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Sunday, January 23, 2011

Randy Childs Comments On The Los Angeles "Stop Tenure" Decision

The discusssion below arises out of a judge's decision in California to stop the "first hired, first fired" policy. Dont think it can't happen here in New York City.

Betsy Combier

Social justice or an attack on LA teachers?

LINK

Randy Childs, a member of United Teachers Los Angeles, looks at how an effort to protect the civil rights of minority students is being used to attack the teachers' union.

October 28, 2010

IN THE last two years, tens of thousands of teachers in U.S. public schools have been laid off by school districts dealing with budget deficits caused by the current economic crisis. In an education system that has been woefully underfunded in times of boom and bust alike, every one of these layoffs is an outrage--most of all for the children whose futures are disrupted by the overcrowding and upheaval these layoffs cause in their schools.

It's even worse for schools in the poorest neighborhoods in America's deeply segregated cities. Schools that serve low-income children of color entered the economic crisis already bearing a disproportionate burden of overcrowding, underfunding and lack of institutional support. When the crisis hit, these same schools experienced the brunt of the teacher layoffs.

This disparity was the impetus for a lawsuit filed last year against the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) by public interest legal groups, including the ACLU and Public Counsel, on behalf of the students of Liechty Middle School near downtown LA and Gompers and Markham Middle Schools in Watts.

Due to their high numbers of newer teachers, in the spring of 2009, these schools saw somewhere between 45 percent and 60 percent of teachers receive Reduction In Force (RIF) notices--layoff notices that went out to more than 2,000 teachers citywide as the LAUSD attempted to deal with reductions in funding from the state by cutting jobs.

Added to the tremendously high teacher turnover these schools already experience every year, the RIFs forced Gompers, Liechty and Markham to open in the fall with new faces in dozens of classrooms. Many classes were supervised by a rotation of up to 10 different substitute teachers in the course of a semester.

"It really made people who wanted to stay at our school feel de-valued," explained Kirti Baranwal, who is in her eighth year as a teacher at Gompers and is the school's chapter chair (union representative) with United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA). "We lost teachers who were in academic leadership positions, on policy-making councils, and who really cared about our students."

RIFs in education are distributed primarily on a basis of seniority--meaning newer teachers are usually the ones to be laid off, while more experienced teachers are likely to keep their jobs. Thus, the disparities in RIF notices between schools is a direct reflection of the fact that the poorest schools have far fewer highly experienced teachers than schools that serve middle-class children.

When a new round of budget cuts became imminent in 2010, another 33 percent of Markham teachers and 18 percent of Gompers teachers received RIFs. In this context of compounding layoffs, the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, known as Reed v. LAUSD, were successful in obtaining a temporary restraining order prohibiting the district from laying off any more teachers at the three schools in 2010.

This court order induced the parties to the lawsuit to enter negotiations that led to a tentative settlement, approved and announced by the LAUSD school board on October 5. The Reed settlement, though not yet approved by the judge, has been greeted by positive media attention, characterizing it as a landmark civil rights victory for impoverished schoolchildren.

Representative of this reaction is a Los Angeles Times article that reports, "In essence, the case establishes that having quality teachers in high poverty schools could be considered a constitutional right in California." Quoted in the same Times article, Stanford University education law professor William Koski raves, "We've established the fact that you can't do harm to poor kids."

Some of the provisions of the settlement do seem at first glance to provide welcome relief to schools like Gompers, Liechty and Markham. The deal proposes to form a list of 45 high-turnover schools (including the three plaintiff schools) that each year would be protected from any teacher RIFs. Supposedly to prevent this policy from merely pushing the lion's share of layoffs from these schools to another group of high-poverty, high-turnover schools, all other schools would have their RIF numbers capped at the district average.

UNFORTUNATELY, IF you take a closer look, you'll find the fingerprints of the corporate "school reform" movement all over the Reed settlement.

The deal includes measures that would force impacted schools to compete with each other for inclusion on the protected list of 45. This competition would be based upon "multiple measures of school-wide teacher performance" and "overall academic growth over time." Behind the rhetoric of "multiple measures," the real push going on in public education--from LAUSD to the Obama administration--is to base a wide range of school-site decisions on students' scores on standardized tests.

School Board member Yolie Flores was the driving force behind the "teacher performance" and "academic growth" provisions of the deal, and also gave a perfect example of their tortured logic, asking at a September board meeting, "What good is it to have a stable school if the teachers aren't effective?"

This begs three questions. One, doesn't working at an unstable and underfunded school make teachers less effective than they would otherwise be? Indeed, documents filed by the Reed plaintiffs prove this to be true, which is why the injunction happened in the first place.

Two, if this is a civil rights issue, then why should measures of "academic growth" be a factor in which schools get protected? Do children who show gains on standardized test scores have more constitutional rights than children who don't?

And three, just what evidence is there to suggest that self-styled "reformers" like Flores know the difference between effective teaching and a hole in the ground? As education historian Diane Ravitch notes, today's education reformers rarely if ever have anything substantive to say about the actual content of what children should be taught or how.

Flores attempted to get explicit language in the Reed settlement to use "value-added measures" to determine which high turnover schools would be protected from layoffs.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a key supporter of Flores and the "reform" majority on the LA school board, took the opportunity to demand that LAUSD use value-added measures to evaluate all of its schools and teachers. Villaraigosa's administration also has a hand in running several LAUSD schools, including Gompers and Markham, through its non-profit Partnership for LA Schools (PLAS). PLAS actively encouraged the Reed lawsuit and has had an ongoing role in the negotiations.

These politicians' heavy-handed advocacy for using value-added measures to drive the evaluation and even termination of teachers is strong evidence that they know little to nothing about what makes a good teacher. A great deal of educational research has shown that data from such measures is unstable, unreliable and unsupported by scientific methodology.

Studies have shown that if value-added measures declare me to be a great teacher this year, there's a 30 percent to 50 percent chance I will suddenly and inexplicably become "ineffective" next year or vice versa. Value-added measures are an attempt to graft an economic concept--the "value added" to a commodity by a direct producer--to the very different world of education. Under such a set-up, children are the commodity, and standardized test scores are their exchange values.

The rhetoric about teacher effectiveness is an attempt on the part of the capitalist class to divert attention away from their own systematic neglect of inner-city schools and onto their favorite scapegoats--teachers and our unions.

"It's not the perfect settlement," Flores told the Times after having to accept a compromise that avoids any direct references to value-added measures in the deal. "But for me, it begins to address one of the biggest structural problems we have in public education--this issue about seniority."

Union seniority rules, according to this logic, are the primary injustice hurting low-income children of color by forcing the system to lay off their disproportionately less experienced teachers in higher numbers.

However, blaming seniority ignores the question of how and why inner-city schools got such a disproportionate number of new teachers in the first place. It also ignores the even larger question of how a society that can afford to spend trillions of dollars on war, trillions more on corporate tax breaks, and even more trillions on bailouts for the bankers who wrecked the economy can turn around and lay off teachers because there supposedly isn't any money for our schools.

THE REED case is not the first lawsuit to "establish the fact that you can't do harm to poor kids." A 1986 lawsuit, Rodriguez v. LAUSD, specifically challenged the fact that inner-city schools tend to have far fewer veteran teachers than more affluent suburban schools.

This eventually led to the Rodriguez consent decree that required LAUSD to set aside funding for teacher training and mentoring at schools with higher numbers of new teachers, and to take affirmative measures toward an equalization of the ratios of new teachers and veteran teachers at all schools.

The disparities attacked by the Rodriguez settlement weren't only the result of blind neglect on the district's part--although the district's systematic neglect of inner-city schools is a well-established fact.

Sending new teachers to schools in disadvantaged neighborhoods had been a conscious LA school policy decades before UTLA and seniority protections came on the scene. In 1928, a district official argued for inexperienced teachers to be assigned to "the foreign, semi-foreign, or less convenient schools. After a few more years of satisfactory service, she may be placed in the more popular districts."

The Rodriguez settlement pushed back against this ugly history by requiring veteran-heavy schools to fill vacancies with new teachers, who would then benefit from mentoring from their more experienced colleagues. It also required the district to go out of its way to find experienced teachers to fill vacancies at schools with a higher proportion of new teachers--as well as spending extra money at these schools to help new teachers improve their craft.

After about a decade of implementation, the Rodriguez consent decree was working, and the staffing disparities among LAUSD schools were decreasing gradually but significantly. So, of course, Rodriguez was ended in 2006! The plaintiffs (including the ACLU) asked for a five-year extension of the consent decree, but the judge accepted LAUSD's promises to continue the progress made by voluntarily implementing the same policies. "We have outlived it," claimed district lawyer John Walsh.

However, once the consent decree was lifted, the district immediately stopped enforcing any Rodriguez-initiated policies, and the staffing disparities began to grow again.

Unfortunately, when Rodriguez expired, UTLA did not wage a serious fight for its continuation. Nonetheless, if the district were serious about addressing the needs of high turnover and hard-to-staff schools, it never would have sought the end of Rodriguez in the first place.

Because of the influence of LA Mayor Villaraigosa and school board member Flores, the Reed settlement proposes several "solutions" to the problem of hard-to-staff schools that are nothing more than union-busting in disguise. Hopefully, the lawyers for the plaintiffs in the case will come to their senses and move away from the worst aspects of the deal.

The problem is that district leaders and the mayor are only too happy to insert themselves into the discussion, wrap themselves hypocritically in the banner of children's rights, and point a long, accusing finger at the same union they've been attacking for years.

The weakness of the civil rights lawyers' position is in the narrow framework of trying to remedy the state's and the district's violations of student civil rights through changes in seniority rules and the RIF process alone--and their willingness to go along with Villaraigosa, Flores and others who want to use this as an opportunity to attack UTLA. Changing the criteria for how RIFs are handed out won't address the long-term disparities that made Gompers, Liechty and Markham so vulnerable to begin with.

Then, there's the question of why LAUSD is so determined to eliminate teachers' jobs. It has become increasingly clear that the district will have the necessary funds to prevent any teacher RIFs this year, if officials were to step up and act in the interests of students. More school site jobs could be saved by redirecting the millions of dollars that LAUSD currently spends on its bureaucratic local district offices and wasteful periodic assessments.

A just settlement to the Reed lawsuit would require LAUSD to redirect this money to the classroom and to spend money from the recently passed federal education jobs bill immediately. A just settlement would also require LAUSD to take affirmative, Rodriguez-style measures to reduce the imbalance of teacher experience levels at different schools, and to improve the educational conditions at impoverished schools that suffer from high turnover rates.

Undoubtedly, a just settlement would have none of this garbage about putting schools in competition with each other or unreliable measures of "student growth" or "teacher effectiveness."

THE PROBLEM is that the actual proposed settlement of the Reed case allows union-bashers to use the issue of social justice to attack UTLA--namely, our seniority rights.

In fact, union seniority is an important measure of social justice in and of itself. It gives working people a measure of job security in a capitalist system that is constantly undermining the stability of workers' lives. It protects employees who speak truth to power from retaliation by their employers. It can create the basis by which hiring, layoffs, job assignments and other key aspects of the workplace are handled through an objective and predictable process, rather than the whims and favoritism of management.

In education, seniority for teachers means all of the above--and it also directly benefits students. Education studies consistently show that the average teacher is significantly less effective in their first couple of years teaching than they will become after several years of experience in the classroom. That's why its so important that teachers who make a long-term commitment to the classroom are protected by seniority--both teachers and students benefit.

Now, however, the union is faced with a dilemma. UTLA must continue to defend seniority as a foundation of union organization against Villaraigosa, Flores and others who want to use the settlement of the lawsuit to weaken us. Certainly, we don't want to see highly experienced colleagues laid off when the jobs of the newest teachers are saved because they happen to work at a high-turnover school.

But by the same token, no teacher with a conscience and a commitment to social justice wants to see some schools and communities devastated by layoffs year after year. UTLA has to balance the issue of our seniority rights with meeting the needs of some of our most at-risk students.

While we reject the cynical attempts of Flores and Villaraigosa to hide behind those kids while attacking us, we also have to squarely face the issues and take a stand for social justice. Teachers can and should take the lead in defending our kids from the impact of layoffs even as we stand up for our own rights.

However, the civil rights lawyers' solutions fail on both these counts. They seek to prevent RIFs at 45 schools only to push the pain of layoffs onto other beleaguered sites. This not only doesn't address the real problem, it will likely make the situation worse.

Couple the inadequacy of the major "remedy with the fact that the mayor and the school board are using this opportunity to marginalize the union and put forward a solution that benefits neither students nor their teachers, and it becomes clear that the settlement would be a disaster. We face an agreement that sanctions an attack on UTLA and seniority, and lets LAUSD and the state off the hook for policies that have done enormous harm to Black, Latino and poor students.

It's urgent that UTLA members debate these issues--and develop their own proposals that both defend our union and genuinely meet the needs of our students.

L.A. Unified is sued over teacher layoffs at 3 low-performing schools


Suit seeks to prevent further teacher cuts at the campuses, already hard hit by budget-related layoffs, saying the students are not being well served.

February 25, 2010
By Jason Song, L.A. Times
LINK

Concepciona Manuel-Flores couldn't answer many of the questions on a standardized English test in December, even though she says she's a straight-A student. "I had six or seven substitute teachers," the Markham Middle School seventh-grader said. "All we did in English was silent reading or the same assignments, over and over."

Concepciona is one of the plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit filed Wednesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court on behalf of students at three of the city's worst-performing middle schools. The suit claims those students were denied their legal rights to an education and aims to prevent the Los Angeles Unified School District from laying off more teachers there.

The last round of L.A. Unified teacher firings affected thousands of instructors and led to chaotic conditions on some campuses, especially at Samuel Gompers, Edwin Markham and John H. Liechty middle schools, according to a complaint against the school district and the state filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, Public Counsel and Morrison & Foerster. Between half and three-quarters of the teachers at those campuses were laid off last year, according to the suit.


Citing state law, school districts typically dismiss teachers on the basis of seniority during budgetary shortfalls. Lawyers who filed the suit said California law allows districts to circumvent the seniority rule on the basis of need or if cuts disproportionately affect certain groups.

The suit would require the district to lay off teachers at those schools at the same or lower levels than at any other campus in the district. Even though low-performing schools often receive more funding than others, the suit also requested that district officials be barred from denying the schools financial resources to maintain a teaching staff.

The student body at the three schools is almost exclusively minority, and campuses in more affluent areas were not hit as hard by teacher layoffs.

L.A. Unified Supt. Ramon C. Cortines declined to comment on the suit but said he was opposed to teacher layoffs based solely on years of experience. The district is facing a $640-million shortfall, and Cortines warned that more dismissals could occur this year.

Iris Blige, Principal From Hell, Finally Held Accountable For Her Misconduct - To The Tune Of $7500

Yonev Gonen updates a story in the New York Post January 21, 2011 that hit the blogs (including this one) in 2009, and of course we are happy that he did the story....but Iris Blige only pays $7500??? Why is she allowed to keep a job?

Principal's blunt ax
By YOAV GONEN Education Reporter, NY POST, January 22, 2011
LINK

A Bronx principal who kept a so-called hit list of teachers she wanted swept out of the school instructed her subordinates to "get rid" of them by giving out unmerited bad ratings, a probe has found.

Even more shocking than Principal Iris Blige's apparent attempt to ruin the careers of nearly a dozen educators at Fordham HS of the Arts was the Department of Education's agreement to keep her in charge and levy just a $7,500 fine.

In a stipulation signed last month by Bronx high-school Superintendent Elena Papaliberios, Blige was even promised a "neutral letter of reference to any potential employer" should she decide to leave her post.

The two-year probe was conducted only after teachers lodged a host of complaints about Blige's wrongdoings, according to United Federation of Teachers officials.

"I think it's outrageous," said UFT President Michael Mulgrew. "If the price for ruining someone's career is $7,500, where's the accountability?"

Asked if Blige was getting off easy, a Department of Education spokeswoman referred a reporter to the signed stipulation -- which makes no mention of why a fine was deemed appropriate punishment.

Blige's lawyer, Stephen Hans, said he was "baffled" that the city had made a confidential stipulation public.

He suggested the light punishment was proof that the findings weren't solid.

"If they had the evidence on this case, they would have gone forward," Hans said. "She's faced with staff members ganging up on her."

The probe by the city's Office of Special Investigations included interviews with a half-dozen teachers -- and assistant principals who were asked to fudge the ratings -- who say Blige was unjustly gunning for staffers she didn't like.

One assistant principal, James O'Toole, made his boss' destructive directives sound like a hit job.

"Get rid of Mr. Herbert Drummond," O'Toole quotes Blige as saying about a teacher, according to the report.

Another assistant principal, Laurice Chambers-Blake, says Blige told her she wanted two teachers "out" by the end of the 2008 and 2009 school years.

Chambers-Blake said she was told "to start to write up the teachers" with negative reviews at the outset of the school year and to focus on another teacher's "weaknesses and deficiencies" rather than her positive skills.

Principal's Hit List

Directives from Principal Iris Blige to her subordinates on targeting teachers, according to an Office of Special Investigations report:

* “At the beginning of the school year, Ms. Blige directed [one subordinate] to “U” rate [unsatisfactorily] three teachers regardless of the outcome of his respective observations.”

* “[Another employee] stated that . . . Ms. Blige . . . told [her] that those teachers were to be ‘out’ by the end of the school year. Ms. Blige then instructed her ‘to start to write up the teachers.’ “

* “[Another subordinate] stated that Ms. Blige directed him to ‘Get rid of [teacher] Mr. Herbert Drummond.’ “

yoav.gonen@nypost.com

A year and a half earlier, Jim Callaghan did this story, and I posted it on my blog:

Bronx principal alleged to have teacher "hit list" still on job
by Jim Callaghan, NY Teacher, Apr 23, 2009 6:04 PM
LINK

The principal of Fordham HS for the Arts (Iris Blige, pictured at right) had a "hit list" of teachers - especially UFT chapter leaders - that she wanted removed from the school even if it meant using trumped-up charges, three Department of Education officials told the New York Teacher.

The Department of Education's Office of Special Investigations is probing Principal Iris Blige's allegedly false allegations against teachers.

According to staffers and students at the school, Blige belittles teachers and is prone to screaming attacks and general all-around bullying of staff and students. Her reign of terror has resulted in an astounding 70.5 percent turnover rate for teachers between September 2007 and September 2008.

"She has turned a fresh, budding school environment into a fractured community of turmoil and betrayal," said teacher Peter Healy, adding that Blige has ruled by "creating a fear-filled environment."

Blige has also accused an assistant principal, another teacher and a student of threatening her. The student and her parents denied the allegation, saying that Blige slammed a door shut on the student's hand.

The principal has never taught a class and in 1999 her guidance counselor license expired because she failed to meet state certification requirements. It was reinstated later.

One former AP at the school, Ahmed Edwards, said he wrote negative comments about one teacher, Fannie Davis, "under duress" because Blige said she wanted to "get" Davis so she could be sent to the rubber room, which is what happened.

Davis, who had an unblemished 35-year record, spent one year away from her students based on Blige's accusation, which was lodged the day after Davis grieved the fact that she was excessed in violation of the contract. Davis also said that Blige accused her of threatening her.

The DOE never formally charged Davis.

Another former AP, Osvaldo Mancebo, told the New York Teacher that Blige had a list of teachers who she wanted to rate Unsatisfactory even before any observations took place.

Another DOE official, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals from Blige, said charges against one chapter leader were invented by Blige because she wanted to show teachers in the school what could happen to them if they "crossed" her.

"She treated chapter leaders like garbage," the official said. "She was paranoid. I heard her say many times that she would destroy the union."

The chapter leader, too, was released with no charges filed after spending two years in the rubber room.

Teachers say that Blige uses the rubber rooms as a way to punish them when they defy her "my way or the highway" management style. She has sent seven teachers to the rubber rooms.

Educators from across the Bronx rallied in support of their colleagues at Fordham HS. ABOVE: The school’s chapter leader Virginia Barden with Dante Cao from Astor College Academy.


Virginia Barden is another chapter leader targeted by Blige. She has received an Unsatisfactory rating after 30 years of teaching. According to the DOE official, the U-rating was pre-ordained as a way to harass Barden and to weaken the union.

"This is the price I am paying to bring justice for my colleagues. This is the least I can do for others," Barden said.

Linda Vinecour, a former guidance counselor at the school, said Blige - who she called "a star graduate of Bloomberg's principals' academy" - accused a student of forging a college application and asked the student if Vinecour had helped her with the forgery. Vinecour later resigned, telling Blige "your tactics are cruel and dishonest."

These incidents and other outrages led more than 400 educators, parents and students to protest Blige's actions at a rally outside the school on March 13. More than 30 UFT Bronx chapter leaders supported the rally, as did teachers from other schools.

Opening the rally, UFT Bronx High School District Representative Lynn Winderbaum said Blige's educational policy is "to ruin the lives and careers" of educators.

"She has lost nine out of 11 assistant principals and more than 100 teachers in five years," Winderbaum added.

As students and educators cheered wildly, Winderbaum said Blige is a "hostile and mean-spirited individual" who stifles dissent and "rules by terror."

UFT Bronx Borough Representative Jose Vargas said Blige should be given a desk job at Tweed or "sent to a finishing school where she can learn how to speak properly to people."

UFT Co-Staff Director LeRoy Barr told the crowd that the UFT will stand by the embattled teachers and said the union would not stop "until [Blige] modifies her behavior."

When not abusing educators, Blige turns her venom toward students. Upon hearing that seniors were planning to participate in the March rally, Blige threatened them at a College Night event, telling them she would withhold their diplomas, cancel their senior trip and not refund senior dues.

The also sent an assistant principal into classrooms to tell students the protest was illegal and that they would be arrested if they attended.

Students and teachers told the New York Teacher that on the Monday after the protest, students were pulled out of classrooms and asked for names of other students who attended the rally.

Michael Mulgrew, UFT vice president and chief operating officer, praised the community for standing up to Blige. He pledged that the rally was not the end, adding that the message will be heard "from this sidewalk to Tweed where Klein sits."

Blige refused to be interviewed by the New York Teacher.

March 16, 2009

High teacher turnover draws hundreds to protest principal
by Philissa Cramer, Gotham Schools

Hundreds of Bronx teachers turned out on Friday to protest the high school principal they say is responsible for a 70 percent teacher turnover rate. In record time over the weekend, the Bronx division of the United Federation of Teachers produced a video about the event, which it coordinated.

Teachers charge that in the four years since Iris Blige has been principal of Fordham High School for the arts, a small school that opened in 2002, the school has run through nine assistant principals, four business managers, and more than 100 teachers. (This data point is in clear view on a protester’s poster in the video.) Blige replaced the founding principal, Sal Mazzola, who was removed after two years in charge because of poor performance, according to the school’s Insideschools review.

According to the school’s most recent state report card, more than a quarter of all teachers left the school after the 2005-2006 school year, and the previous year the school lost more than half of all relatively new teachers. The UFT says turnover has only accelerated since then, with more than 70 percent of teachers leaving during the 2007-2008 school year.

Related Story:

Beloved teacher arrested
by Jim Callaghan, NY Teacher, Apr 23, 2009 11:55 AM

On Feb. 9, Iris Blige accused teacher Raqnel James, who is beloved by students and colleagues, of leaving a note in an office mailbox, threatening to kill her and her son. Seven uniformed officers and four detectives showed up at the school. One detective told James and Chapter Leader Virginia Barden there was a video of James leaving the letter in an assistant principal’s mailbox.

In fact, no videotape of the incident has surfaced. Indeed, according to UFT officials, there is no video camera in the room where the mailboxes are located. The next day, James was sent to a rubber room.

On April 13, two months after the alleged murder threat letter was turned over to detectives, James was arrested on a misdemeanor charge. From the beginning, she appeared to be the only suspect.

According to both James and Barden, one detective offered James a “safety transfer” to another school if she confessed to the crime. James found the offer strange since she was being questioned about a murder threat against a school principal which, if carried out, could put students, parents and teachers in harm’s way. Barden said that more than 50 staffers had access to the mailboxes which are in the same room as time cards. No other UFT members were interviewed, Barden added.

[Blige has also accused others of threatening her. See accompanying story.]

Some supporters of James insist that the real reason that Blige told police that James wrote the letter was because of a landlord-tenant dispute involving a consultant hired by Blige to whom James had rented an apartment.

The timing of the murder threat accusation was not lost on James, because this is the time of the year when principals are asked to sign off on work visas for teachers. James’ work visa expires on Aug. 3 and she is in the process of renewing it.

DOE regulations state that teachers who are in the rubber room on an allegation of wrongdoing, not a conviction, will have their green card applications withdrawn, which means James, who is entitled to a presumption of innocence, faces the risk of being deported to Jamaica.

Virginia Barden is another chapter leader targeted by Blige. She has received an Unsatisfactory rating after 30 years of teaching. According to the DOE official, the U-rating was pre-ordained as a way to harass Barden and to weaken the union.

"This is the price I am paying to bring justice for my colleagues. This is the least I can do for others," Barden said.

Linda Vinecour, a former guidance counselor at the school, said Blige - who she called "a star graduate of Bloomberg's principals' academy" - accused a student of forging a college application and asked the student if Vinecour had helped her with the forgery. Vinecour later resigned, telling Blige "your tactics are cruel and dishonest."

These incidents and other outrages led more than 400 educators, parents and students to protest Blige's actions at a rally outside the school on March 13. More than 30 UFT Bronx chapter leaders supported the rally, as did teachers from other schools.

Opening the rally, UFT Bronx High School District Representative Lynn Winderbaum said Blige's educational policy is "to ruin the lives and careers" of educators.

"She has lost nine out of 11 assistant principals and more than 100 teachers in five years," Winderbaum added.

As students and educators cheered wildly, Winderbaum said Blige is a "hostile and mean-spirited individual" who stifles dissent and "rules by terror."

UFT Bronx Borough Representative Jose Vargas said Blige should be given a desk job at Tweed or "sent to a finishing school where she can learn how to speak properly to people."

UFT Co-Staff Director LeRoy Barr told the crowd that the UFT will stand by the embattled teachers and said the union would not stop "until [Blige] modifies her behavior."

When not abusing educators, Blige turns her venom toward students. Upon hearing that seniors were planning to participate in the March rally, Blige threatened them at a College Night event, telling them she would withhold their diplomas, cancel their senior trip and not refund senior dues.

She also sent an assistant principal into classrooms to tell students the protest was illegal and that they would be arrested if they attended.

Students and teachers told the New York Teacher that on the Monday after the protest, students were pulled out of classrooms and asked for names of other students who attended the rally.

Michael Mulgrew, UFT vice president and chief operating officer, praised the community for standing up to Blige. He pledged that the rally was not the end, adding that the message will be heard "from this sidewalk to Tweed where Klein sits."

Blige refused to be interviewed by the New York Teacher.