I read an article on the front page of the Ledger on September 24th. It was lengthy
so let me summarize. It pertained to a law suit regarding the firing of Mr.
Jose Cotto, a non tenured Newark Public School teacher.
Mr. Cotto
received a death threat from a student during class. The boy was sent out of
class only to return a short time later. Mr. Cotto, fearing for his safety,
called the Newark Police who where turned away when they arrived at the school.
Subsequently,
Mr. Cotto was fired for "making too much noise" about the incident.
He then filed a suit claiming wrongful dismissal and was awarded $225,000. The
boy has since been jailed for the murder to two people during a hold up.
The
principal of the school has since been place on "principal without
placement" status (whatever that means?).
The jury unanimously declared the teacher was fired for
being a "whistle blower" while the city cited Mr. Cotto as a poor
teacher who "normally tasked students with memorization and did little to
improve his lesson plans" (again - whatever that means?).
I have
several serious questions about this whole thing aside from the main issue
of the teacher's unlawful dismissal and
the refusal by the administration to provide a safe working environment for him and his other students.
Firstly,
Mr. Cotto taught Spanish. How can anyone learn Spanish without memorization. If
you don't memorize Spanish vocabulary how can you speak Spanish. This points
clearly to the absurdity of allowing those who know little or nothing about the
subject to evaluate a teacher.
Secondly,
if evaluations by poor or incompetent administrators are allowed to determine
whether a teacher is going to receive a raise or possibly even be fired, can we
expect many more incidents of administrative failure to go unreported?
How many
times have you experienced or heard of disruptive students being sent to the
office only to return shortly with little or no consequences.
How many
times have you experienced or heard "don't send them to the office - if you
are a 'good teacher' you should be able to handle classroom discipline".
How many
times have you experienced or heard "if the teacher made the class
interesting there would be no discipline problems".
If tenure
is eliminated and the "merit system" is introduced (as the
politicians would like) expect even more of this. It doesn't bode well for the
teaching profession and the learning by students in a chaotic environment.
PS
Mr. Cotto
worked in the Newark Public School System. Newark (as well as Paterson, Camden,
Jersey City, etc.) has been run by the state for over a decade.
Wouldn't
one think that with all the "education experts" at NJDOE, the
problems of all of these districts would now be in the rear view mirror?
Could it be
that the State has found the rehabilitation of these systems is a task that
they have not and cannot accomplish? I guess, now, instead of being held
accountable for their failure, they find it much easier to blame on the
"hordes" of "poor teachers" in these schools.
In previous employment, I've experienced all of those things. A student threw a pencil sharpener at me and it hit me less than an inch away from my eye. He was suspended from class for a day. Because it was really my fault for explaining a problem to a student and allowing that student to get bored in the meantime. Bad teacher!
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