I think my wife is going to lose her job

[mr. beaumont]

Originally Posted by catndahats

I hope your wife can leave on a positive note. A vindictive admin could mess up her chances of getting a better position elsewhere.

This is key, if there's a chance of vindication. Leave cleanly and on your own terms. Don't wait to be let go.

For example, if this school is say, part of an archdiocese network of schools, a vindictive admin could basically get you "blacklisted" from teaching at other schools in the network.

In the public school district I work for, there is a well known "do not hire" list. This is supposed to be reserved for teachers who are unfit to be teaching for serious reasons, but it's also the kind of thing that could be misused by petty admins of questionable morals.

[GoPappy]

Steve: I'm a long way from NYC, but I sure wish you and your wife could have been my kids' teachers. I'm about your age and I fondly remember when the object of school was to teach kids reading, writing, math, history and science, and the teachers were professionals who were allowed to do their jobs without having a political/social agenda-based curriculum shoved down their throats.

Originally Posted by Steve DeRosa

In no particular order:

• My wife and I are both retired NYC public school teachers, having spent the last 14 years of our careers at the same school, and ourselves having met as kids attending another NYC public school in the '50s-60s. Having seen things in historical/philosophical perspective from both sides of the coin, I'll be the first to agree with Barry that it takes a special kind of person to be an educator, and both of us were blessed to have had a couple of those, in a day when they were the rule rather than the exception (but see below); it was the memory of their styles and approaches that served as role models throughout our own careers, and by the same token we endeavored to pass along the same traditions to our junior colleagues. Unfortunately most outsiders don't realize that education, if done right, is not a job or even a profession: it's a calling on the same level as medicine or ministry and, as I said at our retirement dinner, if you don't regard it as such you're in the wrong field...
• While every job has its ups and downs, public education in the US has unquestionably taken a turn for the worse since the late-1960's, as university think-tanks and for-maximum-profit private concerns have effectively displaced educators as the primary determinants of policy/curriculum. During our 14 years of collective service the entire curriculum - not merely a single area or a single grade level - was scrapped and replaced no less than a half-dozen times; needless to say, this created a nightmare on every level: established and proven methods/techniques were thrown out the window, teacher work volume was increased dramatically with each change (leaving little or no time for individual instructor creativity - McEducation, as some of us called it), think-tank "trainers" with no classroom experience were called in to conduct monthly staff meetings (and monitor compliance - in two cases all the lessons were "scripted"), and having no stability the kids didn't know which end was up or down. Furthermore, speaking as one whose own BS meter was finely tuned in the Brooklyn housing projects where I grew up, I found some highly-questionable material in the teacher's guides (particularly in ELA and Social Studies) which had nothing to do with the objective teaching of the relevant skills and which I won't elaborate upon here - and if that's a "dog whistle" I'm calling out the entire pack...
• IME private schools are not all they're cracked up to be, and haven't been for decades: while there are undoubtedly some very good ones (as Mr. Broady states) the ones my wife and I attended during our high-school years were rife with moral ambiguity and ethical gray areas: with no objective, impartial oversight (and at the time of my attendance having a board of trustees consisting largely of older alumni, with a vested interest in the insularity of the institution and the status quo of the system) my own alma mater was plagued with scandals, a couple of which made regional and national news 30+ years later in the early-2K's and, in the most egregious case, a direct result of the lack of education/licensing requirements. As we're all well aware, money talks: when your chestnuts are on the coals the old lean green is screaming at you through the Grateful Dead's PA system, and with a healthy influx of A-lister cash and the need to put the old baggage behind them, over the last twenty years they've rebounded from the Dickensian to the dysfunctional...
• As regards the national (AFT/NEA) as well as many local unions (including our own NYSUT/UFT) they've pretty much lost sight of their original purposes, instead espousing a skewed agenda that emphatically does not represent the interests of/speak for all of their membership; a former pastor of ours used to have a sign over his desk, "In ministry, the main thing is keeping the main thing the main thing" - and while somewhat of a tongue-twister the idea is obvious. Although there are some exceptions, as a whole they've become as comfortably entrenched in their own position of control as those they were opposing on the picket lines two generations ago, to the detriment of the rank-&-file (and their young charges) whose interests they purport to represent: even at the building level, chapter-leaders-for-life who enjoy a far-too-cozy relationship with out-of-control administrators are not uncommon (I've been in two schools like this), and while Janus lit a fire for a short time the net effects were, in the above cases, virtually negligible...
• Finally, the NYC system was placed (and still remains) under mayoral control, on a business model, in the early-2K's: experienced (read well-compensated/knowledgeable/no-nonsense) teachers are effectively considered both a financial and methodological liability rather than an asset, and unless you're on an administration track (or "useful" to same... ) plan on being out before you're vested - whether as a result of burnout, harassment, lack of administrative support, attacks upon or threats to life/limb/property, or simply realizing that you can make more money with less grief somewhere else without sacrificing your personal life, health, or self-respect...

Just to make it clear, we loved our kids - many of them thought of us as their second family - but after years of trying to hold the line against impossible odds we saw retirement as our only viable option; shame is, under different circumstances we probably would have stayed another five years or so. As we began to see the writing on the wall (figuratively and literally) we effectively isolated ourselves in our classrooms, made sure our written lesson plans conformed to the pedagogy of the week, did sub rosa what we had already been doing successfully for three decades and, as they say in buffalo country, let the chips fall where they may - BTW I've yet to have a single bigwig (or small-fart) who hides behind the phrase "but you can't do that anymore" explain to my satisfaction precisely why not......

To the OP: run, don't walk - it's not worth losing your health/sanity/family over - and get on with your life...

[bfm612]

Originally Posted by SFCRetired

Most are missing the point here. This is about cheating kids out of a good education more so than being mean to a teacher. But I have come to expect that from our education system.

I think more than one party can be significantly affected by this whole situation, so we can be outraged by both. The OP's wife is more directly affected by her experiences as a teacher, and her concern for her employment/morals/well-being doesn't diminish concerns for the students'. The point isn't being missed.

[catndahats]

That is a good point, and I am not sure that I can properly express my thoughts here so:

And may be a good part of what the OP is talking about. Towards the end of my career, there was a lot of top down push to increase state test scores and to not fail any student. Dummying down the cirruculum, teaching a test, social promotion, and replacing number grades with progress marks to make kids/parents feel better is very short sighted...directives to make kids grades look better is something a lot of teachers struggle with.

Teachers know that long term, the kids often get shortchanged. Being forced/intimidated by administration to do something wrong leads all kinds of bad environments and situations for kids and teachers. The results show up when they want to get into college, or when kids try to get into the workforce but can't read or write at a reasonable level.

Originally Posted by SFCRetired

Most are missing the point here. This is about cheating kids out of a good education more so than being mean to a teacher. But I have come to expect that from our education system.

[Mr. Jelly]

I'm sorry for the OP's wife's situation. I don't think people have changed so much as the understanding of power dynamics is now demonized. Which it is but it is a fact of life. You can't discount either and stay sane. Business is business and the customer needs to be satisfied at some point. Which would be the parents of the children footing the bill. In public school it's politics. The only solution to society dealing with these things is to have a large cross section of people getting involve. And people being people these types of things will never end.