700 NYC teachers paid to do nothing

[Midnight Mike]

June 22, 2009

NEW YORK - Hundreds of New York City public school teachers accused of offenses ranging from insubordination to sexual misconduct are being paid their full salaries to sit around all day playing Scrabble, surfing the Internet or just staring at the wall, if that's what they want to do.

Because their union contract makes it extremely difficult to fire them, the teachers have been banished by the school system to its "rubber rooms" — off-campus office space where they wait months, even years, for their disciplinary hearings.

Union rules blamed

Because the teachers collect their full salaries of $70,000 or more, the city Department of Education estimates the practice costs the taxpayers $65 million a year. The department blames union rules.

"It is extremely difficult to fire a tenured teacher because of the protections afforded to them in their contract," spokeswoman Ann Forte said.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31494936/ns ... education/ (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31494936/ns/us_news-education/)

[Derf]

Think of it is innocent until proven Guilty. This is not an issue of the teachers getting paid as it is a bigger problem in the system takes soo long to do an investigation due to the NYS's red tape. The teachers should get paid! the problem is not the UNION but the City's inalienably to do an invesitgation in a timely manner. One issue from ONE DAY dragged on for 3 years at over $60k of salary. The Lawyers and work done makes that $70k look like pennies. Sorry, I can not go with this. The thing you do not hear is how a teacher sits in a room every day with 30 other teachers, some touch children, some are lower than low and some were WRONGLY ACCUSED. Fair is fair, but the system and the time it takes sucks!

[Derf]

............"It is extremely difficult to fire a tenured teacher because of the protections afforded to them in their contract," spokeswoman Ann Forte said.


that statement is missing the words "WITHOUT CAUSE". If there is cause, and it is proven, that teacher is HISTORY. Innocent until proven guilty....unless your going thru it, and then it feels like guilty until proven innocent.

[Midnight Mike]

Think of it is innocent until proven Guilty. This is not an issue of the teachers getting paid as it is a bigger problem in the system takes soo long to do an investigation due to the NYS's red tape. The teachers should get paid! the problem is not the UNION but the City's inalienably to do an invesitgation in a timely manner. One issue from ONE DAY dragged on for 3 years at over $60k of salary. The Lawyers and work done makes that $70k look like pennies. Sorry, I can not go with this. The thing you do not hear is how a teacher sits in a room every day with 30 other teachers, some touch children, some are lower than low and some were WRONGLY ACCUSED. Fair is fair, but the system and the time it takes sucks!


City officials said that they make teachers report to a rubber room instead of sending them home because the union contract requires that they be allowed to continue in their jobs in some fashion while their cases are being heard. The contract does not permit them to be given other work.

"It is extremely difficult to fire a tenured teacher because of the protections afforded to them in their contract," spokeswoman Ann Forte said.


Once their hearings are over, they are either sent back to the classroom or fired. But because their cases are heard by 23 arbitrators who work only five days a month, stints of two or three years in a rubber room are common, and some teachers have been there for five or six.

[Tom_Turner]

Its mostly due to the contract(s).

There isn't a comparable example I can think of in or out of govt (even NYC govt) where "investigations" would take so long to determine if someone gets fired or not.

These are teachers that have been accused of gross misconduct in most cases (conceivably wrongly accused), but the routine stuff.. where they can get in front of a room full of students and routinely state "If you don't calm down, I don't have to teach, I will still get paid" is not even on the radar.

Keep in mind there is no dress code to speak of last I knew in most of the schools, competency tests are not welcomed, "prep" periods are for gossip and "breaks" etc. etc.

Of course, there is something to be said for such an outrageously strong union. Bloomberg & company would not hesitate to put cameras and microphones in each and every classroom if they thought they could. Without their union, they'd quickly be on the level of say, cab drivers being dictated to by the TLC.

Tom