This article came out in the New York Times today and I figured it would be worthwhile to post given our discussion in class yesterday. For those who don't have a chance to read it or who aren't from the NY area, "Rubber Rooms" have been a bone of contention among NY teachers and those pushing for education reform in the city for quite a while. They are technically called Teacher Reassignment Centers, and when a teacher has been accused of any form of wrongdoing (anything from incompetence to hitting a student to being convicted of a crime), he or she is sent to a Temporary Reassignment Center until his/her case is disposed of, which is often well over 3 years. Teachers drew full salaries while in the Rubber Rooms but do not perform any work. They have been likened to adult detention.

The NY Post did a series a few years back and discovered that the city was paying teachers a few hundred million dollars a year to sit in these rooms for years on end and not get paid. Ever since, people have been talking about ways to shut them down, or to at least develop a more manageable system for teacher disciplinary issues. To be honest, I had never thought of the reasons Eben brought up in class yesterday for teacher tenure, and I'm actually quite appreciative that he brought it up. It will be interesting to see whether the closing of the Rubber Rooms (in a few months, of course) will actually have any effect on speeding up the disciplinary process involving teachers or whether nothing will change.

-- DavidGoldin - 16 Apr 2010