It is with bittersweet excitement that I want to announce my upcoming move to Brooklyn, New York.

This might come as a surprise to a great number of people who know how much I love and cherish my time in Philadelphia (with fun walking tours and random puns about the City of Brotherly Love) but the next chapter of my life is actively unfolding and it requires me to be in the Big Apple in July. 

While I grew up just outside of Philadelphia in Lower Merion township I never really understood what the city had to offer. When I finally moved to West Philly to go to Penn I began to scratch the surface. Moving downtown and beginning to connect with educators across the area solidified my belief that our fine city has so much to offer ourselves and the world. I truly believe Philadelphia can be a destination for thousands of families looking to settle down in a place that can truly be homey and wonderful. 

That being said, there are a few personal and professional pulls that brought me to make this decision. When I completed graduate school I felt compelled to look north as another place form e to whet my desire to understand a different urban area and bring that knowledge back to Philadelphia. I talked with friends about living and working in New York, coming home to visit family and friends on a regular basis. That thought was put on hold as I dove into my first years of teaching in the School District of Philadelphia and has now resurfaced with enough oomph to get me up there.

Over the past few months I have organized a place to live (New York real estate is ridiculous) and a new job at a school in Carroll Gardens called the Brooklyn School of Collaborative Studies. I look forward to the new challenges ahead and working in a new place with new staff. While I have done this a few times in the past, it was never voluntary. For the first time I am actively making a big change and I can't wait to see how it turns up.

Obviously I will continue writing and reflecting on my practice, local and national education policies, and I imagine there will be quite a lot of comparison between NYC and Philadelphia. Sufficed to say, I might be moving to a different city but my brain is still screwed on the same way and I will definitely want to share my thoughts. I look forward to making connections with great educators and others in New York. For now, have a great summer! I will likely continue to share thoughts but on a less consistent basis.

Last year I gave a pretty good end-of-year survey and had students answer a few basic questions about their year. This time I decided to give a much more detailed survey that took some students 15-20 minutes to fill out. I got some really great feedback, divided into quantitative and qualitative. Let's take a look at the quantitative details. Each statement required a rating system including Strongly Disagree, Disagree, Neutral, Agree, and Strongly Agree. I'll analyze a few of the statements in turn:

What I find interesting in this first set of data is that overall my students do see me as a fair teachers (60% of them were Agree or Strongly Agree, while 29% were neutral). When disaggregated, things get more interesting.

When taking into account separate subject areas, my Geometry students thought I was a fairer teacher (75% Agree or Strongly Agree) than my Algebra 1 students (50% Agree or Strongly Agree). Perhaps it is because I have fewer Geometry students and I knew many of them because I had taught them last year. Or perhaps it is because the 9th grade students are younger and are transitioning into high school. I am open to any and all thoughts.

This next chart is quite important - I want to make sure my students feel respected by me. Luckily - they do. Overall, 76% of my students feel that I respect them. Or, in a better way, only 4% of them say I disrespect them. 

These pie charts tell a similar story as in the first question. None of my Geometry students feel I have disrespected them whereas 5.8% of my Algebra 1 students feel I do not afford them enough respect. 

The vast majority of my students think I try to help them in different ways. This is a great way for me to know that I am differentiated correctly. That being said, I still need to improve what I'm doing for the 9% of Disagree or Strongly Disagree and the 17% who answered Neutral.

The nice thing about this question is that even disaggregating doesn't make that much of a difference. The vast majority of my students still feel I offer different types of assistance.

Finally, any teacher will want to make sure their students feel safe in his or her classroom. I am glad to see the vast majority of my students feel it is safe and only 2% were in the Disagree or Strongly Disagree camps. I am admittedly confused by those who were Neutral, but I suppose some people don't want to express opinions widely.

There was a difference between my Geometry and Algebra 1 students in this regard, for some reason, but not related to the Disagree or Strongly Disagree numbers. Still 99% of my students did not Disagree to this statement.

These sets of data are a great way to understand how your students feel about you and what you need to do to change for the better. I think I will try to understand my 9th grade students more and have discussions with them about what is considered fair or not in order to change those statistics for the better. 

In yesterday's City Paper, Daniel Denvir dug into the secret poll (PDF version here) leaked regarding a variety of issues in the state of Pennsylvania, including the current education budget crisis. This poll was paid for by PennCAN, an organization that ostensibly advocates for reforms in education that would "benefit" children across the Pennsylvania. In my experience thus far, I have seen them advocate quite heavily for increases in charter school enrollment and most recently creating an unfortunate (and I would argue inaccurate) system of grading schools across the state as well - just look at what happened in New York City in 2012.

The major concern I have regarding the report from this secret poll is the question regarding from where the funding to support schools in Philadelphia should come. The word choice and presentation would lead anyone to choose the last option. Who would want schools to close (option 1) or to borrow money on top of what was already borred (option 2)? Of course the vast majority of people are going to choose money coming from the city, the state, and the Union (option 3). In this context it is the perfectly logical conclusion.


And yet, there is a lot of information lost in this simplification of the problem. Aside from the fact that the state already took over the school system in 2001, people forget that two years ago, Governor Corbett reduced the state's contribution to the education budget by over $1 billion! The Education Law Center was kind enough to put together a report explaining the details of this cut and how it would affect the thousands of kids in low income areas (like Philadelphia). 

Perhaps if there was a fourth option presented, there would be more even-handedness in the answers. I'm thinking something like:

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?