Looks Like ATRs to Remain in DOE Purgatory (ONE DAY REMAINING!!)

 One day to go!

Oh, the death of the ATR pool was greatly exaggerated. That according to the Post and everyone's favorite bastion of education reporting, Chalkbeat. 

The plan was originally if you were placed in a school the entire year and and received either an effective or highly effect MOTP you were to be automatically placed in said school. And something about not facing discipline.

But think about it. With all the craziness of this year, with not enough teachers at the beginning of the year, or through the year, an ATR was a godsend to the principals. They needed bodies.And ATRs provided the bodies. ATRs were seen basically as useful idiots. 

But now with the supposed grand reopening of school in September the ATRs are not needed. In particular, ATRs who have been naughty and don't make wads of cash. Oh, and those ATRs with institutional knowledge. 

Why would a principal want an ATR like that in their building? We gave up our seniority transfer in 2005 because principals want control. Sometime in the last ten years, I forget, ATRs were going to be forced place and the principals and their union were up in arms. Why should things be any different this time? 

And of course nothing changes with the Post and Chalkbeat bashing ATRs. 

From the Post...

And now teachers assigned to this pool, including some who really shouldn’t be teaching at all, will be given positions back in front of classrooms.

And from Chalkbeat (Christina Vega) using six year old data...

About one in five scored one of the bottom three rankings, according to data from the 2015-16 school year, the most recent the education department has shared publicly.  

But let's give her credit where credit is due. She did get one thing correct...

Teachers in the pool also tend to be more senior, and therefore earn higher salaries, creating a disincentive for principals to hire them. 

It would have been swell if Ms Vega bothered to spend some time speaking to ATRs. But I would guess that would be to difficult. 

Fixing the ATR problem is easy. Read it right here. It can be fixed. 

Being an ATR is like being in purgatory, actually Jewish purgatory. We are not wicked. Nor or we righteous. We are good people as well as teachers who have made mistakes. And learned from mistakes. 

...whose virtues and sins counterbalance one another shall go down to Gehenna and float up and down until they rise purified; for of them it is said: 'I will bring the third part into the fire and refine them as silver is refined, and try them as gold is tried'