Effective in his Ineffectiveness

The term "teacher accountability" has long been uttered from various quarters, and the teachers usually see red when they hear the term because a disproportionate percentage of those who use the term have some sort of agenda which is hostile to the teachers.  A number of years ago, when I served on the board of a Jewish day school, there were many an anguishing moments involving the question of teacher accountability.

I am all for teacher accountability, but teacher accountability is meaningless unless there is administration accountability, school board accountability, student accountability and parent accountability.  If you are not pushing for accountability for all, then chances are that you have some sort of ulterior anti-teacher motive when you say the words "teacher accountability."

New York State has recently instituted a new system for evaluating teachers.  It is called the Annual Professional Performance Review.

The teachers unions are, of course, against it, and while I normally do not side with the teachers unions on too many matters, I really, really am most skeptical at the entire concept behind the APPR.  Teacher effectiveness is difficult to quantify.

If my teachers were effective in teaching me, they were effective because they were given nearly absolute backing from my parents (the few exceptions were for good cause, including an instance where a certain vice-principal made an illy-veiled anti-Semitic remark to my Mom, and then wondered why I continued to have a piss-poor attitude about school for the remainder of the school year).

The APPR system requires teachers to submit various data and documents to the evaluators, who will then use those documents to rate the teachers.

But Craig Charvat, a teacher at Center Moriches High School on Long Island who has 15 years of experience and a known track record and reputation, refused to submit any documents.  He did it as a protest against the APPR system.  Because he failed to submit the required materials, he was rated as Ineffective.  And he has stepped forward to identify himself to the public.

One problem with the educational system is that it now teaches students what to think instead of how to think.  I do not know what Craig Charvat's politics are.  What I do know is that the best way to teach is by example; actions speak louder than words.  Craig Charvat's actions are effectively teaching his students (whether enrolled in his classes or otherwise) that one need not let "the system" do the thinking for them.  Craig Charvat's actions are teaching his students that sometimes one must take risks by standing up for what one believes.  Craig Charvat's actions are teaching his students that the governmental authorities are not infallible, and need to be questioned from time to time.

Would that all teachers be as "ineffective" as Craig Charvat.

A Lesson for Teachers

Christine Rubino is still a teacher for the New York City Department of Education. The preceding sentence is couched in the adverbial because the Board of Education had attempted to terminate Rubino for a Facebook posting.

The incident transpired substantially as follows (there I go again with the adverbs):

In 2007, the NYC Board of Education, in partnership with Columbia University, opened up the Columbia Secondary School for Math, Science, & Engineering, an institution which, as its name implies, is a "selective, public, college preparatory school with a focus on science, math, and engineering." [It never ceases to amaze me that so many Columbia University alumni are always whining about the evils of elitism.].

On 22 June, 2010, a class of students from this select academy of higher learning, chaperoned by three teachers of supposedly commensurate qualification, went to Long Beach for an outing at the beach. Notwithstanding the signs advising that there were no lifeguards on duty, and notwithstanding more than one drowning incident at the same beach within the previous few weeks, the chaperones managed to allow the children to go into the water. 12-year-old Nicole Suriel did not come out of the water alive.

Of course, the news of the incident went viral amongst the New York City public school community and beyond. One of the individuals to whose attention the incident was swiftly brought was Christine Rubino, a tenured teacher at P.S. 203 in Brooklyn. Rubino's teaching day had been very frustrating. Rubino used her Facebook page to vent her frustrations:

"After today, I am thinking the beach sounds like a wonderful idea for my 5th graders! I HATE THEIR GUTS! They are the devils (sic) spawn!"

Disciplinary proceedings were brought against Rubino, and, following her due process hearing by the Board of Education, Rubino received her notice of termination.

Rubino appealed to the courts. Justice Barbara Jaffe did not take the First Amendment bait; she found that, free expression concerns notwithstanding, while Rubino's conduct was unbecoming of a teacher, the penalty of removal was too extreme for a single incident on Rubino's otherwise clean record. [Disclosure: Before she became a judge, Barbara did me a little favor which was a big help for my career as an attorney.].

The Rubino case is an exemplar of how the judiciary keeps the administrative agencies from going overboard; precisely the checks and balances dynamic intended by the Founding Fathers to operate amongst the branches. But the case also is an exemplar of what how the new technologies blur the line between the personal and the professional, between the public and the private, and between the adult and the child.

It is perfectly understandable that a teacher might experience frustration, especially during the last week of classes before the summer vacation (I do remember what I was like when I was a fifth grader). Rubino, then, is a cautionary tale of what to do -- and to not do -- to keep oneself in the clear when using the social media of the internet.


[To all of you who e-mailed, snail-mailed, called or visited us on our recent bereavement, I give my heartfelt gratitude on behalf of myself and my family. For the most part, we are continuing our normal activities, projects and pursuits -- which is certainly what Dad would want us to do.].

Teaching at the Teach-In

I do have a certain degree of tolerance for liberals (having once been one myself in the idealistic and sheltered days of my youth). If the individuals in the upper echelons of the faculty union I am effectively compelled by law to join (or else pay them an agency fee equal to what my dues would be) were mere liberals, then I really wouldn't have much of a problem.

Unfortunately, my union is run, from the very top downward, by far left radicals who make the likes of Ted Kennedy or Andrew Cuomo seem like right-wing fascists by comparison. For the past few weeks, my union nomenklaturaniks and their apparatchiks have been promoting a "Teach-in" on the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Murphy's Law did a posting on 4 November 2011 which explains just who the OWSers really, really are. Taking him up on his invitation to disseminate it, I put it to paper (4 pages) and had my local Minuteman Press guy run about 50 copies (Thanks, Murph!).

After arriving on campus today and tending to the business of collecting my paycheck from the Bursar's Office, I then went to the "Teach-in" to take a look. In the room reserved by the union were about 180 - 200 people, mostly students (including one of my own former students, who never did impress me as a clear thinker), all attentively taking in the panel discussion without question.

I wondered what good I could do. For one thing, that particular panel's presentation had just begun, and would last more than an hour, and I had too much on my "must do" list to wait around. And because it was a peaceable gathering, any attempts to agitate may well have backfired (I would have given further consideration if there were a few more like me there, but I didn't see any -- quite the opposite).

Seeing the empty expression on so many of the attendees' faces, I began to wonder whether I could be more effective if I attempted to vaccinate those who had not yet entered the room, instead of trying to cure those already in the room who were eating up the party line without question. A few seconds later, I realized that the alpha panelist on the dais was none other than Frances Fox Piven herself. That sealed the deal; if I am in the same room with Frances Fox Piven then there definitely is something wrong!

I immediately exited the room and then started placing my own printed literature on the tables in the cafeteria across the hallway, right next to the flyers already on the tables which promoted the Teach-in! I also tacked a few to some bulletin boards around the campus.

But I had the most fun when I taught my classes this afternoon. The lecture was on real property, so when I got to the part of my lecture notes about the right of property owners to exclude others from their property, the Zuccotti Park situation with the OWS trespassers fit in real nicely.

And one of my students, who works in Manhattan's financial district, told me and the class that one of the OWS protesters physically assaulted him, and told my student that the attack was because my student was wearing a necktie. A few other students chimed in with their own anti-OWS comments and observations.

I also gave my students something to think about: If they are so indignant that people who work in the financial industry have such high salaries, why do they not complain about the entertainers and professional athletes, many of whom are paid even more? And I also mentioned that the labor unions who have backed the OWSers would not do their memberships any favor if the shutdown of the financial markets they now seek were to tank the values of the members' pension funds.

I also suggested that Barack Hussein Obama might benefit if the OWSers were to get really violent, because then he could try to use it as a pretext to declare martial law and cancel the 2012 election. A bit far-fetched? Perhaps! But at least some of my students are going to think about it, and will at least question the much vaunted OWS movement.

My union urged me to participate in their Teach-in, so I did! But they are surely not very happy about what I taught.

Scoring at the Mets Game

Apparently, it is not unusual for elementary school students to have a crush on their teachers. I say "apparently" because it is not a matter of firsthand knowledge for me. To me, teachers -- even the ones I personally liked -- were agents of The Enemy. As much as I enjoyed many aspects of my grade school and high school experience, I was always, from day one, disdainful of the controlling authority they represented. It was not until college that I had anything remotely resembling an attraction for any of my professors (and the most that ever came of that was, on one occasion, when she gave me a ride in her car to the train station on a foul weather day).

[As surely you gather, I knew quite well the furniture layouts inside the principals' offices of the schools I attended.].

It was only at the verge of my adulthood that I began to realize that the teachers who knocked me around the most for my less-than-optimal attitudes were the ones who believed, deep in their hearts, that I would one day wise up and become a respectable and contributing member of society. It was "tough love" in an era before that term was widely used. Their faith in me was not misplaced, I am grateful to report. And I am willing to bet that, as long as they were able, they followed my career from afar, along with other problem children whom they helped to set straight, just as I take due note of my own former students who achieve in their chosen fields.

No, I did not cuddle up with adoration to my teachers. But some kids do. And such kids are vulnerable, big time, if the teacher to whom the cuddle up has nefarious intentions.

Randy Mudge is one such teacher. Mudge, of the Hunter-Tannersville Central School District in New York was suspended by the Commissioner of Education upon the finding that, on at least two occasions (in 1989 and 1992), he gave favored treatment to certain female students under his tutelage, and then, after they graduated and attained the legal age of 18 years, took them to Mets games and, after the respective games, had nominally consensual sex with the respective young ladies in the back of his vehicle in the Shea Stadium parking lot.

The Education Commissioner found that Mudge had groomed the young ladies for the sex while they were still his students and underage, and, finding that he lacked the requisite good moral character, suspended his teaching certificate for a year.

Mudge appealed, and the Court backed the Commissioner.


My questions:

1. Does the Education Department really expect that Mudge will somehow acquire the good moral character necessary to be a school teacher during the course of his one-year suspension?

2. What took so long for the case to be reported and acted upon?

3. What parent of a teenage girl would allow their daughter to go out to a baseball game, with a male teacher, unaccompanied? [Note: There were several outings to Mets games before graduation, before the ones when Mudge actually shtupped his by then former students.].

On this last one, I have a theory, albeit not a scientifically-tested one: People who are raised to never question authority have too much trust for any authority. Such blind trust is passed down from generation to generation, resulting in a society that is easily led astray by the government, etc.

But, having had an innate disdain for authority, I never had that problem!

The mom of a student who attended my son's day school (but who was not in my son's class) reported to my wife that her daughter had seen my son standing out in the hallway, obviously for disciplinary purposes. At the parent-teacher conference night about a week later, my son's rabbi/teacher told me and my wife that our son had gotten a bit out of bounds, and it was necessary to expel him from the classroom.

The colloquy went something like this:

Rabbi: "Your son has, of late, gotten a bit disruptive in class, so I had to make him stand outside in the hall a few times in the past two weeks."

Wife: "What did he do?"

Rabbi: "He wouldn't pay attention and was telling jokes to the other boys when I was trying to teach."

Wife: "So did you send him to the Principal's Office?"

Rabbi: "No! I just sent him out to stand in the hall. Sending him to the Principal's office would only brand him. I just wanted to get him out of the classroom so I could teach. Unless they are really, really disruptive or dangerous, I keep the Principal out of it"

Me (to Wife): "I always knew that our son was an outstanding student!!"


My wife began to wince, but the Rabbi laughed. And I knew that he would appreciate the humor. After all, we had known him when he was still in high school, and knew that he, in a similar vein, had also been "outstanding" in the hall on more than one occasion. The Rabbi, too, had a healthy portion of skepticism for authority and the government.

Somehow, I think that this Rabbi's daughters are not going to be such easy scores at any baseball game. As it is, they do not blindly accept whatever the government feeds them.

A Wise Decision?

I'm back!

No more pencils, no more books, no more students' dirty looks!!

The grades have just been submitted, and, now that I am no longer teaching until the Fall semester, all of the things that have gone neglected to one extent or another can now be given my attention. Like my sleep! I'm all burnt out from the Summer Session semester, so I'll need a day or two to recover.

Don't get me wrong! I did enjoy teaching the courses I taught. But, like all summer session courses at all universities, this was very intense for student and professor alike.

My brief social commentary for this posting deals with one Clive Campbell -- or rather, The Other Clive Campbell.

There are two reasonably respectable Clive Campbells in the world, namely, the New Zealander soccer player, and the Bronx DJ known as "Kool Herc" who is credited with establishing Hip Hop music in America. [Okay, so I'm not a big fan of Hip Hop music (nor of the Bronx, for that matter), but Kool Herc did work hard and pay his dues and succeed after he came to America from his native Jamaica, so he is in that sense a positive living example of America's greatness.].

Then there is this Other Clive Campbell, who is sullying the names of the DJ and the footballer, is a self-described Brooklyn community activist (sound like Barack Hussein Obama's resume) who has a group called "Da Black Defense League." I shall not link this posting to this man or his group; suffice it to say that the man and his website are everything one would expect and more.

Specifically, Campbell filed a pro se lawsuit against Barclay's Bank and others. The lawsuit smacks of extortion. Justice Arthur Schack, of the Kings County Supreme Court, has dismissed Campbell's lawsuit. It is a long read, but Justice Schack described the Complaint as a "rambling, disjointed, almost 30 page essay dealing with, inter alia: the history of the trans-Atlantic African slave trade; the injustices suffered by African slaves and their descendants; the alleged connection of BARCLAYS to the slave trade; and, the alleged violation by all defendants of international, federal and state laws, including the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United States Declaration of Independence, and the United States and New York State Constitutions."

You can read the case of Campbell v. Barclay's Bank if you really, really want to. I shall not now detail all of the inconsistencies and nonsequiturs and irrationalities in the complaint. Bottom line: Justice Schack dismissed the complaint for failure to state a cause of action upon which relief can be granted.

The social commentary imponderable: How would that Wise Latina, Judge Sonia "So-So" Sotomayor, have ruled on the case had it been before her bench?

Making Simplification More Complex

I really shouldn't be posting now, because I have lots and lots of work to be completed in less than 24 hours. Most (but not all) of it is related to the courses I now am teaching. This is the Summer Session, which squeezes what normally be about 4 or 5 months of classes into a period of less than 4 weeks. So now, I am grading the assignments that were submitted last week (and I also need to get working on the Midterm Exams so that they can go to the copy shop and get back in time to be administered next week).

Summer Session, then, is intense and stressful for the students. And for the Instructor (that's me!), the intense stress is multiplied by the number of students enrolled.

I need to take a break from it all, so I'll do this posting.

The assignments I am now grading are topic selections for the Term Paper -- a "pre-Term Paper" if you will -- that run about 2 or 3 pages. One of the students has submitted a "pre-Term Paper" which concludes with the following paragraph:


"The proposed Term Paper would address a call for action, so that new administrative agencies can be appropriated to the right health care programs. These health care programs would require more administrative agencies to help acquire the flow of rules and regulations that will ensure no illegal activities will take place. More so, the need of administrative agencies is there to provide a fundamental way for everyone to get the care they need in a capitalistic society."


Okay, I do not deny that am highly opinionated, nor am I reticent to express my unpopular opinions to my classes. But I do take pains to not impose my personal opinions upon my students.

How, then, can I grade this assignment without injecting my personal and political views? The problem with health care in America is that it is so complex, and that any health care provider must interact with not only the insurance companies, but with many governmental agencies. This complexity cannot help but add to the price of health care.

I'm not so sure I understand how the creation of new governmental agencies will simplify health care, let alone reduce its cost.

So what should I write as my critique to this student's assignment?

'Tis a puzzlement!

I think I shall stop here, go to bed, and after I wake up in the morning, take another look at this student's submission.

Good night!