This week, teachers and students of the School District of Philadelphia are all wondering, "what is the use of school right now?" According to the publicly available District calendar all grades were due on Wednesday, June 12; students are keenly aware of this fact. Therefore - as all teachers know - it is impossible to complete any kind of instruction on the remaining days of school. That means from June 13-21 (7 "instructional" days), teachers are not teaching, students are not learning, and the potential for harm increases dramatically. There are few - if any - punishments that will stick (calling for "detention" just means teachers have to stay after school for no pay and students won't show up because there are no lasting consequences). 

So what this translates to is a very unnecessary experience for all involved. Wouldn't it have made more sense to do something different with this time? Even if the calendar could not have been changed, what if we simply closed things down early and cited the budget gap as the reason? Let's do the math and see how much savings could be realized. 

We'll start with the overall District budget as shown from this powerpoint presentation.

As you can see, roughly $1.3 billion goes towards school operating expenses. If we include expenses over all 52 weeks of the year, that is $25 million each school week (only 5 days) or about $5 million per day. If we scale up to 7 days of school, that means:

We are wasting $35 million to keep school open. That is more than 10% of the budget gap for next year.


Even if we are more conservative and say that only 80% of the $1.3 billion goes toward operating expenses, that is still $28 million - a hefty chunk of change.

Perhaps the District leadership should plan further ahead and figure out how they want to treat schools in the future. Perhaps this week is practice for when schools in Philadelphia are simply warehouses to babysit kids instead of using actual pedagogy.

The following comes from my friend and colleague, Kathleen Radebaugh. She is a great and wonderful teacher who is in a horrible situation due to the budget gap in the school district: her school is closing. Below she writes with passion and zeal. While I may not completely agree with her conclusion, I think it is worthwhile to read what she says.

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My school is closing. 

My school is closing, and an entire generation of teachers is being destroyed.

I am a fifth-year teacher within the School District of Philadelphia.  I am currently seeking employment in English at my third high school.  My first high school turned into a Promise Academy and my current school is closing.

My school is closing.

It’s hard to say out loud and even harder to see it in print.  A couple times throughout the second semester, I forgot that my school was closing.  The freshmen needed to find out whether or not Romeo personified the falling action, the seniors needed their project papers to be edited, and I believe in my heart of hearts that I had the most talented players on my volleyball team I ever coached.

Yet, my school is closing, and I am currently seeking English positions through site selection.

Many of my friends are seeking employment outside of the School District of Philadelphia, because they were laid off.

It’s not fair.

In March and April, teachers at my school were given the option to fill out Right-to-Follow paperwork.  That in itself was a difficult process.  Do you follow the majority of your students to either Penn Treaty or one of the Kensington schools?  Once you complete your paperwork, are you not allowed to site select?  The CTE teachers had the opportunity to follow their students within the CTE track to Mastbaum.  What if the school didn’t have the facilities to provide their CTE course like Building Management and Maintenance? 

Now all of this Right-to-Follow paperwork is mute, because teachers were laid off.

In April, there were a couple meetings with our building representative, our school union representative, and two regional meetings with the School District of Philadelphia.  The Right-to-Follow was comforting and promising.  It made sense to many teachers who liked teaching in the diverse classroom of a school in Port Richmond and Kensington.  There were many unanswered questions, but the major consensus surrounding the Right-to-Follow paperwork was clear.  If you want to, you can follow your students to a couple of schools within the area.

It wasn’t until an article written by Kristen Graham in the Philadelphia Inquirer in the second week of April that expounded on the “doomsday budget for schools.”  With a 304 million deficit, counselors, librarians, after school sports, secretaries, and summer school would be cut.  In addition, 3,000 district employees including teachers could be let go.

It is unfathomable to operate a school without these imperatives.  They are imperatives and legalities. 

With this in mind, with all the financial problems facing the district and the reality that layoffs would occur before the school year is done, why seniority?

I know it’s a complicated issue, and I am only a fifth-year-teacher trying to find a position to teach English within my third school in six years.  I have a lot to learn but why seniority?

My generation of teachers is being destroyed due to seniority.

Over the past couple weeks, I read a lot of longitudinal studies, case studies with quantified and qualified data, and newspaper articles from the Northeast region.  I am trying to understand the union’s position on seniority-based layoffs.

In a policy brief written by researchers from the University of Albany, Stanford, and University of Virginia, seniority-based layoffs that are meant to meet budget shortfalls are more detrimental to students than a system that laid off the least effective teachers first (Boyd, 2011).

This means that teachers who are laid off due to a short number of years within a school district doesn’t mean they are unqualified or ineffective.  It means they are young or didn’t teach within the school district for a long time.

There was a teacher laid off at my school that had taught for 12 years, but only taught within the SDP for three years.

It is not fair.  We need to change seniority based lay offs because an entire generation of teachers file for unemployment, move out of the city, and leave this wonderful profession in which they are educated.

I am a young teacher, and I have many friends who are seeking employment because they have less than four years within the School District of Philadelphia.  These teachers are effective, dynamic, and some of the best coworkers.

My argument isn’t that because we are young we are better.  In addition, I am not blaming our union at all for the budget shortfalls.  I just want to share my argument that teacher lay offs based on seniority isn’t the answer.

The teachers in my school who were laid off are young and very effective teachers.  Why are we not focusing on their effectiveness and instead focusing on the seniority?

In short, they have no seniority.  The might never have seniority due to this fixture.  My generation is being laid off and there isn’t a valid reason for it.

Yesterday, Dr. William Hite continued to hammer the nail into the coffin of the School District of Philadelphia by sending this email to staff announcing impending layoffs due to the budgetary crisis. This comes in the wake of the School Reform Commission ratifying the 2013-2014 "doomsday budget" after a protest rally including hundreds of students, staff, and community members. A single voice of reason on the Commission gave a strong-willed 'nay' vote when tallied. It is a sad day, indeed, when up to 3,000 staff who devote their lives to children could be laid off due to lack of investment by outside entities and mismanagement of funds.

All the while I have to show up in my classroom every day to face the sadness on my students' faces. "Where is our counselor going to be next year? What about after school sports? Will you still tutor me?" 

These are the voices of my charges, those who have consented implicitly to in loco parentis. But how can I effectively take the place of their parent without the resources I need? The answer from my superintendent and governor: do it anyway. And, as it turns out, I might not be in much of a different situation than their parents: with a poverty rate of 28.4% their parents have to "do it anyway" as well.

Over the past few years I have learned to use resources like DigitalWish and DonorsChoose.org for even the simplest of resources (pencils, paper, rulers, etc). How can President Obama announce that he wants Wifi in every school in the United States when we don't even know if we have enough textbooks for each student to use? As Ronnie Polaneczky eloquently stated, This Isn't School. When the gaps in public education have become Grand Canyons, we teachers can no longer pick up the slack - and nor can the parents. 

Meanwhile, the new reform group, Philadelphia School Partnership, announces yet another new donation in a charter school in the City of Brotherly Love. Perhaps we could get some Brotherly investment in the regular public school system as well?

If we as a city, state, and country truly believe in public education, we will follow the eloquent words of James MacCalister, "Schools that do not cost a great deal are not worth a great deal."

I am sorry it is taking so long to write these analyses. As we get closer to the end of the year so many students are now rushing to get work in that was due weeks, if not months, ago. The grading has become a bit ridiculous. But, since grades go in on June 12 (since that makes sense - *sarcasm*) I'll have more time soon.

Another I'd like to point out before starting: Lisa Haver wrote a great article dissecting the background of those who put together this study. Check out her article here.

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This section of the NCTQ study discusses a dubious concept know as "teacher tenure." I say it is dubious because it is not true tenure as most higher-education folks would have us understand it. A teacher who has tenure does not have a job for life. These teachers do not however have to prove as stringently their skills as an educator because for their first 3-4 years of teaching they have improved markedly in front of constant observations. 

Finding 3.1: NCTQ points out that PA is one of the majority of the states that allow a stricter due process system for teachers who have more experience. They quote that 11 states allow for some kind of probationary period extension from the 3-4 years already in the system. Apparently 3-4 years is not enough time to make a decision on the quality of an individual teacher and NCTQ thinks it should be longer. I would argue that if principals were given more time to actually observe (and were more objective with their observations) we could get a more honest picture of what's happening in the classroom.

Finding 3.2/3: Teacher effectiveness is brought up and dismissed by NCTQ as being a part of teacher tenure. They say only the amount of time a teacher has been in a classroom is used to determine their status. One might ask what they were doing in their 3-4 years in the classroom to warrant receiving stricter observation benefits? I would point out they were observed multiple times and received satisfactory results. This seems to be more of a criticism of the evaluation process than the outcomes thereof. The one thing I might agree upon is having a more scaled sense of how well a teacher is doing - if I am an outstanding teacher, I'd like to know that; if I need some work, then give me some time to improve before labeling me as "unsatisfactory." 

Again, however, these designations need to mean something in the processes that follow. Without support, a "needs improvement" rating might as well be a pink slip.

Finding 3.4: NCTQ says that there are flaws in the system because few teachers with "tenure" are dismissed for poor performance. But perhaps their skill levels have improved? Or, maybe there was a failure in the system itself since that teacher was moved from their placement and a new principal was judging them. If there were a more across-the-board evaluation system, perhaps using a committee of educators who sticks with the teacher regardless of a move, then things would be better.

Overall the outcome of these policy recommendations would be to demotivate teachers so much that new ones would not want to fill the ranks of the retirees. Without protections in place that allow for creativity and experimentation among the veterans, why would new cohorts want the job?

This afternoon I - along with hundreds of my colleagues across the city - attended a rally to protest the budget resolution just passed by the School Reform Commission. Students, teachers, parents, and other community members came out to support the effort and disuade the commissioners from voting "yes" on the resolution tonight. Obviously, the SRC members are in a bind as they are legally required to accept a budget by May 31st, but many among us were hoping they would join the movement to force the state to provide more funding. Instead, at approximately 9:30pm on May 30, 4/5 members voted in favor of the budget (Joseph Dworetskt voted no).

I hope the SRC realizes what it is doing. Even if they are able to amend this budget in the future it is setting a dangerous precedent. 

I echo the words of Helen Gym when she testified in front of the SRC. I hope people take it seriously in future elections and policy decisions.

The second section of the National Center for Teacher Quality's (NCTQ) study focuses on Evaluation. This is a meaty section as the topic is on most teacher's minds during this era of high-stakes testing fostered by the No Child Left Behind Act. Research is being done across the country, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's recent Measuring Effective Teacher (MET) study published this year. NCTQ attempted to incorporate some of that research into its indicators and recommendations:

Finding 2.1 & 2.2: NCTQ argues that teachers should receive an annual official rating of some kind and that it should occur early enough in the school year to "provide sufficient time for struggling teachers to improve and for administrators to make a final decision about a teacher's continued employment within that school year." There is certain merit to these statements - administrators should definitely know what is happening in their classrooms and teacher should have enough time to improve. I would argue any good principal does this all the time and does not need a formalized process to ensure high-quality instruction is taking place. 

Additionally, NCTQ puts pressure on the teacher's contract, pointing out the difference between a "rating" and an "evaluation" happening yearly as a reason why low quality tenured teachers remain in the classroom. I find this to be a misuse of the term "tenure" at its finest. A teacher with 3+ years of experience is not guaranteed a job - there is just a procedure in place that does make it possible to be dismissed within a 3-year cycle of formal observations. Oftentimes, however, the process is difficult to understand and principals have so many other responsibilities with less budget money to pay for assistants/secretaries, they might find less time to complete the procedures.

Finding 2.3: This is the section everyone expects in a discussion of evaluation. NCTQ argues that more test-driven data using value-added modeling (VAM) be used to evaluate teachers "objectively." As I have mentioned on this blog before, there is a lot of debate over whether VAM is a valid and reliable measure of teacher effectiveness. Gary Rubinstein has a six-part analysis of the NYC VAM data and debunks the theory that your scores remain the same year-to-year or school-to-school. I don't think this data is much better in Philadelphia.

Finding 2.4: NCTQ finally brings up that multiple measures are important in evaluating teachers. Bill Gates himself mentioned the importance not to rely too much on test scores when measuring teacher's effectiveness. One of the most important parts of this finding is that outside observers are critical, especially from peers who are experts in your subject-area as a high school teacher. While I received a new teacher coach my first few years teaching they were keenly unaware of the trials of a math classroom and all they had to say was "good job" on multiple occasions. I find it hard to swallow, however, that there is a magic "percentage" that would make it so that teachers do not focus on the test as much as other aspects of their teaching. Next year in Philadelphia we will be evaluated on observations (50%), teacher-specific test scores (15%), building-level test scores (15%), and elective data (20%). That is a lot of testing to worry about.

Finding 2.5: NCTQ argues something positive and gives the example of DC teachers in focusing on what teachers are evaluated on during formal observations. We currently use a framework with a variety of weights for certain pieces and it often seems a bit arbitrary. So much so that while I received an ecstatic rating this year, I almost was considered unsatisfactory two years ago. How can I be that different today?

Finding 2.6: NCTQ argues that we should be rated on a scale of more than just Pass/Fall (Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory). I can agree to a certain extent but I am wary of what that will mean in the future. If some teachers are declared "distinguished" and given performance bonuses, it is entirely possible that high-quality teachers will dumb themselves down in order to teach to a test and get that award. I am not saying it is bound to happen but I am worried.

Overall, this section was unsurprising. Most education reformers say similar things nowadays about incorporating "objective" data into evaluations. From my research these tests are not truly objective nor are the mathematical frameworks set up to compare teachers to each other through VAM.

I have begun reading through the National Center for Teacher Quality's study on the School District of Philadelphia and have decided to post my thoughts/comments on the various sections here. I have not read the entire study just yet but will be providing feedback on each section as I have time. I will start with the Introduction and Standard 1:

The Introduction provides the basis and rationale for their study. I understand the need and their goals and approve of an organization to find out what is really going on in Philadelphia schools. That being said, there is a serious methodological flaw that they mention briefly on page 3: "The number of respons to [our] survey was not sufficient to consider it a representative sample, so information from this survey was treated similarly to responses to questions in the focus groups." 

There are two issues I see here: a) not enough people were willing to participate in the sample, possibly because they disagree with the politics of NCTQ or they did not do a good job of following up; and b) this means NCTQ can pick and choose what anecdotes to use. Since they don't have share survey results in aggregate, they might simply show quotes that support their goals.

The next section was Standard 1: Staffing. All 16 pages seemed to be from the playbook of corporate reformers, bringing business-style strategies to the education world. While I may agree with some of those strategies, there are some important considerations to keep in mind. I've divided this up based off the findings in this section:

Finding 1.1 - NCTQ reports that the School District does not provide enough support in the way of criteria or knowledge base to support hiring high-quality candidates to their schools. I could be wrong, but when I was interviewed years ago I remember receiving some kind of "score" from my interviewer that put me at a different position on a list to be hired by an individual school. Does that score no longer exist? Otherwise, the recommendations listed here almost entirely rely on standardized assessments. I find this troubling. 

Finding 1.2 - NCTQ argues that site selection should become the end-all be-all to hiring across the School District. As opposed to seniority-based decisions made by the teacher, site selection allows principals to interview and select whomever they want. While I agree in principle to this idea, in practice it could create a host of issues. Imagine a principal who holds numerous grudges against teachers who are activist in their views (like me) - perhaps those teachers will not be hired, even though their classroom experience justifies it. I would promote site selection more if teachers within the school were give more control over the hiring.

Finding 1.3 - This finding pertains to the hiring timeline in Philadelphia. I must say I agree to almost all of the commentary. The idea that most hirings happen over the summer is strange and any new hires after September seem ludicrous. That being said, I think some of that situation is caused by a lack of planning (both fiscal and otherwise) on the part of the District leadership and Union. They need to get together to work out issues like this.

Finding 1.4 - NCTQ finds that Last In, First Out (LIFO) rules of seniority are anathema to high-quality education. To me, this exacerbates the claim that teachers are to blame for the failures of our students. States like Massachusetts that have strong teacher unions and long-standing seniority rules are outperforming those that do not. If teacher quality is the only thing that matters as many reformers would have you believe, then LIFO should be considered a good thing. Additionally, how will we entice teachers to apply and continue working in Philadelphia without some guarantee of job security?

Finding 1.5 - This finding was probably the most insulting: NCTQ posits that the dismissal rate for teachers in Philadelphia is too low and that it takes too long to get rid of poor-performing teachers. On page 17 they argue this clearly by pointing out that "the average dismissal time was two years" (emphasis theirs). First of all - people should care more about the median dismissal time, which I am certain is less than that. Additionally, just because the new Peer Assistance and Review program is not dismissing that many teachers does not mean the evaluation system is broken. This clearly lays all the blame on teachers, even though many other factors contribute more collectively to the outcomes of children.

Finding 1.6 - The last finding of NCTQ I agree with almost completely. Principals need to be trained in ways to keep the good teachers more than they need to be trained in ways of getting rid of the bad ones. There are many teachers who are resigning or retiring now when they could stay in the classroom for years to come. The sacrificed morale in search of the low-quality teacher is demeaning our profession. Instead, focusing on how to train principals to keep their staff would have a better outcome in the long run. 

Teachers across the Philadelphia area (and I'm sure other places as well) often lament the time spent on official "professional development" run by their school districts. Oftentimes it is a cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all lecture-style presentation - something that many regard as the exact opposite of what is demanded of teachers in their own classrooms. Even if it is of higher quality, no one has asked each teacher in the room if they really need to be there. Perhaps Teacher A needs a refreshers on using the TI-84 Plus calculator but Teacher B has run workshops for Texas Instruments. In short, no one asks the teachers what we need to grow as educators.

That is, until today.

10 schools from across Philadelphia were invited to come together for what we termed Professional Collaboration. 

Instead of being told what to learn, teachers were surveyed ahead of time for their interests. Instead of being told who would lead the workshops, teachers were asked to step up and lead themselves or identify organizations that could come in and present.

The result: an agenda packed with time for teachers to learn from each other, collaborate, and really learn and grow.

I was particularly impressed with the use of the hashtag created for the day: #May21PC. Teachers from all different schools were sharing what they knew during the day while others were chiming in from their own sessions or their own schools. And now you can search back with the same hashtag to see what people learned. I, myself, led a workshop on using Twitter for education purposes (and was happy to see new folks tweeting during the day).

At the end of the day each school had a place to sit and reflect on what they had learned. Our staff went around the room and each shared something we learned or a session that we attended; the comments people made were deep and thoughtful.

My principal said it best when she pointed out that each person was smiling as they reflected. When was the last time that happened because of a District-provided workshop?


In conclusion, I challenge Dr. Hite and the rest of the School District staff to allow teachers to organize these kinds of days for themselves. Support us in learning what we really want to know and give us the time to plan it.

A good friend sent me this article on the 8 surefire ways to demotivate your employees in order to get me thinking about the true connections there are between office workers and teachers when it comes to us feeling wanted and appreciated on the job. Unfortunately, I can think of specific examples for each of the eight items mentioned in the article, leaving me to believe that the leadership across schools really doesn't get it - in order to truly be a cause for public good we need teachers to feel valued and trusted. 

Recently, we feel more and more stamped upon, leading us to fight back and be a catalyst for change. Teachers in Seattle won a major victory on Monday when they were given the option to administer a standardized test know as the MAP. Budget cuts in Philadelphia have spurned regular informational protests in the mornings before school with our Union president in attendance.

Students across the city are also feeling the pressure coming down on them - through potential across-the-board cuts that imply certain programs are less meaningful than others. Groups like StandUpPhilly are bringing kids, parents, and community members together against the harsh and austere conditions that will ensue shortly. 

Wherever you live - urban, rural, or suburban neighborhoods - you are surely feeling what is happening in education right now. It is quite callous and harsh for all involved and will likely come to a head quite soon. Strikes across the country (including the Chicago Teachers Union earlier this school year) will become more common and the grassroots movement will gain footing.

The revolution is here.

This evening I was called to answer a survey of teacher's thoughts on the current issues in public education in Philadelphia. The survey was conducted by Peter Hart Research Associates, a firm with connections to local Philly and PA politicians. While the surveyor on the phone would not say for what purpose she asked her questions, I can glean from the list of clients that local government might be involved. Below is an almost question-by-question breakdown and what I think about them.

The survey began with some basic demographic information (age, racial group, number of years worked in the School District of Philadelphia, etc). This was unsurprising and I'm glad their data might be able to correlate for other things in the future.

The first few questions focused on various job conditions of teachers with two responses only: "as good as can be expected" or "falling short." The focal points were class size, salary, job security, and discipline. I tried to ask for clarification on what "as good as can be expected" meant but obviously the survey was not designed to explore that nuance. 

The next set of questions was asking my opinion on a few major figures in the current education debate. The spectrum ranged from "very positive" to "very negative" in terms of my reaction to them. The figures included: Tom Corbett, Superintendent Hite, The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, Charter schools, the School Reform Commission, Mayor Nutter, the Principal of my school, and Jerry Jordan. What I didn't totally understand here was how specific and how vague they were. Beginning with a name and then transitioning to an organization, and then a type of school? It was difficult to answer that question because I don't dislike all charter schools. But this false dichotomy arose again in these questions.

There were a few strange questions in the middle about how has control over the city schools - should it be the SRC appointed more by the Governor or should it be a local school board. These questions, I think, were more straight forward.

Then they asked about the potential things that could be done to reduce the budget gap. The pieces here were increased state funding, requiring tax-exempt institutions to pay property taxes, reducing salaries/benefits of school employees, spending $100s of millions on schools instead of prisons, closing down 24 schools, devoting more of the city budget to schools, closing down poorly performing charter schools, or layoffs. They did not ask me for what I thought we should do, which was probably a good idea. I would have given them a lecture as an answer.

The next type of question was strange for me: they asked which 2 items would concern me the most from the following list: cutting summer school programs, increasing class sizes, no art/music programs, no counselors/psychologists, no extra curricular activities, or no school nurses. I find it hard to choose in these situations because I think they are all critical to the proper running of a school.

The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers was focused on for a little bit at this point, with me rating their performance from excellent to poor on the following: teacher conditions in the classrooms, approach to the negotiations, supporting elected officials, keeping members informed, being democratic in giving members a say in how Union is run, and dealing with individual problems of members (like grievances). This was a tough set of questions to answer because - while I support the Union - I do think it could use some work in its democratic processes within membership. 

There were some questions here about my agreement on whether the PFT should be "buddy buddy" with management or be adversarial. There were also a few questions on my confidence in the PFT leadership. It seemed like they were looking for ammo on how to known teacher's confidence in the Union. 

After, there were a series of options of things that could be implemented from the District's original contract proposal. They asked what would I do for the following (vote against or for): principals hiring staff, eliminating the Health and Welfare fund, increasing word day by 1 hour, no raises until 2017, filling by site selection only, eliminating class size limits, changing medical contribution rules, offering raises based on performance rather than seniority, getting rid of pay raises for educational attainments, or a pay cut in general. Since I felt this original proposal was bonkers, you can guess how I responded.

They got more specific on these goals and asked what I think the PFT should focus on and then what I focused on myself. Finally, they asked what should be done if the SRC and the Union do not reach a deal. Should the Union a) accept new conditions without a fight, or b) take every legal action. Honestly, the only thing I could say was "the PFT should strike." 

The survey was long and hard to answer (probably because the options were not the best) but a fascinating exercise in quick typing and dealing with someone who has no idea what they are talking about because they are paid not to.