping the Budget Cuts
Copyright Notice
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
16 Comments
Subscribe to comments with RSS or TrackBack