This is what's wrong with public education:Hell no, he won’t go.
In a defiant raspberry to the city Department of Education — and taxpayers — disgraced teacher Alan Rosenfeld, 66, won’t retire.
Deemed a danger to kids, the typing teacher with a $10 million real estate portfolio hasn’t been allowed in a classroom for more than a decade, but still collects $100,049 a year in city salary — plus health benefits, a growing pension nest egg, vacation and sick pay.
Mayor Bloomberg and Gov. Cuomo can call for better teacher evaluations until they’re blue-faced, but Rosenfeld and six peers with similar gigs costing about $650,000 a year in total salaries are untouchable. Under a system shackled by protections for tenured teachers, they can’t be fired, the DOE says.
“It’s an F-U,” a friend of Rosenfeld said of his refusal to quit.
“He’s happy about it, and very proud that he beat the system. This is a great show-up-but-don’t-do-anything job.”
Accused in 2001 of making lewd comments and ogling eighth-grade girls’ butts at IS 347 in Queens, Rosenfeld was slapped with a week off without pay after the DOE failed to produce enough witnesses at a hearing.
But instead of returning Rosenfeld to the classroom, the DOE kept him in one of its notorious “rubber rooms,” where teachers in misconduct cases sat idle or napped. As The Post reported, Rosenfeld kept busy managing his many investment properties and working on his law practice. He’s a licensed attorney and real-estate broker.
Hat tip: Memeorandum.
Oh yeah. This is happening in America. Taxpayer dollars are paying teachers to do nothing because union rules have made it impossible to fire them. Government employees simply do not have the same liabilities that private sector employees have. They can get away with so much more and that is a problem. That is what fosters corruption That is what creates so much waste.
This is an extreme example, but varying examples all throughout the country show just how wasteful and irresponsible our public education system has become. Public sector unions have rigged the system so they can get the most benefit, at taxpayers' expense, for the least effort, the lowest quality, and the worst results possible.
I'm not saying every public school teacher behaves that way and freeloads off the system, but I bet it's the ones that don't who will be the first to agree with me and be frustrated that their coworkers don't take the work seriously. The problem is not a people problem, it's a systemic one. It's a problem with the system, the system that we've set up at the behest of public sector unions.
With stories like the one above, and less outrageous examples of a system designed to shield public employees from any kind of liability for their actions and any kind of responsibility for their job, is anyone really wondering why so many states are having financial problems? Would anyone be surprised to consider that so many of the states with the worst public finances are also forced-unionism states, not right to work states?
Someone email this to Matt Damon.
And please read the original article linked above and tell me that this sleazy "teacher" doesn't look exactly like Biff from Back to the Future. Seriously. Go do it. I'll wait...
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Isn't the resemblance uncanny? Okay that's all.
Wes Messamore,
Editor in Chief, THL
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