When I see a new teacher, or even a pre-service teacher, I think, the odds are that this person is in for a short period of time. And it is a shame.

• Teachers get better with time. Kids, colleagues, schools, the system, all benefit.
• Classroom control goes up; discipline issues decline. Schools, kids, colleagues, all benefit.
• Personal security goes up (over time, in general, yes, and after three years with tenure, of course); teachers are more likely to speak – about curriculum, about conditions in the school, about practices.
• The teacher’s investment in the school goes up. The teacher is more likely to meaningfully participate in shared decision-making. In long term planning.
• The teacher becomes more forward-looking. The teachers is more likely to seek to modify problems, abuses, weaknesses in the school. Colleagues are more likely to draw together to fix problems, less likely to leave their heads in the sand.
• The teacher becomes part of the fabric of the school, which can function as part of the fabric of the neighborhood. Colleagues benefit from the stability. Kids benefit from the stability. Parents benefit, as the relationships they formed with their first kid’s teachers carry forward to their next kid, and the one after that.

I think I am right. Everyone in the building wins when a teacher stays past their second, their third, their fourth year. What do you think?

In New York City, we get lots of new teachers with potential. Recruitment does not seem to be the weak link.

And yet, not nearly enough teachers stay. Why? What can we do?

—- —- —-

Over the next week or so, I am giving this blog over to this question. What can we do to get more new teachers to stay in teaching. I am looking for comments, ideas, thoughts. I will be soliciting guest posts (something I have not done before)

Leave your comments attached to any post. Or submit a short essay to me at [This blog name] [at] [gmail] [dot] [you know].

I think this is a discussion worth starting.

Just a list of posts:

What Kind of Recruitment for NYC Public School Teachers?

Recruiting Teaching Fellows

What to do about Teaching Fellows?

Some Teaching Fellows I know

Teaching Fellows or the Teaching Fellows?

Am I a Fellow?

Teaching Fellows are new teachers

Using Fellows for what they weren’t intended

Organizing Teaching Fellows as teachers

Does signing a card make you a UFT member?

What issues matter to new teachers?

Do Not Apply

Reaching Fellows

The New York City Department of Education closes down bad schools (they often exaggerate or distort the problems) and opens new schools, often smaller, in their place. For example, this year they are beginning to shut down MS399 in the Bronx, below Fordham, and replace it with 3 smaller middle schools. (actually, I think 399 itself is a reorganized school – the building had a different number back when it was Elizabeth Barrett Browning…)

Did Bloomberg and his Chancellor do this on purpose, to harm kids? Or was it by accident?

That’s the picture, and it happens a lot. Shut, shuffle, reopen. They say they are making the schools better.

We say they don’t look at how needy the population is. We say that they often ignore real gains that have been made.

And me, I say that they do this intentionally. They add chaos and disorganization; they break continuity; they add insecurity; they create ATRs; they disrupt education – specifically for those schools, neighborhoods, teachers, families and especially children who most need consistency, continuity, stability.

Daily News exposes something: lies? or just incompetence?

Who’s right? Today’s Daily News has part of the answer. Read it, and ask yourself, “Did the DoE do this on purpose, to harm kids? Or was it just gross incompetence?”

Four schools in bottom 10 in state tests were newly opened

They closed schools making gains (MS399’s scores were rising), and opened some, ahem, that aren’t performing particularly well. The complete article is below the fold:

Four schools in bottom 10 in state tests were newly opened

BY Meredith Kolodner and Rachel Monahan
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Sunday, July 12th 2009, 4:00 AM

Bonifacio/NewsPublic School 90 in Morrisania, the Bronx

Call it the dis-honor roll.

Some of the schools with the highest percentage of students flunking state tests were the ones the city opened to replace previously “failing” schools, city data show.

Of the top 10 schools with the worst student performance in math tests this year, half were opened in the past four years as part of Mayor Bloomberg’s new schools initiative.

The four Brooklyn elementary and middle schools and one Harlem junior high school were put into buildings after the city shuttered the schools that had occupied them.

Some educators believe the strategy of closing elementary and middle schools is an expensive experiment with unconvincing results.

“There’s a lot of intuitive appeal to it,” said William Mathis, a professor at the University of Vermont who just completed a national study on closing down schools.

He charged, “Research shows it just doesn’t work for most schools, and in a lot of cases it makes things worse.”

Education Department officials say that overall, the new small schools have outperformed the ones they replaced, but that they too might be closed if they don’t perform well.

“There’s accountability for all of our schools,” said Ed Department spokeswoman Melody Meyer.

Meanwhile, some of the schools targeted for closure this year have posted test score improvements twice that of the citywide average.

Many of the closing schools still have low test scores, although a few are close to the city average when the student demographics are taken into account.

At Public School 90 in Morrisania, the Bronx, about half the students are not proficient in English.

The students scored only a few points lower on state reading tests than the citywide average, based on student demographics. In math, they actually scored higher.

The city made the decision about closing schools this year before tests were taken. “We didn’t have this year’s data when we chose to close the school,” said Meyer.

At PS 2, also in the Bronx, which has three times the number of special education students as the average city school, students improved their math scores at twice the rate of students citywide.

Scores were roughly 7 or 8 percentage points lower than the citywide average on both the English and math exams, based on school demographics.

“We’re not comparable in terms of the populations that we serve,” said PS 2 technology teacher George Morales. “Our school was beginning to progress and they shut us down.”
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/education/2009/07/12/2009-07-12_many_new_schools_in_bottom_10_in_state_tests.html#ixzz0L4Jl0GNR&D

I was looking at a MathNotations puzzle, really a borrowing from Totally Clueless, over here. And I thought, what else could we do with arcs and radii? And I came up with a series that all require some uglyish algebra, starting with the first at the level of a challenge problem in algebra 1.

• Puzzle version 1:  Consider a quarter circle AOB with center O. Starting at point A, what is the halfway point around the perimeter?

Now, that looks fairly algebraic to me. Take the perimeter, divide it in half, be careful with a little subtraction. Does the radius fall out?

• Puzzle version 2: Consider a sector of a circle CND with central  ∠N. Find N if the paths from C to D are equidistant.

Still fairly algebraic. Maybe even a little easier, though we could get some challenge back, just a bit, for asking for the answer in degrees.

• Puzzle version 3: Consider a sector of a circle EMF, with central ∠M. Find the point on the perimeter at the greatest distance from E in terms of M and the radius.

Of course we expect the radius to drop out, and we’re left with some annoying algebra, and two cases, depending on M. Annoying, but not too tricky. Try it though.

New set.

• Puzzle B, version 1: Consider a quarter circle GLH with center L. Consider a segment with one endpoint at G that divides the sector into two pieces of equal area. Where is the other endpoint of this segment?

Ooh, something to think about before you start calculating…

• Puzzle B, version 2: Consider a sector IKJ, with central ∠K. Consider a segment with one endpoint at K that divides the sector into two pieces of equal area. Where is the other endpoint of this segment? Are there conditions under which this puzzle does not have a solution?

That last might be too hard for me! Try to avoid leaving comments on questions that are too easy for you. Thanks.

Final challenge – can you pull out something that would be a fair challenge for an advanced middle school class? That’s the harder stuff to write…

A blogger in a different part of the NYC blogging universe looked at Bloomberg’s education campaign literature.

It is glossy.

It has bulleted points.

It has Catholic school kids dressed up to look like public school kids.

What? Bloomberg’s not comfortable with real public school kids?

Maybe it was, hmm, an unusual circumstance? A misunderstanding?

Nope. They brought Catholic School girls into an all-boys Catholic School. They told them to bring street clothes and change out of their uniforms for the shoot.

Mike Bloomberg thinks we’re too dumb to know when rich people lie to us.

Click for the article on the O’Dwyer PR blog. The staged, faked image is above and to the right, and the entire text of the article follows immediately, in red, below the fold.

New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg is spending boatloads of money in his re-election campaign.

A big chunk of that change is earmarked for ads touting the billionaire’s achievements in education — though the knuckleheads in New York State’s dysfunctional Senate may undo that progress if they continue their hissy fit in Albany.

Mayor Mike crows about eighth grade math scores being up 42 percent and reading scores up 28 percent. Awesome.

Bloomberg says his demands for “accountability” and a “safe learning environment” are among reasons for the upbeat report card.

That’s why this blogger was a bit mystified upon opening a campaign brochure called “Mike Bloomberg’s public school progress report.” The centerpiece of the brochure showed Bloomberg chatting with two young girls standing in a school hallway. Lo and behold, there stood my daughter’s classmates shooting the breeze with Mayor Mike, standing in the hall of their school, Xaverian, a private Catholic high school in Brooklyn.

Emma and a few female classmates were volunteered by administrators of the Genesis middle school program at Xaverian to appear with Bloomberg. They were told to bring a change of clothes apparently because a Catholic school uniform wouldn’t cut it in a plug for progress at NYC’s Dept. of Education. The kids weren’t told they were going to be “stand-ins” for public school children. They were told they had a chance to be on TV in a Bloomberg ad. TV face time is a powerful incentive for any 14-year-old girl.

Also, Team Bloomberg needed some girls for the shoot because Xaverian is an all-boys school. NYC public schools, as is the private Genesis program, are co-ed. Some freshmen Xaverian boys are background material in Bloomy’s brochure.

Bloomberg’s campaign has the brochure ad on TV. [Ms. McCauley has a supporting role in that spot. She walks up and down a flight of stairs to depict activity in the building that already had dismissed students for the day.]

Mayor Mike plans to spend whatever it takes in the campaign to slaughter NYC comptroller Bill Thompson, the sacrificial lamb who is expected to be placed on the altar by NYC Democrats. At the very least, Thompson and NYC voters deserve truth in Bloomberg’s advertising.

NYC educates 1.1M students in its 1,499 schools. One of those buildings could have provided a safe ad production environment for Bloomberg. It would have been nice to have a couple of PS super-achievers share the spotlight with the Mayor.

Bloomberg’s ad gets an “F.”

…over at Math Mama Writes… 15 solid links (including back here!)

Summertime, teachers get quiet, but the math carnivals roll forward…

I’m not a big fan of preachy documentaries, but here’s an exception.

Food, Inc peels away some of the secrecy about what’s going on with food production in the United States.

Monopolization:  Beef, Pork, markets monopolized by just 4 producers. Chicken, I think 3. Corn? 4. And soybeans? Monsanto patented a gene, stuck it in, and now controls over 90% of soybean production in the US.

Farms: Not like what you see in the pictures. Chicken houses with tens of thousands of birds – that never see daylight – that fall over because the hormones that fatten mature them too fast don’t keep the rest of their growth on par. Consolidated feeding operations (CAFOs?) for cows and pigs where they are nearly force-fed corn…

Supermarkets: 50,000 items on the shelf, most containing some engineered rearrangement of corn or soy.

Contamination; Lawyers keeping farmers from talking; Victimizing immigrant workers; Food conglomerate employees in government agencies…

I wish they’d treated it more as a global phenomenon, not just US, but that takes away nothing from the strengths of the film.

In New York it’s playing at Film Forum, but also at a handful of other theaters.

You probably want to see this. You probably don’t want to be eating popcorn when the credits roll.

The first meeting of the expanded (about 300) UFT Negotiating Committee will start in about an hour. (I’ll be there)

We’ll have to see what framework is established. But at the moment that we start to set priorities, I have two in mind:

• No givebacks on current conditions/rules/rights
• Regain some aspect of control of the transfer process

Open Market transfers are really transfers without rules – and our most vulnerable members – senior teachers, especially ATRs, and beginning teachers – are getting slammed by this system. I know that rolling things back to seniority transfers will not happen. But some sort of union control/oversight needs to be re-established.

Over the last week I posted five logic puzzles that push the solver to adopt multiple points of view:  Hats – Green-eyed guru – Perfectly logical pirates – Prisoners with Hats – Leprechauns.  I also posted a solutions page.

So what do you do with these, how, why?

Of course if you are here, you will probably try your hand at solving them on your own. You are mathematically curious.

But with a class?

I am not a fan of tossing the kids the puzzle and letting them try it on their own if they interested. I am a fan of occasionally making time in class to do something completely different…

Format:  I like grouping kids (or adults) up. That way even those who don’t hit the big insights can feel like they are part of what’s happening. I also like the forced communication. Can you explain why you claim X?

Understand the problem:

I handle this whole-class. Read it. Ask questions. Then when they all claim to understand, force them to ask more. And if they don’t, I will. Can they mime the words green or blue? Can they peek? Can the gold pieces be divided? What happens if there is a tie? Anticipate the clarifying questions that should arise, and ask them if the kids don’t.

Planning:

As the groups begin to work, come around with lots of questions along the lines of “Why…” “Is that enough…? “How do you know…” and the ever so leading “and what is everyone else thinking?”

Let them struggle. Do not rush to give them an answer, or even to point them on the right track. You get a chance to struggle on problems, right? You gain insight through bad attempts, blind paths. They should have that experience.

At some point (but let time pass first!), get groups to report on progress. They can share insights, beginnings of approaches. I usually ask for things that did not work first (What did you try? Why did you think it might get you somewhere? How did you discover you were in a dead end?) So no one gets shut out because they don’t have a final answer. And then the partial approaches let them listen to each other, and change angle of attack mid-problem. Changing the approach is a big deal, kids are not used to that, and it is good that they learn to let go. And then those who are lost get a chance to work productively again.

If a group is truly dead in the water, handing them a key insight may be necessary. You also might ask them to assign roles, and act the problem (or a small version) out. This really works, but needs some supervision (in general).

Carry out the plan

When a group grabs the key insight for a problem, I have them share it out, without a complete solution, but just a start. Tell us about pirates C, D, and E. Or about what happens with 4, or 5, or 6, or 7 or 8 leperchauns. Or if there are only 3 people on the island. Then all groups can work on the mechanics.

Looking Back:

Finally, as they arrive at the answer, let them celebrate their cleverness for a moment. And then make them consider the process they went through. What made this hard? What were the key insights? What were they tempted to do first, and why was that not productive? I try to get a kid to say that it was important to look at the problem from everyone’s point of view at once… but it can be hard to come up with. When they don’t, I suggest it.

— — —

These are fun. They are surprising. And with some theatrics, they can become incredibly engaging. The idea of adopting multiple points of view is valuable. Letting kids bang their heads for a bit against something that seems intractable also has value. And they are forced to communicate unusual ideas clearly, with you, with their group, and then with their class. I love being able to give up a day or half a day once a month or so to do this kind of thing. Winners all around.

Credit: I don’t know where the problems came from originally (except the Leprechauns I stole from Blinkdagger, and the Pirates are in a SciAm article), but the idea of grouping some of these together came from Jim Matthews, a math ed professor at Siena.

One of the best things this blog has done is to promote a “Do Not Apply” list of schools, mostly Bronx high schools, in NYC.

The list started last June, as a useful piece of information for new teachers, especially Fellows, who were getting sucked into the worst hellholes.

Over time it grew. Tips came in from activists, from anonymous teachers, from union folks. In one case, members of New Action, Unity, TJC and unafilliated individuals collaborated to create an accurate listing.

Did it work?

Yes, in several ways.

• I know a few Fellows who successfully avoided schools on the list. There must have been many more.
• The list also created an outlet for teachers unable to speak up at work, or who had left a horrible school, still angry over the mistreatment and abuse. In a sense, it played part of the role the Grapevine was intended to.
• Do Not Apply shone a light on some of the more abusive principals, in places where teachers were not yet ready to fight back, or where they were unable to fightback.

And this year? Can we afford “Not to Apply?”

Because of the economy, and because of the ATR agreement, and because of the hiring freeze (that will eventually be lifted), and because the DoE is happy with running miserable schools, the jobs in all schools, including the jobs in Do Not Apply schools, will be filled, and will be filled largely with new teachers, with a few unlucky ATRs thrown in.

The specific advice “do not apply” may in some cases not be realistic. Maybe instead:

• Do Not Apply, or
• Apply With Caution, and
• If You End Up There, Be Mindful of Self-Preservation,
• Stay Out of Harm’s Way, and
• Look for the Nearest Exit, while
• Avoid Too Much Attention, or
• Generating Trouble for Yourself.

I’ll keep calling them Do Not Apply schools, for short. But the above is, for now, a fuller, better explanation.

In the late 1990s the Math Wars, ignited in California, were spreading across the country. I was a witness (participant?) in a skirmish in the Bronx.

Part 1: Curriculum Imposed

Part 2: Math Teachers organize

Part 3: Teaching Math Connections

Summary of Part 1:  In 1999 our superintendent forced schools to pilot a choice between IMP and Math Connections. My school went for MC, as did about two thirds of the Bronx. The following year we faced full adoption, without seriously examining how the pilots ran. The first group of teachers involved got jobs with the publisher, and became (in many instances) unpleasant enforcers of the publisher’s will. All the MC classes went to newer teachers (with, generally, poorer classroom management) Training was lousy (trainers focused on constructivism; teachers needed content.)

Summary of Part 2: Senior teachers started to become concerned in 2000, and they helped set up a union response. A handful of us met over the course of a school year, and filed a request for professional conciliation. A skilled District Rep (a science teacher) pushed us with tough questions. We knew what we were against. We found it harder to identify what we were for. But we had enough together for a hearing in June 2001.

Summary of Part 3: While we waited for a decision, I was assigned to teach Math Connections Year 3. I had to do it right. Anything less than full effort would be seen as sabotage. Plus, I thought that there was something intriguing about the different approach, even as I was certain that on the whole it was not the right way to run.

But after two years, the class had been winnowed to 16 of the original 50, selected by niceness, attendance, and ability to solve first degree equations — not ability to attack 3rd year high school mathematics. I taught one term, realized what I was up against, and receiving neither permission to stop nor injunction against, put the books away just 4 months after starting.

Aftermath

The hearing in June 2001 went well. Herbert H Lehman HS library. Dave, our District Rep, and a group of teachers on our side. The Bronx HS Superintendant and one of his deputies on the other. We had a little audience. And maybe the supe had some extra people, as well. Dave opened, and teachers presented. The Deputy Superintendant presented as well, ISTR. And then we added comments and answered some of the Supe’s questions. And it was over.

The next Fall we received the decision. Schools could propose alternatives to MC and IMP, but would have to write full proposals that outlined what book, what curriculum, and what professional development we intended to replace them with. In other words, exactly where the Superintendent had failed, he was requiring teachers to step in. And, the Supe’s folks worked full-time on adoption, and arrived at garbage. We were being asked, in addition to our regular classroom duties, to create curriculum.

But slowly but surely schools figured out what to do. One of the weaker, but more traditional, high school math series offered built in PD and a lying document alleging alignment with NY State Standards (nothing special there – Math Connections had produced the same lie). One school, I think Walton, wrote a proposal that looked like it would be accepted, and school after school copied, adapted, modified it, and in a few months every high school in the Bronx except two had proposed a switch. Truman HS used IMP before the Superintendent had demanded constructivism, and retained it after his retreat. And at South Bronx HS the dishonest Assistant Principal, personally in love with Math Connections, never informed his staff that an alternative was available. They found out (I think I told them) and they changed one year later.

One year later Diana Lam imposed citywide curricula, and the work that teachers had been forced to do to dump Math Connections was itself dumped.

We won:

• we got rid of a bad curriculum
• we used the professional conciliation clause in our contract to effect change
• we showed teachers had better judgment in curricular matters than many administrators

We lost:

• we were not listened to when the initial selection was made
• it took 3 years to clear the drech out. Pilot year. Year 1. Year 2. (I taught MC3 to the pilot group in Year 2).

• we were assigned punitive “alignment” work to allow us to correct an awful Superintendent error.
• and our work was thrown out completely (although MC was not brought back) by central office fiat.

Personally, I learned a lot. This was my introduction to the Math Wars, to math politics. This was when I permanently severed my relationship with NCTM, and began my relationship with AMTNYS. I learned about curriculum, about balance. I read far more from both sides and from the middle than I had while working on my masters. And it meant more. And I found elements of reason and elements of insanity on both sides. I became more conscious of what I thought math teaching should look like. This is when I wrote my Philosophy of Teaching Mathematics. These experiences prepared me for some killer job interviews, and probably landed me my current position. I have since planned a department’s curriculum and framework. I speak at conferences and workshops. I have been involved at the New York State level. And I blog about math education and problem solving, significantly informed by memories of the 1999 – 2002 Bronx math war skirmish.

Over the last few days I posted a group of five puzzles, related by a “multiple points of view” theme.

None of these puzzles belong to me. And this is the only one that I know who to extend credit to. The rest, I think they’ve just sort of existed, forever. This one was a contest problem, posted by Quan Quach at Blinkdagger, as the second ever Monday Math Madness prize puzzle. Look here.

Leprechauns

There are 1000 Logical Leprechauns, who, one February 29th, receive news that there is an abnormally large pot of gold at the end of the rainbow near China. All of the Leprechauns rush to the end of the rainbow and arrive simultaneously. In this situation, according to Leprechaun Lore, the treasure is to be divided by the following manner:

Every day, starting that same day, the Leprechauns will vote to either
1) send the youngest Leprechaun back to Ireland, or
2) split the pot of gold up among the remaining Leprechauns.

If 50% or more of the Leprechauns vote to split the pot of gold, the treasure gets split among the remaining Leprechauns. Otherwise, the youngest Leprechaun is sent back to Ireland. Assume that each Leprechaun know the ages of all Leprechauns, and none of the Leprechaun’s are the same age. The process is repeated until the gold is split.

When will the gold be split?

Place questions/clarifications below. To submit proposed solutions, click here.

There are a group of 5 good logic puzzles  Hats – Green-eyed guru – Perfectly logical pirates – Prisoners with Hats – Leprechauns. (I think they are good), and their responses need a place. Here it is.

Over the next few days I’ll be posting a group of five puzzles, related by a “multiple points of view” theme.

None of these puzzles belong to me. And I don’t know where to extend credit. I think they’ve just sort of existed, forever.

Prisoners with Hats

Three perfectly logical prisoners are seated facing each other, with hats on their heads. Each hat has a counting number {1, 2, 3, 4, …} on it, and each prisoner can see the hat of the other two prisoners, but not his own.

The warden says,

• I will set free the man who can tell me his own number, but execute any man guessing incorrectly.

They look back at him in stunned silence.

• “OK, a hint. One of your numbers is the sum of the two. Alan?”
• I don’t know my number.
• Bert?
• I don’t know my number.
• Graham?
• I don’t know my number.
• Alan?
• I still don’t know my number.
• Bert?
• My number is 26.″

And he went free. What were Alan and Graham’s numbers?  Explain your reasoning. Why did it take five questions to get an answer?

Place questions/clarifications below. To submit proposed solutions, click here.

Back in March, I added PS/MS4 (Crotona Park West) to the Do Not Apply list. The principal was autocratic, mean-spirited, bossy, quick to dock pay, to give U-ratings…

And the response was immediate. The comments section quickly filled with scores of visceral reactions to the school administration and its system of favorites and arbitrariness. In fact, much of the reaction was so emotional that I issued a general warning and request to stay on-topic, then closed comments (I just reopened them.)

But math scores rose. There is this puff piece from the Daily News from last month. The numbers improved.

What do we make of that? What is the relationship between toxic schools and student achievement?

It would be easy if there were clear and direct correlation, ie, happy staff = high scores. It would also be easy, in a very different way, if staff satisfaction had nothing to do with scores.

But the answers must be much more complicated. Bronx Science is a miserable place to work. And its scores remain high. Is it fair to say that scores are completed unrelated to how well a school is run?

But I know a story of two adjoining schools, the older one poorly running, declining scores, unhappy staff, and the newer one with higher and rising scores, well-run, with a satisfied staff. The principal can be tough, but is considered fair. And they draw the same kinds of kids from the same neighborhood. It would be foolish to try to claim that the scores were unrelated to the other problems in the first school or the quality of leadership in the second.

What do you think?