THE TEACHERS UNION AND THE RUBBER ROOMS

The Department of Education under Chancellor Klein ignores the Constitutional Rights of all teachers thrown into the rubber rooms. It's an appalling fact. Yet, the UFT doesn't confront the DOE in any meaningful manner. It isn't that Randi Weingarten, the president of the UFT, is unaware of what is going on, she wrote an insightful letter on January 15 of this year, that even sounded forceful. But forceful words, if not turned into action, are just hot air. While Randi sends forth an impotent wind of words, the DOE throws more and more teachers into the rubber rooms, intimidating and frightening them by enforcing the Klein Laws with increasing severity. Randi, who pursues her personal ambitions with dogged aggression, should use some of that aggression to protect and defend teachers being bullied by the DOE. At one rubber room conference she told the teachers to "hang in there" until Klein leaves office. The DOE throws down the gauntlet, and the UFT, the only defense these teachers have, tells them to just hide under the bed until the bad man goes away.