NYC Rubber Rooms Could Be a Gold Mine
Whatever side of the education fence you occupy, you should read Mara Altman’s “Class Dismissed” in The Village Voice. It’s the best kind of education reporting, of a real – and sadly, rare – investigative type.
Altman went inside the “rubber rooms” of the New York City public school system, where school employees who are accused of wrongdoing are sent to await administrative hearings. And while there are 662 teachers ensconced in 13 of these facilities, the district is unwilling or unable (union rules?) to find anything for them to do. So, as Altman describes it, they are “sent off to a Kafkaesque holding pen, where taxpayers continue to pay their salaries for months as they wait for the glacial pace of what passes for justice, meted out by a sluggish school district and intransigent union.”
How do they pass the time while there? “To keep occupied,” Altman writes, “teachers read, play games like Scrabble or chess, or work on their screenplays. Art teachers work on paintings. Masters degrees get completed. Last year at the Seventh Avenue rubber room, a group of teachers taught each other to knit. Exercise is a popular activity.” Some engage in, uh, trysts.
After you read the full report, you’ll agree that no screenwriter could invent such a situation. And that leads us to the obvious solution for the rubber room problem. Since the debut of Survivor in 2000, we have had reality shows in which singers, dancers, musicians, ice skaters, fashion designers, chefs, interior decorators, and heaven knows who else have competed with each other for a big prize. At the end of each episode, one gets voted off.
You’ve already got the enclosed space and the interpersonal conflicts. Why not turn the rubber rooms into a reality TV game show? Even the title is obvious: American Idle.
April 25th, 2007 at 20:03
Somebody should call the producers of the old Big Brother show! They could revive the show for a few seasons. Imagine the soap operas that occur in that place.
Best thing about it is the show won’t have to pay the teachers. They couldn’t possibly beat the benefits the teachers are already getting.
April 26th, 2007 at 10:20
John Stoessel touched on NYCPSD “rubber rooms” briefly. He couldn’t get in though.
It sure looks like a job for an intrepid education reporter, preferably a reporter with some commando training. Rappelling, lock-picking, using suction cups to go up the sides of buildings. Stuff like that.
Seriously, I wonder if there’s any way to winkle out the other – there’s got to be “other” – rubber rooms in other school districts.
A nice interactive Flash map tagging school districts identified as warehousing full-salary teachers would be a nice item to throw in front of mainstream media reporters.
May 1st, 2007 at 18:35
I start to wonder if on some level the “survivors” are the ones who manage to get INTO the rubber rooms.
June 3rd, 2007 at 11:51
Ha, ha, ha. We are living it. Maybe, for some of us there will be a big bonus at the end. But it’s all unfair. Who is judging the judges. It’s all arbitrary. Do I have to be a crowd pleaser to win. The truth is that the only one who would win is Niko. Ha, ha, ha.
April 6th, 2008 at 11:30
Thank you for addressing the depressing state of the Rubberrooms. I was hoping for some more recent information as I am a Rubberroom occupant and have not yet been informed of why I am there. Please continue to get the word out that this primitive method of punishment is still alive and there seems to be no end in sight. Please help.
Sincerely, Fidgety
April 7th, 2008 at 21:51
The training course for the new principals is taught by Jack Welch….check out
“Jack Welch is my Daddy”…
http://ice-uft.org/daddy.htm
very scary! Sincerely, Fidgety