Should it even be a *part* ( i.e. a "specification" in legalese) of a dismissal case brought by his district? NYC DOE thinks so apparently. From the tone of the article NY Times thinks so too. ( "Progress is Slow" in getting rid of teachers; *Too* slow far as the Old Gray Lady (NYT)is concerned, one feels.)
This poor guy. Why do I get the feeling that his real crime is that he didn't sign up for the Principal's anniversary dinner, or equivalent ? Or that he he declined to BUY candy during the Parents' Association fundraiser. Or probably BOTH. And other offenses ( Social? Political?) unrelated to competency in the classroom.
Pure speculation on my part, for sure. But lets look at the second half of the article... where the specifics of three dismissal cases that actually went to hearings are discussed.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/24/education/24teachers.html?pagewanted=2SNIP
>>>>>Inside a barren room near City Hall, the teacher, Michael Ebewo, sat at a table as the principal of the Manhattan middle school where he had taught for years, Isaac Newton Middle School for Math and Science, began to go through each of the many deficiencies she said she had found in his classroom.
There was a chart with misspellings and unclear instructions.>>>>>>
Mr. Ebewo should have saved his administrative memos over the years. In the actual give and take of day-in-day-out school life, there are... from time to time... "misspellings and unclear instructions." The principal knows this ( indeed, is occasionally guilty of it). One gets the sense that the "cherry picker" is being rolled out on poor Mr. Ebewo. We can only guess how egregious the lack of clarity and the consistency of the misspellings; reporter Medina offers no specifics.
>>>>There were students staring into space and doodling rather than completing their worksheet, which contained questions that the students, who were in special education, had difficulty understanding.>>>>>>
Special ed students "staring into space"!!?! "Difficulty understanding", did you say? *Special Ed* students??!
I teach Special Ed. Some days I'm like Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society. Full of "music and fire"!( Different movie, sorry). Other days my kids stare into space. * Intermittently*, I assure you. I understand my responsibility. But they DO. For some of them, it's their default position; even Robin Williams couldn't change it. This is just a *fact*; the nature of the phenomenon. It's quite possible that the Principal does not understand Special Ed. It's *obvious* that the reporter doesn't.
>>>> Rather than pressing the students for answers, Mr. Ebewo simply answered himself, making the students only more confused.>>>
OK . This went on every day? Every class? Every lesson? Reporter Medina does not say how consistently this occurred. My guess is not very often. But yes... sometimes one does find oneself providing answers to question one has posed when all efforts to elicit them from the students has failed.
Shoot one.
>>>>At the time of that visit, the principal, Lisa Nelson, criticized Mr. Ebewo, who had been teaching for 15 years,>>>>>
15 years ... eh? Starting to get up there toward top salary. Principal might be able to get a teacher and a half, maybe *two* for the same money that she pays this guy. And THEY ( i.e. the newbies) would be ever so grateful to her. And LOYAL. Unlike this old crabapple. Hmmm....
And BTW.... if this guy's so horrific, how did he get tenure? How did he *last* 15 years? Did he have a record of bad reviews over the years? Did they come from an assortment of supervisors?
>>>>>> for not having proper behavior incentives and consequences for the students. The next time she came to the classroom, Ms. Nelson said, he distributed candy to students early in the morning,>>>>
CANDY. Oh the horror.
>>>>something she said “even a layperson” would object to.>>>>>>
Not *all* laypersons. Not even all principals. My principal approved a PA candy fundraiser last month. The actual candy arrived in the classroom this week. I complained ( *NOT* to the Principal, I guarantee you; my aim is to stay OUT of a rubber room if I can) that the arrival of the candy was creating a distraction for the students... which it was. They started arguing about why some kids got it and some did not. I should be concerned about this aspect of it, don't you think? That is, the INSTRUCTIONAL aspect. I just wish the principal were.
Anyway... the DOE has me all confused about CANDY .
>>>>>Mr. Ebewo’s lawyer interrupted with objections more than two dozen times, but the arbitrator overruled him in nearly every instance. The hearing, which covered lessons dating to 2005, lasted four hours. The principal was only the first of several witnesses the Education Department would call to try to prove that Mr. Ebewo was unfit to be in any classroom.
Mr. Ebewo, through his lawyer, declined to comment for this article. His case took years to reach a hearing because of a state law that requires the city to show evidence that it has given the teacher a chance to improve and instruction on how to do so. Any missing file could jeopardize a case, lawyers for the department said. >>>>
OK. But witnesses for this sort of thing are both easy to find and notoriously unreliable. Temps and non-tenured teachers can easily be persuaded to back-up the principal's account for obvious reasons. Principal can *do* things for them... and accused teacher cannot.
Medina's account sheds no light on the witnesses or the quality of their testimony. We are left to speculate.
>>>>>One arbitrator recently stepped down from a case after the department said he had fallen asleep during a hearing. (The arbitrator said he might have “dropped off once or twice.”) The urge is not uncommon. Alan R. Viani, another arbitrator, said he had done “one or two cases, and it made me want to put a bullet through my head.”>>>>
Careful of your language, counselor.
>>>>>>>While their cases drag on, teachers receive full pay and must report to one of the department’s so-called rubber rooms, where they spend each school day with other teachers facing charges of incompetence or misconduct. Education officials say they pay $30 million a year to such teachers.
In current contract negotiations, the city has proposed changing legal standards to make it easier to remove teachers and has said those teachers should be suspended without pay while their arbitration cases proceed. If teachers are later reinstated, the department would have to pay their salaries and an additional 50 percent in back pay.>>>>>>>
Right. What teacher is going to stay in the system for three or more years WITHOUT INCOME on the chance that they will eventually prevail at their hearing and be returned to the same hostile work atmosphere from whence they came? No one; and the city know that. What they really are looking for is the means to get rid of ANYONE they don't want... for whatever reason.
>>>>Lucienne Mohammed, the third teacher to be fired for incompetence since the advent of the Teacher Performance Unit, was found to have repeatedly failed to plan lessons properly and to correct students who gave wrong answers, and to have had a classroom that was “consistently disorganized,” according to the arbitrator’s ruling.>>>>
Don't look now but the DOE-UFT contract forbids the admins to dictate the format of the lesson plans... or to discipline teachers for lesson plan format. In other words , there is no "proper". I have a feeling Ms. Medina is just factually wrong on this one.
>>>>>>>Ms. Mohammed, who did not return phone calls seeking comment, was dismissed more than three years after the principal of Public School 65, Daisy Garcia, moved to remove her from the classroom and nearly a year after her trial began. Officials of the Education Department say that including her salary, the case cost them $230,000, in addition to the nearly $150,000 the state paid for the arbitrator and the cost of preparing more than 16,000 pages of transcripts.>>>>>
>>>>>>The department managed to get rid of one teacher, Casey A. Phillip, without waiting for the arbitrator’s ruling because his work visa was revoked.>>>>>>
This didn't copy all the way. Apparently they ( the DOE) suspended him and then dropped a dime on him, telling the INS that he violated his visa by by getting suspended.
N i i i i i c e .
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