Bait & Switch: NYC Teaching Fellows Class Action Suit Filed by Attorney Michael G. O'Neill

What happens when a new, hardworking, idealistic NYC Teaching Fellow rubs the entrenched old timers in his school the wrong way and gets punished by being fired? It ain't pretty. And it is not legal. Text of Steward v. City of New York, et al available at URL below.

(PRWEB) May 11, 2004 --This Spring, as it has done every year since the year 2000, the NYC Teaching Fellows program is advertising for new candidates, those who are eager to do good and who are accomplished outside of teacher training schools. (See Bloomberg/Klein, 04-15-04, "Join New York's Brightest: Teach NYC" Campaign.)

Teaching Fellows are promised much in exchange for all the new energy and intelligence they are to bring to New York City's problematic schools. Clearly, the Fellows are injected into the system for good reason. If there was no need to reinvigorate the schools, then there would be no need to recruit -- with extensive and expensive inducements -- these "brightest" new teachers.

However, the Board of Education and the United Federation of Teachers must know that the arrival of these fresh recruits is sure to produce some discomfort among and reaction from those who have maintained our schools in an "as is" condition for years.

So what happens when the expected occurs? Say, a single entrenched Principal simply fires a Fellow, alleging evidence that disappears like cotton candy on the first bite.

Here is what happens All Board of Education promises -- "Join New York's Brightest: Teach NYC" -- disappear instantly. The Fellow under attack is immediately out, undefended by the Fellows program and facing years of hearings without pay or benefits.

Then, years later -- when the Fellow is proven innocent and the evidence on-its-face is officially recognized as never having had merit -- the Fellow is given maybe three months pay. Years have been lost. The Fellow's former career is gone. That Master's Degree in education is gone. And gone as well is the right to teach -- in New York City, or anywhere else.

As a union rep acknowledged in an unguarded moment "nothing's in the contract", all those Board of Education recruitment promises are just advertising. Another might call this the old Bait and Switch.