MY AMAZING ABSOLUTELY TRUE AND VERIFIED STORY demonstrates the arrogance and disrespect for the law that is a direct result of LACK OF ACCOUNTABILITY.
THE D.O.E. IS NOT part of AMERICA, BUT A SUB-CULTURE THAT EXISTS WITHIN A QUASI-GOVERNMENTAL SYSTEM THAT THE PRESS AND THE PUBLIC THINKS IS LEGAL!
I begin with some back story on my credentials so you know what kind of teacher I was, so that when you get to the actual events, you can judge for yourself, the lengths that these corrupt people went to in order destroy my reputation and career, SIMPLY BECAUSE NO ONE IS WATCHING, AND THEY ARE GRANTED IMMUNITY.
I was not ‘dead wood’ who needed to be sent packing. I was, however, soon to get a ‘longevity raise” of $12,000. I had also made enemies of very powerful women in District 2. THAT story will not appear here, but whistle-blowing, and personal agendas are part of it.
Who is SUSAN LEE SCHWARTZ?
I began to teach in 1963, with a BA and MS from Brooklyn College. I had sixty additional credits, in fine arts, theater and literacy education. I was a talented, experienced educator with a stellar reputation on the East Side of Manhattan for 8 years at the end of my career, in a new magnet school, East Side Middle School, that I had helped to put on the map. The reading scores and writing skills of my seventh grade students whom I taught Communication Arts (English & literature, integrated with humanities were at the TOP of the city from the YEAR I began, as the only teacher of English.
I was adored by most of my students and their parents, and I have hundreds of letters to prove this. PARENTS AND FORMER STUDENTS STILL WRITE TO TELL ME HOW I CHANGED THEIR LIVES. I can prove everything I say here.
My adolescent students thrived and were accepted to the top high schools. My successful teacher-practice was observed and published, by the University of Pittsburgh's LRDC (Learning and Research Development Center), the educators who "know what learning looks like." THE LRDC was chosen to go into the classrooms of the hundreds of schools in the 12 districts- across the nation- that were chosen to participate in Harvard's research on teacher-practice, which became known as The New Standards. YES! THAT third level research!
It was after seeing my teacher-practice, THAT VICKI BILL* of the LRDC chose District 2 as the 12th participating district in the NEW STANDARDS!
DISTRICT 2 had been courting the Standards and the mega MILLIONS IT WOULD BRING. Ms. Bill CHOSE ME, and told the head honchos at the district that my room was to be the cohort at that school…bypassing Denise Levine, then Director of Curriculum. THIS was to have an impact on later events. There are seldom rewards for excellence in NYC when powerful people cannot take credit.
* I have never given any names to a soul, until this letter. I want you to be able to verify all my statements.
In 1998, based on the assessment of my teacher-practice by the LRDC, I was awarded the NYSEC (New York State English Council)) "Educator of Excellence of Award," a much coveted and PRESTIGIOUS award. The comments and compliments of administrators colleagues, parents, & students were submitted to NYSEC. (THIS INCLUDED ONE FROM Denise Levine, THE ONE who would, months later, would begin to document incompetence (AFTER OTHER FALSE CHARGES FAILED). My success did not matter to the people who went after me. They knew about me. They rose to national prominence on the standards project, which I had helped attract to our district. They also knew they had nothing to stop them.
It is interesting to note the words of DR.Levine, who eventually documented me as "incompetent," after my second return from the ‘rubber room’. Regarding my successful program, she had at one time stated, when she was the District Coordinator for the Standards initiative "I showed your work at the standards workshops and they went crazy over it!"
It is important that you realize that she knew the quality of my work because she was the point man for the Standards project in our district, as Director of Curriculum, and head of staff development. In the mid-nineties, as a district’s staff developer, she came to East Side Middle School (ESMS), and loved to visit my classroom. During her time with the Standards initiative, she brought prestigious visitors (educators, publishers and administrators) to see my innovative work. Thus, when manufactured charges of “corporal punishment” failed to deter me, (the story of THAT verdict -- later in this letter- will blow you away) she had to devise a failing program in order to prove I was an incompetent teacher. The films and volumes of materials – (my writing and student work,) was chosen by the LRDC, along with only five other educators of the thousands in the Standards research, to be viewed in a special room, at their seminars. Such documentation of my competence did not deter her.
‘That was then,” she spat in my face after one unsatisfactory observation, only a year after the award for my work.
The arrogance of these administrators is legend. Evidence that would be unacceptable in any legal venue is manufactured after the charges are put out, because every shred of documentation of excellence has been removed, expunged, or eliminated! The only purpose for doing so, when the evidence of not only competence, but of excellence is so overwhelmingly documented, is to harass a teacher into retirement.
It is the modus operandi.
It is illegal. It is shameful.
It is destructive. IT DESTOYS LIVES OF GOOD PEOPLE WHO DESERVE BETTER!
THIS IS THE WAY IT IS DONE! EVERYWHERE (Have you read Dania Hall’s story. SHE worked in North Bellmore!)
I had been pulled out of my room in March of 1999, six months after my award. With no information from the union or charges FROM THE DOE, I SAT IN THAT ROOM AND CRIED until June, and returned there in September. I HAD, IN ALL THAT TIME, A SINGLE MEETING WITH A UNION HACK, WHO CAME LATE, AND REFUSED TO LET ME EXAMINE THE LETTER FROM A PARENT THAT WOULD BE USED TO CONDEMN ME. I was not informed of any charges or investigation. NOTHING!
Before a verdict of corporal punishment was made *, there was one meeting with the District 2 Superintendent, Elaine Fink.
* please NOTICE I did not say, before ‘charges’ were put out. I WAS NEVER CHARGED. There was NO hearing.
THAT September 1999 meeting, was the first time I had a chance to say, “what’s going on?” (Where was the union , you ask? THAT is the crucial question, since for a teacher, they are THE LAW!)
The Superintendent of District 2, Elaine Fink, acted as prosecutor, judge and jury, like many superintendents in NYC and across the state and country, she had been assassinating teachers for a long time with impunity, and was gloating. The United States Constitution held no danger for her, as my story will reveal.
IN A LAST DITCH EFFORT TO GET ME TO RETIRE BEFORE TURNING UP THE HEAT with a criminal verdict, AND in front of the union rep, Michelle Daniels, and the Director of Secondary Education, Mike La Forgia, Ms. Fink (UNAFRAID OF ANY CIVIL SUIT FOR AGE DISCRIMINATION) said to me :
“You are 58, why don't you retire, Susan?"
We were on first name basis. Can you believe it?
THE UNION WAS THERE? CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?
FINK KNEW ME. 8 years earlier had asked me if I wanted to teach in her school, PS 6,when she was a mere principal. I had declined her offer and went to open East Side Middle School . THE ENTIRE DISTRICT KNEW ME.
In an act that stands alone in its arrogance and contempt for the law, THE SUPERINTENDENT OF THE DISTRICT, Elaine Fink, in collaboration with Marlene Malamay at the DOE's Special Office of Investigation, took it upon herself, that October, to publish a letter that I had been found guilty of Corporal Punishment. I had no hearing and no opportunity to meet my accuser, or to defend myself when I was summoned to a dark, windowless meeting room in the District 2 Office. ON OCTOBER 6TH 1999, where this letter was read - despite the fact that the investigatory procedure that is carefully spelled out in the teacher contract had NOT taken place.
They accused me and sabotaged my career based on a calculated interview of six 12 year-old children, where only two girl friends of the accuser, out of thirty children present at the time of the alleged event, backed her tale. The students were listed as “students A,B,C,D. and student E." Can you imagine such a an alphabet soup of witnesses to a crime in a court of this land -- which I thought was America.
They found me guilty of “corporal punishment” based on an alleged verbal assault,* which even if it had been true, did not rise to corporal punishment under the education law, as the private attorney I hired, Arthur Block, pointed out!
Below, for the first time, (you won’t find this on NAPTA or any site)is what the girl alleged that I said, in front of a class of over 30 kids, that made her so ‘fearful. I did not get this information from the union, or from the Superintendent, who only told me the result of the alphabet soup, but from the letters that my students e-mailed me, which I still have:
"Maura S is saying you called her a 'fucking, dyslexic, slutty whore'"
Do you imagine that I am crazy? You might also want to know, that Maura was part of a group of kids who were involved with drugs, but SHE WAS NEVER IMPLICATED, ONLY DAYS BEFORE WHEN THEY WERE SUSPENDED. Her mother, THE WEALTHY WIFE OF AN EAST SIDE RESTAURANTEUR, was the PTA president who sat at Denise Levine’s side in the office.
Maura was terrified all right. She knew that all the students wrote me a weekly letter. THAT WAS MY WRITING TOOL! She knew I was aware of everything that went on in that TINY school, including her relationship with the 14 year old drug-dealer, and she needed to discredit me.
THERE IS ALWAYS A STUDENT WHO HAS A REASON TO RESENT OR FEAR A TEACHER. THIS is what the administrations wait for. THEY USE KIDS TO GET TEACHERS! There were four other attempts to ‘get me’ with parents in preceding years, but my reputation held. One parent came to me and asked why the principal, then Sandy Ferguson, had contacted him in Georgia, over a petty incident, especially since his son really liked me.
My case is exactly like hundreds of others. The only thing that is different is that I really am a “stellar” teacher (that was Karen Horwitz’s appellation for me on NAPTA, where I was anonymous) with an undeniable body of work on my teacher practice. I have the student letters of literal adoration, and parents letters (they wrote endless appeals to Fink and the DOE to no avail) . I would hear my name on the cross-town bus, when people recommended teachers and schools to each other. I ate at Gracie Mansion.
THEY GOT ME, BECAUSE THEY COULD.
Read on! Here is a quick review as I pickup my story:
* I had been in a rubber room since March 1999, with no information, I was thrust into a windowless storeroom - the ‘rubber room’ and incarcerated there for six months with no information as to the reason. I would return there twice more.
* I had never seen the evidence, or any charges, NOR HAD THERE BEEN A HEARING.
* I met once with a union hack, in June, who was late for this 10 minute meeting, where I was not even allowed to see what the child was saying in the letter he held. I was not told of any charges.
NOW LOOK AT THE BEHAVIOR OF THE DAY I WAS FOUND GUILTY BY THIS SINGLE ADMINISTRATOR!
Fink, entered the fateful meeting on the day that the ‘’guilty verdict” was read, and kissed Ivan Tiger hello, and they chatted about their summer.
The illegal and shameful ‘guilty verdict’ was read, not by FINK, but by the Director of Secondary Education, Michael La Forgia, with eyes lowered. He knew me, too, having witnessed my talent and expertise many times. Assistant Superintendent George Miller, was there, and he, too, could not meet my eyes. HE knew what a ‘stellar’ educator I had been. In later months he would admit that the scandal that would remove Marlene Malamay, push Tiger to a UNION job in Albany, and see Fink move on to San Diego, would be too late to help me, although no one faced criminal charges!
I HIRED A PRIVATE ATTORNEY, Arthur Block.
I have his legal letters including, MY LAWSUIT, AND LETTERS TO the attorneys at the Board of Ed and District 2, regarding these charges, based on verbal abuse. Block stated that “Even if Mrs. Schwartz had made the alleged statement” according to education law, it is not CORPORAL PUNISHMENT. Mr. Block, told them to discipline me, or send me back.
THEY ALLOWED ME TO RETURN! I never returned to that wonderful learning environment, that I had created, with the 1000 books AND FABULOUS ART MATERIALS that I had purchased with my own money, or to the outstanding curriculum that I alone had instituted at my middle school, and which included not only literature, media studies, reading and writing, but a full NYS seventh grade art curriculum. They wiped me out! Total invalidation! Teachers like me are what this country needs. If schools fail, it is because we are treated worse than dogs.
They ignored my attorney's command to expunge the false, guilty charges, or face a 40 million dollar lawsuit. THAT letter stating my guilt had been published to my school, before I arrived, and despite dire warnings in the lawsuit papers that no supervisor, or employee should use the letter or any reference to the heinous allegations, Levine used the allegations in that egregious letter of "guilt" to humiliate me in front of parents, students, office staff and colleagues - many of whom I had mentored. On my first day back, THINKING I HAD WON, the educated and celebrated DR. Denise Levine , known bully, whose sole job before she was to move on to become Superintendent of a Brooklyn District, was to get rid of me, threatened to tell everyone that I had been ‘found guilty of corporal punishment.
I was now a “pull-out” teacher, she informed me, as she handed, me a list of kids and a time schedule. This woman whom I had known for years, gave me her back, and took me to a filthy storeroom, which was to be my new "classroom.” I was given no materials and one day to get it ready. This made it easy for this ex-director of curriculum, now principal to "document my incompetence.” But it backfired, because I did a good job, and students annoyed her with requests to be assigned to my program.
Unless YOU, dear legislature make these people accountable to the law of the land THIS is how they spit upon the law.
I CAN NEVER FORGET HOW Levine, that morning, entered the dirty storeroom on the fourth floor, which I was endeavoring to turn into a learning environment. I had covered the glass window on the door, because so many of my former students were wandering from their fifth floor classes, to wave hello. She tore the construction paper from the glass. I tried to explain, but she screamed in my face. “ Shut-up. You just shut-up, or I will be forced to tell everyone you were found guilty of corporal punishment!” There was the direct evidence that my attorney, and the lawsuit did nothing to deter the administration from slandering me.
This was the beginning of six months of humiliation designed to send me packing. I had been taping my log when she entered, and so, I HAVE SOME OF THAT ON TAPE. ONE DAY, When I went looking for some of the 1000 books she had redistributed to classroom libraries, she entered the room where I was looking through a bookcase, and humiliated me in front of a new young teacher, Ms Bishop and the kids, screaming and ordering me into the hall as if I was a delinquent child.
On the basis of “insubordination” I was sent back to the rubber room, A SECOND TIME. However, Rudy Crew ordered the rooms emptied and since there was, as before no real evidence, back I went.
Now, re-assigned by her, as a “push-in,” I had no classroom of my own, and was assigned to the all-purpose room, another filthy room on the fourth floor, which contained a table, a few computers, and stacks of cartons and litter. Occasionally, a teacher might take a break here, working on some lesson plans.
I was given a student desk and chair in a corner by an unlocked closet. Before and after photos show that I removed the litter, put out a variety of periodicals and books on the now clean windowsill, and used the little unused bulletin board by the closet, to put up a photo of my family. I added some attractive literacy posters to the closet door, and flowers to my “desk.”
For my efforts she placed a letter in my file claiming, again, insubordination. She claimed that I was infringing on the rights of the other teachers who used that room. The truth was, that my colleagues could not face me, and even when I made a small luncheon, inviting them to this now cheerful room, not one of them came. I ate alone.
The ‘push-in’ program she created made me an unwelcome intrusion into the rooms of the very colleagues whom I had mentored when they first came to our school as novice teachers. With no instructions, it was easy for her to find fault with what I did.
One egregious moment stands out, because she entered with the Supervisor of Principals, Faye Pallen, a director at the district level. I was actually addressing the class, with an additional piece of information about the ongoing discussion on Greek history. Not only did this occasion an outburst of monumental proportions, she placed a letter in my file, charging insubordination, claiming that I had no right to speak to the class, and that my job was to assist students. MY sixty-thousand dollar salary, and several college degrees, my training in the standards notwithstanding, I was expected to do the work of a para. Ms. Pallen, months later, would meet me in the halls of the district office and apologize for witnessing that abuse. “I know your work,” she said sadly.
The videos of my former CA classroom, made for the LRDC capture a vibrant classroom and a dedicated talented teacher. Yet, her assessment of me in this degrading assignment was the ‘documentation’ that administration would try to use to destroy me, having failed to harass me into a rubber room, with the corporal punishment charges.
I became a pariah, and my reputation on Manhattan's East Side, and elsewhere, as a premier educator was shattered. I lost a book deal, too.
Robbing me of my career was not enough; to seal my fate was next in the process. To remove me once again, THE THIRD TIME a charge was put out in May, which alleged that I had “threatened to kill the principal.” Putting out such charges are just a ruse, to push a teacher into a rubber room, but this one pushed me to the edge of nervous collapse. My blood pressure, when I stopped at a doctor’s office on the way home with a banging headache, had skyrocketed.
Thus, in the course of a little more than a year, I had fallen from a celebrated educator to an abuser of children and a potential killer. And this was not enough, either. With my return to the rubber room on that insane, new charge of threatening the principal, charges of incompetence were "put-out" for the very years that I had been observed and filmed by the LRDC.
Even after I was allowed a medical leave, thanks, finally, to the intervention of Randi Weingarten, the superintendent (before she left NYC for a job in California where her abusive methods to staff were also condemned) mailed the charges, week after week, in packages containing all the bogus charges and "documentation” in the form of those "observations" and scores of file letters, made during the bogus ‘pull-out’ and ‘push-in’ assignments.
When I began returning these POISON PACKAGES unopened, the superintendent sent to my door, a young law clerk from the DOE, holding red-balloons to trick me into opening my door, so he could give them to me.
How could this happen?
The Manhattan Borough Rep, Ivan Tiger, was totally disinterested in helping me, and frequently yelled at me on the phone, and often hung up when I managed to reach him.
Through all the grievances, NYSUT, the state umbrella union was not much better; it simply encouraged me to settle. I eventually went to state arbitration, and knowing what would happen if I returned, I resigned, taking what little sanity and self-esteem remained, and returning to a wonderful family, with a new grandson, to recover.
Two years after the false allegations started me on this ignominious end to my career, I went to state arbitration which I was forced to accept (to extricate myself from their clutches with a pension and benefits in tact, or be returned to more of the same, and to the kangaroo courts, those hearings, that would deal the final blow). I agreed to retire, and to drop the lawsuit claim, and never to sue them! I gave up my rights to justice as an American citizen… no Guantanamo detainee.
BUT the state decreed that ALL THE NEGATIVE OBSERVATIONS, AND CHARGES,INCLUDING THOSE FOR INCOMPETENCE AND INSUBORDINATION SHOULD BE EXPUNGED. (Nothing was included in the agreement to replace my real history of excellence or awards)
I WILL BET, THAT THIS WAS NEVER DONE, because on my last day, before I retired, I begged the union rep at the school where I spent my last six months, PS 128, to have Levine send me those documents. I had begged him for months to get them. LEVINE copied them on 11X14 paper, and those dark, dismal copies were supposed to fulfill the DOE’s obligation.
During my experience in the rubber room,
• I learned: that Habeas Corpus does not exist for teachers; that lies and harassment are the rule and that perjury is justified if it is done by administration.
• I learned that criminals often run the schools and that with no accountability, their crimes have gone beyond petty and egregious to criminal.
• I learned that the DOE is not interested in educating children, but only with maintaining its own power.
• I learned that the children of NYC mean nothing to them, and teachers have absolutely no human or civil rights, AND THAT THE AMERICA WE KNOW DOES NOT EXIST IN THE RUBBER ROOMS.
ADMINISTRATORS who abuse power and ignore the law for decades, come to believe that they are above the law, and finally that they ARE the law. The time has come to show administrators that the schools are failing, even as governments do when the rule of law disappears and the business of the people, in this case --the nation's children-- become second to their need to remain in power as tyrants with absolute power to rule the domain... and destroy the lives of teachers, even as they destroy the hope of a great education for children.
A HIDDEN SCANDAL of ENORMOUS PROPORTIONS:
"NO CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS"
by Susan Lee Schwartz
NYSEC educator of Excellence 1998
WHY ARE THE FINEST TEACHERS MISSING FROM OUR SCHOOLS? WHY HAS SUCH AN IMPORTANT SEGMENT OF OUR POPULATION BEEN STRIPPED OF THEIR RIGHT TO THE RULE OF LAW, RESULTING IN OUR: CRUMBLING EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM BEREFT OF TALENT?
Teachers are the target, as education is now a business, and the reward is not the education of the kids, but the profits gained by cleansing the system of tenured teachers, and preventing new teachers from gaining tenure. The bottom line in not enriching education, but the enrichment of the administration at the top.
THROWN INTO DETENTION CENTERS, WITH NO RIGHTS TO DEFEND THEMSELVES OR TO HEAR THE CHARGES AGAINST THEM, OUR DEDICATED TEACHERS HAVE LOST ALL CONNECTION TO THE CONSTITUTION, AND ARE BEING HOUNDED OUT OF THEY SYSTEM BY THE THOUSANDS in a manner that should embarrass every American citizen.
HOW IT IS DONE:
ACROSS THE COUNTRY, A BUREAUCRATIC SYSTEM has put into IN PLACE a procedure that CIRCUMVENTS THE union contract, education regulations and basic civil rights laws TO REMOVE ANY TEACHER. This “process” has so infiltrated OUR SCHOOL SYSTEM, THAT NOW OUR TEACHERS’ CAREERS, REPUTATIONS, HEALTH CARE AND PENSIONS ARE BEING ROUTINELY DESTROYED, and there is ABSOLUTELY NO RECOURSE TO THE LAW available to those teachers, because the union represents them, and they fail miserably to do this! In the process, wonderful teachers are humiliated in ways that are reminiscent of slavery.
TEACHERS WHO SPEAK OUT ABOUT UNSOUND EDUCATIONAL PRACTICE, the ‘whistle-blowers’, are the first to be singled out. Senior teachers, with strong voices are next to be targeted, particularly as their meager salary reaches longevity steps. They are followed by any teacher that is disliked by some petty, failed human being, often with poor credentials, but given power to ‘supervise’ teachers. “Staff-developers” whose job is to train and facilitate learning, often become tyrants who evaluate and demean teachers whose methods they fail to recognize, because they lack the rubric that recognizes the indicators for evaluation.
The personal agendas of administrators replace curricula; thus talented teachers find themselves on a one way journey to the ‘rubber room.” Those ‘business managers’ at the top -- principals and superintendents -- who call themselves “educators,” in an astonishing number of systems have as their HIGHEST PRIORITY TO MAINTAIN THEIR POSITON IN THE CASH-COW THAT BECOMES THEIR PERSONAL BAMK ACCOUNT. They are given tacit permission by a system that fails to protect teachers, and they stoop to tactics that are so egregious that people find it hard to believe. THAT IS THE PROBLEM! Ordinary people who believe in the law of the land are incredulous and say, “How can this be true?”
THE WAY IT WORKS:
IT IS SO SIMPLE! To bypass the grievance procedure MANDATED in a contract, the principal tells a parent to complain directly to the CHANCELLOR or superintendent, with one of several SERIOUS ALLEGATIONS.
• CORPORAL PUNISHMENT IS A FAVORITE ,and teacher comments can be interpreted as threatening, and used to charge a teacher with corporal punishment. (Education law is clear that this in illegal.)
• Sexual abuse “ there has been a three –fold increase in these allegation interpreted by the ASSOCIATED PRESS release to mean that there is an increase of thirty percent in predation by teacher- now abusive to students, when in truth, this charge is just a ploy to remove a teacher, in most of the cases.
• Theft or misuse of funds: which is ironic, since it is administration that that often robs the school blind.
• Drug Abuse: any allegation can doom a teacher.
Once in a detention center, awaiting a hearing often three years down the road, a teacher is virtually a prisoner, and cannot go to the bathroom without permission. Imagine dedicating your life, educating yourself for years, spending money to make teaching possible in places where books and materials are scarce or non-existent, and ending up in this virtual prison, facing a kangaroo court years later, unable to defend yourself. Arbitration by people whose only objective is to get you to retire, will put the final nail in your career.
The result is that this system allows the brightest, most experienced and educated teachers to be locked up and subjected to humiliation that no minority segment of our population has experienced in decades. Educated professionals, dedicated to enriching the lives of our future citizens have become the targets of petty, corrupt administrations. The numbers are staggering!
IT IS THE SHEER NUMBER OF SYSTEMS THAT EMPLOY THIS TACTIC THAT MAKES IT SO HARD FOR PEOPLE TO GRASP.
EXASERBATING THIS, IS THE MEDIA, WHICH HAS FEW EDUCATION EXPERTS, AND PUTS OUT THE MATERIALS AND LIES HANDED TO THEM BY THE VERY CULPRITS DOING THE NASTY DEEDS. TABLOID HEADLINES POINT FINGERS AT THOSE BAD TEACHERS.
DOES NO ONE STOP AND PONDER WHERE HAVE ALL THE GREAT ONES GONE?
IS IT ANY WONDER THAT THE SCHOOLS ARE FACING A CRISIS OF ENORMOUS PROPORTIONS, AS THE BEST AND THE BRIGHTEST ARE subjected to heinous and criminal procedures, and finally TERMINATED?
Worse, tens of thousands of senior teachers, the mentors, are GONE, and now these petty tyrants who call themselves "administrators" are going after younger, inexperienced teachers. When these new teachers reach a tenure year, they are routinely terminated in the most illegal and heinous manner.
The scandal is not limited to our future citizens, who are leaving schools with little knowledge or basic critical thinking skills, unprepared to compete in our global marketplace as a result. But it continues to incapacitate a huge segment of our society – OUR EDUCATED PROFESSIONALS, who are unable to defend themselves. Our education system has degenerated into one where due process of law is denied them, and the basic human right to work and make a living is being snuffed out for this segment of our population. They cannot work again as a teacher once this process has destroyed their reputation.
It destroys their lives, too. The toll it takes on good people who have dedicated their lives to caring for children would make you weep, if you witnessed the destruction and humiliation . Working tirelessly to overcome the inherent difficulties of teaching in this centuries’ neglected educational institutions, teaching increasingly difficult populations of children, and earning salaries below what it takes to live a decent life, teachers are blind-sided by the manner in which their career is terminated.
No American should be treated like this. But, to subject educated professionals who have done nothing more than excel in their work and dedicate their lives to our children - this is BEYOND CRIMINAL. It is IMMORAL!
Terrorist detainees have greater access to the law of the land than teachers.
This must stop. A FEDERAL INVESTIGATION MUST BEGIN NOW, before our future citizens cannot compete in a global marketplace that demands KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS. Twelve years of education must be put back into the hands of the TEACHERS who have the talent and experience to facilitate learning!
DO YOU FIND THIS HARD TO BELIEVE?
If you think this is an exaggeration, here are the sites you can go to, to read the stories of an astonishing numbers of wonderful teachers who lost everything. It will make you cry... for the teachers, for this country, and for the children.
WEB WARRIORS FOR TEACHER ADVOCACY
PARENT ADVOCATES AND E-ACCOUNTABILITY FOUNDATION
Betsy Combier, Editor & Founder
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE PREVENTION OF TEACHER ABUSE (NAPTA)
Karen Horwitz - Editor
NYC RUBBER ROOM REPORT
Dr. Lenny Brown, Polo Colon and Betsy Combier, Editors
NYC RUBBER ROOM NEWS: HEROES AND HEROINES
Betsy Combier, Editor
QUI-TAM MEANS; DON’T BE AFRAID TO BLOW THE WHISTLE!
Polo Colon Editor
TEACHER ADVOCACY LONG ISLAND
Dania Hall, Editor
AMERICA'S WORST EMPLOYERS
TEACHER ADVOCACY GROUP (TAG)
Jodeam
GET UP AND STAND UP FOR YOUR RIGHTS
Henry Funes, Editor
SPEAKING AS A TEACHER
Susan Lee Schwartz, Editor
