The Proletariat

October 10, 2007
ON EDUCATION; Where Teachers Sit, Awaiting Their Fates
By SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN

Back in 1968, when he was a graduate student of 24, Ivan Valtchev boarded a ferry from the Polish coast to Stockholm. It was the final leg in a complex and risky process of escaping to the West from his native Bulgaria. Newly free, he believed that he had left totalitarianism forever behind.

Mr. Valtchev made his way eventually to the United States, becoming an artist whose etchings were exhibited at the National Gallery. He taught at the college and secondary levels, most recently at the High School of Graphic Communication Arts in Manhattan.

But on Aug. 30, when Mr. Valtchev reported to a security guard on the eighth floor of an office building near Midtown, he experienced a certain sense of gulag déjà vu. He had been ordered by his principal to a reassignment center, more commonly known among New York teachers as a ”rubber room.”

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.

Some of the occupants faced criminal charges like assault, while others had been brought up by city education officials for termination due to incompetence or other causes. Still more, including Mr. Valtchev, had not yet received a formal letter specifying any allegation. Until their cases are resolved, which can take years, all are required to spend the 181 days of the school year in the rubber room.

And although the teachers there receive their full salaries, the stale, spartan conditions and the absence of any physical or intellectual stimulation provide a ceaseless reminder that in some respects they are guilty until proved innocent.

”There is a spirit of the K.G.B. about it,” Mr. Valtchev said in an interview on Monday. ”Their main strategy is to destabilize the person, reduce his self-respect.

”It’s extremely oppressive. It’s regimented. It’s unhappy. There’s friendship and camaraderie among us in the room, but there’s a constant atmosphere of fear. And deep depression.”

Throughout New York City, the Department of Education operates 12 reassignment centers, populated at any one time by about 760 teachers from a total work force of 80,000. And, let’s face it, they can be a hard bunch to defend.

During my own 20 years of observing and writing about public education in New York, I’ve seen firsthand how exasperatingly difficult it has been for principals to oust abusive, incapable or negligent teachers who are protected by a powerful union. Instead, some principals would privately agree to swap problem teachers in a process known as ”trading turkeys.” Others would offer such teachers a positive rating if they used their seniority to transfer to a different school.

The transfer rules were ended in 2005, under an agreement between the city and the teachers’ union. That same accord also slightly streamlined the process of bringing termination cases before an arbitrator. But I’ve also reported on examples of quality teachers persecuted by insecure or dictatorial administrators for being active in the union, speaking to the press or merely having independent views on curriculum. Not every teacher in the rubber room deserves the fate, even if some surely do.

Arbitrators and courts will weigh the evidence in each case. So why are those who have been charged, but not convicted, consigned to places like the eighth-floor room at 333 Seventh Avenue, which seem intended to mete out punishment long before any verdict has been issued?

”From our perspective, it’s not punitive,” said Andrew Gordon, the director of employee relations at the department. ”It’s all about respect for the other employees” both in the rubber room itself and in other department offices on the floor, he said. Of the ban on keeping personal items, he said: ”We don’t want to play policeman. It turns into an administrative nightmare.”

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 teacher with the dog, Joy Hochstadt — facing termination because of repeated ratings of unsatisfactory — now sits in the rubber room; several teachers who are allergic to dogs then had to be moved elsewhere. Teachers cannot use the hall for exercise or borrow books from two department libraries in the building. Instead of arriving on staggered shifts, as in the past, all 75-plus teachers stay from 8 a.m. until 3 p.m., meaning that the process of signing in or out can take half an hour.

”When a new teacher comes in, it’s not unusual for us to get very territorial,” conceded Judith Katz Cohen, who had taught art at the Talented and Gifted School in Manhattan and is accused of making a profane comment to a student. ”People would be going from table to table, looking for a place to sit, and others would get loud, angry.”

Gilda Teel, who taught social studies at Independence High School in Manhattan, said she tried to meditate before coming into the rubber room. ”I’ve been here just a month and it’s made me more nervous, more aggressive,” said Ms. Teel, accused of not accounting for $245 in school money. ”It’s changed my whole temperament.”

Until things improve, which may be never, the teachers in the rubber room pass their days with crossword puzzles, knitting, iPods, sketch pads, whatever can be brought home at night and doesn’t need electricity. For a roomful of people with advanced degrees, whether truly or falsely accused, that mental diet is thin gruel.

”Even in the penal system,” said Ms. Cohen, a veteran of more than 240 days in the rubber room, ”they permit rehabilitation.”

Samuel G. Freedman is a professor of journalism at Columbia University. His e-mail is sgfreedman@nytimes.com.

As  Bart Jones said on his C-SPAN talk on Hugo!, all governments have their positives and negatives, and Chavez’s is no different. Since 1998, Chavez has been attacked by liberals, conservative, Neo Conservatives, and New Democrats alike.

Last week I began reading Hugo!: The Hugo Chavez Story From Mud Hut to Perpetual Revolution, by Bart Jones. Honestly, Bart Jones book has been one of the better ones I have read in the last 5 years. It gives a wonderful context of Hugo’s humble beginning, his passionate populism, and US involvement into Latin American affairs. As Bart Jones correctly states, the book reads like a movie.

Today I would like to focus on some of the changes that occurred in Chavez’s time in power. One that may catch some by surprise is Venezuela did not have universal suffrage until Chavez got into office. If you were in the military you could not vote. In fact the right wing opposition attacked Chavez for this change and argued it demonstrated Chavez’s desire to militarize society.

Prior to Chavez taking power, Venezuela had been cited as one of the worst countries in the world for its treatment of prisoners. Chavez implemented the radical idea that the accused should remain free until convicted by a court of law. Up until that time prisoners were in prison for ten or twenty years before even being charged with a crime.

While in the military under the so called Democratic regimes (our heroes), Chavez and his fellow soldiers were ordered into poor communities with orders of shoot to kill.  These mass killings often went on in the U.S.’s name of fighting communism and drugs. One of the first things Chavez did as president was send soldiers into the streets to help build houses, run health clinics, and teach young children. Again the right wingers saw this as Chavez militarizing society and him becoming more authoritarian. What is so interesting is why liberals and Neo Crybabies never seem to get uptight about the pre-Chavez Venezuela.

On the domestic front education was in crisis when Chavez took over. Venezuela is a country where the minority upper middle class send their children to private schools, while the overwhelming working class majority go to the public schools.

Venezuela’s public school system was in a state of collapse when Chavez took over the presidency. Schools lacked books, paper, and pencils. Paint peeled off walls. Ceilings leaked. Classrooms overflowed with children. The dropout rate was alarming - half the students never graduated high school. One in ten never made it through elementary school. Many teachers and principals just showed up when they felt like ity. Nationwide strikes often shut down schools for weeks. Even when they were open the level of instriuction was questionable.

When Chavez took office (neo-liberal policies) the  school fees were so high it discouraged a large percentage of students from going to school.

One of his first acts was banning the registration fee many public schools improprly charged parents to enroll their children. The first yerar the fee was eliminated an estimated 400,000 children who should have been attending school, but were not, signed up…The second year that figure gre to a total of 1,000,000.

In his first two years of office he created 500 Bolivarian Schools (charter schools). These schools operated for 8 hours a day in contrast to the four hour shifts of most public schools. These Bolivarian Schools offered breakfast, lunch, snack, free uniforms, and books. Education spending rose from 3.3 percent of GDP in 1999 to 5.2% of GDP in 2001. Teachers salaries were doubled and libraries were filled with books.

Not to shabby for an authoritarian, socialist, dictator.

I may only get downtown twice a year but where the hell did the bus shelters go.  Good thing my bus came with no wait time because the new shelters are smaller than an outhouse. The message was heard loud and clear, do not visit downtown Madison.

Every now and then liberals and Neo Crybabies need to whine about how merit pay will save our fragile education system. I honestly have to wonder how many of these meritocrats have been inside a classroom. Most models of educational reform floating around today are based on collaboration at both the classroom and school level.

It seems to me these meritocrats think at 8:00 each morning the teacher bolts the door with children inside and does not unbolt it until 4:00. This certainly is contrary to models of best practice. I can’t think of an educational reform - except maybe for DI (Direct Instruction) - that is based on the person solo model.

For those who have never been in a contemporary school it is rather socialistic in nature. Using a vulgar capitalistic method to reform makes as much sense as chasing flies away with shit on a stick.

In the beginning of the school year you are likely to see ESL, Title, and Reading Recovery staff all chipping in to assess children in reading. You are also likely to see Title staff in your room delivering instruction along with the classroom teacher. It is also highly likely that in order to meet the academic needs of other students, a teacher will send students to other classrooms, and other students will come to yours.

This sort of collaboration is not limited to reading, but also occurs in math, science and social studies. It is that old Vygotskian proverb that the interaction or process of H20 can not be explained by isolating the individual elements. Isolating a classroom teacher from their larger ensemble or school culture is akin to examining a fish out of water. Meritocracy will discourage all the behaviors that educational school reform has been based on for the last ten years. Teachers will become resistant to collaboration with other teachers and staff which has been so essential to student progress.

The biggest irony, in the illogical world of meritocracy, is it can’t solve the problem it claims to. One of the most popular rallying cries is merit pay in minority, working class schools. If you are a teacher receiving merit pay which school do you choose, a middle class school, or a working class one? If teachers are nice little capitalists that the meritocracy model would have us believe, is there really a choice.

Ok, the teachers got a new contract. How did the media spin this.

Cap Times: The contract provides a combined wage and benefit package increase of just slightly over 4 percent each year.

This is what the contract actually says. A total wage and benefits increase of 4% a year over a two year period. You can’t get much more objective than that. Now, for the bias.

Channel 3000: The deal, which the teacher’s union approved last week, will give teachers a 1 percent base salary raise for each of the 2007-2008 and 2008-2009 school years as well as 4 percent raise and a benefits hike. The two-year contract will run from July 1 to June 30, 2009.

OK,  now  Channel 3000 ’s  contract sounds much better to me, but it has no basis in reality. Using the Channel 3000 math, teachers will get a 5% wage hike plus benefits. Channel 3000 you’re dead to me, and to my goggle page as well.

SUPPORT THE FAIR LABOR STANDARDS ORDINANCE DANE COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS - THURSDAY JUNE 21st, 7PM, CITY-COUNTY BLD.What Is The Fair Labor Standards Ordinance?

Under the proposed ordinance, Dane County would have the right to refuse bidding or terminate contracts with employers who violate labor laws.

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