I was greatly impressed by your journalistic acumen in your report "Teacher's Secret." I would like to meet with you in person and discuss issues related a much shared belief regarding the actions that need to be taken.
"The Union has created a culture of intimidation that prevents many teachers from speaking out, but they face retribution from their colleagues."
The school system has become increasingly a culture of fear - but the fear that teachers have is not of their colleagues as such, I believe. The greatest fear is of "the Union" that claims to represent them, and of the Principals and Superintendents who are in collusion with the UFT Leadership, because their career paths are so influenced by it.
I have personally witnessed this process since becoming an Elementary Teacher in 1970 in the south Bronx, moving to a middle-class neighborhood in Middle Village/Ridgewood Queens, following a two-year leave without pay for study, I returned to the BOE, and took apposition as a School Psychologist in the Division of Special Education - I am prepared to speak to you - and on the record - regarding the culture of intimidation factored you described.
Regardless of public posing - and acts such as defending repeat pedophiles-- designed only to give the Public and Teachers like the impression it will defend anyone, the problem in hiring and firing Teachers and Supervisors does not fundamentally lay just in the Byzantine complexity rivaling only the IRS code. The fact is that Principals and Supervisors, themselves, have been intimidated by the Union that has been on the actual position to influence significantly their career paths.
In my view, this actual collusion between Union Leadership -many of whom draw two Salaries-- and many Principals and Superintendents, is rarely made public, but it is the fundamental problem that has to be faced in recovering public control of our schools. Over three decades, I have persistently witnessed, both as an Elementary School Teacher (15 years) and as a School Psychologist/counselor (13 ½ years) the progressive disenfranchisement of Parents, Taxpayers, Children - and yes, Teachers and Supervisors.
I also have personal knowledge of practices the Division of Special Education, such as collecting money under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) based on registration rather than attendance. I've seen "professional parents" hired by Committees with Special Education to make far-reaching decision as the Special Education designation, who are encourage to read the newspaper during Committee Reviews and let the "professionals" make the decision; Parents deliberately misinformed to induce them to sign off on the children's placement.
As a School Psychologist, providing related service Counseling to Emotionally Handicapped and to Behaviorally Handicapped -or so designated-students, I quickly learned that decisions were sometimes to often made prior to any actual testing, and the Evaluations Reports were later "written up" to justify the decision. One time I sent a child for an Evaluation that included a Wechsler IQ Battery and Projective Testing that would take many hours to administer. He returned "Evaluated" in 20 minutes; IQ scores were not from re-evaluation, but from copying old scores. Once a child was placed in special Education; there was not much in place to get the child out.
I recommend that School Psychologists be required to attach to the Report, the actual Test Protocols, where they are supposed to write in the child's answers and how they were scored. This is an extreme measure -but it even more important especially now because the School Psychologists are now required to do not only Intelligence and Personality Evaluation, but also the job of the former Educational Evaluators.
The only effective program the Division on Special Education had to move children out of special Education is a "push out" program such as the one maintained at the Special Education High School I served. This was started during a period of over-budget spending in 1968. That year I became permanently disabled by an assault by two students in the Guidance Area. Like many other things in the BOE, this was covered up.
My serious injury was used as Godsend that allowed the Acting Interim Principal the opportunity to act on her threat to cause my termination, because I had been accommodated by the District for a personal disability-asthma and migraine---with an office with air-conditioning. She argued that no one such be allowed to perform a job that required any reasonable accommodation -such as required under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
Ironically, the whole District in which we both served was dedicated to the education of students with some disability that impaired learning in Regular Education. How can a school educate children when the Supervisor doesn't believe that they will ever be able to work if this required a lawful accommodation? That they shouldn't be allowed to work on any job that required one. Yet she was only one example of a Supervisor whose career path had been advanced by the Leadership of "the Union". I was told by the Vice President for Special Education of the UFT, "not to say anything bad about her..She is doing a wonderful job.."
There are many other areas where I feel I could guide and focus your excellent descriptions of the Public's loss of control of our Schools. I would also like to discuss some specific solutions such as requiring School Psychologists Evaluation to have appended the Testing Protocols - to show that the testing was actually done! And more generally solutions, such as breaking up the collusion between the Unity Caucus, and the Principals whose appointments are subject to its contrivance.
So long as Teachers are afraid that the Principal and Superintendents will take reprisals against them for criticizing the "Union", this culture of intimidation will continue.
UNIONS