Loser--You Had 3 Failures In Your Class

The department supervisor loved Ms. K.  She was young and pretty and jumped when he said jump.  She revered him and thought of him as a father.  When Ms. K went to the supervisor and asked for advice on how to handle some failing students, he said, "Don't worry.  I will take them out of your class and give them to Mrs. R.  And, to keep classes balanced, I will take some of Mrs. R's best students to replace them.  Ms. K was so grateful, she kissed his feet and promised him extra ass wiping whenever his bowel movements were irregular.

Mrs. R never kissed his feet or wiped his behind, but she was a good teacher.  When regents were graded, Mrs. R had 30 out of 34 students pass.  Many of those passing had never passed this class in the past so she was very proud of herself.  Her supervisor was not pleased.  "Mrs. R, why is it that every other teacher only has 1 or 0 failures.  You are the worst teacher in the department.  I wish you would retire."

Mrs. R learned that arguing with him was futile.  She just turned her back and walked away with her head held high.  The supervisor was an idiot.  Everyone in the school held the same opinion. 

I Like You and You, But Not YOU!!! YOU ARE NOT INVITED!





Remember those mean kids who had a party and invited everyone in the class except two or three kids?  Remember how bad those kids felt, being the only ones left out?  Remember wondering how parents could be so insensitive?

 

The department party is set for Memorial Day weekend.  The e-mail invite went out with four or five names left out.  The ones invited don't really want to go but some will attend anyway.  One told me she is afraid to say no.  She is a favorite now and doesn't want to do anything to jeopardize the privileges she receives, even if it means leaving her husband and child alone for a few hours.  One told me she didn't care about consequences and it would be a cold day in hell before she attends one of these functions.  Still another was invited but everyone knows she never checks e-mail and won't even find out about the party until it has passed.

 

Supervisors are supposed to judge their employees on the job they do and treat them all equally.  Favoritism should not be shown to anyone.  Yet, favoritism is alive and wEll in this department and no one seems to care.  The ones with the power to stop it must be wearing blinders as they see nothing.

Dividing The Red Sea



I started my career at Packemin in the special education department.  I worked with low functioning and high need students at my previous school and realized I liked this population and I knew I could make a difference in their lives.  Although things were not perfect, I was content until, that is, we got a new chairperson who I shall call Mr. Doofus.

Mr. Doofus did not like me.  I wouldn't care if he did not like me after he got to know me, but he did not like me because of what he heard from the department pets.  (The rest of this is for another post.) Mr. Doofus had issued a directive in the beginning of the year that we should not give out books right away.  After a week, I noticed Mrs. R, a math teacher another pet, distributing books.  I assumed the ban was lifted and gave out books as well.  Mr. Doofus yelled at me for doing so.  I apologized and said, "I thought it was okay as Mrs. R was giving books to her classes."  He looked at me and said, "What is okay for her is not okay for you."  I didn't respond.  But, to this day, 15 years later, I will never forget this blatant favoritism.

It took over ten years for Mrs. R and me to learn to get along.  Mr. Doofus had done a good job of creating a big divide in the department, a split that kept two teachers from working together to help their students.

Party Hardy

I'm not the only one noticing the rampant favoritism around.

I'm not the only one noticing the groups that party hardy with the person in charge getting favorite treatment.

I'm not the only one seeing them getting the best classes to teach.

I'm not the only one seeing them having their ideas and views becoming policy for the rest of the department to follow.

I'm not the only one seeing them have the same classroom problems everyone else has and seeing their problems ignored.

I'm not the only one that realized regents statistics were not e-mailed to everyone this year, probably because the party hardy crew did not do as well as some of the undesirables.

If I were the boss and I had a group of young, impressionable people working for me, calling me "father" and doing whatever I said, I might favor them too.

The contract says nothing about the boss having to be a nice guy, or even a human guy.  Bosses like this one know how to fragment their departments and hold back progress.  They know how to hurt, not how to help.  It is a shame.  Bosses like the one described know how to do whatever they want within the confines of the contract. 

Merit Pay

My AP has been berating all us old timers, telling us constantly that the young teachers are the only ones who never have discipline problems. In fact, one of the young teachers (brand new) took over a class mid year from a teacher going on sabbatical last year. The teacher had lots of problems with the class she left. My AP has been going on non stop about how this young teacher had such control, you could hear a pin drop in her room. Today we learned the secret to her success. HE REMOVED ALL THE TROUBLE MAKERS AND LEFT HER WITH THE NICE, QUIET ONES! Too bad he won't share this recipe for success with the rest of us.

We had a teacher in my department a few years ago who had the best regents results around. The reason???? Any kid failing was removed from her class. That would explain other teacher's poor results.

And thus we see the reason that merit pay will never work in the city of New York.