The formerly anonymous blogger known as Eduwonkette August 25, 2008 am31 7:42 am
Posted by jd2718 in Education, New York City, New York City Department of Education, blogging, nyc.add a comment
I won’t tell, but she does.
Gotham Schools July 30, 2008 pm31 6:01 pm
Posted by jd2718 in Education, New York, New York City, blogging, nyc.Tags: Gotham Schools
1 comment so far
Gotham Schools is a new NY education news source. Formula looks simple:
- each day a listing of 5 - 10 ed news stories, a few from local news (Times, Post, News, sometimes Sun, etc) and the last few from a wider net (WashPost, SF Chronicle, Hartford Current, BBC, etc)
- and each day one or two feature stories.
Gotham Schools intends to be
a news source and online community for teachers, parents, policy makers, and journalists interested in learning about what works and what doesn’t in the nation’s largest school district.
I get “news source” - I don’t see the community - jd
… to provide a clearinghouse for New York City school news and commentary, connect teachers and parents with resources, highlight effective practices in policy and pedagogy, and build a participatory knowledge base about education in New York City.
reasonable - jd
By offering a critical eye on education research and reporting, and by creating a forum for conversation, GothamSchools is helping New Yorkers create better schools.
wishful thinking, but at least a nice wish. I’m not sure how neutral commentators create things. We’ll see. - jd
The authors are a former Inside Schools reviewer, and a former Bronx TFA teacher/blogger. The look is light and clean. And the number of interesting linked stories and the amount of content is enough to justify making it a regular (probably daily for me) visit.
Dump NCLB July 19, 2008 pm31 7:09 pm
Posted by jd2718 in Education, UFT, United Federation of Teachers, testing.Tags: AFT, NCLB
2 comments
It seems that my union (UFT and AFT) have added their voices. I have two reactions - 1. What took them so long? - and 2. I’m really happy they finally got here.
I read it first at Schools Matter, but I thought he might have taken a comment out of context. Then I found outgoing AFT President Ed McElroy’s farewell address, including these remarks:
We also need to recognize when change isn’t working. When the NCLB was introduced, the AFT was cautious but kept an open mind. NCLB is, after all, the latest version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which has nine titles and countless provisions on which our members and their students depend. Although we were able to prevent several poison pills from being included in the law - NCLB was flawed from the start. Fully funding NCLB won’t fix it. Tinkering around the edges isn’t the answer. We will work with the next president and the new Congress to create a new law - a law that respects the knowledge of classroom professionals and helps teachers and paraprofessionals provide our students with the high-quality education they deserve. (full text)
(continued beneath the fold — > ) (more…)
CUNY PSC Contract July 5, 2008 pm31 7:26 pm
Posted by jd2718 in Education, New York, New York City, Teachers Unions, Unions, nyc.Tags: CIty University of New York, CUNY, Professional Staff Congress, PSC
1 comment so far
From time to time I attend Professional Staff Congress Delegate Assemblies. I belong to two AFT locals: Local 2 is the UFT, and local 2334 is the PSC (represents professors and adjuncts and higher education officers and a lot more titles at the City University of New York’s various campuses and non-campus locations).
This week, they brought a contract agreement to the DA, to be recommended back to the membership. It was striking that the expectations of the PSC are so different from those of the UFT. They hotly debated what is 95% a non-concessionary contract, and debated it hard and angry, because it did not make much progress addressing past inequities.
The past inequities are historic, not the result of union concessions. I believe (need to research a bit) that this leadership was voted in with a mandate to address exactly these issues, and that they made a dent in them in the previous agreement (I believe the first they negotiated). So the debate I heard was over not making enough progress.
I will dig, learn more, and post more. This all seems quite foreign to a UFTer.
Should they know what’s on the test? July 1, 2008 pm31 6:08 pm
Posted by jd2718 in Education, Math, Math Education, Teaching, mathematics, testing.Tags: mathematical pedagogy
5 comments
Sounds silly, right? Of course they should. But I mean, should they know the questions in advance?
But that’s a real question in mathematics education, apparently. SKoolBoy over at Eduwonkette’s place says that repeating questions (same form, different numbers) inflates scores. But what’s wrong with kids studying particular math for particular situations? As they get better and more comfortable, they can extend that math into new places.
Mathematics, for kids, can be first a series of skills, perhaps abstracted from a physical situation, and then the application of each skill to one particular situation, and then, and this is the hard part, the ability to look at new situations and decide which skill that is.
There are some who insist that the application of the skill and the skill be learned together, or that the application somehow precede the skill, or at the extreme, that the skill as a skill never be studied at all.
During the height of the math wars the worst texts were organized by non-mathematical topics, with the mathematical skills scattered throughout. I think there is one called ARISE that starts with a unit on elections, cobbling together lots of election math from bits and pieces from probably 10 separate topics. I read that unit and enjoyed it - but only because I already knew most of the math. What a bizarre way to teach the skills though!
The skills we teach are challenging - it’s the nature of teaching a fully abstract subject. They are hard enough without surprises. Whoever decided that we should use “authentic assessment” in grade school mathematics, “performance standards,” “mathematics in context,” they just don’t understand how difficult the math itself is. Those kinds of tests can help separate the top of the students from the rest, but they fail to test what is most important: skill acquisition.
One of my favorite algebra tests that I give, the one on systems of equations, each year I tell my students exactly what they will encounter, the day before the test.
- “One system that you must solve with substitution, set up to make the substitution easy for you.
- One system that you must solve by linear combination, set up to be straightforward.
- One system that you must solve graphically, the answer will probably fall between the lines.
- Three more systems, not set up for a particular method, where you can chose the method of solution. One or two of these will have no solution, and in that case instead of checking your answer, you’ll need to attempt the question using a second method, showing that that also leads to no solution.
- One word problem that leads directly to a system of two linear equations.
- And a wind or current problem.”
You know what? I know what is being measured. The kids know what’s being measured. It’s the material that was taught. And they are real and valuable skills. What’s so bad about knowing what’s going to be on the test?
Does signing a card make you a UFT member? June 22, 2008 pm30 9:55 pm
Posted by jd2718 in Education, New Teachers, New York, New York City, Schools, Teachers, Teachers Unions, UFT, United Federation of Teachers, nyc.3 comments
Yes.
But not completely.
Most new teachers used to sign a card, give it to the Chapter Leader, and then think of the union as something apart from themselves. “What will the union do about X?” is a question we hear a lot of.
Today the UFT, acknowledging implicitly that we have problems with chapter organization, allows new teachers to sign up on line. It’s not a good thing not to meet your Chapter Leader.
The DoE runs a nasty campaign, trying to trick new teachers into thinking they don’t have to sign up at all. There’s likely hundreds of newer teachers who are not UFT members as a result.
But the biggest problem is that there are schools with no functioning chapter. What difference does signing a card make when you are joining something that only exists, for you, in Lower Manhattan? (answer: the right to vote in certain elections, many of which will not occur if your chapter is not functioning, and benefits through the Health and Welfare Fund, which are important. Certainly you should still join. Absolutely you should.)
Not every UFT member is going to be an activist. But even in schools with chapters, too many don’t hold chapter meetings, and in schools that do hold chapter meetings, too many teachers do not attend. There should be an obligation that comes with membership. Not just dues, but some minimal participation in the life of one’s chapter. Like coming to meetings once a month or every other month. Like participating in elections.
[Reworded, per comment, below: We need to build our chapters, to get regular functioning. And once we have that, there should be an expectation, not necessarily of activism, but something beyond dues: maybe coming to chapter meetings a few times each year, and voting in elections]
Signing a card should be a beginning, not the end of union involvement. And making it available on-line makes it too easy to bypass the chapter, or to ignore that the chapter does not exist.
Recruiting Teaching Fellows June 6, 2008 pm30 3:33 pm
Posted by jd2718 in Education, New Teachers, New York, New York City, New York City Department of Education, Teachers, Teaching, UFT, United Federation of Teachers, nyc.Tags: Teaching Fellows
7 comments
Recruiting Teaching Fellows? Not into the program. The Teaching Fellows and the NYC Dept of Ed already have that down. Whiten the teaching force. Make it younger. Make it turn over faster. (Contrast here)
They recruit kids with degrees from good schools. They recruit visitors to New York. They recruit future doctors and lawyers and kids who just don’t know what they will do, but it’ll be something corporate, but who need a few years before they go back to school, or a program that let’s them stay in New York for a couple of years, some resume building, or maybe just the equivalent of some Peace Corps experience, without the vaccines.
Far too many (not all) come in thinking they will cure the system. It’s what the New Teacher Project teaches them. They look at us (teachers) as broken parts.
Far too many (not all) come in with anti-union animus. Some will have careers in management. Others resent collective action, chafing against their self-confidence. They come in willing to work hard (for 2, 3 years, not a career) and look down at teachers who protect their own rights. The union is, for many of them, another part of the broken system, and a part that does harm.
The DoE gets a more compliant workforce and overall lower salaries. The New Teachers Project reaps a $$ bonanza with their planned obsolescence, and an ideological bonanza with their pool of confirmed anti-union former-teachers.
But what is the response of the rest of the teachers, and of our union?
Some options, in the next post.
Words are risky things May 15, 2008 pm31 2:11 pm
Posted by jd2718 in Education, The Wide World.4 comments
Fred Klonsky (aka PREAPrez) wrote a nice piece on A Nation at Risk that didn’t get run over at the CEA blog…
Our once unchallenged preeminence in commerce, industry, science, and technological innovation is being overtaken by competitors throughout the world.
-A Nation at Risk, 1983
I entered my first classroom one year after the publication of A Nation at Risk. I was thirty-five years old.
I have been a teacher for almost a quarter of a century. I have heard and read lots of people using metaphors to describe what I do. In fact, I have probably heard and read them all.
Frequently they are war metaphors. They are metaphors to make us fear global enemies. They are the education equivalent of WMDs.
They are lies.
(continues below the fold) –> (more…)
Confronting high turnover among teachers: options? May 12, 2008 am31 1:24 am
Posted by jd2718 in Charter Schools, Education, New York, New York City, New York City Department of Education, Teachers, Teachers Unions, UFT, United Federation of Teachers, nyc.Tags: teacher retention, teacher turnover
2 comments
(apologies for my absence. The Real World intervenes without asking permission, without conducting a study…)
Turnover among teachers in New York, especially new teachers, is high. It’s a long time we’ve been saying median years of service is 5, or under 5. I doubt it’s that high systemwide, and at many schools it’s far, far less than that.
Options, real and otherwise:
High turnover means fewer teachers (and administrators) have the personal authority that comes from experience that allows us to challenge Tweeds blatantly stupid, destructive, anti-teacher, anti-child policies. They love high turnover. We should hate it.
1. Figure out what’s making the job so hard to stay in, and address those issues, policy level.
- note: women have more options in the workplace than 30 years ago - teaching for many was once the only option, no longer.
- note: school system doesn’t seem especially concerned with low performance from poorer and darker precincts, except when that makes headlines - cf their little gifted and talented steal from the poor to give to nobody routine.
- note: unstable, ungrounded, unskilled, insecure admin corps makes institutional change tough to envision being carried out.
- note: there should be about 20 more notes)
1. Change Ed policy and practice to address turnover, or 2. Use union (collective) power to confront turnover, or 3. use democratic practice and shared decision making to keep some teachers around longer or 4. celebrate turnover, the schools and the kids be damned. The DoE likes #4.
2. Figure out what’s making the job tough to stay in, and use the power of the union to confront those issues. My approach, and to a lesser extent, my union’s approach. Class size. Protecting teacher rights. Supporting new teachers. — in order to extend careers. To do this we need to (you’ve read it all here before) shift resources to field staff, build chapters, ensure that they meet. Empower the chapter ahead of other school-based institutions etc etc.
(continues beneath fold) –> (more…)
Note from former NY State Ed Math Guy on Math A April 13, 2008 pm30 5:44 pm
Posted by jd2718 in Education, Math, Math Education, Teachers, mathematics.Tags: Integrated Algebra, Math A, Regents
6 comments
Comments from an “old” SED Associate. (found on the NYState Math Teachers’ Listserve)
Since retirement, I have been reading this list serve with much interest. If you will bear with one of the “old guys,” I have just a few things I would like to say.
Prior to the Regents Action Plan and the Standards movement, the SED had a written philosophy that the regents exams were for the average and above average student. Hence, we had both local and regents level courses, exams, and, diplomas.
With the introduction of the first MST standards and all the interations since,that philosophy has changed. All students must take what is still called (unfortunately in my opinion) the Regents exam. In my opinion, “exit exam from high school” would be a better name. From this point on I shall just call it the exam. Since the exam is now for all students, there is no way it could be of the same high rigor and content of the previous Regents.
I do believe, however, that for the total student population it has raised the level of learning. The former “non regents” student is getting a better math education than in the “old” days. Unfortunately, if we use the new exam as the bar, we will not be providing our average and better than average kids with the mathematics education they deserve. We must all provide the best math educaiton that we can for all of our students.
Our bigger challenge is to educate new teachers, administrators, parents, students, and the communities at large that the new exam and its scoring method is a minimum for graduation and does not reflect what we need to do for all of our students. I know this is a big challenge, but we must succeed or we will fail our students.
I don’t think that there will be much of a change with the new Integrated Algebra exam. All students have to take this to get a diploma.
Although I’ve not been at SED for over 12 years now, I do know what it’s like in the schools as I continue to work with many schools in NYS as a mathmatics consultant. I appreciate the hard work that I see from so many dedicated teachers. I also see many students doing all they can to perform at the highest level. Let us stand together and set our own high standard. Then and only then will we be happy with our profession.
If you read this whole piece, thanks for letting me babble. Hope to see many of you at the AMTNYS meeting in the fall.
Ben Lindeman, Retired Associate
Bureau of Mathematics Education
New York State Education Department
Past President, AMTNYS
Tobacco, alcohol, pesticide lobbyist adds ignorance to his client list March 10, 2008 am31 12:19 am
Posted by jd2718 in Education, Teachers, Teachers Unions, blogging.2 comments
Are union bloggers ready?
The lobbyist plans a broadside against teachers unions. Apparently the AFT is ready to respond. Wouldn’t be surprised if the UFT added its own voice.
But our hero here is Dr. Homeslice. Vigilant. Ready. Rallying the troops.
He’s right. Where’s Reg?
And, hey, Homeslice, how do teacher-unionist bloggers help?
New York State: looming geometry teacher shortage February 24, 2008 pm29 11:09 pm
Posted by jd2718 in Education, High School, Math, Math Education, Math Teachers, New York, New York City, New York State, Teachers, Teaching, mathematics, nyc.Tags: Geometry, Integrated Geometry, Math B, proof, teacher shortage
24 comments
Most schools in New York State haven’t offered “Geometry” in decades.
Proof was in a long slow decline when Sequential Mathematics Course 1, 2, and 3 were introduced in the late 1970s. Parallel lines and vertical angles were in Course 1. Triangle congruence was in Course 2. Circles were in Course 3.
And separate as these were, proof withered. As Course II (where some proof remained) was begin phased out in the late 1990s, the proof section of the NYS Regents exam was predictable: choose one 10-point proof from two out of three possible choices, from: 1) logic, 2) Euclidean, or 3) coordinate geometry.
Math B (2000-10) was a rambling exam. All over the place. Sometimes there was proof, sometimes not. A few schools decided not to bother with proof - it was never more than 6 points anyhow - when it showed up.
Integrated Geometry
Next year New York State introduces an Integrated Geometry Regents. Algebra starts this year; it likely will be quite easy to pass - it is a graduation requirement. Geometry is not. The people who worked on the geometry committee were old school, tough. The course will be geometry only, a throwback. The State attempted to delay starting these exams, (1, 2, 3) not because of algebra problems, but because of concerns about geometry.
Who will teach this? Few people educated in New York State in recent years got a strong high school foundation in geometry. Colleges don’t, as a rule, teach the Euclidean geometry we associate with high school - at CUNY it is banned as a high school course. Pull teachers out of retirement? Recruit from out of state? Mandate crash-course ‘institutes’ to cover missing topics?
They (who is they?) will go the crash-course route. They will violate a cardinal rule of teaching math: it is not ok for the instructor to know just a little more than the students. They created this mess. And they have no other way out.
But not quite yet. Next year most schools won’t realize they are in trouble. Plenty of NYers think they learned enough in Course 2 to teach geometry (with no extension, no reinforcement in college). We will see results in June 2009, and then administrators will start scrambling.
NCLB - Has the UFT finally gotten it right? February 2, 2008 pm29 9:34 pm
Posted by jd2718 in Education, New York City, Teachers, Teachers Unions, Teaching, UFT, United Federation of Teachers, nyc.6 comments
The UFT and AFT say that NCLB should be reformed (see here, and here, and here, and here, and here) (or anything on the AFT’s “Let’s Get it Right” site.) I say that it should be dumped (see here, and here, and comments here, and comments here, but this is just funny). And the difference isn’t semantics.
I’m not shy about what I think. NCLB has been awful for schools, teachers, students, and needs to be tossed. My union, until recently, hasn’t been shy either. The same ideology that produces support for charter schools and thinly disguised merit pay (schoolwide bonuses?) is rooted in some sense of ’self-management’ and ‘accountability.’ They wonder why the nasty centrist Democrats seem, on parts of these issues, to agree with them. I don’t wonder.
But look. Randi Weingarten writes to the membership (via e-mail, and chapter leaders were asked to put them in boxes, too. Should be on the website soon):
…if NCLB worked … why… is the rhetoric just the same as [in 2000]? It’s because NCLB … has resulted instead in excessive testing of students, a broken promise on funding its mandates, and more sanctions than help for the nation’s public schools. The next step is to overhaul it completely, or maybe just “scrap” it…
Maybe just scrap it? Bravo, Randi?
(you’ll get the wrong impression if you don’t read on —>) (more…)
Math A: What was it? January 26, 2008 pm31 11:34 pm
Posted by jd2718 in Education, High School, Math Education, New York, New York State, Teaching.16 comments
For readers not from New York State, this must be a strange title. Indeed, Math A and Math B are the names of strange state exams. Let’s roll back the clock.
(This is a longish post. Headings are: Old Math Regents; What Are Regents; The 1980s; Who takes regents? The 1990’s and Math A and B; June 2003 Math A; Integrated Exams. There is a list of vocational regents at the very end)
Education in New York State is governed by a Board of Regents, a semi-political, semi-expert panel. The Regents Exams are State of NY high school exams. I believe they were used to earn ‘academic’ as opposed to general diplomas. Only a portion of high school graduates in NYS passed them. The oldest group of exams I see include vocational topics as well*. Different diplomas for different exams? and an exam-free general diploma?
Data and me January 19, 2008 pm31 8:56 pm
Posted by jd2718 in Education, UFT, United Federation of Teachers.Tags: Small Schools
1 comment so far
Not from TNG.
When I was a kid, maybe 7 or 8? there was a summer I discovered baseball boxscores, and the leader lists. The lists were long in the Sunday paper, with RBIs, HRs, batting average. But in the daily paper we just got these little boxscores, and the leader lists didn’t get updated. Today computers ensure that when a guy hits a triple, the boxscore tells you how many that makes for the year, automatically updates his slugging percentage, his batting average. But this was back in the day (for values of “day”close to the early 1970s).
Eduwonkette and Leo found problems in the Dept of Education’s class size data. I should jump in.
I liked to look at how long the games were, and if anyone did exceptionally well. I could spend an hour a day. My stepfather, I think, pointed out that if the pitcher was good, the game was more likely to go fast. I started looking for the relationship, started trying to predict which games would go less than 2 hours, based on the pitchers’ records. I wasn’t particularly good, nor was I bad. I had no idea of the limitations of the data I was given (ie, found in the paper), and didn’t really know how to improve, except by a rough guess and check.
more –> (more…)
