That's one of the themes in Philip Nobile's critique of the new rubber room agreement posted yesterday on the ICE blog.
A chapter leader and teacher of social studies, Nobile was reassigned to a TRC in retaliation for whistleblowing on Regents irregularities. He takes Mulgrew to task for failing to consult with TRC residents before coming up with this arrangement to expedite things and get people out of there. They are, after all, "the casualties of this bureaucratic Bay of Pigs."
Despite all the folderol over the new arrangement, a fair number of us remain unimpressed. As Nobile says:
"Despite the apocalyptic publicity in the tabloids, TRCs were never the real issue. Rather they are the rear end product of the DOE’s discipline system that can reassign a ham sandwich."A good read, this post, particular for seven hard questions he challenges Mulgrew to answer.
The rubber room agreement was Klein's way of ridding himself of an expensive, counterproductive and self created public relations nightmare. Obviously, the rubber rooms were merely a tactic of his overall strategy of ridding the schools of the most senior and most outspoken faculty members. Since teachers were accumulating rather than resigning or retiring he decided a change in tactics was in order. This was no victory for the UFT. Instead of publicly punching us in the face Klein can now kick us in the groin. A victory would have meant a halt to the mistreatment of teachers ... rubber rooms or no rubber rooms.
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