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| Peter Lamphere |
Monday, December 12, 2011
Congratulations to Peter Lamphere
A judge has overturned Peter Lamphere's 2009 Unsatisfactory rating. Peter was chapter leader at Bronx High School of Science. This is positive news for sure. We salute the people at Bronx Science who have been standing up for their rights in the face of great adversity.
The story was covered by Gotham.[see below -Betsy Combier]
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Date: Monday, December 12, 2011
Contact: Peter Lamphere, peter.lamphere@gmail.com
Judge Overturns Arbitrary Unsatisfactory Rating for Bronx Science Teacher
In an oral bench decision Wednesday, December 7th, New York State Supreme Court Justice Paul Feinman granted the petition to overturn a 2009 Unsatisfactory rating for Peter Lamphere, former math teacher and UFT chapter leader at the Bronx High School of Science. The decision is a small step in restoring some of the damage done to the careers of numerous teachers at the prestigious Bronx school, where a deteriorating relationship between Principal Valerie Reidy and faculty has dramatically increased staff turnover accompanied by a decline in the school's national ranking (New York Magazine, December 12, 2011, New York Times, September 15, 2011, Daily News, March 29, 2011, attached).
Date: Monday, December 12, 2011
Contact: Peter Lamphere, peter.lamphere@gmail.com
Judge Overturns Arbitrary Unsatisfactory Rating for Bronx Science Teacher
In an oral bench decision Wednesday, December 7th, New York State Supreme Court Justice Paul Feinman granted the petition to overturn a 2009 Unsatisfactory rating for Peter Lamphere, former math teacher and UFT chapter leader at the Bronx High School of Science. The decision is a small step in restoring some of the damage done to the careers of numerous teachers at the prestigious Bronx school, where a deteriorating relationship between Principal Valerie Reidy and faculty has dramatically increased staff turnover accompanied by a decline in the school's national ranking (New York Magazine, December 12, 2011, New York Times, September 15, 2011, Daily News, March 29, 2011, attached).
The decision rejects the Department of Education's attempt to ignore scrutiny of Principal Reidy's administrative actions. The DOE disregarded a fact finding ruling by an independent arbitrator last April upholding claims of harassment by 20 math teachers at the school, including Lamphere (New York Times, April 28, 2010). Even after Valerie Reidy abandoned the 2009 Unsatisfactory rating by refusing to contest Lamphere's administrative appeal, the DOE arbitrarily upheld the rating.
"This is an alert to the Department of Education that they need to examine more closely what's happening at Bronx Science," was Lamphere's first response to the news. "It's outrageous that they have chosen to look the other way while the school adminstration at Bronx Science has undermined the learning environment at what should be one of the crown jewels of the city's educational system."
Lynne Winderbaum, former UFT High School District Representative, commented: "It is a shame that teachers have to use the court system to get fairness. But justice will be done whenever the abusive tactics of principals such as Valerie Reidy are exposed to an unbiased hearing.
Mark Kagan, who voluntary transferred from Bronx Science as part of the exodus of 40% of the Social Studies faculty this year, added, "It was understood at Bronx Science that Valerie Reidy used U-ratings and denials of tenure for non-pedagogical reasons. I'm glad to see that the court saw this clearly. But it's too bad for the students that Peter and other good teachers were forced out of Bronx Science."
Former Bronx Science teacher Mark Sadok said, "I am delighted to hear the news, as it not only vindicates Lamphere, but also paves the way for a return to teaching for those of us whose dismissals were based on observations that violated the UFT-DOE contract."
Megan Behrent, of the activist group Teachers' Unite, pointed out how this case "exposes the way teacher evaluations are used for political rather than professional reasons and how the 'the bad teacher' narrative provides cover for retaliation against activists. It also shows why tenure is so important. Without tenure, this victory would never have happened as Lamphere would have been dismissed without any due process at all."
Brian Jones, activist with the Grassroots Education Movement, stated that "Peter Lamphere is a dedicated and highly intelligent educator; and yes, he's also a union activist. Unfortunately the national campaign to scapegoat and punish teachers has meant that the former fact mattered less than the latter. I'm glad to see that Peter received some small measure of justice. Let's hope that this reversal reverberates through the halls of power and gives our highest officials reason for pause.
Jonathan Halabi, chapter leader of neighboring High School for American Studies, commented that "This unjustified U-rating should have been overturned much earlier. Today's decision shows that the DOE's current internal hearings and appeals are unfair and rigged against the employee. New Action/UFT remains deeply concerned by the problem of abusive administrators. A victory, especially by a chapter leader who had been targeted for abuse, is a victory for all of us. "
Another arbitrary U-rating for Lamphere, from 2008, remains the subject of another case before Judge Paul Wooten, with a decision expected soon. But, regardless of the outcome of this individual case, the recommendations of the independent arbitrator's 2010 fact-finding report will still not have been implemented, and the struggle to replace the current administration at Bronx Science with one that can work together with Bronx Science teachers to rebuild a positive environment and a commitment to educational excellence has a long way to go.
Additional Contacts:
Mark Sadok - msadok@verizon.net
Lynne Winderbaum – lynwindy@hotmail.com
Megan Behrent - ebehrent@gmail.com
After ruling, ex-Bronx Science teacher will lose poor evaluation
A teacher who received an unsatisfactory rating at the Bronx High School of Science will have that rating removed from his record after a judge ruled that it was assigned unfairly.
Peter Lamphere had gone to court to appeal an unsatisfactory rating he received when he was the union chapter leader at Bronx Science, where there are deep tensions between administrators and teachers.
Lamphere and other teachers said they had been targeted after speaking out against administrative policies. In February, Lamphere described his experience in the Community section:
In the fall of 2007, the math department welcomed a new assistant principal, Rosemarie Jahoda. Soon, however, we found that the newer teachers in the department were being subjected to a level of scrutiny and paperwork that was excessive. As soon as I spoke up about the issue, which was my responsibility as a member of a UFT consultation committee that met with the principal, I immediately began receiving unjustified disciplinary letters. These were quickly followed by groundless unsatisfactory lesson observation reports. I had had a spotless teaching record for my entire previous career, including at Bronx Science.
Last week, responding to a lawsuit filed by the state teachers union, Judge Paul Feinman granted Lamphere’s petition to have the U-rating overturned. (Feinman is the same judge who denied the UFT’s bid to halt school closures and co-locations last summer.) According to the petition, which was filed in July, the city had upheld the U-rating even after Bronx Science Principal Valerie Reidy declined to contest Lamphere’s appeal.
The decision means that once the city and union reach an agreement, called a judgment, Lamphere is likely to have the U-rating turned into a satisfactory one. Because salary increases are frozen when a teacher gets a U-rating, he is also likely to get the extra pay he would have received had he not received the U-rating in the first place.
In a statement today, Lamphere said the ruling should push the city to step in at Bronx Science.
“This is an alert to the Department of Education that they need to examine more closely what’s happening at Bronx Science,” Lamphere said. “It’s outrageous that they have chosen to look the other way while the school administration at Bronx Science has undermined the learning environment at what should be one of the crown jewels of the city’s educational system.”
Other teachers said the decision speaks to a broader need for continued protections for teachers, something Lamphere himself argued in a second Community section column this summer.
“Without tenure, this victory would never have happened as Lamphere would have been dismissed without any due process at all,” said Megan Behrent, a teacher who is active in the UFT, said in a statement.
Lamphere is awaiting judgment in a second case, over harassment because of his union activity at Bronx Science.
November 10, 2011
Teacher rating system must change
I have been a special Education teacher for 27 years and I am an elected UFT delegate.
The case of Bronx Science English teacher Geoffrey Nutter, who was rated unsatisfactory then — presumably — dismissed, brings up at least two issues independent of the question of whether or not Mr. Nutter’s pedagogy was adequate.
Firstly, what possible explanation can be made for the 17-month delay in adjudicating Mr. Nutter’s appeal? Does not the delay and the sudden release of a decision within one week of the publication of the original Riverdale Press article point to an education bureaucracy that is, at best, dangerously sclerotic and/or, as is much more likely the case, a moral and ethical swamp? The complacency with which the DOE issued its decision on the heels of the Press article on the Nutter appeal (after 17 months of doing nothing with it) would be laughable were it not so sad. Apparently, there are recesses of New York City government that are so far beyond the threat of oversight and accountability that the inhabitants therein don’t even consider how their shenanigans might look to the general public. So what’s actually going on in there? Perhaps we really don’t want to know.
Secondly, what kind of a system blacklists an individual for life on the strength of what comes down to one person’s (in this case a notoriously mercurial and vindictive school principal) highly speculative, deeply subjective judgment?
A not so well-guarded secret: principals (not all, but many) U-rate teachers for all kinds of reasons separate and distinct from the teachers’ pedagogical acumen: personality clash; bias based on race, sexuality or ethnicity; political or policy differences; a desire to make room on staff for a friend, friend of a friend, relative of a friend, etc. and, of course, money. (A veteran teacher costs an individual school twice what a brand new hire costs. U-Rate and dismiss a veteran? Ka-CHING! Lots of new money freed-up for whatever.)
Naturally, this is unacknowledged and unacknowledgeable. Rather, fault must be found with the particular teacher’s classroom practice; his/her “pacing” is off; he/she can’t find and produce an obscure rubric, issued months ago, fast enough when asked; his/her style of questioning is faulty; he/she must begin each question with the words “To what extent...”; he/she must never restate students’ questions before answering them.
Good grief.
Another not-so-well-guarded secret: classroom teaching is an exceedingly complicated business and there is no such thing as “perfect” classroom instruction. Mistakes are invariably part of this complicated process.
Additionally, there are many legitimate approaches to the transmission of knowledge. Whatever methodology may be temporarily (and it is ALWAYS temporarily) in vogue within a given district or system ought not to preclude the employment of other methodologies and techniques.
We are living through a dark age in American education. (Many parallels to the McCarthy era, seems to me.) The public, with encouragement from our ruling economic and political elite, has taken its eye off the ball. It seeks to blame public school teachers as a class for the deficiencies of urban public education as a whole. In fact, teachers have little to say over what and how they teach. Mr. Nutter’s experience is case-in-point. In another era, Bronx Science would be pursuing accomplished professionals who had their own ideas about teaching and learning and about life itself. The school would be begging them to stay. In this dark and dull age, by resorting to the blacklist, by enshrining mediocrity, dishonesty and conformity, our urban school policymakers seem to have lost their way.
Post-Mussolini, some wise pundit said, “It’s not enough to have the trains run on time; you have to know where they’re going.” In the case of modern urban education, our policy makers seem to have let the train jump the track altogether.
Seventeen months ago, Geoffrey Nutter asked the Department of Education to reverse unsatisfactory ratings he had been given by embattled Bronx Science High School principal Valerie Reidy. He’s still waiting for an answer.
Mr. Nutter’s resume reads like the biography of a well-known writer.
The author of three poetry books, Mr. Nutter has won multiple awards for his work, including the University of Iowa’s 1993 Academy of American Poets Prize, presented by then-Poet Laureate Mark Strand. He has been published in numerous anthologies, including The Best American Poetry, and currently works as an adjunct poetry professor at New York University. He will begin teaching a class at Columbia University this spring. Before he begins, he expects to submit his fourth book to his publisher and travel to France, where he will read from one of his collections at the International School of Paris.
Yet the 43-year-old could not seem to satisfy administrators at the Bronx High School of Science, where he taught English from 2008 to 2009 and received three unsatisfactory evaluations.
He is one of at least seven Bronx Science teachers who told The Press they left the school because of what they see as Principal Valerie Reidy’s tactics of retribution, unfair and unannounced evaluations and abusive criticisms.
First, a group of teachers from the math department who in May 2008 filed a complaint with the Department of Education alleging that Assistant Principal Rosemary Jahoda harassed them. Schools Chancellor Joel Klein rejected fact finder Carol Wittenberg’s conclusion that Ms. Jahoda harassed certain teachers. Then, eight of the school’s 20 social studies teachers chose not to return this year.
Mr. Nutter’s situation is not unique. And his careful notes, records and appeal to the Department of Education to reverse his unsatisfactory ratings illuminate the complaints of many others.
Mr. Nutter received his first unsatisfactory evaluation a month after he began teaching at Science, on Oct. 3, 2008. He said he was never told he would be evaluated — a violation of the teachers’ union contract, according to United Federation of Teachers spokesman Peter Kadushin.
In a phone interview last week, Ms. Reidy did not deny the allegation.
“The UFT is concerned about that,” Ms. Reidy said of her practice of not informing teachers, but added that school staffers have a pre-observation conference where they meet with administrators to formulate goals and plan for their lesson, which should prepare them for what is to come.
“We don’t want to see a dog-and-pony show, we want to see what the kids see,” Ms. Reidy said.
Mr. Kadushin said pre- and post-observation meetings are part of evaluations, but actual observations, “have to be announced.”
Mr. Nutter got negative ratings for lax grading policies and failing to ask his students thought-provoking questions about readings.
But he said Ms. Reidy asked him to begin all questions with “To what extent,” a phrase that became a running joke at the school because it was used so often. He said he was also told not to clarify or rephrase students’ answers by repeating them, a practice that he thought showed he was listening carefully.
After each evaluation, Mr. Nutter said he met with the principal and the head of the English department and received a “storm of criticism” which left him “in a state of shock.”
Ms. Reidy agrees that the conferences got “very heated” and in Mr. Nutter’s last observation report from April 2009 wrote, “You clearly failed to understand that this was a conference to assess your teaching ability not my leadership ability. Your demeanor and comments were inappropriate and insubordinate.”
Ms. Reidy said teachers who put in the time and effort required find the conferences worthwhile. She said Mr. Nutter didn’t read or grade some of his students’ work and was ill-prepared and unfocused — allegations Mr. Nutter denies.
Retired English teacher Helen Kellert, who worked at Science from 1989 to 2009 called Mr. Nutter “brilliant, conscientious [and] dedicated.” She said intellectual teachers who were less focused on structure were often penalized.
“A U from Bronx Science became a badge of honor for one’s intellectual integrity,” she said.
But others contend that Ms. Reidy has been targeted because she’s a woman.
After The Times reported that numerous social studies teachers left the school prior to this school year, Ms. Reidy met with students to explain their departures were for numerous reasons and took questions from students.
First-year social studies teacher Jon Cruz, who has coached the school’s debate team for seven years, said when his class discussed the meeting and recent media reports, students made a connection between their unit on gender and politics and Ms. Reidy’s situation.
“I definitely think it has a lot to do with Valerie’s gender,” Mr. Cruz said, adding, “There’s a double standard that’s given to female leaders as opposed to male leaders.”
He said many of the schools’ problems have been resolved and he wanted to look forward.
“Every new decision that is made by the principal is greeted with … a deep suspicion no matter what I think because of things that happened a while ago,” he said.
The case of Bronx Science English teacher Geoffrey Nutter, who was rated unsatisfactory then — presumably — dismissed, brings up at least two issues independent of the question of whether or not Mr. Nutter’s pedagogy was adequate.
Firstly, what possible explanation can be made for the 17-month delay in adjudicating Mr. Nutter’s appeal? Does not the delay and the sudden release of a decision within one week of the publication of the original Riverdale Press article point to an education bureaucracy that is, at best, dangerously sclerotic and/or, as is much more likely the case, a moral and ethical swamp? The complacency with which the DOE issued its decision on the heels of the Press article on the Nutter appeal (after 17 months of doing nothing with it) would be laughable were it not so sad. Apparently, there are recesses of New York City government that are so far beyond the threat of oversight and accountability that the inhabitants therein don’t even consider how their shenanigans might look to the general public. So what’s actually going on in there? Perhaps we really don’t want to know.
Secondly, what kind of a system blacklists an individual for life on the strength of what comes down to one person’s (in this case a notoriously mercurial and vindictive school principal) highly speculative, deeply subjective judgment?
A not so well-guarded secret: principals (not all, but many) U-rate teachers for all kinds of reasons separate and distinct from the teachers’ pedagogical acumen: personality clash; bias based on race, sexuality or ethnicity; political or policy differences; a desire to make room on staff for a friend, friend of a friend, relative of a friend, etc. and, of course, money. (A veteran teacher costs an individual school twice what a brand new hire costs. U-Rate and dismiss a veteran? Ka-CHING! Lots of new money freed-up for whatever.)
Naturally, this is unacknowledged and unacknowledgeable. Rather, fault must be found with the particular teacher’s classroom practice; his/her “pacing” is off; he/she can’t find and produce an obscure rubric, issued months ago, fast enough when asked; his/her style of questioning is faulty; he/she must begin each question with the words “To what extent...”; he/she must never restate students’ questions before answering them.
Good grief.
Another not-so-well-guarded secret: classroom teaching is an exceedingly complicated business and there is no such thing as “perfect” classroom instruction. Mistakes are invariably part of this complicated process.
Additionally, there are many legitimate approaches to the transmission of knowledge. Whatever methodology may be temporarily (and it is ALWAYS temporarily) in vogue within a given district or system ought not to preclude the employment of other methodologies and techniques.
We are living through a dark age in American education. (Many parallels to the McCarthy era, seems to me.) The public, with encouragement from our ruling economic and political elite, has taken its eye off the ball. It seeks to blame public school teachers as a class for the deficiencies of urban public education as a whole. In fact, teachers have little to say over what and how they teach. Mr. Nutter’s experience is case-in-point. In another era, Bronx Science would be pursuing accomplished professionals who had their own ideas about teaching and learning and about life itself. The school would be begging them to stay. In this dark and dull age, by resorting to the blacklist, by enshrining mediocrity, dishonesty and conformity, our urban school policymakers seem to have lost their way.
Post-Mussolini, some wise pundit said, “It’s not enough to have the trains run on time; you have to know where they’re going.” In the case of modern urban education, our policy makers seem to have let the train jump the track altogether.
Teacher’s grievance against Science goes unaddressed
Seventeen months ago, Geoffrey Nutter asked the Department of Education to reverse unsatisfactory ratings he had been given by embattled Bronx Science High School principal Valerie Reidy. He’s still waiting for an answer.
Mr. Nutter’s resume reads like the biography of a well-known writer.
The author of three poetry books, Mr. Nutter has won multiple awards for his work, including the University of Iowa’s 1993 Academy of American Poets Prize, presented by then-Poet Laureate Mark Strand. He has been published in numerous anthologies, including The Best American Poetry, and currently works as an adjunct poetry professor at New York University. He will begin teaching a class at Columbia University this spring. Before he begins, he expects to submit his fourth book to his publisher and travel to France, where he will read from one of his collections at the International School of Paris.
Yet the 43-year-old could not seem to satisfy administrators at the Bronx High School of Science, where he taught English from 2008 to 2009 and received three unsatisfactory evaluations.
He is one of at least seven Bronx Science teachers who told The Press they left the school because of what they see as Principal Valerie Reidy’s tactics of retribution, unfair and unannounced evaluations and abusive criticisms.
First, a group of teachers from the math department who in May 2008 filed a complaint with the Department of Education alleging that Assistant Principal Rosemary Jahoda harassed them. Schools Chancellor Joel Klein rejected fact finder Carol Wittenberg’s conclusion that Ms. Jahoda harassed certain teachers. Then, eight of the school’s 20 social studies teachers chose not to return this year.
Mr. Nutter’s situation is not unique. And his careful notes, records and appeal to the Department of Education to reverse his unsatisfactory ratings illuminate the complaints of many others.
Mr. Nutter received his first unsatisfactory evaluation a month after he began teaching at Science, on Oct. 3, 2008. He said he was never told he would be evaluated — a violation of the teachers’ union contract, according to United Federation of Teachers spokesman Peter Kadushin.
In a phone interview last week, Ms. Reidy did not deny the allegation.
“The UFT is concerned about that,” Ms. Reidy said of her practice of not informing teachers, but added that school staffers have a pre-observation conference where they meet with administrators to formulate goals and plan for their lesson, which should prepare them for what is to come.
“We don’t want to see a dog-and-pony show, we want to see what the kids see,” Ms. Reidy said.
Mr. Kadushin said pre- and post-observation meetings are part of evaluations, but actual observations, “have to be announced.”
Mr. Nutter got negative ratings for lax grading policies and failing to ask his students thought-provoking questions about readings.
But he said Ms. Reidy asked him to begin all questions with “To what extent,” a phrase that became a running joke at the school because it was used so often. He said he was also told not to clarify or rephrase students’ answers by repeating them, a practice that he thought showed he was listening carefully.
After each evaluation, Mr. Nutter said he met with the principal and the head of the English department and received a “storm of criticism” which left him “in a state of shock.”
Ms. Reidy agrees that the conferences got “very heated” and in Mr. Nutter’s last observation report from April 2009 wrote, “You clearly failed to understand that this was a conference to assess your teaching ability not my leadership ability. Your demeanor and comments were inappropriate and insubordinate.”
Ms. Reidy said teachers who put in the time and effort required find the conferences worthwhile. She said Mr. Nutter didn’t read or grade some of his students’ work and was ill-prepared and unfocused — allegations Mr. Nutter denies.
Retired English teacher Helen Kellert, who worked at Science from 1989 to 2009 called Mr. Nutter “brilliant, conscientious [and] dedicated.” She said intellectual teachers who were less focused on structure were often penalized.
“A U from Bronx Science became a badge of honor for one’s intellectual integrity,” she said.
But others contend that Ms. Reidy has been targeted because she’s a woman.
After The Times reported that numerous social studies teachers left the school prior to this school year, Ms. Reidy met with students to explain their departures were for numerous reasons and took questions from students.
First-year social studies teacher Jon Cruz, who has coached the school’s debate team for seven years, said when his class discussed the meeting and recent media reports, students made a connection between their unit on gender and politics and Ms. Reidy’s situation.
“I definitely think it has a lot to do with Valerie’s gender,” Mr. Cruz said, adding, “There’s a double standard that’s given to female leaders as opposed to male leaders.”
He said many of the schools’ problems have been resolved and he wanted to look forward.
“Every new decision that is made by the principal is greeted with … a deep suspicion no matter what I think because of things that happened a while ago,” he said.
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