Teacher sex insanity

WITCHHUNT OF AMERICAN SCHOOL TEACHERS; THE RUSSIAN REACTION
By Stephen Wilson

Teacher sentenced to 22 years for screwing 17 yr old students.

(Moscow, Russia) --  In very recent years a growing number of American school teachers have been suspended, dismissed and in more extreme cases, received draconian prison sentences for alleged illicit sexual relations with their students. In particular, the 22 year sentence of Jenifer Fichter, 30 year sentence of Brainne Altice, stunned and alarmed Russians who have witnessed alot of injustice throughtout their history. Second City Teachers interviewed some Russian teachers about this and wondered whether we are witnessing an unprecedented witchhunt aimed at intimidating and inspiring fear amongst teachers. Does this mark a new stage in 'teacher-bashing?'


           'I'm human and I messed up during a very vulnerable point in my life. During the time I was going through feelings of rejection, no sense of belonging, fear and was bound by emotional chains that just kept getting thicker and tighter. I descended on a very slippery slope and hit rock bottom.

           'I ask you to practice mercy and compassion toward me today.

           'Please give me a chance to continue building my life with my loved ones', declared Brainne Altice, a teacher charged with having sex with three of her pupils aged between 16 and 17. The Judge in court did not listen. Instead she retorted, 'You knew what you were doing. You were the
adult, you were the teacher, you were the one that could
have stopped the thing from happening'. She then received
an incredibly severe sentence of thirty years leaving one to
have serious doubts about this judge's sanity. For the judge
looked as 'dead' as the accused appeared abundantly alive
and humane. In most usual cases of this kind the teacher is
dismissed from his or her post and deprived of their licence
to teach. Instead of being imprisoned they are forced to
perform some kind of community work. This itself represents
a severe penalty. For the accused teacher's work record is
tarnished with such a stain she might never beable to work
again. One would have thought that being put of a blacklist
is punishment enough.

SCT editro Jim Vail stated, 'The teachers have a very good legal case for taking the judge to court for needlessly cruel sentencing'.

           A teacher of Spanish who had a relationship with one of her 18 year old students (the age of consent) just missed receiving a prison sentence though she will never beable to teach again.

           This is a case where the student in the state is not a minor.

           Those severe punishments as well as scores of other cases in recent years has led many teachers to speculate whether teachers are being singled out by a witchhunt  against them.

           For instance, two Southern Californian teachers, Melody Lippert, 38, and Michelle Ghirelli 30, have been accused of partying and illicit sex on the beach with students from West Covina High School. Lippert herself was charged
with suspicion of conspiracy and contributing to the deliquency of a minor. A local sheriff stated, 'Regardless of someone's age or not, this is very serious, we take thses allegations seriously when you are talking about a student -teacher relationship'.

           He sounds like a Bible-belt preacher than a sober policeman.

           Those legal cases we have mentioned are only the tip of the iceberg. Second City Teachers has come across many cases where the evidence against teachers in similar cases was often dubious and highly questionable. Many of the accusations against teachers were made by some students with a petty grudge or gripe. The accusations against the teachers was not based on solid concrete evidence but often rumours, hearsay and an accusation made in a posted letter.

           What is the Russian reaction to this? As one might expect, the reactions vary. When I asked older Russians between 60-75 what they thought, some were shocked and one housemaid told me, 'We never behaved like those teachers at  that age. We would never act like this.' When I asked young Russians they would mainly answer, ' What is the big fuss? All they did was have sex with some of their grown up pupils. The Americans can become so hysterical. A few Russians even condoned and commended the action of the American teachers saying, 'If they need a job teaching in Russia they are more than welcome. We can find them plenty of students!'

           Well those Russian students might have to wait a long time.

           However, most Russians unanimously thought that imprisoning the American teachers was cruel and that they should be dismissed from their posts. This is the usual legal procedure in Russia. Some Russians have been galvanised into more than expressing sympathy or condemning the American legal system.

           As a past article in Second City Teacher mentioned, supporters such as Denis Shiryaev managed to amass a petition of 41,000 signatures calling for the American Supreme court to review two cases. The petition declares -

          'Here is a request to review the case against two school teachers in the U.S.A, Jennifer Fichter and Brianne Alice who were sentenced for a period of 30 years in prison for having sex with three of her students of 16 and 17(Brainne Altice) and 22 years in prison for having sex with students between the ages of 16 and 17, (Jennifer Fichter). A lot of students around the world are supporting them. They think that in this situation there is no justice by the U.S. court. We want to review this case against these ladies. We all that the guys are not so little and they are old enough to butcher, Florida is one of the 12 states in the United States where the age of consent is 18 years (in the remaining 38 states the age of consent is 17 or 16 years.)

          That is why the United States court can review the case.

          Maybe these ladies made the mistakes of having sex with those guys but we all make mistakes. Our request is dedicated to switch on the light of justice and to modify the sentences.

          These ladies find favor in the eyes of millions of people. All of them ask the United States Court to give a smaller prison sentence for Jennifer and Brainne. These sentences are too high and in general in this situation you can give them community service as a punishment. I hope that this petition will have success.

          Amongst the comparisons with Anders Breisik, it is despicable and gutless to compare the weaker sex(women) who did not do anything like this low person. Thank you for your support.

          Justice will have success.'

          It is clear that the judgements in those legal cases has further tarnished the reputation of the United States of America. Now millions of people all over the world no longer cherish illusions that, 'America is the Land of the Free' where 'There is justice for all'! In fact, a deeper examination of what goes on in American courts would shock the Russians even more. The prisons are full of innocent people who were forced to plea guilty simply because they lacked the resources to employ a lawyer. They call those guilty pleas 'bargain pleaing.'

          A Russian English teacher Okasana Chebotareva told me, 'Such prison sentencing is going to create a horrible atmosphere for teachers to work in. Teachers and students will no longer trust each other and you will be working in a tense amosphere of fear. I would hate to work in a school with this atmosphere'.

         Another teacher, Olga, told me, 'That is just over the top. Those teachers should just be fired and not imprisoned. Stephen, you better watch out that you yourself don't get into trouble'. I told Olga I did not work in American schools or hop into bed with my students.

         Lenoid Perlov, a representative of the Union, 'Teacher' stated, 'If I was in charge of those cases I would just dismiss the teachers from their jobs and ban them from working in this particular part of America. I would not put them in prison. But teachers have to understand that they must maintain a distance from their pupils.'

         For much of the mass media those cases simply represent lurid, sensational and  tantalising entertainment. It is a way of selling more newspapers or increasing the ratings of televsion programs.

         For the accused teachers this is not entertainment but their lives which are on the line. One accused teacher, Michelle Preston, a geography teacher, even attempted to commit suicide!

         Compassion and care have to be part of any legal system of justice. You have to examine each case on its particular merits rather than by precedent. A rational judge would ask the questions, such as, 'What really happened in this case and why? and 'How can I best assist the accused teachers ? rather than 'Tut Tut Tut ... Throw away the keys approach.

         The American teachers unions should take up those cases and fight for a review of those cases. We should build up upon the generous and gallant support of symapthetic Russians. Unless American teachers take bolder steps to defend their rights they will become no better than slaves.

Russian Teachers Union

INTERVIEW WITH A UNION LEADER FROM THE UNION "TEACHER'
By Stephen Wilson


(Moscow, Russia) -  Second City Teachers interviewed a prominent activist from the Russian school teacher trade union 'Teacher', Leonid Perlov, a geography teacher, about the pay, prestige, role, conditions and problems being experienced by Russian school teachers.

             We met on Pushkin square where the figure of the great poet Pushkin looms up and reminds you of his formidable and towering presence. He seems to be gazing over the horizon with an uncanny penetrative philosophical gaze. The words of his poem are inscribed below his figure declaring, 'I want to summon up feelings of freedom, kindness and glory for the fallen in this cruel century'. What does he mean? Was this 'cruel' century the 19th or is it now the 21st century? I wondered if teachers were amongst the 'fallen'.

            Leonid Perlov comes across as a friendly, frank and accessible teacher. He is endowed with a gift for  communicating complex ideas in a simple, straightfoward way. He also illustrates his arguments or cases with numerous amusing anecdotes.


            Second city Teacher
            A recent survey by TALIS,(Teaching and Learning International Survey,) claims that the salaries of school teachers have increased but that their work load has increased compared with their colleagues abroad. What do you think? Have the salaries of school teachers risen over the past few years?

            Leonid Perlov
            Well, you have to point out that there is a big difference between young specialists of the first catergory or rank starting off and the more senior teachers. Senior teachers are not paid that much more than junior despite their greater length of service.

            Younger  teachers can't be dismissed from the         school they have been assigned. If they don't perform work well in the school they can go somewhere else to find work.

            As for the claim that teaching has become a more attractive profession for young people, I don't agree with this. The problem is that we still don't have enough young teachers and I would not say the profession has become more attractive to young people.

            As for the claim that the salaries of school teachers have risen, in comparison with other countries, it still has not reached the average level of wages in Russia. If you want to make comparisons with other countries, Finnish teachers earn 2.2 times higher salaries than Russian school teachers.

            Therefore I don't agree with the findings of this survey
and there can be no dynamic rise in wages until we reach
the average level of salaries in Russia.

            The second point to make is that although salaries have risen the pay mechanism is not clearly defined and worked out in terms of how you should be paid for doing a number of hours in some regions. For example, in the Caucasus, some teachers might get paid far less than the usual average rate and in a gas-rich area of Siberia, the teachers might receive more hours of work and get more more pay. Pay tends to be given according to the quantity of hours and not the quality of teaching. Now the problem with this is that the quality of teaching can go down with the increasing hours. Russian school teachers work more than their American colleagues.

            They can work from 40-60 hours a week. Usually a full time working week is defined as doing a minimum of 18 hours a week. There is a common saying comparing two teachers.

            The first teacher says, 'I have the pay but, but I can't afford to eat,' while the second teacher tells him, 'I have more work but don't have time to eat!'

            S.C. Teacher
            How does the government assess the quality of performing teachers?

            Leonid Perlov
            The government inspects and checks teachers. The main problem lies in the criteria of how work is defined. It is assessed on a quantitative and not a qualitative basis. If you do more hours, you get a higher salary and it means he or she is a better teacher in the eyes of officials. Concerning the assessing by quality this is impossible to evaluate. The government thinks it can assess this but it can't. They use incorrect criteria of assessment. So more and more attempts are made to evaluate teachers with more and more points but you still can't reach a proper conclusion.

            S.C. Teacher
            Don't Russian teachers have any legal protection from being unfairly dismissed?

            Leonid Perlov
            There is a law and not just one law enshrined in what we call the Labour Codex which protects teachers. There might be good and bad reasons for dismissing teachers. A bad reason is when a teacher does not agree with his head master or fellow teacher.

            You can't really be legally fired for this. And if you are late because you fell and broke your leg you should not be fired.

            We have a three warning system. The authorties can only dismiss you with the third warning. If they have not given such warnings, then it could be very difficult to dismiss the teacher, especially since this warning system is written into the law.

            S.C. Teacher
            What do you think of the proposed reforms?

            Leonid Perlov
            We have had reforms for a long time. We have been in a state of 'permanent reform'. It began 20 years ago and is
still going on. Any reforms risk failing in such a huge country
such as Russia. The government has three options; It can leave the situation as it is, it can make the situation worse or it can make it better. Reforms are needed but they must be clearly defined, assessed and analysed. In practice there have been many new experiments in, say, 10 regions of Russia out of 185. This is not a cheap thing to do. It costs a lot of money and the officials who are implementing the reform must prove the work is effective. In practice, those reforms don't often work!

            It is difficult to assess the effectiveness of new reforms because it takes a long time to find out if they have been effective. The results are not available immediately as there is a long time scale involved. Take the example of introducing a new exam for children in their first year. If you are implementing a new program and methodology in their first year, when do you think we can discover whether the results have been truly effective?


            S.C.Teacher
            The TALIS survey claimed that the amount of paperwork teachers are having to do has risen tremendously. They found that this was a recurring complaint amongst the headmasters as well as other teachers.What is your opinion?

            Leonid Perlov
            That finding is certainly true. I know a member of the Duma, Alexandr Molon. He is blind but a good and honest teacher. He states that, 'We have the criteria for improving teacher qualifications, if you want to reach a higher rank in teaching.

            But a teacher has to fill in 13 kilos of application forms for officials to read. Do you think officials are going to read any of this paperwork? Nobody will read this paperwork. My wife is a doctor in a polyclinic and tells me she spends more time filling in forms most of the time than dealing with her patients.

            S.C. Teacher
            Why is there such needless paperwork? They tell me that there is more red tape than in the Soviet era.

            Leonid Perlov
            Government officials can't objectively assess the criteria for evaluating teachers and education. Officials are not capable of doing this. It is like the joke about the man who loses his watch in the park. He was looking in the part of the illuminated park and not the dark part. Another person asked him, 'Why are you looking in this part of the park as I have seen your watch in the dark part?' The man who lost his watch answers, 'Because this part of the park is lit and I can see, and I can't see where I lost the watch in the dark part.' So he never finds his watch.

            Officials read documents but are not qualified to do anything else.

            S.C.Teacher
            What can the union Teacher do to help unfairly dismissed teachers?

            A problem is that people badly know the law in Russia. As a trade-union we can find the dismissed person a lawyer, or organise acts of solidarity in different schools. We can go to parliament and ask for help. We can also take the problem to the organ of the procurator's.

            We can help him find a new job in another area as a teacher.

            S.C.Teacher
            Has the prestige of Russian school teachers increased in recent years?

            Leonid Perlov
            The attitude of the public to teachers is extremely low. If a teacher is so badly paid his work will not be accurately
acknowledged. Alot of capable teachers won't enter into the
profession if the wages are so low. We can compare the attitude to teachers in the West with the Far East. In South Korea, the teacher is chosen by the pupils while in the West it is the opposite. In the West, the status of teachers has been low for centuries. In ancient times, teachers were slaves and even now they are like slaves. This is because they are often like paid mercenaries - 'He who pays the piper calls the tune.'

            The piper has turned teachers into slaves. In the Far East, we see a different picture. The teacher is treated like a god or a saintly figure. The pupils don't tread over the toes of the teacher.

            I visited and worked in South Korean schools so I 'm acquainted with their views.

            S.C. Teacher
            What do you think of the recent cases of two American teachers being imprisoned for 22 and 30 years for
illicit sex with their pupils?

            Leonid Perlov
            One of my colleagues fell in love with their pupils but they only married ten years after she had left school! They are both currently happily married and have a child. But they waited.

            You need to keep a distance with your pupils. I don't think the teachers should be imprisoned. Yes, they should be dismissed and not permitted to work in this specific district of America but not put in prison.

            S.C. Teacher
            What if a teacher says, "I want to join a union but I'm too scared of joining least someone find out I'm a member and I might lose my job.''

            Leonid Perlov
            I always try to meet those teachers and ask, 'Why do you want to join?'  It usually is because they are working in a bad collective, don't get on with other staff, can't relax, but not always. In one case a teacher came to me who was in a good collective. I gave her an application form and proposed 'If you don't change your mind the Union will defend you.' Yes, people are often afraid of joining.

            I'm not a Christian, but Jesus was for the poor, the weak and the underdog. The union is also there to defend the people who need help, especially teachers who tend to be poor.

            S.C. Teacher
            What do you think of the recent proposals by the government to test the competence of school psychologists?

            Leonid Perlov
            The question is 'Who will evaluate those psychologists?'

            Will high-ranking psychologists evaluate them? Russians know what an accountant is but they don't know what a psychologist is or what they do.

            S.C.Teacher
            What is your opinion of this book by Alexsi Ivanov  'The Geography Teacher gets drunk'?

            Leonid Perlov
            I think that this person should not have been allowed to teach in this school. He had no experience or training as a school teacher. I have read this book twice and watched the film three times.  Teaching is one of those professions which
many people think they know something about and have the
right to profess any opinion on it. This is despite the fact they
have no qualifications or experience which would qualify them to make such judgments.

CPS Contract Update

From CTU General Counsel to the Chicago Board of Ed

BY ROBERT BLOCH - CTU GENERAL COUNSEL  |  08/07/2015

Mr. James C. Franczek

Franczek Radelet P.C.

300 South Wacker Drive

Suite 3400

Chicago, IL 60606-6785

 

Dear Mr. Franczek:

 

The Chicago Teachers Union has directed that I promptly respond to the maliciously false letter you issued today purporting to justify the decision by Chicago Public Schools to precipitously withdraw from its proposed one-year contract extension.

 

The misstatements in your letter are profound and disturbing. As you know, our last meeting on July 30 ended on the verge of an agreement pending resolution of two issues. President Lewis then met with the Mayor on August 2 to hear the Mayor’s concerns. As we entered the room to resume negotiations today, CPS immediately withdrew the entire extension proposal without bothering to hear the Union’s response, and now falsely suggests that we were at impasse.

 

How far were we apart? The Union had proposed that for one year a small subgroup of tenured teachers be added to the much larger group who, in the event of economic layoffs unrelated to pedagogy, would be laid off in order of seniority. Already, CPS currently provides over 80% of tenured teachers such protections. To contend that this small addition for a single year would “irreparably undermine the effectiveness of our evaluation system” is flatly untrue – though we had not in any event concluded our negotiations on this subject.

 

And the remaining issue? The Union’s proposal that CPS commit $10 million to a community-based anti-violence initiative at 20 local schools – a proposal your team heartily endorsed from the moment it was raised, and required only agreement on where to secure the funding. You now call it “an issue that divides us,” but you know better.

 

Your misstatements continue with the false claim that we disagreed over matters about which total agreement was already achieved. Most particularly, you claim we “have disagreement” over pension pick-up, when you know that CPS had proposed, and the Union had agreed, that CPS would maintain the pension pickup for another year. How can you claim this issue divides us when the CPS itself proposed to maintain it?

 

CPS’s tragic shortcoming over the years has been its penchant for distortion and deception, and its well-earned lack of credibility in all corners of this State. Regrettably, once again CPS proves true to form in making more specious claims to support its perceived short term interests.

 

Sadly, CPS walks away from agreements that the Union was prepared to accept and submit to membership ratification, including no increase to base salaries, a commitment to achieve significant healthcare cost savings, mutually agreed reforms to evaluation practices, grading practices and student testing, plus CPS’s promises not to unilaterally open new charter schools, not to close more neighborhood schools or to impose disruptive school turnarounds – agreements CPS now throws out the window.

 

After four months of bargaining over an extension agreement that CPS requested and proposed to the Union, it has evidently decided to seek confrontation rather than compromise, setting us directly onto a collision course. We have no doubt that CPS will now seek to impose a 7% educator pay cut, destroy more neighborhood schools, and continue its ranking and sorting of teachers and children by unproven educational methods – all at the expense of CPS students and the dedicated professionals who educate them.

 

Sincerely,

Robert E. Bloch

CTU General Counsel

Attack on Psychologists

RUSSIAN PSYCHOLOGISTS MUST BE MORE EFFECTIVE
By Stephen Wilson


(Moscow, Russia) - The Head of Moscow's local government commission on education is demanding that local school psychologists in Moscow be tested for their competence and crystal clear criteria for effectiveness should be laid out as to what the specific tasks of psychologists are. For instance, psychologists must spot school students experiencing stressful problems in one group and help shift him or her to either a smaller or bigger group. The role of
psychologists should be to 'provide the right psychological
climate in the classroom' and 'a psychologist must be a 
person whom a child can come to with his problems, trust
and confide with, and attain psychological support.'

            Anton Molev, head of the commission, claims there are very few competent school  psychologists and a headmistress of School Number 2098 backs him up with the words, 'Unfortunately, professional psychologists are very rare'.  Anton Molev attempts to explain this incompetence by claiming, 'This is connected with the fact that in the early 1990's, schools simply employed psychologists because it was fashionable, but the quality of them was doubtful and the understanding about why they were needed was absent.

            'This is why it is imperative to regularly check their credentials.'

            IS THIS FAIR?

            Are those comments fair? If you ask many Russians about what they think about school psychologists many do not know what their role really is and some think they just
test school students because that is what is expected of them. However, criticism of the competence of psychologists could easily be aimed at officials. How many compentent educational officials are there? It is like the kettle calling the pot black! Molev's proposals appear to be devoid of practical common-sense and ask too much from school psychologists. As one parent stated, 'How on earth can one psychologist in a school of 1200 pupils deal with all their problems? How can they physically do all this?' This is presuming that there are any psychologists left in those schools.

            The local government has implemented huge cuts where hundreds of librarians, psychologists and speech therapists have lost their jobs. Do those cuts do much to improve the psychological climate which students find themselves in?

            Unfortunately, none of the Russian newspapers interviewed any school psychologists about what they thought of Molev's proposals. It is more likely that                   psychologists are the latest scapegoat who can be unfairly blamed for the errors being made by officials. Some critics believe that the real reason for those proposals is simply to justify the further dismissal of school staff. But officials should ask themselves whether a day may come where they are fired by higher officials!

            The facts remain that there are very good psychologists and possibly much more than either Molev or the head claim. 

            AN IMPORTANT ROLE

            Psychologists can play a great role in assisting pupils. They can spot a child with not only learning difficulties, but prevent possible suicides or even embarking down the blind alley of crime. Psychologists are not just in schools to deploy
unpopular intelligence tests such as IQ tests. That is why
so many people in the West don't like or trust psychologists.

            What was meant by Stanley Binet as a means of spotting learning difficulties and intervening to aid pupils, later degenerated into an unfair form of discrimination which has stained the profession in both Britain and America.

            I once met a highly competent psychologist called Svetlana at 'The Family Club', which is kindergarten near Rechnoy Metro station. She did not only work as an educational psychologist but offered therapy sessions to traumatised people. She told me, 'One of the greatest joys I get from life is when a very sad and unhappy client comes to my room and then after a session he emerges a new person beaming with a new kind of joy on his face. I can see an enormous burden has been lifted from him'.  The right words from a proficent psychologist can make a person perceive his
problem in an entirely fresh way which he might never ever
have imagined.

            Svetlana showed me how she dealt with troubled school children whom their parents had sent to her. Some of those young children had become withdrawn or were behaving oddly. She would let the children play with a Japanese sand garden by letting them making up a story by using toy figures.

            'I noticed that one boy who used one figure to represent his own self made a retreat from the other toy figures because they were all judging him and he wanted to be free from all those belittling judgments. I quickly identified that the child's low self-esteem was largely due to the hard judgments of his parents. The problem was that I had to approach the parents and tell them a truth they did not want to hear.'

            Svetlana had visited America and lived their for two years in order to further upgrade her qualifications. She is a
highly qualified psychologist and therapist whom state
officials such as Anton Molev should honour. However, this psychologist no longer works in state schools. With the present day cut backs, what guarantee would she obtain that her job would be protected? All it might take is the       displeasure of one parent, or official, and she might lose her job on a whim. She informed me that many of the teachers who worked with her did not appreciate her role at all and could be at times, hostile. Being an educational psychologist is not an easy job for even the best professionals!

            Teachers and psychologists should challenge officials to reveal what is their real agenda and if they are so concerned about education why are they firing so many librarians, psychologists, speech therapists and medical staff at schools? Why do educational officials persistently refuse to listen to the opinions of many teachers? For example, a representative of the Union Teacher, Leonid Perlov and many other educators have worked out many very practical proposals to improve the current educational system. Yet local educational officials stubbornly refuse to talk to them. If this is the case, then it is highly doubtful they would listen to the most competent educational psychologists. Evidently listening is not an art officials are accomplished in!