Despite empty promises, rubber room teachers still costing city $29 million per year

NEW YORK – New York City’s infamous rubber rooms – the paid purgatory for bad teachers school officials can’t fire – continue to drain millions from the city each year, despite the teachers union’s promises to help fix the situation.

The city’s contract with the United Federation of Teachers union, like most teachers contracts, requires district officials to navigate a lengthy labyrinth of due process when they want to fire a teacher, and it often leads to sympathetic arbitrators who routinely reinstate dangerous educators.

That’s bad enough. Even worse is the fact that it frequently takes months or years to bring some of the cases before an arbitrator, and in the meantime the teachers sit in “rubber rooms” every day, doing nothing and drawing full salaries and benefits.  (more...)

Despite empty promises, rubber room teachers still costing city $29 million per year