NYC Educator: Portrait of Half an ATR

NYC Educator: Portrait of Half an ATR

Portrait of Half an ATR

A few days back, I wrote about another attack on tenure, quite similar to many that had preceded it. Someone sent me this piece on ATRs, which somehow eluded my attention. The headline screams, "DOE spends $100M per year keeping excess teachers on the payroll."

The word "excess" suggests these teachers aren't needed, which is far from correct. In my experience, though, article writers don't get to choose titles.

This piece, unlike many others I've seen, doesn't single ATR teachers out for eternal infamy. However, there's quite a lot unsaid. For one thing, this mess was largely exacerbated by Bloomberg and his wasteful, unproductive school closures. Every time that happened, the staff had to reapply for jobs. Had I not transferred from John Adams back when I did, I'd probably be an ATR. It's largely just a matter of being in the wrong place at the right time.

Bloomberg's goal was not building up the ATR, but firing teachers en masse. He was not what you'd call coy about it either. He's spoken publicly of his idiotic notion to create classes of 70 and have the very best teachers run them. (After all, his kids didn't attend public schools, so why should he care?) A major contract demand for him was that UFT set a time limit on ATR teachers. This would've left many to lose their jobs for the offense of being in the wrong place at the right time. I'm very grateful UFT hung tough on that. Bloomberg would've fired half the teachers in NYC just to give Cathie Black a tax break on her penthouse.

Though I'd rather see them placed, ATR teachers can be very useful. For example, in my school a teacher suffered a tragedy I won't go into. Because there happened to be an ATR available in that teacher's subject area, our students got uninterrupted instruction. When the teacher returned, all the classes had been taught the same lessons consistently, as CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: Portrait of Half an ATR