The following is an open letter from my good friend and educator Andrew Saltz. He was instrumental in arguing and eventually succeeding to keep Paul Robeson High School for Human Services open instead of closing due to budget cuts. Follow him on twitter here. 

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

I read your letter to the people of Philadelphia.  I agree that we should be happy schools will open, and I like how you opposed pay cuts.  I didn’t like how you neglected your own role in this crisis – how you ran internal polls for Corbett suggesting that he could win votes by attacking teachers’ job security and working conditions.  But it was your call for more teacher voice that really caught my eye.

For the last few years, hard working educators all types of schools have been part of a grand conversation on building a better school.  This conversation has been boundless – online, over beers, in conferences and on the street.  Groups like Teachers Lead Philly and Teacher’s Action Group have been holding seminars for the sole purpose of creating teachers who can and will speak on improving schools.  These are teachers, and they are speaking.  

I don’t believe you were listening.  Because you would have read Brian Cohen, a teacher, who has been diligently writing about his students dealing with the tumult in Philadelphia (to which your groups contributed).  Tim Boyle, another teacher, has spent the entire summer explaining that the majority of schools in Philadelphia pick their own teachers – and therefore questioning your motives in making that your cornerstone policy.  I hope you read Dan Ueda’s letter to the Philadelphia Inquirer on how the current crisis, a crisis that you furthered, creates an environment that is hostile to the incredible work he is doing at Central.

So why the call for more teacher voice?  Philadelphia is overflowing with teacher who speak out.  The problem is that you don’t like what they are saying.

Philadelphia teachers do not oppose any and every change to our contract.  There are a lot of ways we can make schools better through changes in how we teach, what we teach, and how we structure our schools.  I see no reason why the adopted hometown of Ben Franklin shouldn’t lead the country in re-modeling education.

Except that you, specifically the Philadelphia School Partnership and PennCAN, collaborated hand in glove with a Governor who has shown nothing but the bitterest contempt for the children and teachers of our city. You made robo-calls (the lowest form of activism) supporting his plan to starve the schools.  When City Council flailed in an attempt to find money and regular people took to a hunger strike and teachers marched in the streets of Harrisburg demanding the government cease using our children as hostages, you sat on your hands.

Your message was crystal clear:  Your students will get what they need after our groups get what we want.  Instead of the great compromiser Ben Franklin, you chose another Philadelphia luminary,  Beenie Sigel. “You can either get down, or you can lay down”.

And now you cheer as the SRC guts the best vehicle for teacher’s voice – our Union.

On August 16th, with virtually no comment, the unelected School Reform Commission gutted teachers’ job security, a move you supported.  In March, the same commission voted, against the will of thousands of teachers, to close 22 schools, again with your blessing.  Teachers spoke adamantly and passionately against these moves – you chose to ignore it.

Curb-stomping teachers’ rights while asking for more input is like pushing someone off a cliff but letting them pick the color of the body-cast.  Here’s your prison cell, feel free to decorate.

Teachers are willing to talk about how we are paid, how schools are run, and how we educate children in the 21st century.  We are not willing to do it with our kids held hostage.   Did you check out  Broad Street on August 22.  Teachers spoke loud and clear that this process, a process you have used or circumvented when it suits your needs, is unacceptable.  And I’m willing to bet they don’t see your groups as a solution.

It’s not The System.  It’s not apathy or lack of grit.  It’s not a biased media.  It’s because we’ve learned that bringing our honest voice to the power centers of education reform ends the same way – at gunpoint.

I know some teachers are going to work with you - you have some good ideas, you employ  some talented people, and most notably you are the only game in town.  But if you want real “teacher voice” then we must have voice on every question, not merely the ones you deem acceptable.  And if you don’t let us in, we’ll find people who will.  

It’s not us, it’s you. 

Over 1000 teachers, parents, students, and other activists marched in Philadelphia in protest of the impending doom that will come to Philadelphia this year due to massive budget cuts and policy changes that are fostering inequality across the School District. While rain poured down on them you could hear chants of "Hey, hey, ho, ho, Corbett has got to go!" While I, myself, could not be at the rally I fully support its purposes: making sure the children of Philadelphia have the resources they need to enter into a new academic year by demanding proper funding for school.

While the protest continued outside the School District headquarters at 440 North Broad Street, inside the School Reform Commission was meeting to hear more testimony from citizens and vote on resolutions including some related to charter school payments for rented buildings as well as one particularly important resolution allowing $228,000 of donated funds to be directed towards Science Leadership Academy for their academic program. This echoes of the report earlier this month of the principal of Greenfield Elementary School asking that each student's family supply $613 in order to run their programs.

While I applaud and support any financial interest parents and other community members have with their schools, I am quite wary of the trend this might be starting: schools that do not have an alumni or parent base may not be able to succeed in the coming years due to lack of support from central authorities. The vast majority of schools in Philadelphia have more than half of their populations on free- or reduced-priced lunch programs - how are they supposed to provide the same support?

In a truly democratic society, each citizen is supposedly taxed in order to support those in need in order to bolster the entire community. Imagine if each of the students in Philadelphia grew up with a useful degree, got a job, and paid money into the city's coffers through the State and City Wage Tax? We would gain billions of dollars. 

Instead, as Helen Gym recently told the Washington Post, PA Governor Corbett "cut nearly $1 billion from education statewide, money that has largely not been restored." That money would go to pay for after-school tutoring, extracurricular activities, school police officers, non-teaching aides, nurses, and guidance counselors. Without these people in buildings, I do not think a truly solid educational program can take place. 

In June, Ronnie Polaneczky wrote a piece entitled, "This isn't school" discussing how - at this point - the gaps in public education are too vast to supplement with outside resources. Perhaps even the donations being discussed now are not enough.

Without further funding from a state level, programs will continue to be cut and the next generation of high school graduates (who are sure to be fewer than in years past) will lack the tools necessary for careers and college. Teachers are being downgraded to glorified babysitters - something we are definitely not paid enough for.

The famous teacher-author Rafe Esquith has written a new book to add to his compendium of advice for teachers across the country. A few years ago I was handed a copy of Teach Like Your Hair's On Fire and simply loved the stories and lessons Esquith shared. I was recently given a copy of Real Talk for Real Teachers and just know that he has done it again.

Esquith, an elementary school teacher who teaches at Hobart Elementary School in Los Angeles, understands a lot of the plight of teachers these days. As all new teachers understand, the first few years are tumultuous. My own have been at four different schools in five years. So when some of Esquith's first words in the book states, " I hope this book inspires young teachers to keep teaching even against impossible odds," I am glad to see them.

Over the course of the book, Esquith discusses the three main stages of a teaching career - from the wide-eyed and bushy-tailed newbie to the consummate professional to the seasoned master teacher and provides advice at every step of the game. Here are some anecdotes that I particularly enjoyed:

Toward the beginning of the book he emphasizes the importance of students making mistakes and learning from them, while the teacher encourages this action deeply. I am very excited to see that as one of the most important parts of the process of education is corrections and revisions. How often do writers create a work of Shakespeare on their first draft? That seems very unlikely. Instead, learning is methodical and takes time. One of the big ideas of College Prep Math - a curriculum based on decades of research - is that "mastery takes time, effort, and support." If you cannot convince a student that it is okay to make a mistake, they might never learn.

Something I found particularly interesting is Esquith's views on the SLANT method (a way of interaction between student and teacher that some support and some criticize). I usually am on the side of the latter and was pleased to see that Esquith joins me in disbelief that students have to be so regimented in order to learn properly. 

But one of the most important things he says comes at the end of the book: "A teachers knows. No computer or system or standardized test can look into a child's eyes and recognize true understanding. A teacher does that." As I have written previously about some of the sham mathematics that goes into these tests and their use in teacher evaluation. We need to focus on getting good teachers in the door and supporting them so that they don't leave.

In summary, buy the book. It's a great read and has some wonderful anecdotes that share advice on what to do in your classroom. Definitely good for the young and the experience teacher.

Yesterday I began taking a workshop for a curriculum that, while new to me, has been around for over 20 years. This well-thought out series of lessons, activities, assessments, and more hides behind its simple name: College Prep Mathematics (CPM). The workshop I am participating in will lead us through the first four chapters of the textbook/guidebook while also explaining a lot of its philosophy of instruction.

Before I began the workshop my impression of this curriculum was fairly positive - I heard that it was mostly a set of lab activities that encouraged students to think, write, and dialog with each other about math topics so that they would develop a deeper understanding of the material. It sounds interesting to me but I'd never had an in-depth explanation of its intricacies nor guided instruction in how to use it. 

Enter: my new colleagues at the Brooklyn School for Collaborative Studies. They started using CPM a few years ago and have seen some very interesting results. Two of them are helping to lead the workshop I am taking.

One of the major differences of this curriculum is its emphasis on group work and discovery learning. Teachers - whether they want to or not - are forced to become the "guide on the side" in their classrooms. William Glasser researched and developed this idea and it is at the core of how CPM functions - when students engage strongly in the material they will retain more of it. With that in mind, most (if not all) activities are conducted in groups of four with rotating responsibilities (like recorder, facilitator, task manager, and resource manager). During the past two days we modeled this approach in our own activities and it was an interesting challenge to ensure that all members were on task at all times.


Thus far we have used a variety of different methods, all neatly described on the eBook website (sorry - no link; it's only accessible to paying members) and I can tell I like how it runs already. I will update more as I go!

While Stockholm is considered part of an archipelago you can easily walk for hours without necessarily crossing the water. In contract, Copenhagen is a series of connected islands with canals running through them. It is hard to avoid the water, let alone its beauty. During our three days in the city we walked and boated around constantly - the canal tour was particularly interesting due to the low-hanging bridges (seen to the left).

One particularly interesting aspect was the abundance of specialized bicycles. As it turns out, a special neighborhood with a kibbutz-like structure named Christiana has created this mode of transportation and popularized it around the city. We spent an afternoon walking around the area, marveling at the beautiful houses, talking with a few locals to find out the history, and enjoying the strange types of bicycles going by. It was quite memorable.

Then - to my surprise - I discovered a memory that had been long forgotten: the Danes invented LEGO! The wonder building-block toy that my brother and I used to fight about had its home in this country. We walked by a LEGO store as it was closing and spent 10 minutes marveling at the amazing works of LEGO art. My favorite part, however, was the back of the store where you could buy individual pieces to complete your collection - it was magnificent. 

All in all, this trip was a great experience for my girlfriend and me - seeing the sites and learning parts of new languages. Experiencing local cuisine and finding out history from a region we had not thought about much before. Sufficed to say, we both highly recommend a trip to Scandinavia and will likely return soon.

As I posted previously I recently made a big change in my life by moving to New York City. That being said, it doesn't mean I have stopped paying attention to my hometown of Philadelphia. I read day after day about the blame being passed around for the current fiscal crisis and the haphazard way in which the current School District administration, city government, and state government has been acting in order to "fix" this problem. Superintendent Dr. William Hite announced last Friday that "if [SDP] does not received $50 million in additional funding by Friday August 16th schools may not open on time." This is an abhorrent statement to make for a multitude of reasons.

As a math teacher I start with the numbers. Just a few months ago, Hite was talking about the $304 million budget gap that the District had to deal with before the end of the school year. Even with lobbying, media scrutiny, and political pressure - that number is nowhere near met. So how can he now be saying that only $50 million is necessary to open schools on time? Perhaps that is the beginning of a stream of funding he wants to secure, but it is still unclear. 

While this punditry is taking place, Governor Corbett is off kayaking on vacation instead of taking a stand on a crisis affecting the largest school district in his state. To add insult to injury, the district in our capital of Harrisburg is laying off librarians to close a budget gab there. And today the new budget secretary announces the need for new "fiscal savings" which can only be translated as concessions from the teachers' union. Even Lower Merion School District has contemplated what more austere budgets would look like.

So what is a longterm, sustainable answer? In my view, it is more equitable state funding. I understand a Republican governor does not want to be known as someone who increases the size of government in this regard, but without more investment, Philadelphia will continue to lag behind other large school systems in its equality of funding and will produce mediocre student bodies. 

While I do not wish to advocate for less schooling for our youth, if this situation is not fully resolved soon, I would heartily agree with those who advocate for a school boycott. And if the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers does is unable to get a contract that is fair to teachers, they should strike. 

After spending 10 days sharing discovery after discovery with first-time visitors to Israel, I took a much needed week-long vacation to Stockholm, Sweden and Copenhagen, Denmark. My girlfriend joined me in Stockholm and we both began our journey by marveling at the sense-making of the Swedes when it comes to elevators. 

As a math teacher I love when anything makes sense in the world in relation to numbers. At our fist AirBnB destination the elevator showcased the Swedish sensibility: using the number line for the floors! If you think about it, this really does make sense - the "1st floor" implies the first floor above ground level so it should be represented by a "1". And anything below ground level is negative because you have to go down. If you want to know the true distance between floors, just subtract one from the next and it will always work out (even 1 - (-1) = 2 floors difference). 

We spent 3 days exploring Stockholm - walking, boating, and enjoying. The cinnamon buns were spectacular (maybe that's why Ikea always has them) and the views over the water were glorious. 

During that time we visited one of the best museums (and sites) in the world: The Vasa Museum.  During a 17th century war between Sweden and Denmark a variety of sailing ships were commissioned to win the various battles: the Vasa was a beautiful example of one that, unfortunately, didn't make it out of port. As you can see from the picture here, the stern (rear) of the ship was so tall and so weighty that one side-ways gust of wind sent it to the bottom of the sea.

The story does not end there, however! 300 years later it was discovered and raised slowly, treated with a chemical glue-substance for 17 years to avert wood-splintering and cracking and now it is on display in all its glory. We spent 2 hours exploring the outer edges and reading about its history, its purpose, the raising, the life of a soldier at the time, and more. It was glorious.
 
There were many more amazing things to do in Stockholm but not enough space to write about them. I highly recommend you visit. 

We've all had that experience of being participants in some kind of activity instead of the organizer - and we love it. Instead of organizing, orchestrating, and implementing, we get to ask questions, role-play, and get on the leader's nerves. 

That is what it was like for me while leading a program called Taglit-Birthright Israel in mid-July. As displayed on their website, "The vision of Taglit-Birthright Israel is to strengthen Jewish identity, Jewish communities and solidarity with Israel by providing a [free] 10-day trip to Israel for young Jewish people." Taglit is Hebrew for "discovery" and I can tell you firsthand that these young adults truly did discover quite a bit about their heritage, identify, and the country that can connect it all together.

As a staff member, my role was not that different from a teacher leading a field trip: make sure the participants are safe; make sure the program is interesting; make sure everyone gets what they need in order to benefit the most from this trip. These adults were bused around the State of Israel in order to do walking tours, biking tours, hiking tours, museum tours, and more. At night we often discussed what we experienced during the day and tried to promote the idea that they should talk about what they were experiencing.

At first, the fact that they had self-selected to be a part of this trip was a benefit. Adults in their mid-20s are perfectly capable of getting places on time; quieting each other down; and asking incredibly insightful questions. But about halfway through the trip things digressed and they were sometimes late, not always awake enough to focus, and were difficult to bring around so much so that we sometimes lost a few on a hike and had to search for them.

What I find most fascinating about this experience was that I, too, began digressing into the mode of "counselor" from summer camp. I began treating them as if they were teenagers when, instead, they were 24 or 25 years old (sometimes even 26). My perception of what they needed (constant reminders of timing, to be herded place to place) made them act exactly as I feared they would. 

This made me think quite a bit about my expectations in my classroom for next year. Granted, I don't think the "no excuses" attitude of many schools nowadays is the reason for their success, but I want to make sure that I don't belittle the expectations all the way down. It is important that my students (or participants on trips) know what I want them to do and strive to reach the place where they can do it. I will provide as much help along the way that I can but I should not have to coddle anyone - that only leads to them feeling they constantly need to ask me for things when I want them to ask each other first.

I hope that this 10 dray trip provided plenty of time for my participants to question and that they keep in touch with some answers that they find.