What the mayor did to our students, teachers, and schools
was unconscionable. The process by which the mayor chose to get rid of staff
has been compared to that of Nazism, Stalinism, and Napoleonism. The
psychological, emotional, and mental turmoil the staff and students of all these schools endured
during this process was heart-breaking. Our school was a fantastic
school with a terrific, upbeat, caring, smart, hardworking staff until this year, when we received a new principal to “clean out” the school (a pattern of his, I hear).
Guests used to comment on how wonderful our school was–on how great the
students and staff were. The behavior exhibited by some of these principals
would never have been tolerated in teachers, so why the double-standard? Of
course there were problems, but nothing compared to those of truly failing schools.
The mayor claimed that this process would get rid of “ineffective”
teachers. If that were the case, why were many of our best, well-loved, and
highly qualified teachers let go? Why were some teachers who were the heart and soul of our
school–who helped with extracurricular activities, tutored students every day,
worked on Saturdays, Sundays, evenings (with no extra pay), listened, guided,
advised, consoled, and cared, let go? Why were teachers who had never in their
careers had a bad rating suddenly given unsatisfactory ratings for things as
silly as not having an “Aim” on the board, and why were these
“ineffective” teachers not offered help to “improve” as per
the contract? Why did the “interview” process consist of the same
five questions, without allowing the teachers to speak about their
contributions, experience, and qualifications?  Isn’t the purpose of an
interview to allow the interviewees to sell themselves and not to regurgitate
rote answers to preselected questions? Why go through it at all when it was
obvious that whoever the principal wanted to stay stayed? We had excellent
teachers retire early because they didn’t want to end their careers being branded as “ineffective”. The
students of one of these teachers complained that the new math teacher who replaced
him “didn’t know how to teach” and they wanted their former teacher
back.

No, Mayor Bloomberg. Your reform is not about the students. If it were,
you would not send principals to these schools whose sole purpose is to demoralize,
humiliate, and fire teachers. You would send in leaders who encourage, support,
and inspire teachers to do their best and who help the weaker teachers improve.
But that’s not what it’s about to you, and now everyone knows it. Only 40+ of
approximately 200 teachers at our school were asked to stay. Are you saying we
had 160 ineffective teachers at our school? I think not. Your stats are flawed,
the standardized tests are flawed, the teacher evaluations you wanted to
implement were flawed, the four-year graduation rate plan is flawed, the Leadership
Academy principals are flawed, and the DOE leadership is flawed. Honestly. It
is the DOE that should be “turned-around”.

Pease put together a unified message for all your members.  Please get the ear of our media and inform the public of the facts concerning this arbitration decision.  The schools, parents and students need to be clear.  Press Conference?  Public Service announcement for Gotham Schools or some sort of UFT blog keeping us up to date?  Letter to the families of the students attending these 24 schools in need of extra support?  Is there anyone at the UFT officies who can type a letter or article explaining exactly where we stand and whether or not there is any merit to the City’s alleged loop hole claim?  Isn’t this the respectful, professional and ethical thing to do?

Signed,

Can’t believe we are still this confused and uncertain at this time and that the UFT officials not directly connected to the arbitration process have not been working tirelessly to combat the city’s claims and give UFT members and all the parents and students some peace of mind. 

Nevertheless, asides from this phyrrhic victory, all schools will have gone through irreparable damage, which will be used by the DoE to hammer the nail at coffin of these historical schools.

It is possible that the City and the DoE will be stuck with costly lawsuits even after the Supreme Leader leaves, this is the worst part of it all, as city citizens will take a hit….this sort of dirty tactics are typical of private enterprise, to gamble with someone else’s money and lives.

I truly hope when all appeals have been exhausted that the City and the DoE will be hammered with  a  judgement that will cost their duplicity greatly.

When you look at his reign as mayor, you can actually see similarities between his way of thinking and, sometimes acting, with those rulers we now know as  ”enlightened monarchs.”

Getting the Council to throw out term limits to satisfy his whim, taking complete control of the education system, the disgraceful appointment of Kathy Black, and other non-educators as Chancellor, his reaction to the Council overruling his veto of the living wage act, his handling of the turnaround issue, his reaction to the arbitrator, Sodagate, and other actions and reactions show a man who is not at ease in a democratic, rule by law system. I’m sure others can come up with other instances where he has been heavy-handed, if you even want more evidence.

I actually like the way he approaches many social issues. Enlightened monarchs did good things too, but like Bloomberg, they abused their power at some point, even if it was for what they thought was a good cause.

Found this online- a comment about Bloomberg’s company from someone who worked there.  Substitute “teachers” for “developers” and “education” for “products” and it is an interesting read.:

“Decisions about products are made without much input from the developers… (M)anagers and business people were in a world of their own, and developers are treated as contractors when it comes to their influence over products.”

“Very poor testing and development environment. Time was never allotted for testing software, and the development environment was often broken or not a good proxy for the production system.”

The writer’s solution:

Advice to Senior ManagementYou hire a lot of very smart people. Try to let them use their brains. Maybe take a note from Google or Facebook on how to run an office full of developers.

This is how it’s been for me: I don’t know if any other Newtown student is following the story, but I have been especially paying attention to Gotham Schools for the past two weeks, and the situation only continues to escalate. I want to go on with my summer vacation without having to worry whether my school is going to be there next year!

This is going to be a long summer.

If Bloomberg thought his position was worth fighting for in the first place, he’s going to fight in every available forum until he’s lost and has no other forum. The UFT would do the same.  It’s litigation, and although it’s often unpleasant and always too expensive, there’s nothing improper about it. On the contrary, it’s the way we protect rights and ensure the fair application of the law.

I think we’re all missing a lot of information.  But based on just the information we have, if I were this judge, the first question I want the DOE to answer is why they didn’t make this argument to me back in May when I was suggesting that the parties take the dispute to arbitration.  If I don’t get a good answer to that question — and I can’t imagine what a good answer could be — then I’m rubber-stamping the award unless the DOE can convince me in 60 seconds that it’s completely obvious that the arbitrator blew the jurisdictional question.

I haven’t seen the transcript of the hearing at which the judge “urged” the parties to arbitrate.  But it would be reasonable to expect the judge to expect the DOE to explain why it didn’t make this jurisdictional argument to the court before agreeing to submit the question of arbitrability to the arbitrator.  Not sure what wrinkles there may be under state law, but under federal law, if the DOE agreed to submit the question of arbitrability (i.e., whether the arbitrator had the power to decide the dispute) in the first instance, it couldn’t expect a court to review that question de novo.  I’d be surprised if it were any different under state law.