Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Annual Teacher Bashing Article published!

The New York Post published its end-of-the-school year teacher bashing article today! Every year, as a two-month period of unpaid unemployment looms for thousands of educators, this bastion of objective reporting publishes an inflammatory article about teachers, unions, or both. This year, it's about New York City's infamous "rubber rooms" where a teacher who annoys an administrator can be sent for years to await arbitration for some made-up infraction. They are not allowed to work, but they must attend the "reassignment center" until their "case" is resolved. The article explains that it is the union's fault for making it difficult to fire tenured teachers.
It's actually easy to fire a tenured teacher if there is an actual case, but if there is no case, they cannot fire the teacher, so the administrator tries instead to coerce the teacher into quitting by sending the teacher to the rubber room. It's a double victory for the administration. 1) The unions look bad for requiring due process, so the administration clogs up the process with bogus cases, and 2) the administration is free to bully and eliminate an educator who asks too many questions.
Did you ever wonder why it is difficult to recruit educators in New York City?

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