Thursday, October 11, 2007

It's a nasty group of people

Two interesting and I feel related articles appeared on October 10. The first was in the Times. If you are interested in the whole article it is at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/10/education/10education.html?_r=1&oref=slogin This article was by Samuel Freedman, a guy I exchanged emails with last year. He is the Times' education writer. Some how or other he managed to spend three hours in my old rubber room on 7th Avenue. It has gotten worse. teachers are no longer allowed even the small amount of dignity they used to have. Here is the quote from the Times;

The room in question was about 1,100 square feet and on blueprints submitted to the Fire Department was designed to hold 26 people. On this day, it contained upward of 75. It had no windows, no land phone, no Internet access, no wall decorations, not even a clock. Any personal belongings left overnight were removed by custodians.


This is like it was last year, but know listen to this;
Still, the stultifying atmosphere of that rubber room is not simply the opinion of its unwilling, disgruntled residents. I spent several hours there last week observing the listless routine, and what I saw confirmed the complaints I had heard privately from teachers before my unannounced visit.

Until this year, teachers could at least keep some personal items: a seat cushion, a tin of tea. A teacher with a damaged leg who needs a support dog was permitted to sit at a table just outside the rubber room. A physical education teacher even held fitness classes in the hallway.

All that has ended. The department supplied new chairs and tables at the outset of this academic year, but also stopped allowing any of the personal touches.

The room has always been punitive, but now it is a nightmare. The bureaucrats at the DoE think that this is great. They assume that you must be scum if you are there, they never allow the possibility that the scum might be the principal who sent you there.

The second article was in the Daily News. Here it is in its entirety;
A Manhattan gym teacher facing 27 counts of misconduct allegedly threatened to kill the arbitrator presiding over his case, authorities said.

Theodore Smith, 46, who taught at the Museum School in Manhattan, allegedly said he was going to "kill that f---ing arbitrator" and "break him in half," according to a report by Special Schools Investigator Richard Condon.

The Education Department will continue to seek Smith's termination, a spokeswoman said.


What is amazing about this is that if you asked the DoE to comment on an ongoing investigation they would tell you that they could not, that there were confidentiality issues involved, even if the teacher being investigated was willing to wave his/her rights. But on the day that the Times breaks a story on the rubber room suddenly the DoE releases this story. That hardly seems a coincidence. As a matter of fact the release of this item would seem to violate the DoE's policy. Maybe somebody should investigate them. At the very least this guys union should file a suit against the DoE for giving out this information.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good to have you back. Too long between postings. The powers that be always need to take the rank and file down a few pegs. Witness the post-911 spate of dirt thrown at the firefighters (crackdowns, media exploitation of firehouse incidents, etc) Makes you wonder of the mayor can't allow anyone other than his people to garner too much support. His vilifying teachers and administrators seems somewhat similar. Of course, he has the cooperation of the media in the cowardice.

Anonymous said...

If the fire department rates the room at 25, it would seem to be a good idea to call the fire marshal on a daily basis to harass the DOE.

Anonymous said...

If we called the fire department daily, there would be daily retaliation. Perhaps, we would need to have the security guard escort us to the toilet and flush it for us.

Anonymous said...

Why not a coincidence? What makes you think that the DoE knows what the Times will write the next day?

Ed said...

Of course the DoE knew about the Times article. The Times reporter would not have run the story without calling the DoE and asking for a comment. The leak was the comment.