Schools like prisons
Teacher arrested in principal slashing
Potted principal goes potty
Perhaps the reason that schools are taking on such a similarity to prisons is the abundance of criminals employed by them.
A Brooklyn teacher and her friend were arrested in the September slashing of a Brooklyn principal, the culmination of what police believe was an ongoing feud between the educators, authorities said Friday.
Robert Somerville slashed open the face of Principal Wanda Rivera-Switalski in apparent retribution for her disciplining of teacher Frances Levine. The slash from a box cutter resulted in 150 stitches for Rivera-Switalski.
Evelyn Peralta-Tessitore, 41, principal of Public School 192 in Harlem, was charged with driving while intoxicated and resisting arrest.
Cops said they spotted Peralta-Tessitore squatting and urinating beside the open door of her 2003 Mercedes-Benz about 2:40 p.m. Tuesday. Her car was stopped ata red light at 254th St. and Broadway.
Peralta-Tessitore admitted she had been drinking, according to the criminal complaint. Cops said she reeked of liquor and her speech was slurred.
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Peralta-Tessitore, who lives in the posh Westchester community of Hartsdale, has been principal of PS 192 since 1999. Last year, only 26% of her students could read well enough to pass city and state exams.
A 2003 Mercedes and a house in Westchester. Just how much do they pay the principals of failing schools?
(Tip credit to Sharon)
I wonder if there is a connection between the obvious attitude of these “educators” and the abundance of hyphenated-names?
Note: the Levine was arrested for grand larceny in December yet Margie Feinberg say’s she has no record of a disciplinary problem. Obviously the choice of felony is a sensitive issue when removing educators from the system. Rivera-Switalski has a history of bad relations with teacher and earned a ‘frown’ from the United Federation of Teachers for ‘exercises in control’ instead of leadership.
http://64.233.179.104/search?q=cache:OA6hKVjKCQUJ:www.uft.org/img/ElementaryNov02.pdf Rivera-Switalski %22United Federation of Teachers %22 frown&hl=en
Hyphenated-names keep the maiden name with the married name. They prefix their names with MS. and the principals likes to be referred to as the ‘Chief Learning Officer’ or CLO. They claim they should be paid like a CEO because they manage hundreds of students. Our local paper publishes the salaries of principals as a little over 100K, they are higher in Westchester. Salary.com puts them around 58-92K.
They claim the principal’s job is unpopular because they take all the heat from teachers, school board and parents. They also get involved in the corrupt politics of money management. For example the district may make lucrative collaborations with corporations like Apple, Microsoft, MTV for sponsership or candy companies; and it becomes to principal’s job to make it work in the school. Districts also spawn a lot of local business manufacturing fliers, booklets and newspapers on home computers. In one district millons of dollars were stolen using non-education related funds, (the administrator bought a house). It’s a training program for corruption.
Never underestimate the ability of school boards to hire the wrong people. They certainly do it much of the time.
However, is this zero tolerance?
barry
No, this isn’t zero tolerance. It is, however, an example of administrative stupidity.
Jim,
I’m with Barry on this one. Not that I think you should only highlight Zero Tolerance, but this is pretty obviously an isolated case. I don’t think the actions taken in this personal feud are indicitive of a lack of administrative common sense with regard to how students are treated.
I’m not even saying that you shouldn’t have highlighted the story on this site… you’re not giving it the tratment that it deserves. Not unlike the Mainstream Media with its liberal slant. Accepting that liberlism as a given has taken the spotlight away from the media. Don’t fall in to a similar trap here. There are enough legitimate abuses of power that you don’t need to make a story where there isn’t one.
I’ll take the criticism to heart. I do feel that poor employee selection in education is a widespread problem and that is does contribute in a major way toward the problems in our schools but that is a focus outside the basic intent of this site. I’ll make an effort to concentrate on policy problems over judgement errors and corruption.
Jim,
What does tie this to zero-tolerance, is the fact, many Teachers or Administrators that break the law, in some bad cases, get in no trouble, at the school.
They will be back teaching at that same school, or in another district.
They will not be expelled for a year or longer. They are represented by a Union. It is hard to get rid of a bad Apple.
There are web-sites that list many Teachers, who have ran afoul of the law.
Many children in zt. cases are merely breaking, local school board rules. Which is very broad, compared to State law. Not a fair system. For minor infractions, the children are arrested and sent to juvenile. Juvenile is now used to teach kids a lesson. Who profits from that, many local city budgets. That is why, change is not happening.
These are probably excellent examples of reverse Z-T, or Mega Tolerance for these perps because they are faculty or administrators, courtesy of union contracts and/or unwillingness of higher up’s to admit they made a mistake in putting these miscreants in their positions of authority. For a student to do anything even remotely similar would result in the book of Z-T being thrown at them with lots suspensions and expulsions to go around.
I have friends who are teachers and have become victims when they refused to enforce it and became the target of the small group that uses zt to muscle it way around the system. The corrupt use of public funds is an issue the public needs to understand to protect public education. We need whistle blowers in the system and I’ve never seen a single class on that.
Zero tolerance doesn’t make sense because it robs us of thoughtful authority. Everyone makes three mistakes every day and they seldom add up to disaster. It only has value if the intent is enforcing a punishment for no reason. But it’s only the tip of an iceberg.
It is the nature of people to believe authority keeps us safe. If authority is corrupt most nations are unable to change that. People don’t plan corruption, it’s a process. I really like this article (from the same guy that coin the term ‘broken windows’), because it explains the path of corruption.
http://www.zimbardo.com/downloads/2003%20Evil%20Chapter.pdf
Here’s a story about a superintendent indicted in a drug sting
http://www.washingtontimes.com/metro/20050125-101101-9978r.htm