This week the holidays of Thanksgiving and Chanukah will be celebrated, heralding a time of thankfulness and giving that won't end until after the New Year parties die down. All the while children in Philadelphia are still fighting for funding and access to basic supplies, while class sizes have ballooned and some are over the legal limit (teachers are deciding to fight other battles they deem more important instead of hitting that issue head on). More students are beginning to struggle against this in planning student walkouts (albeit not the best planned ones). Yet funding is still in crisis and the budget gap is only going to increase for next year.

One thing to note is that costs continue to increase for the School District of Philadelphia, especially as charter schools siphon off more funding for their student bodies with little to no supervision on the administrative level (the Charter Office has six people listed on its website with a student population the size of Pittsburgh's). Pension costs are also increasing, a problem known quite far in advance thus should not be the sole focus of these proceedings. 

Unfortunately, the Pennsylvania government is seriously looking into legislation that would allow charter schools to be approved and operated by non-School District bodies across the state. This possibility decreases funding for public schools in the state (especially Philadelphia, home to most of the state's charter schools) even though fixed costs will not change. All this while many charter schools are under investigation and some are being shut down due to mismanagement.

Helen Gym, founder of Parents Unite for Public Education,  recently wrote a piece on what the next Governor will have to deal with and it is spot on. Without the public school systems many students who could become strong-willed, civic-minded taxpayers would be shoved under the rug and forgotten. I can only hope whomever takes the reigns away from Corbett has it in them to succeed. 

Over the past few weeks I have gained ground in my understanding of College Prep Math, the curriculum being used at the Brooklyn School for Collaborative Studies where I work. I feel more comfortable using the online resources; I understand how the textbook works; and I've learned to trust that when things go wrong in an individual lesson, the textbook will circle back to those concepts later. I am by now means an expert and have been relying heavily on my co-teachers, but I see how the structure fits what I've been building to over the last few years of teaching: instead of chunking information together, it spreads it out and "spirals" so that students see the same content over the course of the year.

A friend sent me this article two months ago which discusses how "blocking" of information (teaching one concept intensely and then moving on) may provide short-term beneficial feedback but long-term detriment. When students are presented with material they are familiar with they will likely persevere and come up with a close-to correct answer. But what about when they are presented with a novel situation - will they know what formula, procedure, or algorithm to use?

One thing we are attempting to do is change the mindset of our students using CPM. What I mean by that is best summarized by a resource from Carol Dweck's mindset website:

What she is getting at with this quote is that too often people think of themselves as "bad at math" (or are told as much) and then internalize that for the rest of their lives. If we recognize this fixed mindset and move past it, we will be able to persevere against all odds. A recent article in the Atlantic continues the argument by saying, "For almost everyone, believing that you were born dumb—and are doomed to stay that way—is believing a lie. IQ itself can improve with hard work." 

While teaching with this spiraling technique I am beginning to understand how we can change student perception by offering multiple entry points for a given piece of content. Moreover, by focusing on how they approach the content instead of the outcome of the content itself, we might be offering a way out for all those who say they are "bad at math."

I hope that over the course of this year I have many more conversations with people about how to ensure this happens with my students.

Over the past few weeks I have grown more comfortable with the curriculum I have been tasked in using as well as following the procedures and policies set forth by my new school. It's quite amazing how a new environment can throw a semi-experienced teacher for such a loop; the past two months have been a whirlwind of learning how this school functions and how I can make a positive difference in it. 

The curriculum we use - called College Prep Math - emphasizes longterm understanding, sometimes to the detriment of the short term. That often means I have students who demand that I "teach them" by standing in the front of the room and lecturing instead of more thorough methods of educating like investigations and questioning. One student in particular keeps demanding that I give him what he wants (direct instruction) instead of asking him to try things. I have faith in the curriculum that over time my students will develop deeper understandings but it is quite hard at the onset. 

An additional tool we have at my school is a modification to the standard grading system known as Habits of Working and Learning (HOWLs for short). Every week we track the behavior and performance of our students based on six standards in two categories:

If a student performs well on these categories they will receive whatever academic grade they earn for the class. If they are exemplary, they can earn 4 additional percentage points - a great incentive, indeed. But, if they perform poorly and fail either category, they will fail the course (even if their academic grade is not failing). 

I find this system to be quite amazing since it creates a large measure of accountability to not just the academics of a student but also their interaction with people around them. I have tried to incorporate this into grades of my previous students but have never gone to this level. Having policies like this for the entire school is a profound change and I welcome it.

Overall I am really enjoying myself in my new setting. It has been difficult but I am learning quickly and enjoying what I do. I'll share more notes here soon!

I wrote this piece a little while ago in an attempt to be posted on Gothamist. Since they haven't responded to it I assume they are not going to run it. So, with that in mind, here it is in all its glory. 

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Schools across New York City opened their doors in September to what might be the most tumultuous year in teacher evaluation history. As students got settled into their first few weeks of classes, teachers across the Department of Education have been learning about Advance, the new evaluation system being implemented this year. The new system grew out of disagreements between Department of Ed and the United Federation of Teachers, the union that represents 75,000 people in schools across the city. While the implementation of Advance has certainly begun, there are many questions that have arisen at meetings. Amongst them: why do we need the system? how does it work? will I be able to keep my job?

A lot of the reasoning for teacher evaluation stems from a desire to know what the most important factor is in the education of an individual student. Studies and analyses by various stakeholders have shown that teachers are the most important “in-school factor” to make this prediction. With that in mind, it makes sense to determine which teachers are actually the best in order to remove the “bad” ones and replace them with new blood. At the same time, little creed is given to the out-of-school factors that account for up to 60% of student success.

But what truly measures the effect one teacher has on a given student? The new evaluation system put into place in New York uses a multi-pronged approach to decide:

• 60% of a teacher’s evaluation is based on in-class observation by a trained evaluator (usually a principal or assistant principal). The evaluation is conducted using a rubric designed by Charlotte Danielson that refers to four specific domains of teacher and learning.
• 20% is provided by state-mandated measures and decided on by the principal. For example, these scores might be based on the High School Regents exams.
• 20% is provided by local measures decided on by a committee of UFT representatives and the principal and are chosen from a menu provided by the NYC Department of Education. 
  

While this new system seems like the perfect balance of qualitative and quantitative data, it is important to analyze each section more thoroughly to understand how a teacher would see its use.

The first category is quite practical: in-class observation is probably the most honest way of getting a read on the quality of a teacher. If s/he seems to have control over the class, planned an engaging lesson, and is respected by the students, s/he is probably doing a good job. If not, then s/he needs help. That being said, there have been issues when principals hold grudges or are not open to new and innovative ideas. Relying entirely on one person’s evaluation of a teacher may not be the best idea of that teacher has a negative relationship with the principal.

That being said, is the second and third sections that create more of an issue for a teacher. These two sections contribute what are called “Measures of Student Learning,” or MOSL for short. It might be easy for outsiders to believe in so-called objective assessments of knowledge. Unfortunately, there are many critics of these standardized tests who call them less-than-objective while some believe their use is actually “junk science.” Regardless of your belief system, it does seem strange that some teachers are being rated on standardized tests that have nothing to do with their subject area.

These so-called objective measures are based on a variety of difficult statistical calculations that few people truly understand or can explain. A brief example:

While these comparisons are fairer than simply looking at raw scores, they more confused by the fact that there is a statistical calculation for how well Students A and B should have done and that is used to evaluate a teacher. If it is so difficult to explain this system to others, perhaps it is too difficult to truly use.

Some of these major issues with evaluation systems like this is the lack of understanding on how it affects teachers. Perhaps the Social Studies teacher who is being rated by the Regents English Language Arts test will de-emphasize pre-Naxi Germany in order to practice spelling. Or maybe math teachers will forego a deeper knowledge level of the material in order to “cover” matrices. Whatever the case, a dramatic paradigm shift is occurring right now and is changing the face of the teaching profession. It behooves all of us to be better educated on how teachers are being treated nowadays - whatever their teaching conditions are also our children’s learning conditions.