Evaluate this!

If you are following the ATR blogs and such you know about the recent suggestion that the evaluation of the ATR's be based on the field observer's assessment of how well you manage a classroom.  How, really, HOW can anyone who has any teaching experience think that an appropriate measure of an ATR value as a teacher, their profession,  is to be in the arena of substitute classroom management.  The reasons one can come up with against this ridiculous suggestion are too numerous to mention.  However, it would have taken some creativity and coordination to actually come up with a true overall evaluation system; one that includes how well the entire ATR system has been implemented; what good has it done any school, excessed teacher or over crowded classroom.  Until we do that I don't see why we don't just use the evaluation system I just put together.

How to Evaluate a Member of the ATR

Said member of ATR still desires to work as a teacher in the NYC system despite being disrespected, devalued and demeaned...............................................................................10 Points

Said member of ATR arrives every school day prepared to step into a classroom that they know
nothing about and do the best they can..........................................................10 Points

Said member of the ATR has adapted their gastro-intestinal clock to a daily schedule that may have lunch at 10:30am or 11:15 am or 12:00 pm............................................................... 10 points

Said member of ATR has managed to survive the assault on their career and continue to believe that they have made the right career choice when they decided to teach........ ..............10 points

Said member of the ATR has cultivated a Zen like stillness that comes in handy as one sits on a pointless chair in a pointless room staring, always staring...............................................20 points

Said member of the ATR has developed the dexterity, reflexes and increased peripheral vision to combat the daily assault of UFO's during lunchroom duty...........................................10 points

Said member of the ATR has remained real and vocal despite the growing efforts to make them ghostly apparitions that  have no substance................................................................10 points

Said member of the ATR  has decided not to tutor, teach at a charter, work as a tour guide, nor start a career as a stand-up comedian instead of being a member of the ATR............10 points

Said member of the ATR insists that the UFT stand up for their rights and that representation not be denied the dues paying members...............................................................................10 points

The ATR is a good thing in that we are not in Washington DC.  The ATR is also a public relations nightmare and the sooner the DOE and the UFT come to realize that they can benefit the schools and children of NYC by utilizing the teaching resources we already have and that are being paid for the better off everyone will be. This "evaluation" is a poor effort to justify an unjust system by making believe that it has a solid educational framework as its base when it is nothing but a scythe to cut down tenured teachers. We are, after all, educators are we not?