Do not attack Freddie, Mr. Bisram, provide evidence of your claims

Dec 15, 2012 Letters

Dear Editor,
I’ve read the numerous ‘polls’ put out by Vishnu Bisram over the years and the responding critics that seek clarification on him and the authenticity of his ‘polls’. Mr. Bisram has responded to Freddie Kissoon in full attack mode after Kissoon’s attempts to get some information to confirm the authenticity of the polls Bisram puts out.
It is very interesting that instead of answering the questions directly, as any reputable organization would do, he continues to make half statements and general inferences. Do not attack Freddie, provide evidence of your claims.
For example, when asked to provide the name of the school at which he works, instead of providing a name and number for his school, he lists a number of individuals who can attest to the fact that he is employed as a teacher with the NY public school system. That is tantamount to someone going for a job and when asked to provide proof of employment, they berate the interviewer for not accepting the word of a colleague who has worked with them. Providing a list of personal references does not prove where you are employed.
The next interesting factor about Mr. Bisram is that he cannot provide any clarification on his North America Caribbean Teachers Association (NACTA). There are a number of associations in which educators from the Diaspora associate and they go at length to get publicity and attract members. I have never heard of this association nor seen any of their work outside of the utterings of Mr. Bisram.
I have been a teacher with the NYC Department of Education for the last ten years and have been teaching in the same public school system that Bisram purports to be teaching. In this system, there is an outlook web email system, that automatically registers every employee with the Department of Education, whether you are school-based or not. If you need to look up any employee, you type their name in the search engine on the application and all their employment details are displayed.
Their name, school, school telephone number and title appear. I have done this repeatedly for Mr. Bisram and nothing shows.
For the past seven years I have been involved in the teachers’ union, both at my school level and the central level. As a part-time employee of the teachers’ union (United Federation of Teachers), I have access to every school-based employee of the Department of Education, and no one by the name of Vishnu Bisram is on that database.
A teacher in the NYC Dept. of Education is allowed ten days per year to be absent, and it has to be for justifiable reasons. These also include the days for which doctor’s notes have to be produced. How does Mr. Bisram explain all those days that he is in Guyana? A teacher gets one year of approved sabbatical study after seven years of service. Your courses have to be approved by the Superintendent and you cannot be gainfully employed during this sabbatical. Again, can Bisram explain his sabbatical and if he did polling during that period, then he was perpetuating a fraud on the department.
I have no intentions of entering into a spat with Mr. Bisram. He has put himself out as a public figure and makes pronouncements that can influence people’s daily lives, and therefore he deserves to be scrutinized like every public figure. Unless Mr. Bisram comes clean and answers the following questions directly, he will be seen as perpetuating a fraud on the Guyanese people.
1. What is the name and number of the school at which you teach?
2. What is the subject you teach and what is your New York State Education Department license?
3. What is the location of the head office of NACTA?
4. I am an educator who would like to join NACTA. Who are the executive members and what is the process for joining?
I make no hasty conclusions about Mr. Bisram, but to rely on the veracity of his polls and utterances he needs to prove that he is an individual of integrity.
Jerrick Rutherford
East Orange, NJ

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