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What the hell is going on? The city's teachers are suddenly all Notes on a Scandal! There are three high-profile cases of improper student-teacher relations across the city.
Yesterday, a Brooklyn public school teacher was arrested on rape charges. Thirty-year-old Marcia Amsterdam who taught speech skills at George Gershwin Junior High was accused of raping a 13 year old boy who may have been a student. Amsterdam was relieved of her teaching duties and assigned to administrative work.
This follows the Tuesday arraignment of 23-year-old Bronx public school music teacher Emily Streb, who allegedly had sex with a 16-year-old student. Apparently school authorities suspected something was going on, but the student denied the relationship until finally admitting it to his mother. The assistant DA says that the boy, a special ed student, "suffers from psychiatric problems." Streb's lawyer says that the student confessed the affair because he "felt jilted" - but isn't having an affair with a student a no-no? Streb was arraigned on charges of third-degree rape.
And in the trial of the former Montessori principal accused of starting a relationship with a 13-year-old student 11 years ago, the accuser had difficulty remembering details while being cross-examined. Lina Sinha's lawyer Gerald Shargel managed to get the accuser, who is now a police officer, to say he couldn't remember "at least 53 times," according to the NY Times (the Times story, linked at the beginning of the paragraph, has some crazy details). Sinha's defense is that she had the relationship when the accuser turned 17, which is the age of consent.
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Marcia Amsterdam was REASSIGNED? If she were a man she'd be in prison right now.
What is going on?! About 80,000 New York City public school teachers have NOT been accused of inappropriate relationships with students! There they are! Every day, going to work, doing a job we should ALL be helping with! For very little money! And zero recognition! What is the world coming to?!
I guess this women's lib thing took equality farther than I supposed it did. does this mean I should refer to myself as a pig?
David are you a complete moron?
that's hot
Three isn't exactly an epidemic. I guarantee you there are an awful lot more than three teachers of both genders molesting students. The media has begun focusing on female teachers because it's only recently that it's occurred to people that maybe young boys aren't enjoying themselves when they're molested by women.
Or the Statute of Limitations is about to expire.
it's about the money.
what's most sad is how ugly all these female teachers are. When you see a west coast teacher student scandal usually the teacher looks like a model. On the east coast the teacher looks like a janitor. Sad.
This isn't about ignoring the 80,000 other teachers to highlight the behaviour of a few bad eggs. the point is that the teachers' union, but INSISTING on ludicrous measures of job protection for the abusive, the incompetent, the molesters etc. really does a diservice to the other teachers who are going out to do their jobs. it will take years to fire these teachers, even after admission of guilt. until the UFTA decides to hold teachers accountable for their behaviour by not wrapping red tape around the whole procedure of how to fire a crap teacher, then i will never be for salary increases or any other supportive measures for teachers who deserve more. there are scores and scores of teachers reporting for "admin duty" (read: go to the library, read everyday and don't go near the students) on FULL PAY.
it's up to the teachers to be the first ones to step up and agree that protecting incompetent teachers is not really the reason for why they have a union. teachers should not be afraid to stand up on the merits of their work and stop depending on the UFTA to cluster them altogether so that the molesters are standing next to and getting the exact same benefits as the hard-working teacher next year.
Remember back in the summer of 2001 when the media went completely apeshit over the "Summer of the Shark"? Suddenly, they would have us believe that sharks were coming out of the waterworks waiting to kill any human swimmer in their path. It turns out, the number of shark attacks were actually the same as or less than previous years but the talking heads reached into their bag of fear and that bag was empty at the time so they came up with the whole SUMMER OF THE SHARK! storyline.
Good thing for them (and the sharks who were needlessly being speared to death) a few months later, we'd witness the biggest, most devastating day our nation has seen in modern day times.
Point being, this has been happening forever. I think. I think they're just now getting their panties in a bunch over it. I mean, a woman is supposed to hit her peak in her 30s, that's been the case forever, which leads me to believe that it isn't the first time or the last that a 30-year-old women is going to get with a teenage boy.
Not saying it's right, but I am saying this isn't anything new. :]
(I am getting all sorts of errors on the gothamist comments, therefore this post might go up like, 100 times.)
Yes, I'm a complete moron. Thank you for asking such an interesting and useful question.
I think it's amazing that somebody could vote against salary increases for 80,000 teachers because of 3 cases in the newspaper. As for those "scores" of teachers on 'admin' duty, that still makes up a very tiny number--even if it is true. And at the PUBLIC SCHOOL AT WHICH I AM A TEACHER, there aren't any, nor have there been any for years and years.
Everybody should stop considering themselves informed just because they read the NY Post. You might try volunteering at a school to see what it's actually like.
In addition, a teacher is placed on 'admin' duty as soon as a complaint is registered. Because of the Salem Witch Hunt aspect of these accusations, nobody is willing to listen to the teachers, or evaluate the student's complaints for validity. The students know that even the slightest complaint will essentially lose a teacher his/her job, and you have no idea how vindictive a student who has just failed a course can be.
Everybody blames teachers for education problems, but they're the only ones doing anything. Sorry, but you don't even deserve to have an opinion unless you actually know something first hand.
I know I should say what I'm about to say, But someone has to say it . SO here goes ..... Where were these freaky teachers when I was in high School? I had old retirees scribbling notes on a blackboard, and kids today have twenty something year olds teaching them "Global Economics"
That is soooooo true "David" . I had a teacher that would get the parents of a student involved in there education only to have the student claim he was hitting on her . This poor guy was moved out of his classroom of [22] years . We saw him in the Principal's office sorting paperwork for about a week . After that we never saw him again, From my understanding they shipped him too about five other schools (After they found that he didn't do anything the student alleged). None of them would have him so he retired and collects his pension benefits .