Straight From The Gulag

The Teacher of the Year (1997) , David Pakter, was found medically unfit to teach by the DOE's Medical Bureau director who never met him, as a retaliation for blowing the whistle on his principal's racial discriminatory practice.
He fought and won.

In June 2005, the DOE directed Pakter to report for a medical examination based on Penzell's charges [ Local Instructional Supervisor Penzell]. On July 14, he met with the DOE's Dr. Ann Garner, who summed up Pakter's “condition” with labels such as “hypomania” and “grandiosity” and “fidgety” and “delusional” and “paranoid” — terms later denounced by a medical arbitrator.

Garner had asked Pakter if he was depressed. When he answered no, she asked him if he had a family, if he lived alone and if he had a problem with substance abuse. “What does living alone or having a family have to do with teaching?” Pakter said.
Two weeks later, he met with an outside psychologist, Richard Schuster, hired by the DOE, who gave him a test that asked him to respond yes or no to statements such as: “A shoe goes on your head. Monkeys live in fish tanks. A room in a house has walls. The color of grass is red. Cars have four wheels. Cats have five legs.”

Schuster administered the test even though one month earlier that test had been declared illegal by the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. The judges ruled that the test has no bearing on whether workers can carry out their responsibilities.

Schuster said Pakter “usually tried to project a positive attitude about life and typically enters new relationships with an open, accepting attitude” and that his clinical profile was “within normal limits.” Still, he recommended that Pakter undergo “psychiatric treatment, including appropriate medication.”

Medical director makes charges

In August 2005, the director of the DOE Medical Bureau, Dr. Audrey Jacobson, informed Pakter by letter that he was found “not currently fit for duty.” She also wrote a letter to Schuster, repeating the false porn charge and denouncing Pakter at every turn. She used terms like “his narrative was self-serving, grandiose and tangential.” She also said he “appeared to be somewhat manic, with his mood congruent with grandiosity and paranoia.”

Art and Design HS Assistant Principal Harold Mason, who was videotaped saying Pakter was engaging in “mental masturbation” at a disciplinary hearing. Mason was severely criticized by an independent hearing officer who called it “an outrageous comment.”

There was one problem with the letter: Jacobson never met or examined Pakter.

In September 2005, Pakter asked for medical arbitration but wasn't evaluated until January 2006. Pakter hired his own expert, Alberto Goldwaser, a nationally acclaimed doctor.

“DOE Medical didn't want to take a chance on finding me unfit with their pencil-and-paper tests and quack opinions with Goldwaser in the room,” Pakter said.

The independent arbitrator wrote his final report in June 2006 — even though the DOE-UFT contract mandates that it be filed “within 10 days” after the examination, which took place in January. The arbitrator blamed Jacobson for the delay, saying he was waiting for more information from Jacobson — but Jacobson blamed the arbitrator. Meanwhile, Pakter was off the payroll.

“They were trying to starve me out,” he said, “hoping I would give up. I will never give up. They tried to railroad me with junk science.”

The arbitrator's decision demolished the DOE case against Pakter, saying the Medical Bureau's finding that Pakter was medically/psychiatrically unfit “was not a medically reasonable one.” The arbitrator said Pakter “has never been found unfit; all available teaching assessments are consistently outstanding; inferences about Mr. Pakter's ability to teach, drawn by Dr. Schuster and others from Mr. Pakter's presentation in clinical evaluations, are unsupported.”

After the medical arbitrator declared him fit for duty, Pakter's lawyer wrote a letter to the DOE demanding his full back pay, which he received within two weeks of the letter.

Excerpt from Whistle-blower axed — again

by Jim Callaghan , The New York Teacher , Mar 15, 2007