Q&A With An 'Unsatisfactory' Teacher

Baychester — The computer programming assignment that New York City math teacher Peter Lamphere had given his Bronx High School of Science students in the fall of 2007 had gone okay. But as is customary among new programmers, some students had made mistakes. During a later class, Lamphere focused on helping them correct their errors by working quietly with each of them one-on-one. To keep the rest of his class of about 30 on task, he assigned them some independent practice.

With several years of teaching experience, Lamphere thought it was a good arrangement. Assistant principal Rosemarie Jahoda, who also had several years of teaching experience, did not. After observing him during that class period, she rated her observation of him unsatisfactory, writing in her report: "You do not provide your students with support and instruction. There is no evidence of preparation and scholarship or your ability to facilitate student learning of programming in visual basic."

That 2007 observation report was the first time that Lamphere – who says he had the respect of many students and colleagues -- had ever received a negative evaluation, he says. But it wasn't his last. During that school year, Lamphere received two negative observation reports and three disciplinary letters, leading his principal to rate him unsatisfactory for the 2007-08 school year.

Lamphere believes his unsatisfactory evaluations—so-called “U ratings”--were politically motivated. They began just after he and other union members challenged one of Jahoda's policies, and they culminated after he and 20 of the school's 22 math teachers filed a complaint against Jahoda, alleging harassment, charges that a panel of arbitrators would later sustain.

Despite the arbitrator's findings, the New York City Department of Education rejected Lamphere's appeal of his "U rating." DOE spokesperson Marge Feinberg defended the agency's decision, saying simply "We follow state bylaws."

Lamphere vehemently opposes the Bloomberg's administration's efforts to base decisions about teacher layoffs on their evaluations. He now teaches at a high school in Queens, where he transferred in the fall, and is suing the DOE in an effort to overturn his unsatisfactory rating.

The administrators involved in delivering his U ratings declined to speak with City Limits. So it is hard to draw conclusions about his case. It's also unclear whether his case reflects what has happened to most of the 1,500 teachers rated unsatisfactory in a typical year.

But in the debate about how to improve schools and soften the blow of planned teacher layoffs, in which U-rated teachers have been a popular tabloid target, little has been heard from such teachers or about the complexities of their cases. Lamphere answered some questions about his:

Q: What's wrong with firing teachers based on unsatisfactory ratings?

A: They can give someone a "U" [unsatisfactory] rating with relatively little evidence, which means there's no protection for retaliation, whistle blowing, union activities and relatively little protection for discrimination.

Q: What do you believe provoked the disciplinary actions against you?

A: I was on a committee at the school that represented teachers and had a monthly discussion with the principal. It was a union committee called the consultation committee, the steering committee. At our October meeting, we brought to the table these weekly aims and objectives sheets that teachers had been filling out, raised some questions about was it a useful thing, was it really meant to support the teachers and so on. And the response from the administration was very defensive about this policy. They felt very strongly that it was a policy they wanted to continue. That it was pedagogically useful. The following day, my mentee, one of the new teachers I was mentoring, gets called in and told that it would be good for her career if I was no longer her mentor. … The same day … I got a disciplinary letter. The person gets told to change her mentor at 7:30 in the morning. I get the letter at 11:30 … and then I got another one a couple of days later.