New York Times and Reporter Kate Taylor Throw Francis Blake and ATRs Under The Bus

Usually when I awake I go to my phone and check the latest news. One news alert I received was from the NY Times concerned ATRs. I clicked and when I saw the photograph and the caption “PS 157” I shuddered. This is not going to turn out well.

My worst fears were confirmed with the first two words of the story, “Francis Blake.”

I know Francis extremely well. He’s a good friend and better person. He's also a damn fine teacher and is there for the students. He comes in, does his job and gets along with everyone. 

Francis has been a vendor at Yankee Stadium for over 40 years. If he knows you and sees you the first beer is on him. That’s the type of guy he is. 

Francis comes in and does what he is supposed to do. He gets along with everyone and is Mr Knowledge when it comes to US and World History. What elementary school wouldn’t want him to mine his depth of knowledge, his ability to share history as if he lived it, with its students? 

Francis Blake was railroaded at PS 157. But it was the school's (at the time) LIS Mychael Willon that put the nail in the coffin.

Willon was hired by the Klein regime even though a 1st grader with rudimentary internet search abilities would have discovered that Willon was forced to resign as Superintendent in Owego NY and turned down same position in Vermont due to claiming a doctorate through a diploma mill  and here  and that he was arrested a subsequently convicted for lewd and lascivious behavior in 1990 in a Wichita KS bookstore.

Francis’ mistake is he was not an administrator. Then he would have had carte blanche to do whatever he wanted to do.

One of the others involved in Francis’s framing was Donald Conyers, who is currently (I believe) super of Brooklyn HS’s. Conyers is one of the slimiest scummiest people ever in the DOE. I knew him when he was principal at PS 18 in D7 and I was a staff developer.  He never left his office. He was more interested in seeing dollars flow to him and chasing and bedding young female teachers. Oh, and having several AOL IM windows open on his computer chasing women online. 

I have briefly spoken with Francis. He was at the Columbia football game Saturday afternoon and from there he went to the Rangers game. I caught him between periods. Francis is curious as to how reporter Kate Taylor got his cell phone #, that Ms Taylor never inquired about the sleeping incident with Francis and the insubordination charges, in the words of Francis, are "bullshit!"

Two more things. According to the article, Ms Taylor somehow, someway, had access to the Excessed Staff Selection System...

 "The New York Times cross-referenced two sets of records: the Education Department’s Excessed Staff Selection System, which lists available staff and openings in the system"

Did the DOE give her access? If not it was an ATR, then an ATR that threw other ATRs under the same bus as the Times and Ms Taylor had?

Secondly, this from the article...

"In a system in which only 1 percent of teachers earn the lowest possible ratings, of ineffective or unsatisfactory, 12 percent of the teachers who were in the Absent Teacher Reserve at the end of the last school year had received one of those ratings in 2015-16."

Duh! Really? Why is there this disparity? An ATRs entire lesson during an observation can be perfect, but not enough students raise their hands, BINGO! The lesson is rated a U.

Sorry for being so long winded. In summation, Francis was screwed. How screwed? Read this.