蜜桃影视

New York City brought incompetence charges against 80 tenured teachers during a 16-month period in 2015 and 2016, many of them working in the city鈥檚 poorest neighborhoods at low-performing schools with large populations of homeless and chronically absent students.

Arbitrators agreed to terminate 52 of the ineffectual educators for failing to provide students with 鈥渁 valid educational experience鈥� despite repeated efforts by their schools to help them improve. Another 27 were fined or suspended, according to teacher disciplinary records obtained by the 蜜桃影视. Fines ranged from 鈥渢hree days鈥� pay鈥� to $10,000, while the shortest suspension was 20 days and the longest was 鈥渘ot less than 9 months.鈥� One teacher was exonerated.

While cases of flagrant misconduct and physical abuse聽by teachers sometimes become public, stories of incompetence almost never do. 蜜桃影视鈥檚 sample concerned a tiny fraction of the city鈥檚 58,000 tenured educators, but the cases often document how schools that are under duress handle their worst performers. Arbitrator decisions 鈥� sometimes exceeding 100 pages 鈥� open into broad view the city鈥檚 effort to ensure students have good teachers, particularly in areas where educators don鈥檛 usually stay for long.

鈥淭he stuff that gets covered in the [New York] Post is just the salacious stuff,鈥� inevitable in so large a teaching force, said David Brodsky, head of labor relations at the Department of Education in Mayor Michael Bloomberg鈥檚 final term, referring to tabloid reports about outrageous misconduct cases.

鈥淭o me, how you punish incompetence deserves a close look,鈥� he said.

Tougher teacher evaluations not at play

In April 2016, 蜜桃影视 requested under the state Freedom of Information Law decisions from disciplinary hearings where New York City moved to fire tenured teachers. The DOE, recently taken to task for repeated delays in its response to public records requests, extended its initial deadline 25 times over 28 months before providing a complete set of records in August.

The cases addressed activity between 2011 and 2015, a challenging time in many city classrooms because , as well as , were being implemented.

Those changes occasioned , but arbitrators rarely found that they accounted for unsatisfactory performance.

鈥淚 am not persuaded that the implementation placed any significant new burdens on teachers,鈥� a hearing officer who dismissed a teacher鈥檚 claim wrote of the state鈥檚 detailed new approach.

Many educators found unfit for their positions worked in schools whose struggles went beyond unfamiliar performance measures. Concentrated in high-poverty districts in the Bronx and central Brooklyn, nearly 1 in 3 of those brought up on incompetence charges taught in schools that subsequently closed or were tagged for turnaround by city and state officials.

While too few to support broad conclusions, the numbers are expressive. Among the 80 teachers in 蜜桃影视鈥檚 incompetence sample, one-fifth (16) worked in the city鈥檚 five poorest school districts, which educate about 9 percent of all students. Twenty-two taught in districts whose students were absent .

They taught at all grade levels and in subjects ranging from reading to Latin and business. Some had taught for decades and never been disciplined; some had been assigned to or selected from the city鈥檚 Absent Teacher Reserve, a pool of educators who have lost their permanent positions due to budget cuts or disciplinary charges.

Men were overrepresented: they comprise 23 percent of all New York City teachers, according to the , but made up 35 percent of teachers facing incompetence charges (27 of 77 whose gender was identified).

Two deans were among those charged, as were at least five teachers who served as their schools鈥� union representative. One led adult education classes at a learning center above a Rite Aid in Flushing, Queens.

Working in high-poverty schools is known to be challenging for almost any educator, but the city argued that teachers brought up on charges were deficient at basic tasks like planning lessons 鈥� a problem in nearly every case 鈥� or grading student work (one teacher refused to provide her class鈥檚 assessment results, storing them at home).

Others failed to give intelligible or accurate information. One told students 鈥渁ll pine trees in New York are bought in stores.鈥� An earth science teacher who insisted her lesson was successful did not notice that most students left believing leeches, rather than leaching, provided nutrients for soil.

As poor evaluations and disciplinary letters mounted, teachers became more likely to lash out at superiors and to act in erratic ways in class. In some instances, they stopped coming to school.

Their shortfalls couldn鈥檛 be ascribed to inexperience. On average, those charged with incompetence had taught in the city for 18 years at the time of their hearings, compared with an average of a little less than 11 years for all teachers, according to . While the DOE redacts names in incompetence cases, the annual salary of a 18-year veteran with a master鈥檚 degree was $96,362.

鈥淚t鈥檚 really hard to get teachers to change as students鈥� needs change,鈥� said Kathleen Elvin, who took over as principal at John Dewey High School when it was then slated to close in 2012. She brought incompetence charges against several teachers, including two in 蜜桃影视鈥檚 sample (one was terminated and the other was suspended for nine months).

The school鈥檚 population had changed, she said, becoming less 鈥渃ollege-specific.鈥�

鈥淢any [teachers] kept doing the same things as they had in the past,鈥� she recalled. 鈥淚n their heads, they were very, very effective teachers because they always had been.

鈥淚f you spent 15 years and all of a sudden someone is telling [you] to change, it鈥檚 really hard.鈥�

Dewey remains open, but Elvin was assigned to an administrative office when grade-fixing allegations were leveled against her. She was later cleared.

Seeking accountability for bad teaching

In 2007, DOE attorneys in the newly created Teacher Performance Unit began working with school administrators to build cases against chronically inadequate educators.

鈥淣obody was ever prosecuted just for being bad teachers,鈥� Brodsky said. 鈥淭here was absolutely no accountability about whether a teacher can actually teach.鈥�

The teachers union was furious. Randi Weingarten, then president of the United Federation of Teachers, that the city was 鈥渟ignaling to principals that rather than working to support teachers, the school system is going to give you a way to try to get rid of teachers.鈥�

The relatively small numbers charged with incompetence seem to belie union fears. Of the 205 educators between 2012-13 and 2015-16 who elected to fight incompetence charges before an arbitrator, 100 were fired and the rest received lesser penalties.

Another 426 settled with the city during that time, and three-quarters of those agreed to leave the school system by resigning or retiring.

鈥淲e are always looking for ways to make the process even faster while preserving its fairness,鈥� said Adam Ross, the UFT鈥檚 general counsel. 鈥淲e can鈥檛 comment on individual cases, as it is the role of the neutral arbitrator to weigh all the evidence and then make a fair determination.鈥�

The total number of incompetence cases brought annually between 2012-13 and 2015-16 ranged between 135 and 216. The numbers under Mayor Bill de Blasio were consistent with those under Bloomberg.

鈥淲e have clear policies to ensure great teachers are in every classroom and to move teachers who should be teaching out of the system,鈥� said Doug Cohen, a DOE spokesman. 鈥淓very year, we use all the tools at our disposal to address any case of employee misconduct or incompetence, and the number of cases closed changes from year to year.鈥�

Remediation sometimes futile

Most of the teachers the city sought to terminate in 蜜桃影视鈥檚 sample had received ineffective ratings for two or more years, often both before and after 2013, when the city implemented a new evaluation system that for a few years incorporated student scores on state tests. State leaders adopted the measure earlier in order to qualify for federal grant money under President Obama鈥檚 Race to the Top initiative.

In many cases where arbitrators ruled in favor of dismissal, poor performance in the classroom was exacerbated by a refusal to accept the school鈥檚 offers for help, dozens or even hundreds of missed or late days, and sometimes flagrant insubordination, in the view of arbitrators.

Eric Nadelstern, a longtime principal before rising to deputy chancellor under Bloomberg, said he didn鈥檛 try to rehabilitate his worst teachers.

鈥淲hen principals spend time to document a case, they aren鈥檛 able to work with effective teachers, which would give you a better bang for your buck,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 prefer to spend my time with 98 effective teachers than two really bad ones.鈥�

In several cases, arbitrators found that time spent supporting incompetent teachers was futile.

Despite 10 unsatisfactory evaluations, a record of leaving class to talk or play games on her Blackberry, and falling 57 classes behind in preparing required lesson plans, an earth science teacher at University Neighborhood High School in lower Manhattan flamboyantly refused remedial help. When given materials for PIP Plus, a remediation program aimed at teachers in danger of facing charges, she dropped the materials in the trash in front of supervisors.

In another case documenting classroom shortcomings compounded by erratic behavior, an Upper West Side K-1 teacher was absent for nearly half of the 2013-14 school year and stopped coming in at all after late May, apparently to avoid a meeting with the principal. Her students 鈥渓agged behind the other kindergarten students in the math curriculum,鈥� the arbitrator found.

These teachers and others accused supervisors of working to undermine them. Arbitrators repeatedly found conspiratorial accusations to be groundless 鈥� including a claim by the teacher who was 57 lessons behind that she faced 鈥渁 continuing retaliatory harassment campaign.鈥� But the anger among many of the teachers was sometimes difficult to separate from the culture of stressed schools and workplace antagonisms, often playing out in a fugue of grievance filings and disciplinary letters.

Many of the schools were in crisis. In a few cases, principals faced cheating or misconduct scandals of their own. Sometimes a new principal imposed unfamiliar routines on a recalcitrant staff. More than one veteran teacher brought up on charges accused the school leader of 鈥渕icromanaging.鈥�

鈥淣ot letting your first-graders take a nap in the middle of the day, that鈥檚 not micromanaging,鈥� a new principal assigned to a struggling school testified in one case. 鈥淥bserving lesson plans, or doing lesson observations, is not in any way, shape, or form micromanaging, and yet the staff definitely thought it was micromanaging when I did those things.鈥�

Seven of the schools that were home to educators charged with incompetence subsequently closed, one merged, and nine were identified as among . Eight more were assigned to Mayor de Blasio鈥檚 , which sent roughly $600 million in extra resources to low-achieving schools but has not lived up to the mayor鈥檚 promises.

鈥淓veryone acknowledges the 鈥榙ance of the lemons鈥� in which low-performing teachers are moved from school to school,鈥� said Dan Weisberg, president of the reform advocacy and teacher training group TNTP and a former DOE labor relations head under Bloomberg. 鈥淏ut we don鈥檛 acknowledge where the dance almost always stops: at schools with kids of color and kids from poverty.

鈥淚f you鈥檙e indifferent to this issue,鈥� he said, 鈥測ou鈥檙e indifferent to equity.鈥�

Disclosure: David Cantor served as the Department of Education鈥檚 press secretary under Mayor Michael Bloomberg from 2005 to 2010.

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