That is how the document outlining the new potential collective bargaining agreement begins. You can view the rest of it by clicking here. This ridiculous proposal aims at demotivating and deconstructing the already-beaten profession of teaching. If these policies were put into place not only would I be forced to resign my position in protest but plenty of other teachers would as well. 

Perhaps a few quick highlights will be illuminating:

• All salaries will be reduced, with those making the most money to be losing 13% of what they earn. I imagine a wave of retirements and resignings from the veteran cohort of teachers. Say what you will about the stereotypical image of the old-school teacher not doing a good job - but know that the majority of them are good teachers and would continue for years unless this kind of things takes hold.

• Increase in time for school day from 7 hours, 4 minutes to 8 hours. While I understand the desire to increase the number of minutes in high-quality learning environments, the people who are crafting these policies seem unaware of modern biology and psychology. People can only focus for a certain amount of time and after that there is diminishing marginal utility. 

• Increase teaching load to six classes per day (from five). As teachers (and friends/family thereof) know, class sizes have ballooned to such a number that each teacher easily sees 150-160 students per day. If another classes were added on top of that, we would be pushing 180 per teacher. If any assignment were given more than 1 minute of time for assessment, that would be 3 hours of work! How could any teacher give reasonable feedback with that load? Answer: they couldn't.

• Elimination of copy machines and textbooks. Not only are teachers supposed to teach 180 students per day, but they are also supposed to do it without resources. It is easy to save money by not providing paper or machinery to copy. It is also easy to eliminate learning by not actually teaching.

If the District is serious about retaining or - more importantly - enticing new teachers to work, they will reconsider this proposal. Otherwise I would be happy to join my compatriots on the picket line.

Teaching is tough - we all know it. Learning is tough, too. There are so many factors outside of the control of an individual that getting help is an important part of a career - be you a student, teacher, or another profession entirely. 

So why is it that students have guidance counselors who have regular contact with them yet teachers don't often get to voice concerns and get feedback? Reflection is an important part of any process and teachers deserve it just as much as students do. 

It is for that reason that I value teacher networks - they provide me with avenues to reflect and get feedback from my colleagues. Any good teacher knows who he or she can go to for help and does so often, just like any good student knows which adult to trust with concerns. 

If you value reflection and want to get ideas from others, consider attending meetings of as many teacher networks as possible. The particular one I connect with these statements is the Reflective Teacher Network. If you feel tired, shaky, and need a pick-me-up with some free dinner, come to our next meeting. It's free and could be the difference between a complaining session and real progress in your classroom.

This evening I had a great conversation with a good friend surrounding the issue of teacher evaluation. We talked about value-added modeling, mentioned the MET Study conducted by the Gates Foundation, mulled over how teachers in high-performing schools might be deemed inaffective even though their students go on to Harvard, Princeton, and Yale. Obviously, this was an engaging conversation.

But, then towards the end we digressed a bit and got on the topic of how teachers feel right now. Unfortunately, the emphasis on evaluation has been skewed in the direction of punishment and negativity instead of how some Districts think of it as supportive (Denver was one example). Many might point to Michelle Rhee, former Chancellor of DC Public Schools, as the champion for firing teachers her system deemed ineffective; perhaps if she were not the spokesperson, people might feel better about it.

Today, the 29th annual MetLife Study of the American Teacher was released and it details something well known to use in the field of teaching: overall, it's less satisfying than it used to be. Only 39% of teachers say they are very satisfied with their career. Only 39% If we think others are going to want to go into this career path we should seriously re-evaluate what we are thinking. 

Common reasons cited include lack of funding, lack of autonomy in the classroom, lack of support, etc. These are all things I deal with everyday - yet I feel a persistent aura of teacher-bashing when I read the news and get mandates from District officials. 


I hope we come up some with some ideas quickly to make teachers feel better about being in the classroom. Otherwise, we should look forward to people in the front of a classroom who really shouldn't be there.

A quick note: for those reading How Children Succeed by Paul Tough, I will be posting the blog entry reviewing this book on Thursday, February 28. Feel free to comment on the post once it is up - I welcome your input.

------------------

Last Friday I was fortunate enough to have the time, energy, and forethought to plan a lesson that went off swimmingly and I want to share its pros and cons here

My students have been honing their graphing, solving, and analyzing skills since returning from Winter Break. I noticed a severe lack of comfort in manipulating fractions as well, so I wanted them to be exposed to that as well. In order to bring it all together, I had the of idea of letting the students create graphs on graham crackers using icing. If you take a graham cracker and rotate in 45 degrees in either direction, the holes perfectly line up to create a grid. It was wonderful.

I explained it to my students exactly this way:

Students were given three sets of systems of linear equations with increasing difficulty. They must start by graphing those in Level One and showing me the correct graph. If they had the correct graph, they could then create it using icing as you can see here. There were three problems in Level One and they could complete as many as they wanted.

Level Two consisted of systems involving fractional coefficients or negative numbers. They needed two graham crackers to create (an added incentive). 

Level Three consisted of a system of linear inequalities involving shading (translation: more icing). It was quite difficult and only one student achieved it. Unfortunately, he had to go to his next class before graphing it on the graham crackers.

I even allowed students to take photos of their work and tweet it using the hashtag #grahamgraphs. It was quite engaging.

Overall the activity was a great success - almost all students were working (even those who had previously given up). I was able to increase the skill of many and reinforce the need to come to tutoring for some. I would highly recommend using this lesson if you can in the future. Just be sure to share your own hashtag!

The website for the Office of Curriculum, Instruction, and Professional Development for the School District of Philadelphia looks very much like any other page of the generic District site: somewhat informative but difficult to navigate. Under the main banner sits a welcome message with a thesis statement of sorts as to the purpose of this office:

Aside from the grammatical error in the first sentence, I would agree with this ideal, if it were implemented effectively. Instead - as with most "professional development" across the District, the time is usually spent in unnecessary meetings or completing paperwork that will be filed in a drawer instead of used.

In the past I have advocated for the unconference model adopted by EdCampPhilly to fill the gaps in the District's professional development plans. But, this year, I was excited to be a part of a new opportunity: a professional collaboration. 

My school (along with a number of others) sent a representative (me) to discuss what our day of learning will look like on May 21st. As it is a full day away wiothout students it provides a unique opportunity to get teachers together from across the District to actually do something worthwhile. We have already started the planning stages: asking teachers to share their thoughts on what they want to learn and what they would be able to teach instead of being told what to listen to (like an unengaging webinar or powerpoint presentation). With that feedback we will craft sessions over the course of the day and allow teachers to sign up for what they want to attend. We trust that teachers will make the proper decisions for themselves - a truly professional act.

While I am happy and eager to participate in this it leaves a question in my mind: why are other schools and parts of the District not allowed to do this? Is it such a scary thought that teachers might know what they want to learn or that they might be able to educate each other? 

After all, if the populace trusts us to educate its most precious asset, wouldn't it make sense that we share what we learn with each other? 

I hope people in the school district will take note and apply these principles elsewhere.

Yesterday I was given the opportunity to lead a section of the professional development at my school. Obviously, I was very excited as I enjoy working with teachers to help them understand the newest technologies and make it easier for them to do great work. 

One of the most important things I brought up was what I call the "$200 teacher-centered Smartboard." A picture of it is here (with a link to amazon.com where you can purchase one) but I will elaborate.

While I was student-teaching in 2009 my classroom mentor was lucky enough to be selected as a member of the Classrooms for the Future grant that was expanded around that time. Ostensibly, the grant was meant to innovate the classroom and provide new tools for educators to teach our students better. I was super excited to take advantage of this - it meant we would get a Smartboard; and when I began teaching in my own classroom the next year, I breathed a sigh of relief that I had one to my own in my first full year of teaching.

It took me two years of fulltime teaching to realize two of the major downfalls of this technology: 
1) they are incredibly expensive to purchase, install, and maintain - sometimes to the tune of $6,000 (even today). 
2) They do not help promote a student-centered classroom.

Instead of working around and near students, the Smartboard keeps every teacher close to the center of attention. Of course you can bring students up to the board to oogle and oggle, but how does this board add value to the classroom? It definitely makes it easier for teachers to prepare - but that can be accomplished with a projector anyway.

Enter: the wireless tablet. Two years ago I purchased one and am so thankful I did. This device (costing around $200 including wireless adapter) allows me to control my computer and draw on programs like ActivInspire and Smart Notebook from around my room. It allows me to work directly with students and even have them write as well. If a student does not feel comfortable walking up to a board to write, they can do it from their seat. That adds value.

If schools started investing and training teachers to use these devices, that $6000 price tag would be able to provide 30 tablets to staff - a great value if you ask me. 

In case anyone reading this would like to see one in action, just come to my classroom any day - I am happy to share.

A good friend and fellow teacher suggested recently that I start a Book Club of sorts through this blog. Well, I've finally decided to bite the bullet and share with you the next book I plan to read: How Children Succeed by Paul Tough. If you want to read it by the end of February and comment on my next "Book Review" blog post, then spend the next four weeks paging through. It's not long but is sure to be a good read. 

In the meantime, I've spent the last few weeks reading Value-Added Measure in Education by Douglas Harris. He spends 230 pages explaining the history and application of value-added measures (VAM) as they relate to education. A lot of the beginning of the book is spent describing the different types of assessment that exists (even in the VAM realm) and how they all have positives and negatives depending on how the measures are used. 

The entire book is quite well written and contains a lot of arguments either way in the use of VAM. One major thing he notes as a barrier to widespread use of the system is the fact that there are large margins of error when applying VAM to specific teachers. When New York City released the VAM scores of 18,000 teachers, the confidence intervals were 35 and 53 percent for Math and English respectively - quite a wide margin. 

The chart shown here was created by Harris in order to compare teachers in different schools as well as the schools themselves. It is easy to notice that when the schools are used as the item of measurement the variance is much lower than when the teachers are used.

The other major issue to consider with this chart is that even though the teachers were different scores overall, the confidence intervals demonstrate that there was almost no true way of knowing which teacher was better than the other because of the overlap. 

At the end of the book Harris makes 10 "recommendations for creating and reporting value-added measures for accountability purposes." His first recommendation is unsurprising to educators: make better tests. For years we have been noticing the decline in emphasis on critical thinking and problem-solving due to the overuse of multiple-choice questions and specific content areas (Math and English) being emphasized. He suggests that tests across the country model themselves on the International Baccalaureate (IB) exams because it is "an authentic assessment, meaning that it captures skills like inquiry and problem solving" (p. 202). He understands this will cost more money and require more time due to the increase in open-ended questions used, but recognizes that it will overall benefit our children.

This book explores the complexities of Value-Added Measurement well and is fairly balanced on the subject. I am sure there are those who would disagree with me so I hope they comment here.