Rules and Regulations

Years ago I remember reading a book called Hawaii. This was a fictionalized account of the founding of Hawaii. One of the things that happened was that when the missionaries arrived they realized that the Hawaiian people were have too much intercourse. They did not like this. They wanted to push the idea of marriage and of course the missionary position. They thought that they might create a law that forbid all the types of congress that they did not approve of. They realized that if they did this that this would just give the Hawaiians ideas on things to do that they had not thought of. So this is the law they came up with:

any other species of lewdness be committed, such as is not mentioned in this law, the judge shall consider it well, according to the best of his knowledge, he shall pass sentence in accordance with the general spirit of the law. Thus shall he punish that crime

In other words, we aren't going to tell you what is bad, but don't do it.

The SEC years ago decided that if they specified all of the illegal things that banks and stock brokers should not do that they would provide a gold mine for lawyers looking for loopholes. For instance there is a section of the tax code that says you should not do any financial maneuver just to avoid taxes. This is much better than telling you what you can't specifically do. It relies on the reasonable interpretation of good behavior.

I have been reminded of this with all the controversy surrounding the memos written in a Queens high school about what to do in case of an emergency. It would seem that the part that is missing is to do what makes sense in the situation. If you are looking to create a series of rules to govern behavior, sometimes less is more.

Of course you need guidelines in any organization. You need to tell people the clear chain of command, but then you have to trust people to do the right thing if the chain doesn't make sense. The memo should have started by saying that everyone was expected to do what is appropriate if they feel someone is in danger and then go on to describe what to do if they are not. All these explicit memos do is feed into the control mentality that too often governs schools while avoiding making people responsible for their own actions.

Do they always win?

About 6 months ago I decided that it was time to get on with my life. I signed an agreement that I did not love, but which at the time looked like it was the best I was going to do. The idea was that I could move on. Not true. I forgot, and apparently so did my lawyer that bureaucrats can almost always win.

In terms of my "career" with the DoE I was left with the prospect of finding a new job. I did not object to that. Clearly I should have done this years ago. I logged on to the DoE web site and noticed immediately that the majority of available Assistant Principal jobs were for AP organization (APO). This is not a surprise. Small schools usually only have one AP. The old model of subject matter AP's is quickly disappearing in NYC. The problem is that in NYC you need what is called a certificate of eligibility(COE). This is a concept that makes sense for subject matter AP's, you should know something about a subject if you are going to be an AP of that subject, but for an APO this seems kind of silly. There are no extraordinary qualifications for this job. You just have to do what the principal needs you to do. Usually this has to do with money but not always.

For most AP's the process for getting a COE to be an APO is you pay the board ten dollars and you make sure your fingerprints are up to date and you don't owe child support. But this is not how it works if you are me.

In early July I applied for the proper COE to be an APO. But I didn't get it. What I got was a letter asking me to come to 65 Court St. I did, and they told me that because of my record of evil doings they would have to investigate me. Would I like to add anything in my own defense. I did and then I heard nothing. It is now October 15 and I have still not heard anything from them. As far as I know my application is just sitting on someones desk. By not acting on it they have essentially stopped me from getting work.

This is what bureaucracies are good at. They are good at doing nothing and by doing nothing hurting people. This is why they win. Doing nothing is usually a more powerful act then doing something.

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.

My mind

One quick comment on my last post. We seem to live in an era of privatization. Here in NYC the mayor believes in privatizing and so does Joel Klein. There is this mantra that private is better. I think that the Iraq war is the first privatized war. I think that history will show that it was one of the most inefficient corrupt wars ever conducted. I would hope that private contractors will eventually be held accountable. We also are faced with making some serious decisions regarding health care. No candidate seems to want to propose a government run health care system. This is despite the fact that the feds spend 3% of medicare money on administration and the private sector spends 15%. Privatization can work sometimes, but I think we need to be careful when we assume it is always better.

I am reading this book entitled "I am a Strange Loop" by Douglas Hofstadter. The book is about the mind and in particular what I means. Hofstadter wrote the book after his wife died suddenly. I think he is arguing against what he calls the Cartesian version of I. That is you are who you are only in terms of what body you are in and where that body is located. He makes an argument that all of the I's in the world are somehow connected. Therefore the I that was his wife lives on in some small way inside him and his kids. He sees the I as something that exists beyond the physical and chemical makeup of an individual.

I am not really going to go into explaining what was in this book, because I know that I often read books and then distort them to fit into something inside me. I am not a good reporter of books. I use books to change my thinking but not always in the way that an author intended. I am "famous" in my family for doing this.

This is the point I want to make about this book. I am who I am because of the books I have read, the people I have loved and the experiences I have had. But I do not feel that I retain any of this. I feel that I have taken all of this in and so modified it and distorted it as to make it unrecognizable.

Hofestader really wants to feel that the I that was his wife became a part of him, he wants to feel that he knew her in a profound way. I look at the people I know really well, my wife, my kids and I feel that in a really serious way I have no idea who they are. I have gotten better at guessing what they are thinking or what they want or like, but this is just a skill I have acquired. This skill is similar to getting better at hitting a baseball. When you are little you miss all of the time, but if you practice you learn to make small adjustment that allow you to occasionally hit the ball. You are never able to hit it every time and you are never really aware of where the ball is. You just become better at reacting and reading visual cues.

Of course the study of I can also be the study of the soul. If you are religious this is the easy term. Hofstadter uses another term élan mental which I like a lot. While I believe in élan mental I do not believe that it survives or is transfered in any meaningful way. My father was a major figure in my life. But even thought he affected me and even though some outside people might say I have some of his habits or thought processes I do not believe that any of his soul still exists.

Talk Back

I have received two comments that I think deserve a response. The first one spoke of how wonderful the UFT was. I have been a chapter chair and I will say categorically that the UFT is not a democratic organization. When I was chapter chair the representative from the Manhattan High Schools was not part of the ruling Unity party. This apparently bothered the UFT leadership so much that they changed the way people vote. They used an old trick used by segregationists in the 60's. If you were afraid that a minority group would elect representatives you switched to an at-large system. If you had 10 house representatives and 20% of your population was black you changed the way voting was done to have the representatives elected at large. This almost assured that all of the representatives were white.

The UFT used to have proportional representation, but it changed the ballot so that people now vote on a party. it may still be possible to split a vote, but it is very difficult. The end result is that all of the elected officials are now Unity members. I think that this is actually bad management. I think that you need someone in your organization that has an opposing view. If you don't have this person than you loose touch with your members.

The CSA doesn't change because the majority of its members don't think that the CSA is relevant to them. They don't believe that there is any power in this group so why bother spending any time thinking about who to vote for. The young principals don't care about the CSA at all, they probably see the CSA as something that gets in their way. If the CSA doesn't deal with this quickly they will become even more irrelevant than they already are. By sending the same tired old people around to talk to new principals they are assuring themselves of continued irrelevance.

The second comment I received was someone asking my if I thought the DoE owed me something. This is of course one of the large divides between Joel Klein and the unions. The unions argue that we sacrificed low pay for stability. I'm not sure that is as true today as it used to be. The unions also bring up issues of academic freedom in protecting us, but I don't think there are people in New York City being fired for teaching evolution or even communism.

So, what is wrong with just firing someone. Why couldn't my principal just tell me she didn't like me and that I needed to leave. Actually she probably could have done this, and while I might not have listened to her, I might have.

I think we have to look at teachers and administrators as civil servants. I know that this term has bad connotations today, but you need to examine why civil service was created. At one time every change in administration meant that everyone was fired and replaced with people loyal to the new administration. This created chaos and meant that jobs were filled with people who either had no experience or who were to dumb for the job. Government could not function this way and therefore the civil service was created.

The DoE is attempting to create a situation in which civil service protection does not apply. This will ultimately cause a system filled with connected people who are not good at their jobs. It will also destroy the sense of continuity and family that good schools have. This is already evident in the constant shuffling of principals, if you add AP's to the mix I do not believe that you will help schools.

I don't think that anyone owes me something. I just feel that the politics behind what has happened to me and other AP's is destructive to the schools. Being good at your job should not be the main reason for firing someone. Civil Service rules keep this from happening.

CSA Forever

Alice Roosevelt's grave -Greenwood Cementary

The person who is supposed to be my union rep stopped by today. I know that there are a bunch of people in my district and she should not have to remember everyone's story, but I am in a rather unique situation and I have been asking the union for help for the past year. You would think she would remember something about my situation. She knew nothing at all. She talked to the principal behind closed doors for ten minutes and then she asked me how I was doing. She knew nothing about me or my situation. Evey question I asked was answered by saying email Bob. Of course I have done this almost every day since the end of August.

Unions were created to help their members. Somewhere along the line they seemed to have lost sight of this function. Service is not something they seem to care about. They run all these seminars that give the appearance helping their members. They are just noise. The seminars exist to tell you things you could figure out on your own if someone would take the time to write them down clearly.

My union feels that any problem I present to them is not worthy of service. Most of the people say they will look into my problem and then they stop returning your calls. If I was managing the type of problems Bob is supposed to deal with I would have a list of when I inquired about the problem. If I did not hear back from the DoE in a certain period of time I would call again. I would certainly get back to the member periodically to tell him what was going on. I would at least have a secretary email him and say the problem is still being worked on.

Of course the problem is that unions in the DoE are monopolies. I can't take my business elsewhere. This would be OK, because all governments are essentially monopolies but unions are also structured in such a way that there is no opposition and almost no chance to elect opposition members to the union governing body. This takes away the one thing going for democratic institutions. The throw the rascals out ability that usually exists.

We have a new leader of the CSA, it is time for him to clean house.

Quality Review

This weekend I managed to wander on to the DoE web site. I followed the links to my old school and then I looked under the category "statistics". This led me to something called the school quality report. I have to say I was amazed by what I saw. Statistically you see a school that has not really gotten better for the last three years and you see the following statement under what the school does best:

The principal, who has good capacity to effect change leads and manages a complex organization well, so that it functions effectively on a day to day basis and is improving the quality of its work with students.

What! How did they figure out the principal has a good capacity to effect change. Who did they talk to?

The next bullet said:" The school has taken great strides in recent years to implement an effective discipline code, so that students are safe, secure and able to learn."

Now I see how it is going. The principal is great, the AP security is great. I wonder who else is great?

Guidance and counseling are efficiently managed and, through strengthening links with the school discipline code, are increasingly targeted and focused on students with the greatest needs.

I guess the AP of guidance is really great.

I wonder what this school needs to do to improve. These three people are great I wonder if some people are not so great?

What the school needs to improve
Continue to develop the capacity of the school's cabinet both individually and collectively, to ensure that the school's goals and objectives are met.

Wow! There it is. The source of all of this school's difficulties. It is the lack of capacity in the rest of the cabinet. Take a look at the summary. This says it all.

Overall Evaluation
This is a proficient school.
Significant steps have been taken over the last few years to establish an environment in which students feel safe and secure. This is helping to lay the foundations for continued improvements in the students' academic as well as personal development and in their attendance. Improved links between the school's discipline and guidance and counseling systems are producing a more rounded view of students and enabling more focused packages for their support.

The principal works hard to maintain the balance between the benefits of small learning communities in terms of the knowledge of individual students and the problems that arise with scheduling and the curriculum that can be offered. The impact and effectiveness of this work, however, are being limited by variations in the quality of implementation. The principal has recognized that the key task for individual members of the school's cabinet is to ensure the effectiveness of their teams, both individually and collectively. The principal's task is to ensure the same for each member of the cabinet.

What the DoE evaluator is saying is that the principal the AP security and the AP guidance are doing a great job and their work is being "limited" by the "quality of implementation". I suppose I was one of those people limiting the quality of implementation, I suppose all the other AP's are limiting the quality of implementation.
How come the evaluator doesn't talk about the fact that the other AP's spend at least 50% of their time trying to undo the damage done by the AP security and the poor scheduling done by the AP guidance with the full cooperation of the principal. As a matter of fact, did this evaluator even go above the second floor. Did the evaluator even talk to anyone else in the building.

I hate not having my teachers and my kids around me. I hate doing no significant work for over a year, but I do not hate working for a woman who constantly feels that everyone is letting her down. I do not hate sitting in endless cabinet meetings with no leadership. If I was still an AP at this school I would certainly be very annoyed by this quality review. Come on Ms Principal, take some responsibility for the school.