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One of the most unusual features of public education anywhere in the United States is what are termed "rubber rooms" in the New York City school district.   A Google search for "rubber rooms" brings up more than 11,000 hits. While not all of these concern the New York school program, there are enough to keep a researcher busy for a while.
 
         Among the sources is John Stossel's ABC-TV program "Stupid in America," an article in the New York Post, and Internet sites such as ReformK2.com and NewYorkTeachers.Net.  The most recent article is "Class Dismissed," by Mara Altman in the April 24th issue of The Village Voice.
 
         In essence, the New York School administration has developed a program whereby teachers it thinks should not be in a classroom are reassigned to one of more than a dozen rooms where they are given nothing to do but continue to draw their full salary, which may be $60,000 or more a year.
 
         The program is expanding.
 
         Altman's article reports that in 2000 there were 385 such inactive teachers but that number has grown to 662 currently.  This costs the system about $33 million a year just in salaries of the teachers involved.  That doesn't count the costs for such additional details as maintaining the centers and paying for the necessary substitute teachers.
 
         Another major cost is for the Office of the Special Commissioner of Investigation.  There are two problems with the SCI operations.  First, much, if not most, of the investigations occur after the teachers have been removed from their classrooms.  If 2006 is representative, this is unfair to many teachers or, at best, wasteful of public funds.  Last year the SCI completed 592 investigations and fewer than half, 259, concluded that there was cause.  The remaining 333 teachers, like former U.S. Secretary of Labor Ray Donovan, when cleared of charges against him, might ask where they go to get their reputation back.
 
         In many instances no charges have been placed although the teachers may remain in what are in effect isolation wards for a year or two, or more.  The district maintains that this program is necessary to protect students from otherwise unhealthy circumstances.
 
         Perhaps.  But, without defending the teachers in question, it would seem that at least some charges are called for to suspend someone from their classroom for an extended, indefinite period of time.  It would also seem that the teachers might be given something useful to do, as was true in the 1960s when teachers might actually be charged with some wrongdoing and were assigned to their district office where they were occupied in some form of office work.
 
         By contrast, today the teachers are given no duties and occupy themselves as they see fit, within a wide range of behaviors, such as playing games, exercising, working on graduate degrees or, in one instance last year teaching each other to knit.
 
         The teachers often claim they have done noting wrong, and don't even know why they were removed from their classes.  The administration counters this by saying the problem is that the teachers contract makes firing teachers virtually impossible. Assuming for the moment this is true, the contract, in its various stages over the years, is something the administration has agreed to - but why?  And whatever the problems presented by the contract, why can't the district indicate the reasons each teacher is placed in limbo, often for extended periods of time.
 
         John Stossel's report said that in four-years only two of the city's 80,000 teachers were fired for incompetence.  That, in effect, is no standard at all.  By contrast, a recent USA TODAY article,  reporting the forthcoming move to New Orleans by Philadelphia chief executive Paul Vallas, noted that in the past three years he has dismissed 750 Philadelphia teachers who didn't meet the standards of the No Child Left Behind Act.   Philadelphia is also a unionized urban district, with contract restrictions on staff dismissals. It has about a fifth as many teachers as New York City.  How can Vallas do what NYC Chancellor Joel Klein cannot?
 
         With 80,000 teachers, New York schools inevitably have staff problems.
 
         "Rubber rooms" would not seem the way to deal with them.
 
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         "Public education in large urban areas in the United States has failed...New York City is actually one of the best urban school systems in the United States, but by any measure, I guarantee you that at least half, probably more than half, of our students are not remotely getting the education they deserve." NYC School chancellor Joel I. Klein, Remarks at the annual conference of the New York Charter Schools Association, March 27, 2004 (from the Association's website, 6/3/04)
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Copyright 2007 David W. Kirkpatrick
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