Failing Schools Become Dysfunctional When Put On The List For Closure

David Hedges

 

Dedicated To the Rights of ATRs 

(Absent Teacher Reservists) in NYC

LINK

What's wrong with bagging groceries?

A failing school becomes a dysfunctional one after it learns it is slated to be closed.  They take the failing principal out and replace him or her with someone worse: an inexperienced one who had been excessed from a school that had previously failed, become dysfunctional, and closed.

Everybody  makes mistakes, but the lesser experienced principals can be counted on to make the more foolish ones.  Many of them become principals because they were Assistant Principals in schools that were failing and have already closed.  What they bring to the job defies the imagination of the sane.  The replication of the familiar, failure as the comfort zone?

FACT:  I was assigned to cover a class within my license.  The teacher had been injured in an automobile accident back in November, almost 5 months ago.  The students have been getting a different English teacher every week.  Sadly, the principal could have reassigned a senior member of the staff to cover the class since that teacher only teaches one class per day, but he didn't think that far ahead.

I met with the principal before starting this long term assignment and shared my lessons and ideas for addressing the fact that the student hadn't had a regular teacher (most of them are juniors and will need to take the ELA Regents Exam) in months.  The plan was to develop writing skills through a unit on how to apply for a job.  The course would cover reading the help wanted section in the newspaper, writing a resume, a cover letter, and speaking and presentation skills that would be useful at the job interview.

To start the unit off I asked students to study a very long list of occupations- something to give them an overview of the kinds of careers they might like to pursue.  To break it up I included a "WordSearch" puzzle.  They were to select the job that interested them and then try to find it on the word search grid.  "Search for the career in the grid after you find it on the list."  That gave me the time I needed to set up my SmartBoard PowerPoint presentation.  Students talked about all the possibilities life could offer!

I initiated a class discussion about what kinds of jobs would be available to high school students who hadn't any work experience.  I want them to encourage them to apply for jobs that they wouldn't be rejected from on the basis of their lack of work experience.  We discussed how to compensate for lack of experience with a surplus of positive thinking and constructive energy.  For example, suppose you see a sign in the local grocery store or super market advertising for a job as "bagger."  You decide to apply.  The manager says the job was just filled and she'd forgotten to take down the sign.  What do you do?  Do you walk away or do you find something positive to say that shows how serious you are about the job?  The class decided that it would be a waste of time just to walk away.  Better ask the store manager if the job of assistant bagger had been filled.  If two can work together bagging groceries, twice as many customers can be checked through, doubling profits.  The class went to work creating a cover letter for "assistant bagger" and stressing the advantages of the new post.  The power of positive thinking!  The idea is that work, or a job, isn't an activity that you take something away from in the form of remuneration in exchange for your time, but a place where you can make a difference and a contribution.  Your discover what your value as a person is through the task you have and the attitude you bring to it.  There is no such thing as a bad job, just a badly done job.  

Two days after the lesson and the progress made by the students, the principal, you know, one of those I.A, principals who are assigned to close the failing school... inexperienced, except as an assistant principal in a school that had already failed and been closed... So, said I.A Principal called me into his office, closed the door, and began interrogating me, pressuring me to confess my crime, for it seems, according to his word,  there had been complaints about my lesson.  From whom?  What about?  Students?  (Doubtful, since they were totally engaged!)  Another teacher?  The one who had been upset with me because I hadn't erased the board fast enough as she settled into the classroom to teach her one class, and were there more than two students in the room?  We will never know for sure, perhaps the principal was  just exercising his dysfunctional discretion?  He said to me that it is inappropriate for students to consider applying for a job as bagger, let alone assistant bagger at a super market.  I am not really sure why not.  One of my favorite students worked everyday after school, first as a bagger, then as cashier.  In fact, the example, since it came from the students, was most useful.   If anyone found it insulting or demeaning, it wasn't anyone who was present in my classroom.  In an upper class private school, I can imagine the head master calling one of his young teachers into his office to remind him that the parents of the students, who pay his very generous salary with the very high tuition costs, might not appreciate their children learning about job opportunities in areas where their lessers are employed, but supermarket work, like the fast food service sector, is a rite of passage.  

Again, maybe it was just the ghost of a dysfunctional school that haunts them after they've already failed and are being closed.  Failure becomes a comfort zone when it is repeated so often.  After all, whatever we do in life, the more we do it, the better we get at it.  That is true with developing skills, but it is also true with being a jerk.  The more a person acts like a jerk, the better they become at being a jerk.  Don't you find?

Then again, maybe the example of the supermarket checkout bagger hit a little too close to home.  Some of the untenured faculty and administrators may be  projecting their fears onto this example- a specter of a future position as assistant bagger.  Unfortunately, they didn't understand the lesson:  Even if your job application is rejected, don't be dejected, come back with an optimistic retort:  Show 'em spunk!

Of course it's humiliating when your school fails, is closing, and becomes self-destructive and dysfunctional.  Humiliation is one of those things that when it goes around, comes around.   

In any event, the principal took a particularly humiliating tone with me:  told me I was not allowed to go back to the class and told me to go sit in the teachers' lounge. 

When a school has failed and is being closed, it turns into an auto-destructive, dysfunctional setting- all at the tax payers expense!  And in the meantime, the students don't get to develop their skills about how to compete for any job, even an entry level one.  We all had to start somewhere.  Why make kids feel self-conscious about starting out at Keyfood? 
Mr. Principal, were you afraid of what people might think if a teacher dignifies the job of bagger at Keyfood?  When children learn to walk, if they cared what other people think, worried about other people laughing at them or criticizing them each time they fell down, then the whole human race would still be crawling, wouldn't we?

Assailed Teacher: ATR and Loss of Identity

THE MARCH OF THE ATR by The Assailed Teacher Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis is about what it means to lose one's identity in an impersonal world. Every week they pass through my school. Sometimes they come one at a time, sometimes two or three at a time. Nobody knows how many of them there are. They are the best kept secret of the Department of Education and the United Federation of Teachers. The fact they exist in the first place is a testament to the collusion between our union and our bosses. Nobody wants to acknowledge their existence. There is a sense that both Walcott and Mulgrew just wish they would go away. These are the members of the Absent Teacher Reserve, ATRs for short. They are a category of teacher who best exemplify the cruelty of the bureaucracy in which we work. A teacher can become part of the ATR pool for many reasons. Maybe the school in which they used to work was closed or "turned around" and the new, probably young and inexperienced, principal saw fit to give them the axe. Perhaps they were brought up on bogus charges like corporal punishment or incompetence and even the officer at their termination hearing could not find grounds to terminate them, although certainly not from lack of trying. Whatever the case might be, the "system" has decided that it is best they travel to different schools every week to plug holes in programs on a temporary basis. This is in lieu of teaching a full schedule of their own classes. Not every member of the ATR pool is a teacher. There are also ACRs: those who worked as full-time counselors in other schools before the school was closed or before they were slapped with bogus charges. In that case, ACRs are not even allowed to cover classes because they cannot "legally" be in a classroom by themselves. Consequently, the ACRs usually stay in the teacher's lounge unless ordered to perform some sort of clerical job that probably does not even need to be done in the first place. As chapter leader, I have met and spoken with my fair share of ATRs. I am happy to say that, according to most accounts, our administration treats them with more respect than most other schools through which they rotate. Throughout my dealings with the men and women of the ATR pool, I have been able to glean a thing or two about them as a group. By extension, I am able to glean a thing or two about the DOE and our union. ATRs fall into one of three categories that oftentimes overlap: a) they are up there in years, b) they are outspoken and c) they are minority. To my recollection, I have never met or seen an ATR that did not fit at least one of these categories. Although I make an effort to speak to any ATR that comes through my school, I usually try to feel them out first. If it seems as if they do not want to be spoken to (by being on a cell phone, a computer or asleep on the couch) then I do not force my presence on them. This does not mean that most ATRs do these things because they most certainly do not. Even if most or even all of them did, I am not judging them or blaming them for anything. I cannot imagine what they have been through or what they are still going through. If they wish to be left alone then they certainly deserve that right. There are colleagues that sometimes complain that ATRs are surly or standoffish. My opinion is that, if they do in fact possess these qualities, then it is the system that made them that way. Everyone reacts to upheaval and trauma differently. Becoming an ATR is nothing if not traumatic. The ones that do seem open to conversation I approach with a light heart. I used to ask about the circumstances that led them to the ATR pool. However, I got the sense that some thought I was asking as a way to judge them. Now I basically ask about how their ATR experience has been and that is it. Through these conversations, there are a few very valuable lessons I have learned. Most of these are ATRs are outspoken. They have strong opinions about how a school should be run. At their core, they have a sense of justice and fairness. Almost as a rule, they seem to be people who I would deem "skeptics", which is just another way of saying "critical thinkers". And they all want to teach. They all miss having their own classes and being able to build a rapport with their own students. Speaking to these ATRs, I have been able to learn possibly why some of the other ATRs come off as "surly". It is because they have been robbed of their identities and senses of self-worth. One day, they were well-respected teachers. The next day, they are extras for whom the system seems unwilling to find a role. I am amazed not at how withdrawn some of them are, but at how most of them have kept their spirits high in the midst of such injustice. Franz Kafka's short novel Metamorphosis  features a young man who wakes up one day to find himself as a bug. In the opening scene, Gregor Samsa is a functioning member of society helping to provide for his family. His father sleeps in the living room wearing his old uniform that, at this point, is dirty and disheveled. By the final scene, Gregor Samsa is an insect whose family hates him. His father's suit is suddenly clean and freshly pressed. Indeed, it is his father who seems the most bent on squishing the bug his son has become. The novel is, among other things, about a man who has lost his purpose in life. As long as he has a purpose, Gregor is the star of his family. His father, a man whose best days are behind him, lies neglected in the living room. But once Gregor becomes a bug or, in other words, once he becomes useless, his family locks him away in his room until they want him dead. His father, finally regaining his sense of purpose as a breadwinner, wants Gregor out of the way the most. Maybe this is because he sees in Gregor the useless figure he once was and he hates it. Maybe he just wants Gregor out of the way before he can usurp his role as breadwinner again. It is a story meant to highlight how fleeting our roles in society can be, not to mention how conditional "unconditional" love really is. The DOE and the UFT have treated ATRs as the bug version of Gregor Samsa. Mulgrew barely gives them a mention. Walcott floats hare-brained "buyout" schemes as a way to get rid of them. Both of these men would just prefer if these ATRs got the message and retired already. At the same time, many of our colleagues want to squish them, look down on them, pass judgment on them because they have no "purpose" in the system anymore. These ATRs must have done something to land themselves in this position, no? On the contrary, I say that the ATRs play the most important role of all. First, they represent the broken promises of our union. Our union leaders want a pat on the back because the ATRs still collect their paychecks. This is like our students wanting a pat on the back for coming to class on time. It is the least they can do. Protecting their positions, fighting for their dignity, sticking up for the idea that experience matters are not priorities at all for our union. If the union consistently fails to stick up for the dignity of the ATRs, what chance do you think we have of the union sticking up for the rest of us? Furthermore, the tragic phenomenon of the disappearing black educator fails to register a blip on our union's radar. I believe that one of the reasons why both the DOE and UFT do not keep reliable statistics on how many ATRs exist in our system is because so many of them belong to minority groups. If it was made public how many black and Hispanic ATRs existed, the DOE would leave themselves open to a discrimination lawsuit. Instead the DOE, in collusion with the UFT, keeps everything hush. We have a black chancellor, how dare I even suggest that the DOE has an inherently racist teacher policy? And the disappearing black educator is part of a much wider and much more disturbing trend overtaking the nation's schools. We are constantly being told that the students of the inner cities need "no excuses" education and centrally mandated "standards". These are just sterile ways of saying that the values of the communities from whence our students come have nothing of value to offer. It is best if well-to-do outsiders make all of the rules. Even worse, the reformers believe that the values of inner city areas are utterly deformed and in need of correction. As I have said before, reformers believe that our children need to be civilized more than educated. This civilizing is done by hired scab mercenaries from the Ivy League who model for our children the "proper" way to behave. In a system like this, we cannot have teachers who just might be from the same neighborhoods as our students. We cannot possibly have teachers who might be able to relate to their students as human beings. We cannot possibly have teachers that might show children that they do not have to hate themselves and hate where they come from to be a better person. Every time you see an ATR from a minority group, you are seeing this racist education reform agenda in action. And what of the ATRs who maybe are outspoken people with a little grey in their hair who might or might not be part of a minority group? These are the teachers that the DOE and UFT fear the most. The DOE fears their salaries since that means less money for them to hand out no-bid contracts. The DOE fears their knowledge and experience. They are afraid that they will speak too loudly or too forcefully or too persuasively against the 25-year-old Leadership Academy principals who have been marching into our schools. These are the teachers who might expose the fact that the Academy produces "leaders" who do not know which is the proper end of the chalk with which to write (by the way, the answer is either end). On top of this, these are the teachers who might just see teaching as an art form. They might think that every lesson and every student is different. They might believe that part of being a teacher is being an advocate both inside and outside of the classroom. This means that they might not see teaching as something that can be measured by test scores and mechanical rubrics. This also means that they might want their educational leaders to be educators themselves and not bean counters. In short, they will not teach their students in the robotic way mandated by things like "value added" and "Danielson". They will not model for their students how to get along in a filthy system. They are not the best teachers to train the low-wage, low-skilled workers and consumers of tomorrow. A system full of these teachers just might teach their students that a better world is indeed possible. Finally, ATRs should teach the rest of us some empathy. Instead of assuming that they did something wrong or are just the dead wood of which the system cannot rid itself, the presence of ATRs should remind all of us that our own positions are tenuous at best. We are still able to come to our jobs every morning because the system allows it. One bogus accusation, one "C" rating for your school can throw your entire career into doubt. This wonderful identity of "teacher" we have built for ourselves is conditional. It is just as conditional as Gregor Samsa's position in Metamorphosis. The love that our students, colleagues and maybe even our families have for us is conditional. We too can be robbed of our identities and have people whisper about us doing something wrong or being incompetent. Instead of being so smugly secure to think we are in a position to pass judgment, we should be reminded of how insecure we are in our jobs. We should even be thankful that we still have positions and reflect that gratitude and goodwill on to the ATRs we meet. This is the meaning of the march of the ATRs. Do not think that we have forgotten you. As far as this one lonely teacher is concerned, as well as many others, your presence is all too real. Thank you for keeping your spirits up. We will continue to fight to get you back in the classroom where you belong. The Assailed Teacher | February 21, 2013 at 5:30 am | Tags: Absent Teacher Reserve New York City, ATRs and Age Discrimination, ATRs and Racism, ATRs and Union-Busting,education, Identity, Teacher Harassment, Teaching, Work | Categories: An Embattled Career,education reform, School, teaching | URL: http://wp.me/p1ljf6-tX

In Santa Fe N.M., "Rubber Room" Is a 'Pejorative' Term

Meanwhile here in NYC the DOE and the UFT say there "are no more rubber rooms". NOT true.

Also, my statement for the record is that I define "rubber room" as a part of a process which has certain designated people falsifying facts to make someone guilty of acts they did not commit.

That's my 2 cents.

Betsy Combier 

Superintendent Joel Boyd

 

Discord over SFPS issues at board meeting 

By T.S. Last / Journal Staff Writer on Wed, Feb 20, 2013

LINK

Extending the superintendent’s contract, concerns over site-based management of schools, preserving the district’s music program and rumors of a “rubber room” where teachers placed on administrative leave go to pass the time were topics brought up during the public forum at Tuesday night’s Santa Fe school board meeting.

The existence of a so-called rubber room was raised at the Feb. 6 meeting, as well. The term originated with the New York City school district, which set up venues where hundreds of teachers on administrative leave reported until their cases were resolved.

Superintendent Joel Boyd called it a “pejorative” term that raised alarm, and he emphatically denied there was such a thing in the Santa Fe school district.

At the same meeting, Bernice Garcia Baca, president of the local teachers’ union, said she wasn’t aware of one and that if there were such a thing, she’d probably know about it.

But on Tuesday, Baca said she had learned there was one person who has been on administrative leave and is voluntarily reporting to the B.F. Young Building until the case is resolved. She said the practice is not mandatory under the collective bargaining agreement and was a matter that could be addressed during negotiations.

“If we’re in the discussion, maybe we could give a viewpoint administration may not know,” she said.

During the public forum, two people addressed the issue of a rubber room.

Cate Moses, an outspoken critic of Boyd and board member Glenn Wikle’s girlfriend, insisted there is a rubber room, just as she did at the Feb. 6 meeting.

“There is a rubber room. I’ve seen it with my own eyes,” she said. Moses said if Boyd believed creating a rubber room was a good management practice, he should admit it.

John Trentacosta chastised the board for “mocking” the term at the last meeting.

“We’re talking about people’s careers here,” he said.

Trentacosta, a music instructor for SFPS, said teachers’ morale is low and they are afraid to talk about it publicly.

“Rumors abound. Something is going on,” he said, then addressed Boyd directly. “Just because you say it’s not happening, doesn’t mean it isn’t.”

Neither Boyd or any member of the school board responded to the comments.

Lorraine Goldman, Trentacosta, Barbara Fix and Catherine Bueler each made pleas to the board to keep the music program in place during the district’s secondary school reform effort. Some of their comments also related to site-based management, which was on the agenda for a presentation.

Goldman said she was concerned that a movement toward site-based management could put the programs at risk. She said putting decisions in the hands of principals could jeopardize the program at some schools, because they are often not experts in that area. She said she hoped the public would be able to participate in discussions having to do with the future of the music program.

Fix concurred.

“In a time of budget crisis, people who know what’s going on – who know what works and what doesn’t – should be a part of the process,” she said.

Moses and Baca also commented on the superintendent’s contract, which was on the agenda as an action item.

Moses said it was far too soon to be considering extending the contract of the superintendent, who came on board Aug. 1, 2012.

Baca said the feedback she’s gotten from teachers is that extending the contract was “not favorable.”

Board members spent about three hours in executive session discussing Boyd’s contract. When they came out, they voted 4-1 to extend Boyd’s contract into 2016. 

School board member says censure vote tied to his search for 'rubber-room'

Robert Nott | The New Mexican
Posted: Wednesday, February 20, 2013 

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The Santa Fe school board voted 4-1 toward the end of Tuesday’s meeting to censure member Glenn Wikle, charging him with violating unnamed policies.

Wikle said the disciplinary action was related to his efforts to find out whether the district has created a so-called “rubber room,” where school employees accused of misconduct await resolution of their cases. The room is rumored to be located in the district’s B.F. Young Professional Building on Camino Sierra Vista, though Superintendent Joel Boyd and other district leaders have denied it exists.

“One of the reasons I am being censured tonight is because of a surprise visit [to B.F. Young] to take a look at that room … because I am passionate about how teachers are treated as employees of this district,” Wikle said Tuesday night.

It is unclear what Wikle found when he looked around there.

Wikle also said he was being censured for forwarding an email from a member of the community to a school principal without copying the superintendent.

Wikle acknowledged during Tuesday’s meeting that he overstepped the bounds of board policy with these actions. In a follow-up email Wednesday morning, he told The New Mexican, “The other board members will tell you that they have other complaints, but it was clearly the surprise visit which led to the vote last night.”

Wikle reiterated in that email that many of his friends, neighbors and community members are teachers who are responsible for the welfare of the community’s children and that, therefore, “they deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.”

During the school board election campaign, candidate David Zimbler, whose wife works for Santa Fe Public Schools, claimed that the rubber room existed. He lost the election for the District 3 seat to Susan Duncan.

And activist/artist Cate Moses, who is Wikle’s domestic partner, insisted at board meetings on Feb. 6 and Feb. 19 that at least one teacher is assigned to the room.

On Feb. 6, NEA-Santa Fe President Bernice Garcia-Baca told the board that she had not heard of such a room, but she acknowledged Tuesday that one teacher on administrative leave is apparently performing administrative tasks on a voluntary basis at the B.F. Young building.

In many cases, Garcia-Baca said, employees on administrative leave simply wait out their time at home while the district investigates their cases.

According to the district’s chief of staff, Latifah Phillips, the district employs about 2,070 people. Of those, 17 have been placed on administrative leave since the start of the school year. Four of those staffers have returned to work. Four resigned. Four were discharged. The other five cases are pending.

The board’s action to censure Wikle followed a 4-1 vote to extend Superintendent Joel Boyd’s contract through June 2016. Wikle voted against that measure, and against the measure to censure himself.

Recently, Wikle surprised the board by announcing that he was not voting for district’s $130 million general obligation bond in the Feb. 5 election, despite showing previous support for the measure. The announcement drew criticism from fellow board members and members of the public.

An article in the Feb. 20 issue of the Santa Fe Reporter noted that Wikle is urging more oversight of the district’s Citizens Review Committee to reduce the chances for conflict of interest among its members. The CRC prioritizes and makes suggestions regarding district facilities to the board.

But Tuesday’s vote to censure Wikle is apparently unrelated to his stand on the bond issue.

Board member Steven Carrillo, who generally supports Wikle’s positions, said Tuesday that the censure relates to state laws governing school board policy and has “nothing to do with constitutional rights or the First Amendment.”

Outgoing board President Frank Montaño said Wednesday that Wikle violated executive-session “confidential matters,” including interfering in a personnel issue.

Montaño said the board followed its rules before publicly censuring Wikle. He said he had a private conversation with Wikle, and then the entire board spoke to him in executive (closed) session.

New Mexico School Boards Association Director Joe Guillen said Wednesday that in many cases, board censures occur because members have released personal information they gathered during executive session. In New Mexico, he said, censure is an expression of disapproval, and there is no further penalty. “It’s just voicing the opinion of the board on a particular matter, but there are no enforcement proceedings resulting from it,” he said.

Earlier this month, the Hollis, N.H., school board censured member Debbie Pucci for comments she made about the district’s special-education services during a public meeting. And last summer, the Burlington, Wis., school board censured member Phillip Ketterhagen, a rancher, after he suggested that the only way to get district staffers’ attention was to smack them with a 2-by-4 as if they were cattle.

Contact Robert Nott at 986-3021 or rnott@sfnewmexican.com.

 

School board member searches for 'rubber room'

Santa Fe says no such room exists in their district

LINK

School board member Glenn Wilke even went so far as to go to a district building unannounced to see if he could find the room. School officials said the existence of such a room is absolutely not true.

The term “rubber room” comes from an incident in New York City when hundreds of teachers accused of misconduct were made to sit all day in rooms while their cases were under investigation. Santa Fe school officials said such a practice would never be the case here.

“Those rumors are absolutely false,” said Latifah Phillips, the superintendent’s chief of staff. “It is a very provocative term that is used to describe a very negative situation.”

School Board President Frank Montano said it is against school policy for board members to conduct their own private investigations. That, along with other code and legal violations, is why the other board members decided to censure Wilke. That is basically a public way of disapproving of his actions.

Censuring school board members is very rare. School officials say it only happens a few times throughout the country every year.

“This is a very serious matter and if people understood the details of what he did, they would fire him,” Montano said.

Montano said he can’t elaborate on what those details are because that would violate confidentiality restrictions.

Wilke has been a board member since 2011. He didn’t return Action 7 News calls or emails. When we went to his office, he refused to speak with us. 

Educators 4 Excellence Creates Ads Urging Teacher Evaluation System

Independent teachers group demands Albany eval plan

• By ERIK KRISS, Bureau Chief, NYPOST
• Last Updated: 3:07 AM, February 19, 2013
• Posted: 1:55 AM, February 19, 2013
• LINK

ALBANY — A group of reform-minded city teachers is taking to the airwaves today to demand the state impose a teacher-evaluation system on the Big Apple soon, The Post has learned.

Educators 4 Excellence plans to flood network and cable TV stations in the city with a 30-second ad calling on Albany to impose an evaluation system as soon as possible in the face of an impasse between Mayor Bloomberg and the United Federation of Teachers.

Gov. Cuomo will introduce legislation this week for a state-imposed system — but the measure could give the city and UFT until Sept. 17 to agree on their own plan before it takes effect.

But that could push implementation of any teacher-evaluation plan into the 2014-15 school year, E4E says.

“It will be incredibly difficult to train teachers and principals on a teacher-evaluation system that isn’t finished until the beginning of the [next] school year,” E4E executive director Jonathan Schleifer told The Post yesterday.

“We need a system put in place soon,” he said, adding that there is “no local deal in sight.”

The ad buy is expected to exceed $250,000 and may run longer than a week, organizers said.

It’s aimed at Cuomo, who faces his own deadline this week to amend his state budget proposal by adding his mandatory teacher-evaluation plan.

State lawmakers are expected to approve the budget for the state fiscal year that begins April 1 by the end of March.

E4E says it wants evaluations to provide feedback to teachers based on multiple observations, “student growth data” and student surveys, among other factors.

With school out for winter break, E4E members also plan to fan out across the city today to collect petition signatures calling for a state evaluation system to take effect as soon as possible.

“A meaningful evaluation system will tell me what’s working — and help me be better for my students,” Queens seventh-grade mathematics teacher Jemal Graham says in the ad.

“With feedback and support, I will be a stronger teacher for my students,” adds Rafael Gondim, a math teacher in Queens.

The city already lost $250 million in state aid by missing a Jan. 17 deadline for an evaluation plan that must be agreed to by the UFT.

It stands to forfeit another $224 million if the sides miss the September deadline.

“We can’t afford any more empty promises and empty programs,” Gondim says, with Bronx special-education teacher Susan Keyock adding, “Our students deserve better.”

The nonprofit E4E has drawn criticism for relying in part on funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates and Carnegie foundations.

A UFT spokesman questioned how “a supposedly grass-roots teacher organization with limited membership and resources can afford an ad campaign — unless of course the campaign is being funded by outside sources,” adding that the union hopes the state facilitates “binding arbitration” in the absence of a negotiated settlement.

Cuomo’s office had no comment and a spokesman for Bloomberg did not return a request for comment.

E4E was hatched about three years ago by several Bronx teachers frustrated over the lack of teacher input on school reforms. It has also advocated for merit pay and stronger tenure requirements, and opened a Los Angeles chapter in late 2011.

The teacher-quality and school-choice advocacy group StudentsFirstNY ponied up over half a million dollars in December for a citywide TV and social-media ad campaign to pressure the city and UFT to reach an agreement before the January deadline.

ekriss@nypost.com