This is Going to be Huge ... at least it better be.

A documentary is currently in the works about the “purgatory” where teachers are held after being accused of various degrees of misconduct. The period of time when teachers are suspended and await a lengthy adjudication process is spent in The Rubber Room.

It’s usually an ordinary office in an off-campus location where the suspended schoolteachers sit and do absolutely nothing, while being paid full salary. There is at least one Rubber Room in each of New York City’s five-boroughs, but since it is difficult to find anyone willing to discuss the issue, the number of teachers housed in these rooms can’t be confirmed.

According to the production company behind this project, Five Boroughs Productions:

Teachers assigned to a Rubber Room can spend months and often years there. Though they continue to collect their full salaries, they are not asked or allowed to perform work of any kind, instead sitting idle day after day. The annual cost of the New York City Department of Education's Rubber Room is estimated to be in excess of $25 million, with some estimates ranging as high as $40 million. In addition, there is a general consensus that this cost is rising steeply with each passing year.

More than just presenting the economic effects of the Rubber Room, the documentary aims to highlight the issues that make the Rubber Room a “controversial topic.” What I’m hoping will result from this documentary is a call for change in the politics of education, including, but transcending, the economic issues. It’s easy for people to see the fact that these suspended teachers are still getting paid salary. What’s difficult to comprehend, and what I hope the documentary goes into further detail, is the notion that these teachers do not feel lucky being disconnected from the world they love. Money, in this sense, has absolutely no value.

Based primarily on the trailer, the documentary (as of now) seems a little jagged, and lacks an overall cohesion. It isn’t until two minutes into the trailer that the issue of the Rubber Room is introduced. What the Rubber Room signifies encompasses what I believe are the reasons for the failure of the public school system. By introducing society to that issue, it makes it more accessible, and thereby easier to attempt to resolve.

Considering I’ve criticized the budget of the New York City Public School System, or lack thereof, as a major factor in its overall collapse and failure, I humbly respect the opinions of the teachers presented at the end of the trailer who refer to the Rubber Room as an “abominable waste.” The trailer ends with the same teacher saying: “What a horrible secret that the Department of Education is keeping from the public.”

Mitchell's vocabulary lesson of the day:
[educate] from the latin educare meaning: "to lead out of." In this context, educators are seen as leaders of students out of the darkness of ignorance and into the light of knowledge.

Hoping that the New York Public School System won't end up being a cyclical confirmation of a continuous crossroads between the blind leading the blind, I'm relying on this documentary to shed some light, and drop some knowledge.

Peace.