Why does the State Education Depatment allow this to continue?

Reader comment on:
UFT Asserts It May Sue City
in response to reader comment: Thoroughly disgraceful.

Submitted by Ray, Mar 8, 2008 08:30

After 8 years of teaching with an outstanding rating, my son was recently assigned to a "rubber room." The "charges" are totally ludicrous and unsubstantiated. He is now totally demoralized and is considering leaving the profession. How can the Board of Education be allowed to waste taxpayer money to fund rubber rooms and pay substitute teachers while waiting for hearings for teachers who waste their talents languishing in holding pens like criminals?
What is the State Education Department doing about this outrageous situation? Why does the NYCBOE have so much power that they can ignore the constitutional rights of their employees? Why isn't the union bringing this matter to the attention of the media in a forceful way? Why are incompetent administrators allowed to invent charges against teachers who ask too many questions? Where are the PTA representatives during all of this? Why isn't Governor Spitzer calling Joel Klein on the carpet? Why doesn't anyone care that the students are being denied an education because the classes are being "taught" by substitutes who are in many cases just glorified babysitters?

I call on all involved to investigate this mess TODAY. We cannot allow 12 year olds to ruin a teacher's life and career just because they CAN.

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Other reader comments on this article

Comment	By	Date
I am one of those educators that has been sent to the so-called "Rubber Rooms," because I reported a teacher... [MORE]	Elba Rivera	Mar 16, 2008 18:08
I spent many years teaching at Washington Irving High School. As at any big urban school it was always challenging,... [MORE]	bob stoll	Mar 4, 2008 14:52
We do not have rubber rooms in my state...yet. However, as a high school teacher, I can truly say that... [MORE]	Susan Kohi	Mar 3, 2008 21:18
The Department of Education ignores the basic constitutional rights of teachers, creating a new system of law whose major maxim... [MORE]	Roger Rivera	Oct 18, 2007 17:00
After 8 years of teaching with an outstanding rating, my son was recently assigned to a "rubber room." The "charges"...	Ray	Mar 8, 2008 08:30
I was an "member? of the rubber room at 501 Courtlandt. I was there because of an external situation I... [MORE]	Mark Kuhn	Oct 17, 2007 08:41
If Ms. Weingarten believes she has a case against the City, then shouldn't the Teachers, Aides, A.P.s, etc. have the... [MORE]	Judith Cohen	Oct 15, 2007 17:45
Judith Cohen is correct. I wish she would write me off-line, as I think a class action lawsuit would be... [MORE]	Bruce J. Ramer	Oct 16, 2007 06:57
Instead of asking David Cantor what teachers in these rubber rooms have been accused of, why don't you go directly... [MORE]	Leonard Brown, Ph.D.	Oct 15, 2007 15:41
Keeping teachers accused of serious ineptitude or misbehavior in crowded "rubber rooms" much like recreational rooms for the criminally insane... [MORE]	Esther	Oct 15, 2007 14:49
The majority of teachers who are held in the re-assignment centers - nick-named "rubber rooms" - are, by their performance... [MORE]	Betsy Combier	Oct 15, 2007 07:39