The Walking Deadwood

Starting today, the city Department of Education is forcing deadwood from the Absent Teacher Reserve on schools that don’t want them. It’s almost inevitable that the hit will fall largely on low-performing schools in low-income neighborhoods.

ATR teachers have been repeatedly passed over by principals. About a third were originally removed from classrooms because of a legal or disciplinary case.

Almost four out of 10 haven’t been in a classroom for over six years. Another 12 percent have been rated ineffective or unsatisfactory.

But the ATR — educators paid to do little or nothing because the city can’t fire them — is an embarrassment, so Chancellor Carmen Fariña has opted to start emptying it out by forcing these staffers on schools that have open positions on the books.

Such vacancies are far more common at troubled schools, so they’re the ones that will “win” these unwanted teachers.

And never mind Team de Blasio’s promise to close the ATR without resorting to forced placements.

Asked about the issue at a recent news conference, Fariña insisted that ATR teachers are “actually OK . . . not only OK but good.” Really, Madame Chancellor?

Back when she was an Upper East Side principal, Fariña refused to hire teachers assigned her by the DOE. How will she handle anyone who follows her example now?

Hundreds of parents rallied last week with the activist group StudentsFirstNY to protest the first wave of 400 ATR rejects being sent out to the classroom.

One of them was Harold Wilson of East New York, who said: “My child deserves a great education, just like the kids in the mayor’s neighborhood. We need great teachers, not leftovers.”

Count it as one more injustice inflicted on the have-nots by a mayor who first won office thundering about the “Two New Yorks.”