The Rubber Room

This story - at first - disgusted me. What a disgrace to teachers and what a black eye to our wonderful profession.

I first heard of "the Rubber Room" from ABC's documentary "Stupid in America" which really attacked the public school system, especially the teacher's union. Now, I won't try to debate the fact that tenure does defend terrible teachers. But both the story and ABC's documentary just make it seem that NYC's schools are just full of terrible teachers.

The whole system should shoulder some of the blame. Barely more than half of all students graduate on time. While 35-37 million is spent on paying the full salaries of teachers in the Rubber Room, that amounts to approximately .25 percent of the NYC school budget. That's right. It's the largest school system in the world and has a budget on par with NASA.

The onus of the blame can't rest just on teachers. After just viewing the trailer of a documentary on the Rubber Room makes me glad I don't teach in a large urban district.
In fact, it makes me quite pleased that my biggest complaints about my school are rather trivial.

But as with everything, there is always more to the story. This trailer of a documentary delves further into the issue, and shows both sides, unlike this article.