Monday, June 18, 2018

Time to drop the dead weight

From the NY Times:

Despite a high-profile effort by Mayor Bill de Blasio to reduce the number of city teachers without permanent jobs who draw full pay and benefits, the city spent $136 million this school year to keep them on the payroll, according to a study released Thursday.

The unassigned employees are part of a pool known as the Absent Teacher Reserve, and there were 1,202 teachers and other staff in it at the start of the school year, according to the report by the nonpartisan Citizens Budget Commission. Despite buyouts, mandatory placements in schools and a rule that all unassigned teachers must look for permanent posts, there were still 756 teachers in the pool in April.

Like teachers with full-time classroom assignments, those in the pool are entitled to regular pay raises, step increases and longevity increases, providing “no incentive for unmotivated or unsuitable teachers to secure new permanent placements,” the report notes.

Teachers in the pool have an average of 18 years on the job, and an average salary of $98,126. With a 3 percent raise for all city teachers going into effect on Saturday, combined with a 2 percent raise teachers received in May, senior teachers in the pool could now earn up to $119,472, the report found.

Teachers land in the reserve pool because their schools have been closed, or their budgets cut, or because they were the subject of unsatisfactory performance evaluations or disciplinary actions. They can stay in the pool indefinitely.

The United Federation of Teachers contract with the city expires in November, and the budget commission urged the city to use the contract negotiations to cap the time teachers can spend in the pool at six months.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Flushing Highschool got problems.

Anonymous said...

Why aren't they tutoring full-time? NYC is full of second and third-rate students!

Anonymous said...

Why aren't the displaced teachers tutoring full time? Because many times, they are assigned to sit in a chair outside school bathrooms and make sure students using the bathroom sign in. Or, they are assigned to stroll through cafeterias at lunch periods, making sure students discard their styrofoam lunch trays in the trash. Sometimes, they are asked to file things. If they are assigned to tutor, few if any students show up for it. The ones who need it the most cut the tutoring session. They have better things to do, like roaming the halls in herds, vandalizing bulletin boards, staring into classrooms through the door windows to distract their friends from learning, throwing furniture or huge pedestal fans down stairs, or sneaking out to smoke (not just cigarettes, they come back in reeking of pot). Oh yeah, DeDumbassio should definitely open the scholarly elite schools to his beloved ghetto thugs. I wonder what his next project would be, after ruining the last few schools in NYC where high level learning actually takes place. Everything he touches turns to s___.

Anonymous said...

"Time to drop the dead weight" should have been the header to the 'OTHER' piece that highlighted the cradle-to-grave, city government career of Melinda Katz ('Katz looking to run for Brown seat') - where the REAL 'Rubber Room' was born (and copied by the other four boroughs of New York City and beyond, straight to the dynastic, Haunted Ski Lodge up in Albany that has been seized by 'Gargoyle Andy' Cuomo and his Mafia-thug henchmen of epic government fail).

Now, the whole City and State of New York is a padded cell of openly practiced, political corruption, graft and endless greed that makes the original 'Rubber Room' pale in comparison (for which everyone else continues to pay the ultimate, soul-crushing price). And, the public be damned (again and STILL)!

Anonymous said...

Dump inadequate teachers with permanent status. Oops.....who will be left?

Anonymous said...

Why aren't the displaced teachers tutoring full time?

They do. Most people don't understand that excesses teachers have to show up in any given day wherever and for whatever they are assigned if they want to keep getting paid on the days where there is no assignment. If they do not show up, that is tantamount to their forfeiting their job search and the city doesn't have to pay their salary anymore. They cannot feasibly moonlight: how do you keep a tutoring appt. at 4PM in Queens when the night before you might find out you have to show up at a school in the North Bronx? Mind you, this is different from the Rubber Room, where teachers deemed too risky to enter the class because of charges filed are awaiting hearing.

Anonymous said...

Good luck.
Will.
Never.
Happen.

Anonymous said...

What happened to you guys? You were all so anti Crowley and now he has an actual challenger and its COMPLETE radio silence. Did he finally buy you off too?

Anonymous said...

Are you fucking kidding? There have been a number of articles posted here. Get a clue and pay attention. This isn't the Queens Courier.